New Way to Play

By zhentil, in Android: Netrunner Draft Play

I am excited to play in this new format. Do you think this is a viable way to play?

Meh, I'm not impressed. I already have all the cards I need. I'd rather just do a cube draft with the cards I already have. Why buy more cards when I already have them. I also have zero interest in draft.

Only way I'd be interested is if they include alternate-art cards in the packs, but then it turns into the booster-pack random crap that I hate.

I think this format allows an amazing entrance to the game for people who aren't too sure about it. I know I'll be holding drafts for me friends who haven't played before. It's an easy way to get in an try the game with a large group if people. Plus, for me it allows a new way to play competitively. I'm very excited about this format.

I've had a lot of fun drafting other games before, and since one of the games I love draft is 10 years dead, I'm certainly not worried about drafting "useless" cards. That said, Netrunner is also the most expensive straight draft in a game I play, so I don't know if anyone else will be willing to try it to find out how good it is.

Edited by etherial

I don't care that I'll probably never use the drafted cards again; it's the experience of draft that interests me. My LFGS is hoping to do a draft night if there's enough interest; I'll certainly be sigining up to try it out :)

I like the idea of the draft, it looks like fun, but the buy in price makes no sense to me. You need the 4.95 starter, 9.95 Corp, 9.95 Runner, thats 24.85.... thats almost close to the online price of the cor set. why spend that much for a one time draft when you and your game group can chip in together and get a core set and do your own draft. I said this before, but I think they should have just sold the 4.95 starter set that comes with rules for draft, the runner and corp id with the extra agendas

Maybe because Draft sets offer a type of experience that creating your own draft doesn't?

Draft packs have a certain weighting of cards, meaning that some cards will be rarer in draft, that Core and Datapacks won't.

They also allow for you to find (and deckbuild) more than three copies of any card into your deck.

By all means, make your own draft, but the Draft packs are marketed for people who are looking for a different experience to that.

You're paying $25 dollars for convinience. Sure you could make your own cube (and for the record I don't think just buying a single core set would work for drafting as there is not even close to enough option to actually have working decks) but then youhave to use your own cards that you use for playing the regular format and drafts are not necesserily that gentle on cards in general. Plus you have to figure out a balanced amount of ice, icebreakers, economy, agendas, and support cards to include in your cube. Making a good cube is not an easy task (although I know in magic some people liked creating cubes more then they actually liked playing the game). So FFG did the hard work for you. If you don't feel like that's worth the $25 then I can certainly understand why you won't be participating.

Also look at it this way. Drafting is another way of supporting your FLGS which can be good for you and netrunner in general. If the only profit your FLGS sees is selling a couple of datapacks per month @$15 then they may not be that excited about supporting and growing Netrunner. If drafting takes off it means that it might makes sense to support league nights and standard tournaments as well, since creating a new customer might mean more then just the $15 dollars a month they currently represent.

Also look at it this way. Drafting is another way of supporting your FLGS which can be good for you and netrunner in general. If the only profit your FLGS sees is selling a couple of datapacks per month @$15 then they may not be that excited about supporting and growing Netrunner. If drafting takes off it means that it might makes sense to support league nights and standard tournaments as well, since creating a new customer might mean more then just the $15 dollars a month they currently represent.

This. Magic Drafts are how most FLGSs pay their rent. Everything else combined makes up the profit. If you want your store to love Netrunner, try drafting.

I like the idea of the draft, it looks like fun, but the buy in price makes no sense to me. You need the 4.95 starter, 9.95 Corp, 9.95 Runner, thats 24.85.... thats almost close to the online price of the cor set. why spend that much for a one time draft when you and your game group can chip in together and get a core set and do your own draft. I said this before, but I think they should have just sold the 4.95 starter set that comes with rules for draft, the runner and corp id with the extra agendas

I think the option that makes the most sense is rather than do a single winner for both sides, each side should be a separate competition. My understanding is that the Runner side of things is horribly overpowered anyways. Might need to make assignments random to make sure the distribution is even, but it's "draft" so you could make that as a part of the draft as well. (Or more like a lottery I suppose).

is there a list of the starter card somewhere online?

is there a list of the starter card somewhere online?

From BoardGameGeek

There are 16 cards in the Draft Starter.

1x The Shadow (corp) / The Masque (runner) (double sided)

2x Armitage Codebusting

3x Crypsis

5x Priority Requisition

2x PAD Campaign

and 3 cards with 4 pages of rules (the other 2 sides are the front and back cover of the pack).

This should be standardised across all packs, and you should only ever need one (as long as you don't throw them away ;) )

The problem I see is that once the draft play is complete, the $20 that you spent on cards doesn't hold any ongoing value.

In CCGs, draft acquired cards could be used in constructed decks. You may not walk away with $20 in cards, but you should walk away with at least $10 in singles you can use (or trade for cards you need).

What value do used LCG draft packs have? Beyond filling in the 2nd/3rd copies of cards that only shipped 1 copy of in core, I can't see any. If the cards had different art, they would at least have some value outside draft play (while retaining identical functionality of the cards available in data packs).

For what it's worth, the $5 starter sets can be reused indefinitely. $20 a draft is still a lot, and it is awkward that there's not much of a market for singles cards in Netrunner. It's not like magic

I'm not sure exactly what kind of packaging algorithm they use to generate draft packs, but it probably won't be possible to just shuffle up all the draft packs and draft them all over again. The draft instructions tell players not to shuffle the cards before separating them into 10-card draft 'hands,' so I'd guess that they use a print-run and rarity system similar to the one used in Magic: the Gathering packs to ensure a balanced spread of cards. See http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_minisite_sec.asp?eidm=260&esem=1 for complete information.

By definition, an LCG draft won't have the same financial payout as a CCG draft like MtG. You can't win a 'money rare' worth over $25, and it will be difficult to trade cards because every data pack comes with three copies of every card. I am still interested in drafting Netrunner, and I think drafting is a great way to introduce new players to the game.

Yeah, its an interesting topic for sure. I can see myself doing it maybe once a month, but certainly not doing a weekly draft or anything like that. I'll have to see how it goes. I did enjoy the draft format in the past, and I might enjoy this just as much but there is only really one way to find out. And that is to run one in our local meta and see how it goes.

The price you pay is indeed for convenience, and supporting your local store.

If it's too steep for most people and if you have at least 8 (and ideally 12) people for draft, try forming two pools and just choosing one role (runner or corp) and playing that for the evening, squaring off against all other opposite sides in one game. Best players of each type gets a prize.

Eventually, you won't need to purchase the starter pack: it's a one-time thing. If I were the store, I'd invest in a number of those, and just 'lend' them to the players, just like MtG-stores have the lands in stock.

What remains is 10$: a decent price to pay for a night of fun, and (I believe) cheaper than Magic, though magic-cards have an intrinsic value (and NR cards don't).

Edited by Marginal0

I like the idea of the draft, it looks like fun, but the buy in price makes no sense to me. You need the 4.95 starter, 9.95 Corp, 9.95 Runner, thats 24.85.... thats almost close to the online price of the cor set. why spend that much for a one time draft when you and your game group can chip in together and get a core set and do your own draft. I said this before, but I think they should have just sold the 4.95 starter set that comes with rules for draft, the runner and corp id with the extra agendas

This is where I'm kinda at. The idea sounds fun but the price is wonky. If you draft well in Magic, it can help finance more drafts either through winnings or card trades or get you cards for your standard deck. This seems like you are playing $10 to play a few games with friends which would add up rather quickly. In addition with this being a LCG the extra cards are functionally worthless unless you get some of the ones left inexplicably out of the core. I think it really needs something extra to make it worthwhile unless stores start running drafting tournaments or something with them.

I'm all for supporting a local store, but buying stuff I don't need seems like an odd request. I think this should have been some sort of standalone release that came with a bunch of cards to make a cube draft or something. I really like the idea but the price seems highly prohibitive for something with almost no replay value which I think is the biggest problem.

Also it feels wasteful to just have piles of cards you get from these lying around that you can't use again. I guess you can redo drafts after you have a bunch but FF would need to have some instructions on how they are randomizing packs.

I mean thinking it over a four player draft would cost you $100 which is insane for a group to pay to play like three to four games with. That price point just gets crazier the more I think about it...

Edited by Radish

I like the idea of the draft, it looks like fun, but the buy in price makes no sense to me. You need the 4.95 starter, 9.95 Corp, 9.95 Runner, thats 24.85.... thats almost close to the online price of the cor set. why spend that much for a one time draft when you and your game group can chip in together and get a core set and do your own draft. I said this before, but I think they should have just sold the 4.95 starter set that comes with rules for draft, the runner and corp id with the extra agendas

This is where I'm kinda at. The idea sounds fun but the price is wonky. If you draft well in Magic, it can help finance more drafts either through winnings or card trades or get you cards for your standard deck. This seems like you are playing $10 to play a few games with friends which would add up rather quickly. In addition with this being a LCG the extra cards are functionally worthless unless you get some of the ones left inexplicably out of the core. I think it really needs something extra to make it worthwhile unless stores start running drafting tournaments or something with them.

I'm all for supporting a local store, but buying stuff I don't need seems like an odd request. I think this should have been some sort of standalone release that came with a bunch of cards to make a cube draft or something. I really like the idea but the price seems highly prohibitive for something with almost no replay value which I think is the biggest problem.

Also it feels wasteful to just have piles of cards you get from these lying around that you can't use again. I guess you can redo drafts after you have a bunch but FF would need to have some instructions on how they are randomizing packs.

I mean thinking it over a four player draft would cost you $100 which is insane for a group to pay to play like three to four games with. That price point just gets crazier the more I think about it...

Nothing you say is wrong (well a four player draft would cost you $25 dollars unless you were paying for all four people and even that would only be the first time and then it would be $80 but that's not what I even wanted to discuss) however again there is absolutely no need for anyone to play this who doesn't want to. The reason why this exists is because people were litteraly begging FFG to do this. The main "turn-off" of LCGs has always been "...but I can't do drafts and my favorite part about Magic has always been drafts" So FFG created a draft for those that were complaining. That's it. If you're an economical gamer (and there's nothing wrong with that) but still want to draft then please create your own cube from your collection and invite players to draft with you for free. But if you're an ex-magic guy who has a hankering for spending some dough on some cardboard then you can now do that without having to go back to Magic. Everyone wins.

Also I don't understand the whole waste factor. Perhaps you've never played Magic but in magic there would be maybe 1 card out of 5-10 booster packs that was worth keeping, the rest would usually be trash. I would either give my commons to whoever asked for them after the draft, or tape them to deck boxes, or make wallpaper out of them, or use them as coasters, or build awesome card houses out of them, or just do this . All of this can be done with netrunner cards just as well. Seriously if you know someone who is just starting to get into netrunner give them all of your extra cards you draft. That way you may help them get into the game faster and you'll have another person to play regular games with.

Agree completely. You should know pretty much immediately if you're interested in draft or not, and if you're not, then you're not the target market :P

Drafting in an LCG will always be different than in a CCG. I'm not going to go out and buy random draft packs speculatively to try and get one-ofs from the core set, but I WILL buy draft packs to play in draft events. And when I'm done with that event, I might never use those cards again, but that's ok. I bought them for a purpose which they served. Next draft I'll get new cards.

As for value, frybender has it spot on. I have several friends who play M:tG and they have boxes and boxes of worthless cards they got in boosters. Keeping a single card from every booster is actually considered a pretty good haul for most people. Granted you can mitigate this through trading, but it's still an impressively wasteful distribution model. LCG draft packs are no worse than this.

I have played Magic and while I have tons of useless cards, I also have cards I've sold for $40, cards I've traded away, and cards that I've put into standard decks. I've also given my unwanted cards to younger players who have used those in decks. None of those are options with this draft method. Drafted magic cards can be used due to the design of the overall game, while in a LCG they cannot (unless you are doing some weird ass starter deck "just to see" but due to Netrunner's complex rules I doubt that there will be a lot of people drafting who don't already play). Drafting with Magic also costs about $15 and this is $20 if you already have your starter. The price point just seems REALLY out of whack for what is a game you play once.

If people are literally begging to pay that much just to draft I guess that's fine but it seems like this isn't going to attract a lot of people outside that very specific subset of a demographic and it could have been a bit more inclusive to people that didn't realize that drafting was going to ever be an option.

Edited by Radish

I have played Magic and while I have tons of useless cards, I also have cards I've sold for $40, cards I've traded away, and cards that I've put into standard decks. I've also given my unwanted cards to younger players who have used those in decks. None of those are options with this draft method. Drafted magic cards can be used due to the design of the overall game, while in a LCG they cannot (unless you are doing some weird ass starter deck "just to see" but due to Netrunner's complex rules I doubt that there will be a lot of people drafting who don't already play). Drafting with Magic also costs about $15 and this is $20 if you already have your starter. The price point just seems REALLY out of whack for what is a game you play once.

There's no rule that says you're not allowed to have more than one deck constructed.

In our facebook community (italian) we were complaining about the same issues you wrote here and we came up with a simple yet (imho) very neat idea to justify netrunner drafts price: alt art.

If in drafts you could find alt art card instead of future releases cards, nobody will ever complain anymore about the price of draft packs, people could even buy those packs for the sake of finding this kind of cards (and that would be a shame).

However, we (italian community) decided to write something to FFG and here I am, Do you think FFG people that counts will have the opportunuity to read this suggestion or there are some more direct ways to do it?

And moreover, do you think alt arts could justify the dear price or not?

thanks in advance

Federico

I would write to FFG directly.