You know, criminal does have a universal tutor:
http://netrunnerdb.com/bundles/netrunnerdbcards/images/cards/en/05037.png
It doesn’t help you as much with the MU issues you’ll have, but it’ll work better than Desperado for that engine. But maybe importing CyberSolutions will work better than importing other tutors. You’ll also get synergy with your Gang Signs and Leela’s triggers.
All I’ve been doing recently is theory crafting with the turning wheel, and the more I think about it the better it is. It’s bad that I am getting excited for a bunch of cards several packs away. Of course once rebirth drops everyone will be playing Andy again anyway, but that’s to be expected.
Is glacier prevalent atm? Desperado sec test is still a really good econ engine atm imo…there isn’t much RP which is prob one of the more annoying decks for sec test because of prickly ice (and then they usually have some unprotected remote anyway) and maybe blue sun, which leela has always struggled against. I remember some people playing lucky find in leela at some stage, but I feel like lucky find and desperado don’t fit into the same crim deck any more with stupid mwl restrictions.
In my area, the answer to this is yes. Just because yellow is popular doesn’t mean it will be every game, and I would say 90%+ of non-NBN opponents are on some type of glacier and can just hard-counter this engine by throwing up one or two credit taxes over every server. desperado still pulls its weight (you get value from otherwise valuable runs) I think but sec test has seen better days.
I’m curious for those trying the goodbye combo in blue: how do you find the pieces? are you splashing for tutors? would love a powerful clickable econ in crim but I wouldn’t know where to start getting this set up in time!
I’ve tried the Goodbye combo in two decks successfully; Silhouette and Chaos Theory. I’m working on figuring it out for Leela. Criminal is an odd style of runner in that they don’t have Card Draw, they have Card Selection. Mr. Li and Express Delivery are very good for finding you a specific piece Right Now, but they’re terrible for getting a bunch of cards at once. (Because of this I’m able to run singleton Emergency Shutdown/Drive By with the knowledge I’ll be able to find it relatively easily. Same Old Thing lets me re-use any Event I really want to have multiples of.)
I’ll give Logos a shot; other times playing with that one, though, show that it usually isn’t enough. (Notable here: If they’re able to score out once before I can get Goodbye online, it’s likely that I’ve failed to camp the remote and the problem I mentioned earlier surfaces where Gang Sign doesn’t actually do anything.) I’ve specifically tried it with Leela, with the idea being that I can go find Maker’s Eye or Siphon/Legwork depending on which server I open with my ability. That does mean that Corp will double-ice everything before scoring if they see Leela with a Logos, though. So that can buy time…
Do corps not just over advance against Leela? IA a 3/2 then next turn score it and reinstal what was bounced?
That’s why it’s important for remote lock. That sort of play is really dangerous against Inside Job/Account Siphon responses. 3/2s hidden amongst the assets is much safer.
As NEH you might consider a play like that. As anything else you would just turtle up even harder against Leela.
Speaking as someone who has been playing a lot of blumcamp the last 2 months, I can say that Gang Sign Leela is a very challenging and sometimes nearly hopeless match-up. If Leela floods my hand with Seminar and gets one or two Gang Signs installed, all it takes is pretty much one Legwork to win her the game. If you try to rush against her she punishes you with Inside Job. I would say Gang Sign Leela has a very good match-up against most glacier decks in this fashion. Caprice can certainly help, but if an HQI and Gang Sign comes down early, in my experience glacier is hosed unless they find a Jackson quickly. My strategy moving forward against Leela in particular is to mulligan aggressively for Jackson Howard.
I posted an earlier version of this a few weeks ago when I took second at a 42 person Store Champ. I just won the Pandemonium store champs in Camebridge so I figured I’d post the updated version. Hope you all enjoy!
Thanks for re-posting, I hadn’t noticed it. Yeah, I kinda wonder why more people aren’t running lists like this; andysucker with faust and drug dealer basically is pretty damn tough to deal with, feels very similar to the “good ole’ days” of criminal.
It sounds like you brought this as NEH hate and did very well with this matchup. Are there any that you find particularly tough right now? Seems like RP or Palana with batty could present an issue, though maybe this just comes down to an econ war that Andy is prepared to win. Would love to hear what your toughest games were and how (or if) you came out on top despite them.
How do you feel it compares to Faust Gabe both in terms of viablity and playstyle? I’ve been playing that for a while but coming to the conclusion it either doesn’t work or I’m really bad at it.
I tried your deck, -1 desperado +1 feedback filter, and work great. Nice deck.
At the SC in Pasadena yesterday I didn’t play against a single anarch, but saw tons of Leela and Geist. I wonder how much of that is people just being sick of anarch (and the top players already had a bye, so they didn’t need to win), and how much of it is Leela and Geist actually being pretty competitive…
to be fair in a field of NEH and more NEH I expect Leela to always be competitive, if sometimes forgotten. Geist on the other hand…people might just be excited about tech trader?
When you see that handsome macho man walk into your 4-ice server like it was nothing and came back with bunch of new cards and 3 credits more,you’ll realize how brutal he is.
Leela and Geist feels like twins:the former is brutal against FA but somehow a little struggle against Glacier (except GS Leela against Bluesun);the latter has a pretty good against Glacier but really sucks at FA.The Holy Trinity of Criminal:Gabe,Andy and Leela is still solid,but Geist start to show off his power.
I run with stealth leela. Stealth takes so much time to setup so I have gang sign to slow the corp. If they rush here comes Leela bounce and the siphons. I rarely have the first agenda due to being to slow. But man the end game is just super fun with sec testing being free due to stealth. AND SWITCH BLADE IS A BEAST 
I changed from stealth Leela to stealth Andy. The ability is not as exciting, but I feel the deck runs better with Andy. Faster setup with stealth is just so good.
I think the community have all been converging on the same points:
(If you are Geist, you are poor early and lose against asset spam, which is >50% of played decks right now.)
Against non-asset spam, Sec Test is turned off easily nowadays without a very efficient rig. That means some combination of Switchblade/Datasucker/Yog.0.
Non-stealth rigs can’t possibly maintain remote or R&D lock against the range of ice corps are running. I think if your game plan is to pound centrals and hit remotes, you have to work with Stealth. Leela might just be too slow and inconsistent for this, in my testing.
So everyone is playing Stealth. I think there might be some room for a Drive By/Gang Sign/Political Operative Leela build that focuses on flooding the corp and using Political Operative to prevent Jackson clearing out the hand - that deck might actually make Logos work, but I’m speculating.
you also usually lose to FA 
Kenny Tenma’s Run Engine works pretty well: public terminal is most of a prepaid for him.
Andy is the only realistic stealth criminal, IMO, but stealth is better out of Shaper still. Gang Sign Leela is pretty good; she’s probably the best Criminal against FA stuff.
This is definitely true for Glacier stuff; you definitely have to win by the midgame. I’ve had some clutch Notoriety scores to get over the 6pt hump I usually face against *Coats, but closing the game out against those builds while maintaining viability against FA stuff is The Trick.
It’s not terrible, but I’m not sure the poor breaker suite (by which I mean: no D4v1d, no Faust, no CyCy, no stealth) you can field out of Ken is made up for by this engine. The big difference to those pre-MWL Kate decks is that PPVP made you more money, while Public Terminal only really stops you losing as much money on your runs. The exception is Dirty Laundry or High Stakes Job, but these are risky, hard to play or poor value (“Dirty Laundry Archives!”) without a full rig. That those Terminal credits are so non-fungible is a real issue. It still feels like an engine on the verge of being there. I even wonder if it’s worth trying to adding 1-2 PPVP to the set? Kate would have loved an extra PPVP, and Ken does have 17 influence…
Sort of agreed. I hoped Leela might slow the corp down enough to make it work, but I don’t think it does.
Silhouette has a 40 card deck and an overlooked ID ability, that becomes a lot stronger when you can run HQ for free in the mid-to-late game. She loses Andy’s tempo, but her consistency is not far off. I think she’s a real candidate for Stealth rigs.
As a bonus, High Stakes Job is really playable quite early and you aren’t punished by first turn Sweeps Week (very relevant when two thirds of the top part of the field is yellow). If Andy wasn’t around, we’d be looking here.
And the only reason Stealth is better out of Shaper is Clot, in my opinion. That’s a big deal.
Honestly, it’s true for NEH FA too. It’s not a huge investment for NEH to put two Archangels on R&D, and that’s the end of the road for a non-Stealth Crim. To pay 10 credits with Passport to get through 9 credits worth of ice with a punishing subroutine is absurd.