Play at or above your level?

[TheRedArmy]

@steve_houston

winning metal attitude

Steel > Bronze.

I am Steel.

XD

[x3r0h0ur]

When you know/think you’re playing against someone above your level, the key is to be nice and fun, so they’re more apt to talk to you about how you played. I recommend playing above your level for sure. Which for me, is anybody on here.

[spags]

There is no level above me.

• @mediohxcore

[PaxCecilia]

Can I quote you on that?

[steve_houston]

Someone needs to pull a Philly upset. Dude wins too much. Not saying it’ll be me but come on guys. He’s beatable.

[spags]

Account Siphon in the Current Meta

I have no rivals. I am 9-2 in tournaments lifetime. I have entered 11 and won 9 of them. Of the other two, one was a plugged-in a couple weeks after I started playing, t8, other was the winter tournament at worlds, got 3rd with decks I wasn’t playing at worlds against a field as strong as most regionals. I’m not saying I didn’t get lucky sometimes, but really, if you play perfectly, (not saying I do), you don’t need much luck to win at Netrunner.

Direct quote, when someone tried to put me and him in the same boat. He did just 10-0 his MAC event.

[Danwarr]

@captain_frisk

Just play more, and focus on the play. After a game reflect on what you learned, and make sure that you don’t discount OR over attribute the role that luck played in the game.

Very much this. With ANR being a card game there are some things that can happen just due to the nature of RNG. Like seeing 13 unique cards in R&D on 1 turn and hitting 0 agendas.

Also, one of the things I’ve noticed about Netrunner is that the reason a game is ultimately won or lost a could be the consequences of decisions made much earlier. A sort of “turning point” where you can recognize what the “best” play could’ve been.

[PaxCecilia]

I meant more like this:

“‘There is no level above me
-@mediohxcore’
-@spags”

[Yoshi]

I am soooo looking forward to playing at Worlds this year, to play all the pros, hope to get to play at least a couple of the best, to see how I stand against them (don’t think I am at their level), but mostly to learn and have fun.

[spags]

LOL

I’d never say that. Dan is above us all, and there are a shit-ton of awesome players in this game that can win anywhere at any time. That’s the beauty of the game.

[spags]

@TheRedArmy

play against the best I can and learn by continued failures until I get it right?

Do this. I do like that in the SHL, you can have a variety of skill levels, but, usually, the games are always going to be competitive.

[Apreche]

People here are suggesting playing against the best and learning from failures. This is good intentioned advice, but isn’t actually a good idea.

If someone is slightly better than you, you can indeed learn a lot from playing agains them. But if someone is too far above your level, you actually can’t learn much by playing against them.

Imagine trying to play basketball against Lebron James. You aren’t even going to be able to touch the ball. Meanwhile, you are such a beginner you just need to learn how to dribble.

[MasterAir]

Is that analogous? I think playing against the best player you know who is willing to point out your mistakes is the best way to get better. You don’t have the problem of being broken by a man twice your size in netrunner.

[x3r0h0ur]

Depends on whether or not you play headlock reina or 7 point shutdown, and how spry you are.

[maznaz]

Unless you play Headlock Reina against someone twice your size.

[TheRedArmy]

@spags

Do this. I do like that in the SHL, you can have a variety of skill levels, but, usually, the games are always going to be competitive.

I don’t always feel like I’m competitive in every game I play.

[camelCase]

Something that may be taken for granted by the posters so far is that Netrunner is two games: deck construction and game execution. So far everyone has been talking about execution (which is good since it’s definitely the more important of the two, especially in Netrunner) but you’ll eventually hit a wall if you play bad decks with good execution, especially against top tier players. A good idea might be to netdeck tournament winning lists verbatim and play with them, just to see how piloting a “professionally” constructed deck feels.

I’ll disclaim up front that I regularly do not follow my own advice, usually out of some misguided attempt to find novel ideas that have been overlooked by other players. In reality I don’t play enough to truly evaluate novel interactions and should really start only lightly tweaking good lists. The problem then is that I’ll have to start blaming my losses on my play instead of my jank not working out that game .

[spags]

Well, I mean that you won’t be going up against as many joke/fun decks, or random unhelpful-for-testing games, in the SHL. Not every game is going to be competitive, esp. on OCTGN. I’ve had tons of blowouts there, where my agendas keep vomiting up.

[Slakker]

I’ve been playing Netrunner since March and have no real MTG background so the learning curve has been steep. For me, SHL has been invaluable. Getting waxed by the top players in the world and then having them take the time to give me feedback has been awesome. @erinrockabitch, @anon50033301, @RTsa are a few that were exceptionally helpful. @bblum in particular has gone above and beyond to help me. Playing a casual with him and open dialoguing along the way about what plays I should be making was probably my personal highlight.

So here’s a few of the things I’ve noticed playing SHL vs General Population on OCTGN. Not that you don’t get good players in GenPop but SHL is almost always a much higher caliber.

1. I can make huge mistakes in GenPop play and not even know it because they may not take advantage of it. In SHL, you know almost immediately you messed up because the opponent capitalizes and you lose.
2. I can put together a janky deck and think it’s pretty good playing GenPop. Take the same deck to SHL and you see quickly how weak it really is.
3. There are card interactions/rules that I was playing incorrectly and nobody pointed it out until SHL.
4. A lot of times the top guys will play decks they’ve been wanting to try out against me in SHL. So I get to see a wide variety of decks piloted at a high level and see “how” they win. I also get to see their different strategies for picking apart my decks.

So basically, by playing tier 1 netdecks (that fit my style) in SHL I can focus solely on what I need to do to become a better pilot and better player. I also have a “diary” as @Badeesh mentioned of my league matches, what mistakes I made, and what would I do differently. Still a very long ways to go though.

One kinda funny story. I jumped into SHL3 after I’d been playing for about 3 weeks (total noob). My first win came against @spags. He was absolutely beside himself that he was losing to me and throwing out acronyms way faster than I could google them. All I could think was “what a jerk!” Not only did I have no idea he was one of the top players in the game, but it was actually reading his blog from Worlds 2014 while researching ANR that inspired me to start playing in the first place. Now I would relish the opportunity to be acronymically abused by him.

[spags]

@Slakker

One kinda funny story. I jumped into SHL3 after I’d been playing for about 3 weeks (total noob). My first win came against @spags. He was absolutely beside himself that he was losing to me and throwing out acronyms way faster than I could google them. All I could think was “what a jerk!” Not only did I have no idea he was one of the top players in the game, but it was actually reading his blog from Worlds 2014 while researching ANR that inspired me to start playing in the first place. Now I would relish the opportunity to be acronymically abused by him.

Awesome. Sorry, I was prob. just more upset at OCTGN. I am occasionally a jerk online, and apologize. I don’t really care about losing. Love the picture of you rapidly googling acronyms.

Please, if you’re new, or just confused, stop the opponent, and ask about acronyms, cards, plays, etc.

@Slakker

GenPop

I love the phrase. We’re all in the prison that is Netrunner.