Anyone interested in an Online Tourney using a single Core Set?

Some of us never played in the early days of ANR. Some of you might miss those heady days when you had to play Decoy because the rules said you had to have at least 45 cards in your deck and you literally could find no other cards to wedge in there.

If I organized an online Single Core tournament, would you be interested in playing?

You’d be on the hook for one game a week.

Now, I never did play with just the core set much longer than learning the game for the first few times, but I was under the impression that it’s very much not balanced faction-wise and the best decks are basically “Solved” for the core set. Am I mistaken?

I have heard that said. I do not know myself.

I’m a big fan of the core, other than the Corp agenda suites sucking. I would love a core set tourney. So would my mom. Other than that…I don’t know who else would love it.

Just kidding about my mom. She doesn’t know how to play netrunner.

I have some guys forming a pool of webcam net runner players. If that’s what you mean, then I’d be interested in playing pick up games but prob not a tournament.

Send me a PM if this is what you’re talking about.

This is accurate.

Corp side, Weyland dominates with SEA-Scorch combo being essentially unbeatable. (Amusingly, Decoy is one of the only outs.)

Runner side, Noise dominates because there’s no way to stop your deck going into Archives. (He’s limited in how many viruses he can actually play, but Crypsis is a good breaker in Core-only.)

It would actually be really interesting to see how players with several years of experience approach a single-Core set meta. I don’t think there were any big tournaments with just one Core set. Both the first Icebreaker when it was released at GenCon and the World’s tournament allowed up to 3.

IIRC, it was actually Gabe that was the dominant runner (winning the first World’s) and many smaller tournaments. Noise became a beast in the Genesis cycle, but with just 4 virus in the Core set (10 cards max total in a single Core, plus 2 Deja Vu) it was just second banana. But, with just one Core, you can only use 2 Siphons and 2 Scorch (and 1 Aesop’s!), so the signature cards of the best factions are limited, which may open it up much wider.

Also, Crash Space is another Scorch tech card, that’s also useful for Siphons. Probably another reason why Gabe was so good. No need to spend influence against the biggest threats.

SEA-Scorch would still kill you with less than four in hand with a Crash Space defense… SEA, trash Crash Space, Scorch.

SEA-Scorch can’t kill you with a Decoy defense. Crash Space does make it so it can’t kill you with 5 cards in hand, though. (SEA-Scorch-Scorch deals 5 damage through a Crash Space.)

I guess multiple Crash Spaces work, though.

It goes without saying that the Astro errata would have to be rescinded for single-core, otherwise NBN couldn’t play.

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Yep, that’s all correct. You need Crash Space and 5 cards at all times to survive*. But, Plascrete is about the same. If you have Plascrete and 3 cards, SEA Scorch Scorch is your doom. It is a bit easier to kill through Crash Space because they don’t have to wait for both Scorches.

Agree about the Astro errata too.

*Barring extended combos like 3-advanced Posted Bounty: Scorch, Scorch, Biotic, Archived, Scorch.

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I’d play in a core only tournament. But yes BABW with sea source scorched is good.

Looks like some interest in this. At the moment, I can’t really run two tournaments at the same time, so I might have to do this as a ladder league instead of a Swiss tourney.

Or just wait until my other tournament is wrapped up.

I’d be interested. I didn’t get into ANR until Flashpoint.