Hi all,

About a week ago Netrunner piqued my interest and I quickly broke down and bought a core set. The game seems interesting and it is something I would like to try to get into competitively. However the game has been out for 2 years now and I am in that difficult position of not knowing where to start buying. I dig how it is much easier to collect than say magic and game I know fairly well, but from my neophyte perspective it is a bit daunting. Besides "buying everything" can anyone offer any advice of where I should start?? I've read a few articles but I would like to have a genuine conversation with any veterans of the game willing to offer up some advice. Thanks!

If you truly plan to go competitive with this game I would recommend getting at least one more core set and all the big box expansions as these will never rotate out of tournament play and should give you a solid base to learn the game. Other than that try to get a feel for the factions you would like to play and then research decks in those factions. Once you know the factions and decks you would like to play figure out what cards you need and buy the data packs containing those cards.

I think the reddit guide is still pretty solid.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Netrunner/wiki/buyingguide

However it is missing the Deluxe Expansions and the SanSan Cycle.

As some one "poking their head into this game" I am glad to hear it is not a case of "buy everything".

It's not "buy everything right away."

I would say definitely one or two core sets to start, and then go to netrunnerdb.com and start poking around for interesting decklists. Print paper proxies of cards you like or want to try out, and then, when you feel like you want to possibly go to a store tournament, Store Championship, or a Regional, you just look at the packs your proxies belong to, and only buy what you need.

You'll pretty quickly get a handle on what you want to buy and in what order. You'll say "I'm using 5 or 6 cards from Creation & Control in every runner deck, I should just go ahead and find that," or "I really only would use one card from A Study In Static, maybe I can just borrow that one from a friend for the tournament next month."

Maybe eventually you'll gotta catch 'em all, maybe you won't. Totally up to you.