Netrunner Introduction Tournament

[mykonian]

Android:Netrunner is an LCG (living card game) by FFG, set in a cyberpunk theme. It's an assymmetric two player game where a hacker (the runner) tries to outsmart a big business (the corp) and get away with their dirty plans, while the corp tries to keep the runner out and carry out said plans. Both sides build decks for this, but moreso than magic there's also deception going on. The assymmetry goes further than having an attacker and a defender, corp also gets to lay traps, keep information about his deck hidden, while the runner can target the corps pile, discard pile, or even hand for attacks to see what's what.

As it is, there's a nice community online and there's even a free browser implemented version of the game where they come together. A couple of us already play there. Apart from the rules, which are unreadable and makes the game seem way more complex than it is, the barrier for entry to this game is as low as it's ever been. The online version keeps track of most stuff for you, and after a single game you'll understand what the rules were unsuccesfully trying to explain to you. Not saying you shouldn't read the rules, but one readthrough is probably enough, then you should try it

Now the cardpool has grown over time, and although it's not as bad as it looks on first sight, I get it could be intimidating. It's not as bad as it looks, because runner and corp cards are subdivided into factions. When building a deck, you'll largely use neutral and cards from the faction you chose. There are 4 types of corp, and 3 types of runner, so in every case you'll be looking at less than half of the card pool when you've found a runner or corp you want to play with. But this being a beginner tournament, it's best to be conservative, and play only with cards from the core set and the first 6 data packs (boosters). Core set only is a bit of a limited experience, the first cycle was designed together and while the meta changed, the game didn't after that.

Now if I've interested you, but you want to look at cards and or other info before you dive in, there's some links that could help you. For one, I do not advise using the jinteki.net deckbuilder. Cardgamedb's or netrunnerdb's have neat search functions which also with a couple of clicks let you limit it to the core set/first cycle, and they count the cards for you. After that, all that's needed to be done is to get the text-list of cards from them, and copy that into jinteki's deckbuilder. Netrunnerdb also has peoples opinions about individual cards, but the decks it shows are all for the full cardpool. For older examples of decks, stimhack.com kept track of tournament winning games, and otherwise this site features as the community hub anyway. The link you probably won't need initially, but should you ever be unable to figure out a certain cards interaction, is project ancur's which keeps card clarifications and rules.


So I wondered, if this was maybe something for you guys in mishmash. Maybe you've heard of the game, never tried it, or maybe it just sounds cool now. Then this is the opportunity to learn an amazing new game with friends! Catch me in sitechat if there's anything you want to ask!

/in:

MTD
Careyhammer
Leonshade
Zorblag
McMenno

Killthestory
ForWhomTheJellyRolls
Luna Fox
Cephrir
Frozen Angel

Chrimi
beeboy

[mykonian]

Tournament wise I kept options open till I had a clue how many people we had. If it stays at 4 round robin is probably sensible, everybody gets 3 matches. With more people that probably means too many games.

Deck wise, core+genesis (what lies ahead, trace amount, cyber exodus, a study in static, humanity's shadow, future proof) should be managable, the packs are small and tend to give 1-2 cards per faction (but some of those are agendas and give you the ability to actually do a little bit of deckbuilding).

[mykonian]

oh, sorry, I should have been more clear. I'd plan to have a match be both sides. In official tournaments nowadays they play one side against one opponent, the other against the next opponent etc, but that seems boring. The older systems had matches of two games (one each) and then had to figure out a tiebreaker if it was a knockout game. If we have a group phase of sorts, we can do away with all that and just have some fun games on either side, where a win is a win and it gets a point.

Troll should indeed put together a runner and a corp deck.

[mykonian]

Just letting them enjoy their holiday, don't worry about anything. You've joined the game, everything is fine.

[mykonian]

btw, I'd take the cardgamedb deckbuilder. There's a recent change in the current meta where the NBN agenda "astroscript pilot program" has been limited to one copy. Netrunnerdb enforces this, even for casual formats. And in this format, NBN becomes challenging, I suspect, without it's main agenda in that time. 3 copies of it are allowed.

[mykonian]

also with 6+ people, group is probably too much, and swiss is probably better. Magic tournaments tended to have issues as well with people staying interested etc, so 3 full matches is probably plenty.

There is the issue that as this is a beginner tournament, it's probably better to let people bring whatever deck they want to every match, and not go for the competative integrity of forcing decklists. That way people get to update their deck if it got exposed badly and won't be stuck with their initially thrown together list. But maybe you guys disagree?

[mykonian]

ok, lovely!

We have a solid group now, I'd like to start the tournament on monday, so you can get your decks ready over the weekend. Don't hesitate to ask rules or other questions via sitechat if you catch me there, to some fellow helpful scummers..

[mykonian]

everybody is

[mykonian]

I would not expect many people to have genesis only decks, no

and I'd like to spectate games but it'd be very surprising if I were on at all times you guys played. I don't know how feasable any promise there is

[mykonian]

I spectated a couple of games of KtS and MTD, uhm, quick things we ran into, and things I remember from my own newbie days/seeing other newbies play. Or stuff that's just not intuitive.


Inside Job bypasses the first encountered ice. Unrezzed ice does not get encountered. So to block an inside job, you have to have two ice rezzed, it won't do to just rez the second one.

On the topic of bypassing encountered ice, like with inside job or Femme Fatale, with abilities that trigger at the same time, the player who's turn it is goes first. So if you have femme targetting a tollbooth both abilities trigger at the same time, the runners goes first, the ice gets bypassed for 1 cred, and you don't have to pay the 3 for tollbooths on encounter ability. This is great!

Accelerated Beta Test, when triggered, creates a temporary window in the top left of the screen. Target the ice to get them, then drag what's left to archives.

"Hosting" a program can only be done as you play the program, unless a card says differently. So you have to have a Djinn in play so you can add Medium on it, you can't play medium first, then djinn, and host it.

You can act after a runner turn ends, but before yours begins. So you can rez PAD campaign right before your turn starts.

Wyrm is an icebreaker. For icebreakers to be allowed to interact with ICE, you need to have it at least the same strength. So you can only lower the ice's strength as soon as wyrm is as strong as the ice.

You are allowed to trash your own ice,

if

you were placing another ice in that server. The stacking cost is reduced. You are allowed to trash your own cards in a remote for free,

if

you were placing another card in there. You are allowed to trash your own programs,

if

you were playing another program. You don't have to be full memory. To trash anything else or without playing a new card, you need a card that allows you to do so, like Aesop's Pawnshop.

your deckbuilder maybe, and jinteki.net certainly, does not like it if you put 3 Astroscript Pilot Programs in your deck. It'll say that it's invalid, but I think it lets you play with it. This is fair game for our format. If you are worried your deck is indeed invalid despite that, I'll be happy to check.

You can rez cards in your server, like Ash after the runner has passed all ice, but before he accesses the cards in the server.

Using datasucker requires you to have encountered the ice, you use it in the same timing window as an icebreaker. This means that if Parasite is hosted on a data raven and you want to reduce it's strength to 0 with datasucker to trash it, you still get the tag... but you don't have to break the trace!

[mykonian]

well sort of.

Yes it's very strong, but every faction gets a couple of cards that are very strong. They define the way the faction plays, makes them feel unique. Now a couple of months with the full cardpool, NBN got a bunch of extra cards in the deluxe expansion, and astro, which had been strong for a while, became a limiting factor in the cool things they could design for NBN. So they decided to limit it to once per deck last week. It's still very strong with the cardpool you use, and NBN certainly isn't a weak corp, but otoh it's much more one of the few good things NBN has going, while with the current cardpool they had some other very good cards as well.

[mykonian]

So, first pairs are out!

beeboy VS Frozen Angel
Luna Fox VS Zorblag
McMenno VS ForWhomTheJellyRolls
Chrimi VS Cephrir
MTD VS Careyhammer
Killthestory VS Leonshade

Please find your opponent via pm, sitechat or other form of communication, and arrange a time where you both can play within (expired on 2016-08-12 00:00:00). You'll be playing both sides, so a match consists out of two games. Kindly report in this thread who won which. Don't be down if you lose your games, you aren't out yet! There will be more games to come, as we'll be playing swiss.

[mykonian]

oh ftr, if you netdeck, be advised that we used a limited cardpool here to ease you into it. Only core+genesis (the first 6 packs).

[mykonian]

So, first pairs are out!

beeboy VS Frozen Angel
Luna Fox VS Zorblag
McMenno VS ForWhomTheJellyRolls
Chrimi VS Cephrir
MTD VS Careyhammer
Killthestory VS Leonshade

Please find your opponent via pm, sitechat or other form of communication, and arrange a time where you both can play within (expired on 2016-08-12 00:00:00). You'll be playing both sides, so a match consists out of two games. Kindly report in this thread who won which. Don't be down if you lose your games, you aren't out yet! There will be more games to come, as we'll be playing swiss.

And if you both win one game, then what? Shouldn't we do best out of three? :b

nope, then you draw That's fine too.

[mykonian]

I've been bugging him on sitechat, he's promised me he'll play tomorrow.

[mykonian]

6 more hours, don't do this to me peeps.

[mykonian]

Results!

beeboy VS Frozen Angel: Beeboy forfeits.
Luna Fox VS Zorblag: Luna wins!
McMenno VS ForWhomTheJellyRolls: Menno forfeits
Chrimi VS Cephrir: Cephrir forfeits
MTD VS Careyhammer: MTD beats careys corp, carey forfeits second game
Killthestory VS Leonshade: Shared corp games.

That gives:

FA, Luna, FWTJR, Chrimi and MTD at 2 points.
KTS and Leon at 1
Troll, beeboy and Carey at 0
With cephrir and Menno out of the tournament.

Next matchups!

FA plays FWTJR
MTD plays Luna
Chrimi plays KTS
Leon plays Troll
Beeboy plays Carey

Please find your opponent via pm, sitechat or other form of communication, and arrange a time where you both can play within (expired on 2016-08-16 00:00:00). You'll be playing both sides, so a match consists out of two games. Kindly report in this thread who won which. 1 round down, still a couple to go till we know our winner!

[mykonian]

I thought I dropped out of this

Lets just call this round a tie

no, we have a guy who was about to get a bye, and 2 days to go. Lets see if we can get you into a game with beeboy.

[mykonian]

Results!

FA plays FWTJR: FA wins both games!
MTD plays Luna: They share corp games!
Chrimi plays KTS: Did not play.
Leon plays Troll: Share corp games!
Beeboy plays Carey: Carey forfeits

That gives:

FA at 4 points
MTD and Luna and at 3 points.
Leon, FWTJR, Chrimi and Beeboy at 2 points.
KTS and Troll at 1 point
Careyhammer at 0 points.

New Matchups:

Luna plays FA
MTD plays chrimi
KTS plays FWTJR
Leon plays Beeboy
Troll vs Careyhammer

Please find your opponent via pm, sitechat or other form of communication, and arrange a time where you both can play within (expired on 2016-08-20 00:00:00). You'll be playing both sides, so a match consists out of two games. Kindly report in this thread who won which. This is the forlast round.

[mykonian]

Btw film critic is a damn stupid card.

it's a sort of cool toolbox silver bullety card. There are worse cards.

[mykonian]

:'(

also wouldn't count it, but you are invited to bug kts to play some games (or anybody else really)

[mykonian]

Luna plays FA: share corp games
MTD plays chrimi: MTD wins game 1, forfeits second
KTS plays FWTJR: FWTJR forfeits
Leon plays Beeboy: Beeboy wins!
Troll vs Careyhammer: game doesn't happen

That gives:

FA at 5 points
Luna, MTD and Beeboy at 4 points.
KTS and chrimi at 3 points.
Leon, FWTJR and Troll at 2 point
Careyhammer at 1 points.

Final round!

FA plays MTD
Luna plays beeboy
KTS vs Troll
chrimi vs Leon
FWTJR vs carey


4 more days till we know who our champion is!

[mykonian]

indeed, FA shares runner games with MTD, taking her a point above the rest!

[mykonian]

I caught some games and spectated them, decided to have some fun and see if I could cast them a bit. My apologies for the sound quality. Last two games are the final.

[mykonian]

It's a shame I didn't get to see your games Zorblag, never was opportune. I think you were the only one who dared to build a noise deck, which would have been cool to watch!

[mykonian]

<3

So, deadline has passed now, the tournament is over. We got our winner, but indeed I hope MTD is not the only one who got into the game and I hope many of you will continue. The prospect of 4 deluxe sets of cards and just as many cycles to get up to speed may seem daunting, but this is where the design of netrunner helps you a bit. Designed as a living card game, but with balance in mind, the developers put nearly every defining card (read as strong) in the core set. The astroscript pilot program, the account siphon, the data raven or datasucker, they make the factions to what they are and to set everyone apart these are the real powercards. In all of the rest of the cards, I can only really point at 4 more of cards at a similar level, who changed the factions, or even the game, when they came out. Not that they became mandatory, but they opened up playstyles on their own. Cards to take note off would be Caprice Nisei, Self Modifying code and Clone chip (who help create some strategies, not mandatory, but cards that could solve certain problems for you), but most importantly Jackson Howard.

There's netrunner before Jackson came out, and after. He's not real power, but he's a swiss army knife of corp consistence, recently there've been more cards printed which are somewhat similar, but otherwise this card does it all. It's not broken in the sense that it will win you games, but otoh there's barely a strategy out there that Jackson would not help make better or reduce the risks of bad draw for. Nearly every corp deck has 3 copies of this card in it and it didn't change any strategies that you haven't seen from core games, but it did change the tempo of the game of netrunner. A card to consider then.

Nearly all of the other cards are essentially supportive. They help you make your deck unique, do something slightly more the way you'd like it, but few really change the game in a sweeping way. The game you've learned with core+genesis is the game you'd play with the whole card set, same strategies still get played, but how they match up have changed through time.

Which leaves one slightly annoying thing: For the longest time Netrunner tried to do without a ban list. And nearly entirely, they managed. Only astroscript pilot program has gone to a max of 1 per deck, to create design space. Otherwise, there's a system they set in place, called the NAPD Most Wanted List. Cards from this list reduce the influence on your characters card by one for each copy, to a minimum of 1 (to make a certain ID still playable, the exception is mostly for him). In practice this means that these cards cost you an influence, even if they are in your own faction. This has given the designer a dial to turn for the existing cardpool, but it makes the deckbuilding rules slightly more difficult. Otoh, the online deckbuilders keep track of this for you,


I think that was all. Ty for participating and I hope you'll enjoy this game for a long time to come!