Dia de Muertos

I've decided to shift my runner focus mainly to Criminal. Shaper seems to consist of 'Kate or GTFO', and Anarch is absolutely everywhere, and I've been playing them for a while now.

Armand interests me, in that he seems to allow a very aggro criminal build. Free, clickless card draw is incredibly powerful, and it isn't limited to once per turn? Great stuff.

But my working theory is that people are playing him wrong. His ability is powerful, and so people go out of their way to make use of it, and paradoxically make their decks weaker because of it. I think that Forger is not Desperado, and would be bad anyway. I think the B&E suite is inefficient; you need loads to get through a lot of common ICE. Because of that, you don't really start using Geist's ability until later in the game. Unless you're running Faust, it's less useful at this point, as you've probably got most of the stuff you need.

Now, I'll freely admit that it could draw you an Account Siphon or something, but if I'm angling on drawing a high-impact card, I'd rather use Planned Assault, Hostage, Special Order instead of wasting 9 slots on temporary breakers.

So my thought is that you could start with a decent build involving trashes that would work in, say, Andromeda, and see if it works better in Geist. I feel like the ability is more powerful in the early game, so that's where I'll be concentrating.

The Build

Account Siphon is a beast, and I feel like Criminal decks have to really justify leaving it out. Same Old Thing couples well with this, giving me more Siphon action, and a ability.

DDoS looks like an incredibly powerful tool for enabling first-turn Account Siphon, remote access, or pretty much any run-based strategy. Also, another .

Muertos Gang Member fits well with an early aggression strategy; run an Account Siphon, and if they rez anything vaguely expensive, drop it with the Muertos Gang Member and run again. If they manage to get everything rezzed, pop them for 2 cards.

Initially I was also running Emergency Shutdown and Crescentus as well, but more on that in a bit.

Early Attempts

Early tests showed that it could work, but there were three major problems: Firstly, once you got rolling, Geist's ability could keep up the pace, but you needed to actually get those cards. Fisk Investment Seminar is a godsend for this, as it gets you cards, and stuffing the Corp hand with cards and then Account Siphoning them is a great pressure play.

A second problem was the clearing of tags, particularly from Account Siphon. The money wasn't so much the issue as the time, so I've gone for New Angeles City Hall for the avoid effect. This also meant I had a reason to play a couple of Fall Guy. More trash effects.

Playtesting this was really, really good at landing a lot of Account Siphon in a short amount of time. But when this worked well, it showed up the third problem:

I didn't have anything to do when I'd knocked the corp down. I could use Legwork or HQ Interface to rip up their hand, and do an Archives run in case they trashed one... but then I was kind of stuck doing single R&D accesses. Unless they kept drawing into agendas I didn't really have much going on. I had to kind of wait...

It did serve to put me in mind of an Iain deck I ran ages back; the idea was R&D lock in Criminal. That seemed a good idea here, so I dropped basically all the influence and stuck in two Medium.

In the only test so far, DDoS, Medium and Account Siphon won me the game in record time.

Choices, choices

So I feel like I've got the basis of a good deck here, and would like to see if I can take it further. Using Geist's ability is key, but not if it means I have to shoehorn in sub-optimal cards.

Medium or R&D Interface? I've gone for Medium despite the higher influence cost, as it is much better for applying pressure; you have to deal with it, or you will lose. Also, there is a knock-on benefit; if they spend a turn purging viruses, that's a turn they can't gain money or install ICE.

Cortez Chip or Crescentus? This is one I still don't know if I've chosen correctly. Crescentus is a brilliant card, and can apply a significant tax... or it can apply almost no pressure to, say, an NEH deck whose idea of expensive ICE is Eli. Also, you need to get the breakers running before you can use it. Cortez Chip is less pressure, but if it manages to stop a rez, that's super-powerful. It also has a slight advantage that I can use it at any time, and so is helpful for early-game clickless draw.

Muertos or Crescentus? Again, tricky. Muertos Gang Member is a lot easier to trigger, but you have no control. I've gone for it because of the cheap early pressure, and the fact that it can double as emergency Scorch protection.

Desperado or Forger? Haha, lol

Dirty Laundry or...? I mean, I'm meant to be running, so Dirty Laundry fits well. I certainly need money in case I can't get it from the Account Siphon... But it doesn't feel optimal. Also, I've only got 12 occurrences here, and in several cases (Muertos Gang Member, Fall Guy), I don't want to be trashing them unless I have to.

The main thing there is that I need money, and I'd like more trashes... but the only thing that fills that gap is Gorman Drip v1. Is that good enough? Is that fast enough?

The entire breaker suite... Yeah, so that's an issue. I basically have no influence, and Criminal breakers are a bit pants. Alias will probably become Mongoose when I get Kala Ghoda. Passport could become Cerberus "Rex" H2, but it has limited uses, and I have no recursion. But there isn't a lot I can do about Breach. This leaves me with pretty poor remote pressure, which is an issue unless I can get an R&D lock going. Which, frankly, is still plan A.

The Future

We'll have to wait and see, but I think Geist is going to be in a better place at the end of the Mumbad cycle. Political Operative is brilliant for dealing with Caprice and suchlike, Sports Hopper is almost a Quality Time you can hold in reserve, Tech Trader could be impressive... Spy Camera might have a place, High-stakes Job looks interesting... Yeah, interesting times ahead, assuming I can work the kinks out of the basic deck!

Thanks for reading! Comments, Criticisms and Questions welcomed!