Netrunner Pastebin

INTRODUCTION:
---What is Netrunner?
Netrunner is an asymmetric, cyberpunk CCG in which one player will take the role of megacorporation and the other takes the role of a "runner", a hacker trying to access the Corp's servers and steal their secrets. This means that both players will come to a game with 2 constructed decks, a Corp deck and a Runner deck, and in competitive settings will generally play a set where they alternate sides.


---A Little Background
The 1st edition of Netrunner (ONR) was a trading card game published by Wizards of the Coast in 1996, designed by Richard Garfield after doing MtG and V:TES. It was incredibly ambitious at the time, and still stands out for how dissimilar it is to any other TCG. where most games can draw at least loose parallels to the likes of Magic or Pokemon, Netrunner is completely its own thing. It failed to find a substantial audience though, and the original run went out of print by 2000.

The game was revived in 2012 by FFG as Android: Netrunner (ANR) who struck a licensing deal with WotC, and rebuilt the game from the ground up to work with their Android universe. The FFG version was sold as a Living Card Game (LCG) with fixed-contents packs instead of random boosters. Unlike the original, it was tremendously successful, and from 2012 to 2015 enjoyed exponential growth and popularity. This dipped off a bit for the Mumbad cycle (considered a low point for design) but they rallied and by their last full cycle, Kitara, the game was in the spotlight again.

However, in 2018 the game was suddenly discontinued as FFG announced that negotiations with WotC to renew their licensing deal fell apart. Supposed reasons for this range from the plausible (WotC wanted more money than FFG could afford) to the conspiratorial (WotC killed ANR on purpose because it was a threat to MtG) but nobody who was in the room has talked so we'll never know. This left netrunner in a strange spot - a CCG game going OOP at the height of its popularity, and in a legal morass where in all likelihood no publisher could ever touch it again. As with many games that get cancelled prematurely, there was an immediate community effort to keep the game going. This crystallized around a group called NISEI, who have continued to update the rulebook and cardpool for competitive play.

The part of all this that stands out is the scale. NISEI-era netrunner enjoys a level of support and community activity that is unprecedented for a "dead" game, to the extent that it plausibly competes with a huge swathe of the games being actively published by game companies. more links related to the community revival can be found at the bottom of the page.


---Setting---
The original ONR setting was a generic 80s/90s cyberpunk, heavily riffing on the Cyberpunk RPG setting and drawing on the same influences - Gibson, Dick, and gritty-future 80s movies like Alien and Bladerunner. When FFG got involved they reskinned it with their Android setting, which is more of a 2000s shiny-chrome-and-shiny-plastic cyberpunk world, albeit still using many of the same inspirations and themes. It's a near-future dystopia where humanity has achieved great things (space elevators, colonizing the moon and mars, robotics, cloning and AIs) but megacorporations have taken the place of governments, poverty is rampant, and robots "terk arr jerbs". If you put bladerunner, the matrix, minority report, akira, judge dredd, ghost in the shell, strange days, altered carbon, robocop and tron in a blender and hit puree you wouldn't be far off the mark.


HOW TO PLAY NETRUNNER:
---Deckbuilding
1. You will build a Corp deck and a Runner deck to play. All games are Corp vs Runner.
2. Each deck is fronted by an ID Card. For runners, this represents the actual hacker character. For corps, the ID will be the name of the megacorp or subsidiary that you are playing. Each ID specifies a minimum deck size, a faction, and an amount of influence that can be spent on out-of-faction cards.
3. There must be no more than 3 copies of any single card in your deck.
4. Corp decks can only include corp cards, and runner decks can only include runner cards.
5. The corp deck must include a minimum number of agenda points, based on deck size:
	- 40 to 44 cards requires 18 or 19 agenda points
	- 45 to 49 cards requires 20 or 21 agenda points
	- 50 to 54 cards requires 22 or 23 agenda points
	- +2 more points for each increment of 5 cards
6. You will also need a set of tokens, which you can get from any of the ANR starter sets or a variety of 3rd party sources.


---Goal of the Game
Both players are attempting to score 7 agenda points first to win, but the means of scoring are different between the players. For the Corp player, you need to install Agendas from your hand in to remote Servers, Advance them to meet their advancement requirement, and then score them. This generally takes several turns of actions (called Clicks) and resources (called Credits) during which time the agenda is vulnerable. The runner scores by making Runs on corp servers during their turn and stealing any agendas they access. There are also alternate win conditions: the runner can win if the corp's deck runs out (mill) and the corp can win if the runner is killed by taking damage (flatlined).

There are a number of nuances to this. First, in addition to the remote servers, the corp's hand (HQ), deck (R&D) and discard (Archives) are also all servers that the runner can attack. So the agendas and other corp cards are not really safe anywhere. However, the corp has the advantage that ALL of their cards - Agendas, economic  Assets, defensive Upgrades and ICE - are installed face-down and are not revealed (and usually don't need to be paid for) until the runner encounters them. So while the corp is more vulnerable and their wincon is more time intensive, they have the ability to bluff and play a shell-game, wasting the runner's time and resources attacking things that have no value, or in some cases are outright traps.


---Action Economy: Clicks and Basic Actions
Each turn, a player gets four actions or "Clicks" to spend on any number of things. The corp's first action is *always* a mandatory draw, while the runner can use his 4 clicks however he likes. Note that no card draw or resources are refreshed automatically; you have to click for them. A click can generate a draw, get you a credit, be used to install/play a card, to make a Run on a server as the runner, or to Advance a card as the corp. The corp also has access to a couple more limited actions - to destroy the resources of a tagged runner, or to spend their whole turn purging Viruses from their systems.
This means you have a lot of flexibility in how your turns play out. If you're strapped for cash you can spend a whole turn clicking for credits. If you need options, nothing's stopping you from going draw-draw-draw-draw on a turn. You can order your actions in any way that makes sense for your goals that turn.


---Types of Corp Cards
1. Agendas are the "goal" of the game and will have an advancement requirement and be worth a number of points. either side can win by getting 7 agenda points. The corp generally gets an additional mechanical benefit for scoring agendas, while the runner will only get the points for them when stealing.
2. Assets look like agendas (remember everything Corp is face-down), installed in the root of servers, but give other benefits. Some of them are economy generators, others are defenses or Ambushes (that hurt the runner somehow if they are accessed).
3. Upgrades can be played in the root of a server as well, but don't take up the "space" in the server. Most help defend the server from intrusion, while a few provide economic bonuses or help score an agenda in the same location.
4. ICE: Intrusion Countermeasures Electronics are your true defense. These are stacked in front of a server in layers, and the runner must pass through any ICE defending a server to access it. These can represent anything from sophisticated firewalls to antivirus systems, intrusion detection, or even malefic AIs. Some ICE outright prevents access, others do damage, tag the runner, or simply waste their time or money.
5. Operations are your one-shot effects; they are played and then put in the discard pile.


---Types of Runner Cards
1. Programs, most notably Icebreaker Programs, are the tools you use to get in to defended servers. Different tools are needed to pass different types of defenses, and so a runner deck will generally have a large toolbox of programs. However, these are limited by costs to install and Memory limit, so choosing the right tools for the job at hand is essential.
2. Hardware are permanents that generally exist to support your program suite with a variety of abilities.
3. Resources are permanents that are the source of most runner economy, as well as a huge array of powerful abilities. These represent outside things the runner can tap for help - jobs, allies, factions, political connections, and friends. However, they are more vulnerable than programs or hardware. If the corp can successfully Trace and Tag the runner (which represents identifying or locating them), they can destroy the runner's resources as a basic action.
4. Events are the runner's version of one-shot effects. The bulk of them can be divided in to things that give you burst economy (credits, cards, discounted installs, or some combination) and Run Events that let you make a run as part of their resolution and give you some additional benefit while doing so, such as bypassing ICE cheaply or accessing extra cards.


---Flatline
Flatlining (ie Killing) the runner is by far the more common of the two alternate wincons, and something runners need to be wary of. Damage is abstract in netrunner, characterized by the corp taking away the runner's options (represented by the hand) until they are cornered and taken out. When you take any kind of damage as the runner, you must discard a card from your hand at random. If you can't, you are flatlined and the win goes to the corp. Thus the hand is the runner's "life" and it's critical not to go too low on cards if you think the corp might be angling for a flatline win.

There are three categories of damage in the game, differentiated by what they represent and how they can be applied or avoided:
 - Brain Damage is your classic neuromancer-style "we overloaded the runner's jack with feedback and now he's a vegetable" type. It is mechanically the severest because in addition to the discard it also permanently decreases the runner's max hand size. It is also the rarest and most expensive for the corp to apply, although one runner faction - Anarchs - are known for brain damaging themselves for benefit. It can be prevented by certain hardware or repaired with medical treatment.
 - Net Damage is a catch-all for the whole range of other damage you can take to your body or systems from electronic attacks. This damage is commonly inflicted by "spiky" ICE, assets that ambush the runner, or systems that strike back after a run. It is prevented by "network" defenses, usually protective programs or hardware of your own.
 - Meat Damage is any damage that happens in meatspace, ie the real world. When the corp sends hitmen after you, blows up your apartment block with a railgun, or "accidentally" overloads a nuclear reactor in your mom's suburban development, that's meat damage. It is prevented by things like wearing body armor, employing (or cloning) a decoy, having a fast getaway car, or simply being somewhere else when shit goes down.


---Factions and IDs
Every ID belongs to a faction, which gives you a minimum deck size and determines which card pool you'll have access to (as well as giving you a neat ability to build around). The factions are the "color pie" of netrunner, determining what your deck will be best at.

CORP FACTIONS
the corp factions represent global megacorporations. a given ID may represent an aspect of the megacorp's senior management (Weyland: Built To Last), or a subsidiary of the corp with a special focus (Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed).

Haas-Bioroid: A megacorp that manufactures artificial human laborers and AIs. basically the Tyrell Corporation from bladerunner. their mechanical specializations are very cost-efficient but imperfect defenses, and generating extra actions or action doubling effects on their turn, representing their use of legions of cyborg labor to take care of business.

Weyland: the umbrella corporation of the setting, who controls the bulk of shipping, fuel and transit industries, and defense / law enforcement contractors. their mechanical specialty is generating tons of income (sometimes at the cost of Bad Publicity - a mechanic that allows the runner to generate income more easily for anti-corp actions) and in flatlining runners through meat damage. If a corp traces your hack and sends a squad of operators rappelling through your living room window, chances are its weyland. If a corp traces you and nukes your house from orbit, it's *definitely* weyland.

NBN (Network Broadcast News): the media conglomerate megacorp, who are the biggest global player in communications, entertainment, news, advertising, education, banking, and other fun things like data harvesting and intelligence gathering. their mechanical specializations are in advancing their agendas quickly (before the runner can react), tracing and tagging the runner, and punishing the runner's credit and action economy. Where other corps might try to outright kill you, NBN will find out who you are, lock you out of your bank account, foreclose on your mortgage, have the news tell everybody you're a terrorist, make you the star of a reality show about reformed terrorists, and steal your girlfriend.

Jinteki: this is an east asian megacorp who specialize in cloning, medicine, agriculture, bioweapons, and cloned ninja assassin bioweapons. they have a distinct traditional-japanese zaibatsu vibe going. if you want your GITS or Akira homage, you'll find it in here. their mechanical specializations are in killing via net damage, particularly from traps or ambushes, and in a variety of "mind games" effects that allow them to move things between servers or conceal the locations of key cards.

RUNNER FACTIONS
Runner IDs are individuals hackers. They are grouped in to factions more by their psychology and motivation than any true affiliation.

Criminals: Runners who are in it for the cash; These are the guys pulling off Ocean's 11 type heists on the corporations of the future. their specialties are generating income, stealing the corp's money (surprise), getting in early and hitting hard when the corp isn't set up yet, and various ways to get around corp defenses instead of dealing with them directly (like bribing someone to turn off a system instead of hacking it). They also tend to have the most outside connections and ways to attack corp personnel, but that can also make them more vulnerable to being traced and tagged.

Anarchs: the guys who just want to tear down the corp at any cost. some of them are literal anarchists who just want to watch the world burn, others are labor rights activists, guerilla freedom fighters, or investigative journalists. whatever their reason, The Man has wronged them and they're gonna get back no matter what it takes. the faction specializes in things that outright destroy corporate defenses and assets (as opposed to bypassing them), hurting themselves for short term gain, giving the corp bad publicity, milling effects and virus cards.

Shapers: these are the H4CK3R elite of the setting, who are motivated by pulling off outlandish hacks just because they can and being the best in their little secret club. If a book, show or movie is *about* hackers, if a character would self-identify as a hacker first and foremost, chances are the protagonists in that setting are in the mold of shapers. their specialization is basically in being slow to set up - handwritten code beats anything off-the-shelf, you know - but having the deepest toolbox, greatest flexibility and being completely unstoppable once their rig is set up. shapers own the late-game in a way no other faction does.

Other Runners: the "fourth faction" for runners is actually 3 runners who are each their own independent faction with a super small cardpool just for them. each of these is sort of conceptually off-the-map and doesn't fit in to any of the regular factions. Sunny LeBeau is a white hat government-employed hacker who attacks systems for testing or as part of government investigations. Adam is an "escaped" bioroid who simply follows his programming which compels him to constantly attack servers hunting for information pertaining to a mysterious goal. Apex is a rogue AI / supervirus (or something) that exists only in the net and grows by "eating" computer systems.


---Where to Get Cards and Play---
Broadly a new player has three options. You can play online, you can print-and-play, or you can buy cards.
1) Play Online on jinteki.net. Check the links below. this has been a popular option since it was first made available, and during the pandemic years this became the main venue for regional and world play.

2) Print cards. NISEI cards can be downloaded as print ready pdfs from their site, and images of FFG era cards for printing can be found a variety of locations. Being a community game, printed cards are official and legal in all venues. For a nice end product that doesn't cost much, print them in color, cut them out neatly, and then sleeve them in an opaque-back or art sleeve. You can put an old playing card or land behind them in the sleeve for stiffness.

3) Buying cards: NISEI offers several options for buying print-on-demand copies of their cards. The system gateway starter, deckbuilding pack, and system update pack (in that order of importance) are all good buys. it's absolutely fine to do the starter or starter bundle only if you're on the fence, there's still a solid amount of game there.
for FFG-era cards: these are still all compatible, and the larger formats (Standard and Eternal) are still mainly FFG-era cards. being OOP, you can find these 2nd hand or from the occasional store clearing old stock. If you can find a collection easily, great, but I wouldn't spend a lot of time and money hunting for these unless you are an avid collector. just print what you can't find easily. and in general the NISEI packs will be a FAR better value for a new player.

IMPORTANT LINKS:
Play Online:     jinteki.net/
Deckbuilding:    netrunnerdb.com/
NISEI site:      nisei.net/
Print-on-Demand: www.drivethrucards.com/browse/pub/14445/NISEI
NISEI PDFs:      nisei.net/products/
Print Proxies:   proxynexus.net/

NISEI Rulebook:  drive.google.com/file/d/1LiKBlakk_9qLosWDjZ_ygG96dxM6_skc/view
NISEI L2P:       nisei.net/players/learn-to-play/
FFG Learn2Play:  images-cdn.fantasyflightgames.com/filer_public/e0/f1/e0f1d651-033b-41bb-8132-c2f6f97aab74/adn_learn_to_play_v2_lo.pdf


OTHER RESOURCES:
Local Community Links:  nisei.net/players/around-the-world/
Green Level Clearance discord:  discord.com/invite/GLC
Near Earth Hub (links and other random stuff): www.nearearthhub.net/

Team Covenant has done a lot of youtube videos about netrunner
this is an intro the NISEI-era game:  youtu.be/f7boqDmz1WM
and an overview of gameplay: youtu.be/34fW6EgCxWM

SUSD recently did an updated netrunner review:  youtu.be/Ev24b_17-Po

Places to Get Tokens:
1) find an old starter set on ebay or something
2) LITKO: litko.net/products/net-hacker-token-set-84
3) Burger Tokens: burgertokens.com/products/netrunner-tokens
4) Broken Egg: www.brokenegggames.com/androidnetrunner.html
5) various other things listed here: www.nearearthhub.net/tokens
6) make some yourself: medium.com/@kevintame/artist-colony-making-your-own-netrunner-credit-poker-chips-cf64e64e3b