I saw in the announce about the Regional Championship that "The top player at each Regional Championship wins a coveted Golden Ticket, which grants him or her a first round bye and free entry to four days of global competition at the 2013 FFG World Championship Weekend". But I fail to see the advantage of being awarded a bye, since it means I'll have 6 prestige points, 0 match points and 0 opposition points for the round, placing me definitely being the top quarter of the competition, with no way of winning back those missing points. 

If you played out the match, you could indeed get a better score (more opposition and match points - depending on how many match points are awarded). However, you could do worse (to the point of losing the match). Moreover, I'm not even sure what percentage of games full victories represent (you assume 50% but it might be less - or more).

They probably mean the first round of tournaments, not the first round in a tournament, with the first round meaning the Qualifiers, in which usually everyone is allowed to participate.

If that's not what they mean, then it is indeed rather unusual.

I'm of the mind that a bye in this game would include prestige and match points, because in every other game I've ever seen byes count as wins; you would need the prestige and match points to win, so it makes sense that they go hand in hand.

I believe a regionals bye from FFG in A Game of Thrones means that you get full match points AND the highest strength of schedule possible for tie-breaking considerations for that match. I would assume it to be the same for Netrunner.

What are opposition points? In the rule book they talk about match and prestige but not opposition that I saw

Suka044 said:

I've never heard that term. Generally strength of schedule is the tie-breaker after prestige. You add up the total prestige of all your opponents if you are tied with others in prestige and there is no head to head tie-breaker.