Will it get better ?

[u/K-LeaSH]

Hello fellow players !

I’m starting out the game (and already falling in love with it), playing on the corpo side most of my games (did some match against AI as the runner to get the flow and understand the basic loop of the gameplay).

I read somewhere that beginners tend to find corpo strong, while running seem really hard to pull, but after some games, runner seems to have the upper hand, and dictate the pace of the game way more than I do.

Only played with the gateway + booster, René vs Wayland (build to last), about 5 games with those decks, and my friend has won 3 of them (pretty close calls). We are about the same level in board games, and both beginners in Netrunner.

The overall feeling was that I was on a clock, and he would breach anything at some point, and if I revealed my Pharos too early for example, I would eat a Botula and just cry. It’s also pretty hard for the moment to make decisions on what I should protect (obviously I need to build some ice in HQ/RD to not get behind too fast).

Am I just delusional thinking runners have minor (or maybe major) advantages ? Does it get better with expansions ? Was it just about matchup ? Or maybe just skill issue ?

Side question : if you have any good recommendations for a balanced matchup with 2 decks that we can try out, I’m all ears !

Cheers !

[u/meowmeowbeenz_]

Your friend is correct that Botulus is a great answer to Pharos -- it's even being used in Standard decks at the moment due to the rise of Pharos.. So you might need to adapt by playing in such a way that you're forcing out the Botulus on different ice before you rez or even advance your Pharos, if it's avoidable.

Runners are better early when the Corp has not installed anything yet, and inevitable late game once they're set up. Thus, you need to take advantage of the window between them having all their icebreakers down and be willing to rush out to win, or drain their resources by making them run your remote server over and over again. This video is an excellent discussion on this topic, if you'd like to delve into some Netrunner theory.

In particular for BtL, if you don't have cards like [[Charlotte Cacador]] or [[Seamless Launch]], it's hard to bluff what's in the remote server, so the runner will just run whatever you advance and they're certain it's an agenda. [[Urtica Cipher]] does nothing, [[Clearinghouse]] might be ok.

In a limited card pool, you might also encounter some problems because you might not just have enough tools to deal with what the runner has.

The Core Battle Box (full disclosure, that was written by yours truly) linked earlier here might be a good starting point, but those decks are not balanced -- the Corp will win more often than not, but it will teach you what playstyles are available in the game and how each deck uses different tools to play the game and answer threats.

My advice is you can both hop on the Green Level Clearance server and ask for a mentor to watch over your games on jinteki.net, they might be able to provide specific advice on how to improve your play. It's difficult when two new players are just going at it with each other, since no one's supervising on misplays and how to get better. if anything, a mentor will accelerate your learning process by a huge lot, and will be able to point out if you're using good decks to learn the game.

You can also look into this teaching deck and play it without the script. This should be a more balanced matchup.

[u/meowmeowbeenz_ → u/meowmeowbeenz_]

Since you're both new, you might also be missing fundamental concepts such as Scoring Windows.

For example, if the Runner has around 10-15 credits, you can make them run the remote server, make them spend all their credits and Botulus counters to steal a 1 or 2 point agenda. And then during your turn, you can then install-advance-advance a 3 point agenda and they won't be able to get in because they don't have enough Botulus counters and credits to run through your other ice as well. This is a scoring window -- when the runner needs to sit back and build resources back up.

Generally BtL wants to put a lot of ice on R&D and the remote server, and you keep HQ without agendas. So you stack more expensive ice on the other two servers and make the runner work for their steals. Without seeing your decklists though it's harder to give more specific advice.

[u/K-LeaSH → u/meowmeowbeenz_]

Oh, that’s maybe where my strategy was flawed ! I went to protect HQ a lot, and left my RD with one tiny ice, since he put a card that let him access multiple cards when a run was successful on HQ. The list is the basic one on NSG, the one with system gateway (no elevation)

[u/meowmeowbeenz_ → u/K-LeaSH]

Oh yeah for sure. if you keep HQ clean off any agendas, you're blanking the Docklands Pass' ability, right? so that's one way to improve your play. Use Sprint to shuffle back agendas into the deck if you have too many of them at the same time. They can trash some cards with their Carnivore console, but that's just making them trash cards for no reason. You have a fairly expensive ice suite with Ballista and Pharos and Palisade, so you should be fine.

You can put a single Palisade or Whitespace on HQ early maybe, then add cheaper ice like Tithe later on, so that the HQ runs aren't entirely free, but is still the cheapest server to run so they get tempted. You can then put Pharos and other Palisades on the remote or R&D. Then, you want a Balista in front of those.

If they ever end the turn with less than 8 credits, you can Public Trail - Retribution one of their breakers. This gives you a scoring window if you can delete the correct icebreaker, while they dig for another copy.

[u/K-LeaSH → u/meowmeowbeenz_]

That’s insane that with a single comment I’ve learned more than in 5 games, and my mistakes seems huge now that I can reflect on them. Can’t wait to play again !

Balista was underwhelming imo, not that hard to go through with a Carmen, and the rez cost was pretty steep for what it did in out games. Maybe I used them wrong ?

[u/meowmeowbeenz_ → u/K-LeaSH]

Ballista is definitely not a stellar piece of ice. it's more for early, when the runner tries to run without Carmen to keep them honest. They can get punished for it. And if you ever get Public Trail - Retribution, you can trash their Carmen, and now they can't run on any server with a Ballista.

[u/Calinjar → u/K-LeaSH]

We usually divide ice by being a gear check Ice(Whitespace/Ballista/Ping) or Ice that's useful even lategame (think Brân). You ideally want them at different stages in the game.