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Netrunner
Netrunner involves a lot of bluffing, so deck design is less important. As a runner, you could have a great deck, but waste all of your time breaking ICE on the wrong nodes while the corporate player sleazes his way to victory. Or as a corporate player, you need to spread out your resources somewhat and not focus too much on any one node at a time, or else the runner will know where to focus all of his efforts. If you can't sucker the runner into attacking the wrong nodes at least some of the time, then he is bringing all his force against the right targets.
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I get so sick of debunking this myth, but if the myth gets repeated enough it just becomes fact in people's minds, so...Shellhead wrote: There are plenty of CCGs where deck-building is the most important part of the game. Build a really good deck and you can kind of play on auto-pilot. If the deck is really focused on a particular strategy, you don't even have a choice, you must play out your chosen strategy even if it's ineffective against your opponent's deck.
Netrunner involves a lot of bluffing, so deck design is less important. As a runner, you could have a great deck, but waste all of your time breaking ICE on the wrong nodes while the corporate player sleazes his way to victory. Or as a corporate player, you need to spread out your resources somewhat and not focus too much on any one node at a time, or else the runner will know where to focus all of his efforts. If you can't sucker the runner into attacking the wrong nodes at least some of the time, then he is bringing all his force against the right targets.
In classic Netrunner, in constructed play, deck design was just as important as it is in any CCG, and contradictory to the above claim, constructed Netrunner was *notorious* non-interactive, exactly what you describe in the final sentence of that first paragraph. Of course, there was a lot of play skill involved in these non-interactive decks, just as Storm decks in Magic are incredibly difficult to pilot, but not interaction. There is a reason the biggest Netrunner enthusiasts preferred to play sealed deck.
I realize that MTG was never mentioned above, just implied, but the most dominant Standard deck of the past few years, indeed the most dominant Standard deck *of all time*, was incredibly interactive and skill-intensive because of that (unlike combo decks which are skill-intensive but mostly non-interactive). In-game playskill is important in Netrunner, but the days of "decks that play themselves" in Magic is mostly long over, if those days ever really existed in the first place.
Edit: the Standard deck I'm referring to above is Caw-Blade, though if you follow Magic then you know that, and if you don't, that is meaningless info. And a great recent, Pro Tour-winning example of an incredibly difficult to play, but mostly non-interactive deck, is Eggs (by Stanislav Cifka, if you're googling).
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I like a lot of the cool new ideas FFG added to the game, though.
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There was a durdly deck late in Raw Deal's life that was all "draw and discard and recurse and do this and do that and do this" type deck. It was called Balls, because it was like the comboing player was sitting there playing with his balls. That's pretty much my opinion on non-interactive combo decks.
Netrunner is extremely interactive in all aspects, but not in old-school constructed. Like Aaron says though the base set corp starters need some serious help. It seems extremely difficult to stop a talented runner.
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Aarontu wrote: My friend who I play classic Netrunner with occasionally picked up the new one and we played a few games of it a couple weeks ago. The suggested decks are really terrible. The corp decks don't have nearly enough ICE, or ICE good enough at stopping the runner. And the cards that make good combos are all dispered throughout the different factions. Even with the money-maker cards, some decks just don't have them, which is bewildering; it makes for a slow, painful, game that feels way lopsided in favor of whoever has ANY money-making cards in their deck. You'd need to do some deck building to get the fun combos and faster-paced gameplay.
I like a lot of the cool new ideas FFG added to the game, though.
I am sure a large majority of this will be ameliorated when the expansions start rolling out. But yeah, games from the starter box often swing back and forth for me. I've played very few games where there was good back-and-forth between the Corp and Runner. I'm really wanting the new stuff to come out just so I beef up each faction a little more.
I think it remains to be seen for this new Netrunner how much bluffing vs. deck building will come into play.
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dragonstout wrote: In-game playskill is important in Netrunner, but the days of "decks that play themselves" in Magic is mostly long over, if those days ever really existed in the first place.
As someone who was a tourney player from Arabian Nights through Invasion, those days absolutely did exist, especially during periods like "Combo Hell" (aka Urza Cycle.) I've played every deck type ever invented, but I loathed combo decks with a passion. I seriously doubt that anything that disconnected will make it into FFG's version of Netrunner because the game isn't oriented in that fashion. Bluffing is quite important and I think it will continue to be, since the plethora of decisions matched to the limited pool of actions invites that kind of gameplay (as opposed to M:TG, where the limitations are defined by how many resources you can get on the table and type of spell/game phase, both of which are also present in NR.) I'd like to think that they've taken some lessons from the relative lack of success of CoC, where interaction is often not necessary or even wanted, and the greater success of GoT, where interaction is often key to deck performance (this is, of course, putting aside the relative popularity of the two games' licensed material.)
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Deckbuilding will always be important, no matter the game. But it won't get you far, specially if you netdeck and don't understand how the deck actually works. If you look at what decks the Magic pros played you will see they aren't overly different from what the kids are playing and are often incredibly standard builds yet they win over and over. I think it's the same in every game, deckbuilding is a barrier: You need to build a good deck, you need to know how to play it, but it won't win you the game.
This is something I have only understood recently so it left quite an impression on me.
The good thing is that they are going to avoid the flaws of the original Netrunner. Run-less Runner decks should just not exist, it's patently stupid yet they existed and were widely played. I read about Psycho Tycho and my conclusion is that it was broken because there were too many tricks to pull Agendas quickly, not because the agenda itself was anything extraordinary. Icebreakers were incredibly cheap and it seems like the game was much faster than the FFG version in a sense. So while I used to be incredibly wary of the factions and they do severly limit deckbuilding when you only have 130 cards per side, there's enough replay value in the box so that it doesn't quite matter and it will give the game a much needed design space for agendas and icebreakers, like the Vampire Groups of VTES prevented having redundant cards.
I also felt that once you get over the fact that you need around 20 Ice, which seems a magical number that comes out of nowhere, deckbuilding isn't as hard as I thought. Just start by pulling cards you think are cool and putting them together, after a couple of plays you will know what fits and what doesn't. It also greatly improved the general experience because the decks can keep going instead of panting and having to recover everytime they do something interesting.
The lack of triples for several cards hurts pretty badly, though.
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boardgamegeek.com/thread/896775/full-card-list-in-images
I've played ~10-15 games of Netrunner. It's definitely fun, and will be more so once you don't have to include the 3-point neutral agendas in your Corp deck that cause you to randomly lose sometimes.
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There was a durdly deck late in Raw Deal's life that was all "draw and discard and recurse and do this and do that and do this" type deck. It was called Balls, because it was like the comboing player was sitting there playing with his balls. That's pretty much my opinion on non-interactive combo decks.
What's worse, playing against a combo deck or a control deck? Control decks are my favorite to play, but not terribly exciting (think a like a Stasis or Capsize deck) when you are watching or on the other side of the table.
Even though a combo decks are non-interactive in the traditional sense, they are interactive in the sense that you have to "protect" the game state to allow the combo.
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I've only played NETRUNNER once, and it was a good time. I was Runner and just dove headlong into a fatty Trap he had behind three layers of Ice. Flatlined me. He had a FISTFUL of Agendas in his HQ, I should have been poking that. Here's my CCG/LCG tally:
MTG: Good
NETRUNNER: Good
AGoT: Good
MYTHOS: Good
YOMI: Good
HECATOMB: Bad
CoC: Bad
UFS: Bad
POKEMON: Bad (if only because it's shitty MTG)
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As of now, I am at
MtG
LotR
I am on the fence about the Star Wars LCG - but, I might just stick with the X-wing Minis game and not bother with the LCG. Haven't played AGoT or Warhammer yet - and I probably won't.
Given how much the CoC LCG has languished, I might put it up for trade on BGG or maybe just send a shitload of cards to my Secret Satan.
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jeb wrote: MTG: Good
NETRUNNER: Good
AGoT: Good
MYTHOS: Good
YOMI: Good
HECATOMB: Bad
CoC: Bad
UFS: Bad
POKEMON: Bad (if only because it's shitty MTG)
I like Mythos because it's thematic and fun, but there are several problems with it. First, it's too easy for a competitive player to break the game with phobia cards. Second, the game suffers from a pacing problem, because many people freeze up after refilling their hand to a dozen cards or so. Third, except for phobia cards and the cosmic battle phase, the game plays like multi-player solitaire.
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- Erik Twice
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Why not both? I'm printing proxies for post-ban Trix and it looks so cool!Space Ghost wrote: What's worse, playing against a combo deck or a control deck?
This. Have to say, even if it lost a good chunk of it's power when I was forced to run Pyroclasm on Tooth and Nail after Moment's Peace rotated out I loved the idea of beating everyone in the face and then going off.Space Ghost wrote: Even though a combo decks are non-interactive in the traditional sense, they are interactive in the sense that you have to "protect" the game state to allow the combo.
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jeb wrote: MTG: Good
NETRUNNER: Good
AGoT: Good
MYTHOS: Good
YOMI: Good
HECATOMB: Bad
CoC: Bad
UFS: Bad
POKEMON: Bad (if only because it's shitty MTG)
Oh I like this. I will steal:
MTG: The best, but only in draft
Netrunner: Only played sealed decks from the base set and it seemed too same-y over time. I remember when it came out we played it a lot for about 2 months and then it completely disappeared
AGoT: Base set only played like gimped MtG. Better multi but not better enough.
Hecatomb: I like Hecatomb. Cards are really cheap now. Not sure it lasted long enough to provide variety in the strategies. Doesn't play well multiplayer seems like. The stacking thing could have been horrible but works well.
L5R: The second best. Haven't played in ages though. Games took forever. Multi was decent but took even more forever.
Pokemon: Light fun. Haven't played in ages though.
Warlord: Weird fun but each set was more broken than the last. Supplanted by Summoner Wars IMO.
LoTR LCG: I really wanted to like this and bought waaay too much. But it sucks.
LoTR Decipher: Sucked worse.
Star Wars: Worst distribution scheme ever and slightly bizarre gameplay killed it.
LBS: (Legend of the Burning Sands) Why did I get rid of my collection? Oh well. Coulda been the best but killed by Rolling Thunder.
Omen: After one play, good and refreshingly different from Magic.
WoW: Bad, crappy Magic.
Spoils: Bad, crappy Magic. But very funny.
Vs: Bad, mathy. The Power Grid of CCG's.
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I'm not so much seeing how many players find that the corp controls the pace and information of the game. The runner, by determining when hacking attempts are made and where, will determine when and how quickly resources are spent. Some of the tricks up the hacker's sleeve (especially the blue criminal guy) are just as nasty as the traps the corp will set. Add to this that the runner can feint an attack by jacking out after the first ice, and I'm finding that there's equal room for bluffing and head-games on both sides, which was a great surprise.
Lots of room for expansions here. For instance, I'd love to see some ice or programs that allow the hacker or the corp to link networks, allowing or forcing a run to shift to a different node. Right now the deckbuilding is fairly limited, but this will improve with time. I don't see why a second set would every be needed. Some players might like to have a few premade decks with the extra cards I guess, but I'd rather just come up with a new deck on the fly between games. I personally find that more fun.
I never got much of a chance to play this game when it was out in the 90s, but I'm happy that I got a chance now. Might be as good as Jihad or L5R as far as CCGs go, which I consider high praise.
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