I recently finished the Netrunner: Terminal Directive campaign expansion. A the highest level, I enjoyed the expansion, but there were a number of things that seemed like they could have been improved and one thing that I wished would have been different.
First, before I get into anything spoilery, I want to mention that this game is closer to a legacy game than a campaign game. I want to put this up-front to let people know what they’re getting into. The game instructions involve destroying, modifying, and altering content that would make the game unplayable a second time unless you’re careful about how you do it. This is something I wish they would have done differently, and while it didn’t ruin my enjoyment of the game, I felt like it was something I had to work around rather than enjoy.
I’ve been playing deck building games for a long time now, but I’ve recently gotten into deck building for Android: Netrunner, and I wanted to share a bit about how I build my decks. Now, it should be said that I’m not a competitive Netrunner player, nor is my meta particularly large, so the following can all be taken with a few grains of salt. Continue reading How I Build My Decks→
Hubbard Defense Systems was the last of my glacier decks, and it’s an advanceable ICE deck. I had imagined it as a fast advance deck, and it got close but certainly wasn’t an all-in fast advance deck. As it is, this is also the last deck from my Terminal Directive campaign, and I suspect that I’ll be moving on to another identity very soon (though I may continue to play Weyland – we’ll see). Continue reading Hubbard Defense Systems→
Tokositna Defense Systems is a concept deck like Astudillo Defense Systems, with the notable difference that it uses Sentries instead of Code Gates. This is actually the deck that I wanted to build with the concept, but Code Gates seemed like a nice warmup, (with Machicolation, click punishment, and lots of End The Run options.) This deck forgoes a lot of that to accomplish two goals: (a) punish the runner for face checking and (b) use damaging subroutines to make the runner not want to run. Continue reading Tokositna Defense Systems→
This is a deck concept I’ve had for a while, but when I first thought of it, there wasn’t really the card volume to pull it off well. The big idea behind this deck is that it’s a glacier deck with all of the ICE being Code Gates. In theory, this makes as much as two thirds of the Runner’s Icebreaker draws dead draws because Killers and Fracters are not going to do him or her any good. Continue reading Astudillo Defense Systems→
Once I got the chance to pull out Terminal Directive and start playing it, I noticed that this was less like a campaign game and more like a legacy game. I’m personally not a fan of legacy games because my preservation instincts are very strong; I don’t like destroying things or making permanent marks on things that can’t be replaced. So, after our first game, I started strategizing how I might go about preserving the components of Terminal Directive while still making it fun to play. Don’t worry, there are no story spoilers ahead, though I will be talking about the different kinds of components and how they interact. Continue reading Hacking Terminal Directive→
My goal with Skorpios: Facewrecker was to merge my previous two decks into a deck that does a little bit of both: trash cards from anywhere I can, followed up with flatlining the runner if possible. Unfortunately, what I ended up with was just another iteration of Kneebreaker, with some extra stack removal thrown in. Here is Skoprios: Facewrecker. Continue reading Skorpios: Facewrecker→
After playing Skorpios: Kneebreaker a bit, I felt it was time to tune it a little. I was unimpressed with not drawing much in the way of ICE my first game, and the deck still felt a bit slow. For Kneebreaker 1.2, I swapped out only a pair of cards, but I was happier with how it played out. Continue reading Skorpios: Kneebreaker 1.2→
After having played Skorpios: Toybreaker, I couldn’t help but think back to my old favorite archetype, and see if I could make a tag & bag deck work with Skorpios Defense Systems. The remove from game ability can affect the Runner’s grip as well as anything else, so why not? This brings me to Skorpios: Kneebreaker – a deck all about tagging the runner, then flatlining them. Continue reading Skorpios: Kneebreaker→
As I set out to play Terminal Directive, I knew I would need to run a new kind of deck. My old advanceable ICE deck was doing ok, but it relied heavily on its identity to make it work, so with a new identity comes a new kind of deck. This one I call Skorpios: Toybreaker, as it really wants to break apart the Runner’s rig… …And then remove it from the game. Continue reading Skorpios: Toybreaker→
Thoughts are stripped of their texture to form words that they might be colored by the mind of another.
