Hello! I’m Scarlett (she/her), the new Startup Curator for Null Signal games! Given that the Netrunner World Championship is under a month away, I thought I’d take this opportunity to introduce myself and tease some of the plans that I have for Startup going forwards.
I’ll start with the news that there will be no changes to the Startup format ahead of Worlds. While we are aware that Startup isn’t in the healthiest spot at the moment, there just isn’t the tournament data available to us to make any solid, informed choices about the format at the moment. A lot of what we have access to is just the IDs played at Circuit Openers or Day 2 side events. While this is useful data, it doesn’t form a complete picture of the format, and so we’d like a little more before making informed decisions. This, combined with how little time we have, means that if we tried to rush out some kind of banlist or other change before Worlds, we may end up doing more harm than good to the format.
With that being said, there’s a lot to be excited about in the Startup format moving forward. I very much have my eye on the format, and there are plenty of ongoing plans on how we at NSG can support the format better going forward. I don’t have details to share yet as we’re still in the early stages, and a certain amount of bandwidth is being taken up by the World Championship, but, rest assured, they are in the works.
In this exciting new frontier for the Startup format, there are a few things that you can do to help out:
- Go to Startup events! While Startup is a more limited format than Standard, there is still plenty to explore in it competitively. We’ll be looking closely at the World Startup Championship, as well as any COs that happen in the leadup to Worlds, to help us make decisions about the format, so the more data we can get the better. There will also be tournaments run for Startup after Worlds is finished that we’d want to see be successful, so look out for those!
- Claim with your decks on Always Be Running! When forming an opinion on the current state of a competitive format, the starting step for us and others tends to be looking at what decks are being played at competitive events. You can claim with other people’s decklists, and it doesn’t matter if there’s an attached writeup or if the deck did particularly well. Every published deck list helps!
- Look out for any announcements regarding the Startup format! We’ll be looking at getting together the Startup panel after Worlds and would really appreciate community help and support with regards to it. I don’t have any specific details yet, but I will report them when they are solidified. If you’re interested, this blog will be the first place they are published, so keep an eye out for them.
Startup is a beautiful format, not just for beginners, but for anyone looking to build and play decks without having to worry about a card pool as wide as Standard. The community has shown it a lot of love, and I hope that we can take that love for the format and use it to make the format even more beautiful. I look forward to seeing where we can take the format from here!
