Lightning Leela

analyzechris 598

The insane burst of Temüjin Contract has made playing criminal fun again! Combined with criminal run economy staples Desperado, Dirty Laundry, and Security Testing, Leela can start fast and maintain pressure on even the fastest corp.

Mulligan
Mulligan for Temüjin Contract. Kati Jones or a Hostage to find her is an acceptable secondary goal. A couple Sure Gambles is nice, but it's simply not enough to keep the pressure up.

Early Game
There are three major ways to put the early pressure on in this deck, and they are all awesome.

  1. Temüjin Terror
    First turn Temüjin can determine a game if there's an un-ICEd central. Spend clicks 2-4 hammering away and trashing whatever you can. Ideally one more of those is a sure gamble run. Then on turn two if they still can't cover it, install Desperado to lap up the rest of the credits. Don't feel bad to safely target archives. It can still be profitable with Security Testing later in the game. Worst-case scenario, those three runs on archives have the click-credit efficiency of four Magnum Opus clicks.
  2. Bounce That
    By trying to score early agendas with Inside Job or Legwork (or running first click and clicking through whatever bioroid ICE), you can set back the Corp simply on tempo, forcing them to lose clicks reinstalling. Consider the Corp's credit pool and what ICE can really hurt you. You should have enough money to face the occasional tag. Even program destruction isn't the end of the world since Paperclip can come right back out of the heap.
  3. Siphon Spam
    If the Corp is playing it dangerously and leaves HQ unprotected, punish with Account Siphon. Sometimes this opportunity presents itself when a corp scores an agenda on the last click and forgets that you can bounce ICE. Having Networking in hand makes the siphon even more efficient. This deck goes tag-me surprisingly well with three Account Siphons and plenty of non-resource economy, but you should have enough credits to simply clear tags.

Mid Game
Card draw is not the best in this deck because often you don't need your entire breaker suite. You should eventually get out an Earthrise Hotel to begin your clickless card draw, but try to maintain at least eight credits (four with Networking) to avoid the rampant Hard Hitting News shenanigans. At this point, you should be using Special Order to find the most important breakers for your match-up. I teched in Salsette Slums to help against CtM, because who has the time for tags?

You should also consider any conditional matchup necessities. Hostage can get you your Film Critic faster against Argus or Midseasons-centric decks. You can plop a PolOp if you think the Corp is going to hoard agendas and leave a vulnerable Jackson out. Drop the Plascrete if you smell arson.

Late Game
In the end, this is not much different from Endless Waltz or any other Leela deck. You should not let on that you are going to focus R&D until you're ready for a few big runs. That means saving up to drop one or two R&D Interfaces when you have enough money. The aforementioned Temüjin Contract can make R&D digs more efficient since you'll get four credits back every time.

Ideally, you have a Turning Wheel that has been accruing power tokens to make the dig better or to abandon ship and hit HQ. RDIs have a funny way of making the Corp stack ICE real quick. Femme Fatale is for whatever monster ICE they think will keep you out of R&D, so save it for your end game. You only get one shot with it.

Finally, Sneakdoor Beta can close a game if the ICE is too real, especially if your Turning Wheel has been spinning.

Edits/Suggestions
I originally played this deck with one of each icebreaker, but bad running and random net damage often sniped my only decoder or destroyer. I ended up sacrificing Paper Tripping and one Hostage to get a backup Peacock and Mongoose. Turns out two Mongeese can be nice on thick stacks of sentry ICE.

John Masanori would solve some of the problems with card draw, but piloting this aggressive a deck often involves face-checking ICE, and, as we went over before, we don't have time for tags.

Of course, apologies if this is kind of derivative or obvious. It's my first published deck! ^_^

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