[Netrunner for Newbs] Timing

This is part of a series of short articles I'll be writing to help beginners understand the finer points of running the nets. I'll be mostly covering some of the basic key concepts and strategies that more experienced players tend to take for granted, and how this understanding can significantly improve your gameplay.

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"When Your Turn Begins..."
Many cards such as the Supplier, Personal Workshop and PAD Campaign trigger off the start of your turn. It's fine if only one of them triggers, but when multiple cards trigger at the same time, things can get confusing. So here's an easy way to look at the start of your turn.

When your turn begins, the game checks for all the things that fire "when your turn begins". These things are then gathered into a queue which the active player can order however he likes. Note that this is the only time you can shove things into the queue: once you begin resolving things from the queue, you can no longer start introducing more things into the queue. Once the queue is finalised, the active player then begins resolving each thing in an order of his choice.

Why does this matter? Consider this scenario. You have Woman in a Red Dress and Vigil. Both are installed when your turn begins, so you shove them into the queue. You then choose to resolve Woman in a Red Dress first, to give the corp the opportunity to draw up to his maximum hand size. The corp does that. You now resolve Vigil, which checks that the corp is at his maximum hand size, so you draw a free card. (Relevant ruling here)

Consider a different scenario. You have Vigil loaded up on The Supplier. You only have one trigger, so you put the Supplier into the queue and start resolving. Supplier pops Vigil out for free, and that's it. You do not get to check for Vigil's free draw, even if the corp is at his maximum hand size. The moment you begin resolving things from the queue, you can no longer add stuff to the queue. The same is true for Executive Boot Camp + Adonis Campaign and so on.

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Run Structure
This is extremely important to know, and until you know it intimately, it is perhaps best to put a business-card sized printout of the run structure in front of you, to help you resolve some rules issues. Let's refer to the structure and look at some of the common timing issues we may have with it.

• A run is successful before you begin accessing cards. This means that you add a virus token to Nerve Agent / Medium / Datasucker before access; that you gain money from Desperado before access; that Manhunt resolves before the run ends, and so on.

• Caprice Nisei triggers when all the ice in a server has been passed. This means that you have to rez Caprice before the last piece of ice has been resolved (in other words, together with the last piece of ice) because there is no rez window after that. If Caprice is alone in a naked iceless server and you want to use her ability, you have to rez Caprice before the runner declares his run.

• You can use House of Knives after the runner commits to accessing, but you must do so before he starts accessing cards. Basically, your last window to use House of Knives is at 4.3, before the run is successful but after the runner has passed his last opportunity to jack out.

• If the runner has Doppelganger, which fires when a successful run ends, and the Corp has something like say Dedicated Response Team which also fires when a successful run ends, the runner - as the active player - gets to resolve his triggers first. This means that the runner can make another run (and possibly trash the DRT) before the DRT fires. Each trigger must fully resolve before another trigger can fire.

Off the top of my head, that's all the common run timing issues I can recall, but I'll add more to the list upon request. As a general rule of thumb, if you rigidly adhere to the structure and don't take shortcuts - eg. as corp, always ask the runner if they want to access before showing them the cards, and always ask them how many cards they want to access if they have multiaccess - you'll do fine.

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Damage
If the corp ever does more damage to the runner than he has cards in hand, the runner dies. Doesn't matter how many I've Had Worse he's holding in his hand: if he has less cards than damage, the runner dies. However, if the runner does not die from damage, damage is then done one card at a time. The corp takes out and discards, one by one, cards from the runner's grip equal to the damage done. If any of the cards are I've Had Worse, the runner draws after all the damage has been inflicted. (Relevant ruling here)

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Access
When your run on Archives or a remote server is successful, you must access all cards in the server. You do not have to trash any of them, but you must access all of them, even if you know that there's a trap. This is why Shell Corporation on a trap - say, a Project Junebug - is so good.

When you run on HQ, you must access one random card from HQ as well as any upgrades. When you run on R&D, you must access the top card of R&D as well as any upgrades. If you have optional multiaccess in the form of Medium or Nerve Agent (R&D Interface and HQ Interfaces are compulsory), you choose how many cards you want to access (to a minimum of 1) before you start accessing. Upgrades do not count towards your multiaccess limit.

When you are accessing multiple cards, you access them one at a time. This matters because of things like Edward Kim's ability, where you trash the first operation you access, and things like Imp which allow you trash stuff once per turn. As an example: if you run HQ and choose to use your Imp on a Scorched Earth and, later, access a SEA Source that you would rather trash, sorry; it's too late now.