I enjoyed reading @PdxBenJen’s latest post about the shifting meta and how we need to keep up with it. Specifically, I liked the simple idea he floated of an IG corrective enough that I’ve made it into the card above (art borrowed from here). But, it’s good advice in general -- we know that in an LCG, the game shifts, and at some level, we simply need to roll with it.
But it’s also terrible advice if it clouds us to the changes that happening to the game that are not just the small ups-and-downs of a shifting meta. Are cards like Museum of History fundamentally changing not just mechanical considerations of the game, but also some of the “feel”? Slowing down the game, causing tons of shuffling each turn, removing what Graham Linehan refers to as a key “game timer?”
That is, are we seeing a lot of dissatisfaction with the game right now because of a normal ebb and flow in the game, or is there something bigger happening? Mumbad is the first cycle under Damon Stone’s direction, and regardless of how much time he has spent in a less primary role in previous cycles, there is a different vision of the game evolving here. That’s fine, that’s the point of switching lead developers on a game. We are getting some potential post-rotation staples incorporated into the game (Museum, Mumba Temple), and still don’t know the full impact that these changes might have with the game.
But, there are warning signs. A few weeks into Regionals season, and attendance is markedly down at this point -- there were only 13 people at the Mississippi Regionals last weekend, which is definitely troubling. While I love Benjen’s advice here in general, I do think we also need to be paying attention to what these changes are doing to the game at a potentially precarious time for it. The card pool is too massive to easily draw in new players, there have been no new announcements about cards/cycles/deluxe expansions in months, and it’s unclear what FFG’s future plans are for the game. We are seeing the introduction of game-shifting cards and playstyles that capitalize on those cards to such a degree that they create experiences largely considered “unfun” by most players.
This isn’t just about me being “salty,” it’s about my genuine concern about the future of a game that we’ve invested a lot of time, energy, and money in. We love Netrunner, and while we obviously need to roll with the pack-to-pack, cycle-to-cycle ups and downs of an LCG, we also need to consider if the general trend is moving the game in a direction we like or one that we’d like to change.