austin

here comes the boy

writer | storyteller | podcaster | ???


JuniperTheory
@JuniperTheory

Every time i post about netrunner I get a bunch of people being like "Oh wow is the game still alive?" or "What's this game, how can I play?" or such, so I decided to write a brief intro! I'll put everything after the intro under a readmore, but please check it out! this is my favorite card game, maybe favorite game ever made, and right now it's extremely queer and awesome in the best ways.

WHAT IS NETRUNNER?

Netrunner Intro Image

Netrunner is a really fantastic cyberpunk card game! You play as a cool cyberpunk hacker of some sort fighting against an evil corporation of some sort! The game is asymmetrical, so both players play different decks with different ways of interacting; the evil corporation wants to slowly advance it's evil plans while preventing the runner from finding out, while the runner must choose the perfect moment to hack into the corp's servers and steal their precious data. It's fun, but more then that it's flavorful; every game feels like your own little cyberpunk story in the best possible way.

It's my favorite card game ever made. And it could be yours to!


WAIT, HAVEN'T I HEARD OF THIS GAME BEFORE?

Quite possibly! Lets talk very briefly about netrunner's history. The game was originally developed by Richard Garfield (yes that guy) in 1994 and was... really interesting, but a mess. The art was terrible (in a hilarious old school 90s cyberspace way), the game was sold in booster packs that made it much harder to play, and it came just around when people were getting tired of CCGs; it died with only a little bit of expansion. For years it sat around as a curiosity in the vaults of WOTC, until in 2012 when it was rebooted by Fantasy Flight Games! This created the netrunner most people know:

An image of netrunner, as it was under FFG

This game was actually pretty successful; there's an argument to be made it was the biggest card game outside of like, magic/yugioh/pokemon. It also didn't use the booster pack model; instead selling the game in small contained sets that allowed you to easily buy every single card released. It was a great time, although not without missteps; but in 2017 they released a new set of beginner friendly cards, featuring great new art and designed to sorta reboot the game!

In 2018 the game was dead. They lost the license to netrunner and were forced to stop publishing the game. Now, we can't prove that WOTC saw them getting big again and said "what if we just deny you the license, then we don't have to compete with you", but we also can't prove that bush knew about 9/11, and yet... Anyways, the game put out it's final packs, and then was relegated to the game store bargain bins of history.

...Or that's what I WOULD say, but it's back AND it's gay now!

NULL SIGNAL GAMES

When the game died, a group of fans all got together and decided that actually, they would save the game. They formed a group called NISEI (named after an in game card) that would later be changed to NULL SIGNAL GAMES (cause nisei is an actual irl term lol). They then... got to work doing literally everything that FFG used to do! They started making packs, hiring artists, doing testing, running tournaments, making a ban list, every single part of making a big card game, except all done nonprofit and by a group that is more political, more cool, and VERY much more gay then FFG ever could have been. This has been done before, many times people have tried to revive an old dead game... but the wild thing is that it seems to have completely worked!

Most of the netrunner community got behind them, their cards are being used regularly and you can buy them and they're awesome, the last world championship had over 200 people (in person), and all the online stuff supports their cards as normally as the main cards. And more then that, their cards are... super good looking? Their first set, ashes, was a bit messy; lots of uh, obviously tiny organization art and flavor and such. Their newest set though, Midnight Sun, has art that's on the level of old netrunner art if not better honestly:

Some Null Signal Games Art

And they're doing great. They're also... really gay? Like, the new set has one runner who uses xi/xir pronouns, and another runner who is canonically an elder lesbian who lives on a boat with her polycule, it's awesome. They're also really, really aware of what netrunner is; the new set is about ecoterrorism against corporations strip mining in Siberia. It's fucking smart in a genuine leftist way; me and my gf have been doing analysis of the cards and fiction and holy shit, it's really incredible. The anti-capitalist cyberpunk card game is being made by an anti-capitalist queer organization in direct defiance to a huge evil corp. That's fucking awesome.

IS THIS LEGAL?

As legal as it needs to be. Ask them for more details if you want.

SO HOW DO I TRY THIS GAME?

So, lucky for you, NSG put out a new starter set for new players just last year! It's called System Gateway and you can buy it online here.. Can't afford it? Well, you can print all the cards on demand for free from their page! Want to compete in a tournament? All proxies are legal, print all the cards you want!

Because the organization is volunteers (they pay all artists who work on cards though), they can put out the game how they want and they choose to do it as cheaply as they can so that more people can get into it!

Still unsure? Check out this video from Shut up and Sit down, board game guys extraordianre, about netrunner in 2022:

And when you do, note this: they complain about the flavor... from the previous sets. And I agree with them! But now we have midnight sun and parhelion which imo? is more cyberpunk, more cool, more gay, and more on the nose for our modern reality then any other major cyberpunk franchise you could try.

OKAY BUT LIKE, HOW DO I PLAY THE GAME

Uhhhhh. Okay it's a pretty complicated game; the system gateway set explains it pretty well, but honestly i'd say just watch a tutorial video. This is a good one https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aG0eTf7BncU , or just like. Dm me? and I can rant about it lol, believe me I am ALWAYS down to talk about this game. If you don't wanna do all that

CAN I PLAY ONLINE?

Yes! Jinteki.net allows you to setup games with people and play with any deck you can import, similar to say a MTGO sort of thing. You can make decks and see every card on NetrunnerDb; think of it like if scryfall was also where people posted decks. Both of these can be a little bit jank for new players, but there's plenty of people down to show you the ropes if you need help.

SO WHO DO I PLAY WITH?

There's a few great options! First off, if you're buying/sleeving up System Gateway, try the starter decks with anyone you know! It's setup to be played a multiplayer game you can try with anyone. Don't have someone to play with? Why not check out if there's a netrunner group in your area? No game is as excited for new players as netrunner, most groups have some starter decks available and are glad to teach and show off the game.

Don't want to join something in real life? Maybe check out the Green Level Clearance discord! It's the biggest Netrunner community (i know of) on discord, and is specifically built for new players to learn the game. Don't want to join a discord? Uhhhh. Dm me? Seriously just like, reply to this and i'll give you my discord lol, and i'll teach you the game myself. I love this game too much.

I'M A RETURNING PLAYER; WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW?

If you want to play casually, great news! All the NSG cards work perfectly fine with older FFG cards, feel free to make whatever decks you want. If you want to play online/competitively, standard is currently: FLASHPOINT, RED SANDS, KITARA, REIGN AND REVERIE, DATA AND DESTINY, MAGNUM OPUS, and every NSG set. Yes, the old core sets are no longer legal; they got replaced by the new System Gateway set. Additionally, there's an actual comprehensive rules like magic now, we don't have to go off of the main dev's tweets lol. Lastly, NSG has stopped using the term "brain damage" for the mechanic, they use "core damage" instead, but the mechanic functions the same and can be used interchangably with the old stuff.

IN SUMMARY

I really love this game. I can't really emphasize enough how good it is, how interesting it is, and how much of my brain it takes up. If you're interested in it at all, feel free to ask questions in the replies and i'll try to add them to this to keep it more updated. In the meantime, I'll end this with a card that makes me say "i'm gay" because i know a bunch of lesbians follow me

I'm Gay

ohhhh im gay


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in reply to @JuniperTheory's post:

hmmmm

pretty much the only big one is that they stopped using the term Brain Damage and use Core Damage instead, because brain damage is a real thing that actually affects people but also because core damage allows them to explore a lot more interesting design space with cybernetics and stuff.

aside from that things are about the same? they've codified the rules tho, there's an actual full ruleset you can read online https://nullsignal.games/rules/comp-rules/

Wow, Jinteki.net has added a huge pronoun dropdown since I last used it. Very cool.

Really comprehensive settings menu too. Seems way snappier than it was in like, 2017.

My friends and I recently picked Netrunner back up after playing from release to 2016 at the nadir of the mumbad cycle's bullshit, and the game still kicks ass. We've been playing the Startup format (currently comprised of System Gateway, System Update, Ashes (Uprising/Downfall) and Midnight Sun) and having an outstanding time with a relatively limited card pool. I think we're planning on just adding new sets as they come out until we're playing standard.

I'm glad people kept the game alive and are working to make it better, it's certainly given me a ton of joy.

hell yeah! great choice honestly, it's what i recommend people do.

although if you ever Do want to journey into standard, do note that there are community-run reprints of kitara, reign and reverie, and (soon) red sands! made by a bunch of random people to let people play standard without needing to spend 500 bucks on ffg cards.

I'm a dev with Null Signal and even amidst basking in all the spoiler reactions, it's things like this where people outside the org evangelize the game and the work we're putting into it that's the most invigorating. Thank you.