The subject asks it all. For those of you who had played, did FFG do a good job with this game?

And if you never played before, how did you enjoy the game/tournament?

I'm looking into trying this game out when it is released but I also have a group of folks that have never played the original release, so I'm trying to figure out if I want to grab it or not.

I didn't play in the ice breaker tournament, as I was playing in another game that conflicted with the scheduling, but three of my friends played in the Netrunner tournament, and one of them was top-4 (second seed going into his semi-finals game, but lost by 1 agenda point in the semis). A few random observations and thoughts…

Only those who had pre-registered for the tourney (1 of the 64 who were able to buy tickets online) were allowed to participate. Generic tickets were not allowed. I believe in the end they had 53 participants. FFG had a special second batch of Netrunner core sets flown in and sold on-site to anyone who had pre-registered but had been unable to buy a box on Thursday. I don't know how many people that was, but I'm guessing it was several of them at the very least, because there were quite a few people scanning the rules book 5-10 min before the tourney.

The vast majority of the players appeared to be new to the game (like me!). I think most of the top 8 were veteran players, but I could be wrong. My buddy who made top-4 was completely new to the game, but the four of us had been playing obsessively since we purchased the game on Thursday AM.

Kate (shaper) appeared to perform the best…3 of the top 4 runner decks ran Kate. Noise was the fourth. I think there was more diversity for corp factions at the top, though I think overall HB seemed a bit weaker and/or harder to play (great if you can get 2 big pieces of ice on something, but otherwise fairly easy to bypass simply by paying clicks). Criminal seemed to be the weakest runner. He's lightning fast out of the gate and I think most likely to win the early game. He really puts pressure on the corp, but if the corp can keep him back and/or remove his amassed pile of credits, the criminal loses momentum. It sounds like most people played him with lots of events and relatively little hardware/programs.

Flat-lining was less popular than my friends and I thought it would be. The friend who made top-4 flat-lined 3 of his 5 opponents (there were 4 prelim rounds, then semis) as the corp, but that seemed to be more the exception than the rule. Most of the corp players were winning by scoring agendas.

1x Core Set is probably enough for anyone except the most die-hard competitors. There are a few cards that I think would be helpful to have 2 copies of, such as The Toolbox (in certain types of builds), and having three copies of the NBN agendas and some of the other 2x cards is pretty nice. But in most games I think this won't matter at all. For the most part, the Core Set does a pretty good job of giving you the right cards at 3x vs. 2x. vs 1x.

Edit to the above: I saw on BGG the tourney had "56" participants, so I may have been wrong. I know A LOT of the players dropped after the first couple of rounds. Being an ice break tourney, I think some of the people just wanted to get a feel for the game. The tourney started late (scheduled for 6pm), and I think round 2 finished around 9pm or slightly earlier.

Thanks for all that info!

I think I will keep my eye out for more players input before making a decision. It sounds like new players really, really enjoyed this game right away.

Another quick question - Did you feel like it was pretty easy to learn?

What I enjoy a lot from Netrunner (original), is it is not as rules lawyer'y as M:tg (Magic the Gathering or Magic). The game rewards cunning and bluff much more than knowing when to play an instant. As Garfield stated, the cards play you a bit in Magic, something my circle of magic buddies begrudgingly agree with. Netrunner is the complete opposite, and a "perfect" play seldom exists.

As far as ease of learning, I think the core rules are no more complicated than Magic. Of course, getting into Magic can be a bit daunting, as there is a massive card base, and plenty of added rules. As far as netrunner, getting into the game at the core release means the library of cards is relatively easier to grasp. The rules are posted for Netrunner through this site (reply if you have trouble finding them, or if you have any questions).

The turnament was fun, but I feel there is too much luck involved. You only get to play each side once so if your economy stalls out it can spell disaster.

I would also be happier if the format wasn't Swiss. Though it's clear that FF dosnt want a competitive game with high stakes turnament like Magic, Chess, or Starcraft, so it isn't a big deal to be using a deeply flawed system.

Bomb said:

Bomb said:

I played in the Ice Breaker event at GenCon and it was a Blast. I had bought 2 extra ticket for friends, but they couldn't get the cards with the game selling out in 7 minutes, so they told me it was okay to sell the tickets, which I did, to a couple of guys that happened to be play testing Late Friday night / Saturday morning. Those guys were really cool and I was really happy that I could give them a shot at playing in the tournament.

I love the game. It's really strong. I can't pick out anything that I find wrong with it. Each of the 7 I.D.'s have their own style of play.( I can't wait to see how they each grow over time. )

The tournament itself was interesting. The 65min rounds seemed odd to me. The first game could take a while. I had 2 games run to time. One of those matches I lost because of time. The other game I won just as time was called.( This was the only problem I had. It's not something I think I'll come across at the local level. but I can see people building tournament decks that slow play as a way to win. )

The game I lost, was because my opponent didn't know how to play the game. He had only picked up his box a few minute earlier. slapped his deck together and was playing on the fly. This slowed our first game down more then I would have like. I feel it cost me the game. as he had to take a bit longer to read cards and had to be corrected on a few rules. I can't blame him really. It's not easy to learn any game without it right in front of you.

An other game that came to time ended up a draw. We started our 2nd game with only 20 minute left to play… So it took us 45min to play the first game.(Ouch) Since I was playing the running in the second game, I had to run the game a lot more recklessly then I would have liked. Still I was able to pull out a win (as time was called) in just under 20 min. Still this left me with a tie for the last Match. That tie pushed me and/or my Opponent out of any shot at winning one of those cool Netrunner playmates.

When it comes to the game, and the changes FFG made to it. I think the game is great. It's easy to learn. It has luck but that luck comes at some risk. A runner can crush a Corp in the race to gain 7 agenda points before the Corp can set up a good defense. But the runner takes the risk of falling behind or getting killed if he pushes his luck too far. The Corp can get a slow start but with some luck everything can fall into play with just enough ICE and Asset to push the runner to his limits while losing no agenda and setting up a few strong Nodes with lots and lots of ICE. All the while forcing the runner to burn credits on Sucker Runs that can get him flat lined….

I think the game is best collected by buying 3 core boxes. I was able to make 4 decks. 2 corp 2 runner with 3 boxes. I can build any deck I really want thanks to this investment. It's the best way to go, but it's not need. remember I lost a game to a player playing the game right out of the box.

My grade for Netrunner 5 out of 5.

cetiken said:

What do you consider the best tournament format for 50+ player, then? At this number of players, round-robin is just impossible, single-elimination is more flawed than swiss and multiple-elimination formats all take longer. I honestly don't see such deep flaws in the swiss format.

Also note that most LCGs and CCGs (including M:tG and AGoT) use swiss preliminary rounds with a single-elimination top X with seeding based on the swiss standings for their head to head (or team to team) competitions. So does chess, which is the game for which the format was created.

I really enjoyed it and can't wait to see where FFG takes the game. Off to a solid start IMO.

Tournament was awesome. I only got a set an hour before it started though so I had to throw my decks together really fast. As a result my runner deck was kind of terrible. My corp deck was decent, but could have used a little more economy. I had a blast overall.

Based on the card mix in core, I think even tournament players only need 2 sets of core. There aren't any cards you only get 1 of that I really feel you NEED to have 3 of in a 45 card deck. All the really core cards you get 2-3 of and a lot of the cards you only get one of are unique or more situational.

I can't wait until the first chapter pack. Corps could use some more agendas. Right now to hit the agenda requirements you have to take all your faction agendas plus all the neutrals just to hit it and none of faction agendas crossover.

Twn2Dn's friend was actually third seed… Don't feel like explaining it, though. >.>

Also, thanks to Lukas and everyone at FFG who helped bring back the game. I had never gotten to play it when I was younger and am pretty blown away by how much fun being the runner is for me. I thoroughly enjoy the play/counter-play of the game. It has a really dynamic feel to it that I haven't gotten out of any collectible card game I've played before. It never seemed to be about disrupting your opponent. It always seemed to be about figuring out where the traps were, where the agendas were, and what was the best way to go about getting them. I always found myself evaluating my opponent's economy to my own and making decisions on whether running was the best move. Sometimes I found myself in a situation where if I didn't run, I was wasting my own resources and yet not running was in fact the best move I could make.

On the Corp side it was a totally different dynamic. It's interesting one game playing mainly offense and then another playing mainly defense. Of course that's not entirely the case as the dynamic can flip on it's head when you get tags and Scorched Earth working together or playing Jinteki, but for the most part it was cool to play the Corp and try to figure out the best way to slow down the runner. I was always looking for the best way to spend the runners money. Force them to go through code gates that spent actions, spend money to break and discard traces, hit Toll Booths to drain their funds, it was a lot of fun playing both sides.

Of course the big test will be when the over-enthusiasm due to novelty will wear off. Only time will tell on that.

I played in it. I'm new to Netrunner, so I was still picking things up. I went 1-3 but refused to drop. I learned a lot and have been aching to play more since. I ran Noise/ Weyland. I really enjoy Noise's ability to wreck R&D. I can't stop deck building. I saw a ton of Shaper. I had no idea Kate was so good. Same with HB. Looking forward to the articles discussing top decks.

Very happy with the tourney. I like the amount of games but didn't like format. I really like a pool style of play. Form groups of 4 and play three rounds of pool play. Scoring each round the same is this tourney would work.

Winners from each pool advance to single elimination tourney. Any seeds not filled by the winners could be made up of the highest scores left.

I didn't do very well but I had a blast. The cut to only 4 with that many players was brutal, putting a lot of pressure on you to do well in every game. But it was a late-starting first shot tourney, so I understand why they did it that way.

The game has retained the best aspects of NR while updating and 'modernizing' some bits around the edges. The revised Trace mechanic, in particular, will make it a much larger part of the metagame than it was in the (clunky) original. The game plays differently than any other CCG/LCG I've tried; that was the case with NR and they've lovingly preserved it here. I am very happy with it (and with FFG for pulling out all the stops to allow me to but it on Saturday, after a very disappointing Thursday).

I do look forward to getting more deckbuilding design space, of course. In short, having loved the original, I can't wait to give FFG more of my money for more of the reboot.