Hello all, first off I want to say this, I LOVE THIS GAME, ok that out of the way. My question is this, I am trying to build a corporation deck and it is going to have 60 cards but I have a problem. The rules say that I can't have cards that are without an influence value, so getting more agenda's for my 60 card deck will never be legal. ie. I want to build a Weyland consortium deck and I want to use lets say cards from Jinteki to get my deck legal. I need 4 agenda points, I can't use anymore from Weyland because I can only have 3 of the same type cards. So I want to use Nisei MK II, but I can't because of the rule that I stated earlier. It has NO influence value. I also can't use the neutral cards because all I have is the ones from the core set and there are three of them already in my deck. So how do I get around this? I have some ideas but I am stuck with not knowing if I am reading these rules right. Yes I know I can take out the agenda's that are affiliated with the Weyland deck, but I like them and I want to just add the Nisei MKII cards. So what do I do? Thank you for you input.

At this point, corp decks can only be 49 cards at most do to the limited agenda pool. New agendas will be released in the monthly data packs that will allow you to increase your deck size.

Malgamus said:

This is true with 1 set, I believe, but NBN and Weyland can go beyond this limit with multiple core sets.

Excuse me, I think only NBN may go over 49 cards. Weyland gets 21 agenda points with 3 of Posted Bounty, and 3 Hostile Takeovers.

And yes, Decker, you are reading the rules correctly, but keep this in mind:

This is only the first set, and I've already seen new agendas in the works for the booster sets, which means that increasing to 25 agenda points becomes feasible.

However, as you say, since all the corp agendas currently have no influence cost, none of them may be included in other corp decks. This means that with 1 core set, no corp deck may exceed 49 cards (I'm pretty sure this is true, I'd need to review how many agendas NBN get in a core set, but I'm pretty sure it is limiting to 49 cards).

If you grab another core set (which is by no means neccessary to have a really nice competitive deck), you can go up to 6 NBN agenads for the respective deck, and increase the deck size.

The metagame may prove otherwise, but my thought is that decks will benefit from the minimum deck size. Consistency of draw I imagine makes for a more consistent, better deck.

Dogen2112 said:

runner decks yes. Not Corp, with corp you want the max you can get with your agenda count.

I dunno about that. Back in the day of the original Netrunner minimum deck size was pretty much the standard for both sides of the game. I haven't seen anything here to indicate that it would be any different. Of course I have little actual play experience on this version so I could be wrong.

Generally speaking smaller deck sizes make it easier to draw what you need when you need it.

papy72 said:

Aware of that. But when you can potentially die by being decked as the corp you might as well get the maximum you need to take anyway with your agenda count. No one I know believes any differently.

Runner on the other hand using the minimum deck size makes a faster, more streamlined deck which is good for the runner.

If you are getting decked as the Corp then something is wrong. By the time you are close to getting decked that means enough agenda points are avalible for someone to win the game with. I pretty much play exclusivelyas the corp right now and I always use the minimum deck size, and have never ever come close to being decked.

The closest I have ever come to being decked was in my very first game as the corp. It was the first game ever for both of us and we let it run on a long time as we tried to work out strategy, but even then I had 10 or so cards left at the end.

I have never been decked either. Closest I had 8 cards left. But why tempt fate. I still don't see any good reason to go down with the corp from the 49 that you are required to have with the agenda points.

The primary reason you want to max out the number of cards you're allowed per agenda as a corp is to decrease the odds of a runner pulling one on a successful R&D run especially if they're using The Maker's End. It also decreases the odds that you'll have a handful of agenda's for them to pull.

9 agendas in a 49 card deck = 18.3% chance of them pulling an agenda out of R&D

vs

9 agendas in a 45 cards deck = 20% chance of them pulling an agenda out of R&D

Reasons you'd go for the 45 card minimum anyways could be things like you're really just planning on Scorched Earthing them anyways so the sooner you have that card(s) in your hard the better.

You may want to try and make it a fast game in order to beat the runner before they can get firmly established. But that's a double edged sword because you could also draw your agendas before you're firmly established and be unable to protect. Playing with max deck size gives you better odds of drawing ice, assets, upgardes etc.

I'm interested to hear what people feel the benefits of playing a minimum sized corp deck would be.

In Original NR, I knew people who would play with more than minimum agenda.

Probably mad, but it has been done.

The logic is the same as going for a thin deck in anything else - maximise chance of drawing right cards.

V.

Toqtamish said:

Decker1613 said:

Forget the 60 card deck. You're better off going with a smaller, leaner, meaner machine. Go for the 45 to 49 suggested. A big, clunky deck moves slowly; specific cards become hard to draw or reach. This means setting up anything from an economy to your defenses takes longer and is less reliable. It's not easy cutting down to as small as possible- truly an exercise in gaming conciseness- but it's worth it.

If the primary goal is to minimize the chances of a bad draw, then the smallest deck possible is the way to go.

Consider the chances of drawing a string of five agendas in a row - what most people would consider to be poor luck. Since the number of agendas are (roughly) fixed, you have more or less the same chance to draw one agenda off a full deck. But as you draw agendas out of the deck, with the smaller deck your chances to draw more of them goes down faster than it would with the larger deck.

To put some numbers on it: in a 49 card deck with 10 agendas (assuming 2 agenda points each), you have a 20.4% chance to draw an agenda off a full deck. In a 99 card deck with 40 agendas, you have a 20.2% chance to draw an agenda off a full deck. But after you take the first agenda out of each deck, your chance to draw another drops to 18.8% for the small deck, but only to 19.4% for the large deck. Given two agendas drawn out of the deck, the chance for a third is 17.0% for the small deck and 18.6% for the large deck. That's not much, but over a lot of draws it can add up, and your chances for strings of bad draws goes up with a larger deck. (Your chances for strings of good draws also goes up - but good draws won't win you the game as quickly as bad draws will lose you it.)

Within a given fixed agenda range, however, the larger deck is preferable. For 10 agendas, the chance of drawing one from 45 cards is 22.2%; for 49 cards, it's 20.4%. Again, not much, but it adds up.

You can also reduce your chances of drawing an agenda by increasing the average agenda point per agenda card - say, from 2 to 3 (although there aren't quite the cards available yet to do that). But that brings into consideration other factors, such as the need to score the agendas, with 3 agenda point cards being difficult to score, so that's a decision that could go either way.

Bottom line: 49 is the optimal deck size if you want to limit the chances of agenda draws, either for yourself at the start of the game, or for the runner while he's raiding your R&D. 44 would be even better, but we'll have to wait for a corp identity that can offer that as an option first.

You just gave me a mathgasm. Thank you for understanding things.

Runix said:

I'm no math whiz, but something seems off here. Did you mean 20 agendas?

Yes, he did mean 20 agendas. I was so happy to see someone who understands the math that I missed the type-o