Quite a few people are feeling the game is a bit stale right now. It feels really tough to brew new ideas (especially as Corp) because the existing archetypes on the other side of the table are so oppressive and powerful. I was thinking it would be nice to play in an alternative format where ideally none of the archetypes that currently exist are viable.

This format (which still needs a classy name) has a 45-card banned list. Here is how the banned list was formed.

I made a list of the top 5 cards for each faction in power-level. I considered 4 factors: recent ubiquity and power (Examples: Wyldside, Faust), historical ubiquity and power (Examples: Kati Jones, Desperado), Negative Player Experiences (Museum of History, Mushin No Shin) and dangerous/game-warping best-case usage (Apocalypse, Blackmail).

I ignored basic fixed (not sustainable) economy cards since they are difficult to compare to more substantive cards and because the game would likely feel very sluggish without them. Hence Sure Gamble, Hedge Fund, Sweeps Week, Daily Casts, etc. are safe from banning despite their power and ubiquity.

I then removed all redundancies. For example, Security testing was on the Criminal list but with Desperado banned it is no longer strong enough to warrant a spot; with Hostile Takeover banned, Archer is much weaker; and with Datasucker gone, Atman is much harder to abuse. I replaced these cards with some cards that seemed potentially very abusive in a weaker format and that don’t create particularly dynamic game-play in the first place (Magnum Opus, Mumbad City Hall, Vamp)

I banned 1 extra card from Anarch and 1 fewer card from Weyland because…I mean c’mon

Here is the list as it stands (ROUGHLY in order of power, ie, cards are the top of each faction were more obvious bans)

http://netrunnerdb.com/en/deck/view/633756 <----- Runner

http://netrunnerdb.com/en/deck/view/633752 <----- Corp

Criminal

Desperado

Account Siphon

Legwork

Faerie

Inside Job

Shaper

Clone Chip

Self-Modifying Code

R&D Interface

Levy AR Lab Access

Magnum Opus

Anarch

Parasite

Datasucker

Faust

Medium

Wyldside

Vamp

Runner Neutral/Mini

Same Old Thing

Kati Jones

Blackmail

Apocalypse

Prepaid VoicePAD

HB

Eli 1.0

Ash 2X3ZB9CY

Biotic Labor

Architect

Adonis Campaign

Jinteki

Caprice Nisei

The Future Perfect

Mushin No Shin

Nisei Mk 2

Snare!

Weyland

Scorched Earth

Project Atlas

Hostile Takeover

Mumbad City Hall

NBN

Jackson Howard

Astroscript Pilot Program

Sansan City Grid

Breaking News

Tollbooth

Corp Neutral

NAPD Contract

Global Food Initiative

Enigma (Made the list purely due to historical ubiquity)

Breaker Bay Grid

Museum of History

Identities

Noise: Hacker Extraordinaire

Haas Bioroid: Engineering the Future

Note that the NAPD most-wanted list will not apply to this format, so Cerberus “Lady” H1 and Yog.0 will not reduce an identity’s influence. I decided that with many of their support cards banned (Clone Chip and Datasucker, respectively), these cards become far more fair and interesting to include.

I have found this format FASCINATING to think about. With so many key players, many of them in the core set, not legal to play, the best archetypes may be ones that have never before been explored, since their unique and interesting synergies have been out-classed by the raw power of cards on the list. Will Caissa finally work? Which remaining HB identity is the best? Which agendas will replace those on the list? With no other good viruses around, poor tutoring, and a big incentive to run 0 strength ICE, will Crypsis return?

I plan to make some decks for this format pretty soon and play with anyone interested. Since everyone complains that FFG does not do so, I look to update this list frequently based on the observations of the players.

To make myself clear in my intentions, this is NOT a proposed replacement for normal Netrunner constructed. It is meant to be an interesting mental and strategic exercise for those feeling a bit burned out on the game.

Let me know in this thread if you are interested in participating. We’ll hopefully arrange games over Slack.