Retaliation (4-1 KoS)

phette23 2278

I stuck myself with Criminal for King of Servers because I was demonstrably the worst player on my team and it made sense to play the weakest faction. Then I played this deck and lost once on the day, to former world champ Chris Dyer.

Paired with a Mushin Pālanā deck that went 3-2.

play style

Sit back, relax, retaliate if the corp tries anything fresh.

  • Develop a board that drips in credits & cards, use the baby or MOpus with any leftover clicks as your rig is expensive
  • Drop Logos when it looks like the first Corp score is about to happen; this is also a good time to drop the Sac Con -Tapwrm combo as it means the credit drip lives longer. Most corps have to pre-advance agendas to play around Leela so score attempts should be apparent
  • When the corp scores, bounce a central ICE & tutor up a tool to attack that central (Legwork, Indexing, Info Sifting, Sneakdoor) which will hopefully lead to another score & opening the other central to attack the turn after
  • Your tools to attack a scoring remote shut down almost anything (Inside Job, Interdiction, Femme, Pol Op, Dorm Computer for those tag-based NBN remotes)

Random notes: don't preinstall Dorm Computer because it'll get best defensed, your ID ability is extremely annoying for lots of corps (7pt combo CI, Brain Rewiring CI if they don't have Contract Killer, Mushin decks, Priority Construction decks), hide Interdiction if you can, Logos tutors for a card after Brain Rewiring triggers so you don't die to a single source of 2 meat damage, Gang Sign is a dumb card.

brief tourney report

R1 Chris Dyer @nemamiah CtM — I drop Sacwrm turn one but Chris plays around it expertly, spending money pre-rezzing assets to stay below 5s & purging twice. I can't contest an MCA which he uses to score a 3pt Beale then recurs with Team Sponsorship. A retaliatory Indexing sees nothing but money and ICE. I play the whole game with 3 clicks & 0 outs.

R2 AoT — I trashed 2 undefended econ assets turn 2 to slow down what's usually a poor corp. While running to get Sacwrm down I accidentally steal an agenda off R&D, bounce remote ICE, run in & steal a second agenda & trash Marcus Batty. The corp now has no cards installed. A few turns later, corp goes for an Elective Upgrades score behind 2 ICE & Batty but I pull off a ridiculous combo (Femme inside ICE, Interdiction, Inside Job) to nullify it all & win in a 7-0 blowout.

R3 Gustavo Garcia @inniscor CI — Gustavo's glacier CI can never gain any tempo as Inside Job neutralizes an early Will O' the Wisp (which I have to read like a n00b) scoring server & repeated Leela bounces delay scoring attempts & make centrals porous, an Info Sifting nets points & a key bounce.

R4 Andy @sixtyten CI — This one was rather close but after a score I use Logos to tutor up a late game Info Sifting; Andy goes for the 2 agendas in each pile strategy, which lets me bounce the rest of his ICE on the board & also tells me that there are points left in R&D. Next turn I index to steal the final agenda, surprised to see two BOOM! sitting in R&D that were never relevant during the game.

R5 Jonas Wilson @thebigunit3000 CtM — Jonas develops a huge board state of assets which I ignore completely & drip in credits with Sacwrm. When he scores a Beale behind ICE, I pop the only R&D ICE to tutor up Indexing, Mad Dash steals a GFI, bouncing HQ ICE, then I check Archives where he hid a 15 Minutes earlier & which seems likely to contain something else. Sure enough, a GFI lets me trigger another bounce. A turn or two later, I drop Sneakdoor & steal an agenda on my first access to close out the game.


I don't think this archetype is particularly strong, it's too slow & its cards are too expensive, but hey it did well this one time & I do have a fondness for Logos Leela, especially when it means I can tutor up Info Sifting against CI.

2 comments
13 Nov 2017 CritHitd20

Looks really fun. Given how many balls Logos Leela sometimes has to juggle, do you find you reliably have enough time for Mopus to be worth its inclusion compared to something less demanding in clicks/MU like Liberated? Not a criticism; just genuinely curious.

13 Nov 2017 phette23

That's a reasonable observation & you're right that you don't get to mash MOpus all that often. I turned influence from a Beth & an Indexing to 3 MOpus just before KoS. Mostly MOpus saves some card slots since I needed tons more economy without it. You could probably do 3 Liberated & no restricted card & it'd play the same.