Worlds 2020 Results

3 - 3

Round 1 - LOSS to a very carefully piloted Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance (and where not even 3 legworks could find more than 1 agenda in HQ)

Round 2 - WIN vs Titan Transnational: Investing In Your Future, where a cheeky Archer wiped my board state, but I lucksacked the last Atlas off a single access on R&D (1/21)

Round 3 - WIN vs Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance, where the Corp mulligan'd into no ICE, and I mulligan'd into several Diversion of Funds

Round 4 - LOSS vs Pālanā Foods: Sustainable Growth, where all the agendas were in HQ behind an Anansi, and where I could not land any of my 3 x Legwork because of so many ETR effects

Round 5 - WIN vs Asa Group: Security Through Vigilance, where I lucksack stole a Project Vacheron off the top of R&D turn 1 while setting up to install Tapwrm

Round 6 - LOSS to a Glacier MirrorMorph: Endless Iteration, because Leela bounces are not particularly disruptive to a MCA Austerity Policy based scoring plan

Round 7 - ID for prizes

Why deviate from Straightforward Leela

When playing as runner, I like having answers to every Corp puzzle.

Straightforward Leela was able to answer most of the puzzles that the Corp would set just be leaning on the power of blue cards, but I found that a few Corps were starting to get really creative with their win conditions (see the Worlds winning Low-ICE Spombo). Slowly, my win-lose ratio started to decline, and the list started to feel stale.

Several powerful cards in the Straightforward list (Boomerang and Tapwrm) I found were very rarely getting played, which made me think there was a fair bit of room for optimisation (rather than pivoting away from Leela completely).

Finally, with several notable Leela lists coming out at Intercontinentals, it seemed worth considering some alternative cards that other criminal players had had success with (like Diesel, Inside Job, Amina and Falsified Credentials).

Card Choices

Although Kati Jones significantly improves your win rate against Glacier, it is dead draw against Asa and so we cut it. We did try Falsified Credentials for improving the Glacier matchup instead, but found that it was less useful without Aniccam.

You need draw, and Diesel is less awkward to play than Earthrise Hotel. Aniccam is a lot fun, but I find it difficult to justify over Paragon. Whether Diesel could in fact be I've Had Worse I leave as an exercise for the reader.

Dropping Engolo means that Boomerang becomes much useful in the early game. Installing Amina early sucks, so 2 x Inside Job becomes essential.

Finally, Stargate solves two problems that I was having with Leela in one card.

Problem #1 is that I kept losing to Vacheron decks (in particular, the world championship winning ICE-less Spombo).

Problem #2 is that I found that I was struggling to consistently use Leela's ability to disrupt the Corp. Building up The Turning Wheel counters for a deep dig on the scoring turn just isn't a reliable strategy. With Stargate you can throw an agenda into Archives, and leave it there until the Corp tries to push an agenda.

The consistent R&D pressure is also a much better use of Boomerang than the one off The Maker's Eye.

45th Card

At the 11th hour before registration closed, our testing group began a heated debate over whether the 45th card should be a third Miss Bones, 1 x Emergency Shutdown, 1 x Political Operative or a third Legwork. In the end we agreed that, overall, it didn't really matter.