Editing Android: Netrunner (section)

===The Runners===

====Anarch==== 

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| [[File:Parasite.png|200px|thumb|left|Parasite]]
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Most classically cyberpunk of the runner factions, Anarchs run to smash the system - whether that's to expose corporate lies or just because they like to break things depends on the individual ID. They are also the faction associated with the anti-android forces of Human First, fighting for the working man (usually by smashing said android with a sledgehammer), though this rarely comes up and when it does it's usually because an author wants to make a cheap racism allegory. 

As a faction, Anarchs excel at trashing corp cards of all types. They specialize in AI, Fracters, and viruses, but are generally weak in hardware and are ''supposed'' to have no good Decoder, though in practice their core Decoder was ''the'' Decoder until FFG saw sense and restricted it for tournament play. Their resources and events tend to focus on self-destruction for profit, support cards to prevent them from flaming out early and blunt instruments for trashing the corp's everything so they can either sort through the wreckage later when they run Archives or win by default when the Corp gets decked. Each of the runner factions are somewhat associated with one type of damage - for Anarchs it's the permanent Brain Damage, often self-inflicted. In general, Anarchs are a grab bag of blue and red in their intended play style: you either build [[Red Deck Wins]] or destroy and disable the Corp's defenses to win by attrition.

Anarch have had a swing-y time in the meta - a lot of their cards being low influence led to the faction being known as the one to import cards from rather than the one to play (though Noise has been a consistent threat thanks to his unique ability to grind down the Corp's deck), but as their card pool grew - especially after the deluxe box they shared with Weyland, Order and Chaos - they grew from strength to strength, dominating the game after a cards from a few cycles came together to form some monster decks, and their ability to trash cards helped immensely as Assets grew in prominence on the corp side.

It's hard to narrow down any one card as a faction's "signature", but a good example for Anarch would be Parasite: a virus that makes ice weaker and, if left unchecked, will trash the ice it is hosted on, making the server it was protecting more vulnerable. It also helps enable Anarch's suite of efficient but inflexible fixed-strength breakers, bringing ice down to their strength.

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{| class="wikitable" style="float:right; margin-left: 10px;"
| [[File:Account Siphon.png|200px|thumb|left|Account Siphon]]
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====Criminal====

Criminals want money. That's about it. Leave ideals to the other factions, 'cause Criminals are only in it for themselves. "Steal from the rich", that's their motto—and who gives a damn for the poor? Naturally, Criminals aren't exactly picky about how they make their money. Robbery, fraud, and organized crime are all just as nice as any 1337 hacking. Hell, they'll even work for the corps—for the right price. Of course, money never helped a corpse. Safety first, cash later; getting info before you run and laying low when it all goes wrong are both just as important.

It's fitting, then, that Criminals have the best economy of any runner faction. You're going to give the corps a run for their money—literally; a lot of your economy will come from making runs. You'll usually do this by playing events. [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01018 Account Siphon] is a good example; it lets you gain up to ten credits while removing five of the Corp's ...as long as you successfully run on their HQ. Attacking HQ is a Criminal speciality, and they have tons of cards (like the aforementioned Account Siphon) that do crazy shit when you run HQ, plus [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01028 Sneakdoor Beta] to [[Creed|turn an Archives run into an HQ run, making all that ICE on HQ worthless.]]

But even ICE can't stop a smooth Criminal. They're great at cracking Sentry ICE, with some of [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/02104 the] [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/06077 best] [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01026 Killers] in the game. And anything they can't crack, they can avoid. Criminal cards focus on derezzing or otherwise bypassing ICE; if Anarchs [[Rage|straight-up destroy the corp's board,]] Criminals [[Troll|slyly fuck with it.]]

Other strengths include a variety of Connection resources, tutors for those Connections, and the ability to dodge tags and generally avoid meat damage. (Safety first, remember?)

But Criminals still have weaknesses. They're pretty bad at bringing cards back from the heap, and their non-Killer Icebreakers are expensive and inefficient to make up for their ICE evasion and good economy.

They also have the issue that their slice of ANR's "color pie" includes several mechanics that FFG's left underserved: Derezzing and Bypassing ice completely, which have seen some success, making ice more expensive to rez, and Exposing cards - looking at them without accessing or encountering them - which haven't. While these are interesting, historically in the game they haven't been used much, and focus on them has meant they've gotten fewer cards that support strategies people actually play. 

This has not stopped Criminal from being successful, however - the first World Championship was won by a Criminal deck, and more than half the runner field at that tournament had Criminals as their runner deck. Some reckon their sheer brokenness (see also: their signature card) in the early days of the game was responsible for most of the blue cards printed since being binder fodder.

Of the runner factions Criminal is far and away the easiest to identify a "signature" card for - Account Siphon is a hugely powerful card that exemplifies everything Criminals do best - robbing the corp blind and making a ton of money. As a run event that requires a successful HQ run, Siphon (there another "siphon" card, but Account Siphon is notorious enough to be known by the name) is very strongly Criminal, as represented by its hefty influence cost of 4. Since the core set Account Siphon is a card that has had to be played around, and all corps should be wary that the card exists. It is also one of the only cards to actively show that a corp's credit and a runner's credit do not represent the same amount of money - the corp's is much, much larger.

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====Shaper====

Shapers just want to have fun. Some of them do it because [[Tumblr|committing industrial espionage makes them feel different and special,]] some of them do it because [[Dwarf Fortress|they like to make and play with cool toys and running against the Corps requires some seriously cool toys,]] and some do it because [[Slaanesh|running makes you see pretty colors.]] To sum up, Shapers are the hippie faction. As a result, [[Mary Sue|they get the softest treatment from FFG in the fluff;]] Shapers may smash shit as wantonly as any Anarch or steal as greedily as any Criminal, but when ''they'' do it it's completely morally acceptable because they did it for the lulz.

On the table, Shapers are the "big rig" faction. Their specialty is in hardware and programs; they've got an installable for every situation, and once a Shaper gets their rig together there's very little the Corp can do to stop them. First though they have to actually get their rig together, though, and Shaper stuff tends to be more expensive than their equivalents out of faction to compensate for its power. Not that it matters much, as Shapers are also tied with Criminals for the best economy in the game, albeit mostly by paying less for their shit to begin with; where Criminals make money by making runs and stealing shit, Shapers [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/02049 DIY their rigs,] [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01047 pawn their old busted rig for the new hotness,] or [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01044 straight up print money.] Their second specialty is adaptability and staying power; Shapers have the best pure card draw in the game, a near monopoly on tutors and their infamous "Shaper bullshit" to [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/01037 often ignore ICE subtypes] or [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/03046 always have exactly the right breaker they need], often [[Troll|without spending clicks]] because they [[Creed|set up beforehand]]. That doesn't mean they don't pay for it, though, and a smart Corp can use resource-trashing to render their set-up too slow to be worth it or flatline them before they can build up steam.

''Everyone'' takes advantage of Shaper cards, at least for their recursion and economy options. Anarch and Shaper in particular make a great pair, with Anarch's aggression gaining staying power from Shaper's recursion and defense.

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====The Mini-Factions====

When the deluxe Order and Chaos (Anarch + Weyland) was released the Netrunner community was left to wonder: who would NBN share the last deluxe with? As there are 3 runner factions and 4 corps the answer was not obvious - some reckoned there'd be one of each runner identities, others reckoned a new faction, but when Data and Destiny dropped the answer was somewhere in-between: three runners, each with a very limited card pool, a lot of influence and a unique theme. All had some similarities to the existing factions, but clear differences as well.

[[File:Mini-Faction Runners.png]]

: '''Sunny Lebeau'''
:: Working for the large and independent security corporation Globalsec, Sunny Lebeau tests corporate security and investigates megacorp wrongdoing. She's a strong and independent womyn who don't need no man, working to provide for her children and eventually save enough get her wife Pat away from her job on Mars. Equipped with the best gear and security clearance Globalsec can provide, Sunny has no passive ability - she simply has 2 Link; good for winning traces, the minimum amount needed to turn on the memory-saving ability of certain breakers, and the amount needed to make certain resources work. The general descriptor for the way Sunny operates is "slow and expensive, but good" - with costly but powerful breakers, probably the best high-cost console in the game, and good ability to make money from resources, it often takes Sunny a while to get set up, but her late-games are crushingly powerful. She is the only one of the Mini-Factions to come with a full breaker suite, so she's the most usable and conventional mini-faction runner right out of the box. For the expensive but inevitable late-game power, Sunny is often considered to be similar to shapers.   
,
:  '''Adam'''
:: Bioroid Jesus. A bioroid with no memory of who he is and and his Directives ([[Robot|Asimov's Three Laws]]) altered to give him a semblance of free will and a singular and independent purpose: Always Be Running. It could be that he escaped somehow, was set free, or is just a useful idiot for Haas-Bioroid on a blacker-than-black-ops mission buried in his programming.
::Adam has three Directives, resources that start the game installed and are effectively part of his ID text, which offer some powerful abilities, though they all come with drawbacks. His card pool comes with a number of ways to shutting off these Directives along with a console that scales when he scores agendas, showing Adam growing past his programming. Because the directives start installed, Adam generally gets off to a fast start - mainly because he's often forced to run. While this makes him vulnerable, it also puts a lot of pressure on the corp. Other than the directives and the cards focused on removing or temporarily blanking them, Adam's cards are focused on utility. With his early-game pressure and need to run, Adam is sometimes considered to be a pseudo-criminal.  

:  '''Apex'''
:: Most [[Cthulhu|mysterious]] of the Mini-Faction runners, nobody knows exactly what the hell Apex is except FFG, and maybe not even then. It could be a virus that became sentient, an AI experiment that went rogue, or maybe [[Gay Purple Man]] went to [[/d/]] and Apex is what crawled out. All anyone knows about Apex is that it is very hard to stop, and it eats data like a fa/tg/uy eats Cheetos. It gets out as much as a fa/tg/uy too; being a non-physical entity it can't install non-Virtual resources.
::Apex uses the cards on the board as a resource that can be spent - its faction cards usually require it to trash a card to use an ability, and at the start of every turn Apex can install a card facedown for free, no clicks needed. Apex can do a lot of things with these - [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/09032 avoid damage,] [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/09036 make money,] [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/09031 trash ICE,] and power [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/09033 Endless Hunger]. That last one is important; Apex can threaten servers even with no cash, though it's rolling for [[Anal circumference|anal circumference]] if it hits something that doesn't say ''exactly'' "End the run" on it. Its signature console makes it ''very'' hard to kill - throw enough cards on the table and you can walk through the worst meatgrinders the Corp can muster and come out swinging. Oh, and it can [https://netrunnerdb.com/en/card/09030 pull a diet Wrath of God out of its ass.] For the trashing abilities and common use of alternative costs Apex is most like an Anarch.