Leelin' and Dealin' (1st NYC Uncommons SC/Undefeated)

skry 1206

TEMPO

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T E M P O

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Leelin' and Dealin'

This deck went 4-0 and took 1st out of 15 in the first Downfall SC in NYC. It beat sanjay on Fully Operational Asa, limnrix on fast advance Next Design, tcody616 aka poltergeistIV on Argus, and riotprl on tempo/fast advance Azmari.

Downfall boosted Criminal from a mini-faction into a full fledged actual faction, giving draw + a real sentry breaker. Now all runners can live their best TEMPO lifestyles with a life of crime. This deck was workshopped with groenkaaf and riotprl who ended up 2nd and 4th respectively at the SC with a few minor card differences.

Card Choices

  • Engolo: it occasionally pains me to play Engolo in Crim because Amina is a genuinely good card and 4 influence is a lot, but this deck would not function without Engolo. You should almost tutor this breaker first, which lets you safely pressure any server as long as you have 7 credits (Chiyashi notwithstanding. Although if they rez Chiyashi you pretty much have already won the game anyway). The amount of pressure this puts on the corp is A LOT and allows you to favorably EXCHANGE TEMPO WITH THE CORP. Engolo makes it very hard for corps to rush you out, and very hard for them to avoid your annoying run events.
  • Corporate "Grant": this card clears Scarcity of Resources giving you VITAL TEMPO! Sometimes it has an additional ability. Do not cut this card, because that is how you lose to Mti!
  • Labor Rights: you need some recursion as Crim or you can get blown out by rigshooter corps. I ended up on Labor Rights because of the flexibility. E.g. in combo matchups, bring back Embezzle, in denial matchups, bring back DOOFs.
  • Mining Accident: I think this card is more a matter of preference and is possibly not right, but I enjoyed it a lot in testing and it did a lot of work. You are forced to run SO MUCH just as a matter of course that the value of the bad pub really stacks up. You can almost always get the corp to dip below five in this deck and the bad pub softens the blow of having to single access through Slot Machines, etc. Anything to earn back even a tiny amount of TEMPO.
  • BruesselBachlan Bochkin: this card is everything that Chisel is not (you can use it with Datasucker!), and does huge work in a number of matchups. Overall, I think this is one of the big surprises from the set and a big part of why this deck has any late-game bite. The modal use, e.g. in the Mti matchup, is to punch open a hole in centrals in the midgame by derezzing an Anansi or DNA Tracker to proc a bunch of accesses/suckers/TTW counters/get your Crowdfundings back. Thanks for the TEMPO Baklan! Occasionally, you use this in contesting the remote to derez a taxing ice (when the Corp is poor) or derez a Border Control (if the Corp is rich). During the tournament I got to live the dream by derezzing one of Baklan artist limnrix's ice. The Baklan art may not give you any direct TEMPO, but it is still my favorite art from the set.

Final Thoughts

This deck is a lot of fun to play because TEMPO is the heart of Netrunner and this deck is all TEMPO no shenanigans. However, at one piece of recursion, I feel this deck can be weak to rigshooting strategies (which motivated my choice of Corp for the tournament), so slots may need to move around in the near future. However, pretty much all other matchups are fair game. Crowdfunding + Mining Accident give you a favorable asset matchup, Embezzle does great work in the Fast Advance and Combo matchups, and overall you are teched for reg Mti.

Please be careful with all this TEMPO-- it might make you forget about your true love, Aesop's Hayley.

8 comments
2 Apr 2019 MergeBandit

I lost to your Hayley at worlds. Glad to see you're still bringing the TEMPO!

2 Apr 2019 N0R5E

Why Engolo over Laamb to save on influence? Amina could be your decoder.

2 Apr 2019 skry

@N0R5E: I think Engolo is a much better card than Laamb in a vacuum. The numbers on Engolo are really exceptional (e.g. DNA and FC3 for 5, Slot Machine for 3/4, which are all comparable or better than Amina but with cheaper install cost + pseudo-AI), whereas the numbers for Laamb on commonly played barriers are horrible (5 for IP Block, 5 for Eli, awkwardness with Ice Wall bc of the non-continuous boosting on Laamb), especially in what I considered to be the meta relevant matchups. Moreover, some of the historically good reasons to play Laamb, like Endless Eula, have been gently nudged out of the meta by "Baklan" Bochkin and Chisel.

To be clear, I think there are many places where Laamb can shine, e.g. in Knifed or Surfer decks where the fracter-ness is relevant. Howeverf, in this deck, the numbers on Laamb are way too poor to justify playing over Corroder.

3 Apr 2019 Council

@skryI'm not so sure - Amina breaks both DNA and FC for 4, taxes 1 and Slot machine is only ever broken for 4 because firing the first sub and spending 3 is essentially the same thing.

3 Apr 2019 skry

@DonLoverGate: I wasn't super clear. It's not that Engolo is better than Amina, it's that it is almost as good as Amina, while Laamb is hot garbage against many meta-relevant barriers. So the ratio of Engolo/Amina ~ 0.9 whereas Laamb/Corroder ~ 0.5 or make up your own numbers as long as we agree Engolo/Amina > Laamb/Corroder.

Moreover, there are more code gates in the most of the meta-relevant decks than barriers, and since we are encouraged to get our pseudo-AI out first, I'd prefer it to be a decoder for that reason as well.

I could be wrong, though on Engolo vs. Laamb. If you test it out, let me know what you find!

4 Apr 2019 Council

No that makes perfect sense. Thanks for both explaining and the list, I'm interested to see where Leela can go.

7 Apr 2019 qvm

I independently ended up on a very similar list (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/55221/classy-waltz-1st-sc-5-0-)

I 100% agree on the Engolo question. Also, inf is not really a problem. From your list, the only card I hadn't considered where the mining accidents. I gotta give those a try!

15 May 2019 ClosDeLaRoche

Why datasucker over bankroll?