If you brought these decks to a tournament and got disqualified because you didn't check their legality, that's on you, not FFG. You should always be up to date on the most recent tournament rules, and if you're netdecking (which is effectively what this is) it's up to you to ensure that the deck is legal for the tournament you intend to play in.

Card restrictions will constantly evolve and change. Some may stay, stay may leave, New ones will be added.

Up to the tournament goer to stay appraised.

As far as I have seen the product isn't even released yet, so I'm calling troll on this guy.

I'm not sure what's the point of having a world champ deck for a LCG:

I mean: the whole point of LCGs is that everybody has equal access to all the same cards as everybody else.

...

Well not all LFGS have each of the Data packs in stock and also like a good publisher FFG doesn't keep a heavy inventory so often sets that have powerful cards (aka Opening Moves the 1st pack of the Spin Cycle) are awaiting reprint which means many players don't have access to the same card. Also some players don't need every card just certain cards from certain packs. These world championship packs are a great way to get those cards that are in high demand packs.

I imagine there will be a warning somewhere on the product stating that it may not be legal for tournament play with a link to the MWL. The MWL can change and it's possible they will print cards that help lower the power of the restricted cards so they can remove them from the MWL, making these decks legal again. They may even have a list of suggested changes to make the deck legal, but that could become obsolete as the MWL evolves.

Whether these decks are tournament legal or not, they're an excellent first taste for newbies. With typical discounts they can get started with two solid decks, one for each side, for a little over $20, instead of core (sometimes multiples) and a number of deluxe sets and datapacks just to get a nice deck for one corp/runner.

I'm going to buy one of each because I'm tired of waiting for reprints, and it's getting costly to strike packs off my wish list. I like the new design of the cards too.

They're still in development, which is strange for a "ready" product. It could be that they're still designing a list of alternative cards to make them tournament-ready.

They're still in development, which is strange for a "ready" product. It could be that they're still designing a list of alternative cards to make them tournament-ready.

They've been on the boat since May 18th.

Going to be at least another couple of weeks until "shipping now" then. At this rate they'll have made everything about the decks illegal before they arrive

so "on the boat" actually means "just sitting in the harbor".

"Slow boat from China" is a thing nowadays :/

It means they are on the way from the printers now as of May 18th. Will be a few weeks still.

Yep, first it travels for about a month from China to the central storage, then it's shipped to stores, which is estimated to take another couple of weeks. That's of course after the eternal limbo at the printer.

A better question (coming from a newbie like me) would be : Is the matchup between these 2 decks balanced, or skewed in favor of 1 or the other? If they are balanced I don't mind getting it to casually play with.

Chances are they are not balanced at all. Champ decks are usually over powered messes that win more by luck then skill.

Well how does that differ from any other card game (or card type setup game) to be fair you could say that about MagicTG, HearthstoneHoW, even X-wing with the whole dice mechanics.

I like this move, although I may not get the packs. I made a thread asking about the competitive power gap between those that have the entire collection and those who just have the big boxes. In a way these championship decks bridge that gap by bringing in powerful cards that would be in the rotation cycle packs best example Howard Jackson, it was one of the last cards I could get a hold of (I already completed the Lunar Cycle) because the pack was so sought out for that one splash.

Now that being said the rotation cycle is something to be concerned with. I am assuming that cards in these decks rotate out with their cycle and not just with the pack. Trying to make that clear for newer players is something of concern. Lets not forget after the NAPD Most Wanted I think one of these decks is now premier tournament illegal.

Still by simply making some of the most powerful cards in the game available and easily accessible in one pack instead of searching through an entire cycle will make the game more accessible.

Yeah it's something I notice in a lot of card build games. Players go for power instead of being crafty and creative with their decks.. I'm of the mind set that every card can be used in a deck.

Yeah I'm not a fan of the rotation cycle. I think the meta game is very lopsided, but with that said, I don't play in tournaments so if the tournament community likes it, that's their biz. When I play with friends we don't bother with whats illegal or what has been nerfted in errata, we just play I agree that giving players the option to get some of those harder find cards is a good thing.

A better question (coming from a newbie like me) would be : Is the matchup between these 2 decks balanced, or skewed in favor of 1 or the other? If they are balanced I don't mind getting it to casually play with.

Chances are they are not balanced at all. Champ decks are usually over powered messes that win more by luck then skill.

...are you even serious? This guy piloted his decks to victory against an enormous field of the best players, winning CONSISTENTLY. That requires skill. Even the DLR decks don't win by autopilot.

I have to take your word for it right now. I never watched the deck in action. So this guy never lost one match?

I don't know his track record across the whole tourney, he probably dropped a game or two, but he's the world champion for the second time running. That doesn't happen unless you know your decks (and the game) VERY well.

Yeah that does sound like he knows what he's doing. I just got the decks today, I'm going to play test them.

Dan D'argenio had 24 prestige after eight rounds of Swiss, meaning he lost only four games out of 16. IIRC his Corp deck went 8-0 and his runner deck went 4-4. He went undefeated in elimination rounds.

But this is not a matter of just being the best deck, it's also being the best deck for that tournament, knowing what other decks are in the field and how to play against them, as well as just being able to pilot your deck competently. Kaijudo is smoking crack though, if he thinks that Netrunner champ decks are overpowered messes that win by luck (a sentence which I can't even figure out how it isn't self-contradictory.) On the contrary, Netrunner champ decks win by being incredibly efficient and consistent. Corp decks that ramp up the difficulty to a state of absolute board control, and runner decks that are equally potent. Maybe it's like that in Magic but not in NR. Seriously dude, look at the decks that won in 2015, 2014, 2013. SMDH.

I'm going to give them a look. I'm not a Magic player, I've only played the digital games, but once those started coming out every year I stopped playing. The reason I said what I did about ANR is because I listen to a lot of podcast and watch youtube videos, almost all of them say a card is good or bad based on power. They say stuff like oh this card only gives you one credit for a run, its an awful card. So I assumed players on a tournament level were making power decks. I can admit if I'm wrong, so maybe I assumed to fast.

Sorry, but I can't believe that FFG would release a product like this. I am an inexperienced player, and have never played in a tournament. If I was planning on attending the next tournament in my area, and wasn't confident in my deck building or didn't have access to cards, and bought theses Corp and runner decks, sleeved them up, and simply showed up with my tokens and playmat, and then got disqualified in round 1 because for whatever reason these are illegal to play out of the box, I would most likely abandon the game. Are they issuing a large red banner on the cover that screams a warning to uninformed players like myself? Just seems wrong to me.

If they are going to do something like this, they should include the original tournament decks as the winners built them, then an insert with the rules changes, identifying which cards are impacted by subsequent rule changes, then offer alternative cards to ensure someone can sleeve up and play in a tournament without any additional purchases.

I agree.

That's completely impracticable. The tournament rules are a dynamic document that changes several times each year. The purpose of these products are not to make other product purchases unnecessary--at any rate you need the rule book and tokens that are included in the Core Set, which gives you more than enough cards to make updates to the decks.