Almost all card games have multiple formats, whether they are created by the makers of the game or by the community. Many formats begin as community led endeavours and are adopted by the organisation responsible for the card game.

Startup began with the release of System Gateway and System Update 2021. With their release, it was possible to construct complete and varied decks using only the NSG cardpool. At the time, this was System Gateway, System Update 2021, and the Ashes Cycle. The format’s original stated goals were to encourage deckbuilding variety while keeping a small and accessible card pool.

Two years later Midnight Sun released, and the Startup format solidified into the rotation schedule it has maintained to this day. The addition of the first half of the Borealis cycle could have rotated all of Ashes, but instead it was added to the card pool with the rotation of Ashes only scheduled to occur with the release of Parhelion. This rotation system has persisted to the present day, with one complete narrative cycle always available in the format.

For a long time the format existed without a banlist, but due to the dominance of certain cards a banlist was added to the format in January of this year. Now, the newly formed Startup Curation Team intends to continue the work of curating the format through balance updates, to try and maintain the diversity and accessibility of its deckbuilding.

What makes a format?

Formats are a product of a desire for balance. Within a card game, the only ‘natural’ format would be a format consisting of all cards ever printed, played as printed, with no ban list or restrictions. This state is one many card games exist in for a time, but quickly leave. Through errata, ban lists, rotations, and other balancing mechanisms, a game’s community and leadership will eventually implement a selection of more tailored formats for play.

Rotation is one of the most widespread balancing mechanisms for long-running card games. It allows for a constant stream of new cards to be printed, without the game becoming bloated by an ever-increasing card pool and the growing complexity of interactions that results. Rotation removes old cards to pave the way for new game design.

Banning cards is also a common balancing mechanism. Rather than removing cards from the cardpool based on their age, banning cards allows a format’s curators to remove cards based on their power level, problematic interactions with other cards, or any number of other considerations. In addition to bannings, some games use other direct balancing mechanisms, such as restricted lists.

By using rotation and bans, many games arrive at a handful of formats that approximate to this template:

• A non-rotating format consisting of all cards with no ban list or other balance mechanism.
• A non-rotating format consisting of all cards except those restricted through a ban list or other balancing mechanism.
• A rotating format consisting of a set of recent cards, sometimes with a less frequently rotating core set, and a banlist or other balancing mechanism.
• A rapidly rotating formatwith a much more limited cardpool, consisting of only the most recent set(s).

In Netrunner, we call these formats ‘casual’, ‘Eternal’,‘Standard’ and ‘Startup’. They form a very straightforward and robust set of core ways to engage with the game.

Startup ≠ Limited

Startup has some key differences from limited cardpool formats in other card games. One of the most significant ones is Netrunner’s lack of a pack or rarity system. The most common ‘limited’ formats in other card games are draft or sealed gameplay, which use the very small cardpool contained within a certain number of packs of a recent set or sets. There are only so many copies of powerful cards available in formats like these, so they are self-balancing to some extent.

The universal availability of all cards within a Netrunner format means that decks will always exist at the top of those formats’ power curves, and those powerful decks will always be widely available and playable. Without the inherent balancing effect of a rarity system, more care and attention must be put into directly balancing Startup as a limited cardpool format characterised by unrestricted deck building.

If Netrunner lacks the typical mechanisms that regulate limited cardpool formats in other card games, is this kind of format well suited to Netrunner in the first place? And why not stick to some sort of ‘core set only’ format, just using System Gateway and System Update 2021? 

Benefits of Startup

Startup has a number of qualities that provide value for all Netrunner players, no matter their level of experience with the game.

First, there is the lower cost of entry. Currently, purchasing all of Standard involves acquiring nine sets from NSG, plus two cycles and an expansion product from the second-hand market. Proxies are legal at all levels of competitive play, which helps to mitigate these issues of acquisition, but for many players part of the experience of playing a card game is the tacticility of owning the cards. The process of proxying is not worth the effort and investment for everyone. With the release of the set codenamed “Dawn”, this process will become much simpler, but Standard will still have a larger barrier to entry than entrenched players may realise: eight sets, climbing to at least ten before the next scheduled rotation. Startup currently consists of only four sets, and has never included more than five sets.

A reduced card pool can also be a draw for newer players in a game where one side plays most of their cards facedown. Startup has 114 unique Corp cards that can be installed facedown – that’s far fewer for a new player to learn than the 341 in the Standard format. It is frequently argued that players should simply play Standard and learn through their mistakes, but Netrunner is a difficult game to learn and the added unknowns of what facedown cards could be can be stressful and sometimes embarrassing for newer players. Even the time-honoured process of learning by accessing Snare! is simplified within the Startup format’s cardpool.

Another benefit of a smaller cardpool is increasing the accessibility of deck building. Deck building is an intimidating part of any card game, and this is even more true in Netrunner with the lack of a rarity system to regulate the cards a new player has access to. If you have the means, you can have the entire card pool for a format at your fingertips to build with straightaway – that can be pretty intimidating! That intimidation factor, in combination with the prevailing wisdom that deck building in Netrunner is hard even among other card games, often leads enfranchised players to recommend that new players learn the game by netdecking (i.e. trying out proven decklists published online) before attempting to build their own Standard decks.

Bridging the gap to building your own decks in Startup is both easier than in Standard and more exciting than just building with the core set. For many, netdecking in standard is a necessity due to the intimidating nature of deck building with such a large pool of cards. Startup solves this by providing a far more accessible space, but without gatekeeping new players from the excitement of new releases and rotation. The release of a new set is a time of community celebration, bringing exciting opportunities for deckbuilding and experimentation in Startup just as it is in Standard. Playing with the core set only denies players access to this part of the experience, which is quintessential to many players’ enjoyment of card games. 

Another benefit is that Startup’s smaller card pool results in games having a lower overall power level. The more cards are added to a format, the more ways they can interact, and the more efficiency can be squeezed out of the game. Games of Startup will typically be longer than Standard, giving players more time to set up a strategy and recover from mistakes. This slower pace provides a very different experience to larger formats. It also increases the relative power level of the basic action card, a quintessential part of Netrunner that has waned in relative power as the game has developed over the years.

In addition, the lower power level makes it easier for design and balance to maintain a flatter power curve so that more cards can see viable play. Within a larger format, many cards are ‘squeezed out’ of the meta due to the existence of better options, but within the confines of Startup most cards are unique in their role, and players can therefore justify using them more easily. On the other end of the power spectrum, cards that may need to be banned in Standard due to their interactions with other cards designed long before them can remain legal in Startup. In these ways, Startup can act as a celebration of the cards in each new set, as many more of them will be able to find homes in decks than in Standard. 

Keeping Startup healthy

Startup uniquely facilitates an engaging form of minimum-viable Netrunner, bringing together a changing metagame, accessible deck building within a limited pool of cards and excitement around new releases. However, these benefits can only be realised in a well balanced Startup format which receives regular monitoring and balance updates. It is this role that the Startup Curation Team at NSG looks to serve. Balancing for Startup is a unique challenge, but having a healthy limited cardpool format will always be beneficial to players both new and old.