Flavor of the week: Gang Sign Leela

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Greek Geek 461

So this deck is not terribly original, but it is terribly efficient. I drew my inspiration from Letsaros Turntableela, Gang Sign front page this week deck and Pacer Stringfellow's DLR Leela that he run on the latest Peachhack tournament so credit goes to them.

The idea is the pressure Gang Sign applies to the corps HQ with the added pressure of a flooded hand from Fisk Investment Seminar.

The decks backbone remains a desperado deck I run for the last few months and suffers from all the usual criminal issues which are card draw and the inability to recur breakers.

The idea is to apply pressure with the Gang Signs and HQI while you set up your economy engine, make calculated runs to spend the corps money and later central runs for multi access.

As the latest Fusion Haa article reminds us:

“Contrary to what is printed in the manual, the golden rule of Netrunner is: “Your cards don’t actually do what they say they do.” With that in mind, let me twist this cap sideways so we can talk about Gang Sign. Gang Sign and HQI threaten to “Legwork” your opponent when they score; however, they actually just force your opponent to slow down and set up their hand before they do. Jackson Howard is the natural enemy of this plan. To bring it all together, motivating people to keep agendas in hand by threatening the remote, and removing Jackson from the board will be the primary elements of the strategy this deck is trying to execute. ”

So the plan is this: Play the usual Leela game. The general course of my turn is to draw 1 or 2 cards for my first clicks, lay down economy or breakers and multiaccess tools, run once I have a killer installed. Set up at least 2 of your “legwork” ingredients. DO NOT PLAY Fisk Investment Seminar to draw cards. Instead play it once you can pressure HQ and after the corp has rezzed and used Jackson Howard.

Click 1: FIS, click 2: run and trash Jackson or force him to be removed from the game. Click 3 and 4 make money and run centrals.

Economy Cards: The deck runs 21 economy cards, tweaked both for Asset and Glacier decks. Having a lot of money to threaten the corp and trash their assets is always a good plan and you will be surprised with the amount of money this deck makes. If you want even more money, you could exchange FIS with Symmetrical Visage.I always mulligan for economy: Bank Job and Security Testing for Asset spam decks, Daily Casts and Kati Jones for glaciers.

Breakers: Pretty standard stuff here. Two Corroders, Mongoose and Faeries because they are amazing, Passport and Gordian because they are efficient. The odd Femme Fatale for the strange game where she will be useful. If you feel threatened from Batty, you can exchange Employ Strike for Sacrificial Construct.

Multiaccess Cards: 7 cards in total. Maker’s eye because it is cheaper from RDI and you cannot afford both hardwares. HQI because of the synergy it has with Gang Sign and Sneakdoor Beta.

Take it for a spin, and you will be surprised! As always comments and suggestions are welcome and sought for.

9 comments
1 Apr 2016 Letsaros

a)Thanks for the credits. Appreciated a lot. b)This deck is 44/46 cards same to my desperado+gang sign version i playtested but stopped playing when desperado went MWL. The only two cards that are not the same was the 2x Maker's Eye which i switched for 2x RnDI. I used to run Maker's Eye and 2x Same old Thing to recur em but after some games i switched to RnDI and Sec Test.

c)Chill84 wasn't entirely wrong when talking about Jackson vs Gang sign but he wasn't entirely right either. Yes the corp can use Jackson and should use Jackson that way vs Gang Sign but also the runner can access Jackson before he gets the chance to get installed either from HQ or RnD and we all know Leela can and will get those early accesses. So it's not that much of a counter as people tend to think.

On another note we got an in-faction Jackson Killer named Political Operative now that can kill a Jackson the moment the corp installs him and rezzes him which gives as an even better match up.

Good job on the deck. Hope you do awesome.

1 Apr 2016 Greek Geek

@Letsaros Thanks for the commetns.

I find having both Interfaces to be very expensive, and I do not find Same old thing to fit my play style, thus The Maker's Eye. I do not find Jackson Howard to be an issue very often. I think having the Gang Sign is more of an issue to the corp plus beneficial for the runner even if you won't access agendas.

I do not know if I will use Political Operative together with Gang Sign, too many utility cards to have any space left for economy and breakers, but it might be fun for an unconventional deck.

1 Apr 2016 Letsaros

@Greek Geek

Yeah your deck seems tight enough to not have much room for Po-Op. Was mostly thinking i could find some space in my tuntable deck for him.

I wouldn't run Leela without 2x SoT though. I used to and really missed it at times. Now i always add 2x.

2 Apr 2016 Greek Geek

@Letsaros I will probably keep either Pol Op or Gang Sign, I do not think that I can fit both.

SoT is a strong card, but in a meta full with Chronos Project and Blacklist I prefer to have stronger economy. I have to give it another try though!

After further testing I have to say that I do not find Employee Strike really affecting game play except the Haarpsichord Studios: Entertainment Unleashed match up. Where do you find it useful yourself?

3 Apr 2016 EnderA

@Greek Geek The big matchup that I see Employee Strike being useful for is Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions. They absolutely depend on their ID, and they are arguably the deck to beat right now. (Bio-Ethics Association was an insane addition.) Going up to 2 on ES and adding SoT would help a lot in that matchup. Combined with Desperado, Security Testing, and Account Siphon, you can afford to win the asset spam game. However, the only card you have to beat Mother Goddess - if they're running that version - is Femme Fatale, but 1 is probably enough with Special Order (just beware they can over-install with a new one, they'll be running 2.)

It helps in most matchups, just to differing degrees. It can absolutely wreck Cerebral Imaging: Infinite Frontiers, hurts Jinteki: Replicating Perfection a lot, forces Blue Sun: Powering the Future to play a normal game for a while, is the only current that blocks New Angeles Sol: Your News, and slows down Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future.

You could switch the 2x The Maker's Eye to 1x Indexing. Combined with SoT it gives you a lot of options. Or, Gordian Blade -> ZU.13 Key Master. Either would free up 1 influence. As for what to cut, I don't know, but it's either events or resources. Perhaps Bank Job since you're boosting the main matchups that it helps with, and already have Security Testing.

3 Apr 2016 Greek Geek

@EnderA I have not thought about Industrial Genomics: Growing Solutions, it is a fair point. CI, RP, and Blue Sun are not really dominant right now I feel. Haas-Bioroid: Engineering the Future is always around, but I generally feel that runner currents are inherently weaker than corp ones since corps can control the scoring windows better.

Saving the extra influence will most certainly come from breakers. I do not find ZU.13 Key Master to be a better breaker than Peacock though. If I cannot afford Gordian, I prefer to spend my influence someplace else.

3 Apr 2016 EnderA

The big upside to runner currents is easy recursion, namely Same Old Thing. Archived Memories is the only card I can think of for easy recursion of currents in Corp, but card slots are more precious in corp. Anarchs can always pull one back with Déjà Vu.

3 Apr 2016 EnderA

Alternatively to Employee Strike, you could splash for Hacktivist Meeting. It does great work vs all asset/upgrade based decks like IG, ETF, and NEH.

4 Apr 2016 Letsaros

@Greek Geek

When it comes to Quandary, Enigma, Tollboth, Turing and Archangel who are the most common Code Gates the difference between Zu and Peacock is small.

Zu is better when breaking enigma because it needs 3 credits and only 1 credit vs Quandary while Peacock needs 4 for enigma and 2 for Quandary.

Peacock is better vs Tollbooth and Turing because it needs 4 credits when Zu needs 5.

For Archangel they both need 6 credits so the real question is how much of a tempo hit you consider the install cost for those two. 3 vs 1 is a lot when it comes to tempo especially since you are criminal and you use money to pass through ice.

With Leela i prefer to be able to pay 1 to install Zu and run that Quandary early for 1 more credit to steal the early agenda for 2 credits total than having to pay 3 for peacock and 2 to break for the same result. Especially if i had to pay another 1 credit to 'Special Order' the fracter beforehand. For me those 3 credits early mean i can also have a corroder installed or a Kati.