I played my first game today at my local gaming club/pub and I think I'm hooked. I've always enjoyed an element of competitiveness to my card games, and I think A:NR will scratch that itch quite nicely, plus it turns out there's a growing competitive scene at one of my FLGS, which is always fun. Now I'm looking to get started and I need some advice.

Is it worth it to get 3 copies of the Core Set? I understand that two copies nets you 3 of most of the cards, but are the last remaining few worth another set for? Also, as each expansion comes with 3 of each new card, is it ever worth it to get more than one copy?

Hi, and welcome to competitive Netrunner play

To answer your question, no you do not need three core sets. There are only a handful of cards you get 1 of in each box and some of them are consoles (which are good but you don't want more than 2 in a deck) and the other cards you will generally only want to field 2 of at any one time. if we are talking about just building one of each side then 2 cores is perfectly fine.

if you want to have multiple decks built at once then your card pool is going to get limited but all I do is have all my cards in an ultra pro folder and when I want a deck I go build it and dismantle my current one.

Hopefully that will help you out

MeteorZond said:

It's worth it if you want to have more than one deck with a given card. So, if you love Dinosaurus and want to put it in all your Runner decks, having six copies is easier than constantly switching cards out.

I like to have lots of decks built at once and not be restricted in my deck construction, so I have three core sets and have been waffling over buying a fourth for a couple months. I buy two copies of each expansion. I currently have three corp and three runner decks assembled. Pop Up Window is an example of a card that I have six of across my current decks; obviously there are nine hedge funds across my decks as well.

Two Core sets and 1 copy of each expansion is completely and totally adequate to a strong Runner deck and a strong Corporattion deck that can do well in competitive play.

Anything beyond that is purely for deckbuilding flexibility and provides no actual advantage to how competitive your primary decks are or will be.

capbarclay said:

This is demonstrably untrue. You can tell because buying three core sets will give you three copies of some cards that you would only end up with two of if you bought two core sets. Not having the option of putting in a third copy of say, Corporate Troubleshooter, is a meaningful and measureable difference. If that difference means nothing *to you*, then state your opinion as opinion, instead of trying to play off your own opinion as fact. Giving people biased opinions presented as facts is no different than just blatantly telling a lie. In fact, it *is* blatantly telling a lie.

That being said, having two core sets instead of three will offer only slightly less ability to build one ideal corp/runner deck.

I think if you have 2x of the Core set you're okay. I have 2x and I haven't really found the needed to buy a 3rd set for just a couple cards.