I've been listening to the San San South podcast, and they discussed the idea of different formats of game-play and deck-building for Netrunner. I made this spread sheet of "Tiers" for each faction, each Tier representing the availability of the cards to all factions in this format. When deck building, players will have to spend more influence points depending upon the tier of the card, and I hope to see players fall back onto the less popular cards within each faction and make the most of strategies that they normal wouldnt play otherwise.

This is a spread sheet of the tier lists:

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1cBf7Cpiqgjs34G4ciButqZW6RYYkkJPurAUetstrcik/edit?usp=sharing

I placed each card in a tier based upon my opinion of whether the card is powerful, if I feel it is a staple of the faction's typical build, and how often I see it used out-of-faction. Below are the effects of each tier on the card's printed influence cost.



Tier 1 cards all have 3 points added to their influence out-of-faction and/or their influence cost must be paid in-faction.

Tier 2 cards have 1 point added to their influence out-of-faction. They cost no influence in-faction OR they have 1 point added to their influence in-faction.

Tier 3 cards cost their printed influence cost out-of-faction. They cost no influence in-faction.



I feel you can have several different kinds of deck building formats, each drastically different from each other based upon how Tier 1 cards are "taxed" in the influence costs. A flat 3-point increase to influence costs to tier 1 cards immediately shrinks the presence of the most competitive style decks, and limits the most iconic cards of each faction (Account Siphon, Scorched Earth, Magnum Opus, Datasucker, San San City Grid, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Snare!/Caprice Nisei). If you apply the in-faction tax, the presence of all Tier 1 cards shrink even more. If you apply the tax to tier 2 cards in-faction, I believe that is when players will be forced to work with cards they've never touched before, just to fill their decks.

I dont want this format to come off as a complaint against the current competitive meta of Netrunner. I don't feel any cards are overpowered (maybe annoying), and I'm seeing a wide variety of identities and deckbuilds, but there's a large portion of the card pool that I've never seen played. I hope to use this format to see interesting and new interactions between cards that I havent seen before.

I'll be posting this format here, and at several other Netrunner community sites, and I hope to hear feedback, such as suggested changes to the tier lists or the influence taxes, or even a new name for the format. If you have any suggestions, please let me know! I'll try to get my local group to try it out and report results.