The other thing is that Dirtly Laundy works much better with PPVP.
So, I’m super new with Leela and Criminal in general, but here are my thoughts.
The Logos Leela’s philosophy is to leverage her ability to bust open a big agenda scoring turn after a corporation score. This is a cool idea because the corporation is generally particularly weak right after scoring (they’ve either spent significant resources on fast advancing out an agenda, or they spent 2 turns to fortify and score from a remote while neglecting their centrals) and Leela makes them weaker. Logos fits into this strategy by making sure that Leela can grab the tool that will most help her punish the corp during this moment of weakness, be that Keyhole or Indexing or Legwork or Lucky Find or a missing breaker or Account Siphon… basically whatever you don’t have that you need. Then you take that power turn and punch the corp as hard as you can, ideally wringing multiple agendas out of it. This can then snowball by further deteriorating the corp’s board state, possibly allowing Leela to run away with the game.
Desperado/SecTesting Leela doesn’t focus on her ability as much, though it’s still important (otherwise the deck would be Andromeda or Gabe). The idea is that Criminals are excellent at applying consistent aggressive pressure right off the bat, and Leela’s ability magnifies that pressure. If you install Faerie click one and click 2 run HQ, most corps don’t like to rez against Criminal since they’d just be telling them what breaker to get to be able to siphon. They’ll look at their hand and see maybe NAPD, Breaking News and an ICE/SanSan/whathave you. There’s no multi-access so the chances of getting the breaking news are super high, and them getting the NAPD is almost a blessing since it saps them of their early econ. Even if they trash the SanSan, we’re ok. But with Leela, that’s a 66% chance to get any agenda, and even stealing NAPD is bad bad bad since Leela could bounce the HQ ICE, then Siphon freely to get the money back. Going past the first turn, Desperado and Sec Testing help you keep running and keep getting that chance to steal and turn back the corp’s board state when it’s truly in flux and vulnerable. I feel like this build maximizes the gains from corporation bad luck, which is a really powerful effect for the runner faction that is most known for piling onto a struggling corporation.
Between these two philosophies, I think the latter one is the right call. I can’t speak from experience with regards to playing the Logos Leela, but I can speak from experience about playing against it and I think that of the two builds, Logos Leela is easier to play around. You need to move slower, sure, and secure your economy better but if you build up your board state so that you’re not cripplingly weak after scoring an agenda, Leela’s ICE bounce and tool find won’t be the end of your game. For instance, you could throw Caprice on HQ and make sure you’ve got a rezzed Jackson on the table before scoring out. That way if they run HQ with Siphon/Legwork after bouncing an ICE, they still have to read Caprice’s mind. If instead they’d rather Index, Jackson’s going to ruin their day. They’re left with maybe a sneakdoor play? That could be strong, but no one likes to Sneakdoor a few times through a Pup or whatever just to lose to Future Perfect’s psi game. If you pro-actively neuter the power turn by anticipating the ICE bounce, Logos Leela is just a slow Logos Criminal deck, and traditionally those aren’t that strong.
On the other hand, I don’t really know how you defend against Desperado Leela in time to neuter her ability. The best play is your normal best play against anyone, which is Hedge/ICE/ICE. If you can’t pull that off, you’re hoping that luck is on your side and no agendas leak this turn. Against any other criminal, and early steal is bad enough. Against Leela, those first 4 turns could turn into the last four turns very quickly. I once won on turn 2 against a corp that Drew, Hedge ICE RnD first turn. I ran HQ and stole an agenda and bounced the ICE on RnD, then installed Medium and ran RnD 2 times, seeing nothing. The corp freaked out and ICEd RnD twice to stop the medium death spiral. I Siphoned them, which put them below what they needed to rez on RnD and then ran 3 more times, taking another 2 pointer and a 3 pointer. The bad luck for them was losing what was probably the only agenda in their hand on turn 1; without that they’d have had ICE on HQ and RnD for turn two and had time to make money to rez them. Leela turned that game into a rout by capitalizing on the corporate bad luck to leverage already strong Criminal early game pressure into victory.
This got long and rambley, but I think Leela’s a really interesting case for Criminal deck archetypes as her ability can be used in multiple ways. My thoughts lean towards the aggressive run-based build, but I totally see the attraction of the power turn. I just feel that Criminal in general is better at the run-based attack and power turns, when anticipated, can be played around.
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Having played both, I think the Desperado build is a tad stronger, but significantly weaker than the Logos build if you don’t see Desperado early (versus Logos early).
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Can you talk a bit about why you feel that way (its relative strength, I mean)? And I agree that the economy can be a much harder slog when Desperado doesn’t show up. It’s interesting, but it feels like a bit of threat all on its own early. Even if the corp has no ICE in HQ, they kind of don’t want to let you in and recoup your lost credit from initiating the run.
Not sure I follow that last sentence, since we are assuming I do not have Desperado. Here are the commonalities between my 2 Leela lists:
3 Siphon
2 Laundry
2 Shutdown
2 Inside Job
2 Legwork
2 Lucky Find
2 Special Order
3 Gamble
1 Plascrete
2 RDI
2 Kati
2 Mr. Li
1 SOT
2 Rex
2 Corroder
3 Faerie
1 Garrote
1 Passport
Here are the differences:
“Aggro” Leela
+1 Express Delivery
+3 Desperado
+1 RDI
+2 SecTest
+1 Femme
+1 Mimic
+1 Sneakdoor
“Control” Leela
+1 Laundry
+1 Lucky Find
+1 Stimhack
+3 Logos
+2 Daily Casts
+1 Mr. Li
+1 SOT
The Aggro list has a less robust economy (-1 LF -2 Casts -1 Stimhack -1 Laundry), so it relies on Desperado to maintain its early aggression and not lose tempo in the mid-game. When I find myself without Desperado, I often am digging for it (or other economy) or having to click for credits routinely. The Logos build doesn’t rely as heavily on having Logos from the start. It has a more tame early game, and it’s common I don’t have Logos for the first score. The extra economy and an extra Li means I frequently spend early game setting up, and usually have Logos before the Corp’s second score. At that point, I can use Logos to finish my rig, or find that Legwork when I need it, etc, and it typically has a strong mid- and late-game. The Aggro build has a very powerful early game if you have Desperado, but without it the early game becomes a less-effective setting up phase than the early game of the Control build. Not running Femme in the Control is most certainly a mistake; other than that, I think they are both viable builds.
The reason I consider the Aggro a bit stronger is that if you do have Desperado to enable that strong early game, you can maximize your ID ability. Corp is weakest is early game, and Leela can extend that window if you can hit Agendas while their defenses are at a minimum.
I’ve been playing variances of this deck for a while. It’s gone 7-1 in tournaments (loss to NEH that drew all the right things) and 15-1 online or something like that. Magnum really makes this an excellent “all around” deck that has above-average matchups against all corp types, especially with Li, Logos, and Express Delivery to get whatever you want whenever you need it. It’s a slower deck that’s rarely unable to get into a remote, but if they do manage to score it’s usually followed with double siphon to set them back many turns. It’s also very content with floating tags, thanks to the econ engine, and very safe from death thanks to Plascrete (or crash space) and the 6 card hand to protect from PE. The triplicates of cards are rarely an issue since you can avoid drawing most of the dead draws with Li or Express D.
The biggest issue is memory, and not finding the Magnum or Logos when you really need it. It’s forced to run magnum/3 breakers most of the time, however with Li and Express it’s usually not too long before you find the piece you need.
Would like to hear thoughts on this. It’s worked very well for me, granted though I’ve never tried desperado Leela.
Hard Leela (45 cards)
Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist
Event (20)
3 Account Siphon
2 Emergency Shutdown
3 Express Delivery
1 Indexing [color=#6da045]•••[/color]
2 Inside Job
3 Legwork
3 Special Order
3 Sure Gamble
Hardware (6)
3 Logos
2 Plascrete Carapace
1 R&D Interface [color=#6da045]••[/color]
Resource (6)
3 Mr. Li
3 Same Old Thing
Icebreaker (9)
1 Alias
1 Breach
1 Corroder [color=#cf3713]••[/color]
3 Faerie
1 Femme Fatale
1 Passport
1 ZU.13 Key Master [color=#6da045]••[/color]
Program (4)
3 Magnum Opus [color=#6da045]••••• •[/color]
1 Sneakdoor Beta
Built with [URL=http://netrunner.meteor.com/decks/eHPyZDqPcji5AfmPe]http://netrunner.meteor.com/[/URL]
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That wasn’t a comment about your criticism of Desperado-less starts, but rather me commenting on something I noticed about the strength of Desperado when you have it. A bit off topic, but I’m learning Criminal as I go and sometimes those things surprise me.
Yeah, that’s what I’ve felt. I wanted to see if my intuition was sound, and it feels like it is. The ability to just tear things down early is pretty impressive. I’ve had good luck with my late games so far by getting my Kati early, even as a 1-of. I suspect given what people are saying here is that I’ve been benefiting from good luck and I’ll feel the pain of weakened economy soon. If so, I’ve got things I can move around to get more Kati in.
The synergy between Desperado and Kati cannot be denied. Desperado carries you through the early game and as soon as servers are expensive enough to slow you down, you dump Kati and you’re back in it. Not seeing either is the true Criminal nightmare.
I’m starting to think that Leela is very strong in a world dominated by fast decks, and that if the Corp gameplay slows down and we see more glacier builds such as RP and HB then she won’t be the right meta call.
Currently I am seeing a huge amount of NEH and Blue Sun at tournaments and Leela is good against both of these.
I’ve been playing Leela in GNK and Store Championships for the last 5 tournaments and she is currently 21-4. Three of those losses were to NEH, sometimes it just trains too fast, it’s beaten many more, the other was to a Foundry deck, which was a taxing nightmare, all of the games I felt I could have won.
I’m pleased to say that I’ve won two Store Championships with her. But I’m not sure where I would place her as a tier. In the NEH and BS meta I feel she is between tier 1 and 1.5, however in any other meta I imagine she is tier 2 tops. I’m not sure this limits her, since you only play her if you are expecting certain decks, it’s just another Meta call.
Now I’m playing a Desperado build, which is very aggro, therefore these comments may be less true of some of the Logos builds which will have different match up strengths. But then I feel that the Desperado builds are stronger from testing.
6 Likes
She’s super tight. @aandries won our SC yesterday with her.
AFAIC, she’s the best Crim currently.
3 Likes
Do you really think she is better than Andy? I feel her glacier match ups really hold her back. Andy has a quicker start and parasite versions are brutal against glacier.
Was your main man using a similar list to what we’ve been discussing here?
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Yup. My list, based on yours. We decided with Clot and the rise of Glacier, 3 Kati is prob. a must.
@aandries went 13-1 in two SCs with her, IIRC.
I’m interested to see the list spags. I’ve been having huge success with Leela too and I want to see what the Milwaukee meta has discovered in terms of building her to such victory.
3 Likes
I have limited testing to support this, but I don’t think the RP match-up is terrible. Assuming you find your Mimic fast, which should be your #1 priority IMO, you can put significant pressure on HQ before they have a resource lead. They almost always have 1 and often 2 agendas hiding in there. I like to keep 3 cards in hand to minimize the Komainu tax and be aggressive with Legwork. Obviously you’ll sometimes lose the psi game on TFP, but there are often Nisei and/or NAPD in there to steal. Desperado makes trashing Sundews a breeze, but I will rarely trash MHC. Shutdown also does wonders versus RP. I definitely feel more comfortable playing RP with Leela than any other Runner, besides maybe my favorite Whizzard.
I’m a die-hard Andy lover but even I think Leela might be a tad better (though I haven’t personally tested her, just seen @aandries do extremely well in Store Champs). As far as Leela vs RP, she does pretty well, especially if you can find Kati in your opening hand.
2 Likes
Figured I would mention it in here too as the Leela thread is still going, but she carried me through a 42-person store championship for my first tournament win. Went undefeated against IG, RP, BS Scorch, CI Scorch, NEH, and Tennin.
When I looked at that again afterwards I was sad there wasn’t a PE in there for the full Jinteki suite.
4 Likes
Played some games against a tougher corp last night and it highlighted two things that people here were saying: I didn’t have enough econ and HQI is a bit slow. So I made some changes:
-2 HQ Interface
-1 Mr Li
+2 Legwork
+1 Kati Jones
Having Mr Li show up later on average isn’t going to be fun since he does a lot of work for me, but getting Kati out quicker will give me more options against decks that keep up a heavy tax. And feeling the HQ Interfaces weigh down my hand left a bad taste in my mouth. There were several times when I felt like there were agendas piling up in HQ but not having the money to install HQ interface -and- run left me just running, seeing 1 card and wiffing. Legwork should help me more in that midgame zone. I feel like if I had time and money to install HQ Interface in the first place, I probably didn’t need its help.
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How many Li is that leaving? He’s legit in here. Legit v
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Don’t let Dan hear you say that. You don’t want to see him when he’s angry!
2 Likes