Straightforward Leela (Top 16 AfrEuros 2020)

Top 16 (7-1) at Nisei's African and European Continental Championship 2020 (117 player event)

Shout out to the Nisei OP team for keeping Organised Play alive through the lockdown, and to all the players that made it through 8 odd hours of staring at a screen and doing run-maths on a Saturday!

There were 30 x Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist at AfrEuros this year. This particular Leela list focuses on good Crim economy cards, and on using the Leela ability to disrupt scoring plans by attacking weaker centrals.

As a result, the list is really straightforward to play. Your turns are usually draw a card, play the card, make a run, or just click for credits if the Corp is turtling up. This means that you can focus on trying to figure out what the Corp is doing, which is my favourite part of running in netrunner.

Matchups

Probably dies to net damage. Has an interesting time against rigshooter. But neither of those archetypes are particularly popular at the moment.

Everything else is fine.

Unlike the Runner field, the Corp field at AfrEuros was really varied, and my tournament wins were against Palana, Asa (SFT), Titan, Argus, Blue Sun, CtM and GameNET.

The only loss was to Pinsel on Asa (Spombo), and who was able to play around the Leela bounce ability using Advanced Assembly Lines in a way that I have never seen before.

The Leela Turn

The Leela turn is a phenomenon where the board state gets flipped upside down, and the Corp goes from being ahead, to losing all control. It usually happens when a double advanced agenda in a remote (or the ICE protecting it) is bounced back into HQ as a result of an agenda steal from R&D (because the Corp has very little control over the agenda density in R&D).

The various ways in which Notoriety failed to win me the game

Swiss Round 1 (vs Palana) - 0-4 down, figured I'm likely to have to steal 2 x 5/3s to win, so I make the Notoriety play, steal an Obokata off the top of R&D and lose Notoriety to net damage (anyway I won)

Swiss Round 2 (vs Asa) - 0-4 down, double advanced agenda in a remote, 9 cards in HQ, legwork HQ to steal 6 points, make the notoriety play and top deck a vitruvius off of the top of R&D

Swiss Round 4 (vs Argus) - 2-4 down, I make the notoriety play and steal a single Hostile out of R&D (effectively blanking notoriety) (anyway I won)

Top-Cut Round 1 (vs GameNET) - the matchup this card was designed for. I ignore my opponent's pre-game advice of playing the notoriety early, and instead I leave it in hand and eventually it becomes impossible to run all 3 centrals in one turn (anyway I won)

So all of the games where Notoriety could have got me the win, it didn't, and I went on to win anyway.

Recommend a 2nd Stimhack and a post stick note that reminds you to run centrals instead.

Card Choices

Take a stack of the best Criminal and Neutral cards, add one of each of the most efficient breakers in the game, season with the following:

The Maker's Eye is an auto include (for me) in Leela Patel: Trained Pragmatist, because it maximises your chances of "The Leela Turn". Maker's Eye followed by Legwork or Diversion of Funds is a very good Leela turn.

Rezeki is primarily there for the glacier matchup, although, a very early Rezeki (turn 5 or earlier) will do work against any corp. Without Rezeki I think our game against glacier goes from favoured to unfavoured. I would not cut this.

Miss Bones is primarily there to give us a helping hand against asset spam, which should always be a feature of any healthy meta.

Security Testing replaces Sneakdoor Beta as archives pressure. It's fine, but it's probably the card to cut if we're looking for a flex slot. In a meta that wasn't so hostile to Aumakua this could be 1 x Aumakua.

Notoriety was a last minute, untested include (never a good idea) with the thinking that every popular corp is either on Global Food Initiative, 6 x 5/3s or 7 x 5/3s (and because I am particularly bad at playing against GameNET). On the day it was... less than impactful (see above).

No tech for dealing with tags, because I've played a lot as Argus, and I've played a lot against CtM, and I'm comfortable with those matchups. If you aren't comfortable with those matchups, the trick is not run until you have lots and lots of money (and criminal has a lot of money).

Notable Excludes

Kati Jones is a weaker (but memory free) Rezeki alternative, but it's too slow against faster Corps (Asa and Titan).

Sneakdoor Beta is not as good as it was in Criminal's hay day (with desperado and Temujin), but it forces the Corp to commit ICE to protecting HQ, and it can help create "The Leela Turn" if the Corp doesn't respect it.

I personally found that 2 memory makes it quite awkward to play with Engolo, and did not look back when I swapped it for 2 x Rezeki. It's a fun card though.

Inside Job is another way of creating the Leela turn, and it combos great with Engolo, but with 3 x Boomerang and Stimhack it's difficult to justify slots.

Initially this list had Labor Rights in it, which was fun, but ultimately not as good as Rezeki and Stimhack.