This is about the tournament ruling.

What does the 65 minutes per game mean? 65 for player 1 corp against player 2 runner and then another 65 minutes vice versa? Or is it 65 minutes for both games in total? If the latter, when do you start the second game? After 32 minutes 30 seconds???

Not that I'm anywhere near participating in a tournament (being from Germany) but the times given (even 65 minutes for just one game) make our games seem somewhat loooooooooooong. Although they rarely take longer than 80 minutes per game, I don't see us finishing in 65 minutes on a regular basis let alone in just over half an hour.

Or are games never really meant to be played through, instead sticking to a tight time schedule, which would give an advantage to those decks, that can get into play fast.

Page 4 of the tournament rules:

"Players play both games over the course of 65 minutes. The second game is not started until the first game is completed."

It's meant as a limit for playing both games. The second game begins after the first ends.

Don't worry, you'll get faster with practice. I've been in small tournaments and a time limit of 75 minutes per round was sufficient to play both games to the end. Maybe with even more practice, we'll manage 65 minute rounds.

Is this practical? Most players have three or four hours to play. Although, we haven't sanctioned a tournament yet, we want people to play and not feel burdened. With four-to-six players, we have discussed that the first pair roll a die to decide who plays Runner, who plays Corporation. Then the players move on to Round #2 with a different player. Same selection process. Finally, the players move on to Round #3 and another pairing. That way the tournament lasts three or so hours. This seems much more practical and would ensure that players keep participating.

3 Rounds would take 3 hours and 15 minutes. Which is pretty short tournament really. And that way every round is a complete experience with people getting to use both of their decks against each opponent. A much more fulfilling experience and more true to the nature of the game.

Toqtamish said:

Looks like you are correct.

Here is a Washington, DC tournament report (Labyrinth Games) held on November 4th:

http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/879798/washington-d-c-tourney-report

In that DC tournament, we had ONE match where the first game finished at 60 minutes. (I know, because I was the Corp during that matchup in the first game, and the Runner was taking a long time to do things and was making a lot of mistakes, such as installing over MU limit).

All other matches were fairly fast, at the rate of about a turn per minute. That speeds up a bit when the Corp draws, knows they're going to turtle and just draws 3 credits. The turns slow down a bit when something interesting is happening, such as a complicated Run or the decision process a Runner needs to go through to determine if they can run the Server the Corp just did an install-advance-advance on.

65 minutes is a reasonable amount of time for two reasonably experienced players to complete two games. The takeaway is that if you can't play to that speed, don't enter a tournament because you have the very strong potential to screw an opponent if you don't get into the second game of your match.

byronczimmer said:

This is horrible advice. Sorry. Everyone should be encouraged to go to any and all tournaments they can go to. It's a good experience, gets players meeting players, helps to grow the player base and can make players faster with the practice and experience you gain from tournaments. No one should feel discouraged from playing in a tournament because they are worried they might not make it to the second game and will affect their opponent in some possibly negative way.

Not to mention there's nothing like practice and a tournament is the opportunity to meet new players. Also games can finish very quickly too if the runner is bold and gets lucky/unlucky (I once played a game that finished on the runner's first turn in a tournament).

Ser Folly said:

Hi,

I recently played in my first Android:Netrunner offline tournament. It took place in Bacharach (Germany) and it was great fun!

We used a time limit of 90 minutes for both games, which allowed us to finish almost every match. If we had used a time limit of 75 or even 65 minutes, we would have had to cancel about every second match. So the official time limit is much too short in my opinion, and most players in this tournament agreed.

In the OCTGN online tournament, games lasted even longer (except for some fast flatlines).

However, with new cards showing up that allow faster gameplay (e.g. faster draw engine for the Runner and lower difficulty agendas for the Corp), a time limit of about 80 minutes might be reasonable.

Cu, Frizzler

Frizzler said:

I think it is a matter of experience. As people get better at the game the time limit becomes more reasonable. It is just right now the game is still quite new and people are still learning all of the ins and outs of it.

I was in this tournament, but I've been in other offline tournaments (16-20 players) where the time limit was 75 minutes and most rounds were finished on time. Like Toqtamish, I believe experience will allow us to play faster.