Too Many 1-ofs [NA Conts Top of Swiss, 13 Overall, 4-3]

I have a confession to make: I had an unfair advantage in this tournament that I leveraged to my advantage. In short, I’ve been playing LEO longer than anyone else on the planet. From the first goldfished games using fully blank cards in my office, to doing proof of concept testing with a few local players, to showing it off against other NSG designers: it’s physically impossible for anyone to have played LEO for as long as I have. I’ve used this unique advantage to assemble this pile of cards you see before you, and take it to a middling 4-3 record. The myriad one-of card choices are not the whims of a deckbuilder more interested in dramatic moments than actual tournament success, they are the product of my ill-begotten insight into this ID and its secrets that I leveraged for my own gain.

I know my countless fans will be deeply disappointed in me. I only hope that I can earn your trust back. Nothing means more to me. To prove that: if these words aren’t enough to convince you, you can click on the link below to subscribe to my OnlyFans where I’ve uploaded a dramatic reading of this apology – complete with outtakes and bloopers – that will surely vindicate my sincerity.

LEO is my baby.

After 4 years doing Development, and later Design, for Null Signal Games, I resigned shortly after Elevation started playtesting. The last project I worked on was designing the HB faction for Elevation. Not all my designs survived testing - it’s rare that an initial concept survives contact with players - but one was published exactly as I had it in my original spreadsheet: LEO. I’d had this idea in my mind of highlighting how HB views its bioroid products. They’re beings we recognize as people, but HB sees that as tools to be disposed of when they serve no purpose, or if their destruction is more useful than their prolonged service. I also wanted to give a home to HB glacier, it being one of the first archetypes I ever played in Android: Netrunner. Thus LEO - originally HB: Disposable Labor - was born.

I have a lot of complicated feelings about having left NSG. I miss the people, and working on this game. But if I had to have one last card to point at and say “I left my mark on Netrunner”, I could do a lot worse than LEO.

It was inevitable, then, that I would play it pretty exclusively once Elevation dropped. I was excited to see the first lists out of Beijing pick it up so quickly. It’s been interesting to see it diverge into lists with Humanoid Resources and lists without. I’ve loved talking to other LEO players, like Laura, and sharing weird tech I never would have even considered. It’s been a joy.

ACTUALLY RELEVANT GAME INFO STARTS HERE:

I don’t think this list is ideal. It’s got a bunch of solid interactions and tech for its worst matchups, but lacks the consistency for a singular game plan. I enjoy being super reactive when I play glacier, and all these one-ofs allow for that. They all have some thought behind them, but I wouldn’t call it coherent. I think the record shows that, even if I think I could have done a little better. Some notes on the more idiosyncratic card choices:

• Most people jump to the ZATO. My thought was that a Sable that could get set up early was probably the biggest threat to this deck, and many have been on single copies of breakers. In the current card pool there are few ways to reliably rigshoot – something I hope NSG will address in time – so I decided to go with the spiciest possible card. Not only does it allow you to unilaterally destroy a key breaker, no one expects LEO to be able to throw multiple ICE at the runner a turn. It’s always fun to double down. This card even works in open decklists, because you have to trash the token Tranquility Grid to install it, making it extremely easy to bluff. That being said, it’s very rare that it shows up when you need it, and only being good for the remote and not centrals (where you usually lose) means it’s deeply unreliable. There might be a viable list with 2 of these for consistency; I haven’t tried yet.
• Project Ingatan over Luminal. Yes, Luminal is good. I need to test it more. But I can’t see the value of 3 limited clicks beating out the capacity to get back a Mercia, Regolith, or Bumi. This deck would love Archived Memories.
• Otto Campaign was intended as a way to force the runner to engage with the remote, ideally taking a large blow to their credits. It can do that, and I think there is value in having that role available to a glacier deck, but I failed to have a payoff more than I’d like. This is probably a holdover from the versions prior to Vulnerability Audit being added, and would be my first cut.
• Scapenet was a card I was super skeptical of, but it’s just flexible enough to work. Obviously Twinning is a concern, but also hitting Simulchip against shapers leaning on Propeller wasn’t something I had expected. Hard to justify more than one, though.
• I’m pretty happy with the ICE suite, for the influence I have available. Ablative should probably be Hagen; the recursion rarely seems to come up at one copy, even if Mitra Aman gives it purpose once obsolete.
• I think Sprint might be better than Spin Doctor for this deck, if you weren’t so all-in on Tranquility.
• 3 Seamless would absolutely be correct. Again, probably another hangover from the 3 SAM versions.

I went 4-1 in swiss with this, and 0-2 in the cut. Again, I really should take more notes during tournaments, because it’s hard to remember how any given win went. I’m sorry to Laura for knocking her cool Dewy out of the cut, especially when I gave LEO such a bad showing.

My one loss in swiss was against wyld’s Control Lat, which is not a matchup I have much experience with. I don’t think it’s unwinnable, but wyld played it expertly.

In the cut I chose to play LEO against pokeking’s Zahya, partially since I knew my next round would be much easier running if I won. I didn’t draw much other than agendas and ICE, and thus wasn’t able to get a real foothold in that game.

Then I played Wenjong’s Lat. I felt completely in control the entire game, and got to 6 points with an impenetrable ZATO remote. I drew and drew for a few turns, needing only to install an agenda in the remote to win, and found nothing despite using Sprint and a Spin Doctor. Eventually my R&D defenses gave out and Wenjong finished it. I think I could have won if, instead of digging, I just clicked for credits and installed more ICE, but I’ve always erred towards playing to win over playing not to lose.

Anyways, I’m still ecstatic to have done as well as I have. I’m not a competition-minded player, and go to these events to see Netrunner friends, not to win. I hope I can do my little LEO justice in the future, and am excited to continue tinkering with it, and see what others do with the ID. I must confess: I want the world for it.