Core Set Waltz (1st, 19th, 20th at Euro/African Continentals

[Hilarious .gif redacted by request of Chris Dyer so as to maintain the purity of the "Chris" brand]

This is the reg Leela list I somehow steered to first place in the 2020 European and African Continentals, alongside Nememiah, MikeP, Binarydogs and SlickHenry who were all on the same list.

I believe this list was based on one originally built by master Leela-smith PaulyG, and then put through The Process by Mike, John and Chris D the week before the tournament. The primary focus was teching for Titan (I faced no Titan all weekend!), with the Embezzles and several bad Core Set cards (Legwork, Maker's Eye, and Sneakdoor) primarily for that matchup. Legwork and Sneakdoor in particular were also included for the Asa matchup, which we expected to be strongly represented given how strong we thought it was. Each of these cards did some good work throughout the day (e.g. Maker's finding the third agenda after stealing 2 from archives against Tugtetgut/Ohm's punitive outfit, embezzle sniping the archived memories from Pinsel's Asa) but none of them were MVPs, and if you're not expecting a lot of Titan then you would probably want to change the list up a fair bit. With them the Titan matchup is much more winnable though, so as long as Titan is a serious threat at least most of these cards seems sensible. I managed to avoid any super-glaciers like GameNet, where the missing Falsified Credentials would probably be really missed.

The core draw engine of Aniccam and The Class Act is really powerful once you get set up, as playing your OP crim events just draw you into more, allowing you to keep the pressure up. It took me a little while to get used to playing the deck, as I am used to being a little more agro than this deck requires: Leela and the boomerang/inside job threat allows you to take a turn or so more than usual to get yourself set up, and once you're up and running crim econ is so busto that you become pretty hard to keep out.

On the day, this went 4-1 in swiss, beating Jemison (Ardu), Harmony Medtech (JayRed), Asa (Pinsel), The Outfit (Tugtetgut/Ohm). It lost an amazing game against DoomRat's Mirrormorph (which I think was on the Nisei and Spanish streams?). I ID'd once, then got paired down and swept by DoomRat, so had to 241 in the last round against Odol and corped. In the cut it went 2-1, beating Pinsel's Asa and Tugtetgut/Ohm's outfit, before Tugtetgut/Ohm took revenge in the first final.

Thank you so much to all of my opponents for two days of really amazing, exciting games and good humour. Thanks also to my testing group Mike, John, Chris D and Matt for lots of testing games, telling me what decks to play and how to play them, and for being such great people to chat to in these odd times.

Finally huge huge thanks to the organisers and the jnet team for keeping this tournament season going during lockdown. I left the UK in March with plans to be away for at least 18 months, so wasn't sure I'd ever really play competitive netrunner again. These plans were scuppered and I ended up being "stuck" in beautiful France (hence the access to only a tablet), and the chance to play more netrunner has been a massive silver lining to the whole thing and has made lockdown so much more bearable. You folks are amazing. Shout out also to #UK Slack for providing endless distraction, mutual support, and kind encouragement - even if I tend to lurk a lot, the chat, quizzes, and memes have been another big part of my staying OK in lockdown.