The Big Geist!

Been a while since I published last, so here goes nothing...

I've been absolutely loving this new ID since Underway hit the stores and I picked up my cards. I mean, talk about opening up new doors as well as using old ones that seemed too uninteresting or inconvenient to even bother with; Armand gives Criminals a real reason to recycle things.

At 47 cards, this sorta seems like a MaxX, and even more so with Levy, SoTs and Clone Chips on board. Normally, I HATE going above 45 cards...but with this, the cards and their various and multiple synergies make it really tough to decide on what to remove to bring the total down. A bit of explanation, as I have yet to see some of these cards used in published Geist builds on here...

Events - I wanted something that would tax the Corp, but not me. What better card for this than Emergency Shutdown? All it costs is 2 clicks; one to make the HQ run, another to derez an annoying piece of ICE. With recursion possible, it's almost a can't miss for Geist, IMO. Legwork is here to try and get some timely pulls from HQ, or even to force the Corp to think twice about putting that Ash or Caprice on R&D. Levy is an auto-include in any Geist build.

Hardware - I'm determined to kick some ass with the Cloud breakers, so the need for max performance is taken care of with 3 Clone Chips. Forger is the obvious choice for Console here. The only thing I see hurting me is Midseasons, so I'll just have to try and stay ahead monetarily if I suspect that play. RDI kicks major ass in any deck, really...so I gotta have that too.

Resources - Crash Space will work against tag-n-bag shinanegans, and Fall Guy will keep the Corp paying (money and clicks) to try and shut down the connections here. If they can keep up with you there, they've probably already won the game anyway, methinks. Armitage, cuz I like having a cheap (albeit poor-man's) version of Opus around with recursion (Levy) if the game goes long. Muertos Gang Member has received quite a bit of press on here, and I completely agree with Krystman on his evaluation of this card. One of my goals is to keep practicing with this deck until I get it (the use of MGM) right! I gotta have the Baby in here for some stability mid-game, and AtG is yet more cheap Link to keep up with traces and such. Street Peddler is another auto-include in Geist decks, as is Underworld Contact.

Icebreakers - With my link holding the fort down, there will be pretty much nothing I can't get into once 6 or more of these are on the board. My only worries are traps (Lab Dog isn't widely used yet, Data Mine may see more play when Chronos Protocol comes out, and Excalibur only worries me on the first hit) and if they try to hide behind Mother, just MGM that shiznit, or shut it down.

I'm really anxious to see what other people think of this, as I haven't felt this enthusiastic about a Criminal since Silhouette. I really want to make this work, ideally at 45 cards...so if anyone can offer advice on that subject, that'd be awesome! :)