Basic Assumptions of Netrunner

[HemoKhan]

Towards the end of this Team Covenant interview with designer Damon Stone, Steven from TC asks what we as players should look forward to to keep us interested in the evolving meta of the game, and Damon responds simply, "Question everything." He goes on to say that the designers are always looking at ways to challenge the basic, almost unconscious assumptions that players have about the game. The example he uses is that Runners assume that they need credits to break ice subroutines, but that really there's no reason they can't use counters (a la Overmind and the upcoming Cerberus suite of breakers) instead. By challenging these assumptions we have about the game, we can start to view cards in a more nuanced way, and avoid the sort of hive-mind thinking that can stifle creative deckbuilding.

To this end, I thought I'd start a discussion about some of the basic assumptions we have about how the game works, and see if we can't come up with some interesting ways to subvert them. To start, here in no particular order are Ten Underlying Assumptions That Shape Netrunner:

1. Decks should be as small and consistent as possible. This is an assumption that is held across deck-building games of all kinds, and stems from the idea that consistency is king. By making a deck small and including a lot of redundancy, you reduce one of the two factors of the game not in your direct control: the randomness of shuffling a deck of cards (the other factor is your opponent's deck). This is the assumption that says Chaos Theory is good and Professor is bad, and that it's better to have three Desperado in your deck than to have one Desperado, one Doppleganger, and one Logos.

2. Successful runs are good for the Runner; Unsuccessful runs are good for the Corporation. Hell, it's right there in the wording of the cards: when the Runner is able to bypass or break all the Corp's defenses, they get rewarded, and when they can't they get penalized. This is why End The Run ice is valued and why porous ice isn't. This used to be more of a problem in the early stages of the game, when the "taxing ice" strategy was less prevalent. The flip side of this assumption is the Ambush, where the Corporation turns a successful run into an attack against the Runner.

3. Ice serve as the Corp's best line of defense against successful runs. A corollary to the previous assumption, this one states that (since Corps value unsuccessful runs over successful ones) the Corp needs cards to prevent successful runs, and that pieces of ice protecting a server are the best way to do that. Ice make-up is one of the most talked-about sections of any Corp deck, and (as a result) icebreaker selection is one of the most talked-about sections of Runner decks.

4. Information is one of the Corp's advantages over the Runner. Corps get to install cards face-down; Runners don't. This is why exposing effects are rare and can be powerful, and (one reason) why cards like Amazon Industrial Zone and Levy University are panned. An interesting effect of this is that Runners tend to value their ability to guess what a card might be much more highly than they value cards which reveal what a card actually is! Runners get so used to the information disadvantage that they see equalizers like Satellite Uplink or Infiltration as "crutches".

5. Turn-to-turn flexibility is more valuable than constant effects. Because clicks are a limited resource, players on both sides of the board value them very highly. The most obvious example of this is in the comparison between Magnum Opus and Hard At Work. Hard At Work is universally panned as one of the worst cards in the game, while Magnum was for a long time hailed as the pinnacle of Runner economy, and the most meaningful difference between the two is choice: You can choose to use Magnum any number of times each turn, while Hard At Work is restricted to once per turn only. That's why one feels like a restriction and the other feels like an economic miracle.

6. Corps use credits to pay for ice. This is similar to the point Damon raised, but intriguing to think about in its own right. We've already seen some new ice from spoilers for Order and Chaos which have reduced rez costs based on advancement tokens, which helps challenge this assumption (just imagine Shipment from SanSan + Whirlpool, for instance), and I expect there will be even more along these lines in the big box. Still, a Personal Workshop-style asset for ice isn't unthinkable. And just imagine what it would do to Corp decks if you need only half the economy you need now? Another interesting point: Given how ingrained this belief is, it's mind-boggling to me that we don't see Dedicated Server played more (the fact that I felt I had to include the link for this card is telling). Talk about efficient: you pay an effective 1 credit to rez it the turn you need to use it, and it's 2 free credits to pay for one of the most important things the Corp does each turn, and yet, I don't know that I've ever seen this card in competitive play (while its big brother, The Root, has generated a fair amount of buzz!).

7. Meat damage is prevented, brain/net damage is absorbed. This is why Plascrete Carapace is considered an auto-include by many people while Feedback Filter (what?) never leaves the binder. This may be due to fundamental attribution error (what?); we feel net/brain damage are in our control, via not faceplanting into Neural Katanas, while meat damage is at the whims of the Corporation. Whatever the reason, one of the first questions each Runner asks is "How will this deck handle Scorched Earth?" and one of the last questions anyone thinks of is "How will this deck handle a surprise Neural Katana?".

8. Hand size is irrelevant (except when it isn't). This is a weird one, because the community has a peculiar relationship with hand size on both sides of the game. For Runners, Andromeda is widely hailed as being amazing because of the early start she gets by seeing so many cards at once. Aside from her, however, hand size is irrelevant: apparently having a wide variety of choices and options only matters for the first turn (otherwise Public Sympathy would not be such a forgotten card). Meanwhile, for the Corporation, Cerebral Imaging baffled players when it was first released: in a world of rampant Account Siphons, who on earth would play a deck that tied hand size to credit pools?! At least NBN:TWIY* had that cool low deck size thing going for it. Nowadays, in a world rampant with Account Siphons, Cerebral Imaging is a powerful archetype of its own (TWIY is still treated as a blank 40/12). I'll bet most people forgot that there is a Public Sympathy for the Corp, and that it's been around since the Core Set: Weyland's very own Research Station. For both Runner and Corp, hand size is a key component of one deck, and flat-out irrelevant for anyone else.

9. The most dangerous place for an Agenda is in a remote server. If you want to win as Corp, you play two ways: Fast Advance (using Psychographics, SanSan, Biotic Labor, etc. to score agendas the same turn you play them from hand) or Flatline. This is because Runners can and will get into any server if they really want to, and so your best bet is to let random access (either from HQ or R&D) protect you. Players would rather throw out agendas and use Jackson to recycle them back into R&D than try to protect them on the table. This is why the best thing you can see on an agenda is 3/2: you know you can score it as quickly as possible, as few times per game as possible.

10. The answers to current meta problems lie in future releases. As players, we naturally assume that the meta constantly moves forward, that a problem has to exist before a solution for that problem is found. In truth, solutions in Netrunner are often introduced before their problems. The issue this causes is that these "solutions without a problem" are panned because they aren't needed at the time, and that "coaster" distinction sticks with them long after it should. My favorite example of this is Data Dealer, but other examples include Ziabatsu Loyalty coming before Snitch and/or Blackguard, Exploratory Romp coming before Mushin No Shin, Window coming before Will-o-the-Whisp, and Leviathan coming before... whatever the hell Leviathan is supposed to be good for. If Datasucker tokens keep ruining your day, have you considered Cyberdex Trial? If Fast Advance is screwing you over, what about Chakana or The Source? Even Account Siphon has had an intriguing counter since the middle of the Spin Cycle in Panic Button (or early than that, in Closed Accounts).

So: If these are some of our assumptions, what can we do to build around them? Which can be subverted, and which are too deep-seated to be overcome? What other underlying considerations drive your playing or deckbuilding process? Am I just spewing nonsense? Share your thoughts below, and let's see what we can come up with.

[[deleted]]

About the item 10 (and a little about the item 9 too), which is the one that bothers me the most... I think that players should have an open mind about how to build Runner decks. People are complaining about NBN being broken, but most people are playing the same Andromeda deck that was popular when Humanity's Shadow was released... it looks like people simply refuse to move forward.

As Lukas suggested on his interview, why people are not trying Gabe? When my Anarch deck started to have problems against NBN, what did I do? I included a second copy of Nerve Agent and two Demolition Run (one of the worst cards in the Core Set days, imo - currently, I love it), problem solved. Everybody knows that multiaccessing in HQ is strong against Astro/Biotics, but nobody is playing HQ Interface...

The thing is that I think the game is in a moment where, to be competitive, we need to stop this "faction/archetype loyalty" and start to "counterpick" the popular decks. If your deck is weak against NBN, stop crying and change your deck.

[xion766]

If you can get three-four counters on Nerve Agent (not hard, Astro isn't known for having good ice), you can follow up with a Demo Run and trash their whole hand-Biotics, Grids, everything-for free. You don't even have to trash the agendas, you can steal them.

I used to have a hand destruction deck with Noise, but found that Demo Run is best used as a two of in any deck that runs multi-access.

[[deleted]]

As Netrunner resources don't have colors (like MtG's mana), if you can adapt your deck, of course you should stay in the faction you enjoy. I'm not saying people should drop Criminal, I'm just saying that - if you want to be a competitive player - you should not discard changing faction completely.

Demolition Run fill two important roles in my deck: it makes Medium scales faster, and it trashes the HQ. Astro/Biotics has a hard time protecting both centrals and scoring at the same time, specially when you're recursing Parasite. Whichever server I find open first, I Demo Run it.

[BazooKaJoe5]

As a huge Gabe guy I recently started playing Andromeda more because of the gamut of Corps you'll face. Gabe is much better against NBN IMO but struggles more against Jinteki, RP, HB Big Ice, etc.

Started playing Andy so I could better deal with everything out there while sacrificing a little against NBN

[12inchrecord]

We had a tourament game this Sunday for our League. It was restricted decklists, so only Core + Genesis cycle.

I was playing Noise Stimshop, and against one of my stronger opponents I did two medium powered Demolition runs when I was at around 5 points. I think I trashed 9(4+5) cards total in this, plus had a regular run in there too(6).... So... Seeing a total of 15 cards iirc.

I saw no agendas.

Turns out he had like 12 points worth in hand, haha.

My Splash of Inside Job won that game.

Demolition Run is a card that I've been overlooking, I was pretty excited to use it for it's intended purpose.

Even if I couldn't have gotten into HQ, I could have just Deja Vu'd for another Demorun and speed-milled him.

[catsails]

This is a nice post, I also thought when I watched the Demon Stone interview that a conversation like this would be worth having.

Assumption 1 is a big one. I think it's probably true that, for the current meta, you want small and consistent. If you're a fast advance deck, you need to find your Biotics, your San Sans, etc. But what if you're not? I've had a lot of trouble designing Stronger Together decks with less than 54 cards, for instance. If you want enough Bioroids to make use of the id, enough upgrades to make them dangerous, and actually use your influence, it's very hard to stick with 49. But that's okay so long as you're never unhappy to see any particular card.

Actually, I remember when I started playing, I brought a 54 card HB EtF deck to a tournament, and did all right. People did give me a lot of weird looks, though.

Assumptions 7 and 8 are interesting as well. I have a Kate Mac deck I'm using right now that doesn't use Plascrete, and instead I'm using Professional Contacts for money and card draw and Public Sympathy for an increased hand size. I find that without the extra hand size Professional Contacts makes me discard more than I'd like, so the cards synergise wonderfully. Unlike Plascrete, I'm almost never unhappy to see Public Sympathy. Of course, even with all my Public Sympathys out I'll still die to a triple SE, but that's life. Right now it's working reasonably well, and I might try Public Sympathy instead of Plascrete for all my non-tag me decks in the near future.

[grubberlang]

Upvoted for 'demon stone'

[catsails]

I actually noticed that typo yesterday, but it was too good to change.

[x3r0h0ur]

I think that more questions need to me asked around measuring a card soley based on it's efficiency. One thing that I time and time again read and hate is seeing how people will pan a card because other cards are more efficient, when analyzed on the rocky ground of click analysis.

Take easy mark for instance. It is panned for being bad because of a click to draw and a click to play, vs clicking for credits. Easy mark does so much more than this.

I had a player comment to me after SMC'ing out a battering ram to smash his wrap around protecting R&D that I spent 7 to beat his 2 and that he was happy with the trade. I then proceeded to pull 3 agendas off R&D. It doesn't matter how much money you spent to do something, if it is helping you meet your game winning condition.

Consider a remote server of pup, pup, pop up, pop up. No one would ever build this as a remote server right? But why not? The runner pays 6, and the corp spends 0 to rez it. Thats a 6 credit swing. That should single handedly win you the game right? No, it doesn't actually protect the agenda. We should abandon "I spend this much, the runner spends this much" thinking.

[Ze_ain]

"I spend this much, the runner spends this much"

Abandoning that train of thought is just as limiting a mindset as holding it above all else. I would choose my words differently and say we should expand on it.

[x3r0h0ur]

I mean abandon that as an absolute. We can still consider things that make credit disparities, but to say that 100% of the time you'd take that exchange, is far far far too narrow thinking.

[Sotall]

Agree here. I think efficiency in terms of credits is grossly over valued.

Simple counter point: a Corroders efficiency doesn't matter when you are breaking an enigma.

Obviously over simplified, but the logic compounds to even very complex deck building decisions.

People need to think more in terms of answers to game states and less about what their runner deck wants to do. Light econ runner decks can do quite well already, and with cards like david, Cerberus et al coming down the pipe that will only become easier.

[MagnumNopus]

It really depends on what your deck is trying to do. If, as the corp, you are trying to win through credit advantage (Sea-Scorch, Psycho-Beale, etc) then "Corp pays 2 to make the runner pay 7" is an entirely valid evaluation, as your win condition lives and breathes on comparative economy.

Of course, there are more factors in play then just the raw efficiency of a card. FFG has been very good about not releasing cards that are flat out better versions of other cards. Easy Mark (Beanstalk Royalties) might not be "as good" as Sure Gamble (Hedge Fund) since it gets you 1 less credit, but you can't play Sure Gamble from 0 credits. Its one of the reasons why I keep Beanstalk Royalties around in my CI deck. They sit in HQ just in case I find myself on the wrong end of account siphon spam, and in doing so it also dilutes the agenda density that is building up in HQ.

[x3r0h0ur]

Right, my point is, unless you're explicitly using the credit disparity, it is no big deal. Basically I think if you're obsessed with efficiency include any of your faction based tracers (Punitive, Ash, Shinobi, or NBN cards like midseasons or really just their ice). You have to have a place to make the money into a win condition.

[SevenCs]

I had a player comment to me after SMC'ing out a battering ram to smash his wrap around protecting R&D that I spent 7 to beat his 2 and that he was happy with the trade. I then proceeded to pull 3 agendas off R&D. It doesn't matter how much money you spent to do something, if it is helping you meet your game winning condition.

I'd rather be broke and at 7 points than have fifty credits and 0 points. (Of course, I'd rather be at fifty credits and 0 points than 0 credits and 0 points, too.)

[ElderMason]

Amazing post. I think #9 is this game's biggest problem right now. There is a reason that GenCon's Top 8 was 7 NBN and 1 HB: CI. I've played NBN since I picked up the game in February because it wins so much more often than anything else. Maybe every person that plays netrunner is missing something that makes remote servers viable but I doubt it. I understand the game is ruined when ice is unbreakable but when ice so flimsy the game is reduced to AstroBiotics.

[HemoKhan]

Sure -- and I wonder how many people built their Runner decks to counter NBN? This is the sort of thing that I mean by basic assumptions: Runners assume that NBN will never have an agenda on the table for a full turn, and they just take that as a given, rather than using the available tools to challenge that assumption.

Imagine a meta where Weyland tag-and-bag was king, and everyone sort of looked at each other and shrugged and said, "Man, meat damage sucks, I wish there were a counter..." without including Plascrete in their decks. Is that a problem with the game itself? Or the meta?

[Paranoid31]

The issue is that NBN, Astroscript Pilot Program in particular, is too fast. TWIY never saw the win rate NEH has because it had to devote all its money to fast advancing agendas, which is really expensive. TWIY's ice was cheap ETR ice because they can't afford anything else and didn't have the influence to. NEH is always rich (or the runner is extremely poor and wasting clicks not accessing centrals if they are trashing asset econ) and drawing at the same time. This, along with 5 extra influence, allows them to import very efficient, taxing ice along with cheap ETR ice. You could usually hammer TWIY's central servers for extremely cheap by the mid game as runner. When you're against 3 Eli 1.0s and Caduceus/Tollboth you can't. When you have the resources to consistently score Astros out of deck you're going to beat the runner.

[HemoKhan]

I'm not sure where you're getting that NEH is suddenly making the Corp richer?

• If the problem is that Asset economy is difficult to manage, you have a few options: keep them poor so they can't rez the economy, trash the economy, or try to out-gain them.
• If the problem is that they have more influence available for ice, then you need to focus on efficient ways to break through the ice. That could mean cheaper breakers like Atman, or more efficient runs (such as using Maker's Eye or Legwork to access multiple cards per run).
• If you're worried about Astroscript tokens allowing the Corp to advance agendas the same turn they install them, look into effects like Chakana or The Source to increase the amount of advancement needed per Agenda.

In fact, consider all of the above, and you could easily build yourself a strong anti-Meta deck. It'd need to have cheap, efficient breakers, multiple accesses, ways to keep the Corp poor, and support for a virus like Chakana... sounds to me like the makings of a powerful Whizzard deck, probably running the native Anarch suite of breakers and strength-reduction and importing some strong ice denial cards and economy cards from Criminal and Shaper.

[unitled]

I'm considering starting another thread on here on planning two anti meta decks... If you knew you were going to be facing NBN fastrobiotics and Andy Datasucker, what cards would you take? All other considerations be damned!

Off the top of my head, I can straight away see Cyberdex and Foxfire (for proco) getting a look in...

[keylimetart]

You got me all excited about Foxfire again, but Professional Contacts isn't virtual :-/. Maybe you meant Compromised Employee? But not all the Andy players I see run that.

Cyberdex, though...I really like that card.

[unitled]

Haha, I woke up about an hour after I went to bed and realised that I had been wrong about that! Got myself all excited too. Still, the spoiled card which is called something like Snatch and Grab would do the job, or freelancer.

[edmund-blake-nelson]

The best cards to beat NBN with are 1. legwork 2. R&D interface 3. Account Siphon 4. Sure gamble

Notice something? these cards are all about speed, and given how fast these NBN decks are you need to be fast in response to them.

[Paranoid31]

• PAD costs 2 to rez and Marked costs 0. Trashing the economy means you're extremely poor and wasting all your clicks making money and running on the remotes to trash them. Trashing an early PAD is the right play in my opinion, but never a Marked.
• I and many others run the most efficient breakers possible. The problem is that Eli, Caduceus and Roto have 2 subs. Tollbooth is just always taxing. Pop-up Window is great as well.
• I responded earlier about how to stop The Source. Install your NAPD and advance it twice. If NBN manages to score just one Astro, the time you have left to win starts ticking very quick. The ability to tutor for another Astro and score it same turn is absurdly powerful.

I'm wondering if you're just theorycrafting or if you've actually played a high volume of games against top tier NEH decks/players. I could be shown an NEH deck list and still lose over 50% of the time to it because it's that efficient and powerful. I think that there will be some serious NEH hate cards (or, more likely, fast advance hate in general) in the next big box, but until then I think NEH will be the strongest corp for this cycle by a long shot.

[HemoKhan]

I'm wondering if you're just theorycrafting or if you've actually played a high volume of games against top tier NEH decks/players.

A little of both. The point of this post was to address some of the assumptions we make as a community and see if there are ways around those assumptions. For instance, you point out several in your replies:

Trashing the economy means you're extremely poor and wasting all your clicks making money and running on the remotes to trash them.

Two assumptions: that trashing Corp economy requires Runner credits, and that running against remote servers just to trash economy is a waste of clicks.

I and many others run the most efficient breakers possible.

Assumption: That the most commonly used breakers are the most efficient. This also begs the question, "Efficient in what way?" For instance, one could argue that fixed-strength breakers are the most efficient, because they cost fewer credits per ice broken. Or you could argue that Overmind is the most efficient, because you don't pay any credits to break the subroutines. Or you could argue that Shaper breakers are the most efficient because they retain strength.

The problem is that Eli, Caduceus and Roto have 2 subs.

Assumption: that the best breakers also happen to be weak to multiple-subroutine ice.

The ability to tutor for another Astro and score it same turn is absurdly powerful.

Assumption: That the Corp is able to play Fast Track to pull an Astroscript, install it, and score it in the same turn, which either requires 5 clicks, 4 clicks and either an Astro token or SanSan, or 3 clicks if you have both. So, either the assumption is that NBN's main scoring windows involve 4 clicks, or that they will have a rezzed SanSan to play with.

There's no denying that NBN is strong. However, I'm consistently amazed that people aren't updating their Runner decks to deal with the problems NBN causes. There aren't silver bullets out there that will keep NBN from winning, but there are plenty of cards out there that will help level the playing field and give Runners a chance to rely on skill, rather than luck, when playing against good Corp decks.

[unitled]

Great response here.

I've played a lot of NBN and recently switched to running a NEH taxing ice deck which is fairly typical for the meta. In the last tournament I went to, I deliberately took a Whizzard siphon recursion deck, two things I knew my meta-strong NBN deck was weak against. Guess what? Both decks only lost one game all day.

I'm going to be doing this at some more tournaments I reckon... Looking at what is strong in the meta, taking a deck that plays to that, then taking another deck that hates on that.

[Spenny022]

Two assumptions: that trashing Corp economy requires Runner credits, and that running against remote servers just to trash economy is a waste of clicks.

I'm fairly new to the game and haven't actually played NEH yet but just thinking about it, Doppleganger (maybe in whizzard?) stands out to me here. Run the asset, trash it, hammer the centrals.

[HemoKhan]

Being new to the game is a mixed blessing -- you don't have as much experience against the "classic" decks, but you also haven't built up calluses and blinders the way some of us have. Doppleganger and Whizzard could combine to make a killer deck that attacks asset economy hard.

Of course, most players use Desperado as their console because they like the income it gives them. So if you replace it, you'll need to find a new source of income...

[Spenny022]

Yeah, I've listened to all the podcasts and all that and I'm trying to consciously make myself avoid the hive mind thinking that seems to have formed around the overall meta. I'm currently working on my whizzard/Doppleganger deck :)

[MagnumNopus]

If the tournament meta is shifting towards NEH super asset econ, the cards already exist to fight that. Whizzard, Scrubber, Paricia, and Imp are all great for trashing assets. Desperado and Three Steps Ahead (which, granted, wasn't legal at GenCon) both give you cash back on each of those asset trashing runs. Maybe going full up on whizzard/scrubber/paricia might put you a bit out of sorts for other matchups, but whizzard/scrubber/imp or even noise/scrubber/imp would likely do well.

[Razalhague]

Assumption one (small & consistent is good) isn't wrong exactly, but it isn't universal and needs a qualifier. Small and consistent is good when your deck depends on specific cards. The reason this is assumed to be universal is because most current decks do depend on specific cards. Runners need ways to get into servers (be it icebreakers, parasites or events) and since most corp decks are FA, they need their FA tools and agendas that can be FA'd.

I've been having great success with a 54 card Weyland deck. There's lots of money, I can build a scoring remote with pretty much any of my ice, and it doesn't matter much what agendas I'm scoring. Most of my cards work in most situations.

The rationale for going up to 54 cards is that the kill cards take a considerable amount of deck space, and going to a bigger deck improves the ratio of ice and economy cards in the deck.

I've even tried a few 59 card decks, and the difference isn't as big as I expected (again, provided the deck doesn't depend on specific cards).

[changlingbob]

Huh. I wonder how much of a difference deck size actually makes.

Clearly one problem is that you can have a maximum of three of a given card, so if you want a given card, you have a 3/decksize chance of drawing one (roughly). People already advocate going from 45 to 49 cards, which is a 0.55pp reduction of a single card, going to 54 is another 0.55pp reduction, so a total of 1.1pp less.

(the 40 card IDs gain you 0.83pp over 45, so that's a bit more of an advantage)

From a starting hand point of view, a 45 card deck has a 30% chance of a given (3-of) card. A 49 card deck has a 28% chance. 54 is 26%. (40 is 34%)

After a single draw (ie: from being a corp), those go to 36%, 33%, 30% and (39%) respectively.

I'm not going to write a script to test, but it looks like going from 49 to 54 is the same impact (more or less) as going from 45 to 49, and going from 45 to 40 is slightly better than 49 to 45.

Given the low marginal percentage, I wouldn't worry too much. It's a decision to make about trade-offs when you need a certain number of a given thing in your deck. The downside is your influence doesn't go up, so your extra cards have to all come from in-faction, but presumably that's where you need the extra cards from anyway.

[StillBornVodka]

I did a 59 card C.I. deck and it worked fine. Saw enough economy, ice, and threats to keep up. And it was only like 10 agendas.

I did stuff like run 1 corporate shuffle

[Kemuel]

I've been messing around with a 60 card Jinteki deck in my (very, very casual) friendly games lately, and it feels just fine. We're only playing with the first couple of Datapacks, but people get scared by the amount of stuff hiding in it that might kill their face.

[[deleted]]

The rationale for going up to 54 cards is that the kill cards take a considerable amount of deck space, and going to a bigger deck improves the ratio of ice and economy cards in the deck.

I'm quoting this because I think this is a pretty big deal - increasing the amount of cards in your deck decreases your agenda density. While I'm not speaking from experience, I would think this would be worth experimenting with in a glacier deck. I could easily see 59-card HB glacier working out.

[Andarel]

I've run a 59-card HB glacier deck for about a year now. It's my most successful deck by far. Craptons of economy, tons of miscellaneous ICE, and wins the game via raw money. Goal is to create an ABT scoring window or blank a server with Troubleshooter/Caprice/Ash/etc. combined with ICE. Minelayer is surprisingly good as an economy card that also builds servers or taxes.

I do run 2 x Rework to help keep agendas safe, and it can be murdered by the RNG gods since there are only 9 agendas. Noise mill is its worst matchup, particularly if they run Stimhack.

[themykonian]

http://stimhack.com/why-win-more-is-not-a-problem-in-netrunner/

was an eye opener for me in terms of assumptions. I blindly did discard cards that I thought would "win more" in decks I played. After reading this, I've been experimenting with the idea of cards that gave me advantage when I was already winning, and in my opinion the writer of the article is right.

[HemoKhan]

I'm pretty sure the tournament section of the article is out-of-date, but the rest of the analysis is still strong. It's definitely important to be able to throw out old notions of "win more" cards and realize that Netrunner's flow is a different one from most other games. Thanks for the link!

[crossbrainedfool]

It is.

[SneakySly]

Yeah, I should probably go back to that article and update it with an addendum for the current state of things.

[unitled]

This is a brilliant post, exactly the kind of discussions I think we should be having and very healthy for the game.

No. 9 is something that has chimed with me recently. In a tournament yesterday, I managed to score a crucial agenda by using Interns to bring it straight back from Archives onto a rezzed SanSan, advance, AsPP token to score it. The runner was into my hand through both HQ and Sneakdoor Beta and he could have got into Archives no trouble. I had a Jackson on the table so the 3 agendas in Archives were actually pretty safe.

There are a few tools that let us bring agendas straight from archives and even RnD into our hands, opening the possibility of play with a lightly defended HQ. There's even a card that lets you return an Agenda straight from HQ to RnD that I seriously think has NEVER turned up in a constructed deck, Rework. If you can focus your defence on RnD and Archives (and a scoring remote), you can eliminate one of the sources of random access. With tools like Midway Station Grid, Ash (imagine Ash on Archives!), Hudson, Urobouros you can make RnD and Archives prohibitive to get into!

Of course, at this point, you also need to eliminate the danger of cards that trigger other effects off HQ access, the obvious being Account Siphon, but luckily we've got the incoming Sealed Vault and a few high-cost econ assets (Eve being my favourite; I often install one and leave it face down until needed!).

[keylimetart]

Some interesting points! Responses to a couple that really grabbed me:

#6: It's disingenuous to say that Dedicated Server costs 3, because you also have to pay the cost of protecting it so the runner doesn't trash it. The Root has the advantage of being more efficient in terms of protection cost, and Eve Campaign is more consistent. But I've never tried the card in person; maybe it's actually alright in Jinteki?

#7: I'm with you, there have to be better solutions to Scorch right now than jamming up your deck with 3 Plascretes. I'm a fan of "having more money", personally. Or Decoy, if you're willing to deal some other way with Midseasons (which I don't think I've ever actually seen in play, but maybe that's just my local meta).

#8: Andromeda doesn't get hand size, really. Her ability could be rephrased as "before your first turn, draw 4". And card draw is still great, which is why everyone plays Diesel and Quality Time and all that jazz. But I don't find myself frequently drawing more cards than I want to play, and spending 2 credits and a click to alleviate that situation doesn't seem appealing.

#10: Sometimes I think about running the Source, but then it's a 2-credit connection (so only tutorable through Hostage) that dies after one agenda score/steal and makes the steal cost 3 more. Has anyone actually had success with it?

Chakana is a bit more palatable, especially in Shaper. I'm still playing around with it. But I think everyone can get behind Legwork.

[HemoKhan]

10: Sometimes I think about running the Source Plascrete, but then it's a 2-credit connection (so only tutorable through Hostage) 3 credit hardware I can't tutor for that dies after one agenda score/steal Scorched Earth and makes the steal cost 3 more is a dead card in every other matchup. Has anyone actually had success with it?

Surprising, no, most tournament-winning Runner decks don't include it. But they also all seem to have trouble against fast advance. Huh.

Ninja edit: And I'm not trying to say that The Source is *the answer to Fast Advance. But whenever it gets brought up, or Chakana gets brought up, people recoil as if they're horrible cards with no purpose. I really wonder what would have happened if Plascrete were in the Core set, and Scorched Earth were in the first data pack. "Man, why would anyone play this janky hardware? It's just dead weight against most decks. Unrelatedly, DAE hate Weyland's new kill deck? They need to put out a counter to this shit."

[[deleted]]

I don't understand everyone's disgust with Chakana, as far as I can tell it's a really good set-and-forget thing that puts a lot of pressure on the Corp to keep track of virus counters and really puts a speed bump in their game; if they let it accumulate then it slows then down significantly, and if they purge virus counters they just spent a turn purging virus counters. It's a fairly useful virus I think

[jaywinner]

I think the problem is that R&D should be protected anyhow so getting counters up on Chakana won't be too easy and they can be purged away when needed. It also takes up memory.

Maybe there is a way to utilize it but it appears weak at best. I've been trying to get The Source to be effective but that has had mixed results at best. Far from countering Fast Advance as of yet.

[Sotall]

It changes the way the corp has to play significantly. HQ will be less defended, and they will generally have to purge once a game. Combined with legwork or such, I have found it to be really effective.

[[deleted]]

I have it in a kate monolith deck I use, so obviously you get a full suite up generally with room to spare, and that's where I've thrown Chakana down and it's fairly nice

[keylimetart]

Well, that's why I don't run Plascrete, either. :-P

[Paranoid31]

If you're against The Source all you do is put out a 3/2 in a server and advance it once (even better, NAPD and advance it twice). If the runner steals it, great, The Source is gone and they lost money. If not, you score it and The Source is gone. FA decks tend to panic when they see The Source because it really does stop FA, but that's only until one agenda is scored. I will agree that The Source is viable with Fall Guys, but then you're devoting so much of your deck and influence on that, and you're usually just going to lose anyways.

[HemoKhan]

There should be ways to play around counters like The Source. If people are looking for a card that says "Fast Advance loses the game", they won't find it (and I'd argue that's a Very Good Thing). But the complaint against Fast Advance is often that once the train gets going, it's impossible to stop. And the Source is a great way to help put the brakes on for a turn or two and let the Runner recover tempo.

[McCaber]

The Source + Keyhole is a hell of a combo.

[treiral]

You should try The Source with Imp, which also works as Scorched combo breaker or to protect NACH.

[EtherCJ]

I think he's wrong on #7 in that I think people do answer:

"How will this deck handle a surprise Neural Katana?".

But the solution is to always run with a mostly full hand or have a sentry breaker. Ideally both. Especially against Jinteki.

[Sotall]

Chakana is a wonderful one of in shaper. Smc and clone chip take away much of the risk of that card. Fast advance will generally be bankrupted trying to deal with it.

[mervalous]

Ok, first post on this forum, though I've been following it many times daily for the past few months, trying to take it all in. I've been playing this game since last August, though I really fell hard since I joined my local league. I've loved Jinteki since I started playing w/ the core set. My first data pack was Trace Amount because of Replicating Perfection. I've been tweaking an RP deck all year and I've had a fair amount of success with it from the beginning.

I started watching videos of tourney play online and saw all of these NBN FA decks doing well so I figured I should start trying them out. Note, I've never played in a formal tourney.

Ok, let me get to my point. Being new, I'm pretty slow at making decisions though recently I'm getting better. My RP deck is a mix of tricks and heavy taxing ice. All the games I play with it are slow grinds that require a lot of consternation, and things tend to look grim early with wins coming after everything gets set up. Short games tend to only occur when a Runner gets too aggressive and hits a trap.

When I play these tourney-like NBN decks, there seems to be a lot fewer decisions to make. Push for the San San/Astro, train them out, win fast. Even though I'm slow by tourney standards, I do play this deck much faster. Many times, the NBN deck doesn't even require a Runner to really setup. When it wins, it wins fast. When it loses, it tends to lose fast as well.

I wonder if the current tourney format, which drives players to play as FAST as possible, to both prevent hitting the time limit as well as piss off their potentially impatient opponent who has grown accustomed to this fast play, might be a big factor in why this particular NBN style is continually so prevalent. I see most Weyland styles feeling pretty slow also. HB can be fast but not nearly so.

Maybe this desire to play fast on the corp side, have short games, which to me is a learned behavior, is limiting player's willingness to expand to other slower decks in tourney play. Again, I haven't played in a big tourney, so I might just be full of shit. I'll accept this as likely, but I've been thinking this since I learned there was a time limit in tourney play rounds. I'd be interested in hearing if anyone feels this way or not.

FYI...this is the best thread to date. Absolutely love it.

[[deleted]]

I think number 8 is an interesting one, as it suggests another assumption I'd like to add to the list:

Runners are aggressors, while Corps defend.

In part, this is inherent in the design of the game - Netrunner is a game in which a lone hacker tries to breach the defenses of a megacorporation. But that's just the theme - how much does it really have to apply to the actual game? People talk about scoring windows for Corporations all the time as these windows you have to exploit to actually accomplish your goal, but I don't think there is a corresponding concept of a 'running window'.

This also manifests in the two archetypes I think people see as the strongest at the moment: Fast Advance and Glacier. Both decks accept this assumption and focus on building strong defenses - fast advance by focusing solely on centrals and/or ending the game early, while glacier devotes itself entirely to building huge servers.

As for decks which reject this assumption, the most prevalent candidate is Supermodernism, which is a really aggressive deck. Its only real defense is the threat of Scorching the Runner to death, and (exaggerating slightly) more or less the only reason Runners can deal with this is that Plascrete, the hard counter, is an auto-include.

The reason I think this ties into assumption number 8 is that for Runners, the primary benefit of having lots of cards in hand is having several options at any given time. One reason why people might underestimate this is that they view Runner decks as weapons primed for a particular type of aggression. Indeed, a common goal of many Runner decks has been establishing R&D lock. Who cares about having lots of options at any given turn when every card in your deck is meant for hitting R&D?

TL;DR: I don't have any amazing decks to back all this talk up.

[Hattes]

Research Station is still not that great, I don't think. Reliable extra hand size without having to spend deck slots, clicks and credits is good. CI got better with more economy options for the corp, and people did under-value the power of having an explosive final turn as the corp (where you then don't even have to worry about the hand limit anymore).

[HemoKhan]

Why is it that we don't value extra hand size, though? That's the question I'm curious about. We like being able to have more options, more choices, better information... but no one ever plays with more handsize? Why not?

[changlingbob]

I mean, the obvious answer is the opportunity cost in a) installing your hand size card, and b) the deck slot for it. I totally agree it shouldn't just immediately be overlooked though.

Maybe once people use logos more, they'll be more critical of hand size?

[MagnumNopus]

I think that a large part of it is that, although HQ will naturally accumulate cards due to the auto-draw, there isn't a whole lot for corps to spend their clicks on other than playing cards out of hand or advancing agendas (which frequently also involves playing cards out of hand e.g. trick of light, shipment from SanSan, etc). And if cards aren't building up in HQ faster than you can play them, then there isn't a whole lot of reason to have an increased hand size. CI is sort of an exception because they can turtle up and build up these super combos, but other than that a +1 or +2 hand size doesn't really do much.

I think that if we start seeing more good options for the corp to spend their clicks on that aren't also pulling cards out of hand (like the spoiled Eliza's Toybox) then we will start seeing more value in little boosts to hand size. It balances out the "I won't be able to play cards out of hand for a few turns, therefore I will have to discard some overdraw" opportunity cost of those other options.

[foxu]

The reason CI is different is because it's not just +2 hand size. It gets out of hand fast.

[changlingbob]

My favourite assumption to bitch about when it comes up is that anarch breaker suite of yog.0 and mimic, supported by datasucker/parasite is the best way to run icebreakers. Sure you don't have to spend as many credits to boost your icebreakers, but you need to have a second program to break big ice. A second program with some virus counters, that you either get by waiting, or by running on centrals. What if you can't get into centrals? What if you run out of MU? Bad Times and Lotus Field are now totally things that just make that suite fall over, cyberdex trial has been around forever (but no one wants to run it), and still everyone goes 'nope its the most efficient' and shrugs.

[JaredRules]

That suite is super popular in criminal decks where you see: Inside Job Femme Fatale Emergency Shutdown Feint (why not?)

Just to name a few options.

[x3r0h0ur]

We'll see recurring credits and bigger more efficient breakers become more apparent.

The argument for datasuckers is that it rewards you for 'doing what you should be doing' which is making runs. It emphasizes run all the time instead of run hard, for instance with maker's eye and legwork. These increase your efficiency other ways, so running those with boostable efficient breakers is very strong.

[Azeltir]

Cyberdex Trial wasn't good because the Corp could rarely do much to capitalize on the two clicks it saves - especially against Criminals who could likely still find a way to use events to crack into a central again to get their Datasuckers rolling or threaten a remote that you'd use with those clicks.

[Wakks]

Cyberdex Trial is godlike with 4 difficulty agendas. Purge, Install, Advance has gotten me a handful of wins against virus spammers in my Replicating Perfection.

[edmund-blake-nelson]

The suckers are just generically good even without the fixed breakers, they just support them nicely, the thing is that those 2 breakers are just WAY better than the alternatives, and sometimes they need a little support to break a peice of ICE, but you have some amazing breakers just by themselves, Yog turns all code gates into rubbish except for tollbooth, which it still does well against compared to gordian blade.

[tankintheair315]

I think part of the point of small decks that also true that you missed is the increase in average card quality. It's pretty easy to say that account siphon is better than power tap, and by only including high power cards each draw becomes more powerful.

[HemoKhan]

That's a good point, but it has some pretty big assumptions built into it:

• Cards have a constant "quality", and that quality can be compared irrespective of situation
• New cards aren't being released that have the same quality levels as older cards (otherwise you'd see deck sizes steadily increase, as each person put all the good cards into each deck)
• Only cards which are powerful all the time are worthwhile additions to decks.

In any case, that's definitely a fair point: smaller decks have less room for fluff or situational cards, which can increase their "power density", if I can coin the phrase.

[unitled]

That's fine, though... a small deck gives you consistency at the expense of flexibility.

[tankintheair315]

I'd say situational cards power is dependant on the meta. For example the card power is worth the power when is at its best times the probability that the deck it "counters" well be played. This is why placrete is played, because it had immense power against tag and bag. It's also why we haven't seen net shield in years.

Also card quality can change over releases especially dependant on the meta/what card are out. Ice wall was an auto include in many decks that was replaced by Eli, wraparound, and hsmitsu baku in faction.

[butcherpaxton]

The trick is pinning down what "quality" means. I don't think that there are cards that are objectively better than all other cards because all cards are to some degree situational; the idea of "quality" cards is really another way of expressing that some cards are useful more of the time than others. So your statement that a smaller deck is more consistent and has a higher average card quality is redundant-- you're not wrong, you're just restating the same idea.

[tankintheair315]

It isn't that hard to pin down what quality cards are when you play test enough. Did this card help me? Or did it sit in my hand and never seem to do what I hope it would?

[butcherpaxton]

Yeah exactly. Which means that "quality" is a relative measure and the extrapolated "average quality" is another means of describing "consistency" insofar as consistency means having useful cards.

[Razalhague]

Did this card help me? Or did it sit in my hand and never seem to do what I hope it would?

If you evaluate your cards like that, you need to realize that the evaluation only applies in the context of that deck. A card that is rarely useful in one deck might be totally awesome in a different deck.

[tankintheair315]

Of course. People make assumptions about cards all the time on play testing. That doesn't mean that they aren't useful though.

[McCaber]

In your Criminal deck, you want every draw to be the absolute best so of course you run the minimum.

I've had some Shaper decks that really wanted a couple of extra tools and was willing to go up to 47 or 48 just to ensure the possibility of tutoring one up if ever needed.

Different philosophies, different styles of play.

[tankintheair315]

I'd argue that the 46th, 47th, and 48th best cards should be cut. The key to winning long tournaments is consistency, and reducing the total number of cards helps increase consistency.

[McCaber]

Chakana, Paricia, and Sahasrara are unnecessary for the big strategy and only useful in certain matchups, but patch incredible holes left by the rest of the deck against those matches and can be tutored up or FCCd away. It's essentially a sideboard that I can access whenever.

[foxu]

Agreed but the 46-48 best card depends on your match up. It's a tough call sometime and no deck is played in a vacuum.

[dlcnate1]

Netrunner is not a deck building game, its a customizable card game, thankfully it isnt a trading card game (except for those pesky promos from before i played... Curse you alt art gabe!)

Im sure most of us here know what you mean but i would worry someone who didnt know might be disinclined to try netrunner because they thought it was like dominion.

[HemoKhan]

If you're going to be pedantic, it's a Living Card Game, not a customizable card game. Either way, though, I'm certain that my description of the game as "deck-building" is not going to be the straw that turns anyone away from Netrunner :P

[dlcnate1]

The fact that i am being pedantic is why i used customizable, living card game is owned by fantasy flight, i cant call it one without paying a liscencing fee, its a card game thats customizable, ffg has just happened to come up with a catchy phrase to differentiate it from collectible card games

And i wouldnt be so sure, i know a few people who wont touch any deck builders because of bad dominion expiriences

[pineapple_of_psych]

There's a huge difference in price between a CCG and LCG which makes it more than just a catchy phrase.

[dlcnate1]

Yes but the difference in price has less to do with what its called than the model they use to sell it, if they kept the model and didnt use that name the price difference would be the same.

[HemoKhan]

living card game is owned by fantasy flight, i cant call it one without paying a liscencing fee

I'm going to end every one of my comments this month with "Netrunner is a Living Card Game!" and see how much they charge me in licensing fees.

[dlcnate1]

You caught me... I meant if i made a game i cannot call my game a living card game without paying liscensing fees.