1.7 Some practice tips

If you’re a beginner and the above contained a lot of novel information for you, you probably aren’t at the point where you want to dedicate a huge amount of time and effort to becoming super competitive at this game: you’re still getting a feel of the game and having a look around, and just need some pointers to improve your gameplay a bit so you can keep having fun. That’s great! Maybe going forward you will find out that you want to get hardcore spiky, or maybe not. But if you already feel like you want to get good a little faster, or a little more consistently, I have some assorted tips for you.

All of this is very personal. Remember that you’re in in for the fun, so don’t follow any advice that you think is preventing you from having that.

Play good decks#

Deckbuilding is really fun, and I encourage you to spend time on it. However, it is very hard to improve at deckbuilding and piloting at the same time. First of all, if you’re playing with an inexpertly built deck, it’s hard for your deck to give you opportunities to make good plays and train your good play patterns; and when you lose your games, it’s hard to tell whether you’re making misplays or whether the loss was your build’s fault. Also, if you spend some time playing strong, well-tuned decks built by very good players, you will understand how it feels to play a well-oiled machine that keeps you flush with credits and options all the time, and that will make you a better deckbuilder.

How do you find good decks? The best option is to simply ask other players, saying what kind of deck you’d like to play, and they’ll probably give you some good recommendations. Failing that, you should probably check out decks that have had a good placement in recent tournaments in the format of your choice (the website you’re looking for is Always be Running). Netdecking is not frowned upon in Netrunner and there’s nothing bad about doing it, so go ahead and do it! Also, taking good decks and slowly tweaking them by a couple slots at a time towards something that you personally like better is often a very good compromise between building something from scratch and complete netdecking.

Play carefully#

It’s easy to think that you just improve by playing a lot, but playing with care is actually much more important. We’re not yet into the territory of “deliberate practice”, but the following tips are probably simple to follow while also helpful:

• Take your time and think about your plays. Plan your turn. Do all of the math that you need to do. Use pen and paper to take notes, or just to do math.
• Think a little bit after your games as well. You don’t necessarily have to go watch a replay and analyze your choices in depth: even just asking yourself “Why did I win/lose? What’s the most consequential mistake I made?” can do a lot.
• Play with someone you can talk with. This will be the default for in-person play, but probably not if you play primarily online. Having a friend or frequent play partner that you can discuss things with after a game is over (“Oh, I would have totally lost this if you had started running HQ earlier!") can make a lot of difference.
• Play multiple games with and against the same decks. This is another thing that can be hard to do if you open jnet and play a lot against random people. Repeating the same play patterns in the same matchup a few times makes it a lot easier to internalize things compared to having wildly different experiences in short succession.