Rabbit, Krumz and the Tracing Game

by Jens Kreutzer

Rabbit & Krumz
Go ahead and ask a random Netrunner player about the cards he or she considers to be the weakest in the game, and you have a good chance of hearing something not entirely dissimilar to the header of this article (though Corruption from Classic or Arasaka Portable Prototype are candidates as well). But why is this? Why is nobody playing with Rabbit and Krumz? In multiples and in combination with a cheap base link like Back Door to Hilliard, Rabbit can thwart all trace ice, and Krumz is a bit resource that rezzes for free and remains active throughout the game (face it, no Runners in their right minds will ever pay anything to trash it). And inexhaustible bit providers are usually a good thing, aren't they? So, why are these two cards that bad?

Well, one reason is obviously that they don't deliver much bang for the buck: What if Rabbit reduced the trace limit by 2 or 3, or if Krumz provided 4 or 5 bits for tracing each turn? That sounds a bit more reasonable, and you would perhaps not dismiss them right out of hand. But would you really want to play them? I suspect that even that would not be enough to make them attractive to players, and there is a deeper reason for that: the status of the so-called "tracing game" in the Netrunner play environment. It is rather obvious that the good people who designed Netrunner grossly overestimated the role of actual tracing in your average Netrunner game. If it happens once or twice during the entire game without both trace value and link value being zero, that's a lot already. But if you cannot depend on Rabbit and Krumz being actually relevant, let alone decisive during a game, you will be reluctant to include them in your deck.

The Tracing Game
I'd like to use this article to take a closer look at the situations where a meaningful tracing game could happen, and what makes players decide to actually let it happen or not. With "meaningful", I mean a tracing game whose result isn't predetermined, i. e., one in which both Corp or Runner could be the winner, depending on how many bits are spent by each of the two, and both players knowing this.

If the Runner doesn't have a means of increasing link value, either because no base link (or cards like The Springboard) are installed or because bits are lacking, he usually won't let a trace happen that he knows will be lost - i. e., she might accidentally run into tracer ice that was rezzed into her face, but not run willingly into known tracer ice without being able to break it. The only situations in which this might be a good idea are if the Runner wants to hand out Bad Publicity with Back Door to Netwatch or wants to bluff the Corp into spending bits by making it believe that a hidden resource is Wired Switchboard, which it, however, isn't.

On the other hand, if the Runner knows for sure that a trace won't be successful because the Corp is low on bits or the Runner has Access through Alpha, it's clear that she'll let the trace happen if that means that she can save bits because breaking the subroutine would be more expensive. But that is a no-brainer.

The Corp usually doesn't have the choice when it comes to tracer ice, only when deciding whether to rez it or not. Obviously, if the Runner has The Deck installed, a wise Corp won't bother with rezzing Fang. It does have a choice when it comes to tracers like Chance Observation or Blood Cat. While Blood Cat will frequently trace away until the Runner is brought to justice, the Corp will usually only play Chance Observation if it is a sure thing, Wired Switchboard notwithstanding. Note that the question of tag prevention is a completely different issue.

Meaningful Tracing Games
So let's turn to the interesting situations now: the "meaningful" tracing games I mentioned earlier. To give an example, let's assume the Corp has a rezzed Fang in front of R&D, and the Runner has Access to Kiribati and the bits to use it, but no sentry breaker. R&D is always a juicy target, so what should the Runner do? It's clear that for five bits, the Runner could be sure to exceed Fang's trace limit. But if the Corp doesn't spend four bits, the Runner could get away with paying less. The question is whether the risk is worth it. Most Corps would probably assume that the Runner pays five (because the cost of getting hit by Fang would negate the saved bits), and just spend zero. But if the Runner can assume that the Corp will spend zero bits, spending just one bit on Kiribati becomes a tempting proposition. But then, the Corp might consider spending one bit to "keep the Runner honest".

For the Runner, there are three things to be gained by running R&D in this case: 1.) Evading Fang's trace and thereby accessing R&D, 2.) the prospect of getting away with spending fewer bits than five, 3.) making the Corp waste bits. To my mind, it seem that 1.) and 2.) don't go together well because of the risk. The Runner wants 1.), namely to breach R&D - if that can be accomplished on the cheap, fine, but a Runner can't afford wasting actions and bits for nothing. It follows that 2.) must take second place here. 3.), on the other hand, can be accomplished even if the Runner spends five bits and makes sure that 1.) is accomplished. It's just a matter of the Corp of "wanting to keep the Runner honest". A situation in which saving bits is really crucial for the outcome of the game won't come up very often (perhaps in that final desperate run to get at the winning agenda), and if it does, it is probably obvious for the Corp as well, who will then gladly spend as many bits as possible to thwart that all-important run.

What I'm trying to say is that usually, it is just not in the Runner's interest to gamble on the tracing game, as a precious run (perhaps bits have already been spent on breaking other ice, and most surely an action) and avoiding adverse effects are at stake. But if there is no gamble, it is no real tracing "game" at all, just another way of "breaking" tracer subroutines. Admittedly, having a useful base link like The Deck or Back Door to Hilliard lying around is rather nice because you never know when it could gain you a free lunch or save you from an Urban Renewal. But let's face it, if you're trying to deal with tracer subroutines, it is safer, often cheaper, and most of all more focused to just use a sentry breaker, which you need for non-tracer sentries anyway. Rabbits would only get between the feet of Shaka.

Of course, strategy rules are there to be broken, especially in Netrunner, and I think that a master Runner will occasionally do play a "meaningful tracing game", most often in Sealed play. But a master Runner probably won't ever base a Constructed deck on it. Lots of Rabbits and a cheap base link would negate tracer ice, but the Corp would adapt and just not install or rez any more of them. Tracer ice is just too narrow an aspect of the game to invest so much in negating it. Decks with bits for increasing link value like Techtronica Utility Suit are likewise too narrow: Why not use stealth bits instead, or Speed Chips, which can be used to break any sentry subroutine, not just tracers? And even stealth bits are too narrow (and expensive) to have a big impact on the tournament scene (though Silent Impact might have changed that). If nobody plays with Replicator, then nobody will play with Rabbit, either.

If Corps started to use tracer ice exclusively, the metagame could shift towards Rabbit and Replicator. After all, such ice usually is cheaper than other sentries with the same strength and comparable subroutines, so it does have an appeal. But because the Corp has to expect cards like The Deck or Access through Alpha, it won't happen anytime soon. Even Paris City Grid is powerless against Alpha. Hacker Tracker Central could help out, but there isn't enough tracing happening for it to be effective.

I think it is a pity that the tracing game is such a stepchild of Netrunner gameplay. Playing mind games with each other and bluffing are aspects that make Netrunner such an interesting and multifaceted TCG, and we could use more of that. Something akin to Neal's Draconian Banned List could perhaps make more tracing games happen. To that end, I think that cards like The Deck or Access through Alpha should be on the list, because they make it too cheap to exceed the trace limit: They prevent "meaningful" tracing games from ever happening. As it stands now, Neal's list includes Access through Alpha, but not The Deck, and, critically, it also bans Access to Arasaka and Access to Kiribati, which is not helpful for the encouragement of tracing. Perhaps this is a good time to start thinking about changing the list, as was originally intended by Neal. Another, more drastic idea would be a format that banned all non-tracer sentry ice. Would you play with Rabbit and Krumz then? An interesting question.