Can always run another stimhack.
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Took Balwaukeeshire Leela to a store champ yesterday (the one @bluebird503 won). Well, except with a Plascrete because I’m lame. I’ve basically been playing that list since @Cerberus and @Basoon oon first posted their version. I guess because I’m a South Asian dude with “boxer” in their screenname, so don’t I have to play the South Asian boxing Runner? I stopped for awhile because the RP matchup sucks, I agree with Dan. 
Went 4-1 in Swiss, lost badly to @bluebird503’s RP Grail. The other games were not too difficult, though I faced another RP that plays Space ice that can be problematic considering you can’t burn Faeries all day against Nebulae. Lost twice to NEHBiotics in elims. I haven’t practiced against NEHBiotics in a long time, I rarely see it on SHL3 or in games here and it isn’t common here. On the other hand, I think the match-up is still strong.
I never missed Garrotte except against Nebulae, but I think hard breaking with Femme is not the worst option. I put Shutdowns back in (awhile up the thread I’d mentioned taking them out)…I don’t know what to think since I played exactly 1 Shutdown all day.
edit: one thing I will say is I really think 2 Sneakdoors are key. You want it early or opportunistically, I found in many of my games I was getting it too late to matter.
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Just wanted to highlight something here, since I think it’s a philosophical difference between Logos and Desperado Leela .Leela’s ability will kick in more than 3 times; you’re discounting the times that Leela will steal an agenda. I’ve found that those times (say, legwork HQ and then run RnD after bouncing ICE having medium online with a counter or two) are as powerful if not more powerful than the plays that happen after a corp score because the corp can’t control or anticipate it as strongly.
I feel like Emergency Shutdown is a meta call more than a Leela synergy card. It’s nice to be able to turn ICE face down again if you’re planning on making a play on that server later, but honestly I find them the most useful to ruin the corp’s investment in some medium to large piece of ICE by making them rez it, shutting it down and making them rez it again as a sort of light econ denial tactic. If you’re not facing corps that will be sad to rez their ICE multiple times (my Making News tracing deck is pretty ok with it since most of the ice is cheaper than 4) then it’ll be a waste of a click to play, I think.
Against RP or Blue Sun and you can probably make them wince at paying again for expensive pieces of ICE like Tollbooth.
EVERYONE should play Leela because EVERY game is like this with her!
This may or may not be a massive lie!
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“Anyone who thinks Siphon should be pulled out of decks should have their heads looked at.”
Sounds even more sage with the British accent.
Well done, Dave. Hard to beat starts like that. Leela makes those even worse.
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QT is a possibility, but I feel like I often wouldn’t play it late as I am already playing Mr. Li. I am quite possibly wrong there, though, I should try that out. It is unfortunate that I’ve Had Worse is 2 influence. I don’t think Yog or DJ fit the deck, as I don’t have support for Yog and DJ is probably worse than another Dirty Laundry in a Kati + Desperado economy.
@bluebird503 I thought about a second stimhack too, but I think two of those is too many. Scorch is pretty heavy in my area, it would be rare for me to think more than 1 brain damage is okay.
I will test out QT at the next tournament, see how that feels.
Sneakdoor has been amazing for me recently as well, I have been wanting to go to 2 for better timing.
Maybe it is just because there are a few solid HB players in my area, but I was about to go the other way on sentry breakers (drop Femme and keep Garrote). It has been a while since I felt like installing Femme for the bypass was worth the money, so I am generally okay starting with Faerie / Mimic, then late game switching to Garrote (and dropping Sneakdoor if it is out, legwork makes up for fewer HQ runs and they already had to ice archives) if I need it.
What makes you want Femme over Garrote?
Tollbooth, Komainu, Wormhole…and others, but those most often
As for the Sneakdoor, I run 2 and haven’t regretted adding them.
Sure, no question there are ice that are way easier to get through with Femme than anything else, but that doesn’t necessarily justify it. Considering that you have to install a 9 cost program with money, and you either have to do it blind or after you have already face checked (the normal criminal can’t cheat the cost or instant install), its questionable as to whether its really more efficient.
Of the ice you listed, with standard breakers those cost 7-8, 5, and 6-8, and there is a fair chance you need that breaker out anyway. Finding an installing a Femme is more expensive for the first break, may save you a bit on the second depending on how hard it was to find the Femme, and only gets to ‘better than an econ card’ by the 3rd time you break that ice. If you count it out, do you normally break ice you Femme 3 or more times? I generally don’t, as by the point in the game where I had 9 credits to spare I am making quality runs rather than quantity. May just be a play style thing.
For the not-Femme’d ice, Ichi and Data Raven are pretty popular easy-to-rez-early ice in my area that are really hard for Femme to deal with. I can burn Faerie or clicks early, but after that Mimic won’t cut it and Femme is pretty expensive.
Do you get more use out of the Femme for it to be worth the 9cr install? Or is my area just weird with me feeling like I run into Ichi and Data Raven pretty often?
It’s not like I use Femme all the time. There are many games I don’t play it. But take Tollbooth, if it’s on a central where I want to get in repeatedly. I have facechecked it first, costing me 3 usually. After that I have some choices: not go there, pay 8 everytime with Passport, or 7 everytime with Rex (where everytime is a limited thing). Suddenly, installing a Femme for a once off cost of 9 and then running past there every time for 1 cred doesn’t seem all that bad to me.
Data Raven is another target I will Femme sometimes, mostly depending on board state and what I expect my opponent to do with tags. Ichi is mostly nasty, I agree, but a bioroid, so never safe for corp, but really taxing nonetheless.
I’ve run my Leela deck with Faerie, Mimic Garrote and Femme. Currently I have dropped Garrote and have had very few moments I wish I hadn’t. Femme stays in hand a lot of times, but has been a key card in several games, I don’t plan on cutting it anytime soon.
Edit: I do face a lot of Tollbooths still, so perhaps that makes a difference.
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Right. I never hate seeing a Femme come up, even if I’ve got another sentry solution in play. It’s a great tool, always has been, always will.
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I’d say it’s mainly for Tollbooth. I run Zu/Passport and if I have to break a Tollbooth with those more than twice I probably lost.
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I have been playing Leela for a while now, with the following list which is fairly similar to the desperado variant posted before
LP1
Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist (All That Remains)
Event (19)
- 3x Account Siphon (Core Set)
- 2x Dirty Laundry (Creation and Control)
- 2x Inside Job (Core Set)
- 3x Legwork (Honor and Profit)
- 2x Lucky Find (Double Time) ••••
- 2x Special Order (Core Set)
- 3x Sure Gamble (Core Set)
- 2x The Maker’s Eye (Core Set) ••••
Hardware (5)
- 3x Desperado (Core Set)
- 1x Plascrete Carapace (What Lies Ahead)
- 1x R&D Interface (Future Proof) ••
Resource (8)
- 2x Kati Jones (Humanity’s Shadow)
- 2x Mr. Li (Future Proof)
- 2x Same Old Thing (Creation and Control)
- 2x Security Testing (Honor and Profit)
Icebreaker (11)
- 2x Cerberus “Rex” H2 (All That Remains)
- 2x Corroder (Core Set) ••••
- 3x Faerie (Future Proof)
- 2x Femme Fatale (Core Set)
- 1x Mimic (Core Set) •
- 1x Passport (Honor and Profit)
Program (2)
- 2x Sneakdoor Beta (Core Set)
15 influence spent (max 15)
45 cards (min 45)
Cards up to All That Remains
Deck built on NetrunnerDB.
Now, many times I found myself getting centuries of hell because my opponent locked R&D with 2 Eli. Paying 8 to have a peek at the server is no good at, even with Kati around. Sure, you can always inside jib and click through but that is more a remote server play, in my opinion.
I came to believe that Eli 1.0 is one of the most troublesome ICE for this deck, is this a common opinion? If so, should we remove the corroders and something else to make place for two green dogs and possibly some recursion?
That’s why most builds run 3x RDI. Paying eight (or four and two clicks) to see two or three cards is perfectly acceptable - assuming you have a good number of points on the board off course.
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If only we could make room for knifed, that card is bonkers
Sure, I completely agree. Originally my maker’s eye were RDIs, but I swapped them out because I felt that they were ‘slowing me down’ a bit. Since then, in most of the games I played, I have been happy with this change (I prefer Maker’s Eye essentially because it leaves the corp the option not to ICE up R&D too deep).
Double Eli is really the only thing that bothers me and makes me regret my choice.
I was trying TME, but I find the constant pressure of RDI makes the threat to R&D pretty severe. Combined with Sneakdoor, you now have three servers that can be threatened hard. Personally, I guess I’d rather have the consistent pressure of the hardware over the homerun swing of the event in this deck.
Man, not that I’m complaining about my run with Kate, but, I really wish Leela was Worlds-legal. Would’ve run roughshod on NEH, IMHO.
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The problem I have with Leela right now (and maybe this is just due to inexperience with playing her much) is that the setup time/cost of getting breakers + RDIs up leave me little room to actually win against the faster decks. Sometimes I can get an amazing hand that has the right breakers and enough money to get some good early pressure that I can build off of, but if I don’t get a godly hand, I just feel like I fall further and further behind. Is there anything I should be specifically looking for in those matchups ( specifically NEH, really) that make things feel less awful?
Yes, Leela is probably the worst match for NEH (and she make splaying against NEH fun again).
1 Like