Hi, I'm a longtime MTG player and I'm game design student. I've heard great things about Netrunner and just got in via a friend's old base set (he lost the deck of shaper cards but it's otherwise intact). I'm eager to start exploring the game and finding out about various formats on a reasonable budget. I'd love to get recommendations on how to have fun with the game and what the fundamental concepts I should keep in mind are.

Try out all the faction match ups you can!

Try out the different strategies and once you have a favorite faction or 2, go on cardgamedb and look up what sets certain cards come in.

Its a shame you are missing the shaper cards. Is it just those you are missing? Or the neutral cards too?

Its a really fun game, just keep playing, check online if you get stuck. Boardgamegeek has a thriving netrunner community, far more posters than over here.

Tips for expanding:

What Lies Ahead data pack for a bunch of new agendas. Creation and Control/Honor and Profit deluxe expansions. Opening Moves data pack for important cards in that set.

A second core set is also benefitial.

I'm a relative newb as well. I only play with my wife as I have no local players to interact with. I recommend playing the heck out of the core set. Get used to the factions and the basic rules. The community on here is very lacking in communication. I recommend googling android netrunner reddit and checking their community out. It is Active daily and previews and discusses many relevant topics to the game. Check out teamcovenant.com and their YouTube vids. They gave a huge following and are very enthusiastic about ffg all around. This game has tons of flavor in the android futuristic hacker vs. corp world. The asymmetrical aspect of this game is like nothing I've ever played. This is like poker on steroids and I can't recommend it enough.

Thanks to both of you.

And yes, I'm just missing the shaper cards. I've got the neutrals.

Check out the Netrunner section on boardgamegeek too, it's a very active community.

If you want just the Core Shaper cards, you can buy them fairly here: http://teamcovenant.com/store/shaper-identity-pack-core.html (Though a second Core Set is probably a better investment if you can afford it).

Nice one etherial, I'd forgotted about that!

Pick a runner faction to run with for a couple of weeks and see how you like the feel of it. Same goes for your company. Just focus on their cards, and look around for some injections from other factions. Then after a week or two switch it up to a different one. Then again. After a while you should get a sense of what kind of play style you like.

The only cards you need to memorize are pieces of ice. And despite all the different types, the basic foundation is:

Barrier <> Code Gate <> Sentry, that's all.

Then the icebreakers that break each of those

the Barrier breakers, the Code Gate breakers, the Sentry breakers. An AI icebreakers can break most any ICE except for Swordsman (jinteki)

That's a rough...

Night