Sorry, but i think i don't get it!

Why should i instal an agenda at all, when i just can wait with a heap of assets and traps to flatline the Runner..?

Project Juneburgh (or so), with 3 advancements on it, will kill every Runner! A few Snare! and thats it!!

Every Remote is filled with a trap! I can sit there and wait till the Runner kills himself…

Pleas help! That sounds to easy!

Unless you are very good at making them look like agendas the runner will just hit your R&D or HQ. Typically, you will be playing as Jinteki when doing this and I personally prefer to hit Jinteki in their central servers as a runner to begin with. It can be a viable strategy if you can pull it off but I think any experienced runner will see through it.

Thunderfalcon said:

And while you sit there and wait the runner will just win by going through your R&D and HQ -- because after you stopped advancing your traps without scoring them, it's obvious those are traps, so why would the runner bother?

Also, a 3x advanced Junebug will only kill a runner with fewer than 6 cards in hand -- the runner can load up on cards if he suspects he might hit a Junebug.

Okay, i must say i'm New in this game and maybe the strategy is not yet clear to me.

To hit the r&d may have sence (at least a little… drawing one Card, and hoping it's an Agenda…or trashing some other stuff…okay), but the HQ…? I dont get it! One random handcard?

And even if the Runner may think its a trap, he can't know it for shure. And just waiting until i advance, is obvious not the best tactic…?

Sorry, if i sound annoying, thats not meant this way! I just dont see the balance! I think it's very hard for the Runner to win, but maybe i get something wrong?

Thanks for your help

So what you are saying is that you would never put out an agenda, just traps? There are some serious problems with that.

1. Those unplayed agendas have to go somewhere. In most traditional card games when something gomes into your discard then it is pretty much out of play, but in Netrunner that's just not the case. So eventually those unplayed agendas are going to get dumped. All the runner has to do at that point is run on your discard pile. He gets to go through it and score any and EVERY card that he can in there. So if you just dump all your agendas then he is going to score all of them and WIN IN ONE TURN!!

2. If you don't dump your agendas, and just hold them in your hand, dumping other cards, eventually your hand (HQ) is going to fill completely with agendas, at which point it doesn't matter what random card the runner draws, he is going to be drawing an agenda, and winning, with every run.

Honestly, with the strategy you are proposing there is no way the runner could not win. There are ways to look at the Corps cards before a run, and as soon as he sees that you aren't putting out agendas he will just run on HQ, archives, and R&D until he is victorious.

And if there are no agendas in my Deck from the get-go…?

Then you are cheating. The rules state on page 24 of the core rule book.

- A corporation deck must have a specific number of agenda points in it based on the size of the deck as follows:

40 to 44 cards requires 18 or 19 agenda points.

45 to 49 cards requires 20 or 21 agenda points.

50 to 54 cards requires 22 or 23 agenda points.

Sorry, Sorry! My mistake! You are absolut right!

I think i will make a few more runns and come back here afterwards… )

Maybe everything is clearer after trying more often!

Nevertheless, thanks a lot for your help!

Go ahead and play trap based, Jinteki even specializes in it

You will find tho, that with good/smart players it really does not work tho

What does work tho is the Weyland 1 shot, score posted bounty or play Sea Source, play Scorched Earth twice

Thunderfalcon said:

No problem. Glad I could help. I would also say that Jinteki traps can be run really well and still totally fool the runner, you just have to be good at bluffing.

Good luck.

This is how junebug usually happen

Step 1 - You advance it to a nice danger zone
Step 2a - Your opponent overdraws and runs on it, falling your trap but surviving
Step 2b - Your opponent does not run on it, and next turn you cannot advance it anymore and he will wonder why you didnt score it yet
Step 2c - Your opponent uses infiltration or lemuria codecracker and sees that its a junebug

That's the thing with a trap deck. If you only play Junebugs, the runner can compensate by just overdrawing before running every time, and your trap won't be as effective. You are still forcing him to dump cards, but that only really, really hurts in early and maybe mid-game.

If you want to play a trap deck, you need to play other traps as well. Throw in a couple Agressive Secretaries or Ghost Branches (if your deck is built to leverage tags). Runner sees Junteki, gets cocky. Draws up to six cards and runs on that remote server. Hits aggressive secretary and loses most of his rig. In the end-game, that can be all it takes to win if the runner has cycled through enough of his deck.

Also, personally, I like to advance an agenda up to 3 or 4 counters and then let it sit there sometimes. Runner becomes convinced it's a trap because I stopped advancing. A round or two later, I score it. HUGE gamble, but when it works, it totally puts the runner off balance the next time I do it. Kind of like installing a card in a new remote server and advancing it twice even though you have a perfectly good remote server already setup. If you always put a trap there, the runner will never fall for it. But do that with an agenda once, and the runner will start to doubt himself.

You just have to mix it up. If you always follow the same pattern, your trap decks will fail every time.

And now that the data packs are adding agendas that benefit the Corp for over-advancement, the potential for mind-games has gotten even better.

Thanks a lot for the help folks

That all sounds obvious! I will try to mix it up a little and play agendas and assets alternately, that sounds quite good!

As i said, i'm new in this game and not fit with the strategy at all, yet!

Therefore i did'nt know that Jinteki is specialised on traps…, also good to know… I thought every Corp has them as well.

Thanks again!

Jinteki's specialty is deception. They have more traps than the other corps and their ICE damage the runner rather than stopping them. They want the runner to think twice about every card they install to a remote server. Traps are the basis of this strategy since they become the "wrong choice" for the runner to make when picking a target.