LEO 3.0 (17th at Americas Continentals)

I've already spilled a lot of ink about how fun Netrunner is, how great the people are, and how scoring is still viable. Now, I've encountered another incredible dimension of the Netrunner community to highlight: Publishing a list isn't shelving that deck away. It's the impetus of iterations and improvements, an implicit conversation with each responding to the previous one, making suggestions and adaptations to the meta. It's definitely inspired me to be less shy about posting lists going forward.

Quite simply, my list is Wenjong's list with a few old friends back. The deck went 3-1 with 1 draw on time. Since I've already made my manifesto on scoring, this time I wanted to offer some nitty gritty LEO takes.

• HR and Planogram have made this deck immensely flexible. Depending on your opening hand and matchup, you can sometimes easily rush them out.

• Yeah, 3 Mercia is right. I was on 2 because I don't love it in my opening hand, but it's worth playing 3 just because you expect them to be trashed so quickly. Slots are super tight in this deck but go down to 2 at your own peril.

• People were cutting Tatu-Bola because they don't like giving Curupira counters. I think everyone's too afraid of Curupira counters. Yes Bran is your most expensive ice to break, but M.I.C. and sentries on the remote can make it equally unrunnable. Tatu-Bola is simply the best ice to push an economic asset behind in the early game, not to mention its force of attraction in HQ accesses. And Curupira's not the only breaker to worry about. Tatu taxes a Doll, an Audrey counter or Crew, a Propellor counter, and more!

• Manegarm was cut for Sprint. Manegarm was often overkill; the remote was already unrunnable without that extra defence. Sprint was much more useful as a way to fix bad hands when all your Spins got trashed. With the introduction of HR (trashable for 1), there's some reason to play fewer trashables so the runner can't dig through the deck by trashing cards. Also, Sprint can be your HR operation if its draw flooded you.

• Scapenet is still right. The Twinning is everywhere, and a Criminal without multiaccess is a lot more toothless. LEO has counterplay into just a Wake Implant: a heavily iced HQ or R&D means they can never get counters, or never spend them.

• On other influence spends I've seen: I don't love Hammer, Matryoshka can just break 1 sub and it's otherwise another ice that's not good early. I also don't love Holo Man, it's expensive and we can usually just Seamless out or pre-advance boldly.

• On piloting, I don't think LEO inherently struggles to score out in a 40 minute round. But I did find that as the day goes on and games get stressful, it is easier to durdle and play safe -- as I learned most acutely in my draw where I could have scored out the next turn. So since LEO turns are relatively simple (installing, clicking for credits etc.), it's valuable to spend the runner's turn watching their board state like a hawk. Check their credit totals, what bounceback econ they'll have left, what tools they have installed, and how much it'll cost them to get through servers. If you go for a push on your turn, they really only have 2 more clicks to set up before running (click 3 run, gets ETR-ed, then click 4 run), so a rough heuristic is that their credit total + 4 for each click (2 Sure Gambles) is the most they'll get.

• The other tip I've given to people trying LEO is to manage agenda density in each central. It can be tempting to dump three cards from hand but if you leave an agenda in there it becomes a 1 in 3 rather than a 1 in 4 or 5 if you drew up. If you haven't drawn an agenda in a while, definitely start worrying about R&D and throw ice there.

And from there, the iteration continues! I'm super excited to try all the new LEO brews I glimpsed this weekend (e.g. thike's, Sam's, Wenjong's) and see what LEO 4.0 ends up looking like.

Huge thanks to all the organizers in Montreal for putting on such a fantastic event, all my opponents who received Scapenets with grace, and all of my friends for cheering me on!