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Have you ever imagined yourself being a hacker breaking into computer and installing deadly viruses to bring down the evil big wig corporations who control and decide how humans live in a futuristic society?
Or have u ever wanted to be a megacorporation that will shape the society and contribute in developing it by preventing criminals and hackers from stealing you agendas?
Welcome to Android: Netrunner!

Introduction:
Netrunner is a cyberpunk themed Living Card Game (LCG) by Fantasy Flight games which takes place in a futuristic android universe. It is a remake of 90’s Netrunner Collectible Card Game (CCG) which was designed by Richard Garfield.

This is a 2 player game where one of the player plays as The Corporation and the other as The Runner. The game is asymmetric, meaning both the players have a different set of cards and play very differently, yet they have a common goal. To win!
Corporation has 4 factions namely Haas-Bioroid, Jinteki, NBN and Weyland Consortium. Runner has 3 factions – Anarch, Criminal and Shaper. Both the players are supposed to select one of his side’s factions and select the deck cards accordingly. The decks are customizable which I liked about the game.

How Players win?
The Corporation wins if he scores his agendas to a total of 7 points or if he is able to discard cards which The Runner has been holding in his hand (Grip);
The Runner on the other hand wins by stealing agendas to a total of 7 points or if the Corporation runs out of cards in his stack (R&D).

How to Play?
Corporation progresses his game by scoring his agendas and protecting them from the player. He does that by securing it with the Ice, a barrier, which contains subroutines which the Runner has to encounter when he makes a run on a remote server. If the Runner stops the run (Jack out) before the Ice is revealed (Rezzed), he does not suffer any damage, however if the ice is Rezzed and if the Runner does not have an immunity or programs to encounter the subroutines in the Ice, he has to take them and suffer the damage.
The Runners job is to attack the Corporation by making runs on his various remote servers, his hand, his stack and even his trashed cards called the archives. Corporation plays by keeping his cards face down to bluff and lure the Runner into thinking that he has installed an agenda. Runner on the other hand plays all his cards face up and has to be aware of the Corporation’s dirty tactics.

Both have to make sure they have enough money (credits) to perform various actions. So both the players are supposed to spend their credits wisely.

In short the corporations attitude towards the game is “Bring it on!” and that of Runner is “I am making a Run!”.

My Thoughts:
Before playing the game I wasn’t very excited about the game since I have always found card games boring and time consuming. But since I had to play it as a part of my school assignment I unboxed it. I really like the art work, it gave a feel of Blade Runner in hand.

It took quite a while for me to understand the game since the contents of user manual were strewn across the pages. I played a couple of games and started enjoying it, I mean I loved the game!
I started playing the game as a Runner and was very bogged down and agitated the time I played as the Corporation. I guess I did not know the corporation tactics well enough. I like being a runner, being a Runner feels like a cat in a cat-mouse chase game. Loaded with viruses and programs to break through the barrier of the corporation. The feeling when you break the Ice and obtain the agenda is just speechless and the look on the Corporation’s face is pitiful.

It is not really fun if you do not customize your deck. You might be able to play fairly OK. Customizing the deck gives you more power and align the cards to your strategies.
Netrunner has a huge fan base, you will not have problems with finding the game materials and updates to the decks. The only thing that I did not like about Netrunner was its huge learning curve. It took me a while to really understand the terminology. It requires at least 2-3 games to get well acquainted with it. Also, it is a 2 player game so you cannot really play it with a group of friends.

Overall the game is amazing and it has really got me hooked. I recommend this game to everyone. You will definitely get bang for your buck with the new out of the box decks which fantasy flight games releases.