“How are you feeling now?” asks Jericho.
“What am I feeling right now?” I’m stalling, not sure how to answer. There’s sweat beading on my neck, and my mouth feels dry no matter how much I try to wet it. The old cushion under me is lumpy and tattered. The cable between my fingers radiates heat.
“Like I’m about to jump out a damn hopper a thousand feet up with no chute,” I smirk nervously towards the holo hovering before me. Jericho’s face smiles up at the console on my desk like a proud parent. “You sure this is safe?”
“Running? Hell no,” he cackles back. “But there’s a whole ‘nother world on the other side of that cable. Full of magic, and wonder, and myster—”
“And money,” I cut in, raising the jack to my neck.
“And money,” he assures me.
I jack in.
System Gateway is NISEI’s foundational set. It is designed as an out-of-the-box learning experience and provides everything you need to start playing Netrunner. The cards in the set are straightforward, yet powerful, and will form the cornerstone of any player’s collection.
One copy of the System Gateway Starter Pack, plus the NISEI learn-to-play guide, is all two people need to learn Netrunner.
Fast Facts
Get System Gateway
System Gateway has two component parts: the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack. You can buy each separately or get them together as a bundle. Together, they make up the full set.
You only need to purchase one copy each of the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack to have a full playset of every card in System Gateway.
Not sure which storefront to pick? Check out NISEI’s handy Purchase Guide for a rundown of the options.
System Gateway: Starter Pack
System Gateway: Starter Pack is a fully playable box containing one Runner deck and one Corp deck. The Starter Pack offers an out-of-the-box experience with duel decks designed to teach two players how to play Netrunner. Each System Gateway: Starter Pack box comes with an additional 10 cards per deck to enhance play after learning the ropes.
System Gateway: Deckbuilding Pack
System Gateway: Deckbuilding Pack is a companion product containing extra copies of the cards featured in the Starter Pack, plus a smattering of additional new cards to open up deck building to a new player looking for more—including a new identity card for each main faction.
System Gateway: Complete Bundle
System Gateway: Complete Bundle contains both halves of the System Gateway set: the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack. Learn to play with the Starter Pack, then expand your horizons with the cards contained in the Deckbuilding Pack!
Just want the basics? You can buy the Starter Pack and Deckbuilding Pack separately (see above). You only need the Starter Pack to learn the game.
Rotation
Upon release in March 2021, System Gateway immediately became legal in the Standard and Eternal formats, as well as NISEI’s new Startup format, with a two-week grace period before becoming legal at Competitive-level events. System Gateway’s release also triggered a rotation for the Standard format: Honor and Profit, the SanSan Cycle, System Core 2019, and Salvaged Memories were no longer legal in Standard.
System Gateway Frequently Asked Questions
All you need to buy to start playing Netrunner is System Gateway: Starter Pack. It includes two ready-to-play teaching decks, player aids, and links to the NISEI learn-to-play guide.
You will need to supply some small pocket change or other objects to use as trackers.
If you want a full collection, we recommend buying the full System Gateway set—both the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack. You can get these together as the System Gateway Complete Bundle and save a few bucks.
The Deckbuilding Pack alone does not contain full playsets of every card.
When you buy the full System Gateway set—that is, both the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack—you will have a complete playset of every card in the set.
Previous core sets included cards at different quantities, which supported the pick-up-and-play experience but frustrated players aiming to start a collection. System Gateway bucks this trend by making it simple to get a full playset of every card.
Our print-on-demand distribution model makes it difficult to ship actual physical rulebooks, but System Gateway was released alongside the NISEI Learn to Play guide. The printed product also contains rules reference cards and other player aids.
System Gateway cards are marked on their bottom edge in order to help you easily reassemble the Starter Decks.
A System Gateway card with 1-3 closed circles (•) is used in the Starter Decks. The number of circles indicates the number of copies in the Starter Pack. The remaining copies are included in the Deckbuilding Pack.
A System Gateway card with 1-3 crosses (+) is part of the 10-card advanced “booster” contained within the Starter Pack. The number of crosses indicates the number of copies in the Starter Pack advanced “booster”. The remaining copies are included in the Deckbuilding Pack.
A System Gateway card with neither circles nor crosses on the bottom edge is not part of the Starter Decks at all, and all its copies are in the Deckbuilding Pack.
When you open the System Gateway Starter Pack, there is nothing you need to do to assemble the Starter Decks—they’re already ready to go!
If you’ve been using cards from the System Gateway Deckbuilding Pack and want to reset the Starter Decks to teach a new friend the game, look for the symbols at the bottom edge of the card. As mentioned above, dots (•) mean that many copies of the card are in the Starter Decks, and crosses (+) mean that many copies are in the Starter Pack advanced expansion.
Unlike with System Core 2019, NISEI’s previous core set, we don’t recommend trying to deckbuild with System Gateway by shuffling all neutral cards and all cards from one faction together.
System Gateway is designed so you can fully customize one Runner and one Corp deck with the contents of the Starter Pack and the Deckbuilding Pack. However, you will find it challenging to build multiple Runner or Corp decks simultaneously with only System Gateway—you will likely have to take a deck apart before building another.
The System Gateway Starter Pack contains a neutral Runner identity card, The Catalyst, and a neutral Corp identity card, The Syndicate.
These identities have a 30-card minimum deck size, have no abilities, and do not use influence. They are only used for teaching games—they are not legal for organized play.
Each identity contained in System Gateway comes as a single copy.
Yes. All seven of the Standard-legal identities in the System Gateway Deckbuilding Pack follow the same 40/15 structure. Playtesting showed that the smaller minimum deck size allowed for greater consistency, which we found particularly important when playing with only System Gateway.
The teaching identities contained in the System Gateway Starter Pack, The Catalyst and The Syndicate, have a minimum deck size of 30 cards and ignore influence limits. They are not legal outside of tutorial play.
NISEI continues to maintain and update the rules of the game, with an eye toward clarity and consistency. The rules changes for System Gateway introduced new terms for familiar parts of the game.
You can learn more on our Major Changes page, by reading the Rules team’s explanatory article, or by checking out the System Gateway Release Notes when they are published.
System Gateway was playtested and released alongside System Update 2021, a companion set consisting of reprints of classic Netrunner cards. System Update 2021 expands and complements some of the themes contained within System Gateway. Why not check it out?
Card-Specific Questions
More questions about specific System Gateway cards have been answered on the NRDB Rulings page for this set.
Rules text in a game like Netrunner works as its own language of sorts; occasionally, we have to deviate from conventional grammar rules in order to satisfy the rules of the game.
Starting with System Gateway and System Update 2021, we are deprecating the word “has” for modifiers and will use the word “gets” instead. In cases where a modifier is negative, “has -N” can be ambiguous and hard to parse: is it subtracting N from the value or setting the value to -N? Using “gets” avoids this. For consistency, positive modifiers, such as Precision Design’s ability, will also be worded using “gets”.
Experienced players may wonder why Zahya Sadeghi: Versatile Smuggler’s ability is not phrased as “you may gain 1 for each card you accessed during that run.”
As part of our ongoing goal to make cards function as written, we decided to spell out that Zahya’s ability counts the number of times you accessed a card. This is functionally identical to the older wording, “for each card you accessed,” but in corner cases where you might access the same card twice, it more clearly spells out what to expect.
Although it’s rare, cards can get moved around during the access step. If a Runner steals a Bacterial Programming in the middle of accessing multiple cards, the agenda’s ability can disrupt the normally orderly process of accessing. A Runner who lets Kitsune‘s subroutine fire during a run on HQ may find themselves later accessing what appears to be the same card.
When that happens, an ability that counts “each card you accessed” can create confusion: it sounds as though it is counting unique cards, so if Kitsune shows you a Hedge Fund and you later see a Hedge Fund once you breach HQ, did you access one card or two? Does the Corp have to somehow prove that the Hedge Funds you saw were both the same card?
This was previously clarified via rulings; a ruling for Obelus established that for the purposes of “for each card you accessed” abilities, a Runner accessing the same card multiple times is treated as accessing two cards. But for some readers, this is unintuitive—the ability reads “each card you accessed,” but it really means “each time you accessed a card”! It’s not counting cards, it’s counting accesses. We therefore decided to reword this ability on Zahya so that her card text unambiguously functioned as written, without needing to consult a ruling.
Zahya will gain 3 from a successful Legwork run, or 2 from a successful Jailbreak, just as you might expect… plus another 1 for each upgrade in the root of the server that she accesses, of course!
Yes. The relevant part of Mutual Favor’s ability reads “Search your stack for 1 icebreaker program and reveal it. If you made a successful run this turn, you may install it.”
By default, installing a card, whether by the “: Install 1 card” basic action or a card ability, involves paying the install cost. We only spell out exceptions to that rule, so if an ability, like Mutual Favor’s, does not specify “ignoring all costs,” then you must pay the install cost.
Starter Decklists
Starter Cards
Identity: The Catalyst
- 2× Tread Lightly
- 2× Creative Commission
- 2× VRcation
- 2× Overclock
- 3× Jailbreak
- 3× Sure Gamble
- 1× Docklands Pass
- 1× Pennyshaver
- 2× Cleaver
- 2× Carmen
- 2× Unity
- 2× Mayfly
- 1× Red Team
- 2× Telework Contract
- 2× Smartware Distributor
- 1× Verbal Plasticity
These cards are marked with circles on their bottom edges:
Booster Pack
- 2× Wildcat Strike
- 2× Mutual Favor
- 2× DZMZ Optimizer
- 2× Leech
- 2× Conduit
These cards are marked with crosses on their bottom edges:
Starter Cards
Identity: The Syndicate
- 3× Offworld Office
- 2× Send a Message
- 2× Superconducting Hub
- 2× Nico Campaign
- 2× Urtica Cipher
- 2× Regolith Mining License
- 2× Brân 1.0
- 2× Diviner
- 2× Karunā
- 3× Palisade
- 2× Tithe
- 2× Whitespace
- 2× Seamless Launch
- 2× Government Subsidy
- 3× Hedge Fund
- 1× Manegarm Skunkworks
These cards are marked with circles on their bottom edges:
Booster Pack
- 2× Orbital Superiority
- 2× Funhouse
- 2× Public Trail
- 2× Predictive Planogram
- 1× Retribution
- 1× AMAZE Amusements
These cards are marked with crosses on their bottom edges:
