Hi folks, I'd like to know if the decision on rotation for A:NR is final (seeing as the game mechanical ramifications for it are still strongly questionable,) and if it's final, will there be an officially supported eternal-type format? I'd hate being in a situation where rotation only takes out of the strategic variance and depth of A:NR in terms of the card pool.

Rotation is only for sanctioned tournaments and will not kick in for over a year, maybe two. Even then it will only be a single cycle of cards. I do not see how this will do anything but help the game.

It will be up to your local meta to decide if gameplay outside of store championships or regionals can stil include all cards. Your own casual play will not be effected at all.

Rotation is only for sanctioned tournaments and will not kick in for over a year, maybe two. Even then it will only be a single cycle of cards. I do not see how this will do anything but help the game.

It will be up to your local meta to decide if gameplay outside of store championships or regionals can stil include all cards. Your own casual play will not be effected at all.

The problem is our local meta is extremely competitive and we pretty much have no casual play aside from one or two people. It's either nationals, regionals, championships or training/deck teching for tournaments. I see rotation as only good in terms of the card pool if overpowered combos arise. Other than that, we're only straight up losing competitive deck types and possibilities.

But gain new ones with each cycle. There will always be 8 cycles worth of cards to play. and new combos and competitive decks to create, develop, learn to play. Rotation forces you to lean, evolve, grow with new cards rather than become stagnate with something you already know. To stay competitive you need to rethink what is new and ignore what was wining last year.

Whenever rotation happens, we will not only have 10 more data packs remaining in play than we have right now, we'll have at least one more Deluxe set for NBN-plus-whatever. Additionally, they have every opportunity to design cycles 5, 6, and 7 to exist in a meta where Genesis and Spin cycle have rotated out.

So unless you think the game lacks strategic depth *now* and won't achieve strategic depth with five full cycles and several Deluxe sets available, you don't have a thing to worry about.

As far as competitiveness goes, competitive deck types and possibilities should go away and be supplanted by fresher deck types and more innovative possibilities. There will always be more builds coming down the pipeline.

But gain new ones with each cycle. There will always be 8 cycles worth of cards to play. and new combos and competitive decks to create, develop, learn to play. Rotation forces you to lean, evolve, grow with new cards rather than become stagnate with something you already know. To stay competitive you need to rethink what is new and ignore what was wining last year.

Well that depends. I, for one, would want both new and old deck types and strategic options to be available.

In my experience with Game of Thrones--12 Chapter Pack cycles and 6 deluxe set as we approach the reset--having a card pool of that size makes it increasingly difficult to balance and playtest cards. You want newly designed cards to be impactful, so there is always some degree of power creep. This leads not to the continued viability of older archetypes, but rather to a convergence upon the very few decks that are extremely efficient combinations of the old and new. So much more so in Netrunner since AGOT has much higher barriers between factions--Netrunner's influence system permits quite a lot of min-maxing by comparison.

Rotation disrupts this calcification. As the MTG designer in this article stated, " a metagame is more shaped by what leaves the environment than what enters."

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis

I'm sorry, but your vision of what a non-rotated environment would be like to play has a lot of evidence against it both from the biggest, oldest card game on the market, and from the biggest, oldest LCG on the market.

To answer your questions directly:

Yes, the decision is final.
No, there is no plan to include a Legacy format. It's hard enough cramming all of World Championship play into a single extended weekend without doubling up all the games with Standard and Legacy.

Also, rotated out pack cycles will be left to go Out of Print. Supporting a Legacy format would entail creating an aftermarket for printed material, varying rarity and demand and cost. This is contrary to the spirit of the living card game model.

In my experience with Game of Thrones--12 Chapter Pack cycles and 6 deluxe set as we approach the reset--having a card pool of that size makes it increasingly difficult to balance and playtest cards. You want newly designed cards to be impactful, so there is always some degree of power creep. This leads not to the continued viability of older archetypes, but rather to a convergence upon the very few decks that are extremely efficient combinations of the old and new. So much more so in Netrunner since AGOT has much higher barriers between factions--Netrunner's influence system permits quite a lot of min-maxing by comparison.

Rotation disrupts this calcification. As the MTG designer in this article stated, " a metagame is more shaped by what leaves the environment than what enters."

http://magic.wizards.com/en/articles/archive/mm/metamorphosis

I'm sorry, but your vision of what a non-rotated environment would be like to play has a lot of evidence against it both from the biggest, oldest card game on the market, and from the biggest, oldest LCG on the market.

Game of Thrones fell because of poor design decisions. MTG is uncomparable, because the design philosophy and designed purchase value of new sets and cards is different. New Netrunner data packs tend to make new deck types and variants possible instead of bringing new, full-on impact, thus making added strategic variance and depth the purchase value bait of new cards (though new staples do shift usual builds in some certain direction, yes.) A game with psychological and philosophical values correlating to justified game mechanical evaluation of cards, and a game which inherently encourages and builds deeply layered strategic synergy and mathematics with all the cards in a deck, simply can't be evaluated and developed in the same way that ultra-simplified games like Magic the Gathering.

I'm not complaining about the game not having strategic depth, I'm talking about most cards being bluntly only worth their value in strategic variance. A t this point we can pinpoint a lot of cards and mechanics that are tied to certain spesific cards and data pack cycles. We have the NEXT ice, for example, completely devoid on other synergy other than what they give each other (and what they can get off the Foundry and NEXT design et cetera, if we go so far as to count semi-synergies that go off from anything similar.) You can hardly make them overpowered except by printing new NEXT ice, so either we have to drop out completely functioning and healthy strategic options, or go into an endless cycle of re-introduction of old game mechanics. Thus I'd favor the restrict and ban system FFG has used in it's other games that has proven itself working (CoC LCG, for example.) As a competitive Netrunner player and tournament organizer I'd rather have not have five competitive deck types completely drop out of play for really no concrete reason at all. One worthy counterargument for this would be, though, that if Jinteki gets 100 different traps it'll be pretty redundant to guess what it is exactly since playing a semi-random trap can be a meta choice that will win a lot of games, but in that case (for example) not designing new traps very much after a certain point would make the point redundant. This is not to say that a limited standard format wouldn't be fun and all. I understand the thrill of a constantly changing meta with nothing old and the change being forced, but I hardly see it as the wishable standard for Netrunner. When most of our economy cards rotate out, FFG will either have to invent new and seemingly different flows for the games credit economy, or we'll start seeing cards too close to carbon copies. It all depends on if severe unbalancement strikes Netrunner. If it does not, there'll really be no reason to have limited standard as the main tournament format since it's only appeal will be limiting the card pool for fun (and not having to spike new players that want to have all cards.) And in the event that we want change, why not print (with each rotation) new deluxe boxes with certain selected old cards that fit in the "separate, healthy optional game mechanic" box, be it for variety or not. You are right, that the influence system makes unbalancement easier to occur, but does that justify a flat out wipe-off of separate healthy game mechanics, or cards that could work, but only in an immense card pool with enough cards to support weirder but competitively viable decks (Hellion Alpha Test, for example)? Why remove all cards from a cycle, if not even nearly all cards constitute to the problems that arise if rotation is not implemented?

You are right, that the influence system makes unbalancement easier to occur, but does that justify a flat out wipe-off of separate healthy game mechanics, or cards that could work, but only in an immense card pool with enough cards to support weirder but competitively viable decks (Hellion Alpha Test, for example)? Why remove all cards from a cycle, if not even nearly all cards constitute to the problems that arise if rotation is not implemented?

If FFG asked you which cards they should keep available after rotation occurs, which would you pick?

WLA contains several cards that I'd consider necessary for the good of the game environment:

Peacock - Granted, it's not a very good codebreaker, but every faction should have an unrestricted, in-faction breaker for the big three ice types and it was criminal (excuse the pun) that this card wasn't in the core set.

Plascrete - It's not so much plascrete that is important, as that neutral counter for meat damage should exist, given that Scorched Earth is in core. It's nice that IHW won't go out of rotation, as its in a small box set, but a neutral card which nullifies one source of (meat) damage seems necessary to counter SE.

Don't forget Crash Space never rotates out either

I'm not super-concerned about neutral silver-bullets; at the end of the day FFG can and will print more and more interesting counter-plays to cards like Scorched, so if Plascrete doesn't get replaced I won't be too sad.

And nothing says they can't take a card that works well and place it in a new cycle with new artwork or slightly tweaked mechanics to 'renew' its rotation.

That's tricky, because then you can put both in your deck. Look at how strong JHow and Daily Business Show are together. (Which I think is an example where they're already doing what you describe.)