Beautiful in Blue - 2nd Place 22-player Store Champs Leela

You are Leela Patel, trained pragmatist and criminal mastermind. Steal money, disrupt defences, and live life on a knife's edge.

I have been playing tweaks and twists of this deck for quite a long time, making refinements and swapping cards in and out for local meta flavours, and this is the list which I piloted to 2nd place in the 22 player Dice & Donuts Store Champs, alongside a SYNC deck I shamelessly lifted from the web on the day before the event.

This deck has a few distinct differences from the traditional Endless Waltz build. Some of these are to do with my own preference and some are meta calls.

Symmetrical Visage - Criminals really don't have a lot of draw power (Fisk Investment Seminar is damned awful) so you have to devote a lot of clicks to drawing manually. Symmetrical Visage makes it a more valuable action for you.

Drive By - Do you suck at psi-games? I do. Get rid of that horrible Caprice Nisei with just 2 clicks. Or save yourself 5 credits on a SanSan trash. Or check if that triple advanced card really is a Junebug as you suspect. Gives you a ton of utility. Used to run two, in fact.

Data Dealer - oh is that a News Team you thought you could use to protect your archives? Don't mind if I do.

Film Critic - funny story, I was accidentally running this deck with 1 spare influence and on the morning of this event I noticed. Loads of NBN in my meta so the midseasons fear is real. This helps. Am also v bad at psi-games, so this helps with that too.

The Breaker Suite

Corroder is simply the most efficient and effective barrier breaker, seriously worth the 4 influence for two. Running just one is a knife edge you can't risk balancing on.

Faerie, Femme, and Mimic are your sentry breakers, and they are a great trio. Femme is mostly for Data Raven and Tollbooth (or Komainu if it's that kind of deck) but will help out in an emergency. Faerie and Mimic are gonna be doing the bulk of the work. Mimic was an auto-include when Architect was everywhere but for Kala Ghoda legal play I am going to test out -1 Faerie -1 Mimic +2 Mongoose. Then something will be done with an influence!

ZU.13 Keymaster and Peacock because I don't have enough influence for Gordian Blade in this build (I used to run it, pre-MWL). Frankly put together it's not too painful to break most code gates with ZU for small ones and Peacock for big ones.

The Event

When I was counting up my deck and writing my lists on the morning of the event, I noticed I had 1 spare influence. I had to double check, but decided to cut 1x Drive By for a Hostage, and cut E3 Feedback Filter for a Film Critic to use the extra inf. (Don't mock my inclusion of E3. It made a HB heavy meta so much easier to deal with. 1 click & 1 cred to deal with an Eli 1.0 is just so much better than 4 creds.)

I arrived at the venue nearly a full hour early, and indulged in a coffee while I chilled out and chatted with the other competitors. My lovely friend @ourobouros was visiting from the London meta (trying to snipe a smaller store champs, I've no doubt ;) ) and my significant other @katsushika was TOing, so as people arrived I did some introductions and a bit of stressing on Dave's behalf, but before too long we were getting stuck into round one.

Round 1 - Jason Critchley with Leela & Near Earth Hub

Ah, criminal and NBN, a Netrunner after my own heart :). I'm glad to start round one against a friendly face from the local meta - although some of the most tense and nailbiting games of Netrunner I've had recently have been against Jason, he never fails to put me at ease and is genuinely one of the most fun opponents I've ever come up against.

I don't remember much about this game, aside from the fact that Leela really shone as a natural yellow-killer. I start off cautiously (Jason has been known to try and kill the runner in the past) but I soon realize he's dropped his influence into Biotic Labour so I start running a bit harder. A well timed siphon allows me to close out this game pretty quickly.

total prestige after round 1 = 4

Round 2 - Gary Bee with Valencia & Replicating Perfection

There were two people I didn't want to come up against. Dan Strong (Blue Sun gives me the FEAR) and EvilGaz, because his reputation precedes him. Just my luck to be drawn against Gary in round 2. He's quite a genial chap though, and I shuffle up, intimidated but determined.

This game is also over quite quickly. I am lucky enough to have a corroder out by the time I find the first sniff of Grail ICE, which was a Galahad on HQ, so I take things pretty slowly and get out a full breaker suite before making any more runs. He seems to be running low on both ICE and money however, so I try and keep the economy down. When my breaker suite is out, I make another HQ run. There's an upgrade in there and the main purpose of this run for me is to trash what I think is probably a Crisium Grid (I'm holding an Account Siphon), but to my horror it's a Marcus Batty, and Gary psi-games his way to 2 Merlin net-damage. This leaves me in a tough spot, with one card left in hand. So far I haven't seen anything I think might hurt me so after some deliberation I decide to continue the run and access. 3 cards in hand, two of them being ICE, and somehow I find The Future Perfect, and actually win the psi-game! I bounce the R&D ICE but spend my last two clicks drawing up and fearing for my life. The game closes out pretty quickly as I lift a Nisei Mk. 2 from R&D a few turns later, find my Film Critic and use it to host another TFP on a 3rd click. Extremely tense few moments while Gaz considers his options - there's nothing he can do in his turn to stop me scoring TFP on my next.

total prestige after round 2 = 6

Round 3 vs. Richard Huzzey with Kate & Spark

I have to admit that I am absolutely elated to have won a game against a player whose reputation I have been aware of for months, whose progress I followed in Worlds, and whose tourney reports and captioned cards have been one of my favourite netrunner reads. I come into this round feeling great.

I don't remember the details of this game too clearly, but I do remember feeling a little bad because Rich was a lovely chap and hadn't been playing Netrunner all that long. Our games are over pretty quickly and Leela does her thing against NBN.

total prestige after round 3 = 10

Round 4 vs. Paul Game with MaxX and Personal Evolution

Paul is another friendly face, and it's a bit of a running joke that we get paired up in pretty much every event we're both at, so it comes as no surprise that we face off in this one. Playing against PE always makes me a little nervous because it was my first Netrunner-love and there's one thing I know about PE above all else - you never know what to expect against Black Tree.

I keep a starting hand with a Film Critic in it, so am feeling pretty good. It's a low-ICE deck and I get up to 4 points without breaking a sweat. It's then I feel the jaws of Paul's wombo-combo closing about me as he rezzes Chairman Hiro. I discard 2 cards with some trepidation. Paul proceeds to advance and trash a Ronin then throw down the Neural EMP for the game. We have a good laugh as we shuffle up for game 2 - I've never been killed like that before in Netrunner and losing to a friend isn't quite so bad as losing to someone else.

total prestige at the end of swiss = 12

Top 4

Ten points is plenty to see me into the top 4, and I am very pleased. At the start of the day I sat down thinking I might have been able to make a top 8 cut but in a 22 player tournament I'd struggle to make the cut of four. There's a short break while Jacksons and suchlike are handed out, and I realise that I am starving. It's nearly 5pm and I've not eaten. No time now though, as I sit down in front of Savvy Steve to play my first top 4 game as corp. In a move earning my eternal friendship and gratitude, the wonderful Mark Surtees notices my plight and plunks down a pork pie next to me. I lose the game but am much refreshed after my pie.

My next is a corp game also, this time against Paul. I take him apart despite being apocolypsed.

The next game is against Gary again, and I randomly roll the corp. I am apocolypsed for a third time today, but SYNC pulls through and somehow, against all odds, I am in the final against Savvy.

I played against Savvy in the top 4 already so we swap sides this time and Leela faces up against Haarps 24/7 kill/fast advance. In all honesty, this wasn't a very eventful game. I play smartly around the scorch threat but it's a very good guide of how sometimes the dual FA/kill threat can use the runner's enforced caution against them, and Savvy scores out decisively and takes the championship.

This Leela deck felt very well balanced and was (as always) absolutely great fun to play. News Team has been a perennial problem for me, but Data Dealer solved that problem for me rather profitably. I know that Criminal isn't the strongest in the meta right now, but this Leela deck has answers for almost every situation; with Mongoose, it will be even more versatile. I'll see how I get on for the rest of SC season.

I shall conclude by thanking Mark one last time for my pork pie.