Leela Patel: Werewolf Hunter

Because I have a ton of work to do, I spent the day reading up on Leela decks. Steven Klabnick's "Logos Leela" write up is great, as is the stimhack thread. Both of these sources explain that Leela decks come in two basic flavors: slow combo or rush, and this choice begins with the choice of console, Logos or Desperado. In Magic lingo, this feels like a Johnny or a Spike kind of choice. I love combo decks, and hence went with the Logos flavor. Chances are, if you are looking for the more top-tier, tournament style deck, then you want to go with Desperado. Which probably means you want to go with Andy over Leela anyway. Leela is never going to be as consistent as Andy, but she is incredibly fun. If you want a great write-up of Leela and Desperado, look at Cererbus's Endless Waltz v4. I found Omegalife2002's Pragmatic Keyhole deck after I made this list, but that is probably closest to what I am building here, though that list uses a more stable breaker suite rather than a silver bullet mentality.

While most of my runner deck's have been Anarch, I played a boring but consistent Gabe deck for awhile. I also experimented with travischance's Dirty Hands Exile deck for a month. Playing that deck taught me a lot about playing as a runner, and certainly influenced the way I approach deck-building. This deck is something of a combination of those two decks--it uses the consistent icebreakers of my old Gabe deck with the "just in time" mentality of Exile to maximize the impact of Leela's ability.

STRATEGY

This deck wants to get three cards out as fast as possible (in this order): Logos, Kati, Mr. Li. As Steven's write-up stresses, this deck is looking to make a big play when the corp doesn't see it coming, and then parlay that play into a huge tempo shift and a bunch of efficient accesses. Thus: Legwork, Medium, Sneakdoor Beta, or Account Siphon. All of these cards can win a game. Logos let's us fetch them (or, if we have already grabbed them via Mr Li, then the pieces we need to land them or maximize their value, such as Emergency Shutdown, HQ Interface, Parasite, D4v1d, or a breaker). Late game, you can even snag a Same Old Thing to replay a key event.

The early game begins by getting out the three cards mentioned above, Logos, Kati Jones, and Mr. Li. Then spend turns loading up Kati, drawing with Li, and clicking an Armitage Codebusting or Tri-maf Contact for credits. Pick one central server (likely HQ) to run on, and DON'T run on the other central servers. Do not provide the corp the opportunity to rez ice. If you see an Executive Boot Camp hit the board, trash it at all costs. You can run remotes to make the corp spend money. Chances are you'll be making quite a few credits, and can afford to spend some to keep the corp poor. And worried.

When the corp scores out, bounce an ice off the weakest central, grab a bullet, and go. For instance: is there one (or no) ice on archives? Grab a Sneakdoor and hit the hand 3 times (this is even better if you have an HQ interface out). If you have already managed to get your rig out (or most of it), you can grab a Medium and attack R&D even if there is an ice in front of it. Inside Job can help here, too.

Chances are an experienced corp won't even try to create a scoring remote or score an agenda until they have 2 ice on every central server. This means you actually have to play some Netrunner, but the time it takes them to do that (and to then build a scoring remote and to accrue enough credits to score out an agenda and have enough credits to rez ice on the next turn) gives you plenty of time to prepare. Juice up that Kati, Mr Li. for all the nasty, install the rig, get out an HQ Interface or two, and wait them out.

CARD CHOICES

The icebreaker suite here is strong, but you do have to play careful, especially against PE decks. Get those breakers down fast. Crypsis is here because sometimes things just go wrong. Sometimes Aggressive Secretaries happen. With Wormhole out there, don't facecheck unless Faerie is the only breaker in play.

I am a huge fan of Garrote. I don't really worry about MU in this deck--the Sneakdoor Beta is a bullet, it is not going to stick around very long. For me, 4 credits for 3 HQ accesses and whatever other clicks/credits it takes the corp to ice archives is money well spent. I think playing Exile: Streethawk for awhile got me used to thinking about my programs as disposable.

Originally, the Utopia Shard and the Parasite were a single Indexing, just to have one more silver bullet. I play against a lot of Jinteki, so I went back to the Parasite to help against Komainu. I also like Utopia Shard's all around utility.

I like Medium in this deck because the corp is already click-compressed having to reinstall ice. But this could be R&D Interface, Keyhole, or Indexing or even The Maker's Eye depending on your preference. I like the psychological threat of a 3 counter Medium just sitting there, silently ticking away. When the corp invests resources to protect R&D, I can turn to attack HQ (and hopefully bounce whatever ice they added to R&D and then resume the attack). I love Keyhole, but I'd rather not have to run R&D and then archives.

Tri-maf Contact could easily be a Daily Casts or a 3rd Armitage Codebusting. I like Tri-Maf against a lot of decks. You have to get used to playing with it (watch hand size, don't EVER run 4th click, watch out against NEH FA, etc), but given how much this deck clicks for credits, it is nice to have a once-a-turn-Magnum Opus. Armitage Codebusting is pretty great in this deck too, though, and while it has limited use, it also doesn't have nearly as many draw backs. Bank Job is also great, and could certainly be more than a singleton.

D4v1d is here because Titan FA is a thing, space ice is a thing, and tollbooth is a thing. It can ensure what-should-be a multi-access when you are low on credits. This could easily become a 2nd Corroder and a ZU.13 Key Master. Or, again, an Indexing and a Stimhack. I like Indexing, but it requires you have run just about every remote to scope out Jackson Howard. I play against too much PE for that to be a consistent condition.

Finally, there's Zona Sul Shipping instead of Daily Casts. This was my last change, and I only remembered it when commenting on Whuppo's Leela deck. In short, this card is great against so many decks, so long as you click it every 3 turns or so. And since this deck slows down the game, this is a solid choice here. It is utterly useless against NEH, though, so if that is your main concern I wouldn't recommend it. But, for me, it is too good against Jinteki not to slot one of them.

I would really like to get one Unscheduled Maintenance in here, but have no idea what to cut for it.

CONCLUSION

If you made it to the end of this, thanks! Perhaps you are simply trying to procrastinate as much as I am, in which case "Sorry?" or "Your Welcome?"

In short, I have long preferred deck-building and playing as the corp. This deck is changing that preference. It was fun to research and build, and my initial tests with it suggest it will be invigorating to play.