Android: Netrunner General - /anrg/

There's plenty of lore written already that'll give you much better references.

Corps in the lore tend to install ICE with power proportional to the importance of what they're hiding in the server, so one could infer that better ICE is more expensive, and having no iCE at all is even cheaper.

Runner skill levels also vary, and some are content to hack small companies for small profits.

Where could I find this lore?

Worlds of Android (link in the OP under "more resourcers") is sort of a lore Encyclopedia.

Then there's these novels and novellas: fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/android-novels/

Meanwhile I'm 2-1 with this budget (i.e. not glacier at all) glacier deck

Thanks. Going to dive into this.

>Team Covenant is older, have much less passion for Netrunner, and are focusing on L5R and Star Wars games

Have fun! It's a very cool Universe, the actual netrunning is just a tiny part of it

Ah, both are "mostly, but not entirely, no" - ICE is generally pretty heavy duty - there might be some notional ice protecting any given digital system, but it'd be trivial for a runner.

As an example, cracking a PAD (a tablet/phone) is about as hard as jailbreaking is today - even if that PAD belonged to an NBN exec - the runner wannabees in the novella, and Gabe as a youth, cracked them.

Private Network domains could certainly be protected (and off-the-shelf ice is a thing), but without a fair bit of investment behind it it'll not be too hard to crack.

As for "regular hackers", a Scrubber is used as an example - they just wreck stuff, so that kind of level of hacking is not quite "professional runner" tier

>2.0 art

Pretty cool so far.

So basically anything that's not ICE/breaker tier is easily cracked or ignored. That makes sense. That's what I was going with but I wanted to make sure that the setting supported this.

Well yes and no - if you're not a pro runner, ice or ice-like protection will likely stop you in your tracks or reduce you to brute-forcing; some breakers are more available than others - there's Cloud-based stuff and commercial ice-breaking tools.
But for anyone who's good with it, no, only ice will provide much of a challenge.

Is this game worth picking up? If I just buy a single revised core set is that enough to play with friends?

Makes sense.

Yeah, a single box has both runner and corp cards so only 1 box is needed.

Yeah it's pretty good.

With a single revised core, it kind of works like a boardgame - the core set is designed that if you just get that and nothing else, it's still a reasonably fair and balanced game.

You can then expand your collection if you enjoy it - it's usually recommended the second purchase is a Big Box - there's 4 faction-pair ones, though Data and Destiny is the odd one out, and one with 4 factions and a small (kinda meh) "campaign".

For expanding your collection/competitive play, the only annoying thing is that the Core set (and ONLY the core set) has some 1-of and 2-of cards (because they're strong), and you'll likely want the maximum of 3 of them (because they're strong) - the new core isn't quite as bad as the old one for this - there's more cards in general, so you're not picking up a 3rd one for literally a couple of cards, but it's still shit.

Do people sell singles online or do I have to buy a second box to get them.

buying singles is seriously not recommended, a second big box (if you decide you like the game) is better as you'll be making use of most of the extra cards you get, though i'd buy either terminal directive or a deluxe expansion first

So
>buy a revised core set
>play it and see if I like it
>if I do buy a big box and then move to expansion packs
Is that right?

Yeah pretty much.
Singles basically are never a thing.

I know that, it's an LCG after all, but if there are just a few cards missing from the big box, I can imagine people selling them.

pretty much, but note that the big boxes (deluxe expansions) have cards for one runner faction and one corp faction, plus a few neutrals.

if you can't decide on a faction pairing you like the most, I would instead buy terminal directive after the revised core.

As far as singles, I know that at least the Covenant store sells them, so there must be others.

and if there's a chance you might want to play in tournaments, be aware that there's a rotation, and 2 entire cycles of cards are already illegal in competitive.

Is there no non-rotating format?

Currently, only kitchen-table casual, there's nothing official.

It's not quite as dramatic as it first sounds, as some cards from the first two cycles went into the Revised Core (but then half of original cor went away to make room for that).

A full non-rotating official format doesn't exist mainly because FFG can't be bothered, but also because some of the rotated cards are really strong, so working out what exactly would be balanced and implementing a banned/restricted list for the full cardpool past and present would be a huge ballache. Also some of the newer cards are rebalanced versions of some of these rotated cards (including buffed versions of super-weak ones) - not only would it invalidate some, it might also compound issues.

correct

There are people selling them, it's just that for it to be profitable for them, you will have to pay more for a whole set of extra one-ofs than it costs to buy a whole core set, and if you do decide to go competitive you'll ending up wanting each of them eventually

basically if you're casual you only will care to need 2 cores at max, and if you're competitive it's still more cost-effective to buy a third core anyway

not really, but trust me, there's a good reason for that, the possible combos would be absolutely horrendous to play against

There is, however a format which is much easier to buy into that might be going on (or easily persuaded to be going on) at your FLGS called cache refresh, it's a single core, Terminal Directive, one Deluxe Expansion and the last 2 cycles (including the current one, so at the moment that means one and a half cycles).

What are the best corp economy cards?

Hedge Fund
IPO
Bryan Stinson
Mass Commercialization (If you're Weyland)
Marilyn Campaign
Adonis Campaign

In about that order.

Oh, forgot Oaktown Renovation, Hostile Takeover, Corporate Sales Team and SSL Endorsement, they make bank too.

The honest answer to "what's the best X" will always be "depends what your deck is doing" - for example, Mass Commercialisation is a 0-cost Operation that often gets me 10c or more in my BoN deck, which is phenomenal value, but only because of the deck I'm playing.

That said, there's one econ card (Violet Level Clearance) that's good enough it's currently banned (mainly because there's an ID that abuses the shit out of it), so that'd be one way to answer.

Fucking around aside, some good econ cards are:

Marilyn Campaign - a decent econ asset in its own right, but what it has over every other econ asset is that it recurs itself, so you get to have that drip econ again and again and again. Drip econ in general is good because you're not spending clicks to make money, but often it'll run out. Less so in this case.

Breaker Bay Grid - not an econ card in and of itself, this region makes all assets and upgrades you put in the server 5c cheaper. You want to know how many assets and upgrades cost more than 5c? Exactly one. And it costs 6c. So this makes any asset econ free.

Ultraviolet Level Clearance - it's awkward to use, but it's a big econ boost. It can be wasteful - it eats up a whole turn and might well cause you to discard if you're near max hand size. However it gets a lot better in conjunction with:

Bryan (Barney) Stinson - like BBG, not technically an econ card, but an econ card enabler. He lets you Remove From Game any Transaction Operation from archives - no matter how it got there - to play it ignoring all costs. Your basic Hedge Fund goes from a 4c gain to a 9c gain, and things just get better from there. Your opponent does have to be poor for him to work though - protip: pack tools to make them poor

Celebrity Gift - this is a pretty good econ card anyway, having a fairly good gain for a low cost, but its the other bit of this card that makes it notable - revealing a hand full of deadly traps and/or agendas is great mind games.

Cont.

As mentions, econ agendas are good stuff. Money + points is good news.

Oaktown is probably the best of the lot, despite having the lowest actual payout, for one reason - it takes away the econ hit of advancing agendas. The others pay out - hell, SSL Endorsement pays out when stolen as well, which may well prove to be excellent (it's very new), but Oaktown lets you score an agenda from a single credit.

Another new card that seems likely to make the ranks of "really good econ" is NGO front, because it looks like a 5/3 agenda, and is instant speed trash (and unlike ol' Tommy Haas, it actually makes money). So its main purpose is runner-baiting, but it still makes decent money.

As said, there's some deck-dependant econ cards that are really good - Jinja City Grid, Mass Commercialisation, Diversified Portfolio, but they're welded to the kind of deck you're making (glacier, advancable-ice, and asset spam, respectively)

You can check whether a deck is CR legal by hovering over its legality status before starting.

Granted it could have been pre-Kitara CR, but still.

My deck wasn't showing as CR legal either due to, I assume, a card from CotC so I gave him the benefit of the doubt. In hindsight you're right as my deck also said it was casual play only.

At least they actually did an updated series of how-to-play Netrunner.

>Jinteki wants to flatline the runner with net damage from ICE, traps, or Ronin/Neural EMP.
>NBN wants to tag the runner and do...?
>Weyland wants to flatline the runner with meat damage.
>Haas Bioroid wants you to spend clicks..?

I see HB as being all about time management and efficiency with their ways of gaining extra clicks and taxing the runner's clicks.

Tagging the runner gives you a lot of control - you can limit their resources, make them poor, and otherwise fuck with them.
You can also import weyland stuff and kill them.

HB is about being efficient and powerful - you work faster and better to close out the game.
You also limit the runner's options with Brain damage and the click denial thing going on .

Jintkei have a lot of harassment tools, but closing for a kill can be surprisingly hard. Especially as everyone knows Jinteki have damage.
Weyland's kills are often combotastic, and the runner can usually see them coming and prepare.

Not him but I'm just starting out and that sounds like the kind of deck i like in other games. Are they good?

What do you hate most about Netrunner?

They're pretty great, yeah.

HB has always been flexible and often just straight-up good. Their fundamentals are very strong, and stretching for efficiency is usually good and effective

The current meta has HB decks as some of the strongest, with one ID in particular having a number of very solid builds, and there's quite a few other things that are pretty good outside of that ID
Incidentally, this "dominating" ID is set for a shock at the end of this cycle - the thing that kept if from being (and, importantly for a game with quite a strong "hivemind", kept it from being seen as good) good before is coming back into the game after leaving with rotation, albeit in a more limited way

Cool, I'll give it a try. Thanks, user.

______________________________________you______________________________

My favorite card rotated.

>favorite card
>that

Boom would be too good for you

Even if don’t wish to use that particular ID, their latest one (Asa Group) is a fairly decent ‘standard’ ID, albeit one that can result in hilarious board states with certain cards.

Alternatively, Architects of Tomorrow (AoT) can sorta do the same but with a much greater emphasis on Bioroids, which are usually more expensive to break compared to other ICE, at the cost of being somewhat porous.

they did, and that's how I found them.

One other thing to note is that not all runners see the same thing when they run. Reina sees a run as a multilevel chess game for example, while Chaos Theory has a more classic "dive in" type where the breakers interact behind the scenes. Then you have the card illustrations and flavour text to go on too, like Corroder "peeling away layers of ice".

HB is all about click advantage. Click advantage is huge.

unironically not having 3 copies of every card in the core set.

aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA
definitely this. Seriously fucking awful.

Not enough bonus prizes for buying side materials like the novellas. Not enough side materials, for that matter.

Do most people run AI breakers, or is that in niche decks? How many turns does it usually take to get a non-AI breaker suite together?

Honestly, I wouldn’t mind if some of the existing 3-offs were reduced to 2, and the 1-offs upped to 2 instead.

But otherwise, you don’t really need 3-offs for most of the cards, while many important staples do come in 3-offs at least.

Amuakua (an AI breaker) is a very common feature in many decks, so yes to the first part.

The second part can vary, but between shaper tutoring and anarch mass drawing, setting up a non-AI rig can be done fairly quickly.

AI breakers are usually backup, an all purpose breaker with limitations that you can use when you need to get in that server right *now*. No AI breaker rigs exist, but depending on the breaker there's no reason not to run a 1-of if you can. For example in the expanded card pool you can probably do without a Crypsis, a 5 to install, 0 strength AI breaker that trashes itself unless you charge it up, but Eater can safely get you through any ice while giving up the access, and Aumakua charges itself up as you make runs, so it is eventually more efficient than regular breakers.

As for how many turns, it depends, since sometimes you want to keep the breaker in hand until the corp installs an agenda behind a piece of ice they thought you couldn't break. With good enough draw and or tutors, you can get a full rig up relatively quickly.

I don't think Jinteki "wants" to flatline with net damage, rather they use net damage to deter runners from stealing their stuff. Flatlining is just a pleasant side effect.

I've always seen net damage as a tempo stealing effect more than a killcon. You lose valuable clicks drawing back up, and that makes you lose tempo.

It's sort of like how I justify BoN's ability - it extends the earlygame by sapping the Runner's tempo little by little, letting you set up faster than them and ultimately ride that wave to victory.

BoN with token manipulation cards is also basically "saving" your tempo for a power turn, which is pretty cool too.

Damn, reading all this I'd like to get back into Netrunner...sadly, noone in my regular gaming group plays it and I stopped collecting around the Lunar cycle...

Do eeet

BoN I really like - advancable ice went from this jokey janky thing to actually effective; it can do the ping damage, it can make ice taxing/superior (and in one case, both), it can be like half your economy, and it can fuel your FA/power turn.

With ReCon and Wonder ice (when are we going to see the rest of those?) it can see play in decks that aren't focused on it, which is amazing, but decks that DO focus in it can be really genuinely good (though you'll likely give up some options, such as reliable kill)

hop on jinteki.net

>No Elizabeth Mills cosplays anywhere to be found

she's so hot, lads

W-wanna play?

HISSSSS

At least one of those 3 would be making a re-appearance of sorts.

Whether it can save its parent faction from total obscurity remains to be seen.

Intrusion Cat Electronics

Makes me sad that, because it was OP, a card as thematic as Account Siphon is not in the game.

You'll have new players picking up Criminal and going, "man, Criminals really should have some sort of card that steal money from the Corp. Why else hack a rich corp when you are a criminal?"

Such are the pitfalls of paper card games I suppose.

Two, since D4V1D is tournament legal.

Man, that Rotato Survey result vid really brings back loads of memories.

>Press F

>3DPD

you can't have s-- I mean play Netrunner with 2D

>D-word used 1 minute in
>"This is the game we play"

No wonder

youtube.com/watch?v=OSdNMZdwMw0

I prefer the more subtle stuff to show that Criminals become runners to make a profit, but you're not wrong I suppose. Wonder how strong would a "the first time you make a successful run each turn, the corp loses 1 credit" ID be.

netrunnerdb.com/en/card/06014

>its natural partner

p-pls don't purge senpai

I mean just getting up to date with the data packs would cost me several hundred euros at this point...not really prepared to drop that much cash on smth I know I'm not going to play regularily ^^

You could build a revised core from the old cards and play that like you would a two player board game if you just want to play it sometimes.

...which is why I said to hop on jinteki.net

The once per turn proposition doesn't really line up with Lamprey (a card I'll never not love, incidentally, for going from "oh you play that?" to "heavy sweating + virus purge on install" in a matter of games).
The power of Lamprey comes from the possibility of repetition and into a headlock situation forcing the corp into the tough choice of a purge at a most inopportune time. That proposed ID would be more about long term erosion. I'd compare it to Reina really. Only with it the corp has incentive to rez on successful runs, better to use that money rather than lose it.

Easy way out, personal level: not being able to play as much as I'd want.
Medium difficulty, meta comment: the release schedule.
Hard mode, talking about the game proper: the fact that we cannot seem to find the proper equilibrium point where expose/data gathering has good innate value without turning the game into a too punishing state where a single incident - not even mistake - (something like face-checking and being hit) can cost you the game.

>I don't think Jinteki "wants" to flatline with net damage

This is the corp that develops Agendas whose sole purpose is to kill the runner trying to steal them. Of course they want to kill it. They're just in cat mode, they love to play with their live toys.

>the fact that we cannot seem to find the proper equilibrium point where expose/data gathering has good innate value without turning the game into a too punishing state where a single incident - not even mistake - (something like face-checking and being hit) can cost you the game
Preach.

>This is the corp that develops Agendas whose sole purpose is to kill the runner trying to steal them.
That's still more prevention than "wanting to kill" though. You know, the "I trust you won't steal this, it hurts very bad if you steal this" shtick.

>That's still more prevention

Look at it that way: the agenda (I was really more thinking of Fetal AI to be honest, that card cracks me up) does nothing but hurt the runner. It does *nothing*. Its point is in the hurting and the creation of a kill window.
At the very least, if you don't think Jinteki wants to kill, there's some twisted sadism behind it.

Cheers user, I misunderstood you - I think back when I used to play it was just a deck builder/card database, didn't know you could actually play the game through it now!

Fetal AI is the same, "hey what are you doing, you're not supposed to see this baby, have a zap". The only non-Runner triggered net damage (that I remember) is Ronin, most of the others are basically punishing the mouse for trying to eat the cheese. Which as you say, definitely has some sadistic intent.

I guess it's a matter of framing things.
One can think of Fetal as worth two points and as such still be worth scoring. But truth is, in use, at least to me, Fetal was more like NAPD, you could score it and did at times to grab a win when the conditions emerged, but the main use was the damage and deterrent. It was the erosion kill enabling.
I mean, it's a 5/2 that's a very bad investment, the 2 points are the lie that CEO sells to investors, "of course we want that project finalized, it's just there sitting in HQ because we want to time it right", but really the point is more that cat and mouse play whose end game is killing.
That's how I see it at least.

>The only non-Runner triggered net damage (that I remember) is Ronin

Don't dismiss poor Neural EMP. Regardless of successful run trigger, it's been an important part of the net damage erosion kill package since day one.

>Neural EMP
"Hey, I told you not to go in there, zap"

I see where you're coming from though, depends on the mindset of the player on how they want it to happen. Fluffwise though, Jinteki probably just chooses to have painful security measures, with the final zap for the kill being a "let's get rid of that one nuisance while they're vulnerable instead of letting them go again this time".

close enough

>"I'll never forget the first Worlds match, going down 6 pieces of ICE and then hitting a Junebug...that Netrunner is long gone."

You can just make it happen.

I'd link to some of my old fiction posted here as example, but that probably wouldn't be useful. Not a great writer.

The Reina novella goes into a modicum of details. Basically every runner has his/her own set of mental representations and metaphors to deal with programs and their workings while jacked in.
So one runner's rig is actually pretty more personal than the cards would suggest, being not just the program but the way it exists as a representation of its runner's mind mapping of the very process of running.

Chances are Santiago using Rook names the program thus, but has a way to perceive it that is pretty different from Reina's. Even if the effect ends up the same.
Probably should have a modicum of influence on efficiency of tools when used to. If each runner rig is its own idiosyncratic language so to speak, then borrowing from someone else's is bound to make you lose some fluency (hence influence, I guess). Though I'm mostly extrapolating here.

Man, today taught me why every glacier deck was running Howard. Even with 9 agendas in your 49 card deck, you can gel flooded like a bitch.

>Chaos Theory has gay parents
>Sunny got BLACKED
>INDIA SUPERPOWER 2020 came true

how progressive