Switchblade Cyborg

Stealth rigs are practically retro at this point, but here's the thing: in a meta leaning towards multi-sub sentries to tax Faust, Switchblade can really clean up, and Leela already has a pretty nice matchup versus fast advance NBN and Foodcoats. I've been doing work on Jinteki.net with this, willing 70-80% of games, and usually only losing to Butchershop decks which manage to move faster than me. If you like the 'fuck your ice I'm coming in' mentality that Faust allows for but keep finding yourself impaled on Archers and Komainus, why not give this a shot?

The Rig

Criminals always have a weird push-pull in terms of rigs, because theirs are the most brittle of all runners. With no recursion, you can't really afford to facecheck with half a rig build since if they can trash the same programme twice, you're outta here.

That said, once it's set up, it's 100% worth it. You can run with absolutely impunity on anything and often make money doing it. Desperado is still so good, although the MWL does make it much more painful; I'd really love an R&D Interface, but there's just no space for it. Stealth means you can make repeated runs for free, which goes some way to compensating, and Legwork makes a tasty answer to corps who try to draw past your R&D lock.

The immediate question is always 'Why stealth?' The answer is simple: standard breakers in criminal right now are Garbage, whereas stealth criminal is a beautiful diamond that I love with all my heart.

Events

A standard array of good criminal events; Siphon, Special Order and Dirty Laundry are all self-explanatory. I've gone for two Inside Jobs, since you want to see it as early game pressure ideally, and it's the kind of surprise card that can really swing the early game thanks to Leela's ability. Inside Job a remote for an agenda, bounce HQ ice & Siphon is a great game-changer early on, and it slows the corp way down so you have time to build.

I'm a big fan of Fisk Investment Seminar, despite it being fairly situational; it's won me multiple games, especially when used in conjunction with Siphon spam and remote pressure. Even if you can't land the siphon, getting two in hand and using them on consecutive turns will almost always put immense pressure on HQ, opening it up for Legworks after they've discarded down. You can also use it with some degree of safety against HB when they've got an Adonis in their scoring remote to flood their hand and pressure an attempt at an early score. You have to use it at the right moment, but when you do, it's one of the strongest draw cards in the game.

I also had to do some re-jigging to accomodate the two Emergency Shutdowns, which have absolutely put in work in almost every matchup. Bluntly, everyone runs Tollbooth these days, and shutting one down after a siphon then clearing tags is a real classic play that I'd recommend to anyone.

Resources

Three Ghost Runners may be overkill, since I rarely need to install that many, but you want them ASAP. Kati is good, but watch for Snatch & Grab / Elizabeth Mills, especially against Blue Sun. Security Testing and Desperado will consistently net you 3c a turn, and if you feel safe to do so (remote spam decks with open servers, purple decks, etc.) install John Masanori for the best draw / econ engine in the game.

Strategy

Mulligan for Desperado or Sec Testing; the heart of your econ is running archives over and over, and the corp will figure that out fairly quickly, so you want to do it a bunch in the first few turns before they can really stop you. If they're spamming assets, use your superior econ to trash them; if they're building, build with them and then get to threatening. People are sleeping on blue decks right now, so you'll have the advantage, and Leela is all about the big comeback.

I wish I could give better strategy advice, but my weakness is that I've been playing this for a solid week and I've got into a bit of a "Don't think; feel" place with it, so I can't rightly quantify what the broad strokes are right good. Interested to read comments with people's personal experiences, tho?

Oh, and trash Jackson Howard / Museum of History as soon as possible in every matchup. Trashed Jacksons make Fisk Investment Seminar just sing.

Weaknesses

The weaknesses are so obvious that you've probably already spotted them:

• Apart from Legwork, there's no multi-access, so you are relying on single accesses from R&D and remote pressure to win. This isn't so bad, though, because stealth credits mean you'll hit a point where you can afford to consistently hit R&D and HQ at least once every single turn. It's a harassment deck, rather than a deep dig deck, and it works well as that.
• No recursion; when it's gone, it's gone. Fortunately, there's not a whole lot of Personal Evolution in the meta right now, but this may change as people try to tech against Faust. Your first priority against PE is to get your rig installed and then get to running, treating everything else as disposable
• Programme trashing (especially Marcus Batty / Keegan Lane) is brutal. The best answer is siphon spam against Batty and Emergency Shutdown'ing the Data Ravens against Keegan. It's not a perfect answer, but it'll work.
• Big horrible barriers are expensive as heck. Eli 1.0 is still completely horrible for this deck when you're poor, but the MWL means you at least see slightly less of him. Siphon, get money, and pay the man. It's the only way, unfortunately.
• By the way, NRDB, going forward can we agree that putting a weaknesses section on your deck writeup should be mandatory? I like reading endless gushing about the new hotness as much as anyone, but I want to see deckbuilders recognise what's wrong with their decks before going hog wild with the superlatives, please.

Conclusion

Leela is cool, stealth is cool, switchblade is cool, this deck is cool, I hope you like my writeup, let's be friends.

Oh, also: what should I drop for 1 or 2 CBI Raid when it comes out? Answers in the comments, please. :)

Image credit: Yohji Yamamoto, Fall 2016 RTW, because I've fallen into a deep hole with Paris Fashion Week this year, and all of these looks strike me as Extremely Netrunner: http://www.vogue.com/fashion-shows/fall-2016-ready-to-wear/yohji-yamamoto/slideshow/collection#29