At its best, there is a terrible and wonderful intimacy about Netrunner. This is, after all, a game of invasion: since a typical Runner deck contains no victory points, they have to go and get them from the Corp.
So they run. They invade. They get into the Corp's stuff and rummage around – they steal some things, trash others, and even when they find something they can't steal or trash, they get to look at it. This is annoying in a game sense, since hidden information is powerful. But it's not just literal intrusion, it's also – weirdly, brilliantly – emotional.
That's my Hunter Seeker! You weren't supposed to know about that! It was going to be a surprise!
By way of recompense, the Corp can mess with the Runner's stuff. They can damage cards out of their grip, sometimes fatally. They can knock installed cards off the table. They can lay traps. If they've managed to stick a tag, they can trash resources.
Or they can play an MCA Informant.
As a card, MCA Informant is kind of cute and kind of clunky. It's expensive, at 4 credits, and it's terminal, so the Runner always has a chance to respond. And it's something of a silver bullet, since in practice it generally reads:
The Runner pays 2 credits to trash Aaron MarrĂłn, Film Critic, or maybe Professional Contacts, unless they have another one in hand, in which case they just install that.
As a gesture, though. As a statement. It's glorious. First there's the sheer physical joy of leaning over into the Runner's stuff and plonking the thing down. It's rude, it's disrespectful, and it’s delightfully personal.Â
Kati Jones? She works for me now. Oh yes. All your besties are belong to us.
There’s more, though. Part of the joy of Netrunner is the meshing of mechanics and story: it's the former that pushes the game along, and gets you from the start to the end, but it's the latter that keeps the whole thing oiled and running smoothly, that makes the journey a joy. And MCA Informant is the two working in perfect harmony.
Because when you lean over and plonk it down on your friend's Tri-Maf Contact, they groan, and that's funny. But you aren't just sharing that moment; you're also sharing the knowledge that at the same instant, in some collectively imagined universe, Andromeda's just discovered that somebody she trusted, somebody she worked with, maybe even somebody she loved, has sold her out. And she knows that she has to tear apart her plans and cut them out of her life, before they bring everything tumbling down around her. And that double, layered feeling, the sense that by playing a game you are also directing an adventure, just the two of you ... that's kind of wonderful.
There are Mad Dashes, and then there are Mad Dashes.
The first, non-italicised kind are a familiar sight at the moment. They come after Smoke or Kate's Indexing goes well. They come after Hayley and Geist's Spy Cams find something tasty. They come after Keyhole (after Keyhole, after Keyhole, after Keyhole ...). And they come after Adam Finds the Truth, considers the Truth, and decides it's to his liking.
They're great. An extra agenda point, guaranteed, for a run that you were going to make anyway. They're particularly effective against the nine and ten-agenda suites so beloved of many Corp decks: what Global Food Initiative taketh away, Mad Dash returns -- returneth? -- and "Four agendas to win?!" becomes a much more achievable three.
But we need to face up to something about this kind of Mad Dash. This Dash is not what it claims to be.Â
This is a Dash that's wearing stout and sensible shoes. This is a Dash that's checked the weather forecast and brought a cardigan. This is a Dash that's looked up the route on Google Maps and made notes in a notebook, just in case. This is a Dash with a Thermos of tea, a couple of sandwiches and an apple, an energy bar, and a bottle of water. This is a Dash that will text when it gets there, just to let you know. This is a Dash that you could take home to meet your parents. This is a Dash that spends its weekend washing the car. This is a Dash that keeps a little aside for a rainy day, and that always carries an umbrella. This is a Dash with an ISA. With a pension plan. With thick socks and warm toes. This is a Dash that has heard about meat damage, thinks it sounds very unpleasant indeed, and wants no part of it.
This, friends, is a Sensible Dash. A Moderate Dash. Even -- whisper it -- a Slightly Cowardly Dash. All the reward, and none of the risk. You can have the point, sure, and you can enjoy it. But you don't get the cachet.
Now, the Mad Dashes. You wouldn't lend them money because you'd never see it back, and you wouldn't let them walk your dog because they might come back with a baboon. But if you think there might be an agenda or two floating around HQ, or there's a double-advanced card in an inaccessible remote but four counters on your Turning Wheel, or if you think you've cracked the secrets of your opponent's Mushin games ... away you go.
If you've read the cards correctly, you get one agenda point. More importantly, you get innumerable style points. And if not ... well, what's a tiny spot of meat damage, set against the warm glow of knowing that you have Mad Dashed as the gods intended, and surely, in the fullness of time and the rest of the game, the universe will smile upon such bravery.
Perhaps.
Things can still go wrong, even with the sensible variety. A few weeks ago, at Aldershot BABW, Smoke Indexed against Palana, rearranged the top of R&D, then announced that she'd won. Then she ran back in -- paying her way through a DNA Tracker -- to claim an agenda and move to four points. And then she Mad Dashed, without any credits left, stealth or otherwise.
Not a problem. With three cards in her grip, Smoke was perfectly placed to slam straight through the Tracker, chuck her cards into the heap, snatch the winning points off the top of R&D, and then surf back out of the server to adulation and wild applause. And she'd have gotten away with it, had it not been for a single Nisei token lurking quietly close by. No cards in hand. One meat damage. That’s your lot.
"Did you hear about Smoke? Mad Dashed herself to death!"
"Oh no!"
"Don't fuck with Jinteki, I guess. Still, it's how she would have wanted to go. Out in a blaze of glory, live on stream."
Multi-access. You need it. Your friends need it. And your deck needs it, since it’s how you win. Unless, that is, you're planning to do something exceptionally anti-social like play DLR, in which case you're beyond help and you clearly have extremely tolerant friends.
The most effective multi-access card in the game is probably Medium. This is because it's fairly cheap, it only takes up 1 MU, and it works beautifully with all the other fun Anarch tools for destroying or efficiently breaking ice. Criminals like it too, and Anarchs can even get a second one down if they’re feeling fancy. Cyberdex Virus Suite is a bit annoying, and Macrophage is very annoying, but both can be recovered from or worked around. Or worked through.
I'll just pop a Parasite on the Macrophage. That makes perfect thematic sense.
The most boring multi-access card in the game is probably R&D Interface, because it's a piece of hardware that just sits there and gives you an extra access each run. Hooray. Woohoo. Nice one, "Mac". At least HQI has a fun looking dog on it.
But the most interesting and exciting multi-access card in the game is Keyhole, today's Best Card in Netrunner.
Keyhole wins this prestigious accolade because it approaches multi-access in entertainingly non-linear fashion. Consider the typical Medium dig, in which the Runner is basically trying to achieve the following three things:
1. steal as many agendas as possible;
2. achieve R&D lock, that wonderful state of bliss in which the Runners knows what the Corp is drawing and the Corp knows that the Runner knows what the Corp is drawing, but can't do anything about it;
2. trash cards, so that future digs go deeper and the Corp doesn't get to use their Jacksons.
The first and the second happen naturally; the third is contingent on how much money you have. What makes Keyhole feels so beautifully Anarchic is that it pushes the trashing to the centre of proceedings. It's not here to steal and it’s not here to learn. It’s here to fuck the Corp up in unpredictable ways. And if its helps the Runner win, well, that’s nice too.
Even if your Keyholing doesn't hit an agenda, a guaranteed, no cost trash every turn is a wonderful thing. You can go hunting for combo pieces, you can snipe operations, you can put potentially awkward bits of ice where they can't do any immediate harm. You can get a sense of what your opponent is trying to do, which is nice, and you can muck it right up, which is nicer. You can also avoid taking damage from any traps that might be lying around.
A Shock? That can go in the bin. Oh, hang on.
And if you do hit an agenda? Well, that goes into the bin, and then off to the bin you go. Though clearly not as efficient as just taking them with Medium, there's something very appropriate about having to go and get everything at the end of the run. If you go fishing with dynamite, you have to paddle out and sift through the mess. (And now that we’re all on Mars, it gives you the chance to play Mad Dash, almost certainly a future Best Card in Netrunner.)
Part of the reason Netrunner works so well is the way the theme, the mechanics, the identities and the back and forth of actual play mesh together to produce, with every game, a story. Frequently a thrilling one, often a farcical one, occasionally a tragic one. At heart, Keyhole stories are very funny:
"Ma'am. We've got a problem. The files, ma'am. They've just ... gone."
"What do you mean, gone? And what files? Speak sense, man!"
"Well ... let's see. We've lost the NASX predictions for the next six months. We've lost at least one of the installation protocols for Archangel. And, well, the project. The big project. The moon project. It's not where it should be."
"So where is it?"
"They ... they appear to have been archived."
"What?! Archived? Who authorised that? They should have gone straight up to HQ!"
"We don't know how, ma'am. But they've been archived and everything else has been moved around and it’s all out of order, ma'am. I don't know where anything is."
"But we've barely protected the archives. Anybody could get in there ..."
[They turn to look at a large screen. A blinking red light appears, and moves slowly towards a large cartoon bin.]
"Is that light ... is that light laughing?"
One of the prices you pay for all this thematically entertaining and occasionally game-winning destruction is the complete absence of R&D lock, but ... pfft. Advancing warning is for cowards. Leave that stuff for the cyber-hippies and their "interfaces".
Another is the fact that you still have to go and get the agendas you've trashed. Any Corp that knows what you're up to will certainly have iced their Archives and the usual accompanying breaker, Eater, isn't going to get you your prizes. So you have to find another way in: summon up a proper breaker; pop a Hades Shard; Siphon away their money until they can't rez anything and just start crying.
The final price has nothing to do with the game but is in some sense the most irritating. Because your poor opponent doesn't just have to sit there and watch you trash all their Hedge Funds for free. They have to shuffle their deck. Every. Single. Time. Even in relatively fair Keyhole decks, this quickly gets tedious; against multi-click monstrosities like Dyper, it's torturous. Practically speaking, it's a card much better suited to playing online, which is kind of sad. You want to grind your opponent into the dust, of course. But not in a physically annoying way.
That said, you're not playing Keyhole to make friends. You're playing Keyhole because your idea of a good time is throwing loads of things into the bin, then running into that bin while cackling wildly. And that's why it's the Best Card in Netrunner. Imagine not wanting to do that.
It's an exciting time for Android: Netrunner. An entirely new way of playing the game is about to arrive. Possibly. Eventually. If they can find the boat.Â
Forthcoming "campaign expansion" Terminal Directive was this week reviewed by Shut Up & Sit Down's Quintin Smith. Quinns, who was for a while the most effective hype-man that Netrunner could have wished for, doesn't play any more. In his review he explains that this is due to various factors, some personal and some down to the game’s direction. But he also points to online play:
The game might have fared better ... if it weren’t for the growth of fan-made internet platforms that let people play Netrunner online. As these have gotten better and better, we get people playing Netrunner faster and faster, where testing some hot new deck is as simple as downloading a file.
When my friends and I started going to meet-ups, everyone in the scene was playing around five games a week, which means the refinement of our decks was a magical, personal process. Today, when you and your friends can test the same deck six or seven times a night, with no tedious sleeving and unsleeving cards, you end up with brutal decks that are more science than art.
So, then: jinteki.net.
The first thing anybody that plays Netrunner says about Netrunner is: "It's amazing, you should play it, do you want to play it, let's play it now.” Then, after a short and confusing game that ends for some unclear reason, they confess: "It's a complete bastard to learn.” Some games have a learning curve; Netrunner has a learning wall that disappears up into the clouds and hurts as you scramble up and then fall down, again and again.
Which is fine. Fun, even. (Part of the reason I started playing Netrunner was as a challenge: here is a complicated thing, can I get the hang of it?) But it can also be quite dispiriting, particularly when you get a short way up the wall, start to feel pretty good about how things are going, and then look up and see that the top is still not in view, and that the clouds you've just broken through were hiding ... more wall, and more clouds.
The only way up that wall is to play Netrunner, over and over. SU&SD are almost certainly correct to note the accelerant effect that j.net has on the competitive game, but for those just coming to the game that same acceleration is much more benign. It might even be crucial.
Personally speaking, I’m exceptionally lucky. I have no kids or other dependants, and I have a reasonable amount of free time. I live in London, which as a city has its problems but as a Netrunner meta is full of lovely people who really want to blow up your house. Which all means that I can play Netrunner one or two evenings a week, and go along to tournaments every other weekend or so if I'm feeling ambitious. This is, I think, a pretty decent amount of Netrunner to be playing.
Yet even in that exceptionally privileged position, the ability to squeeze a couple of games into a lunch break, or a slow Sunday morning, made the process of getting acquainted with all the crunchy, basic, functional stuff much quicker and much more flexible. And Netrunner has loads of that stuff. I have, after about a year of playing online and off, achieved the giddy heights of barely-informed, fumbling mediocrity. If I'd just been playing off-, I wouldn't even be able to say that.
(It should also be noted Netrunner now isn’t just more complicated than it was when it was just a core set; it’s also straightforwardly bigger. About a thousand cards now. And so the ability to do more learning through j.net has, usefully and symbiotically, evolved in step with the need to learn more.)
Perhaps more importantly, jinteki.net also means that the game can exist for those people who don't inhabit a scorch-happy London, or have logistical or personal reasons that prevent them from tripping along to the pub on Tuesday. At Reading's BABW qualifier I played a game against somebody from Yukon, Canada, near the Alaskan border, who happened to be in London on holiday. His local meta consists of two people; if his adversary quits, or gets eaten by a bear, it will just be him. Perhaps understandably, he plays a lot online.
What Quinns says feels right. Jinteki.net probably does mean that Netrunner as a game -- strong archetypes, their counters, their counter-counters, and so on -- is “solved” quicker that it would otherwise be. It certainly does mean that decks can be tested and tweaked on an almost industrial basis. And all of that must be terribly bleak for anybody that hoped that the joy of personalised discovery and boutique deckbuilding could be preserved within competition.
But j.net also means that the problems of Netrunner as a game in the world, as a game played by people who have complicated lives filled with things that aren't Netrunner, can be minimised and worked around. It serves an important function in taking the game to places, to times, and to people that it otherwise couldn't reach. Even if the online version of the game it brings is riddled with breakerless Leela.
Ultimately, if a game has an accessible online platform and also has a competitive scene, then naturally the latter will co-opt the former for testing, for tweaking, and for practice. And naturally they will take others with them. Yet if it doesn’t, then the game becomes much more closed: harder to get into; harder to get to. This is, perhaps, a irresoluble tension, the inevitable consequence of taking a hobby and firing it through the internet.
Doesn’t make for a particularly snappy conclusion, sadly, but here we are. Jinteki.net, a land of contrasts.
