Angry Geist (67th @ Worlds, 5-0 @ King of Servers)

dodgepong 1796

This is the list I piloted to a 67th place finish at Worlds 2016. I had a pairing screw-up in round 7 that resulted in a lower placement than I might have otherwise gotten, but I was still happy to have done significantly better than my 163rd place finish at Worlds 2015 and to have made Day 2. Also, Pacer Stringfellow (@pacer) borrowed this deck to play at King of Servers, where it went 5-0. Finally, Josh Brzinski (@Fruggles) played a very similar list and had great success as well.

I got the idea for this list while talking to Cory Hockman (@TheGentleShark), who was playing a list with Spy Camera at the time, and I felt like it was in a decent place in the meta. I played a Spy Cam version against Pacer a few times the week before Worlds, and he suggested cutting the Cams for the Fall Guy/New Angeles City Hall package (which I believe was a Zach Cavis idea for Pacer's Andy list), going in hard with Account Siphon/Crescentus and econ denial. After a bit more playtesting, I'd say it was the right decision.

One of things I was most concerned about going into Worlds was how to best deal with BOOM! decks, and with 5 tag-avoidance cards in addition to absurd on-demand draw, this deck felt pretty safe. Ironically I still ended up getting BOOM!'d twice during the tournament, but they were clearly due to my own extremely dumb mistakes and inexperience with the deck. Over the course of the tournament I got better practice with the deck, and every BOOM deck I played after those first two I beat handily.

I am actually not sold on 3x Temüjin Contract in this deck. 90% of the time I would install one turn 1 or 2, get close to using it up, and pitch the others to hand size. I think there was only one game I used all 3. Sure Gamble might be a better replacement for some of them, or maybe even a High-Stakes Job? Is that crazy?

For a while I was on 3x Employee Strike, 1x Paperclip, 1x Peregrine, and 2x Reflection. However, I found myself always hard-installing Paperclip instead of pitching it to install it later, since I needed to be sure I had the +1 strength on the B&E breakers. I was also unhappy with the high install cost of Peregrine, whose cost to break code gates was not significantly better than ZU.13 Key Master (and in some cases worse). Furthermore, there were a number of test games where I just couldn't find a second link, even with 5 sources. So making the Corroder/Zu.13 switch helped with all those issues since it also allowed me to switch to 3x Forger, which also helped with BOOM! matchups as well. I still would like 3x Employee Strike to play against Scarcity of Resources , but I ended up not seeing that it the whole day so it ended up not being an issue.

I'm pretty happy with the list, other than not knowing what to do about the Temujins. Josh's list played a Gingerbread as a 46th card for yellow matchups, which he was pretty happy with.

Thanks for reading! Worlds was a really fun event and you should try to go if you ever have the chance! The Netrunner community is full of awesome people and it's always a pleasure to see them.

9 comments
7 Nov 2016 ANRguybrush

pretty neat. will try out.

7 Nov 2016 Fruggles

All hail the 45 card, 3rd crescentus god.

Also FFGOP screwing you over. All hail that too.

8 Nov 2016 yeoda

This deck is what I'm gonna be playing for a bit.

10 Nov 2016 poorhaus

Great list! I've been running a spy cam Geist list for a while now and will definitely try this out for a change of pace. Siphon/NACH with crescentus sounds brilliant, as does the Medium/legwork multi access.

I've found a 1x Technical Writer to be the right swap for that third Temujin. FWIW

10 Nov 2016 ff0X

love the deck

15 Nov 2016 dawspawn

Seems like Political Operative or "Freedom Through Equality" would be a good 45th card, too, if you don't feel you need the 3rd Crescentus or Temujin.

16 Nov 2016 poorhaus

@dodgepongthanks again for sharing! Lots of great ideas in here and it definitely eats tags for breakfast.

I've been experimenting with a blend of this list and Peddle to the Metal. In testing ice found this list can be slow to set up and sometimes able to be rushed past. So far:

  • Medium is worth the influence. Feels like it wins me half my games.
  • 2x NACH definitely good includes, even against non-tagging corps. The Siphon synergy is just too good.
  • 2x Siphon seems enough to me. With better draw and a levy you'll see at least four a game.
  • This list seemed to set up slower so 2-3 Earthrise Hotel seem like must includes for my play style. Also 1-2 Career fairs if there's space
  • If you're not all in on Sync, 1x Forger and 1x Crescentus seem enough, especially with the added draw and recursion. Leave the Forger on the table if you expect a Breaking News BOOM!
  • 1x Tech Writer 2x Temujin is a nice blend.
  • With all that we've freed up room for 3x spy camera which synergizes nastily with Medium.
  • You can drop a peddler and the Strikes for a second Levy. Probably not a good idea for a tournament but good for testing.

Essentially adding Medium, Crescentus, Siphon and NACH to a Spy Cam focused list really makes it more powerful. At the same time, the added draw and precision of the other list make it much faster to set up than this one, letting you run less copies of cards.

I like flexible decks that still have a go-to game plan. I think a blend of this list with a traditional Spy Cam style could.make a very powerful general purpose Geist deck that could be easily tuned to meta shifts.

21 Jan 2017 ogrillion

@dodgepongThis is probably the silliest of questions, but why is it "angry"? Def going to try anyway!

21 Jan 2017 dodgepong

I played a lot of Angry Val during regionals season, which was arguably an angrier deck. This Geist focuses a lot on siphon spam and credit denial, and it reminded me of the Val deck in that way.