Here in Canberra, Australia, we’re about to wrap up our first CanCity league this Wednesday. Our top 4 will be streamed and recorded apparently, so you might see us on YouTube later.
In the meantime, our second league will be starting up. The co-ordinator has decided to do something very interesting:
Current runners are banned. Players will submit their own custom runner, along with their entry fee and these IDs will be checked for balance by the league co-ordinator (and presumably they’ll seek feedback). Once the list is finalised, players will be able to pick from the custom runners to use each week, but they may not use their own ID.
I’m pretty excited because I think Netrunner is a ripe game for alternative rulesets (I’m still working on trying to make Singleton work) and custom IDs are fun and creative.
So on that creativity, what would you submit as your custom runner?
I’m putting together a few, these are the two I have so far:
The Oracle
Shaper - 1 Link - 45/15
When your turn begins, you may look at the top card of your stack. You may place that card on the bottom of your stack.
Nisei, Marked
Criminal - 1 Link - 45/17
When you trigger the “When accessed” effect of a Corp card, you and the Corp secretly spend 0, 1 or 2 credits. If you and the Corp spend a different number of credits, you may choose not to resolve the “When accessed” effect.
The templating on Nisei is weird, I’m not sure on the wording but I think the intent of the effect is clear. Thoughts?
Jack Flash
Criminal - 0 link - 45/17
The first time you draw, if you draw an event, you may reveal and play it.
Doppleganger
Shaper - 0 link - 45/15
When your turn begin, you may trash an installed card to install a card from your heap with cost less or equal of the trashed card.
There’s no way for the corp player to determine if it is the first event drawn. If you change it to once per turn when you draw an event you may reveal and play it. It becomes stronger but also enforceable.
It should honestly just become mandatory to reveal the first card drawn each turn. The effect is powerful enough.
Infinite Lady counters, infinite Earthrise draws, infinite Daily Casts, infinite Liberated Accounts (aka double Magnum Opus), Infinite David counters. Just to name a few. This is too powerful.
Presumably it’d be something like “When you draw an event you may reveal and play it without spending a click. Use this ability only on your turn and only once per turn.”
I think that wording handles giving you the free click but not negating credit and additional costs. It still seems very strong, and I think we’d need to lower available influence, or give it some other downside to keep it in line. Not a major downside, or we could just reduce influence to around 13?
Yeah that Doppelganger is ridiculous. I think it would still be too strong even if you changed it to “Cost less then” because you can turn Earthrise and Lady into Daily Casts and David, Liberated into just about anything, and I’m sure there are other busted things we could find.
Effectively two free clicks AND free economy? I’d play the shit out of this.
When people thought The Collective were too strong because of “take 8, run” with Magnum Opus - a 5-credit, 2MU investment in a 55/5 ID, making a 45/15 that can go “take 12, run” for a 6-credit, 0MU investment probably isn’t the greatest thing, yeah.
I didn*t even have to look at a list of cards to bust the ID. “Costs less than” does ruin some obvious stuff, but it doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I mean, run Archives, install Hades Shard for free, next turn click 3 times on Liberated for 12 credits, maybe Magnum Opus a bit during the next turn, draw 4 cards with Earthrise during the next couple, maybe Daily Cast for a bit, Imp a card or two then end up with a Clone Chip is obviously the Netrunner equivalent to being in Magical Christmas Land, but even if you skip some of those steps it’s still way too strong.
Printing free, very broad recursion on an ID is simply not a good idea. It needs a very real drawback, such as costing an unpreventable brain damage (not easy to abuse) or having you remove the top X cards of your stack from the game, where X is the cost of the card you’re installing (easily abuseable but does make sure it’s not an effect you can keep on using) - or something like that. Or you could start by making it a 55/5.
I’m 100% against the idea of the card, though, so I wouldn’t want to unbreak it in any way; I would very much prefer to simply design something else.
The self-mill MIGHT make this alright provided this wasn’t a Shaper. Free access to triple Levy makes this way too good. I think it would have to go in Criminal and only because of their lack of recursion. That being said, I think Criminals need to get their own form of recursion, which may still break this.
If you had to pay the cost? That’s still really strong. Maybe if you pay the cost and it has to be the same type as the card being trashed?
So, 11 influence after two copies of Security Nexus right?
I assume you mean the first resource installed each turn? Plays nice with Street Peddler, get Daily Casts off them for free. Plays VERY nice with The Supplier.
Not sure about how strong the flip ability is, it might be too strong against kill combo decks?
Interesting design though, not sure where I’d go for our win con, but I have a deck brewing in my head already.
Ezekiel:
Anarch/Shaper 45/0.
AI icebreakers have +1 strength, and their install cost is reduced by 3c.
The corp begins the game with 2 cards extra and 2c extra.
OR
Criminal 40/12 - 1 link
Whenever you remove a tag, draw a card and gain 1c per tag removed.
I agree; even with all the possibilities you’ve mentioned in this thread, even simply using it for infinite clone chips to = infinite parasites/other disposable programs would be broke as f***.
No Idea what I’d bring to an event like this! Just for spite’s sake, I’d be tempted to submit
Iain Schmerling
Exactly like Ian Sterling but with 15 influence
or how about
Rielle “kit” Schmeddler
Exactly like Rielle “kit” Peddler but with 13 influence
This isn’t immediatedly unbalanced, at least, in that it is not broken by a single card. Most decks have excellent draw engines by now (Wyldside/Pancakes, Earthrise, Drug Dealer, etc.), and while starting with it in play is powerful, it is not impossible to reach the same level of efficiency (or a better one). Most of the power comes from being able to click twice for four cards, and I can imagine it could break some combo deck, but with 10 influence and a very real drawback it’s probably OK, especially since the ability doesn’t help with the execution of any current combo.
Body Snatcher
Criminal 45/10
0 Link
You may include other identity cards in this deck, they have no influence cost. You may install identity cards for 4 credits and Body Snatcher gains their abilities. You may have any number of other identities installed.
Could be a place to put some of the regular ID’s that are banned. I think it would be good with:
Maxx
Noise
Gabe
Kate
Kit (OMG Kit)
Quetzal
Iain
Once per turn would make it pretty weak, one free card a turn is about on par with other IDs without having big drawbacks. Also there probably is a card that would be too good with it, but I designed this before Faust was spoiled.
