Hey, everyone! I'm a new Netrunner player and am excited to start enjoying the game. My Core Set (I'll be able to grab another over the next month or so) and What Lies Ahead pack will arrive in a couple of days.

I wanted to ask you guys about which factions I might be most interested in playing due to my play style in other card games. I am a huge fan of FFG's Star Wars (own all the cards) and LOTR, and also used to play Magic.

In these games, my typical style is fairly defensive, ideally midgame. I play Jedi and Scum in Star Wars, mostly Spirit in LOTR with some Lore, and white and green (in that order) in Magic. Basically, I want strong defenses with some information-gathering abilities and healing, looking for a mid to late-game win.

My weaknesses as a player, ironically given my preferences, are that I'm not very good at reading my opponent and am prone to leap before I look.

I've looked at the seven A: NR factions by reading the introductory material to the game here on FFG's site from when it first game out, and checking out some cards in CGDB. I am thinking that, as a Corp, I would likely gravitate towards HB and/or NBN. HB has strong defenses and an efficient economy. NBN, meanwhile, lets me draw more cards, it seems, and I like the fact that it uses tags to put pressure on the Runner in various ways.

For Runners, I'm most interested in Criminals. I usually don't like to play super fast or aggressively, but what draws me to Criminals is their skill at information-gathering and bypassing ICE. It reminds me a lot of Spirit-sphere play in LOTR, with a bit of aggressive punch added. Also, their ability to generate credits quickly has me intrigued, since I hate the idea of having to spend one click for just one credit. Anarchs also look interesting, with the ability to build up their viruses as they see fit, and I love card recursion.

Given all of this, does it sound like I'm on the right track as far as possible factions for me to play? I apologize for the long post and the question coming out of left field, but I would appreciate a little guidance as I begin my NR experience. I'm very, very excited about Honor and Profit coming out soon. Seems I picked the right time to start the game!

HB (or Weyland) is probably what you are looking for. NBN and Jinteki usually are very porus. NBN tends to rush (score agendas before the runner is established) or fast-advance agendas (score them out-of-hand). Jinteki is all about porus ice and work compression.

In general, runners need to be extremely aggressive. I'm usually making 1 or 2 runs on the first turn if I have the resources and am confident enough. And criminals especially are early-game monsters, they are the definition of aggression in netrunner. Gabe ALWAYS wants to run HQ (can use Sneakdoor Beta via archives as well) at least once a turn if at all possible and Andy starts out the gate with 20% of her deck in-hand. Crims are designed to go on the offensive as early as possible with little or no ice breakers in play.

Anarchs or Shaper is probably the route you want to go. But they also need to get on the offensive quickly if at all possible. Shaper as a lot of recursion and installing on the fly (Clone Chip and Self-Modifying Code) and are generally the swiss army knife of runners. Anarchs can take longer to build up and their viruses can do dangerous things (a well-timed virus purge by the corp can ruin their day, though).

I'm pretty much in the same position as yourself in the fact that I'm fairly new. HB is a good place to start with the Corp IMHO. Engineering the Future is a really solid identity as it almost always means you get an extra credit a turn. They get some decent money making assets allowing them to get a cash flow going. Their ICE is pretty solid but a lot of it can be bypassed by the runner spending clicks. This is good as it costs the runner time but also means the runner can break though without needing to invest as many credits.

With my experience of Runners Criminals are probably the most agressive out of the three factions. They have ways the get round Corp defences (especialy in the early game) and can bring a lot of pressure to bear early on. I personaly like Shapers due to their rig building. There's nothing nicer than having a really good toolbox and knowing that you can run anywhere.

Thanks for the advice, guys. My cards came today (yay!) and, once I'm done with this short essay, I'm gonna play a couple decks against each other and see what happens. I'm excited.

After really looking at and thinking about the cards, I'm definitely leaning towards HB, like you guys said. I'm still torn on my favorite Runner faction, though. Criminals have a good economy and I really love the idea of exposing cards, since I'm terrible at reading my opponent and/or guessing what he might have. But I'm also very drawn towards Anarchs, like I said. Only time will tell!

Incidentally, since I grabbed a copy of What Lies Ahead with my Core set, what are your thoughts on Whizzard as an identity and the decks that can be built around him? Is he more of an event guy than the more virus-friendly Noise? It's hard for me to conceive of an Anarch deck that doesn't rely on virus programs at this point, though...hmmm.

Whizzard decks have done well in some tournaments, the credits for trashing are always useful.

However, with your card pool the virus build runner would be a better choice.

Right now Shaper are dominating tournaments with the recent release of some anticriminal cards. One in particular forces a runner to discard event cards from hand, which I have seen used turn 1 against andromeda's 9 card starting hand.

Reina is a popular shaper ID these days and offers a thematic power build that doesn't rely on viruses.

Point of order: Reina is Anarch, not Shaper.

Whizzard decks have done well in some tournaments, the credits for trashing are always useful.

However, with your card pool the virus build runner would be a better choice.

Right now Shaper are dominating tournaments with the recent release of some anticriminal cards. One in particular forces a runner to discard event cards from hand, which I have seen used turn 1 against andromeda's 9 card starting hand.

Reina is a popular shaper ID these days and offers a thematic power build that doesn't rely on viruses.

Interesting...I think Reina looks great from what I've seen of her and her Caissa programs. It's great that the programs work like viruses but don't have to have counters to do their thing.

I'm going to be building my cardpool very slowly, one or two packs a month, because Star Wars is my priority, but I'll keep all of these ideas in mind. Thank you.

Netrunner is a game that's extremely sensitive to shifts in pressure and tempo. I have an HB deck that is as slow and deliberate as anything I've ever played, but even with that I need to upshift and downshift to respond to what the runner is doing...sometimes I need to build up for the long haul, and sometimes I need to hit the gas because there's an opening I can exploit.

Likewise, the more pressure that the runner can bring to bear on the corporation, the better. Always Be Running.