Rotation will kill Netrunner

The premise of this topic seems ridiculous: new competitive players won’t buy datapacks if they only get to play with them for 12 months, and this will somehow kill Netrunner.

I do believe that a lot of new players won’t datapacks that will rotate soon. But, where is the line? Will they buy data packs for 18 months, 24 months of use? It depends on the individual.

The thing is no one is going to start playing the game and drop 960 USD retail to get playsets of every available card on day one, even if there was no rotation. Most new players will buy a Core Set. Then, they’re going to figure out who they want to play with. Most players just play with a few other people. FFG tells us they are the majority of the players in the game, and likely the deciding factor if the game will die.

If the casual player decide with their small meta what cards they should play, rotation really doesn’t matter.

If they start going to meet-ups, then hopefully they know ahead of time that some packs will rotate sooner than others. And, unless they get a used set for a good price, they will likely buy the packs they are comfortable with, given the packs expatriation date, as @CriticalTwitsBrian said. A lot of the time they will be able to borrow or proxy for competitive events (we have plenty of people that do this in our local meta). If it’s a critical card like Jackson Howard, there are often other options like Championship decks that they can get and not feel like it’s a waste (or maybe a bundle of alt-arts). Most competitive decks can be built with less than a dozen datapacks spread over multiple cycles (plus Core/Expansions that don’t rotate), so if a new player wants to buy retail, a lot of the time it’s only a few datapacks from an about-to-rotate cycle.

Really, that take-away for this topic is, be nice and accommodating to new players. Let them know about rotation (buyer’s remorse is a bigger factor, than knowing up front), let them borrow or proxy cards about to rotate.

TL/DR:

  • Be nice to new players.
  • Casual players determine the life of Netrunner, not competitive players. Rotation is probably not a big factor for many casual players in small metas.
  • There’s are other cost-effective ways to buy into Netrunner if your an informed new competitive player: someone selling their collections, figure out what you want to build and just get what you need (focus your purchases on the most recent cards).
  • There are competitive deck options with only a few cards from about-to-rotate cycles.
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You are one the smartest guys in the community surely you’ve done the math on this subject does it work in your mind? I know you would probably be reluctant to say anything negative so maybe add how you see it working out. Again not trying to have some long negitive thread just trying to have a discussion.

Rotation is indeed a risky and drastic change to the game, even if it is necessary in long term.
And yes, it can easily kill a game, if the game does not have a strong player base and good health.
I have experienced this before with the World of Warcraft TCG.
Comparing Netrunner with Pokemon is absurd. Pokemon is one of the top sellers in this business, while Netrunner is a tiny fringe game in comparison. Things which work well for Pokemon, MTG or Yugioh can easily backfire for such a small community as is Netrunner…

I feel like the OP’s point is at complete odds with rotation, which makes it easier for new players to enter the game because of reduced card pool. Not all players want to own every card or be competitive anyways. This isn’t a CCG, prices of “old cards” aren’t guaranteed to increase, and we don’t even know if legacy formats will emerge or have any popularity. I personally am willing to lend anyone 3x Astros if they want to play broken legacy Netrunner dex with me. I will cherish the losses.


As an aside, here’s an inchoate list of cards that already killed Netrunner:

  • Account Siphon
  • AstroScript Pilot Program
  • Breaking News
  • Kate “Mac” McCaffrey
  • Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future
  • Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire
  • Medium
  • Parasite
  • Scorched Earth
  • Yog.0
  • Eli 1.0
  • Jinteki: Replicating Perfection
  • Andromeda: Dispossessed Ristie
  • Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers
  • Clone Chip
  • Atman
  • Same Old Thing
  • Caprice Nisei
  • Sweeps Week
  • NAPD Contract
  • Prepaid VoicePAD
  • Mushin No Shin
  • Keyhole
  • Eater
  • Marcus Batty
  • D4V1D
  • Faust
  • Industrial Genomics
  • 24/7 News Cycle
  • Global Food Initiative
  • Apocalypse
  • Employee Strike
  • Museum of History
  • Bio-Ethics Association
  • Sensie Actors Union
  • Mumbad City Hall
  • Exchange of Information
  • Rebirth
  • NBN: Controlling the Message
  • Rumor Mill
  • Temujin Contract
  • Equivocation

At some point someone has made a legitimate case for them “killing Netrunner.” Some will cycle out even! So maybe this zombie of a game that we’re all somehow playing despite it having died repeatedly will continue to be playable. Maybe it’s the best game ever designed and we love it for a reason, I dunno, whoamitosay, exeunt.

9 Likes

As a relatively new player, i have been actively buying the packs that will rotate so i have all the cards. This is weird, but has been fun.

2 Likes

Exactly. With collectability and randomness the price of entry for Pokemon and other games is astronomically higher if you want to be competitive. Then add rotations every year and the player has to be much more invested in the game to continue. Yet it does continue. Thus my point means that Netrunner won’t die from Rotation simply because of Rotation. Other games get along just fine with rotation that have much larger flaws (collectability).