Sustainable Events for New Runners

Hi all,

I’m zafuri or you can call me Jeffrey. I’m from Penang, Malaysia in which our community was just sort of “revived” thanks to the surge of Core 2.0.

We had an influx of newbies recently joining the pool of Netrunners and everyone is very excited with new cards, new janky format ideas (3.1.1.1, Cache Refresh format with different cycle mixes) we all came up with and we are running regular meet-ups and leagues in which all are community ran.

However we found a problem here.

The first batch of newbies have no issue catching up, as we made customized league formats to prepare them for standard format. However, we have concern for those who came later to join us. We wouldn’t want to roll back to formats with core sets only which is pretty boring to those who had progressed so far. But we are also reluctant to introduce to them too many cards at once, which is overwhelming to total newbies.

Hence, I would like to know how the community of other areas are managing the player pool with events that help newbies out. Please throw in any ideas you have ! Will really appreciate all the inputs !

#makenetrunnergreatagain

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One was that we’re trying to do this locally is have our GNK’s be standard events, but run our monthly/bi-monthly leagues as the Modded/Cache Refresh formats. It allows for a way to roll new players into the game on a reduced basis, as well as get them coming regularly as opposed to once a month.

Encouraging new players to come out often helps in retention, the only problem that arises is when we’re in Store Champ/Regional’s season and the more competitive players want to meet up for gauntlet testing as opposed to casuals. Sometimes this means there’s not a variety or consistent stream of players playing league games.

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How many new players are you expecting after your initial batch? If it’s just a trickle, maybe a few of first batch-er would be up for mentor/mentee relationship to get them up to speed.

Then just do an regular Modded event to limit the cardpool, which even veterans should find interesting enough.

Pretty much another 4 people. And our community is also trying to get more MTG players jumping in because they are often hanging around at shops. That would make the community more lively.

Currently its a mix of youngsters and working adults (who sometimes work at odd hours) so its hard for us to come together for a one day event.

We only run leagues or some occasion drafts (draft is FUN !)

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Would a buddy-system work to have a few more veteran players help newer players get caught up. Then, occasionally do limited cardpool events?

yeah we are running that. Too bad we got hit with the cancellation of Netrunner … now it’s hard to get more people in despite our success to grab plenty of interests

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