I usually play netrunner once or twice a week after work at the LGS. I have a 10h work day and I do need my 8h of sleep. What this means is that I can only hope for a few hours of ANR a week. I would like to get as many games in as possible in those hours. How can I achieve this?
I would never hurry up my opponents and besides, they are usually pretty fast and experienced players. How can I speed up my play? I feel like the corp side usually sets the tempo so I have been playing lots of NBN FA. Any other archetypes that play fast from other factions? What about runners? What about tips beyond deck archetypes?
I have not played any tournaments, but I expect this to be important in that context as well (less brain melting, more time to eat/relax between games), so I am sure a lot of people here have thought about this, and I would love to hear your suggestions.
Siphon-spam Reina is about as fast as you get on the runner side. Supermodernism is pretty quick on the Corp side. But yeah, it’s a long game - partly because unlike Magic/L5R the game can eb and flow and one side doesn’t snowball momentum. I don’t think there are many ways around that.
Deck matters a lot, but you’re asking for tips beyond that as well, and I feel like I can help some there.
Playing a lot is the most obvious one, especially with the decks you use. The more experience you have with your deck and against a variety of other decks, the better you’re able to know what to do in any given situation. Less time spent thinking on your turn, and all that. Planning out a rough plan on your opponent’s turn can be helpful as well, so long as you don’t become blind to other possibilities – some people are better at that than others.
Multi-access/trashing tend to speed things up some, which is one reason I’ve enjoyed playing Whizzard/Anarch. That said, Andy is generally strong, and I believe tends to do pretty darn well in the early game. The easiest way to really set the tempo as the runner (at least, in the sense of speeding the game up beyond just play skill development) is to be able to win quickly, before the corp is entirely set up – good against FA decks, trickier against glacier.
Playing on OCTGN might also be good, though games on there can be slower than IRL ones sometimes (then again, can also be faster), at least it can be done from home.
@bayushi_david: Thanks for the deck suggestions man! And you are right, this is not a short game and sometimes you will be there for a while. But certain archetypes can help (like the ones you suggested) and some can make it worse; I had a one hour game with a friend yesterday: I was playing an RP I was not familiar with and he was playing Nasir.
@GreedyGuts: Great suggestions man! Playing the same deck a lot sounds obvious, but to be honest, it is probably the #1 reason for me. I like to try new things that I see online and sometimes I overdo it. Besides being slow, if you bring a new deck every time you play, you probably end up going through a lot of decks without really learning any of them.
I also like the idea of multi-trash as a way to keep the corp from building a stronghold. Anything you can do as a runner is really useful since I do think that most of the times the corp archetype is what dictates the tempo.
I think you’ve got good suggestions for making the game go more quickly. But I wonder about the premise. Why is your emphasis on number of games? You are still getting in the same number of netrunner hours. If you speed up the play you may make those hours more enjoyable because you are not fretting about wasting your valuable netrunner time, but keep in mind that you are still playing netrunner. Note that if you fret about the play not being quick enough, it may make your play experience less enjoyable.
Speeding up your game is good. Everyone will be happier, but I think even with lightning fast tempo, you can only increase your number of games so much. Good to also have a realistic view of how many decks you’ll get to test on a given night. That way you can enjoy the ride.
@cspieker: You raise a good point man. Yes, it is true that one way or another I do get the same 2hours of ANR whether I play 2 games or 5 games. However there are a fewer of issues that really affect my experience of the game.
First, I think 2h with 5 games vs 2h with 2 games means “more game”. Perhaps it’s just a personal thing, but I believe that I have had a more full experience the more opening hands I get to see, the more scenarios I get exposed to. A long protracted game with the corp slowly digging for the pieces it needs and the runner building up a rig and poking once in a while is just not as much variety as 2 or 3 games. Again, that might just be personal preference.
Second, longer games make for more misplays. I hate it when I make a stupid mistake and lose, and I really hate it when my opponent makes a stupid mistake and I win (I am sure the sentiment might be more one-sided in a tournament). It takes away from the game when you know you won/lost on a misplay, and people are less likely to have a misplay in a shorter game: less things to remember, less info to manage.
Lastly, and this is just a technicality really, if my buddy asks me to stay later for one more game, I am much more likely to do so, if it means being 20min late for dinner with my wife. If it means being 1h late, it’s a different story. Sometimes I will actually leave the store half an hour earlier than I could have, just because I do not want to risk starting an hour long game. I know this might sound silly, but man, it happens all the time. I’ve heard that MtG actually got started as a way to fill up time between longer tabletop games at game cons. It’s the same principle; smaller time packets are just easier to manage.
OK sounds good. I would suggest trying to make Harmony Medtech with 6 3-point agendas work. Those games will almost always be fast. Throw in a flatline component (e.g. RSVP-Shinobi) just to give yourself one more quickgame condition!
I think this one is better than Supermodernism because in that one you may win quickly, but if you don’t then you will lose, but it may take a while (which would be horribly maddening), whereas if you lose via Harmony Medtech, it will assuredly happen in a hurry!
@cspieker: Yes! Harmony Medtech makes so much sense! And yes, when you lose, you will lose fast; always a blessing. I was trying to think of a way to play Jinteki faster but somehow I never thought of that. Probably because I never had the time to try that ID out Thanks for the suggestion man!
I ran two really fast decks at Lousiville, just to have 35 minutes to unwind between rounds. I had 2 losses in 6 rounds of swiss, I would attribute it to knowing my decks and having plenty of rest time. I ran TWIY scorch and Noise siphon recursion with keyhole (AoA style).
Otherwise Medtech with SanSan is super fast, I have a tested pretty good (not finalized) build if you’re interested.
One suggestion is that you don’t need to play full games to have fun and learn things.
If you want to practice your openings, play to 3 points instead of 7, then shuffle up and try again. This teaches you to run aggressively and find ways to get access.
If you have only 10 minutes, just each draw opening hands, show them, and chat with your buddy if you would keep or mulligan in this matchup and why. You can get some really interesting discussions this way and improve your mulliganing.
@x3r0h0ur: Would love to see the Medtech build! I just checked out your Lousiville decks at nerunnerdb; they do look fast. I am glad to hear you were consistently getting some rest between the rounds of swiss; this has been one of the main reasons keeping me away from tournaments. And btw, what is AoA?
@chrism6794: That’s a really good idea! 3 point games mean more variance but it can benefit either side, so it’s ok. As for opening hand/mulligan testing, that’s also a really good way to cool down between games as well as get some value out of “few minutes left”. Thanks for the advice man, I hadn’t thought of either one.
@Chris_Pedersen: That would definitely make me faster But also make me look like a jerk to my opponent; he would be on the other side of that clock after all.
Yeah, I know “know your deck” seems obvious, but honestly, find something that makes you feel good to play and then keep playing and refining that for a while and see where it takes you.
Most recent tournament I went to, I didn’t do so well, but got a lot of experience, had a lot of fun, and had 20+ minutes of relaxation every hour because the games were done so quickly. NEH/Whizzard.
Mulligan testing can be really good, as mentioned above, even just talking about it with your friend if you decide to mull, see if that was the right move. Bad to give out info in a tourney, but for just having fun that can matter a lot. Also helps the decision stick in your head a bit more after, so you can see if it was as solid a choice as you thought at the time – did you need that Plascrete after all? If you like the idea of new decks but don’t want to risk playing them all, put them together on the DB and try a few sample hands.
Multi-access, trashing, and otherwise shutting the corp down all definitely feel like they lead to shorter games, to me. One reason I love Anarch so much, no influence spent for Imp, Medium, Nerve Agent, or Parasite.
But also make me look like a jerk to my opponent; he would be on the other side of that clock after all.