The Trashman Cometh (1st place online GNK)

"I’m the trashman! I come out, I throw trash all over, all over the ring. And then I start eating garbage. And then I pick up the trash can and smash the guy on the head.”

–Frank Reynolds

From one trash man to another, I salute you, Frank Reynolds. This is a shockingly accurate summation of my deck’s battle plan. Like the trashman himself, this deck wants to spam out trashable cards as quickly as possible, keeping enough pressure on the Corp to prevent an early win while building to a hideous critical mass and smashing them on the head for the K.O.

There’s a plethora of Geisty goodness in Nisei’s Ashes cycle, and Uprising in particular has delivered him the goods. Boomerang, Masterwork (v37), Prognostic Q-Loop, and The Back provide him with an unbelievable engine and potent recursion, and Cybertrooper Talut gives his trash breaker suite an affordable boost for early-game breaking and a dependable link for long-term rig-building.

I wanted to see if a deck with absolutely no fixed breakers was viable in this brave new meta. Not only is it viable, it’s really, really good. Geist’s card draw and the absurd economic engine of Tech Traders and Technical Writers combines with the TWENTY-EIGHT trashable cards in this deck and the many, many triggers of Masterwork, Q-Loop, and Hayley (if DJ Fenris showed up early enough). This lets you rip through your deck at lunatic speed and construct a ludicrous Rube Goldberg breaker rig that makes you rich as you smash through the mightiest glaciers the Corp can construct.

The setup is pretty simple: Try to get a Technical Writer in your opening hand, or a at the very least a Tech Trader, and then install like crazy, trashing Sports Hoppers, Spy Cameras, and anything else that lets you accelerate your card draw and collect credits.

What you really want in play is Masterwork, Q-Loop, and The Back, and a Boomerang or a critical mass of Spikes/Grappling Hooks/Crowbars, etc. Once that’s in play, the amount of malarkey you can do in a single run is absurd. You can start a run and use Q-Loop to check the top two cards of your stack (putting a counter on The Back in the process). Then, if a program or hardware you want is the top card, you can install it with Q-Loop’s secondary ability. If it’s the second card you want, you can pop a Spy Camera or other trashable asset to get it to the top, or install a piece of hardware from your hand to get the draw from Masterwork. Even if both cards are useless, you can draw them up and try your luck with the third card down; there are so many programs and pieces of hardware in the deck, you’re likely to pull something useful.

With multiple Tech Traders down, you end up making a ton of money just smashing your way into whatever server you want, which also provides the card draw you need to expand your options exponentially. I will often start a turn with a click-one run just to trigger as much nonsense as possible and draw into new possibilities.

The Khusyuks and Legwork (recurred with Buffer Drive if necessary) provide the finishing blows once you’ve made it nearly impossible to score out in remote servers because of your terrifying garbage rig.

This takes a lot of practice to get the hang of and can definitely be a pain on Jnet, but what I thought was a cute gimmick is actually a secret powerhouse.

There are only two things I’m conflicted about:

1. I go back and forth between On the Lam and Networking. On the Lam is a bit more versatile and doesn’t take up space in your hand, but you have to have the foresight (and take the temp hit) to play it ahead of time, whereas Networking can get you out of a jam you didn’t expect (and get the Corp to waste a Hard Hitting News in the process).
2. A single copy of Bukhgalter would help against the giant-sized Surveyors that sometimes crop up in Earth Station decks.

Now go forth and THROW IT IN THE TRASH!