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Elevation

“So, how is my elevator?”

Amar sputtered on his last sip. “Ah, Mags, you know I can’t talk about that.”

Magdalene smiled, ear to silver ear. “Amar, please. I only want to know how the team is holding up. You don’t need to tell me anything I didn’t already know of.”

He visibly relaxed. “I thought you’d be so much, ah, angrier. At how everything happened. Even coming back to this place–”

“My favourite cafe? Never. They make the teh tarik how I like it. Besides, what a view.” They craned their necks up. And up, and up, and up.

“So,” Mag said, taking his attention back. “The team. I just want to make sure everyone’s okay. Maybe there’s something I can help with?” 

By the time they parted one hour later, Magdalene could see it all clearly in their mind: the points of entry, the structural weaknesses. A new blueprint, whose lines and angles were made of people. The plan was assembled. This, Mag could work with.

Elevation box cover image

Elevation builds upon the groundwork laid by System Gateway to broaden the core Netrunner card pool and round out the thematic and mechanical identities of each of the three Runner and four Corp factions. It forms an ideal second purchase for a new player looking to add to the System Gateway card pool. Together with System Gateway, it constitutes the core set that forms the basis for our Standard and Startup game formats.

Elevation is about raising the stakes and reaching new heights, all set against the backdrop of a space elevator under construction and the megacity that surrounds it.

Fast Facts

  • Release date: 24 April, 2025
  • Size: Full playsets of 82 cards, including 14 identity cards (two per faction)
  • Total size: 218 playable cards, plus narrative inserts, rules inserts, and player aides.
  • Set Symbol: a stylized space elevator rising over natural mountains
  • NetrunnerDB set abbreviation: elev (rulings)

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Get Elevation

Do you want to take your cyber-exploits to a higher level? One copy of Elevation contains a full playset of every card, and offers powerful new strategies and avenues for your exploration of Netrunner! Get Elevation from your local game store, or directly from us via our online store, which now serves the U.S.A., Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and all European Union countries. USA customers please see this announcement to see how the recently-imposed tariffs affect our prices.

Outside these regions, you’ll be able to order Elevation from our print-on-demand partners at MakePlayingCards and DriveThruCards shortly after launch. If you’re a retailer and wish to stock Netrunner, please register with our retailer portal! A full list of stockists will be available soon on our Purchase Guide.

Elevation and all of our sets are also available to download as free print-and-play PDF files to print at home. Home-printed cards are accepted at all levels of competitive play.

Note: Due to card back differences between our products, as well as due to different color matching between our different printing partners, these cards should be used in opaque sleeves.

Our shop can currently serve customers in the United States of America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom, and all 27 countries in the European Union.

Cards sold through our online shop are MPC 330gsm stock, or equivalent weight and quality from one of the other printers we work with, and come in a cardboard tuckbox. Prices include flat rate shipping. All cards are shipped from within the region they serve, so they will not incur import charges or VAT.

Our shop also has a retailer portal, where games stores can place wholesale orders of our cards. Feel free to point your Friendly Local Games Store towards it!

(Note: if the store does not automatically redirect you to the correct localized version, you can select your country and currency from the drop-down menu at the foot of the page.)

Buy Elevation

Pay what you’d like and print on your own printer! This file contains full-color art of card faces, with no bleed or card backs. We recommend that you cut the cards out and sleeve them in opaque sleeves using a standard-sized game card as backing. The “×3” files contain a full playset of every card in the set.

After downloading the files, if you’d like to say thanks, you can donate to Null Signal Games either via PayPal or our Ko-fi.

If you wish to print a few individual cards rather than the entire set, you may prefer to use one of the several proxy-making websites created by community members, including proxy.nro.run (Null Signal Games cards only), or proxynexus.net (includes older cards).

Elevation Letter-sized ×3 PDF
Elevation A4 ×3 PDF
Elevation Letter-sized ×1 PDF
Elevation A4 ×1 PDF

The MakePlayingCards Standard quality is slightly thinner than classic FFG cards. Shipping is generally more affordable than DriveThruCards for customers outside the United States. For more details, see our Purchase Guide.

Coming soon

The MakePlayingCards Premium quality is slightly thicker than classic FFG cards. Shipping is generally more affordable than DriveThruCards for customers outside the United States. For more details, see our Purchase Guide.

Coming soon

DriveThruCards provides us more revenue than other print-on-demand options, allowing us to continue our work. Card stock weight and thickness is somewhere in between the MakePlayingCards standard and premium options. Shipping can be expensive for customers outside the United States, and may incur import duties.

Coming soon

Our authorized resellers include online retailers and brick-and-mortar games stores who stock our cards. Please see our Purchase Guide for the full list. New resellers are added all the time, so please check back! To stock our cards, please visit the Retailer Portal of our online store, or encourage your FLGS to do so.

Buy from netrunnercards.co.uk
See full list of stockists

Additionally, longstanding community members and local groups often organize bulk buys from MakePlayingCards to bring the cost of the product down for their local players. We encourage you to ask players in your area if a bulk buy is being organized.

Rotation and Legality

Elevation will be legal immediately upon its release on 24 April 2025 for casual-tier events. It will be legal for competitive-tier events on 10 May 2025.

For the Standard tournament format, this set was accompanied by a ban list update, Standard Ban List 25.04. This comes into effect on the same day as Elevation‘s legality, in other words on 24 April for casual-tier events, and on 10 May for competitive-tier events.

For the Startup tournament format, this set was accompanied by a balance update, Startup Balance Update 25.04, which comes into effect on 24 April.

The release of Elevation triggers a rotation for both the Standard and Startup formats. This rotation comes into effect on the same day as the set’s legality, in other words on 24 April for casual-tier events (including all Startup events), and on 10 May for competitive-tier events.

For the Standard format, the following sets will no longer be part of the card pool: the Red Sand Cycle, the Kitara Cycle, Reign and Reverie, the Magnum Opus set, and System Update 2021. As a result, this is the full list of sets that will be in the Standard card pool:

For the Startup format, System Update 2021 will no longer be part of the card pool. The full list of sets that will be in the Startup card pool is as follows:

See our Supported Formats page for more details.

Elevation Frequently Asked Questions

A: No. Elevation is not a self-contained set. You need a copy of System Gateway to use the cards in Elevation.

If you own enough other Netrunner sets (whether NSG or older sets), you might have enough cards to be able to construct legal, playable decks. However, your experience may be suboptimal without the basic staple cards contained in System Gateway.

A: Yes and No. Elevation and System Gateway combined will form the new Core Sets for the Standard and Startup format. System Gateway is still our recommended initial purchase for beginners, with Elevation intended as a second purchase.

A: Yes! Elevation was designed to expand and complement System Gateway. The two sets combined form our new Core Sets for Netrunner, and together form a very fun card pool with a lot of depth and replayability!

A: Yes. Elevation contains some rules and mechanics that will be new to players who have only played with System Gateway before, but also some brand new rules and mechanics which will be new to all players! Rules inserts detailing all of these are included in the set.

A: No! While Elevation is a Core Set, it is not replacing System Gateway—it is designed to exist alongside it. These two Core Sets will not rotate at all under the current release model.

A: No! Despite being originally printed by FFG, Sure Gamble and Hedge Fund remain legal for play in both Startup and Standard by virtue of their reprints in System Gateway. Self-Modifying Code, Daily Casts, Cerebral Overwriter, Colossus, and False Lead also remain in the Standard card pool by virtue of their reprints in the Ashes Cycle (although Daily Casts was banned by SBL 25.04).

A: They remain legal in Standard. The cards in those two Booster Pack products are secondary printings of cards printed in Uprising and Midnight Sun, so all cards in the Booster Packs remain legal for Standard just as all cards in those two full sets do.

A: Several minor rules changes have been made over the years, though the vast majority of cards function exactly as you remember. These are summarized on our Major Changes page, and can be read about in more detail in Rules articles and in our Rules Hub.

A: No. The original editions of System Gateway and the Ashes Cycle remain legal for all the organized play formats the sets are a part of. You can use Elevation to play with original editions of our old sets as long as you use opaque card sleeves to ensure the different card backs cannot be distinguished. Opaque sleeves are mandatory for organized play. Here is a guide with sleeve recommendations. The changes on cards in the remastered editions are mostly cosmetic, and any rules wording changes do not impact the way the cards work. The latest text for card wording can always be checked on NetrunnerDB, which will be the official source for card text going forwards.

A: Our recommended next step for new players is the Startup format. This is our beginner-friendly small card pool format, which offers a greater scope for exploration and deckbuilding experimentation, without being so large as to overwhelm newer players. It is always comprised of System Gateway, Elevation, and the latest regular expansions up to the most recent complete cycle. See our Supported Formats page to check which sets are currently in Startup. For players keen for a bigger challenge, our Standard format is the most popular Netrunner tournament format.

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