Texturing the Game

Android: Netrunner (A:NR) was one of Fantasy Flight’s “Living Card Games” (LCGs). These are a line of card games where you buy some base or “core” set of cards, and the publisher releases smaller additional packs each with a fixed set of cards.

In the early years of A:NR’s run, the single most controversial card was Account Siphon (“Siphon”), pictured below alongside other cards that synergised with it. A lot of words were written about Siphon, arguing that it was “overpowered”, or “balanced”, or “unfair”. In this article, I’m not going to argue those questions. I’m instead going to talk about how Siphon warped the rest of A:NR around itself, and that it is good to have cards like because they give a game something I call “texture”.