I’ve found the same - I thought I must be going mad because everyone stil says this matchup is Leela favoured. But like you, I’ve found it’s 50/50 even with a Leela deck tuned heavily against it, leaving glacier a mess. Most wins now come from those snowball Leela games.
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In general, I’ve found criminal struggles mightily against NBN FA of all types since the printing of archangel. I’ve made stealth Andy my go-to crim deck for now and it holds up OK, but games that start with the 9 credit sweeps week are an uphill battle.
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And therein lies the problem- NBN actually has ice now. A while ago the crim vs yellow matchup definitely favored crim, but I’m not so sure that’s the case anymore.
At least the lack of midseasons based kill decks has made this less scary, and it usually means they won’t ice one of their centrals (or they ice both and have a slower start).
Archangel has made the matchup harder imo, even in stealth, needing a couple of ghost credits is a pain in the ass, but if you aren’t blown out by it firing once you are usually in a good spot after. And 9 card opening hands with Andy means you can usually find a hand that has the right stuff (inside job, early money cards, siphon, RDI) to get you ahead. I still can’t help but drool over stealth andy that’ll just cut one of two RDIs and chuck in a turning wheel and rebirth. It’ll be a ridiculously strong deck. Just have to wait for…two more packs? Sigh
I’m not sure criminals have favorable matchups against anyone anymore, but there are other threads dedicated to that.
Losing that 3 influence to desperado with no other viable consoles did really hurt stealth criminal decks in my opinion. I’d be running a third cloak just for consistency if it didn’t mean losing an R&D interface.
Archangel is still an enormous pain for stealth criminal for that very reason - you need two cloaks to consistency break it affordably - but I feel like stealth is the only version of criminal that isn’t completely stymied by it. I jammed several card draw pieces like 3x earthrise, John Massanori and a symmetrical visage into my stealth andy to ensure I get the pieces I need early enough to matter. The clickless draw is even more important against NEH asset decks than other factions because you can get stuck in a cycle where you spend your whole turn dealing with remotes and never advance your own board otherwise.
I tend to agree… Won a store championship at weekend, defeating three Temple NEH and one straight up Fastro. Picking the right assets to prioritise and making sure to make effective use of Whiz credits is the key. Sometimes they’ll still accelerate past you, but if you can control their assets (and thus economy and most of their FA ability) and start pressuring centrals it’s a perfectly winnable match up.
Decklist here, although not very surprising if you’ve played Whizzard before! Archives Interface and a Déjà Vu where my spicy cards.