These two factions are then broken down into sub-factions the Corporations are Haas-Bioroid, Jinteki, NBN, and Weyland Consortium, while the runners are Anarch, Criminal, and Shaper, the sub-faction dictates the cards that can be used in the decks and ultimately their play style. Unlike most card games, these two factions follow distinct sets of rules and have the same primary goal centred on gaining agenda points, with two different secondary goals: collapsing the corporation by draining its deck, or killing the runner by draining their hand. This game is made for two players only, with the corporations and the runners as the two playable “factions”. The only true oppositions to the faceless corporations are the titular “netrunners”, individual hackers with extraordinary abilities to manipulate the nexus and through it, potentially bringing the mega corporations to their knees.

The main source of influence of the corporations is the omnipresent – and arguably omnipotent network, the nexus that stores and transfers all information. The corporations strive for power, each with their own sets of (not-so-nefarious by the card descriptions) agendas and various methods to ensure their successes in controlling the direction in which humanity will evolve, or simply gain more wealth. Set in a dystopian future where mega corporations dominate human livelihood, the story of Android: Netrunner will seem clichéd for many, tracing its origin back to the 80s in the Neuromancer novel by William Gibson. Most of the plot can conveniently be found in the rulebook/manual.

As expected of a Wizards of the Coast game, the artworks featured on the cards are incredibly detailed with fascinating flavour texts that provide glimpses into the lore.

The game is sold as a core set of 252 cards, with 21 expansion packs which need to be purchased separately, unlike its predecessor however, the re-release is a “Living Card Game” and that the contents of the packs are no longer randomised. It takes place in the same universe as the Android adventure board game released in 2008, also by Fantasy Flight Games. This game is called Android: Netrunner.Īndroid: Netrunner was published in 2012 by Fantasy Flight Games and Wizards of the Coast, as a continuation of the original Netrunner Collectible Card Game by Richard Garfield, the very same person that created Magic: The Gathering in 1996. )īeing a small-time aficionado of card games, I decide to review one of the more complex examples (not the standard playing card for Black Jack and Solitaire per-say, I meant collectibles like Magic: The Gathering, Yu-Gi-Oh! or Pokémon TCGs).

(First review here on an unusual topic, please don't bite my head off.

Netrunner octgn image packs