Now, I see how this is potentially harder to balance, but so far we've seen no card that truly and consistently accelerates the rate at which the corp goes through their deck. Anarchs are leaning that way a little bit (with Noise's ability and Demolition Run), but has any corp player lost yet because they had no more cards in their deck? I'm wondering how much leeway FFG has for designing more cards that trash from the corp's R&D. It seems a little unfair that a runner getting flatlined is a very real danger, whereas a corp looking at an empty R&D seems rather unlikely. Your thoughts?

This is very unlikely, for the simple reason that Corps are required to have a minimum number of agendas in their deck.

By the time you get, say 75% of the way through the deck, you would expect that roughly 75% of those agendas are no longer in R&D. They have either been scored (meaning the corp wins), are in Archives (meaning you will win if you run Archives) or at HQ (meaning you will win if you run HQ). For this reason, it is almost always easier to simply focus on stealing the agendas that the Corp has accumulated in HQ or Archives rather than trying to mill the rest of R&D.

The mandatory draw and win/loss condition of having no cards left in R&D are in place so that the Corp cannot simply refuse to act. It is very unlikely that a viable deck will appear that makes it easier to run the Corp out of cards than it is to simply steal the accumulated agendas. The game is called "Net RUNNER ", because the run is the fundamental interaction of the game, and anything that undermines that is probably bad game design. This game rocks because of the interaction, which FFG will be keen to protect (and indeed, they are promoting this interaction by pushing the Trace mechanic).

I have been 8 cards away from being decked. That is the closest I have come to losing that way.

Old Netrunner I built a deck to deck the corp.

I ended up having to burn agenda to get the game to last long enough.

However, in the first St Albans tournament someone did get decked.

Slightly different draw and actively decking the corp (i.e. trashing the last cards in R&D) would have been an alternative (1 credit/right card off doing so) but it ended up that there was the option of potentially scoring an agenda (the corp could not at this stage) or passively decking the corp (i.e. letting the corp run out)

V.

Old Netrunner I built a deck to deck the corp.

I ended up having to burn agenda to get the game to last long enough.

However, in the first St Albans tournament someone did get decked.

Slightly different draw and actively decking the corp (i.e. trashing the last cards in R&D) would have been an alternative (1 credit/right card off doing so) but it ended up that there was the option of potentially scoring an agenda (the corp could not at this stage) or passively decking the corp (i.e. letting the corp run out)

V.

I can confirm that someone got decked at St Albans because I'm the one that decked them. However it was largely a result of my not realising that there were unrezzed cards in archives as they weren't turned sideways as they should have been (and I wasn't paying enough attention), so I was frantically running R&D trying to get the last agenda I needed to win.

Under normal circumstances I can't see this being a viable win condition (yet).

Easy way to kill corp R&D is the combination of medium (ideal 2 mediums with 3 counters or more) and demolition run .. 3 demolition runs with these 2 mediums cost 21 cards in the R&D even if you dont find any agenda there, there is a great chance to get him decked.

But its dangerous .. if he plays snare there is a high chance of just dying ^^

but only once i was left with 4 cards in the R&D before i won

It happened to me once, in a very long game against Noise…as Haas, I kept scrapping his icebreakers (and ran a couple of unsuccessful beta tests), and he responded by Parasiting my agenda server, leaving us in an late-game stalemate.

As Silent Requiem says, the condition is mostly just there so that games like that will eventually terminate; otherwise, I suppose what would have happened is we'd both sit there drawing credits until either he had enough to break into HQ or Archives (if ever) or I decided to play into a remote server (and probably lose).

Although smaller decks generally are preferable, the corp can make whatever size deck they want (subject to card limits and agenda constraints), which makes milling sort of a weird strategy.

I've seen it done, but only with Noise, a deck built to do it, and a player having a ton of fun watching the Corp just burn.

It's extremely rare- if at all possible- outside of that scenario. Even when running a 45-card deck and the Corp using clicks to draw a lot, the Corp has a lot of time with which to advance its Agendas (or have them stolen).

However, I imagine that once the expansions start coming in and accumulating, it becomes more and more likely as not just Anarchs but everyone else gets more and more tools to use for pulling it off.

Deck milling with Noise will probably become a viable strategy in the future with more and cheaper viruses and ways to more efficiently install programs.

But even then I doubt it'll get victories by running the corp out of cards. Once you've milled 1/3-1/2 of R&D, it'll be faster to win by cleaning up in Archives.

ffaristocrat said:

I suppose if Archers (ICE-Corp) and/or Data Dealers (Runner) were being used from both sides, it is certainly possible for a corp to deck out.

I wouldn't put it past FFG to put in expansion cards that give really good abilities at the cost of an agenda (or an ability that targets/destroys an agenda). The runners need to able to utilize the deck-out win condition in something else other than a milling situation and that puts the runners currently at a disadvantage because there are VERY clear Corporation decks that target the alternate winning condition.

But in my early days of deck building, I decked out primarily because I didn't put enough agendas in my R&D, which means I would have lost even if I had managed to win the game.

It's not altogether unlikely.

HB's Accelerated Beta Test, when scored, takes 3 cards off the top of the deck. Anonymous Tip draws three cards. You start with just 49 cards, drawing 6 at the start, that's just 43 cards in the deck at the start of the game. Average game length is 21 turns (based on a spreadsheet I saw), so the Corporation just has to burn through 22 additional cards to deck out. If he draws too many cards, scores too many Beta Tests, or if the Runner aggressively takes advantage of Noise's Identity and effective use of Demolition Runs, at the very least he can make the Corp sweat with 30+ cards in the trash. Happened to me once.

I started building a Runner deck designed to deck out the Corp; Wyldside drew cards, to play Viruses for free/cheap with Cyberfeeders, to mill cards, to then sell to Pawnshop to have enough creds to play more viruses next turn. The engine exists, but there's only 4 viruses currently, so it's not really feasible. Yet. That said, what I'm doing with it is just putting a ton of cards in the Archives, and at the last second when I've milled 12-15 cards, making one run on Archives at the end of the game before the Corporation can win and hoping I've dumped 7 Agenda points into the trash.

As one final note, never underestimate the player base to try new things. Exploration, investigation, and development of new deck archetypes and strategies are the reason we play these games. If there's a way to win, people are going to try to develop decks that take advantage of it. Personally, I intend to eventually have a Runner deck with no Ice Breakers, and a Corp Deck with no Ice.

There's no game term for it, but I think we should call this bankrupting the Corp.

"Bankrupting" would mean running out of money (credits), but removing all the cards from R&D means they have run out of ideas .

~ Tim

Well, whatever you call it, it's not so much something you should necessarily be trying to do as the runner as much as a way to determine who wins if both players are decked, the score is tied, and there just aren't enough agenda points in play for either player to win (because of sacrificing).

But I could see this actually happening through some combination of Medium, Sabotage Run, and whatever that Criminal card that lets you sell your stolen Agendas for $9 is called.

I JUST bought this game, but in my experience CCG/LCG mill strategies tend to be iffy, and rely on a lot of things. That doesn't mean runners shouldn't attack the deck. Trashed cards are lost options, usually.

One of the other concerns with milling, is the potential for the Corp later to recycle from Archives to R&D. So like a select 5 cards from Archives with a Shuffle R&D option, or place them in any order on top of the R&D stack. Smaller deck size means the return of your premium nightmares.

Or of in game mulligans. Option that says to shuffle your current hand into R&D and then redraw the same number of cards into your grip (HQ).

Or the option for the Corp to benefit from milling themselves, with the option for if the R&D is at 5 cards or less shuffle in all unrevealed cards in Archives.

There really are numerous options to negate the "Top Decking" win condition.

Myabe there will be eventually, but as of right now, none of those options exist.

After skimming through the rules and looking at the corp cards, I don't see much reason for the runner to even attempt a victory via decking. Now, milling to get agendas into Archives….

Exactly. The only milling ability right now is Noise's special ability. And that fits perfectly with his deck design: kill ICE and force the corp to spread it thin.

bhosp said:

In classic NR, the Corp had AI Chief Financial Officer, an 5/2 agenda that, when scored, gave you the permanent ability to shuffle HQ & Archives into R&D and draw 5 cards. So decking the Corporation wasn't really meant to be a strategy even back then.

Noise isn't about decking the Corp, it's about trashing enough of R&D that you can win the game in one run on Archives.

ffaristocrat said:

I can definitely see how decking the corp is impractical, as it would be likely somebody wins by points before the decking gets accomplished.

I just thought of an interesting, thematic card idea though for Anarchs that would play into the deck destruction a little more: A virus program that is installed on a non-ICE card in a remote server that reads "If the host card would be scored, instead it is forfeit. If the host card is rezzed, trash <insert card name>." Would give Anarchs a way to prevent the Corp from scoring an agenda that's buried too deep behind ICE for the runner to reach.