Hey everyone! I just started playing Netrunner and I LOVE IT!! I think it's the best game FFG has IMO. I have sided with being a runner. I really dislike playing Corporation. Not my play style at all. I have become quite attracted to the runner "Mac", the Shaper. I feel she is great based on just playing her using core set cards only. On the other hand, I would like to pick a good Runner because my goal is to eventually play at the tournament level. I love being able to play great players. Also, I would like to be good enough to be able to support my LGS and judge Netrunner leagues for them. I have the Core Set and the "What Lies Beneath" expansion pack.

In your opinions,

1. Which runner do ya'll feel have the best chance of winning?

2. What is a good list for the runner of choice?

3. Why is that particular runner better than the other 3 (Expansion guy included)?

Thanks,

Barby

Yensid said:

Well, I'll give you my opinions. First off, you should be advised that at tournaments, I imagine most will go with FFG tournament rules, which require you to bring and play with both a runner and corporation deck. You play both with each opponent you face too, so if you want to win at tourneys, you better learn corp as well. Also, OCTGN is a great resource for playing A:NR. I suggest you google it, download it, and find people to play on there. cardgamedb.com is a good resource for making decks, and they let you export and save your decks in OCTGN format.

To your questions:

1. I think all the identities released so far have a good chance of winning, but the way they win is different for each of them. Kate in particular is my favorite (Gabe a close second), and I think she overall is a little better because she gets her benefit more often than Gabe, her cards give her a more balanced approach, and she has better breakers overall. She can survive late game without going out of faction (Magnum Opus), and really the only breaker she needs out of faction is a sentry breaker. I think with the right deck all 4 can be competitive, but I would give a slight nod to Kate over Gabriel.

2. You can find plenty of lists here - I recommend the following page on FFG's forums. It also includes my own changes to it:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=327&efcid=4&efidt=763264

3. I went into a bit of detail for Kate, but here's a bit more - Her Code gate and Barrier breakers are both good (I prefer corroder to Battering Ram, but her new Barrier breaker in data peck 2 is very exciting). She has late game staying power (Magnum Opus). She has good link (natural link and Rabbit Hole). She has in-faction memory (obsolete in data pack 2 with Dyson chip). Her effect will apply for most of the game (occur more often than Gabriel's for sure. Noise and Whizzard are up in the air). She is powerful in all periods of the game (early, middle, late). The maker's Eye forces corp to cover R&D more than normal. Tinkering is very powerful. She has the capacity to not need to splash other factions' Icebreakers to have good ones (save Sentry). This lets you splash basically what you want from other factions. Imagine a Kate with Sneakdoor Beta, Medium, Maker's Eye, and Account Siphon. Suddenly the corp has to vigorously protect all his central servers - and those remotes are suddenly more vulnerable.

This is my deck in it's current state being the noob that I am:

Kate "Mac"

HARDWARE

1- The Toolbox

1- Cortez Chip

2- The Personal Touch

RESOURCES

1- Aesop's Pawnshop

2- Sacrificial Construct

1- Ice Carver

3- Armitage Codebusting

EVENTS

2- Modded

3- The Maker's Eye

3- Diesel

1- Inside Job

1- Forged Activation Orders

3- Infiltration

3- Sure Gamble

PROGRAMS

1- Femme Fatale

1- Pipeline

1- ZU.13 Key Master

2- Net Shield

2- Gordian Blade

2- Magnum Opus

2- Battering Ram

2- Mimic

2- Yog.0

3- Crypsis

What do you think of my deck so far.

My ideas about specific cards in bold

Yensid said:

Overall, It's OK, but needs some work. If you want to use ZU, get Rabbit Holes. I love Rabbit Holes anyway due to telling Tag 'n Bag decks to go somewhere with their traces and the like - against Jinteki and HB, it's fodder for Aesop and deck thinning. You have no tinkering, which is fine considering the high number of breakers. Let's count your memory - with a full suite of breakers and Magnum, it costs 6 memory (2 from Battering Ram). Having multiples of a particular type (like a Yog and a Gordian) will cost even more memory. Consider throwing in some Memory Chips, regardless of it you keep the Toolbox. They can also be fodder for Aesop in a pinch, or for a late-game nova run.

You have a good baseline for a powerful deck, but some changes need to be made. Remember, these are all my suggestions - you are not required to make any changes at all. If you like this deck, play with it some and see what you like and don't like, and change things based on that.

Great advice thank you very much. A lot of what you say makes a lot of sense when I look back at my deck. I did find myself asking some questions about some things though….

- In your opinion, which combo do you feel is better: Zu.13 Key Master, Rabbit Hole OR Ice Carver, Mimic, Yog, Gordian Blade?

- Why do you like Corroder over Battering Ram?

- What don't you like about Femme Fatale? What would be a good replacement for it?

- Do you feel any of the cards in my deck other than Armitage Codebusting, Maker's Eye, Infiltration, and Sure Gamble deserve 3 copies of?

Yensid said:

1. Saying which combo is better is a difficult question. Ice Carver is prettty much always useful, but it becomes necessary for Mimic and Yog. It's a matter of what you're willing to face and let the corp use that you can't break. Archer cannot be broken by Mimic unless you use both Personal Touches on it and have an Ice Carver out. Mimic also cannot possibly beat Janus 1.0 without a Datasucker. Archer is very powerful, and it will be difficult to beat with a Mimic as your only sentry breaker. I personally have the playstyle of wanting to break everything I come across, rather than suffer subroutines, so I like Ninja as my sentry breaker. With one personal touch, it can handle archer for only 7 credits. Pipeline with one personal touch costs 12 to break Archer. Mimic is easily the cheapest, but it can't break archer at all without what I said above. A possible Alternative is to have a mimic as your primary sentry breaker, give it one personal touch to break everything but archer/Janus, and use a Crypsis as a back-up for those two ICE. This will require more memory, of course, and Crypsis is not efficient, but you can get out of a jam if you have the credits for it. Ninja can handle Janus on it's own without the need for aid for 10 credits.

So in summary - if you can handle running into a few ICE you can't break, Mimic, Yog, and Ice carver are powerful. If not, go with Ninja and Gordian/Zu.

2. I like Corroder for several reasons - it is cheaper to play initially (by 3 credits), takes up less memory, and does not require me to pay 2 to break a single subroutine. On the downside, it is one strength lower, and costs 2 influence. It's a matter of taste, and my newest deck requires no memory assistance of any kind as long as I get rabbit hole out. I have all the programs I want with only 4 MU. If I had Battering Ram, I would need 5 MU. That's a bit more involving with the deck, though, rather than a direct comparison of the two cards. Battering Ram is a great program, but for my preferences, I like Corroder.

3. Femme Fatale is extremely expensive, is not a particularly good sentry breaker, and is only really effective against one ICE for the entire game. Unless that ICE happens to be Janus, Heimdall, or something along those lines, it's not overwhelmingly a good deal for you. Unless you also use her to handle low sentries (particularly rototurret, which is a valid use of her), I don't think she's worth the space in the deck. A possible strategy is to use Femme for low strength sentries and ninja for high strength sentries. This is best done in Criminal, however. That said, many of the better players I know like Femme and continue to use her. She doesn't fit what I like to do, and so I keep her out. If better players than me like her and keep her in their decks, they must see something I don't.

4. Diesel also has 3, and I recommend keeping that. Nothing comes out and screams "Put three of me" in your deck other than those you mentioned.

Just so you know, this is my most recent set of programs for Shaper-

2x ZU (0 MU with Rabbit Hole)

1x Corroder

1x Battering Ram

2x Ninja

2x Magnum Opus

Couldn't find the influence for the second Corroder. With the new data pack, Snowball will be coming out as a Corroder look-alike, and those problems are solved.

First and foremost, YOU ROCK!! Thank you VERY much for taking the time to analyze and break down all this information for me. As a new player, I find it difficult to find the Pros and Consof things right away. Seeing things from others' perspectives helps out a lot. After taking in and digesting all your information and putting in my own considerations, this is what my deck now looks like.

Kate "Mac"

HARDWARE

1- The Toolbox

2- The Personal Touch

2- Akamatsu Mem Chip

RESOURCES

1- Aesop's Pawnshop

2- Sacrificial Construct

1- Ice Carver

3- Armitage Codebusting

EVENTS

2- Modded

3- The Maker's Eye

3- Diesel

3- Tinkering

3- Infiltration

3- Sure Gamble

PROGRAMS

1- Net Shield

1- Morning Star

2- ZU.13 Key Master

2- Gordian Blade

2- Magnum Opus

2- Battering Ram

2- Mimic

2- Yog.0

2- Ninja

I still don't feel comfortable with 3x Tinkering but I don't have a 3rd of the cards I feel I would place like 1 more Personal Touch and 1 more Modded so that I would onlt have 1 Tinkering for an "emergency" situation. I really don't want to spend money on buying a whole new expansion for 2 cards.

Any minor tweaks on your behalf?

Just so you know I mostly play people that run NBN and Jinteki. I myself, when I get my runner nice and settled, would like to create either an NBN or Weyland deck for my Corp faction. I really enjoy playing Runner SO much more. Unfortunately, I am aware of that fact that for tournaments, I must play as both Runner and Corp. Grrrr!

Only a few things. There are no Rabbit Holes - if you dislike Tinkering (like I do), then they may serve you better, particularly against NBN. Ruining their traces is always fun, and for ASH to work, the corp will have to spend money. And if you need the money, use Aesop. It's a great card.

Morningstar is kinda meh, in my opinion. With Personal Touch/Ice Carver helping out, you can go up to strength 8, one better than the strength of the highest barrier, Hadrian's Wall. Savvy corps will raise the strength up to where Morningstar can't reach it anymore, and then you'll need another way to deal with it. That's really the only ICE to worry about though. I dislike the high cost. If you can roll with it, go for it. If you feel compelled to take it out, consider a Corroder along with another two influence card that's useful. Take your pick at that point.

Just my two cents. Like I said, test out the deck some, feel it out, and make the appropriate changes.

Great! I will definetly be trying this deck out and will let you know of my progress. Hopefully it's quick enough to get to those agendas! :0)

With the new data pack out, any good cards to consider for my deck?

id actually get another core set before i got either of the new data packs.

you get another pawnshop which i think is quite important and a 3rd magnum opus.

you get another desperado which is probably the console you want to be using in shaper to help out with economy.

you get a 3rd rabbit hole. i know rabbit hole seems meh and if it didnt search for itself and improve your draw quality it would be but deck thinning is something that is very rare at this point in net runner and is quite valuable. you can install all 3 rabbit holes in one click for 5 credits and if you dont need the link you can actually make credits with the pawnshop over the next 2-3 turns.

you get a 2nd ice carver. running two copies will mean you are certain to draw it in most games and your deck will be more consistent. the same holds true for pawnshop and desperado. yes they are unique but they are an important part of your strategy.

as a general rule singleton copies of a card in a deck hurt your consistency unless you can reliably search for the card you need. card search is also rather limited in netrunner so you have to compensate by increasing the liklihood you will draw the card.

a single net shield and morning star do you very little good because you cannot ensure you have them when you need them so either increase the copies in the deck or cut them out altogther. id cut out the net shield. instead id include more ways to draw cards OR avoid taking net damage by ensuring you have the tools to beat the subroutines that cause net damage in the first place.

dont forget about stuff like forged activation orders, stimhack, and inside job. yes they cost influence but the advantage of being shaper in the first place is you can get away without including a lot of out of faction ice because you can tinker in a pinch. these cards let you pull of ridiculous things and because you dont have to use your influence on ice you can sneak copies of these powerful cards into your deck.

I agree with most of the advice hear… But… GET RID OF Net Shield! It's quite possibly the worst card in the game.

Hey everyone! SO I finally tried out my deck and I have to say… I ROCKED!!! No complaints other than having a hard time pulling a Barrier breaker. Luckily, Tinkering did the job. I played against a Jenteki and HB deck with no problems. I ran into problems against the NBN deck because of all the tagging. Luckily I was makiing enough credits that I bought them off of me a lot. Overall, very happy. I can't wait to get the expansion so that I may add more cards (and another core set). I definetly know I am going to be taking out some cards. Here is what I feel I can take out because I kept drawing them and not needing them.

Sacrificial Construct - I had 2 of these in every freaking game and didn't need them.

Gordian Blade - I have 2 of them and they kept coming out even though Yog was doing all the work.

Morning Star- Too expensive to bring out.

Net Shield - Only because a consensus unanimously of you guys say so. LOL!

Akamatsu Mem Chip - Replacing with the new Mem Chip that came out.

So what do you guys think about my adjustments? Like I said, No complaints overall on this deck except for these minor tweaks.

Yensid said:

For casual games among friends, it's okay to tell them that you want to only play as a Runner, but for tournament games, you have to play BOTH Corp and Runner. Each side is one half of the game; without one, you can't have the other.

Yes, I understand that for the purposes of tournament play I have to play Corporation. Casually though, I will ALWAYS choose to be a Runner.

As far as my runner deck goes, I have purchased "Trace Amount" and have another Core Set coming on Tuesday. Any suggestion as to what I am considering taking out?

Yensid said:

TheRedArmy said:

At the moment the best ice in the game is Tollbooth.

And Femme is the cheapest way to get around that, you bypass it for ONE and don't even need to pay the fee.

When I started Netrunner I didn't like the Femme at all, but the longer you play the more you might like it.

Femme gets you around Data Raven, Toolboth for very low cost. (no need to remove Tag or pay money)

Even against Ice like Archer Femme is very good, bypassing Archer for only 4. (10 with Ninja)

If you want to run a specific server very often and it is blocked by some annoying ice Femme is the way to go.