I don't have the Core Set yet, but I do intend to buy 3 copies.

It's not a matter of being stupid or having too much money on my hands. As others pointed out, it really is a pure question of personal evaluation of the card's value (which will be heavily influenced by one's budget, I guess). Everyone should feel free to do as they please, and based on other LCG, I'm sure the experience will be just as fun with one Core set as it'll be with multiple.

However, I want to adress Message's arguments. Having a 3rd copy makes a difference. You cannot say you'll have just as much chance to draw the card if you only have 2. We're talking pure maths here: the increase in % may be minimal, but it's there. From a purely competitive point of view, you want to maximize your chances of getting your best cards. Please don't try to argue, against all logic, that having less copies of a card gives you more chance to draw it…

It's true that, given enough expansions, there may be cards that become strickly better than current 1-of or 2-of. But for now, the Core set is all we have, so you can't really claim there are "better" replacements available. There may be choices you deem to be almost equivalent, but they surely are not (otherwise, the card's text would be the same). These type of incremental differences do add up (again, from a purely competitive perspective; a casual group of players probably won't see the difference and will have just as much fun using one card or the other).

SiCK_Boy said:

Having three copies of a card that allow you to search your deck for any card you'd like to have, right now.

The Netrunner CCG had quite a few of them, and what they do is allow you to get away with fewer copies of other cards. Even having only a single copy of a card in your deck makes sense if you have a number of ways to search your deck.

jhaelen said:

That's only part true. It is nice to have 'tutor' cards in a card game such as this, but you have to take into account you're losing an action and probably bits to get to that card.

sinnerfold said:

We call them "credits" now. :)

PWBrian said:

No, to all of us old timers, they are still actions, bits and data forts. 

And you know what's even better than having tutors? Having 3 copies of a card plus 3 copies of a tutor to fetch that card…

Not having a complete set of cards in the core set is one of the few things that annoys me about LCGs. I understand why they do it (it makes it easier for new players, who might not be familiar with the concept of deck-building), but it still makes it annoying.

I prefer that they release an upgrade pack, instead, that has just extra cards in it, so that those of us without complete sets can make them without having to buy two more cores.

As a casual player, I don't spend a huge amount of time on building decks. I'm often the only player with a copy of the game, so I wind up loaning my opponent one of my decks, anyway. However, if I ever became a tournament player, you can bet I would grab those extra cores! So, I guess, for me, the question of whether or not to buy more sets depends upon what level you're playing at.

DeathByLiche said:

Don't forget NODES!!! 

SiCK_Boy said:

prune mentioned the consoles earlier as an example of a card you'd like to run multiples of. Doing so does increase your chance of drawing one- but what about the extras in your deck? They're all unique and you can only have 1 console in play anyway. Having more than 1 copy allows you to get it earlier but it means any copies you draw later become dead cards. That's the downside of the extra copy- the greater chance to draw also applies to when you don't need said card.

Of course not all cards are unique that we can only have 1 in play at a time such that the chance of not needing them are as great, but let's be specific here:

What cards are we talking about that we need that 2nd or 3rd copy that the core set doesn't already provide and that we'd have to buy another set just to get?

Personally, for me it'd have to be just Corporate Troubleshooter and the consoles, but the former is specifically for emergency situations while the latter I'm content with Desperado and The Toolbox as my backup. If gameplay demands their early draw, I'll throw in some draw cards.

TheRealLeo said:

Haha yes! When I play, half the time I catch myself saying old names like Score! and Virus Test Site. 

SiCK_Boy said:

Only if these three cards are all you care about (and then I'd argue the tutors aren't even worth putting into your deck). The point of the tutors is that it's as if you suddenly have three additional copies of _every_ card you're interested in. Cluttering up your precious 'deckspace' with an additional three copies of a card (that you could get via a tutor) is something I'd consider suboptimal.

DeathByLiche said:

That said, I'm mightily surprised and seriously disappointed the rulebook calls them "ice" rather than I.C.E. for intrusion countermeasure electronics. 

 The original game didn't capitalize ice in the rulebook either.

Messenger said:

Once an acronym is in common usage, it's perfectly acceptable to drop the punctuation and make it a word in its own right (the same way nobody writes L.A.S.E.R any more). In the context of the game and the background, I'd have been mildly annoyed if it had stayed as I.C.E.

Messenger said:

I had it in my head until recently that it was just Intrusion Countermeasures and "ice" was more of a nickname for I.C., rather than an actual acronym.  I don't know where that idea came from, though.