I'm looking into this game. I know it was originally designed as a TCG, and now adapted into this "living card game" format. I've never played one of these games, so I have a few questions about it.
Basically: how does deckbuilding play out in practice? In a TCG everyone has their own card collection and can spend an entire evening alone in their basement putting together a nice fun deck. But in an LCG all the cards go in the box with the guy who owns the game. So say he shows up at a game night with Netrunner. Is that viable? How long will it take people to build decks? Do you unbuild the decks when the evening is over? Or is it better to approach Netrunner as a more long-term investment, with the guy and a regular friend spending some serious time just building decks and keeping them intact to play each other?
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
I'm sure the time it takes to build a deck varies on how many expacs you have, but for me and my brother with 1 expansion it just takes like 10-15 minutes or so. It's not quite as involved as say an MTG deck because there are fewer cards and more limitations. It's certainly far less setup than say, Battlestar Galactica and Arkham Horror.
That said I actually don't know the official way deckbuilding works (sideboards? allowed any info about opponent such as what corp/runner they are?) and that stuff could affect it a bit.
We just unbuild them and seeing as you're mostly limited with how many copies of cards you have it'd be kinda hard not to do that, but you could keep things organized and write up lists or something I suppose.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
well basicly you make a deck based on the corp or runner you pick. they have different strategys and cards to pick from. The rest is pretty tough to explain but i HIGHLY reccomend this game, i have a lot of fun with it. but it is just like a regular board game,you bust it out take like 20 minutes to build a deck, then duke it out.
If you're looking for a community to help you get started with Netrunner, I highly recommend boardgamegeek.com's forums. Most of the best players in the world are active there, and can help you with both learning the game and with high level play.
This game is WAY deeper than MTG, and rewards play skill much more than MTG ever has.
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A mere ten days after the Mending, a young knight of Valeron and a young ranger of Eos made a discovery that would change Alara forever.
I'm looking into this game. I know it was originally designed as a TCG, and now adapted into this "living card game" format. I've never played one of these games, so I have a few questions about it.
Basically: how does deckbuilding play out in practice? In a TCG everyone has their own card collection and can spend an entire evening alone in their basement putting together a nice fun deck. But in an LCG all the cards go in the box with the guy who owns the game. So say he shows up at a game night with Netrunner. Is that viable? How long will it take people to build decks? Do you unbuild the decks when the evening is over? Or is it better to approach Netrunner as a more long-term investment, with the guy and a regular friend spending some serious time just building decks and keeping them intact to play each other?
I think you are approaching the game a little wrong. LCG's aren't different from TCG's in any meaningful capacity, save one. The way you go about acquiring cards. I've never seen LCG's as a game where one person owns it, and several play. It's more of TCG, minus the trading/collecting.
So, each person in the play group would acquire their own set of it, and you build decks accordingly. Then, when you actually have the get togethers, you each bust out your own decks.
Of course, there's nothing stopping one person from having more then one deck and loaning it to someone else.
I think you are approaching the game a little wrong. LCG's aren't different from TCG's in any meaningful capacity, save one. The way you go about acquiring cards. I've never seen LCG's as a game where one person owns it, and several play. It's more of TCG, minus the trading/collecting.
So, each person in the play group would acquire their own set of it, and you build decks accordingly. Then, when you actually have the get togethers, you each bust out your own decks.
Of course, there's nothing stopping one person from having more then one deck and loaning it to someone else.
That may be how some people do it, but it is not the intent of the LCG system. The communal copy idea is part of the appeal.
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“Your body is not a temple, it's an amusement park. Enjoy the ride.”
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
That may be how some people do it, but it is not the intent of the LCG system. The communal copy idea is part of the appeal.
oh really? I never got that impression at all from Fantasy Flight's advertising. Do have something supporting that? (I'm not disagreeing, just completely surprised).
Even still, in any game that requires extensive deckbuilding choices, it's not going to effectively work to build your deck on the spot for most groups, because there is always that one guy who;'s going to take an hour to build their deck so it is perfect.
So... are we missing something, or are the corporations at a massive disadvantage in the starting decks? Our record so far is something like 10-1 in favor of the runners, that 1 was really close, and most of the 10 were not close at all.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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So... are we missing something, or are the corporations at a massive disadvantage in the starting decks? Our record so far is something like 10-1 in favor of the runners, that 1 was really close, and most of the 10 were not close at all.
No. It's just that the Corp is harder to play. In fact, Corps tended to be better in the core set. Runners had no way to deal with Scorched Earth at first until Plascrete Carapace. Haas-Bioroid is by far the best corp when using just the core set. I think when using just the core set that Kate is probably the best runner. Gabe is also really strong in core set but he definitely gets stronger later and then there's Andromeda. I currently run Atman Kate (with alt art Kate :P) but we haven't started our new league so I haven't made edits in a few months.
I recommend watching some of the videos from worlds or other big tournaments. Team Covenenant does better coverage than any MTG body in my opinion.
This game is incredibly difficult to play well and is super skill intensive. Far more so than MTG (which is still my favorite CG). We've had a few people come and go mostly due to how high the skill level barrier is but if you work at it it's a really rewarding experience.
.If you want a non Haas-Bioroid corp deck that works well in core set, Jinteki splashing Scorched Earth (core set only comes with Two. So unless you get a second one or buy extras you'll have to make do. Though the promos are awesome. I won six during our league.) and some ways to tag is pretty good at winning. Tag stuff can come in NBN. So you have all the Jinteki net damage traps like Snare, The game winning Scorched Earth, and then you can also use Security Force.
I've been playing the game basically since it's release and it's a ton of fun. I'm still hoping the tournament scene gets bigger in this area.
If you want to talk about strategy or deck builds I definitely don't mind giving some advice. Hope this was clear to read since I am posting from my phone.
So you have all the Jinteki net damage traps like Snare, The game winning Scorched Earth, and then you can also use Security Force.
NO, GO AWAY!
Played a few rounds against a friend who wanted to test his all new and shiny Jinteki deck recently. Fun fact: I had never played against Jinteki before (I played the old Netrunner TCG ages ago, I basically got handed a pile of runner cards by my friend and got told to build a deck out of them - which I did to my best knowledge ...), and had no idea whatsoever they're up to.
I definitely agree with Dracilic about Corp being harder and generally stronger in the core set. It requires a lot more foresight of the game and the runner generally sets the pace, so it's a lot harder.
And yea scorched earth is insane, I'm kind of surprised they let it through into the core set without any real answer. In my experience if you make the right Haas or NBN deck it's really hard to play against in the core set. Scorched Earth will net you tons of wins out of nowhere unless the runner spends a staggering amount of resources on clearing tags.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
Well from my experience, the competitive meta has went something like this with Corps.
First we had HB with great credit production and solid Ice.
Then came the Flatline Weyland and NBN decks.
Then Fast Advance became a thing.
Then Flatline again when Jinteki won Worlds
Now we are back to Fast Advance. But it's more balanced and other decks are doing well too.
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Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
Let's dial this back a bit. We're not even looking at deckbuilding yet; we're still trying to figure out how to win as a corporation with the starter decks. The runner always seems to be able to find agendas quickly and reliably, whereas the corporation has to struggle to score even one.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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Each run is a gamble (even if the runner reveals the entire game board, due to your hand), and if it feels like the runner can simply reach your agendas all the time it probably means you aren't disincentivizing him from running remote servers well enough. Trap assets and really damaging ICE are usually what does most of that so you may be not utilizing them to the fullest.
First off, remember that you can install ICE on an empty server and that when the server is removed (e.g. scoring an agenda) that ICE does not go away. Not that I suspect you're doing this stuff wrong, but if you are it would certainly explain why corp feels ****ty. It's pretty important that you can reuse ICE like that to the way corp works.
You might look at whether you and your playgroup are putting far too much ICE on the nonremote servers (HQ, Archive etc) when they don't particularly need protection. For example, if with your playstyle you rarely hold onto agendas in your hand, there's much less reason to protect your HQ. Then if you play like that you may also be flooding the board with agendas and not being able to protect them all.
You should also definitely make sure you're balancing your decks pretty well. I find Corp deck balance a lot harder than runner deck balance, and the game doesn't really give you much of a primer on it, so it's possible that you are leaving some hole.
I would also recommend looking at videos of people playing, it could just be some really big things you're missing that you notice right away.
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"Virtue, Jacques, is an excellent thing. Both good people and wicked people speak highly of it..."
You might look at whether you and your playgroup are putting far too much ICE on the nonremote servers (HQ, Archive etc) when they don't particularly need protection. For example, if with your playstyle you rarely hold onto agendas in your hand, there's much less reason to protect your HQ. Then if you play like that you may also be flooding the board with agendas and not being able to protect them all.
We tried not protecting the central servers much. The result was that the criminal got lots of free money, the shaper got some big plays with the Maker's Eye, and the anarch utterly steamrolled with Medium and Datasucker. It feels like if you draw multiple agendas, it is almost impossible to both protect them and develop them: you don't have enough ICE to both set up a safe remote server for one and protect your R&D for the rest. And if you don't draw multiple agendas, that means they're still in your R&D, and the runner will just find them there.
You should also definitely make sure you're balancing your decks pretty well. I find Corp deck balance a lot harder than runner deck balance, and the game doesn't really give you much of a primer on it, so it's possible that you are leaving some hole.
Again, we're not even messing with deck balance yet. Part of what I'm asking is if the starter deck balance is off, and whether that could be the problem.
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Vive, vale. Siquid novisti rectius istis,
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Let's dial this back a bit. We're not even looking at deckbuilding yet; we're still trying to figure out how to win as a corporation with the starter decks. The runner always seems to be able to find agendas quickly and reliably, whereas the corporation has to struggle to score even one.
Well to be fair, deck construction is important for winning reliably.
Anyways, the runner always seems much stronger in the core set to players I meet that are new. I have a friend who quit the league because he couldn't learn how to play the corp properly. It definitely has a higher skill curve than the runner.
The most important thing to remember , as Feathas said, is too punish the Runner for making runs. Ice that wrecks their hand, or feinting an agenda so that they break the bank only to see an Adonis Campaign they can't even trash, Ice that destroy Programs, or makes them lose clicks. I could give you a solid core set deck (one that won me a core set only tournament) but you definitely need to know how to play the Corp correctly.
I'll say it again though, I'd watch some videos. Team Covenant has some great ones on Youtube.
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Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
I still remember when my brother and I were just starting out (on like our 3rd game) and I suddenly realized that with the way we were playing, I could spam runs with most of my actions and gain so much out of most of them and lose so little that it was just the best option.
It took a little while before I started losing as the runner.
Again, we're not even messing with deck balance yet. Part of what I'm asking is if the starter deck balance is off, and whether that could be the problem.
Honestly, I don't even remember the game coming with preconstructed decks (edit: I just looked it up, apparently it's all of one corp/runner's cards + all neutrals, which sounds pretty bad), just all the cards of each corp/runner all together. You should definitely try at least playing around with adding in cards from the other corps if you haven't - that's not very hard to do and some of the corps (notably NBN) are really ****ty without it in the core set in my experience.
We tried not protecting the central servers much. The result was that the criminal got lots of free money, the shaper got some big plays with the Maker's Eye, and the anarch utterly steamrolled with Medium and Datasucker. It feels like if you draw multiple agendas, it is almost impossible to both protect them and develop them: you don't have enough ICE to both set up a safe remote server for one and protect your R&D for the rest. And if you don't draw multiple agendas, that means they're still in your R&D, and the runner will just find them there.
Well, to some extent the very beginning of the game is just like that. Examine the first turn: Luckily as Corp you do get to go first, and you have 3 actions. You have 3 main servers, but realistically you probably have no reason to protect the Archives. Assuming you don't install any roots to remote servers on this turn, that leaves two things to protect, and if you try to do that with ICE that means 2 of your 3 actions right away.
That sucks and realistically you won't always be able to/want to do it, you may just not even draw enough ICE. The point is that in the very beginning of the game, the runner WILL be able to make some runs on you and there's practically nothing you can usually do to fully stop it, you just have to examine things like: Do I need to protect HQ - if it's Santiago, **** yes you do. If you have an Agena in hand, you may want to.
Sometimes you're going to get ****ed because you choose not to protect your R&D and they run it, get lucky and get an agenda right away. That kind of things just happens, but it shouldn't feel like you're losing every game to it. A runner should have to work for most of their agendas - certainly a game-winning amount, and frankly I can't think of much else to say but that you aren't protecting your agendas enough. That's what it has to come down to in some way. They can't be both Shaper and Criminal, so this kind of things factors into all that you choose to protect - and although you often can't protect everything early/when the runner has momentum, you can usually at least control what's most obviously their target. Learning what is most likely a runner's target when playing as the corp is a lot harder to do than when you play as the runner, so that may factor into it.
One thing you may want to try out in any case though, is just slowing down on installing the agendas. Get yourself comfortable, and then worry about starting to win the game. If you're losing consistently too fast in pretty much ANY game, that's a good way to go, and as corp in netrunner as a newbie that probably means throwing up walls of ice before worrying about remote server roots. Try as much as possible to play it like a control/tempo deck, in MTG terms. If you start losing the game by getting milled, then you know you may be playing too slowly and need to ramp up on developing the agendas.
Remember that you can also purposely bloat your hand to archive Agendas if it's just too dangerous to do anything else with them, and that you can archive Agendas out of servers when you install something else in the root. **** you can even just bloat your hand to make a run on HQ less likely to hand over an agenda. Obviously if your archives are likely to be accessed that may not be smart, but it can be useful sometimes. Unrezzed things going to the archives are facedown, as well as any cards right from your hand, trashed or discarded.
If it seems to you like you don't know when any of this advice can be useful, or that you've tried it and it doesn't help, or that you just still don't have any ideas then the only other thing I can really think of is to just keep playing. It's a surprisingly well-balanced game when played in top form and also the most complex game I've ever played (and I'm quite new/****ty at it too), moreso than MTG I believe... except in breadth of mechanics and cards.
Oh yea, one pretty important thing I forgot to mention that you kinda hinted at. Having agendas "stuck in your R&D" is by no means a bad thing at all. The runner (without augments to it) only accesses the top card of your R&D. The chances of it being an agenda or something of huge value are horribly low - this is of course to balance out the fact that the corp generally hasn't seen that card yet and has no real means aside from ICE to protect it, or even anticipate it. In other words it's a big gamble for everyone (except a shaper with maker's eye). The runner should not be scoring significant amounts of agendas from R&D. HQ is somewhat similar in that it's still just one card randomly from the hand. If you have one agenda in a five card hand... it's somewhat safe, considering if you're allowing the runner to run on your HQ on a whim that you probably have something else going for you with some resources behind it.
You've likely thought of this, but also please make sure you're clear on all the rules. My brother and I played for a decent amount of time not realizing for example that Corp. gets a free draw at the start of every turn. We had wondered before how it is was fair that the runner got 1.33* the actions.
One of the best things the Corp do is make the runner waste resources on runs. This may be spending a few clicks drawing to make them the you have an agenda in hand and are trying to protect it. Maybe you have an ice protecting HQ that you want to run head on into. Maybe it's a brain damage ice or one that will . Allow you to destory their only codegate icebreaker which makes that tollbooth on your remote an impassable wall that allows you a few turns to score some agendas. Perhaps you have some heavy taxing or resource requirement ice like the bioroid ice that they can break with clicks.
Perhaps you can put an asset on a remote that you don't care about. Maybe an adonis campaign that you don't care about because you have enough credits and you just want to drain their pool.
Maybe you're playing jinteki and you can play mind games like putting an agenda in an unprotected remote because you're feigning a snare. Or maybe it is a snare because you knew they would know that you could trctrick them into thinking it was a snare but all along it was an agenda.
I also full heartedllay agree that with Feathas that you should double check to make sure you have all the rules correct.
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You might look at whether you and your playgroup are putting far too much ICE on the nonremote servers (HQ, Archive etc) when they don't particularly need protection. For example, if with your playstyle you rarely hold onto agendas in your hand, there's much less reason to protect your HQ. Then if you play like that you may also be flooding the board with agendas and not being able to protect them all.
Leaving central servers unprotected is dangerous. Any unrezzed piece of ice makes the runner think twice about going in, especially if you're playing Jinteki or HB. If the Runner has some really important cards in hand, they can't risk running into a Neural Katana with no sentry breaker. If the Runner has a really important program (Shapers with Magnum Opus especially), what if that ice is Rototurret or Ichi? I've had so many Shapers leave R&D alone when the only ice I have on it is an unrezzed Ice Wall, or even a Pop-Up Window. Because the Corporation is playing a reactive game, every time you install a card, you not only have to think about why you're doing it, but you also have to consider what the runner thinks it is.
Each run is a gamble (even if the runner reveals the entire game board, due to your hand), and if it feels like the runner can simply reach your agendas all the time it probably means you aren't disincentivizing him from running remote servers well enough. Trap assets and really damaging ICE are usually what does most of that so you may be not utilizing them to the fullest.
I think effectively using trap assets is one of the toughest things to do as Corporation. There's a huge amount of bluffing--in order to get the runner to run on that Junebug, Secretary, or Overwriter you put in that remote, you need to make it look like an agenda. If you throw a trap behind two pieces of rezzed ice the runner knows he can get through, there's no way the runner is going to run that server without using an expose effect like Infiltration. If you build a new server in the previous turn by putting down multple new ice, then next turn slap down a card and develop it twice, the runner is much more likely to run on it.
Probably the best time to put down a trap is when you can disguise it as the winning agenda. Let's say you have 4 points, and you throw down a card in a remote and develop it twice. The runner HAS to run that server, because if he doesn't, the Corporation wins if that card is a Priority Requisition or any 5:3 agenda.
Quote from Dracilic »
The most important thing to remember , as Feathas said, is too punish the Runner for making runs.
This is probably the hardest thing to learn when playing as Corporation. The runner, simply put, has a much better economy than the Corporation. There's nothing you can do to stop the runner from running. The way to put pressure on the runner's economy is to make it expensive to run. As runner, I value a blind R&D/HQ access at about 4 credits and a click. If you can make it expensive for the runner to run central servers, you can generally out-economy them. Unless you're running a deck specifically designed to do it (best example is Jinteki: Replicating Perfection), it's best to focus on building one giant remote server.
If you have the problem where the Runner just isn't running heavily guarded centrals, you can throw a low value agenda into a remote server with lots of ice on it. Let's say as Weyland you have a remote server with an Archer and a Tollbooth on it. One thing you can do is install a Hostile Takeover in that server and develop it twice. That way you can make it look like a Priority Requisition, or worse, Government Contracts, and make them run it. It can force out a Femme Fatale on Tollbooth, which is already a lot of money to just install. Even if they Test Run for it, it's still 16 credits and 2 clicks to break that server--probably not worth 1 agenda point. Even if they don't bite, you can just score the Hostile Takeover next turn and still have 3 clicks.
Even if you don't have an agenda, Melange Mining Corp. is a wonderful card to bait runs with. If they don't run it, that's minimum 7 free credits for you, and the runner has to run through the messy server anyway to get the Melange trashed. Letting the Corporation sit on a big pile of credits is the easiest way to lose as Runner. If the Corporation doesn't have money, they can't rez ice, and the runner can run their servers for cheap or even free.
Quote from Feathas »
You should definitely try at least playing around with adding in cards from the other corps if you haven't - that's not very hard to do and some of the corps (notably NBN) are really ****ty without it in the core set in my experience.
Core NBN is just awful without Cyber Exodus and Future Proof. Cyber Exodus gives you TMI and the almighty Pop-Up Window, and Future Proof gives you Project Beale, Flare, and Midseason Replacements, enabling a combo version of NBN that can potentially score 7 agenda points in one turn.
Quote from Feathas »
Well, to some extent the very beginning of the game is just like that. Examine the first turn: Luckily as Corp you do get to go first, and you have 3 actions. You have 3 main servers, but realistically you probably have no reason to protect the Archives. Assuming you don't install any roots to remote servers on this turn, that leaves two things to protect, and if you try to do that with ICE that means 2 of your 3 actions right away.
That sucks and realistically you won't always be able to/want to do it, you may just not even draw enough ICE. The point is that in the very beginning of the game, the runner WILL be able to make some runs on you and there's practically nothing you can usually do to fully stop it, you just have to examine things like: Do I need to protect HQ - if it's Santiago, **** yes you do. If you have an Agena in hand, you may want to.
Sometimes you're going to get ****ed because you choose not to protect your R&D and they run it, get lucky and get an agenda right away. That kind of things just happens, but it shouldn't feel like you're losing every game to it. A runner should have to work for most of their agendas - certainly a game-winning amount, and frankly I can't think of much else to say but that you aren't protecting your agendas enough. That's what it has to come down to in some way. They can't be both Shaper and Criminal, so this kind of things factors into all that you choose to protect - and although you often can't protect everything early/when the runner has momentum, you can usually at least control what's most obviously their target. Learning what is most likely a runner's target when playing as the corp is a lot harder to do than when you play as the runner, so that may factor into it.
Not necessarily true. If you're playing against anarchs, especially Noise, you need to proactively defend Archives. Hell, even against Criminal I often proactively defend Archives, even if it's just with an Ice Wall or some small piece of ice. One of the worst things that can happen against Criminal is you get comfortable with HQ and R&D sealed up, then the runner drops Sneakdoor Beta and makes three runs on HQ for free. Against Anarch, it's even more important because of virus mills, Retrieval Run, and Datasucker. I'd argue that protecting Archives by turn 3 is important against almost any runner except Chaos Theory, just because of how prevalent Datasucker is right now. Chaos Theory decks tend to be big rig Shapers, so you often have a lot of time to get going.
As far as not drawing enough ice, I would recommend playing at least 20 ice in most 49-card decks. If you have only one piece of rezzable ice and at least one agenda in hand, I would almost always mulligan. If you have one piece of ice and no agenda in hand, I think you keep that hand against any non-Criminal runner. Against Anarchs and Shapers, if you have only one piece of ice, you should probably put it on R&D if you have no agenda in hand. Against Criminals, ALWAYS make sure HQ has end the run ice on it on turn 1. Last week I played Gabe against a corp that for some reason didn't ice HQ first turn. On the first runner click of the game, he ate an Account Siphon, then I stole 4 points out of R&D because he had no credits to rez his R&D ice.
Quote from Dracilic »
One of the best things the Corp do is make the runner waste resources on runs. This may be spending a few clicks drawing to make them the you have an agenda in hand and are trying to protect it. Maybe you have an ice protecting HQ that you want to run head on into. Maybe it's a brain damage ice or one that will . Allow you to destory their only codegate icebreaker which makes that tollbooth on your remote an impassable wall that allows you a few turns to score some agendas. Perhaps you have some heavy taxing or resource requirement ice like the bioroid ice that they can break with clicks.
If you're planning on playing this game seriously at all, get Opening Moves. Jackson Howard is in that data pack and he is a 3-of in virtually every Corporation deck. He's also a 0-cost asset, so he's great at baiting the runner into making a run that's not beneficial for him. You can put him down, disguise him as an agenda, and make the runner run him. Even if the runner gets through, you can rez and use him before the runner accesses, shuffling Hedge Funds, trashed assets, and the like back into R&D. In this case, the run is considered neither successful nor unsuccessful, which is very important for cards like Emergency Shutdown, Desperado, and Dirty Laundry, all of which see huge amounts of play.
If the runner doesn't run on Howard, you can rez him, draw six cards, and discard excess agendas to Archives. This makes the runner waste another click running Archives (and credits if Archive is iced) to force Jackson to throw the agendas back into R&D. You can also use Jackson to shuffle R&D in response to a big R&D dig with Maker's Eye, Medium, multiple R&D interfaces, or especially a run after Indexing was played. You can use him to throw three cards into R&D to make it less likely the Runner accesses an agenda. He's one of the most flexible cards in the game, and costs only 1 influence for a reason. Jackson alone rebalances the game to be about even between Runner and Corporation...and the game may even be in favor of the Corporation by the time Spin Cycle's release is finished.
On using mind games to waste the runner's resources, Jinteki is very good at it, but HB is wonderful at it too. I can't even count the number of times I've ran on an undeveloped remote server that cost me 7 or more credits to get into, only to find an unrezzed Eve Campaign I'd rather not pay 5 credits to trash. Even if it's just one piece of ice, the Shaper decks run today play very reactively to what ice the Corporation is rezzing. They have ways to install icebreakers in the middle of a run, mostly with Clone Chip and Self-Modifying Code. When you rez that Viktor 2.0, sure, they can fetch a Gordian Blade to break it with, but it still costs 11 credits to fetch the icebreaker and break everything on the Viktor that only cost the Corporation 5 credits to rez. I roll my eyes every time I spend a ton of credits just to access some advertisement asset, but the runner just can't risk HB scoring an Accelerated Beta Test, especially if Archives is defended already or there's a Jackson on the table.
I'm not going to quote Raikou because it's hard for me to split up the quote on my phone but he was pretty dead on with pretty much all of his posts.
As I've said I think Corp with just the core set is actually stronger than the runner. I think Plascrete Carapce and Adromeda's release (oh and Kati Jones) pushed the favor towards the runner and I currently feel it's pretty balanced. Fast Advance is still a bit ridiculous, but tight plays will get you there.
The game definitely gets better as you get the data packs and you get new toys to play with and FF does a great job at making sure all the data packs are worth getting. Some of then contain some less than stellar cards (I'm looking at you Salvage) but all are worth getting.
If you're just looking for this to be something you play with buds every now and then you should at least get Creation and Control.
It seems a few of us play competitive? I for one do. Anyone else playing Atman Kate? I've been putting up less than stellar results with her lately.
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Basically: how does deckbuilding play out in practice? In a TCG everyone has their own card collection and can spend an entire evening alone in their basement putting together a nice fun deck. But in an LCG all the cards go in the box with the guy who owns the game. So say he shows up at a game night with Netrunner. Is that viable? How long will it take people to build decks? Do you unbuild the decks when the evening is over? Or is it better to approach Netrunner as a more long-term investment, with the guy and a regular friend spending some serious time just building decks and keeping them intact to play each other?
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
That said I actually don't know the official way deckbuilding works (sideboards? allowed any info about opponent such as what corp/runner they are?) and that stuff could affect it a bit.
We just unbuild them and seeing as you're mostly limited with how many copies of cards you have it'd be kinda hard not to do that, but you could keep things organized and write up lists or something I suppose.
URWTwin
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This game is WAY deeper than MTG, and rewards play skill much more than MTG ever has.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
I think you are approaching the game a little wrong. LCG's aren't different from TCG's in any meaningful capacity, save one. The way you go about acquiring cards. I've never seen LCG's as a game where one person owns it, and several play. It's more of TCG, minus the trading/collecting.
So, each person in the play group would acquire their own set of it, and you build decks accordingly. Then, when you actually have the get togethers, you each bust out your own decks.
Of course, there's nothing stopping one person from having more then one deck and loaning it to someone else.
That may be how some people do it, but it is not the intent of the LCG system. The communal copy idea is part of the appeal.
― Anthony Bourdain, Kitchen Confidential
I will always firmly stand by the belief that Magic is a game first and a collectable second.
oh really? I never got that impression at all from Fantasy Flight's advertising. Do have something supporting that? (I'm not disagreeing, just completely surprised).
Even still, in any game that requires extensive deckbuilding choices, it's not going to effectively work to build your deck on the spot for most groups, because there is always that one guy who;'s going to take an hour to build their deck so it is perfect.
So... are we missing something, or are the corporations at a massive disadvantage in the starting decks? Our record so far is something like 10-1 in favor of the runners, that 1 was really close, and most of the 10 were not close at all.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
No. It's just that the Corp is harder to play. In fact, Corps tended to be better in the core set. Runners had no way to deal with Scorched Earth at first until Plascrete Carapace. Haas-Bioroid is by far the best corp when using just the core set. I think when using just the core set that Kate is probably the best runner. Gabe is also really strong in core set but he definitely gets stronger later and then there's Andromeda. I currently run Atman Kate (with alt art Kate :P) but we haven't started our new league so I haven't made edits in a few months.
I recommend watching some of the videos from worlds or other big tournaments. Team Covenenant does better coverage than any MTG body in my opinion.
This game is incredibly difficult to play well and is super skill intensive. Far more so than MTG (which is still my favorite CG). We've had a few people come and go mostly due to how high the skill level barrier is but if you work at it it's a really rewarding experience.
.If you want a non Haas-Bioroid corp deck that works well in core set, Jinteki splashing Scorched Earth (core set only comes with Two. So unless you get a second one or buy extras you'll have to make do. Though the promos are awesome. I won six during our league.) and some ways to tag is pretty good at winning. Tag stuff can come in NBN. So you have all the Jinteki net damage traps like Snare, The game winning Scorched Earth, and then you can also use Security Force.
I've been playing the game basically since it's release and it's a ton of fun. I'm still hoping the tournament scene gets bigger in this area.
If you want to talk about strategy or deck builds I definitely don't mind giving some advice. Hope this was clear to read since I am posting from my phone.
Cheers.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
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NO, GO AWAY!
Played a few rounds against a friend who wanted to test his all new and shiny Jinteki deck recently. Fun fact: I had never played against Jinteki before (I played the old Netrunner TCG ages ago, I basically got handed a pile of runner cards by my friend and got told to build a deck out of them - which I did to my best knowledge ...), and had no idea whatsoever they're up to.
*insert flatlined runner here*
L1 Judge
And yea scorched earth is insane, I'm kind of surprised they let it through into the core set without any real answer. In my experience if you make the right Haas or NBN deck it's really hard to play against in the core set. Scorched Earth will net you tons of wins out of nowhere unless the runner spends a staggering amount of resources on clearing tags.
First we had HB with great credit production and solid Ice.
Then came the Flatline Weyland and NBN decks.
Then Fast Advance became a thing.
Then Flatline again when Jinteki won Worlds
Now we are back to Fast Advance. But it's more balanced and other decks are doing well too.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
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candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
First off, remember that you can install ICE on an empty server and that when the server is removed (e.g. scoring an agenda) that ICE does not go away. Not that I suspect you're doing this stuff wrong, but if you are it would certainly explain why corp feels ****ty. It's pretty important that you can reuse ICE like that to the way corp works.
You might look at whether you and your playgroup are putting far too much ICE on the nonremote servers (HQ, Archive etc) when they don't particularly need protection. For example, if with your playstyle you rarely hold onto agendas in your hand, there's much less reason to protect your HQ. Then if you play like that you may also be flooding the board with agendas and not being able to protect them all.
You should also definitely make sure you're balancing your decks pretty well. I find Corp deck balance a lot harder than runner deck balance, and the game doesn't really give you much of a primer on it, so it's possible that you are leaving some hole.
I would also recommend looking at videos of people playing, it could just be some really big things you're missing that you notice right away.
We tried not protecting the central servers much. The result was that the criminal got lots of free money, the shaper got some big plays with the Maker's Eye, and the anarch utterly steamrolled with Medium and Datasucker. It feels like if you draw multiple agendas, it is almost impossible to both protect them and develop them: you don't have enough ICE to both set up a safe remote server for one and protect your R&D for the rest. And if you don't draw multiple agendas, that means they're still in your R&D, and the runner will just find them there.
Again, we're not even messing with deck balance yet. Part of what I'm asking is if the starter deck balance is off, and whether that could be the problem.
candidus inperti; si nil, his utere mecum.
Well to be fair, deck construction is important for winning reliably.
Anyways, the runner always seems much stronger in the core set to players I meet that are new. I have a friend who quit the league because he couldn't learn how to play the corp properly. It definitely has a higher skill curve than the runner.
The most important thing to remember , as Feathas said, is too punish the Runner for making runs. Ice that wrecks their hand, or feinting an agenda so that they break the bank only to see an Adonis Campaign they can't even trash, Ice that destroy Programs, or makes them lose clicks. I could give you a solid core set deck (one that won me a core set only tournament) but you definitely need to know how to play the Corp correctly.
I'll say it again though, I'd watch some videos. Team Covenant has some great ones on Youtube.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
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It took a little while before I started losing as the runner. Honestly, I don't even remember the game coming with preconstructed decks (edit: I just looked it up, apparently it's all of one corp/runner's cards + all neutrals, which sounds pretty bad), just all the cards of each corp/runner all together. You should definitely try at least playing around with adding in cards from the other corps if you haven't - that's not very hard to do and some of the corps (notably NBN) are really ****ty without it in the core set in my experience. Well, to some extent the very beginning of the game is just like that. Examine the first turn: Luckily as Corp you do get to go first, and you have 3 actions. You have 3 main servers, but realistically you probably have no reason to protect the Archives. Assuming you don't install any roots to remote servers on this turn, that leaves two things to protect, and if you try to do that with ICE that means 2 of your 3 actions right away.
That sucks and realistically you won't always be able to/want to do it, you may just not even draw enough ICE. The point is that in the very beginning of the game, the runner WILL be able to make some runs on you and there's practically nothing you can usually do to fully stop it, you just have to examine things like: Do I need to protect HQ - if it's Santiago, **** yes you do. If you have an Agena in hand, you may want to.
Sometimes you're going to get ****ed because you choose not to protect your R&D and they run it, get lucky and get an agenda right away. That kind of things just happens, but it shouldn't feel like you're losing every game to it. A runner should have to work for most of their agendas - certainly a game-winning amount, and frankly I can't think of much else to say but that you aren't protecting your agendas enough. That's what it has to come down to in some way. They can't be both Shaper and Criminal, so this kind of things factors into all that you choose to protect - and although you often can't protect everything early/when the runner has momentum, you can usually at least control what's most obviously their target. Learning what is most likely a runner's target when playing as the corp is a lot harder to do than when you play as the runner, so that may factor into it.
One thing you may want to try out in any case though, is just slowing down on installing the agendas. Get yourself comfortable, and then worry about starting to win the game. If you're losing consistently too fast in pretty much ANY game, that's a good way to go, and as corp in netrunner as a newbie that probably means throwing up walls of ice before worrying about remote server roots. Try as much as possible to play it like a control/tempo deck, in MTG terms. If you start losing the game by getting milled, then you know you may be playing too slowly and need to ramp up on developing the agendas.
Remember that you can also purposely bloat your hand to archive Agendas if it's just too dangerous to do anything else with them, and that you can archive Agendas out of servers when you install something else in the root. **** you can even just bloat your hand to make a run on HQ less likely to hand over an agenda. Obviously if your archives are likely to be accessed that may not be smart, but it can be useful sometimes. Unrezzed things going to the archives are facedown, as well as any cards right from your hand, trashed or discarded.
If it seems to you like you don't know when any of this advice can be useful, or that you've tried it and it doesn't help, or that you just still don't have any ideas then the only other thing I can really think of is to just keep playing. It's a surprisingly well-balanced game when played in top form and also the most complex game I've ever played (and I'm quite new/****ty at it too), moreso than MTG I believe... except in breadth of mechanics and cards.
Oh yea, one pretty important thing I forgot to mention that you kinda hinted at. Having agendas "stuck in your R&D" is by no means a bad thing at all. The runner (without augments to it) only accesses the top card of your R&D. The chances of it being an agenda or something of huge value are horribly low - this is of course to balance out the fact that the corp generally hasn't seen that card yet and has no real means aside from ICE to protect it, or even anticipate it. In other words it's a big gamble for everyone (except a shaper with maker's eye). The runner should not be scoring significant amounts of agendas from R&D. HQ is somewhat similar in that it's still just one card randomly from the hand. If you have one agenda in a five card hand... it's somewhat safe, considering if you're allowing the runner to run on your HQ on a whim that you probably have something else going for you with some resources behind it.
You've likely thought of this, but also please make sure you're clear on all the rules. My brother and I played for a decent amount of time not realizing for example that Corp. gets a free draw at the start of every turn. We had wondered before how it is was fair that the runner got 1.33* the actions.
Perhaps you can put an asset on a remote that you don't care about. Maybe an adonis campaign that you don't care about because you have enough credits and you just want to drain their pool.
Maybe you're playing jinteki and you can play mind games like putting an agenda in an unprotected remote because you're feigning a snare. Or maybe it is a snare because you knew they would know that you could trctrick them into thinking it was a snare but all along it was an agenda.
I also full heartedllay agree that with Feathas that you should double check to make sure you have all the rules correct.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
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Leaving central servers unprotected is dangerous. Any unrezzed piece of ice makes the runner think twice about going in, especially if you're playing Jinteki or HB. If the Runner has some really important cards in hand, they can't risk running into a Neural Katana with no sentry breaker. If the Runner has a really important program (Shapers with Magnum Opus especially), what if that ice is Rototurret or Ichi? I've had so many Shapers leave R&D alone when the only ice I have on it is an unrezzed Ice Wall, or even a Pop-Up Window. Because the Corporation is playing a reactive game, every time you install a card, you not only have to think about why you're doing it, but you also have to consider what the runner thinks it is.
I think effectively using trap assets is one of the toughest things to do as Corporation. There's a huge amount of bluffing--in order to get the runner to run on that Junebug, Secretary, or Overwriter you put in that remote, you need to make it look like an agenda. If you throw a trap behind two pieces of rezzed ice the runner knows he can get through, there's no way the runner is going to run that server without using an expose effect like Infiltration. If you build a new server in the previous turn by putting down multple new ice, then next turn slap down a card and develop it twice, the runner is much more likely to run on it.
Probably the best time to put down a trap is when you can disguise it as the winning agenda. Let's say you have 4 points, and you throw down a card in a remote and develop it twice. The runner HAS to run that server, because if he doesn't, the Corporation wins if that card is a Priority Requisition or any 5:3 agenda.
This is probably the hardest thing to learn when playing as Corporation. The runner, simply put, has a much better economy than the Corporation. There's nothing you can do to stop the runner from running. The way to put pressure on the runner's economy is to make it expensive to run. As runner, I value a blind R&D/HQ access at about 4 credits and a click. If you can make it expensive for the runner to run central servers, you can generally out-economy them. Unless you're running a deck specifically designed to do it (best example is Jinteki: Replicating Perfection), it's best to focus on building one giant remote server.
If you have the problem where the Runner just isn't running heavily guarded centrals, you can throw a low value agenda into a remote server with lots of ice on it. Let's say as Weyland you have a remote server with an Archer and a Tollbooth on it. One thing you can do is install a Hostile Takeover in that server and develop it twice. That way you can make it look like a Priority Requisition, or worse, Government Contracts, and make them run it. It can force out a Femme Fatale on Tollbooth, which is already a lot of money to just install. Even if they Test Run for it, it's still 16 credits and 2 clicks to break that server--probably not worth 1 agenda point. Even if they don't bite, you can just score the Hostile Takeover next turn and still have 3 clicks.
Even if you don't have an agenda, Melange Mining Corp. is a wonderful card to bait runs with. If they don't run it, that's minimum 7 free credits for you, and the runner has to run through the messy server anyway to get the Melange trashed. Letting the Corporation sit on a big pile of credits is the easiest way to lose as Runner. If the Corporation doesn't have money, they can't rez ice, and the runner can run their servers for cheap or even free.
Core NBN is just awful without Cyber Exodus and Future Proof. Cyber Exodus gives you TMI and the almighty Pop-Up Window, and Future Proof gives you Project Beale, Flare, and Midseason Replacements, enabling a combo version of NBN that can potentially score 7 agenda points in one turn.
Not necessarily true. If you're playing against anarchs, especially Noise, you need to proactively defend Archives. Hell, even against Criminal I often proactively defend Archives, even if it's just with an Ice Wall or some small piece of ice. One of the worst things that can happen against Criminal is you get comfortable with HQ and R&D sealed up, then the runner drops Sneakdoor Beta and makes three runs on HQ for free. Against Anarch, it's even more important because of virus mills, Retrieval Run, and Datasucker. I'd argue that protecting Archives by turn 3 is important against almost any runner except Chaos Theory, just because of how prevalent Datasucker is right now. Chaos Theory decks tend to be big rig Shapers, so you often have a lot of time to get going.
As far as not drawing enough ice, I would recommend playing at least 20 ice in most 49-card decks. If you have only one piece of rezzable ice and at least one agenda in hand, I would almost always mulligan. If you have one piece of ice and no agenda in hand, I think you keep that hand against any non-Criminal runner. Against Anarchs and Shapers, if you have only one piece of ice, you should probably put it on R&D if you have no agenda in hand. Against Criminals, ALWAYS make sure HQ has end the run ice on it on turn 1. Last week I played Gabe against a corp that for some reason didn't ice HQ first turn. On the first runner click of the game, he ate an Account Siphon, then I stole 4 points out of R&D because he had no credits to rez his R&D ice.
If you're planning on playing this game seriously at all, get Opening Moves. Jackson Howard is in that data pack and he is a 3-of in virtually every Corporation deck. He's also a 0-cost asset, so he's great at baiting the runner into making a run that's not beneficial for him. You can put him down, disguise him as an agenda, and make the runner run him. Even if the runner gets through, you can rez and use him before the runner accesses, shuffling Hedge Funds, trashed assets, and the like back into R&D. In this case, the run is considered neither successful nor unsuccessful, which is very important for cards like Emergency Shutdown, Desperado, and Dirty Laundry, all of which see huge amounts of play.
If the runner doesn't run on Howard, you can rez him, draw six cards, and discard excess agendas to Archives. This makes the runner waste another click running Archives (and credits if Archive is iced) to force Jackson to throw the agendas back into R&D. You can also use Jackson to shuffle R&D in response to a big R&D dig with Maker's Eye, Medium, multiple R&D interfaces, or especially a run after Indexing was played. You can use him to throw three cards into R&D to make it less likely the Runner accesses an agenda. He's one of the most flexible cards in the game, and costs only 1 influence for a reason. Jackson alone rebalances the game to be about even between Runner and Corporation...and the game may even be in favor of the Corporation by the time Spin Cycle's release is finished.
On using mind games to waste the runner's resources, Jinteki is very good at it, but HB is wonderful at it too. I can't even count the number of times I've ran on an undeveloped remote server that cost me 7 or more credits to get into, only to find an unrezzed Eve Campaign I'd rather not pay 5 credits to trash. Even if it's just one piece of ice, the Shaper decks run today play very reactively to what ice the Corporation is rezzing. They have ways to install icebreakers in the middle of a run, mostly with Clone Chip and Self-Modifying Code. When you rez that Viktor 2.0, sure, they can fetch a Gordian Blade to break it with, but it still costs 11 credits to fetch the icebreaker and break everything on the Viktor that only cost the Corporation 5 credits to rez. I roll my eyes every time I spend a ton of credits just to access some advertisement asset, but the runner just can't risk HB scoring an Accelerated Beta Test, especially if Archives is defended already or there's a Jackson on the table.
Hope you guys understood most of that.
Emille, Seven-Sting Dancer Shalin Nariya
As I've said I think Corp with just the core set is actually stronger than the runner. I think Plascrete Carapce and Adromeda's release (oh and Kati Jones) pushed the favor towards the runner and I currently feel it's pretty balanced. Fast Advance is still a bit ridiculous, but tight plays will get you there.
The game definitely gets better as you get the data packs and you get new toys to play with and FF does a great job at making sure all the data packs are worth getting. Some of then contain some less than stellar cards (I'm looking at you Salvage) but all are worth getting.
If you're just looking for this to be something you play with buds every now and then you should at least get Creation and Control.
It seems a few of us play competitive? I for one do. Anyone else playing Atman Kate? I've been putting up less than stellar results with her lately.
Thanks to Heroes of the Plane for the awesome Sig.
Currently Playing- EDH
GGGOmnath, Locus of the LifestreamGGG
BBBShirei, Lord of PoniesBBB
UWRasputin Dreamweaver, Russia's Greatest Love MachineUW
UBWZur, Killer of FunUBW
UGWTreva, Princess of CanterlotUGW
RWTajic, Master of the Reverse BladeRW
RRRZirilan, How to Train Your DragonRRR
PDH Decks
Gelectrode
Ascended Lawmage
Blaze Commando