Are you returning to the game after a hiatus, and wondering what you’ve missed? We want to help you get caught up.
Most of the Netrunner sets we release are accompanied by release notes, which describe in detail the new changes to the Netrunner Comprehensive Rules. For a brief overview of the most significant points, however, you can scroll through the list below to see what you missed.
Check out the Comprehensive Rules Hub for the latest version of the Comprehensive Rules and Card Text Updates.
- New keyword: Threat. Certain cards have abilities that are flagged with “Threat N →”. These abilities are active only if the threat level is equal or greater to N. The threat level is equal to the score of the player with the greatest sum of agenda points. For example, if the Runner’s score is 4 agenda points, and the Corp’s score is 3 agenda points, the threat level is 4. See Oppo Research.
- Terminology change: The term “brain damage” has been replaced with “core damage”. The mechanic functions exactly the same: for each point of core damage the Runner takes, they discard a random card and their hand size is reduced by 1 for the rest of the game.
- New Runner keyword: Sabotage X. When the Runner sabotages X, the Corp must trash a total of X cards from either HQ or the top of R&D. See Chastushka.
- New Runner keyword: Mark. The first time each turn the Runner is instructed to “identify their mark”, they randomly select a central server. That server is considered their “mark”, and other abilities may refer to it as such. See Carpe Diem.
- New Runner keyword: Charge. To charge, add 1 power counter to an installed card that already has at least 1 hosted power counter. See Daeg, First Net-Cat.
- New gameplay terminology: Breach. The word “access” now refers strictly to the act of accessing cards. The Runner no longer accesses servers; instead, they breach servers and access the cards within. See Jailbreak.
- New Runner keyword: Interface. Interface is used on icebreaker abilities and indicates that the icebreaker must match or exceed the strength of the encountered ice to be used. This change makes this property of icebreaker abilities explicit on cards. See Mayfly.
- New Corp keyword: Persistent. This keyword codifies the ability previously seen on cards like Strongbox and Red Herrings. Corp card effects tagged with persistent have effects that remain active until the run ends, even if the Runner trashes them while accessing them. See AMAZE Amusements.
- Terminology change: All servers, including remote servers, now have roots. The root of a remote server is where assets, upgrades, or agendas are installed. Nothing has changed about the roots of central servers. See SanSan City Grid.
- Terminology change: Building on the above, cards are now only considered “in a server” if they are in the corresponding zone of a central server. The cards in the Corp’s deck are “in R&D”, cards in their hand are “in HQ”, and cards in their discard pile are “in Archives”.
- Templating change: The alternative cost to break subroutines on bioroid ice has been rewritten to make it clear this is not an action. This ability is now written as “Lose : Break 1 subroutine on this ice. Only the Runner may use this ability.”
- Rules change: Consoles now work just like unique cards: there’s no restriction on installing them, but if more than one is ever installed at the same time, all but the most recent one are trashed at the next checkpoint.
- Rules change: The timing steps in a run were cleaned up and changed considerably. The changes are outside the scope of this brief summary, so check out this post for more details.
- New card errata policy: Updates to card text are now contained in their own document, the Card Text Updates file, instead of an appendix to the Comprehensive Rules.
- Rules and terminology change: Introduced interrupt abilities, marked with the symbol, and the associated timing structures. Interrupt abilities trigger faster than the normal timing structure for paid or conditional abilities allows. Read more here.
- New gameplay terminology: load/empty. To “load” a card is to put counters or credits on it from the bank; it is “empty” when it no longer has any of those counters or credits. See Crowdfunding.
- New card errata policy: Instead of the first printing of a card being treated as its canonical text, the most recent printing in a tournament-legal product is considered canonical.
Read the Comprehensive Rules 1.4/Uprising Release Notes here.
- Rules and terminology change: Introduced the concept of runs being “declared successful”. Declaring a run successful is distinct from the actual action of accessing cards. Crisium Grid now simply prevents runs against its server from being declared successful.
- Templating change: The default pronoun on cards is now “they,” rather than the former “he or she”. See Increased Drop Rates.
- Templating change: Traces are now written as “Trace[X]” instead of “TraceX“. They function exactly the same. See Trebuchet.
- Templating change: “Make a run on X” is now “Run X.” When used without a specifier, it is “Run any server.” See Always Have a Backup Plan.
- Shuffling is now considered a default step in the process of searching R&D or the stack: when you search a deck, you shuffle it afterward. Consequently, cards will no longer instruct players to shuffle after a search. See Secure and Protect.
- Cards may now have reminder text to help aid in comprehension. Reminder text is enclosed in parentheses and italicized. It does not carry rules meaning and may use imprecise language. See Whistleblower.
Read the Comprehensive Rules 1.2/Downfall Release Notes here.
No major changes.
- Rules change: The order of the heap no longer needs to be maintained.
- Rules change: Players are no longer required to find cards when searching their decks.
- Rules change: Players may no longer use prevent or avoid effects to stop costs from being paid.