People said the same about Leela when she came out and it turned out that the answer was not to obsess too much about the ID power. I’ve a feeling he might surprise a few people.
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I agree. Unlike Exile, which he is compared to, there are a significant number of cards which can leverage his ability. Plus, he gets to play the blue cards.
Plus, exile gives you draw in the faction with the best draw in game.
Gheist will give you draw in the faction with the worst (currently) draw in the game.
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could someone plz explain why is leela so good? im srry but i really dont see why ppl play her as she doesnt have andy consistency and her ability seems to function so rarely. I guess if it works in the middle of your turn u might be able to make another cheap run somewhere else, but it still kinda cost the corp 1 click only. why not play Gabe or any other Criminal ID?
Gabe is about constant value.
Leela is about two things -
1)making, and then abusing a opening.
2) threatening number 1.
Say it’s early game, and there’s a single Ice on HQ. If any other criminal runs, you usually don’t rez that ice, because you want to avoid telling them what Icebreaker to install/tutor up to land an account siphon.
If you have an agenda in hand and the runner is Leela, however, you’re in a pickle. If you rez, she can get the appropriate breaker and Siphon, if you don’t, she might just steal the agenda, bounce the ice, and then siphon anyway.
Similarly, most corp scoring patterns don’t have room to re-install ice on the same turn - meaning that Leela get’s a turn with that ice out of the way.
Finally, she can stop a partially scored agenda by stealing another one from centrals.
A minor note - it usually only costs one click to reinstall, true, but it might cost credits as well, if there are other ice on the server.
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I have it under good authority that every game of Netrunner featuring Leela goes like this.
But seriously, her ability opens windows to aggressively pressure the Corp in a way that no other Runner does. We have a 680-post thread here discussing why she’s so good, plenty of reading material there if you’re genuinely curious.
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Well there is that whole thread…
As for my play experience with her it’s been, her ability turns what is already bad for the Corporation, the Runner stealing an agenda, into an even worse situation. Additionally, it turns the what the Corp already considers a bit of a tempo hit, scoring an agenda, into an even bigger tempo hit by having something bounced back.
Example from a game I recently played:
Legwork, steal an agenda, bounce a face-down Jackson, run archives, steal 5 more points from archives, gg.
Never mind the fact that there are plenty of times where you top deck an agenda off of R&D first turn, bounce HQ Ice, Account Siphon, purge tags, then proceed to laugh at the Corps misery.
So while Andy will consistently set you up in a position where you can win the game, Leela’s ability actively helps you win the game.
Granted, against glacier type deck, it can be more difficult. But I feel that reflects more on the Criminal faction in general, which tends to be better in the early game anyway.
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True, and that might be the better route. I was assuming you’d use a combination on each server, blowing out big ice with the B&E suite and using other breakers for the small stuff – letting you attack scoring servers as needed while making power runs on centrals and Crescentusing problem ice that’ll hurt the corp to rez again.
Breach is only inefficient in that circumstance, where you’re wanting it for Wall of Static or Wraparound or Ice Wall.
[quote=“bayushi_david, post:879, topic:2197”]
People said the same about Leela when she came out and it turned out that the answer was not to obsess too much about the ID power. I’ve a feeling he might surprise a few people.
[/quote]I’ve always thought Leela was going to be pretty good, but I agree he might be decent. I just have a hard time thinking he’ll be Tier One while Andy is around, but I’m the kind of middling competetive person that takes an interest in solid Tier Two lists.
But as things stand (and has been reported from the spoiler-ers) he seems like he’ll be solid fun but not on par with Leela or Andy.
The comparison to Exile only stands in comparison with Andy and Leela – but he’s going to be better than Exile is, I’d wager.
[quote=“Amyr_Lozober, post:882, topic:2197”]
why not play Gabe or any other Criminal ID?
[/quote]I think other folks have largely covered this, but I want to emphasize how much she throws off Corp play.
Say you’re Weyland and have a Hostile Takeover, an Atlas, and three ice in your opener. What do you do? Normally, I’d keep it, probably Ice-Ice-Credit turn one and then score the Hostile, but against Leela that means that scoring your Hostile next turn will bounce an ice if you don’t have it rezzed. Or she can run on both R&D and HQ, threatening a steal and forcing you to rez the ice there to keep her out, meaning that even if you score the Hostile after she can no longer bounce you’re playing catch-up on money, not bullying her with it. But do you want to mulligan a hand like that, really?
I’ve had players do Hostile Takeover turn 1 to avoid this, which is great for them, but means I get to Siphon or hit R&D to my heart’s content.
[quote=“Danwarr, post:885, topic:2197”]
Granted, against glacier type deck, it can be more difficult. But I feel that reflects more on the Criminal faction in general, which tends to be better in the early game anyway
[/quote]This is where I feel Geist might have the potential to shine. If he can do denial sufficiently well, his power will let him keep going, drawing replacement cards as he uses them, meaning he’ll actually get through his deck.
That said, I don’t think anti-Glacier Leela is impossible, just trickier. But I don’t see her losing ground to it much if the meta shifts post-Clot the way other Criminals might.
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Geist:
- Autoscripter or Savoire Faire?
- Get up to 2 link somehow (Forger over Desperado/Logos, really?)
- B&E suite
- Maker’s Eye + Legworks (4-6 influence)
- Clone Chips (6 influence)
- Zu + Mimic + Breach (3 influence) (Influence full)
Success?
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Autoscripter was my first thought with him. Getting a card draw out of crescentus is cool, but spending no clicks (after autoscripter is installed) to de-rez an ice and draw a card during a run? That’s worth exploring.
Im still thinking that B&E wont work so much because it needs SO MUCH SETUP.
First: B&E suite takes time and if your using it vs big ice, are u really able to spare around 6-8 tech slot for it? and whats big ice, str 5? that takes a lot of breakers plus the link setup.
I think geist would work much better in a denial strategy derezing stuff with AS to boot, crescentus, clone chip, muertos, SOT seems to be an easy way to take care about big ice anyway, just needs a mimic to pressure rnd.
B&E does save you credits though. If you use your Spikes on Eli’s, and Crowbars on Lotus Fields/Tollbooths, you save money over using Zu or Corroder. Do Criminals need the Sentry one? Probably not, and you can go down to 6 B&E. Any ICE over 5 strength doesn’t see much play. Crims will still have to use their old tricks to deal with Curtain Walls.
I dunno, the B&E suite looks like a better Easy Mark, one that sets you up to a really good run on no credits. It’ll be worth a shot.
Edit: I agree that Muertos will be insane. To an undeveloped board its effectively a free shutdown.
Geist can be Tier 1 if his ability can be leveraged against the new glacier-heavy meta. Which, given his ability to draw quickly like you said, might actually work.
As for anti-Glacier Leela, in the games I’ve played standard Leela against glacier, I mostly just lean on Kati/Stimhack. Ideally I think Leela, and any Criminal for that matter, wants to win early rather than late, but having the game extend father brings all of the Criminal IDs into about the same power level. None of that holds for Iain however, who is probably going to be the dark horse Runner of the “new” meta.
Agreed. The home invasion kit seems like way too many working parts that are sub-optimal:
The easiest way for link is forger but that’s a terrible solution because of the loss of Desperado.
So many deck slots are being worked around for something that gives you a limited number of runs.
Clone chip/parasite for destruction along with denial via cards that are already good though? It’s what you might want to do anyway, and now you’re getting a reward through his ability of draws in a faction that really suffers with drawing and keeps up constant pressure.
If, now this is a big if, the Criminal Cybernetic has something to do with link, that would be huge.
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Like, if Geist is playing 9 B&Es, 3 Faerie, 3 Clone Chip, 3 Crescentus, and a few other breakers, he’s going to be installing even more than Noise.
That makes Autoscripter look like it may get value. Mass Install almost looks like an option too, almost.
I think Easy Marks may leverage his extreme draw power. With Autoscripter working, Day Job could be a thing as well. Play him like Kate, with his ability subbing in for the Voicepads.
Needing to draw and install so many cards just so you can leverage an ability to help you draw just seems counterproductive.
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A case for out of faction Wyldside?
I think that’s called Earthrise Hotel
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Autoscripter seems…odd. Maybe I’m crazy, but that thing needs to give you 5-ish clicks before it’s worth it - and we’re playing Criminal, with a breaker suite that encourages early facechecking.
Why do we need this high variance value card? We have a ton of moving parts already.
If I was going to add utility hardware to this setup it would likely be E3.