Hello,

I have owened the Coreset since it came out at Gencon 2012 and got my hands on 2 of them. I played for about a day with a friend and havent touched it yet. Im rereading the rule book and I found a local group to play with.

My questions are now that there are a bunch of data packs out there im looking ot build a deck that fits my play style of other games and dont know if thats possible.

I love to play combo decks or decks with TONS of interactions that make me or opponent do stuff. Are there decks like that for both Corp and Runner? If so what would be the best Data packs to pick up that are a must own. I plan on buying them all if I keep playing often but right now im just looking to get one or two?

Thanks in advance.

The good news is that the Runner can't win without interacting with the Corp at least once. So the game, by design, forces interaction. I suggest you search the boardgamegeek.com forums for "NBN Never Advance" - it creates a wall of doors in front of the Runner. Some doors have Agenda Points, others have Net Damage.

And the current Runner metagame is all "Run Early, Run Often", so any Runner deck will be interaction-heavy. I'd suggest looking into Criminals. They are built around constantly probing the Corp's defenses.

I will second the call for Criminals, but also add that Anarchs can be about mucking up the corps game as well. Milling them to displace cards in to potentially advantageous (for you) spots, destroying ice with parasites, possibly even kraken if it suits your fancy etc. I would say the worst option would be Shapers, at least as I build them, since it usually is about building an uber rig, and denying corp the function of their toys.

On the corp side the most interactive would either be a tag and bag, best done from NBN or Weyland to start (others can do it, but these two lend themselves to it more naturally, and thus it will be slightly easier to get used to. Tag and bag refers to utilizing cards that tag them, and then punishing them with cards that require those tags. (Pardon if I go too basic here, I'm just casting a wide net.) Data Raven, Posted Bounty, and Breaking News are all great examples of methods to tag, and Closed Accounts, Freelancer, Scorched Earth, and Dedicated Response Team are great tag punishers.

The other option corp has for a more "interactive" strategy is trap decks. Jinteki and Haas Bioroid both lend themselves to this. You utilize cards like Aggressive Secretary, Cerebral Overwriter, and Project Junebug,to try to trick the runner in to faceplanting in to them and their resulting damage, while utilizing Snare! to protect your HQ and R&D, and possibly finishing off some agendas while they are worried/distracted, or just flatlining the unlucky soul.

If you want to research cards, CardGameDB.com is a great resource. They have both a deck builder, and visual spoilers, as well as text spoilers, I believe. This will also allow you to research the Data Packs, and see what is in them and plan purchases accordingly.

Finally, while the game does have combos, it depends on your definition of that as to whether it is feasible to build them. By its very nature, with limited action turns, there aren't "traditional" combos found in, say, MTG. However, since you are saying you enjoy interaction, I don't forsee this as a problem. There are plenty of card interactions that allow you to muck around with your opponent while eeking closer to victory yourself.

Are there other Runner Characters besides the 3 that came int he core starter? If so is one of them better to play with than the core starters? Should I look in to a Data pack with one of them?

There are 6 beyond the core set runners. 1 for criminals, 1 for Anarchs, and 4 for Shapers. The disproportionate numbers here are due to the deluxe set released, which focused on Haas and Shapers. Most Anarch decks seem to run with Noise from the core set. Criminals vary between Andromeda, from Humanity's Shadow and Gabriel Santiago from the core. Shapers.... are all over the place, as folks are still trying to figure out the new toys. Kate, from the core set, is a popular choice however, as is Chaos Theory, from Cyber Exodus.

If you are just focused on runner for now, I'd build both an Anarch deck and a Criminal deck from the core set stuff and give them a few tries, then pick the one that meshes best with you and focus on the datapacks that enhance it.

I'd give the site I linked above a try when it comes time to choose packs. Both the deckbuilder and the visual spoilers will lay out the cards so you can plan out an idea, then purchase based on that.

edit: typos!

I'll second Damoel's advice, Criminals hit hard and often and pressure the Corp through very aggressive running. Anarchs tend towards screwing with the Corp in other ways, through Noise's virus milling or Whizzards' ability to trash resources more easily (and that's not to mention the synergy you'll find with Parasite/Datasucker/Ice Carver and even Wyrm if you have the creds to run it).

Tip for Wyrm (if you want to use it) is to never use it by itself unless desperate; it supports either your fixed breakers (Yog.0, Mimic) by bringing target ICE to breakable strength, or Parasite/Datasucker by giving you another way to lower the ICE to Str 0 to force a trash on a Parasited ICE.

Corp's also get new ID's (still the same 4 companies, but different abilities and deckbuilding restrictions). There's also a new Data Cycle about to begin which will be releasing more runners and Corp IDs, but only two have been announced so far.

Was I correct in reading that the new Data Pack in the next cycle hits sometime this week? I was thinking of picking up the 1st and 3rd data packs from the first cycle tonight to play around with (Providing my local store has them)

If you could suggest a data pack are those 2 good to get?

Yes, those two are good, I'd also eye the 5th one as well, but those two are a great place to start.

The first one of the new cycle should indeed be dropping in a week or so. The general consensus for it is that it is more pro-corp then runner, but it has fun toys for both.

I'm also going to be starting a blog in the next day or two on CardGameDB to discuss evolving some decks in preparation for the big 'Plugged In' tournament coming up. I'll set a link here once I have one. The goal is two fold, one to try to reign in my deck change ADD by forcing myself into some continuity through the posts, and two to share some exploratory deck modification to garner discussion on it and help folks who are new to the game to see some examples of deck construction and evolution. I'm fairly newbish at the game myself, and tend more towards fun then super winning, but I am hoping it will be a interesting read for some.

Back to topic, I think you have chosen well on the packs. The other thing to keep in mind is that a second coreset can be quite useful. I promote diversity first, though, as I think generally you will get more options from datapacks, and this will allow you to hone in on whether or not you really need more core cards, or whether the allotment from one is sufficient.

Lucky for me I have already picked up a second core set. Got both of them at the same time. I was lookinging at Data Packs that will give me the most out of the least and it looks like those 2 provide a lot of stuff for an NBN Never advance deck? will they provide enough for a Criminal runner deck or do I need to branch out again?

You wont have access to the second identity, Andromeda, but you still get some good toys from those packs. I believe a decent amount of the popular crim toys come from the base set anyway, and you can use them to decide what focus you want to aim for.

The decks for them I have seen are aggressive run decks, focused on things like HQ interface and such, or a credit denial strategy using False Activation Orders and Emergency Shutdown and Cortez Chip to punish them at the ice level.