Fun thing about online communities – it is literally goddamn impossible to keep everyone happy. We finally get the restricted list? Not good enough! Astro should be a 4/2! Anarchs finally got good, so let’s be mad about Criminal!

Anyway, I’m in a good mood and want everyone else to be in a good mood too. So, here are some THINGS THAT ARE GREAT IN NETRUNNER THAT YOU SHOULD BE IN A GOOD MOOD ABOUT.

THING 1: NEW PLAYERS

I was…fairly surprised to see the number of people decrying the MWL list and alliance mechanics because “they’ll confuse new players”. Man, new players have the internet! They can Google tournament rules before showing up to an event! They almost certainly will, because nobody likes making mistakes at their first tourney. Not to mention that if you’re smart enough to understand Netrunner, the concept of an extra point of influence on some cards probably won’t blow your mind. Anyway, we all know how stressful the first tournament is for most people – are you really going to DQ a newbie because they made a mistake in their deckbuilding? We all agree that new players are awesome for the game, help them out!

THING(S) 2: THESE CARDS

Account Siphon: Sealed Vault and Crisium Grid exist. Put them in your deck if Siphon is ruining your day. SanSan City Grid and Eve Campaign also exist and are great places to offshore your credits. Also they are GOOD CARDS.

Caprice Nisei: Yeah, psi games are annoying. BUT glacier also needs a way to win in the long game when big ICE and pumping money into Ash stops being an option. Besides, it’s hard for Corps to win psi games when they have no money, and I hear Account Siphon is a card.

Faust: I mean, probably. It can be teched against with AI hate cards and with less Parasite bombing going around the classic low strength high sub sentries do good work.

Astroscript: It doesn’t need to be a 4/2, a 3/1, restricted to 1 per deck or any of that other nonsense. Just put a Clot in your deck and play some damn Netrunner.

ETF/Kate: Yeah, they’re OP but they’re also the Core Set identities and not going anywhere. You’ll be fine.

THING 3: NETDECKING

Yeah, leaving the big one for last.

Here’s the thing about netdecking – this is only a problem if you choose to believe it is. By which I mean – does someone else copying a HB list seriously impact your enjoyment of the game? And if so (more importantly) why?

Some people value creativity above all else in their deckbuilding. And that’s totally fine! The thing is, though, that not everyone can do that. I’m rubbish at original deck concepts. Not to mention that with such a small card pool, it’s borderline impossible to be the first to come up with an original idea. However, I’m pretty good at picking a strong deck and modifying it for the current meta. Why shouldn’t I be able to do this? Should I really be penalised in some way because I’m not the first person to look at SanSan City Grid and Astroscript and say “welp, that seems good”?

Some people, on the other hand, just get butthurt about losing to decks. To those people: look at your play first. Wasting energy getting mad about someone else’s choices doesn’t fix anything. If you want to learn to beat Fastro, sleeve up Fastro and figure out when you feel weak. Record your games and identify when you’re making bad plays. Are you leaving remotes unchecked? Not running HQ enough? Not identifying scoring windows? Not planning your sequencing out? Are you winning all your games against glacier but losing to rush decks? Well, that’s how metagames work – try something else out!

Also…what’s the plan here? Should everyone have their own perfectly unique deck? I’m fairly sure that’s impossible. Anyway, my point is that you can either waste time and energy complaining, or you can accept that some people will copy decks off the internet and you shouldn’t let it hurt your feelings. The better you get, the more fun Netrunner is!

BONUS THING: THERE’S A NEW CYCLE YO

(this is more of a postscript thing)

Now I’m not personally super duper excited so far, but there’s a lot of weird sideways stuff coming out! And that’s awesome! And you can make brain damage decks and decks with strange icebreakers! And have a good time!

So Netrunner is great, you’re great, let’s have a fantastic time together.