So, looking at the kitara cycle cards and the various archetypes they’ve been pushing recently, I think we might have finally fixed a problem that’s plagued netrunner since it’s creation: the corp colour pie. I present to you, the new diagram of the corp factions. Let me know what you think (and if you disagree, cause I am in no way an expert on this).
Okay, so key to this theory is the idea of a corp being proactive/reactive, namely, on what side of the board they do most of their interraction. HB and Jinteki like to interact with runners on their side of the board, whether it’s trashing assets, dealing with ice or hitting traps. NBN and Weyland however, like to interact with the runner on the runner’s side, through operations, assets and on-encounter effects that put the runner under direct pressure. It’s why HB and Jinteki decks like to set up large boardstates, whilst NBN and Weyland are by far the two factions most likely to rush out.
You then add to this the credit/other resources axis. HB taxes the runner through expensive ice, whilst Weyland wants to lower the runner’s credit pool directly to kill them or leave them unable to contest remotes. Jinteki got a bunch of cards around taxing the runner’s cards in red sands, which ties into their theme of restricting the amount of cards in hand the runner has. And NBN have just received a bunch of support to the ‘bounce runner cards’ archetype.
i’m not sure what you mean has been fixed. are you saying the ANR design team has finally fixed it? we as players have figured it out? (eg: your table)
NBN has traps too. Weyland is the only faction without traps. Lukas said it’s because they do everything out in the open. that’s why they have public agendas
i’m not sure exactly what this means. like Economic Warfare and Hard-Hitting News? every corp faction is getting Reprisal ops. Jinteki has Enforced Loyalty and Voter Intimidation. HB has Helion Alpha/Beta Test and Project Ares.
basically i think the colour pie is way more complicated than this table suggests, but i’m not sure what exactly it’s meant to convey
It’s not that each faction has no access at all to the other dynamics, more that it’s not their forte.
I think reactive Vs proactive is more “Punishes the runner for doing something”, which traps do by default, but also cards like HHN, Barry the total prick, and others. (I recently got got by him, so I’m upset.)
Conversely HB and Weyland just attack you in a more general sense. Condensing the amount of clicks you have, it just making you go Boom.
Now each faction has access to other methods of attack, NBN can just Close your Accounts, and Weyland can Force you to Connect, but their main themes are directed in one place.
But I think that’s one of the problems right now. CI is a deck that is proactive, and so good at what it does (/did) that it’s really hard to beat. NBN is the biggest challenger to the mantle of Best Deck (IMO) in this new world because whilst its heart is in the reactive style which it does absolutely incredibly, its out of colour effects are actually good enough to see play on other factions. A click to make you lose four money for almost no work? Say no more! Couple that with the fact that the new identity is in part a reactive effect that requires the runner to make specific plays, but the payoff is higher than it might be of it were a proactive one. (Compare it to the HB identity that rotated that I never got to play.) Suddenly you have a faction that does its own thing very well, and can also be proactively disruptive. HB was linear and powerful, which people hate, but NBN does everything, which I think people hate more.
I’m probably massively overselling this NBN problem, but if I can win with a deck it must be good.
The idea behind this post is not to comment on the meta or talk about particular cards, but to outline the basic strategies behind all the corps.
HB and Jinteki do interact with the runner’s side of the board, but it’s all for the purpose of making their board look better. See how the factions tend to win games. HB and Jinteki do it through powerful ice/upgrades and economy to back it up. NBN and Weyland do it because of the runner’s stuff, if they don’t have enough credits, or are tagged, or don’t have the right breaker out yet.
Basically, HB and Jinteki are focused around making they have enough resources. NBN and Weyland are focused around making sure the runner doesn’t have enough resources.
And lastly, this is just something I thought about recently, seeing as lots of discussion through netrunner’s history is about how the colour pie was out of whack (NBN used to be entirely the ‘fast advance’ faction, which was ridiculous). I just thought it was interesting.
In the game that created the color pie, the current lead designer really talks about the color pie first as a basic “mind set” or set of motivations for each color. There are mechanics attached to the various colors, but that is really secondary, and not a hard-and-fast rule even.
I think the best way to talk about Runner or Corp “color pie” would be to think about it from a less mechanical point of view.
What does each color want? What motivates it? What does it refuse to do?
That last question points up to a problem with using color pie in Netrunner. In Magic, the color pie has built into it the idea of enemies and opposition. White is defined in part by being “not Black,” etc. Netrunner does not really do this.
I think talking about faction “color pie” is interesting in Netrunner, but I think it will always have some limitations because the concept does not map easily on to the basic structure of Netrunner.
Not sure NBN doesn’t reactivly attack (tag’n bag, etc), and they never attack money (reversed account, closed account) : by tagging the guys, do they really attack less the wallet than HB ?
It’s just they aim at 4 different attritions / boost :
HB wants to reduce the runner’s possibilities and boost their possibilities
Weyland aims at making runner poor and getting rich
NBN wants to do whatever it needs to slow the runner and get speed
Jinteki aims at slowing the runners by gradually killing them and become a nicer person (honestly, what Jinteki wants for themselves is still quite blur)
Then devs putted some superb finisher cards not in the faction pie so you can spend your influence on finishing moves but not have all finishing moves at once.
That’s fair enough to say, although there are some stark differences between factions in netrunner. HB and Jinteki have a pretty solid rivalry, as shown by the fact that they both try to do the same thing via different means in flavour and in game (providing a cheap workforce in the lore and taxing the runner out of resources in game)
I think Jinteki wants secrecy and obscurity. You look at cards like Clone Retirement, Voter Intimidation, Allele Repression, Bio-Ethics Association, etc. and it’s clear they don’t want anyone digging too deep into their unethical behavior, particularly as it relates to their cloning operations.
Even cards like Celebrity Gift which give the runner information can be deceitful, in the sense that what you reveal can entice runs, and what you hold back can be dangerous. For example, showing a hand with 2 agendas, but not revealing that you have a Snare! in HQ.
