Household NamesMeet the Megacorporations of Android: Netrunner The Card Game
Recently, players gained the long-awaited opportunity to download the rules to Android: Netrunner The Card Game and learned more about the game’s seven distinct identities, including the game’s four megacorporations: Haas-Bioroid, Jinkteki, NBN, and Weyland Consortium. Each of these megalothic megacorps is a household name throughout the solar system.
Designed to inspire greater creativity in deck design and greater deck diversity, the game’s seven identities each have their own personality, strengths and weaknesses within the game, and an identity card. A Corporation player uses his identity card to represent his hand on the table (the Corp’s “HQ” or the Runner’s “grip”) and can consult the card for important information about the Corporation’s minimum deck size, maximum influence, and special abilities.
Today, we’ll explore each of these four massive companies, seeking to understand how they function in the world of Android: Netrunner and what players can look forward to seeing from them in the game itself.
Haas-Bioroid, “Effective. Reliable. Humane.”
The foremost bioroid manufacturer in the world, Haas-Bioroid is built on efficiency and reliability, and they hold all their products to a very high standard. Lately they have added to their production of physical bioroid sysops by experimenting with clever variants of AI that exist only in the Net and run their Intersec network.
Haas-Bioroid players would be wise to play to the company’s strengths, including its bioroid ice, and its abilities to draw cards back out of Archives, gain extra clicks, and destroy runners’ programs.
- Bioroid ice. Bioroid ice has the downside that the Runner can spend clicks to break subroutines, but ice like Ichi 1.0 makes up for their downsides with increased strength and greater quantities of subroutines. They are also more likely to do brain damage than other pieces of ice.
- File recovery. Haas-Bioroid’s attention to detail and extensive records allow them to duplicate archived processes and access Archived Memories. The company excels at returning cards from Archives to HQ.
- Click advantage. Haas-Bioroid can gain clicks through a variety of means, from straight up gaining an extra click with Biotic Labor to installing extra cards with one action, such as with Shipment from Mirrormorph.
- Program destruction. Haas-Bioroid isn’t terribly aggressive, but if you run into them you better be prepared. Their defenses are some of the strongest in the net, and can chew through the Runner’s programs.
Jinteki, “When You Need the Human Touch.”
The world’s leader in cloning, Jinteki has designed many different genetically modified clones to perform a wide variety of tasks. Jinteki’s experimentation with human precognitive abilities has led them to the fore of data filtering and resulted in an uncanny ability to be in the right place at the right time. Jinteki’s natural aesthetic reflects an environment in a constant, but peaceful, state of evolution, one that has often led stray Runners into punishing traps.
Ambitious executives looking to make their name as a part of Jinketi should understand not only the face it shows to the world but also its core of hidden strengths: data filtering, coordination, net damage, and traps.
- Data filtering. Due to their psychic experiments and Precognition, Jinteki outpaces the game’s other corporations at examining and reprioritizing the projects it has upcoming in R&D.
- Coordination. Jinteki is more likely to rely on multiple moving parts than the other corporations, and the corporation is rewarded for building large servers with many pieces of ice on them.
- Net damage. Like the Neural Katana, many of Jinteki’s most effective ice focus on discouraging Runners by dealing severe net damage.
- Traps. Trickery, redirection, bluffs, and ambushes should play heavily into a Jinteki strategy. The corporation’s defenses are all about luring Runners into a trap or Snare!
NBN, “Someone is Always Watching.”
A communications conglomerate, NBN controls a massive part of the flow of information. It owns a vast number of media outlets, both emerging and traditional. Accordingly, NBN has powerful prep cards, a large number of connections, and the ability to tag the Runner more easily than other Corps.
In the information game, NBN is the most well-connected Corporation, and they use their vast resources and connections to build strengths in information acquisition, accelerating agendas, and tracing and tagging Runners. They have also developed a unique array of ice that appear to feature lackluster subroutines, but these ice are front-loaded with strong abilities nested deeply so that Runners can’t break them.
- Accelerating agendas. Whether it adds extra advancement counters to a card with an AstroScript Pilot Program or lowers the difficulty of scoring its agendas by installing the SanSan City Grid, NBN is interested in moving quickly to score any agenda it installs.
- Tracing and tagging. NBN has the strongest traces in the game, and are more likely to be able to tag the Runner on the Corp’s turn. Tags also provide NBN with important information they use to fuel some of their more powerful abilities, such as closing a Runner’s accounts and activating their Psychographics.
- Front-loaded ice. NBN has developed some ice that can provide them subtle benefits provided the Runner encounters them. Accordingly, much of their ice that hosts subroutines that appear to be missing or lackluster is really “front-loaded” with unbreakable benefits. Data Raven is a prime example of how the corporation looks to sacrifice momentary advantages to play toward its overall strategy.
Weyland Consortium, “Moving Upwards.”
The builders and part owners of the Beanstalk, Weyland Consortium is a multi-national corporation with deep pockets and an insatiable thirst for expansion. It is excellent at generating resources, playing hardball, and finding an alternative use for the resources it has already developed.
In search of new frontiers and constant progress, Weyland Consortium relies upon the wealth of its conglomerated business, its advanceable ice, and tagging and bagging Runners to protect its assets.
- Wealth. Weyland Consoritum excels at generating revenue through business deals, and they are arguably better than other corporations at feeding their revenue streams with quick operations and the advancement of agendas like Hostile Takeover.
- Conglomeration. Its vast reach and multiple holdings puts Weyland Consortium in the perfect position to reposition and re-use materials, moving or liquidating assets in order to gain immediate resources when necessary. They can swiftly turn one set of resources into another, trashing or forfeiting cards on the table to gain other benefits, and their mobility even extends into R&D, where their Aggressive Negotiations can often lead to new answers.
- Advanceable ice. As a construction company, Weyland Consortium naturally builds the best barriers, like Hadrian’s Wall, and many of these are designed with the potential for future reinforcement. The more they’re advanced, the more difficult they are to overcome.
- Tagging and bagging. When a Runner attempts to strike Weyland Consortium, the megacorps looks to go directly to the source and taking it out, often relying on a Scorched Earth policy. Weyland Consortium are the best in the game at dealing meat damage. Once they tag a Runner, watch out!
The four Corporate identities of Android: Netrunner differ greatly in their play styles, and players can further develop their own styles by forging Corporate alliances, building decks with cards from multiple Corporations, up to the influence limit of their home Corporation.
Next Up: A look at the three Runner identities from the game’s Core Set!
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Household Names
