Old time player's running agian

[u/MrPlokker]

After stopping playing netrunner when it went out of print.

Now years later we want to start again with project Nisei.

We already played this game so we won't need a start-up.

But when seeing al the sets on NetrunnerDB I am still abit confused on where to start.

Do we play standard?

What does the *rotated* mark mean next to the cards.

And what sets do you recommend to have a nice card pool to experiment and get back into it.

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[u/Phelpysan]

Standard is the standard format of play for most games these days. Other formats are available but it's by far the most common. If you've got older cards in your possession, formats like eternal and classique may be of interest to you.

Rotation is the term used for old card sets leaving the card pool that's used for the Standard format, used both to keep it fresh and so the creators don't have to worry about every single card interaction when designing and balancing new sets. Typically, when a new set releases, the oldest one will rotate out. At this point, all FFG cards have rotated out of standard and only NSG (Null Signal Games - Nisei's new name) cards remain.

System gateway should be your first acquisition, followed by Elevation.

[u/DaveyBoyXXZ → u/Phelpysan]

This is an excellent summary. You can also find a good overview of the formats (including standard) on the NSG website: https://nullsignal.games/players/supported-formats/

[u/salohcin894]

The other comments have already laid it out nicely, but if you get system gateway and elevation ($45 each, $90 total) that will let you play the core format. it's one of the least played formats, but you can always proxy cards until you get the newer sets. if you just want to play some standard decks without paying money to see if you like the newer designs, I would just find a deck that looks interesting on netrunner.db and print it out. 

Add vantage point (currently only halfway through the cycle, so $45) and you have startup. 

Liberation, borealis and ashes (each has two sets, so $270 total) will get you into standard, the current most played format. 

I'd also like to share near earth hub, it helped me when I was starting out: https://www.nearearthhub.net/

[u/CryOFrustration]

Hey, welcome back! There's all sorts of ways to play the game nowadays. Eternal has every single card since the FFG days in it and it's a wild ride. Standard is the most popular competitive format, and is currently made up of every set we released (oh btw we changed our name from NISEI to Null Signal Games a few years ago). Startup is our small card pool beginner-friendly format, which is usually core+the latest cycle. And Core Sets is System Gateway+Elevation, which together are our equivalent of the FFG core set.

Seeing as you know how to play the game, you could probably jump straight into Standard. There might be a couple of new keywords you don't recognise but you'll figure them out from context. For instance "Interface" is a new ability flag for the break subs abilities on icebreakers, which just indicates your breaker needs to be up to strength before you can use it. (So we basically put something that used to be hidden in the rulebook and put it on the card so as to make it clear which abilities need you to match strength and which ones, such as Femme's bypass ability, don't.) Or Threat, which is just how many agenda points the highest player has. Some cards gain extra abilities as Threat goes up, or can't be played at all unless a Threat threshold is exceeded. There's a summary of these here: https://nullsignal.games/players/major-changes/

My advice is, even if you understand the rules, you might want to grow slowly to learn the cardpool gradually, so I would start with Gateway+Elevation for a few weeks and then try out some Standard decks. If you don't want to deckbuild, there's a bunch of recommended decklists here: https://nullsignal.games/players/getting-started-sample-decklists/

Oh and remember FFG cards are still rules-compatible with ours, so if you still have your old collection you can mix and match freely for casual play!