Android: Netrunner - Tips & Strategies

As the Runner, you need to stay reactive to any surprises the Corp may have for you. Acquiring a tag on your final click can be devastating, allowing the Corp to trash valuable resources or even flatline you. To avoid this, do not run on your last remaining click unless there are no other options. This final click will serve as an insurance plan against tags. Then if its not needed, you can just draw a card or use it to gain some economy.

This is a simple tip but I find that it is very useful for my fellow Evil Corporation moguls.

Do not misunderstand that as a Corp, your bluff is actually Agendas. Yes, that is right. We bluff with Agendas. The whole sneaky misdirection we should achieve against the Runner is making them THINK that we have a nice, fat, rich agenda behind a veritable wall of ICE in a Remote Server, when in fact, the real Agenda is in a remote server that has maybe one ICE. The server that the Runner is eyeing is maybe a trap or something that will hit him with lots of tags.

To get the Runner in that mindset we have to sacrifice maybe one or two low point agendas by placing them behind such walls of barriers and putting a few ad campaigns or similar in light defended servers first.

(These rules are based on the “Big Sell Out” rules for NR96 by Damian O’Dea)

Netrunner is a great game for 2 players, but the asymmetrical way it is structured makes it impossible to play with more than 2. Or so you would think! In this team-based variant, the Corps employ Runners to sabotage their rival businesses, and the Runners are all too happy to accept dirty Corp money to tear down parts of their corrupt system.

To play multiplayer Netrunner, you just need an even number of players. Everyone gets into teams of two, with each team having one Runner and one Corp. The Corp player’s Runner team-mate is his Agent, who he has hired to clandestinely destroy his rivals, and the Runner’s Corp team-mate is her Sponsor, her shadowy backer in the cyber-underground. Each team shares their Agenda points, but not credits, clicks, or other resources. Seat players next to their teammate, with the Corp of each team going first (so it goes Corp1, Runner1, Corp2, Runner2, etc.), and play to 11 points, with the following extra rules:

– Any time the Agent would make a run on or target her opponent with a card, she chooses an opposing Corp player to count as her opponent for the resolution of that effect. She may not run or target her own Sponsor. Similarly, a Sponsor may choose any opposing Runner to count as his opponent each time he plays a card, but may not choose his own Agent. The Jinteki Corporate identity’s ability only triggers when an agenda is scored by or stolen from them, and when an Agenda is stolen from them it can only damage the player stealing that Agenda.

– The Sponsor’s Agent is considered to reside on her own central server, much like Archives, HQ, and R&D. The Sponsor may install Ice and Upgrades on this server as normal to protect the identity of its Agent, and Runners on other teams may make runs on this server after their first turn is complete. If a Runner successfully completes a run on another team’s Agent server, she’s hacked into that Agent’s personal system, and may choose to either give the Agent a tag, or pay credits equal to the cost of one of that Agent’s installed non-unique Programs or Hardware to trash it.

– The Agent may rez ice installed on her own server by spendng her credits after the Corp declines to rez that ice. Ice rezzed in this way derezzes at the end of the run.

– When an Agent steals an Agenda, she may score it as normal, or give it to her Sponsor, who immediately installs it in a server (discarding any Agenda or Asset there, if necessary). The Sponsor may advance and score this agenda as if it were his own, and gain any special benefits associated with it.

– If there are more than 2 teams, tags placed on Runners only count for the team that placed them, and every Corp’s Ice gains +1 strength during runs for each other player that made a run against them since the end of their last turn.

– The Corp gains the ability: Spend one click to transfer any number of your credits to your Agent on a 1:1 basis. Each credit for the Corp is worth more than each credit for the Runner, but they have to launder the money and thus lose a lot in the exchange. An Agent has no ability to transfer money to her Sponsor.

– Flatlined Runners do not necessarily lose the game. The Corp also gains this ability: Spend 3 clicks and forfeit a scored Agenda to return your Agent to the game if she has been flatlined. The Agent shuffles her installed cards, stack, heap, and grip together, discards all tags and brain damage, draws 5 cards, gets 5 credits, and enters the game as if it were her first turn. The Corp can rebuild her… they have the technology.

Conventional card game wisdom is typically to play every card in your hand as long as can afford to in an effort to develop faster than your opponent. As the Corp, this can often be wrong. Most of the time, you are better suited to only play one card a turn and maintain a full five card hand. This will decrease the odds of an agenda being accessed when the Runner hits HQ. Even if you don’t have one in your hand, you may draw one on the next turn. Sometimes Ice in your hand can be more helpful to protect HQ agendas than if it was in play.

What to do with those extra clicks? Use them to gain some credits or advance a card…

I hear this query from a few new players when first encountering ICE: If the Runner does not or can not ‘interact with’ or break a piece of ICE, does the Run End by default?

NO! *only* if the ICE has a Subroutine that states “–> End the Run” does the Run actually End. If the ICE has other Subroutines that the Runner cannot break, they trigger, and if the Runner is still alive, they continue with the Run and can then themselves chose to End the Run or continue on to the next piece of ICE or the Central/Remove Server.

e.g. Ichi 1.0 If you can survive the Brain Damage, you are free to carry on with your Run.

A large part of mastering Netrunner is to understand the potential risks and rewards, and the only real way to achieve that is to play the game.

There is a learning curve to the game, but the steep part of that curve is in determining what cards, tactics and strategy your open is deploying and therefore will inform your own card-play and risk analysis decisions.

So simply play more games, play against different opponents, play as both Corp and Runner, play using all Factions/Identities, play using bad opening hands, play with infrequently-used cards, just play!

As a runner, it is enticing to spend all of the early game building your rig. But I advise you to run as early as you can, especially on HQ. Also, whenever the corp is low on credits. It can be a game-changer to pull an early agenda that isn’t well protected, or to test which pieces of ice the corp can’t quite afford to rez yet. Most cheap ice is going to be “End The Run” anyway, and forcing the corp to pay for that can mean they can’t afford to play better operations, or to rez nastier ice.

While it’s not required at all I think playing both a corp deck and a runner deck at some point helps you to better understand the game. For fun try treating it like Memoir 44′ and switching sides.

Play out one game as one side, trade decks and play the other adding up the total agendas each time to see who the true winner is. This also lets you know if there is any lopsidedness in the construction of the decks so they can be tweaked later.