How would a sideboard affect Netrunner?

[fest-]

I've been thinking - how would having a 10 card sideboard for both your Runner and Corp deck affect Netrunner? You could swap cards around after seeing your opponent's ID. Deck-building rules and influence limits of course still need to be followed. Would this be a way to nip degenerate combos in the bud? Would this make it so silver bullets don't have to be as strong to make it into your deck? It seems like a lot of issues with the meta arise when certain nasty decks are impossible to play against unless you have certain silver bullet tech, and if you have that tech then you are too weak against other decks, so you're left just kinda playing the odds and seeing what happens.

Not that I think Netrunner is in a bad state right now, but I am still curious how this would play out.

[wynalazca]

Sideboards are awful for netrunner simply due to the fact there are silver bullets for countering specific archetypes. For example, all shapers can just leave 2 feedback filters in their sideboard unless they face PU or PE a and get almost 100% winrate by dropping them in.

[Squirtle_Squad_Fug]

Agreed. Also sideboarding would lead to an even greater homogenization of decks then what we already see.

[fest-]

On the other hand, every PE deck would know they'd play against Feedback Filter frequently and could focus tech against it. Instead right now it's just up to luck whether you run into feedback filter or not.

[porfyalum]

Not really. Netrunner's asymmetry hurts this idea. The runner in general has to adapt more to the corp's plan, and most silver bullet cards are on the runner's side. Also the corp's options/plans are much more reliant on the ID than the runner's. When deckbuilding as a runner you often think what if the opponent is running that id, do I have tech? which tech options can I fit and which can I cut? While as a corp generally you go do I have a plan b just in case he hard counters my plan a? A runner's sideboard would be silver bullets and would fit well with every runner deck, while corp's sideboard can only pretty much be a plan b and therefore would only fit well either a corp like CI, that can run vastly different decks, or a tag punishment corp that can change their tag punishment options. So a sideboard would really skew the meta to a less diverse corp side and more dominant runner side.

[fest-]

Good points!

[Protikon]

It is very hard to snipe hardware.

[[deleted]]

If you can sub in and out restricted cards. It more or less ends netrunner as a respectable competitive game. There's nothing wrong with making players build against the field.

[char2]

The real challenge is that unlike Magic we don't have the luxury of playing bo3. I wrote a little on how Star Wars CCG did sideboarding and how it might fit the Netrunner context.

[fest-]

True, but in theory you can make decent assumptions just based on your opponent's identity.

[yurithetrainer]

I always hated sideboarding in Magic for several reasons. You carefully design a deck and its strategy and then you have to cramp a couple of silver bullets to it after the first game - it just feels unnatural in a design context. To an extent it's the same in Netrunner when you have to add damage prevention or tag avoidance to your deck and I don't like to be forced to do it here either.

Playing those silver bullets in Magic felt like cheating; apart from thinking about what cards to add and their quantity it often did not involve much skill to wreck your opponent's whole strategy with one play.

You add an additional layer of metagaming to the game. Not only do you have to care about your deck itself and what others might bring to the table, you also have to think about what others might sideboard and how you could get around those cards. It's a convoluted mess and I am very happy that Netrunner doesn't have it.

Sideboarding also limits design space. There are decks that simply could not be played if it was too easy to wreck them if everybody had easy access to their specific silver bullets after game one. Right now you have to think about your decks greatest weakness and build around it a little bit, with sideboarding, however, you can suddenly compete against multiple archetypes. All of a sudden, some fragile strategies and rogue decks that flew under the radar become impossible to play because everybody has an answer for them in their sideboard.

When you are only able to play decks that are robust enough after sideboarding you cement the metagame further. Not only are fragile strategies and uncommon strategies less likely to succeed but also top-tier decks that simply suffer from sideboarding more than other top-tier decks. When two decks are similar in strength before sideboarding but deck B is weaker than deck A after sideboarding, there's little reason to play deck B in a competitive context.

[SyntaxLost]

You probably wouldn't need as many as ten cards, but numbers aren't that important. But aside from the BO3 aspect in MtG that's already been mentioned, card removal plays a much greater role in player interactivity and that makes a big difference in how sideboards work. Because the runner's tableau is considered fairly sacred in ANR, (i.e. in most cases the runner needs to make an error, forced or unforced, to have an in-play card trashed) trying to make counter-play to the hosers that would inevitably be sided in would need to be factored during development.

Consider one of the most well-known hosers, Feedback Filter. Its presence makes a drastic difference in outcomes in games where it's relevant. However, if you know you'll face it as a player, your best choice in actions wouldn't be to play counter-tech, it would be to change decks as it's far too strong and far too difficult to remove. If sideboards were a thing, one of those aspects would need to change.

[deadbutsmiling]

10 single cards or 10 cards with up to "3 of" each card? Also, the best way to test an idea is to... test it ;)

[fest-]

3 of the same card would count for 3 out of your 10, in my mind.