Geist at Home (1st and 5th at two SCs)

lostgeek 3496

Geist at home

After the initial hype over @Pinsel's National Champion Geist deck was over, the fact that the only Shaper decks were literally boring kept nagging at us. So Pinsel and I decided to give the pirate build another spin and began testing decks with 3 Tech Traders. Boomerang proved to be very good at replacing the need for real breakers in both the Geist deck as well as several Anarchs that we tried, so it must also be good in Shaper.

The best feeling in Boomerang Anarch is, when you manage to get a Boomerang on your Street Peddler, so why not try to make this more consistent? The current shaper equivalent would be Paule's Café, so we tried to build a deck around that using Talut, Chameleon, Euler, and Gauss as breaking solutions. But as always (and as intended by the card design...), that proved to be somewhat difficult and clunky. We were pretty happy with the Boomerang part of the deck, but we were lacking both card draw and early econ.

That was when Pinsel came up with the idea of including In the Groove... That card already gave birth to RGB Hayley before it was even released and now it found a home in this archetype again. Simulchip becomes a normal Clone Chip again once a program is trashed and -- oh look, DaVinci has got a for us. 🤔

This is how a turn can look like:

  • 1. Play In the Groove
  • 2. Install two DaVincis (and drawing 2 cards from ItG)
  • 3. Play Dirty Laundry on some server to get a token on your DaVinci. Extra style points, if you already have a DaVinci with 2 tokens ready to install a Boomerang at instant speed (and draw a card).
  • Still 3. Use DaVinci to install Simulchip (and draw a card) to install a DaVinci (and draw a card)
  • Still 3. Do the same with the other DaVinci (and draw two cards)
  • 4. Run wherever you like to get a DaVinci token
  • Still your turn. Do more DaVinci-ing (and draw cards).

Oh, have I mentioned, this deck plays DJ Fenris to have access to Geist? I'll leave it to you to figure out, how many extra cards Geist has drawn you during this exchange. But let me tell you this much: You typically start taking credits from ItG at some point, because you're overdrawing too much. Also keep in mind that if you had Technical Writer on the table when all of this happened, there are 6-8 credits waiting for you on there now.

Though, since this deck is Geist imported into Shaper, it comes with the same disadvantages that the original deck has. Scarcity of Resources still hurts a lot. A Hard-Hitting News early can somewhat stop your tempo (but you got access to Misdirection to mitigate that). There are some pieces of ice, that are really awkward to break (4 strength barriers in the late game, Spiderweb, and Bulwark come to mind here).

Still, this deck made running fun for me again and I hope it does the same for you!

7 comments
20 Apr 2020 Shorty

Looks like fun! Still Scarcity though =*(

21 Apr 2020 Krasty

@lostgeek: very nice deck. I must say, I was also trying to play with almost same build. It is a blast to play! :o)
I was trying it with (working name is Leonardo's boomerang btw) those changes:
1) Hostage for Clot (because Titan start to shine again)
2) Gbahali for Harmony AR Therapy (sometime you loose Boomerang or other important peaces and this is easy way how you can refresh your losted gear)
What do you thing about those changes? What else you were testing?
//Btw I was also trying to use Aniccam instead of one Akamatsu, but it is almost useles...

21 Apr 2020 lostgeek

@Krasty Hey! I've been thinking about Clot as well, but I've been 3-0 against Titan in tournaments, so I'm waiting on finally losing horribly to maybe do the switch. Mostly because Hostage is exceptional in getting you DJ Fenris early and really getting the engine rolling. And with Boomerang and Self-modifying Code, they typically can't rush an early Atlas against you.

I might be ok with cutting the Gbahali, but Harmony AR Therapy doesn't seem like the card to replace it with. There are cases (e.g. damage or Border Control), where you lose one or even two of your Boomerangs, but with careful play, that typically doesn't cost you the game. And Tech Trader typically gets installed instantly without the opportunity to get it shot by damage. I might even replace it with a one-of counter current to combat an early Scarcity of Resources...

And I agree, Aniccam is a fun card, but probably doesn't do much in this deck.

21 Apr 2020 Krasty

@lostgeek: yeah it sounds good with Hostage - is more useful, than Clot - at all -> you can still looks like you have it/bluff it, you know! :o)
And about "counter Scarcity" thing - so it is just one proper answer I think -> getin' "Freedom" - I think Scarcity is nowadays played in 6 agenda Azmarii decks, where it helps a lot

22 Apr 2020 adquen

I hate this deck so much :P Not because it's too strong - it's reasonable strong, but I think it's in line - but because it's so, so annoying to play against it. I make a turn and then have to wait for minutes while they cycle through their triggers. It's bad on JNet, but it's even worse IRL when you manually have to take credits/draw cards ... blargh. And that's for a normal turn, when they have to think/run, it's even worse ...

So, with all respect to the building skills and congratz on the results, but can we now burry this archetype and never see it again? :P

22 Apr 2020 Labbes

I also hate this deck. It takes the Shaper out of Geist and puts it into Shaper. One could say it takes the Ghost out of the Shell.

22 Apr 2020 percomis

I appreciate all the hoops you and Pinsel jumped through just to have a home for Paul's Café :D It's actually a really cool synergy with Boomerang.