Hey guys I used to play Netrunner pretty seriously but quit just before the Lunar cycle. It looks like I’m 20+ data packs behind, is it too late in the game to come back?
Never too late. If anything you have a great head start over people just buying their first core 
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Isn’t there a large set rotation soon?
I think that starts the cycle after next some time mid 2017, maybe a bit later. The core and deluxes will remain.
I think really though it comes down to how much you liked the game the first time round and why you stopped playing?
Rotation starts after the 1st pack of the next cycle after Red Sands goes on sale. So probably October-ish.
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Probably depends on whether there’ll be a gap or any off-months before Red Sands starts. If we finish off Flashpoint this year (Martial Law end of November, Quorum end of December), and then roll into Red Sands for January through June, we might have rotation in July. Which could make NA Nationals in August real interesting, as the table gets flipped on the meta.
If they decide to stick Terminal Directive in there as a month’s release (January?), but don’t have any other gaps in the release schedule, we might have rotation in August. They can just release it as a bonus release for a month, though, anytime. They’re not beholden to release schedules for “deluxe” expansions anymore.
But, back to the original point, I would say you don’t need to buy every pack. I’d say look at deck-builders, build your decks in them, and then buy just the essential packs you need.
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one good thing about coming in late is you can skip buying a lot of packs tbh. i’m sure there are some packs whose cards i’ve literally never played with
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What Lies Ahead: 3/2 Agendas, Ash, Whizz
Trace Amount: Fetal AI, RP, Liberated Account
Cyber Exodus: Vitruvius, P Workshop, E Shutdown
A Study In Static: Oversight AI, Scrubber
Humanity’s Shadow: Eve, Andy, Kati
Future Proof: Beale, Eli 1.0 R&D Interface, Faerie
Opening Moves: Jackson Howard, John Masanori
Second Thoughts: Restructure, PPVP
Mala Tempora: Sundew, Interns, Reina
True Colors: Shock!, Sweeps Week, Keyhole
Fear and Loathing: Wraparound, Blackmail
Double Time: Caprice, NAPD, Lucky Find
Upstalk: Lotus Field, NEH
The Spaces Between: ELP, D4v1d
First Contact: Crisium Grid, Refractor
Up and Over: Blue Sun, Architect, Astrolabe
All That Remains: Daily Business Show, Leela, Lady
The Source: IG, Earthrise Hotel
The Valley: Cortex Lock, Clot, Chronotype
Breaker Bay: Turing, Crick, BB Grid, Career Fair
Chrome City: Oaktown Renovation, Net Ready Eyes
The Underway: Marcus Batty, Faust
Old Hollywood: Haarp, Exploda, Critic, Drug Dealer
Universe of Tomorrow: Team Sponsorship, DDoS
Kala Ghoda: Museum, Mumba Temple, Mongoose
Business First: Corporate Sales Team, Palana
Democracy and Dogma: Sensie, Bio-ethics, Pol Op
Salsette Island: Jeeves, Cobra, Sports Hopper
The Liberated Mind: EoI, Vanilla, TTW, Rebirth
Fear The Masses: Voter Intimidation, Magnet
I think these are the most important cards to really be aware of, and easily played in many decks (except for Fear the masses, I had to stretch for that pack).
The recent packs are still under evaluation in the community as the last few packs haven’t come out yet, but there are still good cards in every pack, but it’s not like they’re all keepers. I’d be willing to bet you’ve played, or are at least intimately aware of most of the cards on this list @dr00. I didn’t even list the big boxes, cause there are many cards in each, this is just a short simple list of the most notable cards in each data pack.
@Enthusiast, it’s not too hard to get back into the game, just worry about flashpoint cycle for now and any cards past the pack you last were familiar with on my list. I think this is a decent starting point.
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you can build or copy some decks from https://netrunnerdb.com/ and play them on www.jinteki.net before you buy any cards now.
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I stopped playing just as the latest MWL hit (so i missed 3 packs of flashpoint cycle). At the time I stopped playing I had other commitments and it simply didn’t occur to me to play for a few months, but I didn’t ‘quit’ for any particular reason.
I started playing again on jinteki 2 weeks ago, did my catching up and had a lot of fun, but again I’ve stopped playing till there will be a very noticeable meta change. NBN is ludicrously strong and I feel like no matter what runner I play, they will absolutely suck vs either the NBN decks you need to hard counter or the HB decks that play completely differently and are also fairly popular. In short I feel the meta is a giant crap-pot right now with very few viable builds on runner and corp side and rock-paper-scissors on a grand scale.
I’d definitely regret it if I had payed anything to take part in last 2-weeks gaming.
I had no problem with the IG meta, the pre-BOOM butchershop meta or any other decks becuase I felt I felt I could make shaper decks that were reasonable into any matchcup. Now I feel shaper sucks vs NBN, Anarch sucks vs glacier and criminal sucks vs FA.
Is this just me?
For what it’s worth, I think Anarch’s are alright against glacier too. I actually prefer the current meta to many of the previous ones (however I don’t play on Jinteki), the best decks are more constraining on the format than I would like though.