Don't plan cards to help you when you 're losing. If you 're losing, you 're playing it wrong.

While in some ways true, it is a oversimplification, or needs more in depth analysis of early, mid, and late game, and how the different archetypes have plans for it.

There have been some talk about control decks in this thread as they pertain to Magic, and they do have poor early game but seek to dominate the late game. There is a great article on boardgamegeek I think about everything they learned about Magic, that goes into the meta game clock, describing aggro, tempo, control, midrange, and combo decks. The point is that in Magic, you better learn the phrase "Winning at 1 life is still winning" as a control deck. The equivalent in Netrunner would be saying "Winning when the opponent is at 4/5/6 agenda points is still winning". Control decks in Magic seek to "stabilize" where they recoup early losses in the early game, and win through card advantage/dominance. Okay, cards in Magic where they only gain life are bad. Cards in Magic that gain life in addition to doing something else that they want to do are good in the right decks, in the right format. If you are familiar with the Return to Ravnica control decks, they all featured an uncounterable Wrath of God, that was promptly followed up by a spell that drew X cards, and gained X life. Modern for a good chunk of time had a good chunk of players rely on Lightning Helix, if it only needed to be Lightning Bolt 5-8 in the deck, would have some replaced by cards that are easier on mana, but that Healing Salve tacked on to the Lightning Bolt is something that control players dig, as it shores up some of the pain experienced by aggro decks or their own mana base hurting their life. GBx attrition decks by hurting themselves through so much of their own cards also have run cards like Scavenging Ooze, Kitchen Finks, or even Courser of ______, as they are all creatures that are good in different matches, in addition to gaining the life.

Flat out the best equivalent to the data leak reversal Iain deck that was posted was an Innistrad-Return to Ravnica standard deck won by controlling the board, and milling the opponent. Yes, you know the entire statement where mill is bad, well, if designed in the right way, in the right format, it works as a win condition for either control or combo decks. Runners that seek to use Logos seek to transition to the end game as quick as possible, where they have their complete combination or rig set up to just put pressure on the corp.

That being said, Iain is has been snagged by a few issues that people have brought up. Being overshadowed by other criminal runners with better influence or being by Andy, specific corp decks that he has at best a 45% win rate against as they fall into the "aggressive" category or play the "control" game better, or being hit by the time limit in matches.

One thing to note about asking if an ID can be competitive. The game has a steady influx of new cards. People still remember both the early reviews of Cerebral Imaging, and how quickly the data packs gave it all the tools needed to be competitive. People are still reviewing/tweaking The Professor, Exile, Sil, Ken, in addition to all the new identities that haven't quite shored up their game against all the different corp decks. I am intrigued by Steel_Neuron's Eater idea, and it makes use of the upcoming Order and Chaos expansion.