Had the pleasure of playing a game of Netrunner this evening. I still don’t know the game all that well, but with each new game I’m learning new things about it — most notably what cards to expect to come up against, how to counter them and, most importantly, what not to do.

Tonight, the main lesson was the existence of a card on the Corporation side called Scorched Earth; this is an Operation (something that takes effect immediately when you play it) that, for the low, low price of just 3 Credits, allows the Corporation to immediately and unavoidably do 4 damage to the Runner if the Runner has a Tag on them. Given that the Corporation deck in which Scorched Earth appears has a number of security programs that automatically give the Runner a Tag, Scorched Earth appears to be a very real and constant danger, and the way to deal with it is to ensure that you don’t end a turn 1) with a Tag on you and 2) with less than 4 cards in your hand. As it stood, I did end the turn with 3 cards in my hand and a Tag on me, meaning that the 4 damage immediately and unavoidably killed me horribly. And after I was doing so well at stealing my opponents’ Agenda cards, too.

I really like Netrunner, even though I haven’t played a whole lot of it so far. It’s very strongly thematic, despite being a game in which you primarily focus on the mechanics of the cards you play. The lore is clearly very well thought out, as the various Corporation and Runner decks available are very consistent in their overall themes — one Corporation deck (Jinteki) is all about being sneaky and laying traps for unsuspecting Runners, while others focus on acquiring income, Tagging the Runner or all manner of other nasty things.

I don’t yet know the game well enough to feel confident about building my own deck, but the starter decks that the basic Core Set comes with are providing more than enough variety for me to be getting on with. Given that it’s pretty rare you’ll get through a whole deck in a single game — in fact, the Corporation loses if they get through their whole deck — I find that I’m still seeing new cards with each new game I play, which is nice, though not necessarily entirely conducive to developing effective strategies for the game. I am at least getting a feel for how the different factions play; tonight I played the Anarchs faction of Runners, who have a strong emphasis on playing Virus programs, which become more powerful and effective over time or through repeated use. This has, I think, so far been my favourite Runner faction to play, but I don’t think I’ve had the opportunity to try the Criminals yet, who, I believe, focus on acquiring money, which is very important. (I, in fact, struggled a bit for cashflow in this particular game until the neutral Armitage Consulting cards came out, allowing me to earn a little more per turn rather than a measly 1 Credit for 1 Click).

I’m interested to play more. I don’t know if I’ll ever be good enough to play at a tournament level or anything like that — probably not, to be honest — but I certainly enjoy the experience of playing it. It’s a game that is surprisingly straightforward to understand once you decipher the basic rules (and the non-standard, asymmetrical terminology it uses for different parts of the play area) and, more importantly, pretty quick to play, too. It’s easy to set up, highly portable and expandable, though I will likely hold off on acquiring new packs of cards for it until I have a better handle on the basic mechanics and the ways the different factions handle.

We’ll hopefully be playing a bit more tomorrow. Now I know to watch out for that damned Scorched Earth cards, I can hopefully survive a little longer without embarrassing deaths such as the one I suffered this evening!