Playing Netrunner with Magic Workstation After installing Magic Workstation, you find three exe files in your MWS install directory: A) MWSPlay.exe, the program for playing Netrunner. B) MagicWorkstation.exe, the program for building decks. C) ResourceEditor.exe, the program for customizing the appearance of MWS. Playing Netrunner Starting hand: Before you start the game for the first time, remember to let the program draw the initial 5 cards, not 7. This decision will be remembered when you start the program again. During play, draw a card by pushing Ctrl+D. Starting bits: As Magic Workstation was originally built for playing Magic the Gathering, the players have neither bits nor a bit pool. Use life points as bits, they are shown as a number on your player icon. Thus, set starting life to 5. During play, gain 1 bit by pushing F12, pay 1 bit by pushing F11. You can gain or pay a larger number of bits by right clicking on your player icon and choosing the amount. Whenever you modify the number of bits in your pool, this will be written to the message log. The screen: On the left side, you can find (from top to bottom): R&D/Stack, HQ/Hand, Archives/Trash, and cards removed from game. Just on the right you can find: an icon originally intended for tracking the bits (you can use it for Bad Publicity points), agenda points, brain damage, tags and two icons for various counters. Depending on you being the Runner or the Corporation, you won't need some of these icons. Just ignore them, or use them to remember something else, like temporary bits or maybe a Mastiff counter. Just tell your opponent what you are doing! If you use the default theme instead of the Netrunner theme, you won't see the icons but only colored circles instead. To put into play face down cards, use the appropriate command right clicking on the card in hand, or dragging it into play holding SHIFT. If it is an ICE, you can then double click on the card in play to rotate it by 90 degrees. Both players can peek at facedown cards, just take a look at the log to be sure the opponent does not look at yours! ;-) Agendas scored by either the Runner or the Corporation are better left in play (separate them from cards in play). This way it's easier to put bits (counters) on them, and to understand which Agenda's ability the Corporation can use. The Corporation can also give the Runner stolen Agendas by dragging them to the Runner's side. Adding notes to cards: Click on the card to which you want to add a note - it will be highlighted by a yellow frame and shown in big in the window in the upper right. Press CTRL+ENTER and enter your text. This way, you can distinguish between ICE installed in front of R&D, HQ or any other fort. Runner should keep cards in order: resources in the first row, hardware in the second, and programs in the third. This exact order is not mandatory, but at least arranging cards in rows depending on their type should be done. Trace. To play trace, when you create your deck you must put into the sideboard all the "trace cards". These are just simple cards with a big number on them. During play, when there is a trace attempt, both players should view their sideboard and choose a card, putting it into play face down (hold SHIFT). When both players have chosen a card, they can turn them face up to see how many bits they've both spent. Remember to put the cards back to the sideboards afterwards. It is not possible for the Corporation to discard cards into the Archives face down. Those cards should be put into play face down (hold SHIFT while putting those into play) on the rightmost side of the play area. On a succesful run on the Archives, the Corporation should select all those cards and drop them into the face-up pile of Archives. Runner accessing Corp's face-down cards: since MWS does not say which card is peeked, but just on which side it is, Runner must not peek at Corp's face-down cards, since the Corp cannot be sure that Runner hasn't peeked another card instead. Runner must then wait for the Corp to flip the card and show it. Runner accessing HQ: the easiest way to choose random cards is to use the option "show random card from hand". Look at the log and drag the revealed card into play, so that Runner can read it if necessary, and that revealing another card does not lead to revealing the same one twice (since sometimes you have to reveal more than one card at once). Runner accessing R&D: this can be a bit tricky, particularly if the runner gain access to more than one card each run. Corporation should select Show->Top cards and enter the required number. Runner can now see the cards. Once he has finished looking, he must close the view window (the Corporation will see that in the log window). If the Runner has found an Agenda or a card he must reveal, since he cannot manipulate R&D directly, he must tell which card(s) the Corporation needs to see/trash/remove from the game. If it is the top card, doing so is an easy job, but if it is not, the Corporation, in order to avoid peeking at the others, should put the top card(s) into play face down (holding SHIFT) IN ORDER; view/trash/remove the required card(s), then put the others back on the deck one by one in the correct order. It's not that complicate, it's really easier to do than to tell ;-) On a final note, if a card requires to put cards under the R&D, this is done simply by holding SHIFT while putting the card back in the deck. The message log: A great advantage of online play over playing Netrunner on a table is that your actions are tracked in the message log. You can define your own messages by clicking on the little grey button with the three dots. A window opens where you can type in your default / frequently used messages. I would recommend you to enter (and use!) the following messages: Ok Ok? Wait! Thinking Start of my turn effects: Action #1: Action #2: Action #3: Action #4: End of my turn effects: End my turn Run on HQ Run on R&D Nyuk, Nyuk, Nyuk Building decks MagicWorkstation.exe the program for building decks. Start the program. First, change to deck edit mode: Click on View, then on Deck Edit Mode. Second, change from the default library to the Netrunner library: File, Open libraries... There, browse your Magic Workstation install directory and open NetRunner.mwBase. The program will remember these decisions. Enter the name of the card you want to add to your deck into the small window on the left hand side above the library. Push Enter to enter one copy of this card to your deck (or click on the blue arrow). After entering your deck, you must add the trace cards to your sideboard: For adding a card to your sideboard, push the green arrow. Finally, click on File, Save Deck as... and browse your deck directory to save your deck.