Hi,

I've read the rulebook up and down, watched a few tutorial vids and played a couple games with my wife. That's when uncertain, unanswered questions began to transpire.

The runner seems to be somewhat "overpowered". You can just sit back and amass credits and re-run sections over and over again after encountering the Ice once, with the right abilities. We have only played the suggested "Shaper and Jinteki" cards from the Core Set so far(any recommendations on more interesting gameplay with different sets is welcome).

Anyways, I have a few questions.

1. Can ICE's strength be advanced? Since the Runner is able to advance their strength usually for icebreaking, is a Corporation unable to do the same unless the card specifies? I found myself running her R&D multiple times just because I could pay for the strength increase on my icebreaker over and over again.

2. If you use Infiltration and you choose an ambush card, are there no affects of the ambush? Can you trash the card at that point as the runner? Having 3 of these in a deck seemed pretty ridiculous, I was able to score almost every agenda that she layed down without even running. Or does it just show the agenda card and I am unable to score it unless I make a run on it?

3. Assets that give you money increases must be activated before doing so, yes? If a runner wanted to get rid of that, say the PAD card for example, all I would have to do is make a run on that server, gain access and pay trash cost, right?

4. If the Corporation decides to trash a remote server card, what happens to the ICE? Does it just stay there, and the corporation is now able to add a new remote server behind it?

5. I read in the FAQ for Netrunner that Upgrades must be installed like Assets or Agendas, as remote servers, instead of behind remote servers, unless it is an upgrade specifically for HQ. Is that correct?

Thanks for any/all assistance on this, looking forward to getting a lot more game time in soon!

-reject

1. Why can you increase an icebreakers strength? Because it's an ability printed on the card. If the ice does not have a similar ability printed on it, you can't advance it.

2. Exposing a card and accessing a card are two distinct actions. For a quick overview, check the glossary at the end of the rulebook.

3a. As the rulebook explains, corporations cards are only active (and thus enabling their abilities) when rezzed.

3b. Yes, accessing the asset after a successful run enables you to trash the card by paying the trash cost.

4. If a server is protected by ice, the server remains even if empty. Ice retains its state and a new cards may be installed in that server. A server disappears when there's no ice protecting it and no cards are installed in it.

5. As the rulebook already explained, upgrades in central servers are installed in the root (just below the server), whereas upgrades are simply installed into a remote server just like agendas/assets. Remote servers have no root, so from a runners perspective, a single installed card in a remote could be an agenda, an asset, or an upgrade. Once two or more cards are installed, it is clear that at least x cards (where x is number of cards installed minus 1) are installed in the server.

On a more general note, besides the horrific misplay of stealing agenda by simply exposing them, it is simply inexperience that causes the seeming unbalance between runner and corp for you. Corporation is much less intuitive to play than the runner (also, Jinteki is probably one of the weaker decks in the core set), but the corporation shouldn't give you enough time to simply amass credits. They need to make sure to try and advance and score agendas early when the runner does not have their rig of icebreakers up or advance and score them when the runner is low on credits after a run. Or as Jinteki, traps like Project Junebug can mean an early end for a runner. So I feel like you've probably made a bunch of play mistakes that favored the runner, but also Corporation can take a while to learn to play effectively, so keep at it. Netrunner is a brilliant game, and I hope you'll keep enjoying it. (And keep re-reading the rulebook and FAQ, you'll likely find some things you've missed.)

As for starting out, I've always liked Shaper to introduce people to the game, but for the Corporation I usually use Weyland or Haas-Bioroid, as I feel those are stronger and less tricky to play than Jinteki with just the out-of-the-box starter decks.