#dicebreaker

LIVE

While I have been posting intermittently, particularly recently, I think it’s fair to say I haven’t given this blog all that much attention since 2018. Part of that, it must be said, is because I’ve fallen in and out of Netrunner (I’m more in recently - as I’ll mention later). Another part of it is tumblr kind of imploding - I think less and less about tumblr these days, but this is getting off topic - this is a post about something I’ve mentioned in passing, but have yet to dedicate a proper full-on post to: Project Nisei and the continuation of Netrunner

If you’re seeing this blog, you probably already know this, but in late 2018, Android: Netrunner was officially terminated by Fantasy Flight Games - people will always speculate why they weren’t able to renew the Netrunner licence, but the why didn’t matter - a card game many people loved was going to end.

Except not. Because the fans are passionate people, and they weren’t content to just have enjoyed one of the best games ever produced and occasionally play with old collections. They weren’t ready to retire their cards, so a portion of the community (and Netrunner has always had a great community) came together and resolved to not let the game end - first they organised, got together on the social spaces surrounding the game and coordinated, and then, in 2019 not only did they take up running the game (organising competitions and tournaments, balance and ban lists and so on), they then took it upon themselves to produce new cards, to continue the game as a fan-run enterprise, all as volunteers, all at their own expense and effort. They called themselves Project NISIE. There’s a really good article about all they’ve accomplished here (dicebreaker), but I’m sticking with the blog to talk about my one thing - the awesome art of netrunner.

When Nisei began producing these fan-made cards, they tried - and in pretty much every case succeeded - to keep up with the standards set by FFG, for cards - for mechanics in the game, of course, but also for card art. That’s a tall order, both because of the very high quality of FFG Netunner, and because they’re doing this as a voluntary organisation. All the art in this post has been produced for (in some cases by) Nisei - every bit the equal of what came before

To talk about organising Nisei has thus far managed two World Championships for netrunner - I wasn’t really playing the game last year, but this year I took part (and was able to do so due to the unfortunate current situation making the event online-only), and I had a blast! I didn’t even finish in the top half of player (of which there were nearly 300!), but the event, and the practice leading up to it, really got me in the netrunner mood, and I’ll be playing more - and when I play netrunner, I tend to post more here too. I’ll be posting both Nisei cards and FFG cards in future (I’ve already posted some), as long as I can hunt down the pics, but as you can see, they’re all of comparable quality. Long live Netunner! Long live Project NISEI