It's not that hard, and she's pretty hardcore - Leela Patel

Decklists
82

Using shutdown as you describe requires 3 clicks where cres requires 2. There is also the reasonable chance that the ice you’re targeting is on the server you want to run. So the presumption that you seem to be holding to is that it will be cheaper to get a successful hq access or that you have a feint in hand. If feint is what youre really powering your argument with then you are adding a couple of cardslots to EMS’s cost where cres just functions off of your breakers.

Just playing devils advocate a bit here not really climbing up on a box and grand-standing for cres

83

The main problem with Cres is the memory. I’m running Garrote, some people are trying to use Medium or Keyhole to take advantage of the windows Leela’s ability opens up. On top of stuff like that, sometimes you want to play both Faerie and Garrote or Rex and Passport. This means that at any given point, playing Cres may or may not set you back just as much as it sets back the corp. ES has limitations too, but they aren’t nearly so restrictive. Also it can be recurred with a card that is influence free and you should be playing anyway. For me that’s enough to play it over Cres.

4 Likes
85

I feel like Sneakdoor is currently the best way to exploit a weak Archives, and Leela excels at making remotes weak.And once you start utilizing Sneakdoor Beta, HQI becomes more acceptable to use as well.

Another thing possibly worth considering with Leela is All Nighter. I’m sure it won’t work out that well, but if you get them out early, you would be able to better utilize the turns with weaker corp defenses by gaining a few extra clicks.

86

Did a small amount of testing (2 games) against NEH last night with @hhooo and the results felt pretty good. I was playing my NEH list from worlds ( with -1 Wraparound and +Enigma) and he was playing the Leela list with the changes I outlined above (2 Indexing, Utopia Shard, 2 Lucky Find, 2 Corroder).

I won the first game, but felt like I was under pressure the entire game, and I feel like if Niles had trashed the San San I rezzed he would have won easily. He didn’t rez it cause I scored an Astro off it first and he didn’t have the money to trash it at the time, so I scored another . Having 2 Astro tokens, he figured it wasn’t worth it anymore, but I was able to score my third agenda off my click one draw (or install a remote draw) and still have an Astro token that I used to score a Fast Track BN (which I could also have clicked to draw. Basically, he had my hand on lock, the top of my R&D on lock, but not the second card down and I was able to win because of that. If he had blown my SanSan after I scored the second Astro, I doubt I could have won.

Second game was a complete blowout. Niles scored an Astro off a turn 1 Indexing. I didn’t get an Astro, and just settled scoring a Beale off a SanSan. I also snuck another one out pretending it was a PAD campaign. That was good, but it was annoying because when I installed it, I drew the last (my first) Astro and I thought it would be pushing it to try that twice in one turn. Niles ended the game by hitting me with a Uptopia Shard then playing Legwork.

Overall the deck feels pretty good and can definately punish NEH with it’s ability. The way we have the deck geared, it also feels like it has a strong glacier match as well thanks to ES spam.

As a side note, Niles and I were debating the virtues of different consoles. We settled on Desperado even though it sort of seems to go against Leela’s plan of holding back. I think the best way to use her is to punish the corp if they try rushing or get a fast efficient rig set up that lets her in anywhere if they take their time. So even though she starts a little less aggressive (unless they just score an agenda and let you go to town) eventually she is going to start behaving pretty much like any other crim, which is where Desperado shines.

3 Likes
87

I played 3 games with your list the other night, although I did the changes I thought you recommended of +1 Desperado +1 Garrote -1 Mimic and -1 something else. I went 2-1, all versus HB. I liked the deck a lot. How do you feel about Logos in your build? I am definitely going to continue to pilot it more; it is a really fun and powerful deck, I think.

88

So when my group tried the ID Unscheduled Maintenance did wonders. Any thoughts of it’s inclusion?

1 Like
89

I think Logos is too narrow and focuses too much on trying to get cute with Leela’s ability. I think she works best when you use her ability as a way to threaten to punishing runs when the corp tries to rush (using cards crims want to play anyway like Legwork, AS, and RDI or Indexing) and and using that time they delay to get set up so that you can make all those punishing runs regardless. What I like about her now compared to Andy is that you can build a deck made to really hurt glacier decks without giving up too much in your NEH matchup since Leela has that built in defense to early scoring.

@warpchy, I haven’t considered Maintenance at this point mostly because I feel pressed for space already and Maintenance is a really narrow card that sometimes wont warrant its inclusion. It could be good against some decks though. It’s just a matter of fitting it in.

2 Likes
90

Well it did completely ruin in Blue Sun. Flooding the hand seemed to work.

1 Like
91

My experience with Logos has been quite different. I find it makes scoring more punishing for the corp and gives you an advantage if they’ve managed to rez most things first. It’s kind of cute, sure, but I’ve really not had any economy issues to speak of, and when I HAVE I’m not sure Desperado could’ve done more to help than Logos. The big advantage is giving me what I need while also letting me remove some of the obstacles from me making use of them.

Unscheduled Maintenance is starting to sound like a good one-of, though. Hmmm.

92

Raj’s log, supplemental:
I tried my list up above (which is similar to Ben’s list) against random folks on OCTGN. Lots of HB glacier builds, a few Blue Suns, various opponent abilities. I wanted to get a decent idea of focus before sleeving up. Anyway, my notes:

-I really miss Parasite. I want to try -2 Lucky Find and +2 Parasite. The ability to kill NEXT and RP ice is great.
-Hard for me to part with 1x Stimhack. I haven’t tried Utopia Shard though.
-Regarding consoles, I 100% agree with Ben on Logos. Desperado is too good not to play. I tried Doppelganger (to feed off Indexing runs) and hated myself. I think with Mr. Li and redundant events you don’t really need to find 1-ofs except for Keyhole or Medium Leela builds.
-I am fully convinced that Indexing is the best R&D card in Leela. I’ve liked the ability to time your agenda scores as needed (or just outright score) and the ability to shape the Corp’s turns.
-I might need 1x Paper Mill, since I want to float tags a lot thanks to Siphons landing more often in Leela decks.
-I know this means I have to go hang out with the people playing Hard and Work and Capstone, but I have been happy with a token Kraken in my Leela decks.

6 Likes
93

When I heard of Supplier Andy I want to try that kind of build, but it seems to only work in andy because you can turn one feed a supplier with everything you need. That Earthrise would help a lot with draw.

94

Fun realization that makes OCTGN testing harder. OCTGN has all the accesses happen at once, not really allowing for Leela to bounce stuff in between. Nice for not bouncing back Ice mid-access, but means that if you hit something in HQ you can’t bounce the thing in their remote before drawing a card.

1 Like
95

@bblum came into my league game today, saw me play the Indian lady and asked what her secret was. So, I thought I’d share what I’ve come to after putting in about 20 games with her:

Your power slows the rushy corps down considerably - they need to have 2 ICE deep on both main centrals before they start to score, otherwise they open themselves to potential catastrophe when they score.

Condition yourself to be able to play like Iain - letting the first agenda go is sometimes advisable, especially if it allows you to chain your ID power by creating an opening that lets you steal more agendas. For these two reasons, Interfaces seem stronger than Legwork/Maker’s Eye/Indexing - You can set them up and be ready for an opening you can create, and then keep repeatedly exploiting it.

Kati seems essential, economy-wise. Fits in well with all the sitting back and setting up I usually do early game.

When playing, always be acutely aware of which ICE you want to keep unrezzed, in order to delay scoring - an unrezzed HQ piece is often better than one random access. On the corp side of things, Executive Boot Camp could become a problem when used well. Don’t get too hung up on Emergency Shutdown - there’s usually plenty of unrezzed stuff, no need to pack stuff like Feint and extra recursion for Shutdowns.

Despite all the talk about hanging back, your deck should include the standard aggressive Criminal tools - Desperado, Security Testing, Johnny M, possibly Suckers. The reason for this is that when you create an opening, you want to keep milking it as long and as rapidly as possible, without having to come up for air. I’ve had games that completely snowballed out of control after the corp’s first agenda score: RnD stuff gets bounced back, I take Kati money and run after installing two RnD interfaces. If I hit an agenda, there’s a good chance HQ opens up as well as RnD. From there, either Siphon or HQI possibly for more agendas… etc.

Her ability counters Mushin really hard, especially if you luck out on your random accesses you’re given. Being able to stop IAA scoring from an impenetrable remote by digging RnD really hard is brutal, and once Inside Job comes into the equation, becomes relatively hard to stop.

tl;dr: She’s awesome, I wish she were an Anarch so I didn’t have to feel dirty for playing Crim.

13 Likes
96

From someone else who has also put in about 20 games with Leela, I cannot word up this post more. The one thing I may disagree with is John Masanori, and only because he can be dead vs Blue Sun. Sometimes I like to face check big barriers while threatening central accesses, even when I know I’ll get booted out. Blue Sun can obv recover the cost, but sometimes in mid game with a killer And some multi access out I like to run everything for some click compression. Also it gives me some info about ice floating around. I’ve finally been getting some wins versus Blue Sun, and as what I consider a tier 1 deck I don’t want to have a dead John Masanori in hand. One card I don’t think you mentioned is Mr Li, which I think is hugely important to Leela. I currently keep any opening hand with Li, except maybe against FA. Even then, he is a huge advantage in setting up for your first strike.

Like you, I intend to keep playing Leela. She is very engaging for both Runner and Corp, and doesn’t make me feel like an Andy cop out.

2 Likes
97

The only thing keeping me from playing Leela is the tension between Siphons and your resources. You can’t really build Leela without resources, however when you steal or the corp scores, there isn’t really a better way to punish the corp apart from Siphon.

It feels wrong to drop Siphons and just use Leela’s ability for easier access to a server for a turn, so I’m not sure how I can retain the sledgehammer that Siphon brings without losing all my resources.

1 Like
98

It definitely is an issue. Clearing the tags makes Siphon almost an entire turn affair, and nets you less money. Sometimes I will float them for a time, if I don’t have Kati out/don’t smell punishment/am okay with them spending money and tags to kill SOT or Li, but ultimately you raise a good point, it’s pretty rare that Siphon doesn’t help me in a game. But at the same time I am getting less return on the cards value. With corp Economy often so strong, Siphon becomes 3click for 6c, which like SOT’ing Lucky Find. That is to say, sometimes necessary, but always disappointing :persevere:

This is a big reason I’ve been considering Crash Space over Plascrete, but then Snatch and Grab had to come along…

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99

I wouldn’t let a card that nobody is playing (and probably won’t see much play in the future) influence your deckbuilding :stuck_out_tongue:

2 Likes
100

I’ve already encountered SNG twice in SLH2. Seems like a reasonable card for Blue Sun. Trash Kati or get Scorched…

Edit: maybe I should read cards more closely. SNG may be reasonable in BS, but it can’t hit Crash Space!

101

Crash Space doesn’t solve the Siphon problem though. You want to be able to Siphon (preferably twice) and still be able to hit a central without losing all your stuff next turn.

102

How about Fall Guy, perhaps combined with Paper Tripping? Probably bad?