Hey everyone,
I was thinking of making some Netrunner-related videos covering some intermediate topics concering playing Netrunner. My aim is to produce videos aimed at people who know the basics, but want to get to the next level. So far I got the following suggestions from the Stimhack Skype:
What kind of topics you would want to see covered?
Iâd like some gameplay topics:
âWhoâs the Beatdown?â - How to identify who has the better late game and how to adapt you game accordingly (e.g. draw less cards as corp if you can overwhelm the runner late). Remind people that even when playing RP you need to hurry up sometimes! 
Something about Tempo - I still donât know how to define it, but it is important. Knowing when you can spend money without consequences or when it would cripple your econ (and/or give scoring windows). Also, how to abuse this as corp.
I keep meaning to write an article about tempo. The basic idea is that when we say tempo we either mean click efficiency or whoâs the beatdown. Those are both called tempo sometimes and I think we should all be on the same page about the difference. I agree that those are two great topics for intermediate players.
Both of those are definitely good ideas, I remember âWhoâs the Beatdown?â being one of the most influential articles in Magic, sounds like a good starting point.
Iâd love to get a more experienced playerâs thoughts on that line of thinking within Netrunner. I kept trying to classify some extant corp and runner archetypes into âusually beatdownâ and âusually controlâ but was having trouble drawing the line between the two. It seems to me that both sides of the game are (at least now) usually very control focused. Runners are controlling the board by making surgical runs, removing ice, and keeping a money advantage. Corps run control by keeping a money advantage and forcing open scoring windows. Heck, even damage decks that scream beatdown at first glance usually win by forking the runnerâs decision into âsteal and die or donât run and loseâ which seems awfully controlish to me. What does a beatdown deck look like for each side? Agenda rush? Big dig?
A corp deck gets more âbeatdown-yâ as it adds cards like Fast Track and as it plays more burst economy, and more âcontrol-yâ as it adds asset economy and its ice suite gets more porous / taxing. Yellow Flash is pure Beatdown - if it durdles it will lose to Opus + Breakers every time. Industrial Genomics is pure Control - wait 'til the runnerâs cards are gone, score behind Hokusai Grid.
The best decks are versatile, though. HB will rush against Kate and turtle against Gabe.
I think putting yourself in the other players shoes is a good thing to teach. It follows deck archetypes pretty well and can be a fun lesson in exploring the card pool for viable surprises/tweaks to standard decks and also gives a good reminder on when to bluff.
Not sure how much I can say about that other than âplay the decks you get beaten by, and try understand why they made the plays they didâ, but worth considering
Since I consider myself somewhere between novice and intermediate, something like this would be greatly appreciated by me.
I know the biggest problem I seem to have is forming a viable gameplan in the middle of a match. Obviously I have a general idea of what I want to do already based on my deck, but I think what I really want to figure out is how to find the winning line of play when multiple options are available.
Itâs hard for me to say exactly what I mean here. I guess I mean something like - Iâm in a game, sitting with a small AP lead and decent board state. I frequently find myself looking down at my hand and thinking to myself âI have no idea how to get to a winning position from hereâ, where I can score/steal those last AP for the win. I personally have this much more often as the Corp than the runner.
I suppose such a video, if you feel itâs something that can be done, would be âFinding the Winning Lineâ. Since this is something that seems to be beyond me (can experience and understanding archetypes help this?), Iâm not sure how much I can help in terms of material Iâd like to see.
Regardless of whatever you go with, thank you for your time and effort.
I know exactly what you mean 
Will look into it, definitely something that a lot can be said about
Midseasons plays! Both playing midseasons as corp and how to play against midseasons as the runner. I recently started playing NBN and realized I had a midseasons and psychobeale setup in hand. I felt like Iâd been on the receiving end of this so many times before, but executing it myself was a fiddly challengeâI panicked a little parsing out the math, whether Iâd be able to pull it off, and âoh god Iâm spending so much time thinking about this and now itâs obvious to the runner what Iâm thinkingâ. Tips and shorthand for that kind of play would be greatly appreciated.
Two add onto this, talk about how sea source/midseason skill decks are able to leverage money into scores. That the goal isnât to kill the runner necessarily, but to create a situation where you can play an agenda where if the runner streals it youâll kill them. Talk a little bit how the kill pressure becomes more active (breaking news pressure) as well as how to play around it.
Some good concepts around this that often make the game frustrating for new people sea source scorch often seems unfair an unbeatable at first.
I think the closest thing for beatdown for Corps is Rush/FA, i.e. HBFA or Astrobiotics. The closest thing for beatdown for runners are basically just Siphon decks.
I donât think itâs a terribly useful comparison to magic, though. âWhoâs the beatdownâ in Netrunner usually just means âwho wins the long game?â and the large majority of the time right now, thatâs the runner, regardless of what corp is being played. Noise, Val, Whiz, and Reg Ass all have a better late game than every corp largely because of Medium. To some degree, the late economies of Andy and Kate can outclass even RP, which is probably the most controlling corp deck, and so they play the Control role even in that matchup, unless they have a bad start and RP can afford to slow down and try to lock everything up.
Youâre correct that both sides are pretty control focused right now. This results in most decks scrambling to set up to get to their late game as soon as possible so they can assume their more comfortable role, often trying to give up points to get ahead on tempo so they can have an advantage late on the board. However, itâs still very important to be able to tell whoâs the beatdown, even if it isnât always the same within a matchup, so you know whether you should be trying to score or trying to win an economy war.
There was a good article I read when I started playing about the 3 phases of the game.
The runner has the early game, before the corp can afford to ice up.
The corp has the mid game. Theyâre set up and the runner canât get in everywhere.
The runner has the end game. Theyâre rigged up and itâs just a matter of how many accesses their econ affords them. They donât have to pay for any more tools to get in.
Itâs overly simplified but I guess valuable. Seems to indicate a reason for what Dan just said.
Winning in phase 1 is getting really hard. Corps are fast enough. They also control the agenda density - how many accesses you typically need to win.
The corps generally need to win (or be close) before we get to phase 3.
I think tips on managing your resources would be a good topic.
Covering situations like when it might be acceptable to be at 0 credits as both runner and corp, when to rez which ice (do you rez the ETR to stop now, or the Ichi to open a window in another server).
When do you set up your rig/defenses? When do you install that tempo-hit econ card so that it leaves the smallest window for the corp? Should I install that third piece of ice, and where?
Do I draw cards to expand my options, or take credits to keep the pressure on?
Maybe these can be a little too situational, but Iâm sure there are some best practices.
IT Department seems to be an exception to this - if it gets even a little going to corp can durdle almost forever.
Yeah IT is a big exception. Also, nisei counter can be an exception, too, though not as hard of one. Vs anarchs in particular, its not the lock piece that it used to be, but it can take a losing RP vs Kate game and make it clearly RP-favored.
Iâve been running Val out of cards as IG.
Nothing quite as funny as a Medium with 4 counters she canât use because thereâs a Hokusai on R&D.
Iâve been playing against a lot of IG recently. That deck seems to just lose against anyone with Levy.