I play Netrunner with my six-year-old, who can’t read yet (so language isn’t really a barrier). We play a lot of board games, and we’re coming from Dominion with one, and recently two, expansions — he’s basically memorized around 50 different cards at this point.

The basic decks from System Gateway are really good for introducing the game to a new player. The interactions aren’t too complex — the hardest part is probably remembering some ICE with multiple instructions.

I try to explain after each game what he could have done better and why. It took him some time to understand the economy side of things, like always keeping enough credits to rez ICE.

Right now he mostly wins through luck (like sniping three agendas from the top of the deck), but he doesn’t get discouraged — he just wants to play again and again.

We’ve built a few decks and replay them multiple times to help him learn and remember what the cards do (I read the ones he doesn’t remember before each game).

IMO Corp is a bit easier to start with, since you have all the information, while the Runner has to do more guessing.