Burning Bridges v1.3

Been testing Leela Patel quite extensively recently, with a mix of draft cards, and building various decks, since I'm preparing a dedicated article for the italian community (Netrunner Italia).

This deck is the latest incarnation, after trying plenty of options for resource denial.

I see Leela as a very aggressive Identity, that shines in early game. Even just getting an Agenda in the first turns, and removing some ice from HQ or R&D can be very troublesome for the Corp, and definitely helps in keeping up the pressure.

To try and get an Agenda as soon as possible you need multi-access, because sheer luck might work some times, but a Legwork can be dramatic against a Corp that has 1 or 2 Agenda in HQ from the start. Indexing is one of my favourite cards, and I use it most of the times over TME because it poses no danger against Jinteki, but the added value of seeing what they will get and place it in the preferred order helps with the general idea of slowing down the Corp while we accelerate the pace of the game.

I tried going with HQ Interface and/or R&D Interface because they work with Inside Job and don't fear Crisium Grid, but they are too expensive in early game and overall too slow for Leela.

Kraken was another card I used with some success, but it's too situational, meaning you need to have a decent target, get an Agenda before the last Click and keep 3 credits to use it. Not happening so often.

Economy wise the deck is quite light, but the Programs I chose in the end are also quite efficient and inexpensive:

• Cerberus "Rex" H2 avoided me wasting influence for some Shaper Decoder, and works very nicely. After all not every Code Gate needs breaking and they hardly have more than 2 subroutines anyway. Plus for some you can use Clicks.
• Corroder alternatives were either too frail or too expensive. Too use or to install.
• Faerie can break even the best for few creds, and it doesn't even cost a dime to install. Nothing beats it, economy-wise not even the new Anarch dog.
• Crescentus warns the Corp: do you really wanna spend a lot, knowing I will break and derez? So just install one and watch them ponder every rez.
• Grappling Hook helps a lot against the big guys and can be useful against unusual targets as well (you don't need to break every subroutine on Inazuma anyway). So it can be used in place of a Faerie or a Cerberus' counter.

Of course there's a notable absence of permanent Icebreakers in the deck, but that's the reason behind the name Burning Bridges. There's no turning back here, either you win fast, or you'll end up struggling, because late game ain't no friend of yours.

Let's be honest here, I also wanted to create a different deck, not the usual cards you see in every Criminal. I had to go with Desperado as a console, in the end, because the others just didn't fit right. Astrolabe could have been wonderful, but there's only so many corps that go horizontal after all. And Doppelgänger or BOX-E didn't add anything significant.

No Plascrete Carapace either. Why? Because most of the Tag n Bag decks that I've seen recently go with SEA Source, so Decoy is a better option (cheaper) and helps defending Zona Sul Shipping too. This new economy card is quite good, especially with multiple copies installed.

The rest of the economy is made by Easy Mark(better than Sure Gamble here, since you don't need credits to use it), Kati Jones and Armitage Codebusting, which is the poor's Magnum Opus basically. But it's cheap to install and provides enough. I initially went with Tri-maf Contact, but when I removed the Plascrete I had to remove that too.

Last but not least, Utopia Shard which can be a very nice option for Leela. If you get some cards back to their HQ, you can use this right after and maybe discard them. Not too shabby for the last influence point available.

There's a lot more cards that might be useful for Leela, like Unregistered S&W '35 for example. If they see you could get their Caprice back to their HQ, the corp might rez it on her own... and then you would need just that Hardware to kill it.

But unfortunately deck space is what it is and it's not a good idea to go over 45 cards with no extra draw whatsoever.