Technically Geist - 2nd after Swiss, 8th @ Toronto Regionals

Introduction

Wanted to post this sooner but I was exhausted when I got back home. Here is the runner deck I took the the 401 Games Regionals in Toronto, Ontario against 40 other Netrunners that went undefeated all day. My final standing after Swiss was 2nd place with 8 wins and 2 losses coming from my corp deck and again, in top 8, knocking me out with some good early R&D grabs from my opponent. You can see the deck in action at the link just below where I come back from a very rocky start with an early ghost branch hit.

Stream Link: https://www.twitch.tv/401games/v/80816266

The 5 wins this deck earned in Swiss were against 1 SYNC Mushin Deck, 2 Palana Rush, 1 ETF Sandburg, and 1 Gagarin Hot Tub Time Machine though the last score was done with no cards left in my stack and no cards left in my grip. Everyone I played was great and it was a blast to finally have my work with Geist pay off. Thanks to all my opponents for 5 well fought games.

Deckbuilding

I have been playing various versions of Geist for about 6 months now some with the B&E suite, some without and all manner of hardware and resource backup and they never quite worked, especially against any sort of NEH fast advance. With the recent erratas though slowing down the fast advance tactic I decided to seriously revisit my old criminal friend for Regionals. This version of the deck was originally inspired by the various spy camera decks that I saw with Haley as the runner and I thought if they are spending 6 influence on spy cameras I could do the same with Replicator and man can this deck draw and dig when it gets going.

Piloting (Pre Levi)

The main goals are similar to the Haley versions with getting an early Bazaar, Replicator, Spy Camera with at least 1 Tech Writer. Depending on what pieces I had sometimes I would not install all 6 cameras and would stop at 4 installs and hold the 5th so that I can rearrange the top 4 to try and find a needed card and then play the next spy camera to shuffle the deck and get a new top 5 cards to rearrange. The same can be done with Sports Hopper or even playing a 2nd Replicator if I was desperate to find something. Having Street Peddler in hand with the cameras installed is also great for putting duplicate Bazaars and Replicators under them with the 1 card I want to install making sure that every future draw is just another piece of the rig I'm building.

Usually I try to avoid popping spy cameras until I have at least 2 Tech Traders on the table but sometimes you just need some card draw and even with only 1 Tech Trader it still acts as 6 free clicks of Professional Contacts. Once the econ engine is up it is all about building a board state to threaten any possible scoring windows. If I saw an agenda from the spy cameras and could get in without too much danger I would go for it (After playing Freedom Through Equality if I have it in my hand) but even letting the agenda go to HQ isn't so bad to grab with the one legwork if they have already used Jacksons and do not have a way to shuffle them back into R&D.

Piloting (Post Levi)

This is where the deck really flies. Try to have at least 1 Tech Trader already on the board but more is always better and in almost every game you will have 1 spy camera in your new hand to play out all 6. With them back on the board depending on the score you can start popping them right away to find that last agenda you need from R&D or you can rearrange the top 6 cards for better street peddlers or to find Freedom Through Equality if you need that 1 extra point with 1 more agenda for the win and if you don't see it, play a Sports Hopper or a Replicator to shuffle your deck and look at 6 new cards.

The sort of last ditch effort of the deck which is used mostly on glacier is to play turning wheel and if you don't see an agenda with spy camera, and they have an end the run ICE in front of HQ or R&D, spend all 4 clicks to bounce off the ICE for the counters on Turning Wheel. If you haven't seen an agenda in 6 spy cameras, Run twice more for a total of 26 Turning Wheel counts and run into R&D with 14 accesses.

Notable Card Choices

Data Dealer (AKA the 46th card) - This was a meta call that didn't end up doing anything for me but I was concerned about dealing with Shi-Kyu and News Team as every agenda point matters for this deck and that -1 point could ruin a possible win. I discovered there were some News Teams floating about in some decks but I never came across any in my matches. This card probably could be cut but I felt safer having it in there.

No Siphon (Y U NO SIPHON!?) - I tried for the longest time to run this deck with Siphon and I just never found a state except for the corp having no ICE in front of HQ turn 1 where siphoning would put me any further ahead so finally I dropped them for card slots and there was a noticeable improvement in the deck. Definitely a staple criminal card but not for this deck.

Legwork/The Turning Wheel - These are your mid/late game nails in the coffin that can net you a win or a big swing in agenda points if you know their HQ is getting flooded with Agendas

Reflection - This serves as your permanent source of link for the B&E suite and the extra memory makes room for Garotte

Garotte/Mongoose - One Mongoose for Tour Guide breaking and Garotte for any other sentries.

Peacock - This deck originally ran only 2 Replicators and a Zu but I found 2 Replicators was not enough and taking into account Zu has one less strength than Peacock I usually either break even on the credit cost, end up paying 1 more credit, or in the case of Tollbooth I actual save a credit so it works pretty well.

"Freedom Through Equality" - I have lost count of how many games this 1 current has won me. This current in a lot of matchups will get you the win with needing to access 1 less agenda and with spy camera you can just hold the current in your grip until you see the agenda to steal.

Changes

Dropping the Data Dealer and going down to 45 cards again would probably be safe and because The Turning Wheel doesn't hit the table all the time I could see switching for some other 1 influence silver bullet type card such as Employee Strike. Once some of the bigger multi sub code gates come out the Peacock may need to change as well but more testing will be needed for that.

Final Thoughts

The day was a blast and many thanks to all the players, commentators, staff, and organizers for putting on one of the best Netrunner events I have ever been to.