So I know that for a lot of people this is beating a dead horse, but I think its important to spell a lot of this out in clear explicit terms in a place that FFG can see.

SC’s are over, and the meta is objectively terrible. Runner Corp balance is the worst I’ve ever seen it, Ice is terrible, every deck has terrible almost unbeatable matchups. This is bad, but more importantly it’s been translating into lower attendance of meetups. Trying to get a weekly meetup going and plenty of the people have basically said I’m not going to play Netrunner until something changes, and that means less people at the meetups which makes it worse for everyone who still comes. I don’t know how much longer my in person community can go on like this before meetups just stop all together, and when something changes there will probably be people who have been permanently lost. This mirrors what most people elsewhere have been saying that there in person meetups are dwindling, and once you get down to 2-3 people it becomes incredibly hard to recover.

I’m taking part in the King of Servers tournament, and when I was trying to get people to come I talked to 5-6ish people who basically said they aren’t coming because they hate the meta too much (the general gist of the complaints was that Ice is too bad and they felt their options on both sides are too limited). So @internet and I talked about it and agreed to do something I didn’t really like, implement an alternative banlist (which convinced some of these people to come, but not others because it wasn’t official). I’d like to get around to organizing another SSCI with Dan during the offseason between now and regionals, but we can’t use a non official banlist for that so I have no interest in doing so.

The point of all of this is, lack of updates and communication are having real negative impact on the community of people who play this game (and not just competitive players, but everyone). I don’t know if FFG doesn’t know or doesn’t care about this impact, but either way its incredibly discouraging as a player. A MWL announcement sooner rather than later would have a huge positive impact on our ability to keep meetups from dying, and at minimum clear communication about when to expect an update would go a long way (I heard rumors of not until after Regionals, which is frankly terrifying). I was planning on going to Euros but I don’t know if its worth it if this is the state the game is going to be in.

As far as I know, the only thing we can do is make sure FFG is aware of the issues. As far as I can tell, FFGOP is in charge of MWL / FAQ updates, so I think everyone who is struggling with local turnout should email them to let them know the problems we’re facing. This is basically all I can think of doing, is making sure the people who can change things know what a terrible impact the current meta is having on player turnout.

Ffg Organized play emails: organizedplay@fantasyflightgames.com (as best as I can tell this is the right one).