Netrunner in the Philippines: A Primer on this Free-to-Print-and-Play Card Game, Local Meetups, and More!
Hello there! After All aBoard EXPO and our National Tournament, I finally have some time to kind of decompress and thought about expanding reach about our Netrunner tabletop community – figured local subreddits would be a nice place to put this in.
If you attended All aBoard EXPO, you might have passed our booth or gotten a flyer – hi!
What is Netrunner?
from Null Signal Games: "Netrunner is a two-player asymmetric card game set in a dystopian future where four megacorporations control almost every aspect of daily life. Legendary hackers known as “runners” aim to fight the corps’ influence by hacking into their servers and preventing them from advancing their sinister agendas."
Basically, Netrunner is a a mix between a board game and a card game (like Magic, Pokemon), in that there's a competitive scene for it and it's mostly cards, but it feels and plays like a board game in a way – there's a lot of crossover between the boardgame/card game community and Netrunner!
If you’ve heard of Android: Netrunner from Fantasy Flight Games before, this is the spiritual successor of the game after it got discontinued. Netrunner is still on the BoardGameGeek Top 100 list, and used to be #1 and stayed for a while in the Top 10.
Netrunner is free to play
Not F2P like gacha games, literally free to play.
You can print out your own decks with a home printer or at a computer/print shop (this is what I do), and put them in card sleeves behind bulk magic/pokemon cards (we can also provide these if you dont own any). These printouts are legal in tournaments at all levels, even all the way to the world championships!
Quite literally we're not trying to sell anything here. It’s a genuinely great game with an amazing community, we just want to grow the community locally :-)
But if you do want “official” NSG-printed cards, a local organizer also has some stocks since there are interested people who want them!
We always have teaching/demo decks for new players, so feel free to join even if you don’t own any cards. :)
What's the community like?
Netrunner is a pretty cool game in that it attracts a wide variety of players from all walks of life! Lots of queer people even locally, and the international community is amazing, too. Never felt more at home when I play this game. Lots of board gamers get into Netrunner since the mechanics of the game scratches a certain itch others dont.
Artists are more than welcome in this game too! If you like making art, you can create your own alternate art cards like what I made here.
Meetups
We have weekly meetups for open play!
Green Gate Hobbies (Cubao, QC) - Wednesday afternoons to evenings
Whimsy Game Cafe (Greenfield, Mandaluyong) - Thursday evenings
Hobbies & Sheets (Salcedo, Makati) - Friday evenings
Weekends: we meet up once or twice a month for tournaments at Whimsy or Hobbies and Sheets.
There are also players in Iloilo, so we can connect you with them.
If you’re new, feel free to drop by at any of these meetups – we’re always keen to teach new people!
We also play other games!
After tournaments or even during weekly meetups, we play some board games. They own copies of a lot of stuff like Dune: Imperium, Arcs, TI4, Root (!!), King and Peasant, Harmonies, Bullet, Battlecon/Exceed, Arkham Horror LCG, Shobu, Go, Magic Cubes/Dandan, and many more. So depending on the mood/interest we play some of these as well.
We’re also currently organizing a Lancer TTRPG session. Some of us also play Commander. There’s a little bit for everyone!
Netrunner might be for you if:
You’re burnt out on TCG monetization/pulling/buying pieces for your decks but want a competitive game
You want organization/chatter to be on Discord instead of FB/Messenger (huge plus for me!)
You like the cyberpunk lore/aesthetic/worldbuilding.
You want to make art and see them in action on game pieces!
You want some kind of weekday activity after work and during weekends every so often
You’re a queer board/card game player looking for a safe and welcoming community <3 (hello, happy pride!)
You want a community that’s pretty much down to explore other board games and systems
You travel often overseas and want to be part of a tight-knit international community (there are a few locals who do this, so it might be a huge plus for you! But regardless, some international players also fly in for tournaments or we exchange self-made cards with other countries)
You’re a spiky competitor or janky deckbuilder at heart!
You and your friend group want to hyperfixate on one game
You just wanna try it out for fun!
Some resources
What is Netrunner - the official Null Signal Games Website - all the files are in this website, but we can help you out!
Learn to Play Netrunner (Youtube video)
Personal writeup to wrap up our Nationals Tournament
Images from just this weekend's Nationals/Megacity Tournament. We commissioned a local artist who does official art for Null Signal Games – this year, we opted for a beach episode + ihaw ihaw!
If you’re interested to learn and join, let me know so I can send a Discord invite! We always have new folks coming in and asking questions. Always Be Running!