We are pattern-seeking animals.
Welcome to this new blog all about the rules of Netrunner! Sounds exciting? Yeah I know, why would anyone be excited about riveting accounts like this:
CR 8.4.1 DRAWING cards is a process that moves cards from a player’s deck to their hand.
CR 8.4.2 To draw 1 or more cards, a player sets aside that many cards from the top of their deck facedown. The cards are then considered drawn, and abilities with trigger conditions related to cards being drawn can act on them. When resolving any such abilities is complete, the set aside cards are added to their owner’s hand.1
The NISEI Comprehensive Rules for Netrunner are not light reading. The 130-page document explains in painstaking detail exactly how the game is played, down to the atomic level (and occasionally beyond). When a new player enters the #questions channel in the GLC discord server and says “so I was reading this CR thing and I’m wondering something…”, a common reaction is “why are you reading the CR?”
And it’s not just new players. It’s a common sentiment in the Netrunner community that mere mortals need not concern themselves with the minutiae of the Comprehensive Rules. That stuff is just a formality! It’s a tool for the Rules Team to keep their ducks in a row, to ensure internal consistency of rulings and templating. Go back to the learn to play-guide, most of what you need to know is in there.
Which is true. But it’s that word, most, that keeps bouncing around in the back of your mind. You are not content with knowing what or when. You are not satisfied by letting the nerds in #questions just tell you whether you can use Tennin Institute to put advancement counters on an unadvanceable card2 or if it’s fine to rez Marcus Batty after the runner has started breaking subroutines3. You want to be able to answer those questions yourself.
You want to know why.
And I do too. I love discovering what’s going on inside the machine. I want to learn more. And this place is where I will document my deep dives into the far reaches of the Comprehensive Rules. Mostly for my own amusement, but hopefully also for the entertainment and enlightenment of fellow rules enthusiasts like you, gentle reader.
References
This article uses the NISEI Comprehensive Rules Document version 1.6, which was released on 22 July 2022.
Rules mentioned:
Chapter 8: Card Manipulation
8.4.1 (p.76)
8.4.2 (p.76)
Cards mentioned:
Tennin Institute
Marcus Batty
Deep Dive
Other:
Green Level Clearance, Discord server
NISEI Comprehensive Rules Hub
NISEI Learn to Play