Android Netrunner General - /anrg/

But here's the thing, something I've been complaining about for a while. We barely talk/do interesting testing with the cards we have *now*. It's always about the hot new upcoming stuff.

See that Backbiter/Fear the Masses deck? Never even seen it. And yet it exist, is probably fairly interesting to play with or against - the idea is cool. It's currently released cards. No talks.

And I'm fairly sure there's several of those in the wild.

To be fairer to you, I guess the appeal of the new stuff is the opening of potential that you don't have with the released cards. It just opens up conversation space with less needed investment, which is a good, needed thing.

I think it's more because people don't share their 'works in progress' unless they need help with it, especially since it looks like most want to test their stuff semi-thoroughly before showing their deck off.

Talking about a new card and how it might affect the game is immediate. You just have to see the card, and think about how you would want to play with or against it.

Talking about already existing cards take more work, you have to present arguments as to how and why it works or doesn't, pull out data if you want to go anywhere.

Talking about a specific deck-list takes even more work: you have to read the list, understand what it's trying to achieve and contextualize where it's trying to achieve it.

As such, I think I'm underplaying it in general, there *is* a strong role and need for the kind of conversation spoilers foster. It's good that people can just hop-in and talk and be enthused (or worried even). Keep in contact with the game. Keep the fire of the community fueled up.

I guess I just wish we were better at fostering the other, more demanding forms of conversation. The slow burning fire.

Ah, yeah, I normally bump the hell out of them when I see them

Yep: Bagbiter, Dosh, FtM, Fisk and Seminar

It's amusing because, I played something very similar in Anarch (high variance, but when you put it into motion it's plain terrifying for the corp, losing 1/4 of its R&D per turn), I've played FtM in Adam... but it would never even have occurred to me to try an build it in Crim.

Just cannot overstate how much I love that idea.

I agree. Though if you're really starving for discussion the subreddit for Netrunner is pretty active, and the daily Card of the Day thing keeps conversation moving.

I wonder if it's not due to a "card combination A is tier 1, so there's no real need to discuss this new combination B, as the deck would be better with A." I mean, that was what pushed Dice Tower away above I think. Casually this wouldn't be a problem, but casually you wouldn't really think too much about competitive decks or combinations either.

With the rise in funds available to crims, I've seen pic related for the first couple of times today

That's an argument we've had several times, how the opposite of competitive isn't casual, but non-competitive.

Some players don't care about losing or winning, this is just an end state because the game needs one, could as well be "the game will end in 45 minutes". What they care about is the process, one way or another.

We have that guy in the local club, he's just not good, he's non-competition given form; it's not just that his win rate must hover a bit below 10%, it's that he's not interested in winning period. He plays to see and make things happen. He makes theme decks for the hell of it, and he's having a grand time of it (He's famous for leaving me mind-fucked in front of the table for a few minutes when playing Biotic Labor to install and use a Melange Mining Corp in the same turn; "Story-wise it makes sense").
But then one thing he's not is casual. He owns all the cards. He *knows* them better than some competitive players do.

And without him and players like -though less extreme - there's a ton of cool interactions or decks we'd never see really.

All that as a roundabout way to say: there are cool conversations to be had beyond optimization. Just seems to me that for whatever reason we're not (good at) having them. Part of it I think "because it's not serious", and there's something of a stigma wrongly attached to that levity in presence of all the dedication and seriousness. And part of it because that shared narrative and jokes and game-borne storytelling we see doesn't necessarily translate well to others. Or at least we feel it doesn't.

Still love myself some Wyrm adventures.

Oh, niiiice. Really glad to see options exploding.
I've seen Muresh Bodysuit make a come-back (well "back" is probably not the right word I guess). Also was interesting recently to see Subcontract used as a way to prevent the runner popping up Sport Hopper card draw between SEA Source and Scorched. Was a really neat play.

>All that as a roundabout way to say: there are cool conversations to be had beyond optimization. Just seems to me that for whatever reason we're not (good at) having them.
This might be a pretty important point. Usually whenever a game is mechanically solid, any implied story or theme is ignored in favour of optimizing play; eurogames in particular throw out theme altogether and stick to the bare minimum. This might be why the theme in Netrunner - despite being incredibly flavourful, down to the story created by using certain combinations of cards - is mostly ignored in order to get the best combination of cards possible. Combined with a lack of support that encourages it, it's little wonder that players such as your guy (which I can't even imagine how playing him could be like, probably like that one time a newbie friend of mine played a 3rd click Biotic Labor to draw a card) are a dime a dozen. Which just goes back to how weak FFG's support for Netrunner is. Perhaps new formats are what the series need to produce more varied conversation.

On an off-topic note, I hope the "ignore theme in favour of mechanics" doesn't happen to the upcoming Arkham Horror LCG, especially since it's being marketed as the new frontier of mixing roleplaying and card games.

>Subcontract used as a way to prevent the runner popping up Sport Hopper card draw between SEA Source and Scorched.
That is very nice - I've been thinking of using some of the new operations (possibly via City Hall Consultants) to get better kill combos

Expanding a little bit since I just remembered something about the newbie friend of mine. He enjoys playing and the whole back and forth between the corp and runners, but he finds deck building - along with the tiny interactions all the cards have - challenging. There needs to be something for those players, where they don't need to worry about the overall plan with the deck, and just let them enjoy playing a card that does a fun thing, then move on and forget it until it's needed. Perhaps casual would fit these players better? Since they're still playing to win unlike non-competitive, but not as well verse as competitive players.

This also got me to thinking if a deckbuilding format could fit into this game... Something similar to Star Realms/Ascension. I'll have to take a look see, maybe something good can come out of it.

>incoming account siphon
>rez 3 DRT
>"go ahead, rob me"

What does this quetzal deck run?

I have to say, theme is absolutely one of my favourite things about netrunner, even when things don't always mesh - though I'd say most of the time you can visualise a pretty good story of what's going on in any given game

Base version was this, but it changed quite a bit during the few weeks I tried it. Mostly, as you'll see it was made to try and test interactions with cards I hadn't played. A more "serious" deck would want to ramp up the multi-access and tone down the ICE trashing me thinks.

Quetzal: Free Spirit (First Contact)

Event: (19)
3x Inject (Up and Over)
3x Sure Gamble (Core)
3x Run Amok (Kala Ghoda)
2x Spooned (Order and Chaos)
2x Forked (Order and Chaos)
2x Knifed (Order and Chaos)
2x Immolation Script (Chrome City)
2x Quest Completed (Fear and Loathing)

Hardware: (8)
2x E3 Feedback Implants (Trace Amount) ■■ ■■
3x Prepaid VoicePAD (Second Thoughts)
3x EMP Device (Business First)

Program: (0)

Resource: (18)
3x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)
3x DDoS (The Universe of Tomorrow)
3x Data Folding (Order and Chaos)
2x Bhagat (Fear the Masses)
2x The Turning Wheel (The Liberated Mind) ■ ■
2x Always Be Running (Data and Destiny) ■■■ ■■■
2x Street Magic (Kala Ghoda)
1x Human First (Order and Chaos)

I know I *am* going to build that Jesminder Sareen deck using Akshara and The Price of Freedom. I just need to find a plan that makes it all make sense, if not a winning deck.

But really some cards, or combination of cards make for so cool stories. Even better when you see things emerge that were not meant to work together.

You know that if Adam plans to keep Safety First, he's going to end up with a lot of Public Sympathy. That's a heartening thought, I think.

You'll notice that 4 of the ICE trashing events are basically useless against an Uncorrodable deck, that only plays Barrier types, but this is in my opinion strongly balanced by how devastating Run Amok can be in that very same context.

The very thought does bring a smile.

And then the runner DaVinci's a New Angeles City Hall (I do think I would be mad)... or just what I would do I guess, cut out my loss satisfied that you've just spent 6 credits, and get the access.

Must be nice to have that smug smile when you do rez those DRTs though.

Getting into Netrunner with a friend, what sets would you recommend?
Not really looking for hyper-competitive decks, rather sets that add flavour and variety.

If you're not into competitive, my usual advice is start with just the core box, see the factions that tickle your fancy and go for the big boxes covering those factions. And really, go for the boxes in priority.

After that things get a little bit more messy.

Yep, that's more or less what we've done.
I've got the core set and Order and Chaos, while he's picked up whatever the Jinteki/Crims box.

I hear a bunch of cards are going to get cycled out soon too?

- Cycle 1: The Genesis Cycle
- Cycle 2: The Spin Cycle
- Cycle 3: The Lunar Cycle
- Cycle 4: The SanSan Cycle
- Cycle 5: The Mumbad Cycle
- Cycle 6: The Flashpoint Cycle (currently being released).

We still have cycle 7 before rotation hits, so roughly one year, a bit less, before the first two cycles rotate out (that is if it matters to you). This is going to be a very interesting time as Genesis was in so many ways the second half of the core box, and so many defining cards for the games were there - if only the 3/2 agendas. And most of the bread and butter multi-access cards.

I could try to go over each cycle... don't know how useful it would be to you though.

Am I missing something how do you use forked and spooned in this deck?

Always Be Running/E3 Feedback Filter.

By the way, since I already did program/breaker-less in crim and now Anarch, I guess I'll have to go do it in Shaper next.

Welcoming ideas (beside Blackmail spam).

I think they're being very deliberate with the pack announcements. We're likely to only have spoilers one pack in advance.
I think they've learnt from mumbad +d&d where there were so many spoilers known so far in advance that it kinda dulled the excitement. Definitely didn't help that fear the masses was leaked.

this is LITERALLY the stupidest fucking shit I've ever fucking see in my life that waves the banner of NON CCG

there's no reason for it

it's going to be a huge blow to the game's already struggling community

Yeah, they just accessed instead (as I went down to like 1 credit, but then so did they) but it did the job

>there's no reason for it
They don't want a huge card pool that'll become intimidating and unstockable by vendors

I do think it'll hit the community a bit, but I think their other issues - like the low level of support and the lack of a more "friendly" format that's part of what Magic does so well and
on the subplebbit, regarding the videos posted ITT, the lack of casual formats is what people said was what made netrunner "too competitive" and Magic easier to get into despite Magic's huge card pool and ridiculous top-end competition

Tough, shapers are the most focused on their breakers... maybe Nexus and Surfer/Painting?

Almost always 1 run per turn, but shapers can pretty easily see R&D

Maybe a self scoring deck? Liberated Chela, Freedom through Equality, Notoriety, Fan Site, bypass options, etc. Main problem would be the corp rushing out agendas though.

>Main problem would be the corp rushing out agendas though

Eh, you're okay with that to a degree - you need them to trigger fan site, and if they sac an agenda to stop Chela you're still not giving up too much.

Feint seems like it'd be pretty useful for getting that Notoriety, as does Sneakdoor

I like that idea (plus I really love surfer, that card is ridiculous). Would rather program-less, but hey, will take what I can make work.

That's more what I started with in mind. Problem with Liberated Chela is the Corp forfeiting in a high density agenda deck.... worth a try though.

They're between a rock and a hard place here: they don't rotate, it becomes hard to attract new players, they do they lose players from the existing base. That being said, I can see the argument that by trying to appeal to both sides, they've probably made it the worst of both worlds: cards are leaving the pool and people along with them AND the pool is still so big as to intimidate new players.

I'm sticking to my original assessment of the LCG format. A slower, meatier, less frequent - more board game like - updating schedule would have probably been better for the game in general. Might just be me though...

I don't think the fact that they can't seem to keep the updates regular helps either - they've had so much trouble with timescales, shipping and spoilers (probably not helped by them becoming more and more autistic about spoilers)

Well, can't blame FFG for a dockers social conflict they had no hand in, they were just collateral damage. And I do think they tried to adapt things in thei production line to help prevent issues in the long run, but those kind of infrastructural changes take time.

This thread actually got me thinking, could we actually make a variations to the game that fosters/gives incentives to the theme manipulation/story building aspect? Keeping it simple...

Alternate win condition? :/

Decks with fixed cards and a certain goal maybe? For example, prove that bioroids are a good replacement for human labor by getting to 100 credits and using the Biotic Labor -> Melange above among others.

I was thinking something about cards interactions...

There would be the easy way of going for ONR's if the corp has 7 point of bad publicity it's lost the game for a very narrow attempt to this.

But I guess, yeah, the hardest in preparation but easiest in play would be designing pairs of deck with alternate predefined winning conditions I guess.... but then we're missing out on the most interesting aspect of story-building as play enfolds.

By the way, if anyone has any cool use/interaction with EMP Device, I'm interested.

Apart from the self-evident use in that Quetzal deck, I'm yet to find something that makes the card stick with me.
I do think the competition with DDOS hurts it a lot... and I' m still trying to get why 4 influence.

7 points to BP seems like it'd be very tricky, but it's just about doable - though there's only 4 cards that give the corp BP

Now I'm thinking of something though: The Supplier + Activist Support, can you use it to install without taking a tag?
And could you apex it the same turn?

Credit Total might be cool, but there has to be something to make the runner actually run - maybe 100 Credits and 3 or 4 points?

Maybe stealing money? Vamp/Siphon 50 credits?

All these are pretty runner-focused though

>apex it
Brainfart, meant Aesop's it

The Runner doesn't have to have the same 'get to 100 credits' goal. For example against the bioroid Melange deck you can have a Kit deck where the goal is to "liberate" 7 (less? Named?) ice, with 1-ofs of the cutlery suite. Or a Jesminder deck that needs to protect Akshara. Basically anything that forces a certain amount of cards into the deck for the purposes of storytelling.

Done something similar in shaper: you can install Activist Support at the end of the corp's turn with DaVinci, give it the bad pub, feed it to Aesop. (Oh, yeah, definitely )

>All these are pretty runner-focused though

Well, that's true of the game in general, apart from some exceptional card interactions, the runner has that exclusivity in the impetus of provoking interactions between players. The run is the central, defining event of the game after all.

>Or a Jesminder deck that needs to protect Akshara.
I like that - having to protect an individual (Akshara, one of the 5 Inf Execs) for a set number of turns would be pretty cool.

Looking at these board games, I'm really struck by how clearly they seem to be "capping" the Flashpoint cycle at each end - the black and white boxes, the all-corp and all-runner nature, and most clearly the themes: Mainframe IS the 23 seconds, while New Angeles is all about keeping the city under (your) corporate control and keeping the Feds out. There's orgcrime, prisec, protests and disease - we've seen as the Flashpoint cycle has progressed that things in the city have gotten steadily more chaotic, it wouldn't surprise me if it's suggested at the end of the cycle that New Angeles is shown to be in danger of having its special status revoked.

I also think it's cool that we get to see more of Melange and Globalsec

Also the 6 runners of Mainframe make me pretty sure that the animal face across all of Titan's screens ( it's clearly Titan's lobby) is Kate's

Also seen on Record Reconstructor...

...

The disease part is interesting; while Jinteki is supposedly at the forefront of advancing technology in the medical industry, there wasn't really anything to imply that illnesses are as widespread or dangerous within the Android world. I guess it isn't impossible, but I definitely never considered it, especially since Jinteki is more popular due to their secrets and traps.

I wonder if hoping for a board game to cap both ends of each cycle would be too much to ask for. It'd be nice especially if they stop printing deluxe expansions.

Apparently natural disease is mostly a nonissue. I wonder if Jinteki is in the business of secretly spreading synthetic diseases so they can turn around and sell their proprietary cure. Sounds like a good conspiracy theory, anyway.

Combo with Inside Job I guess? DDoS for single ice servers, Inside Job for 2+. Bypass the first if they rez, otherwise just waltz right in. Feint into HQ, derez the ice, then do it again. There's also False Echo too. Though with the currently low ice environment, it'll probably be pretty situational.

Ooh. I wonder if synthetic diseases include viruses for the cybernetically enhanced humans too. I was going to say G-mod, but then those are related to genetics aren't they?

Escalation spoilers when?

G-mods are people who were genetically modified in-utero, genetic resources seem more likely to be therapies that are applied in a more topical way

But yeah, the mention of illness during the New Angeles preview at gencon was interesting to me too.
Also interesting was the Corp specialisations that define the card decks they draw from - the categories are Construction, Labour, Biotech, Media and Security, and each corp (other than Melange, which has less cards but can pick from any category)
Jinteki is 2 Biotech 1 Labour
Globalsec is 2 Security 1 Media
HB is 2 Labour 1 Construction
Weyland is 2 Construction 1 Security
And, something I was surprised by, NBN was 2 Media 1 Biotech - I'd not thought of them as having an interest in that field

Cyberbrain sclerosis. Now if only that damned runner hadn't exposed the list of vaccine recipients...

I could see Jinteki making a virus that causes people to react poorly to all the metal in them - if it they can be paid to "cure" the disease and fuck with HB at the same time they'll be laughing all the way to the bank

SPOILERS, FAGGOTS.

fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/8/31/martial-law/

Once again FFG's writers don't know how to play the game - they don't know traps don't have to be rezzed to fire

IP block is basically just the ICE we all wanted Pachinko and Bandwidth was from the start.

In other news, water is wet.

Oh god they even mis-spell the name of the pack.

Twice

nice catch.

Woohoo, Mausolus! And Anson Rose isn't bad either, definitely a neat potential replacement for PAD Factory since it doesn't have 'that can be advanced' in the text, even if it's affected by Rumor Mill. Sudden ETR on Mausolus, mess up the maths for breaking Ice/Fire/Hadrian Walls, Quandary deals damage in BoN for no reason, combo with Surat City Grid/Executive Boot Camp, etc.

Nihongai Grid is subtly scary, what kind of effect requires the runner to have 2 or less cards in hand?

Both Misdirection and Equivocation are damn cheap, surprised that neither of them need 2 MU.

Unconditional tag on encounter with IP Block is pretty good, though kind of meh if the runner is without tags. Funny how Weyland gets a good Code Gate and NBN gets a decent Barrier this pack.

Apex! Immediate combo with Harbinger looks like?

I hope we get a mat for Interdiction, damn pretty art.

Guess this happens often then? Had a panic attack just skimming that part.

>Nihongai Grid is subtly scary, what kind of effect requires the runner to have 2 or less cards in hand?

If you look at it though, there's a huge gap between "fewer" and "than," so my guess is the actual wording is going to be "fewer than X but more than 2 cards" which to me is even more intriguing.

And it happens all the time, I'll see if I can find some examples.

Oh hey you're right, I thought it could be 'or equal to', but then there's the 'than' right after it, my bad. That is pretty intriguing.

Still, looks fun. The USMC has Exosuits now. Also Reina's old unit/service is mentioned - the Electronic Warfare Service. And looks like someone (probably HB, if it's an exosuit/war-roid) makes military androids if one of the squad
> wasn’t even a person…

Yeah, errors in the pack announcements are really common

Ha, they've fixed it.

The traps are now Keegan and Willo, and there's no mention of "Military Law"

heheh. Makes me wonder if they do that for all the errors.

I don't know, but it's hilarious.

This guy seems like he could be fun - doesn't work with space ice, but he seems like he'd be good for using advancable ice without telegraphing what it is... even the shitty advance-while-rezzed stuff

imagine faceplanting into a Woodcutter that all of a sudden has 6 advancement counters on it and you're up against builder of nations.

It makes me smile.

No matter how shitty they might be. I fondly remember getting something like 9 subs on woodcutter, against a criminal, with no way to get rid of it.

That feeling of tickling your Johnny really is the best.

NBN doesn't care about medicine, it cares about how humans tick.
Aphrodisiacs, stress, actors and anchors' aesthetic improvements, satisfy needs clients didn't even know they had, more addictive fast food. Also Sensie tech.

Yeah, that'd be nice - if there's more ice that becomes suddenly deadly on getting a few advancements then it'll be really nice.
A couple of more things like Mausolus and Weyland might be in business for once.

Super-advancing a swarm always gives me such a happy feeling

Really like the IP Lock. It's clearly a Barrier but has far more interesting design and effect (and I am 100% more willing to pay 1 more credit to get a Pachinko that does stuff on its own.)

That kind of reminds me one game I played a long time ago where it was Sweeps Week, Invasion of Privacy against Andy as Making news. Trashed their hand opening hand down to three cards and killed two siphons, gg.

It does look great - 2 cost, 2 subs (admittedly, not great ones), 4 strength and gives a straight tag if there's an AI.

1 inf too.

Pretty amazing really, but it's NBN so who's surprised?

Just glanced at the article, but they're right for Will-o' the Wisp and Keegan Lane - those are not ambushes.

I don't think I've seen any ambush actually.

Or, I guess it's been amended in the meantime by the ministry of history.

Reaver... "the first time you trash an installed card..."

DOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANTDOWANT

It warms my old dead chrome heart.

And then Corporate Troubleshooter.

At least it looks like it belongs in NBN, contrary to wraparound, which I really thought fit Weyland better.

Hmmm - Nihongai is unique, a unique region.

Wonder what that means.

Translates as "Japan Outside", if taken directly

They changed the cards, it was initially Cerebral Overwriter and not Keegan + Willo

Should we start speculating name of the last datapack?
Let's do just that! So far we have:
>23 Seconds
>Blood Money
>Escalation
>Intervention
>Martial Law
What should come after? I'd think something to signify the situation calming and establishment of new altered status quo: "New Angeles", "Back to Business", or "Another Day".
Or perhaps it would spoil the nature of new status quo? "Corporate Council"?

I'd hope for something like "Back to Business"

"Aftermath"? youtube.com/watch?v=FWNOzFnYCI4

I don't know, only combination that uses "二本外" is 二本外史, it's pretty rare, and I don't see that it makes sense here.

Unless there's a reference I'm missing (not unlikely).

You talking about ?

Last two sentences yeah, sorry about that.

Thinking back on it, I like how Smoke's rig is so heavily defined by its programs.

A guy on pebbit reckons "Japan Town" - would make sense for a unique Jinteki enclave in New Angeles

Meet Sunny's boss, from New Angeles

Oh yeah, 日本街 - Japanese town/district. Makes more sense. And that was 日本外 and 日本外史 respectively up here, don't know what happened.

And someone on the art team does love oneself some domineering women.

I suspect the artist is Matt Zeilinger, given that he's their general go-to guy for characters.

On the other hand, he works from a brief...

The other other Corp "ID" from New Angeles

As well as Nihongai, Manta Grid (the HB one) is also Unique.
On the map of New Angeles in Worlds of Android that's where the Haas Arcology (as in, the one with the AI) is in NA

So, were people flustered enough from Rumor Mills that Interdiction made no wave or what?

And why so secretive about the corp neutral current?

The more we see of those data packs, the more I want to see all those new criminal toys. There *has* to be something. Stop toying with our hearts FFG!

The absence really feels deliberate by now.

I'm really liking Equivocation as replacement for the soon to be decommissioned R&D Interface.

As with Turning Wheel, I find it a more elegant design.

Nihongai

If the runner has less than two cards in his or her grip when a run on this server is successful, put one agenda counter on an agenda in your score area.

(At that cost, can't imagine it would be that, but damn that effect would be powerful... OH and no we understand why non-region unique from Rumor Mill)