That is not what was meant. As far as I got it, he/she was speaking of any turn in the game and dealing lots of damage in that turn. He/she gave even alternatives.

Runix said:

I don't agree that this is a problem, as the deck is built by you and there is an opportunity to mulligan.  So with two possible draws, if your starting hand is still lousy, then it is probably the player's problem.  I don't think it is needed to "make sure you have good cards in your starting hand" but it is needed to "make sure you don't have all bad cards in your starting hand".

That isn't how probability works. I can build a balanced deck with extremely competitive ratios of all needed cards and 10 out of 10 hands still end up with no ice and too many agendas.

Statistically speaking that is not likely, but it can absolutely happen. People talk about statistics and probabilities as if they were these promises the universe was making to them, "If you you play your 45 card deck 15 times I promise that you will see this card at least once in every game." What the universe is saying is actually saying is, "Screw you buddy. That card will come show up some random number of times, which may include zero, but each time you don't see it I'm going to think just a hair harder about letting you see it the next time."

If you do a random set of draws of a 45 card deck and track the results you'll see that the more hands the more you are likely to move towards that predicted outcome, but as you work your way towards a 1000 games you'll find streaks of not running into it at all and running into it far more frequently than you statistically should in a finite amount of hands.

We use probabilities to help guide or decision making process and try to do what we can to control or exert influence on said probabilities, but the reason why this is a card game versus a board game like Chess is because that randomness forces players to be able to adapt tactics and shift strategies to compensate for it. That creates a level of tension, a challenge that when we can beat luck or use it to our advantage we get a sense of enjoyment from it.

Embrace the Chaos.

NOTE: I'm not saying anything that most of you don't know intellectually, but a surprising number of people forget that probabilities are just what is probableand not what is guaranteed.

Early on you have to expect the Runner to, well, have the run of the house. There isn't (generally speaking) enough ice, and enough credits to cover all the bases and they're coming at you bare-brained. The goal of the Corp isn't about stopping the Runner at this point, but damage mitigation and setting up as secure a set of servers that they can as quick as they can. As AnOP noted, after that the Runner has to go on their version of the "defensive" which is to dig deep into their stack for a full set of breakers, while trying to sustain pressure on the Corp. Here's where you bang through as many agenda as you can setting yourself up for the finale, which is a race condition - your (Corp) bits & bluff, vs their bits and bluff. Someone is going to telegraph in there and they are the one to lose.

All that aside, it is possible for the Runner to run an unprotected R&D in the first turn and pluck out a lucky seven, but that is hellishly unlucky (or a cr*p shuffle)…

So here I was, playing NBN and my mulligan resulted in two agendas, a ghost branch, sansan, and chum.  So, what did I do?  I set a remote server WITHOUT ICE by putting one agenda there and advancing it once and drawing one card.  That gives me 5 cards in hand, diluting the chances of getting the other agenda from my hand.

It's called a bluff.

The runner is now wondering if it is an advanced ambush or an advanced agenda.  He's also thinking that I have nothing worthwhile in my hand since I didn't protect HQ or R&D.  Your mulligan might come out worse than your initial hand.  However, the runner DOESN'T KNOW THAT.  If you draw five cards and give a sinister smile, perhaps that will be enough to pull things off.

 The runner would be a fool to not run on a server with no ICE and a card with one advancement.

One advancement counter RIGHT NOW isn't enough to do serious damage, so he might as well take the bait.  That might not hold true forever though.

Everybody ALWAYS says that they should run.  However, when push comes to shove, I've NEVER seen someone take such bait.  Most aren't willing to take a tag from NBN on the first turn.  The flipside of the argument is that putting one Agenda in a remote server lessens the chances that he will run twice on the first round.  But what can I say?  I consider keeping both agendas on hand without looking for Ice to be the worse outcome.  What would you have done with such a hand?

 Your move was fine since there isn't much to do. Perhaps advancing twice might deter the runner a bit more though.

catch8088 said:

I see people take the bait frequently.  Different playstyles exist.

Malgamus said:

Junebug comes to mind as a reason to be a fool if you don't have 4 cards in hand.

Honestly board situation is such a big component of what to do in any given run.  I think you're always considering both the corp and the current rig you're running prior to any run against even unprotected servers.

 That's debatable. Depending on their program set-up and deck, running into even a singularly advanced Aggressive Secretary could be devastating.