After playing in my 1st World Championship and doing quite well, I was feeling very burnt out on Netrunner. I couldn’t really figure out why. I didn’t love the worlds meta, but it was fun enough that I still enjoyed most of my games. I eventually started to realize that rotation had removed a lot of what drew me to Netrunner in the first place and that I’ve always enjoyed. I understood that it was necessary, one glance at the decks people make in various community eternal formats can tell you why that is, but I still missed the classics:
- Clone Chip Parasite
- Desperado Security Testing
- Hitting your head against a Caprice only to get stopped by a Nisei Mk 2
- Happily stealing an agenda only to get 17 tags from Midseason replacements the next turn.
- Stacking Eli 1.0s
- Saving yourself from flood or trashed agendas with Jackson Howard
- Install take 2 with EtF
These interactions really made Netrunner what it was for me. I wanted to bring them back in a way that didn’t feel broken or frustrating, and I think I’ve done that with this format.
What you Need
2 Really Big stacks of cards (lists in the links below)
Corp: https://meteor.stimhack.com/decks/Qsmp5oBCTxc2kParN
Runner: https://meteor.stimhack.com/decks/msr3KynYHwngKTJry
(These lists are subject to change as more cards are released and as I play more and make changes. I’ll post updates whenever I change more than just a few cards. I highly recommend playing with them as they are before making changes yourself.)
Enough cards from the draft starter (listed below) for all the drafters.
2-3 copies of some select Identities (also listed in the next section).
The Rules
Every player gets a draft starter of:
3 Hedge Fund, 3 Jackson Howard, Unlimited Priority Requisition
3 Sure Gamble, 3 Armitage Codebusting, 1 Crypsis
At the end of the draft, players can include as many or as few cards from their draft starter as they like.
Draft Corp First, making 5 packs of 10 cards each. Everyone looks at a pack of cards and picks one card, passing the rest to the left in packs 1,3, and 5, and right in packs 2 and 4. Then repeat with runner in exactly the same way (except if you have 6 players then runner will be 5 packs of 9 cards, this is OK because having more players actually very slightly advantages runners for reasons I won’t really go into, but that you may realize as you play).
After you draft, build a legal deck (minimum deck-size 45) with unlimited influence. Then count the influence that your deck has from each faction. Agendas count as 1 influence per point they are worth (For example: Project Atlas is a 2 influence Weyland card for the purposes of this count). Then select an ID from the faction from which you have the most influence (in the case of a tie, you choose your faction from between the tied factions). Remember that the Jackson Howards from your draft starter count for NBN influence!
Your ID choices are:
HB: Engineering the Future/Cerebral Imaging
Jinteki: Personal Evolution/Palana Foods
Weyland: Argus Security/Gagarin Deep Space
NBN: Making News, Near-Earth Hub (If you think your group can handle a bit of added complexity, use SYNC instead of Making News. The 40 card minimum opens up some cool deckbuilding options for people who under-drafted agendas, but it might be a bit too much to think about for less experienced drafters.)
Shaper: Kate “Mac” McCaffery/Rielle “Kit” Peddler
Criminal: Andromeda/Gabriel Santiago
Anarch: Reina Roja/Maxx
Some drafting tips:
- As Corp, keep your agendas together as you draft and keep track of how many points you have drafted. Try to get to 20 if you can, but at least make sure the number you are missing is a multiple of 3. Getting to 16 points and cutting a good 2 pointer than you drafted for a Priority Requisition to get to 20 is just a bummer.
- As Corp, keep track of your ice a bit. After each pack check if you are on pace to have enough ice. You don’t necessarily need 16-17 (my best deck so far had 13), but it’s easy to get so caught up in taking money, win conditions, agendas, and fancy tricks that you forget to take that Enigma. It’s also a good idea to try and get a variety of ice types.
- As Corp, don’t be afraid to abandon your plan and adjust if it is early in the draft. If you take a Boom! early but then don’t see any good tagging cards for a while, try to re-orient yourself, and don’t force your deck to be something it’s not. Conversely, keep an eye out for powerful but situational cards that other players pass on. An 8th pick Scorched Earth in pack 2 is probably a signal that you should consider changing your deck’s direction. If you can move in on a Tag or Net Damage deck when other players are avoiding those cards, then you can spend early picks on strong universal cards like Restructure and Eli 1.0, while getting your key Data Ravens or Fetal AIs with late picks.
- As Runner, make sure you can break most ice. You have a Crypsis, so you won’t get totally locked out of the game if you forget to draft a Fracter, but he’s obviously not an ideal plan A. That said, don’t tunnel-vision on having a solution to every possible ice. Assembling a full rig in this format is difficult and slow, so focus on having answers to common cheap ice before you worry about how you’re going to break an Assassin or Fairchild 3.0.
- As Runner, make sure you draft enough money to pay for your toys. You may have to take that Day Job over that Medium in pack 4 if you are low on economy picks. Power cards don’t do much if you can’t afford them.
- As Runner, an easy card type to overlook is card-draw and stack-searching. The Corps have a lot of strong and cheap early-game ice, and if you are only clicking to draw to get your answers you may find yourself rushed out of the game. The card draw options are often expensive (Quality time, Earthrise Hotel) or Risky (Inject, Street Peddler), so make sure the card-draw you take works well with the rest of your deck. If you thought Self-Modifying Code was great in constructed Netrunner, it’s probably even better here.
How the Cube was constructed
Here are the guidelines that I used to construct this cube. I didn’t follow these 100%, but they represent my general thoughts and direction that I took. This format is far stronger than FFG’s drafts or the Stimhack cube, but still substantially weaker than constructed Netrunner.
3 Copies of Staple Ice and Economy cards (PAD Campaign, Enigma, Sweeps Week, Dirty Laundry, Diesel, Liberated Account)
3 Copies of Classic power cards, especially Corp Win Condition cards (Caprice Nisei, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Scorched Earth, Account Siphon, Parasite, Self-Modifying Code)
3 Copies of the game’s best agendas, apart from the defensive 5/3s and limit 1-per-deck agendas which are 1-ofs.
2 Copies of most reasonable Icebreakers
1 Copy of some fringe or Synergy-based Icebreakers
1 Copy of game-warping and non-classic power cards (Bloo moose, Faust, Obokata Protocol, Fairchild 3.0)
1 Copy of every reasonable Console
1 Copy of cards that are not overpowered, but create somewhat monotonous gameplay and so are annoying to encounter repeatedly (Magnum Opus, Employee Strike, MCA Austerity Policy).
0 Copies of cards that I hate (Mushin No Shin, Sacrificial Construct) and some hate cards that I thought would only detract from gameplay (Clot, Film Critic)
1 Copy of some memes (make sure your Brute Force Hack is a worlds promo!)
0 Cards from Terminal Directive because I haven’t bought it and don’t think it would change much for the better anyway.
The rest of the cube was filled out by numbers that just seemed right to me. Generally, more expensive cards are seen in fewer quantities since it is annoying to get passed a pack with no inexpensive options.
Achievements
If you want some added fun, make an achievements list for your playgroup. There are some interactions that are only possible in a format like this and it’s fun to see them happen. Some ideas:
- Get an extra Astro counter with Genetic Resequencing or Bifrost Array
- Get a 15 Minutes stolen twice in 1 game as Argus or PE
- Install Maw without immediately embarrassing yourself for daring to play with a 4/10 rated card
Final Thoughts
I’ve had an absolute blast playing this format. The draft and deckbuilding take about a combined 30-45 minutes, but get faster as you play more. The influence counting phase can be tricky your first time, but you get used to it quickly and may even find yourself keeping loose track while you draft to land the exact ID that you want! Feel free to drop me some feedback if you give this a shot, or ask me any questions about it if something was unclear. The best place to contact me is on the Stimhack Slack page @TheBigBoy.
Happy Drafting!
Run the Net 