Hi all,
I have been really impressed with the speed of game analysis going on here, and thought I would give some opinions and clear up some rumors.
1) FACTS:
Most of WotC has not been playing netrunner long. The league results posted by glenn represent mostly beginners. Some unposted (at least I didn't see them posted) information includes the results of our first two in house tournaments which were 75% corp wins the first time and slightly less than 50% the second time (if memory serves).
Some of WotC has indeed been playing for as long as 9 months. We COULD say 12 months but I think that the game was not really stable until 9 months ago. Anyway - this is just a handful of people, including me.
2) SPECULATION:
Learning the Game: My experience has lead me to believe that it is easier to play the corporation. It is easier to learn the game as the runner, simply because the person teaching can play their cards face down and explain them as they are exposed, and let the runner play an open hand, and the game is still reasonable. The corp playing an open hand doesn't work too well.
Sealed Deck:
I think that typically players get to a reasonably close (no less than
about 35% for either side) win/loss rate between the corp and runners.
Players who have a really biased set of results are usually not playing
one side very well. I think out of sealed deck that the corp has the
advantage if optimally played, but I am >>not<< at all certain.
Estimates of what the corps chance of winning out of sealed range from
48%-55% here. Part of the reason for our uncertainty is that we don't
really know how good we are on the absolute scale of things.
Constructed Deck:
We have a number of deck types for both sides, none dominate the other
side right now. Again, we don't know if these decks are A class decks or
B class decks in the grand scheme of things. I am not even going to
speculate who has the advantage in this environment.
Overall:
Since the game unit is 1 hand playing each side my main concern is that
you get a good hand each way and not that the sides are balanced when
played optimally. Obviously they would not be playing well if one side
won 100% and the other never scored any points, but outside that range
the quality of the game becomes harder and harder to judge objectively.
One reason I am estimating advantage in vague terms, under "speculation" is that I really don't, overall, know where the advantage is in any of these cases, the game has a LOT more strategy in how you play your cards than most other TCGs, and even though I have been playing the game in some form or another for about 9 months, with a range of very good game players, I am not sure how well we play.
On Deck and Themes:
I don't believe there is an optimum deck strategy, I think it is
largely environmental like Magic, with some decks being strictly
better than others, but most being better in this environment or that
environment. There was the conjecture that fun, theme decks won't work;
which is actually an interesting topic in general. I actually don't
believe at the highest level of any TCG "fun" theme decks ever work,
they will always be eaten alive by the well oiled, no wasted cards
fighting machines. In magic there is a higher chance they will work,
simply because there is more luck in a hand of magic (I think). However,
fun decks can give new ideas for honing down to the highest level
fighting machines. And in many ways I think NetRunner makes 'fun' decks
more possible by the care that has gone into making each card useful.
There are some cards less useful than others, but there are very few
cards I would not use from time to time.
One of the deck design things I am excited about with Netrunner is that specialization is a lot muddier than most TCGs. By this I mean that simply making all your ice one type doesn't work, for example, because that makes the runners job easier. This is very interesting me since this means a "theme" deck isn't merely putting 20 lightening bolts in a deck. You have to be somewhat generalized. This means that having no deck restrictions may actually work in Netrunner, because you won't be running into as many narrow - one purpose decks. Being narrow loses the game.
As far as deck variety - wait till you see the expansion - some very exciting stuff there (but I guess it is a bit early to talk about that!)
Anyway, thanks for the interesting reading - and good gaming!
Richard Garfield