Over a year ago, I was really into Netrunner. I listened to podcasts, watched streams on twitch, played on OCTGN. I thought I was kinda casual....But I guess I wasnt. I even entered a store tournament and came 4th. That felt really good, and many of my games were close and fun. Netrunner seemed like the best card game i'd ever played.

Then I took a small break from netrunner and played other games. I followed the releases of cycles and data packs, bought them all....but I played very infrequently. My friends don't play netrunner. They think its basically Magic, but with cyborgs. I used to argue with them....then I gave up.

recently I tried getting back into Netrunner. I did my meager little attempt at learning the new meta. caught up on the lunar and san-san cycle. Then I realized, like I mentioned before and now know....I was never casual before. I'm casual now. now, i get utterly and completely destroyed. Even when net-decking, my grasp of the meta and card-base is clearly so poor that I don't even score or steal agendas. The players on OCTGN are all insanely better than me. I mean, by exponential factors. Even if I advertise a game as "casual" or "friendly"....I get stimhack league deck-tweakers that just blow me away. The only courtesy I'll get from them is a curt "fast turns pls" if they feel i'm taking too long.

I thought maybe playing locally would be better? I went to a few league nights and small tournaments. Same outcome, just nicer people. mind-numbingly fast defeats. My head is spinning, and I have to stutter stupid questions like "wow....what does that card let you do?". I felt like a new player, maybe worse? When I started in 2014 it wasnt this bad. There was another new player at the tournament, he plays a lot of magic. He got hammered as bad as me and I could tell by just chatting with him that he wasnt having fun. Its not cat-and-mouse netrunner. its not close games. Its insane meta-busting combos, games that end 7 or 8 to 0. I even got flatlined on the corps SECOND turn. Its as if the game itself is telling me "you're outmatched, son".

I can now see that you can't be into this game casually. You either have to play regularly, follow the meta, learn all the card interactions or the game itself will simply just leave you behind. Netrunner left me....now im just being informed.

I'll put this out there..right now it's regionals season, and a lot of people are really hitting the gym pretty hard to prep for major tournaments, and Gen Con is coming up fast. Much of the OCTGN meta is populated by Spike players who are trying to grind out practice rounds and "casual" or "friendly" tags just means a chance to play a low-stress game with their same killer deck.

I would suggest that you might have fun playing in some drafts, and talking to your local players to see what you're missing. Identifying what your opponent is playing and how best to respond is pretty big right now. It's no different from any other pastime...if you only play once in a while, you're going to get pwned by people who play every week and put more of their time into it. Either find people who want to play the game at that level, or decide whether it's worth it to you to try and get better.

Doesn't matter if it's Netrunner, or playing chess in the park, or playing poker...there are grinders everywhere.