Slumdog Waltz - 1st Place Birmingham UK Regionals (59 player

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Just... Leela. 1st place Varberg Regionals
RegAss Waltz
Lightning Leela
Include in your page (help)

shanodin 686

This is the next step along the path of my Leela deck which was based on a deck that was based on Dave 'Cerberus' Hoyland's Endless Waltz Leela. I'm planning on writing a full tournament report for Netrunners.co.uk so am not going to put one here but I will say a few things about card choice.

Everything I've been hearing about the meta at large recently has centered around 'omg IG is so powerful and ruining tournaments all over the show!'. I was scared. The Preston meta, while full of people I love to bits, is a bit of a law unto itself, with Pālanā Agroplex shell game and other crazy shenanigans. So, with the fear of Bioethics lock IG (and Gargarin to a lesser extent), I crammed as much tech as I could think of into my deck.

I did relent in the end and cut 1 influence worth of anti-IG tech (an Employee Strike) so I could put the 3rd Desperado back where it belongs. Turns out that it was not an IG heavy meta at all, and my Salsette Slums would have served me so much better if it was still a Corroder. Every time I drew Breach first I was sad. That said, if I thought I was going to encounter IG I'd make the same choice every time because it's already such a bad match-up for Leela.

When they were first released I jammed 2 Political Operative and 2 Councilman in the deck, convinced they'd make everything 100x easier against glacier opponents. Then I played with them a bit and cut the Councilmen (even if it's nice to force the agenda to be left stranded on the SanSan...). Now I'm down to 1 Polop and I think that's the right number.

Wish I'd had another John Masanori - in all honesty I had resisted playing it until about a week ago but something jiggled in my brain and I did a bunch of meta-related changes including Bank Job and the 1 of John. There were a lot of times I wanted one but didn't draw it.

Inside Job has changed purposes recently. Its primary job used to be to get me a headstart on the remote, but now it's almost more of an economy card/avoidance card/Leela ability enabler. Is there a super hard/expensive to deal with piece of ICE on the central? Bypass!

Film Critic is my answer to being bad at psigames. Before I added it, I lost so many times to being unable to steal TFP. I have found this to be SO worth the 1 influence.

Sometimes, Sneakdoor Beta wins games.

14 comments
16 May 2016 kollapse

Fourty...seven cards?

16 May 2016 TheBjorn

Hoylands only had 46 so this is more than 2% better. Cool deck and really like the more diverse resource setup. Looks more risky but appearantly paid off :)

Grats on the win!

16 May 2016 Maëlig

Congrats on your win. Thoughts on gingerbread? I've seen some Leela decks run it to deal with the big tracers (assassin, vikram especially). With mongoose as your only permanent sentry breaker I'd be concerned about corps stacking up sentries on the same server.

16 May 2016 bracketbot

Why are you so heavy on breakers? Breach + Corroder, Gordian Blade + Peacock, 2 Faeries, 1 Femme + 2 Mongeese? Are you afraid of program trashing?

16 May 2016 shanodin

Yeah 47, @kollapse :P on the day I didn't use Data Dealer. It's only back in there because News Team has seen a weird resurgence in Preston recently. I could have done without it on the day.

@TheBjorn thanks :) again, on the day there were cards I could have done without but knowing the risk of not having them, I'd make the same choice.

@MaëligI have considered Gingerbread but sadly it's too niche. Faerie is almost like a burst econ card rather than a breaker, Mongoose needs a 2nd copy, and I just don't have the deckslots or the to support another program.

@bracketbot have you ever had your only breaker of a type Power Shutdowned, with no recursion? Not fun. Plus if there were fewer, I'd never see them, my Special Orders would be taking too much pressure, and you'd be slowed. Admittedly you never want to see Peacock or Breach but they are 100x better than being locked out.

16 May 2016 bracketbot

I can see Breach, but I'd run Passport over Peacock and try to win with central accesses. Peacock is just so bad.

16 May 2016 shanodin

@bracketbotthat's a good thought, I originally put Peacock in as a back-up for Gordian Blade but Passport might actually make more sense.

16 May 2016 bracketbot

Yeah, Passport is actually very similar to Gordian Blade (minus the whole not-being-able-to-access-remotes thing). It's probably the best of the central access breakers

17 May 2016 Calcifer437

all those connections and no Off-Campus Apartment?

17 May 2016 Calcifer437

Waitaminute, you only have 6 total. Mis-read that, sorry.

18 May 2016 evilgaz

Great stuff, with luck people will get some more likes on here instead of the latest Museum deck and we can get a decklist of the week out of it!

I tried out a less teched version which did well in testing:
-1 Data Dealer, -1 Slums, -1 Plascrete, -1 Peacock, -1 Breach, -1 Sym Vis
+1 John Mass, +1 Corroder, +1 Passport, +1 Space Hopper

You can easily keep a couple of cards if you're happy with 47 deck size, but I was getting twitchy.

As mentioned elsewhere, my first test was against someone with News Team, so there's no accounting for Tech. Film Critic is the bomb.

20 May 2016 shanodin

@evilgazdecklist of the week would be like the cherry on an already delicious cake xD

Less teched is fair. I wanted to try and fit in another John anyway. Since there was so little IG I might be tempted to go -1 Salsette Slums -1 Breach, +1 Corroder, but not sure at this stage.

Agree that Film Critic is a totally solid card - sometimes it's worth missing out on a Leela trigger to not die/not have to do a psi game/whatever.

Passport is deffo a better include than Breach - I probably wouldn't bother with it if I already had 2 Corroder though.

News Team is like actual physical pain to Leela :(

9 Jun 2016 helloledbetter

@shanodin congrats on the win and thanks for the great writeup! I plan on testing this out with the changes mentioned (-slums, -peacock, -breach, +corroder, +passport), as well as cutting a card or two to make room for more John. Is cutting the daily casts or one of the kati's the best bet you think? I do love having Data Dealer, but that also maybe the best choice. Curious to get your thoughts. Thanks in advance and congrats again!

10 Aug 2016 lukevanryn

Congratulations on the win, and thanks for sharing the list! I've been playing something similar and really enjoying it. I'm wondering how you're thinking of adapting the deck now that 23 seconds and blood money are out? I can imagine the Bank Jobs coming out for Temüjin Contracts, and maybe move to Earthrise and Career Fair for draw?