I have been a very active X-Wing player, and was a MtG pro-tour player for years before giving it up because it just wasn't fun anymore. Netrunner looked like a great game, and I admit I really enjoy the game itself. It is everything I enjoyed about MtG, with very little of the aggravation.

On the other hand.

Many of the ANR players I have met have reminded me unpleasantly of the MtG players I left behind. The reason I quit competitive MtG is because of the lack of common courtesy, sportsmanship, and decency that the game is somewhat infamous for (at least at "competitive" events).

This is not to say that these people are the majority, but there are an awful lot of them. Is this normal? Am I just unfortunate enough to have encountered a particularly large cluster of these folks, or has ANR seen a large influx of these folks from other card games? When I was at Worlds, the ANR community seemed to be a very positive and decent group, which is largely why I decided to join it.

Am I out of line even for asking?

I've heard this question asked and I honestly haven't seen this in person. I've played in the Seattle meta, the Denver meta, and the Madison meta and have yet to encounter these type of players.

Colorado in general is an amazing community and the as has been the Seattle specific group.

Could you give more of a description of what you mean? I don't the the MtG background so I don't have a base to go off of.

I have played in a number of tournaments and out of the 20+ tournament games I have played I will honestly tell you I have encountered a total of 1 jerk. And he even appoligized after the game for being a jerk so maybe I should bump that down to 1/2 jerk.

In MtG, I never played super competitevely but it seems to me that every tournament that had any kind of prize on the line I'd go up against at least 1 person a tournament and sometimes more than that who made the entire experience extrememly unpleasant. So overall I'd say the community is much much better, I think in particular because there is no big prizes on the line and no one's livelyhood depends on one game.

That is reassuring. I will try a different venue or two, perhaps that particular store is just populated with an exceptionally high percentage of former MtG players.

As for the behavior, really just a general lack of common courtesy. Little to no speaking, not greeting an opponent, being petulant and churlish when you don't draw what you think you should. The most recent example was someone sighing in exasperation and stating that "That has been settled in the FAQ for like 100 years now. Learn to play." I am relatively new to this particular game, and have yet to memorize each specific ruling. I am also somewhat impatient with rude people, so I called him out on it and explained that while appreciate the information I didn't appreciate him.

Honestly, I had enough escapees from their mother's basement in MtG. As frybender said, in MtG people were far, far too concerned with winning and not enough concerned with playing. I actually quit playing the pro-tour because despite the fact that I was making more money playing cards, it was far LESS pleasant than my full time job as a police officer, and that is saying something. On my last weekend playing MtG I placed 3rd, took home a $5k purse, and sold all of my cards the next day because it had been the most miserable 2 days of my life.

Here's to hoping that crowd stays in the store I found them in.

There's a group of us looking to start up some Organized Play in my area (Indianapolis) soon and I'm fairly worried about this as well.

I've been a part of a few different card game communities over the years and there's always at least one person (sometimes even a group of them) who take it too seriously and ruin it for everyone else. Competition just does that to people I suppose but it's what tends to keep me from really getting involved as much as I would like.

I'm wondering if working closely with the shop owner and laying down some rules would be fair or if that's too much? No derogatory comments about deckbuilds, style of play or lack of rules knowledge, good sportsmanship, etc. I know we can't force people to be friendly but maybe we could encourage the bad apples to allow others to have the fun they want to have without fear of being made fun of or treated like idiots.

I've found Netrunner players on the whole to be extremely pleasant. Occasionally you get someone explaining away a loss as bad luck (which I consider poor sportsmanship), but that's not terrible behavior and people are generally nice and friendly. Sure, not everyone is extremely sociable, but most folks are, and even people who aren't are polite and shake hands after destroying you silently and robotically.

I've heard similar from folks across the internet. I'd say you hit a bad patch; maybe go to a different store and try again.

I've never encountered anything nearly so bad as "That has been settled in the FAQ for like 100 years now. Learn to play."

I will forever fail to understand folks who play tabletop games in person but don't actually like people.