Indeed. That’s why I included Inside Job and Drive By for early game pressure. Once you have your permanent breakers and the B&E out most remotes are not a problem. If you opponent holds agendas in HQ then Legwork. I built specifically for a hunter strategy. Card draw and playing against FA are a problem but you can’t tech against everything.
One of the things I’m really liking about Geist is how many different ways there are to build the deck. I’ve started thinking of the build in terms of the core of B&E breakers+ forger+tech trader and fall guy, and then a bunch of “packages” you can add. Here are a few of the packages I’ve seen (and tried playing around with a bit)
- Off-campus apartment draw package
off-campus apartment+ some of underworld contacts, street peddler, drug dealer, scrubber, decoy, film critic and later political operative.
- Econ denial package
Account siphon, Crescentus, Same old things, + optionally emergency shutdown
- Program install package
Savoir faire and/or autoscripter
- Mutli-access package
Maker’s eye+ Legwork
Then alongside these packages, there are lots of cards that are powerful and synergistic if you can fit them in. These include: Technical writer, Clone chip, Drive by, Levy, inside job.
So far, I’m finding that you need a lot of card draw to deal with the slow set up and occasional inconsistency, so I’ve been liking the off campus apartment engine, with 2 drug dealers to supercharge it even more, but more testing might change my mind about this. It seems like the multi-access package is a must. One of the things I’m curious about is where to go with the econ denial package. Do you go all in on it, with mutliple siphons, crescentus, shut down, sot? If not, is it worth going part way on it, with a siphon or two and a few crescentus, or is it all or nothing?
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Random observation: Geist has received more support cards than any other ID I can think of. By support cards, I mean ones that are near unplayable outside of the ID & yet benefit from a synergy inside it. By my count, that’s
- Crowbar
- Spike
- Shiv
- Forger
- Tech Trader
He has his own entire breaker suite that no one else plays! He has his own econ engine in one connection! You could argue Muertos Gang Member should be in there too but it’s not much better in Geist than outside. When the Hopper comes out I think there’s a case for it being another Geist support card, though it’ll be playable outside too (e.g. in Apex).
Compare Geist to, say, Fisk, who came out in the same cycle yet got a single support card (two if you remember/count Eden Shard). No other ID comes close to the same number of cards specifically built for them. With all that…it’s kind of shocking Geist isn’t better. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy playing him & Tech Trader puts him back into competitive range, but you’d still think he’d be straight up tier one with that much help plus the strong cards that are even better in Geist (Fall Guy, Crescentus, Clone Chip).
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Scrubber is naturally where my mind goes. The matchup might improve slightly when Political Operative comes out, because you’ll be able to trash SanSans right when they rez, but Drive By is probably an even better way of handling them. I think you just have to rely on old school criminal econ control and hope for the best but you’re right, it’s not a good matchup. Lacking Clot & Turntable truly hurts and influence is just way too tight to fit either in.
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I think the slow set up and inconsistent drawing is holding him back but Criminal has always had a problem mass drawing.
A fair point, the general weakness of the Criminal card pool at this point is enough to hold Geist back. I’m mostly curious why FFG has shown so much love for this one ID & so badly neglected a few others.
NEH fastrobiotics and tagstorm decks I see as notable weaknesses. I am trying some siphon spam against FA, with limited results (works great against Jinteki, poorly against the living).
I moved away from OCA because I met Lizzy Mills. There were…so many bodies.
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Elizabeth Mills is basically the Fun Police as far as the endless party at Geist’s goes. Main reason I don’t run that kit, plus the everpresent Gagarin Executive Seminar in Building Corporate Towns… 
I want to believe it is because they feel bad about Clone Chip costing 3 influence now, but it is probably because Geist “plays different” than the standard Criminal (Gabe => Andy => Kenny all have quite similar base gameplans, Stealth Andy excepted) so they wanted to really build out this new line of criminal play. Bear in mind that these cards were planned out at the height of Datasucker Andy’s dominance 
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I don’t see Geist being tier 1 until he has a way to make the NEH Fastro match-up reasonable. Your only chance now is to get really good TME before they rez a good ICE on RND. The deck is just too slow to prevent the first Astro, in my limited experience so far. Maybe others with more experience have an answer to this that I’m not seeing.
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You are right.Geist is a monster for traditional Glacier deck,but Fastro just wreck him apart.
Blackfile?
That won’t work; they can score in their paid ability window before the Op can be used to rash SanSan.
Or Archangel.
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i’ve been running 3x Bank Job, and that helps a bit. Siphon spam early and floating the tags work… until you face a kill deck 
i’ve also tried out a bit of CBI Raid, and it seems to help if you can find it early but just at slowing them down. i’ve only tested it a little bit though (about 5 games), so i’m not sure how useful it is overall though
another option i keep wanting to try is The Source (and possibly Film Critic or just rely on Fall Guy). i think Councilman and Policital Operative are going to help out a bit against NEH though. say they get a score through SanSan, you can just trash it with the operative, gaining a card and a possible discount on the trash (and not having to run the server). i know it will help against that damn Caprice lol
also, MFW i wished i was packing more Drive-By. do it.
Drive By is easy to justify in deck that doesn’t have the Desperado credits to help trash remotes, and hates the never advance shell game.
Bank Job is its usual swingy self. I can see it for NEH, and I think it helps against Midseasons decks, but HB can leave it a dead card.
I dunno. NEH is tough.
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Is 1x turntable even remotely feasible? I haven’t tried it, but feel it could work.
I think OCA is good enough that you can afford not to install your traders on it vs Weyland - I have played maybe 1/10 games vs Weyland in the last 12 months. Probably less.
Inf - corroder, TME x2, scrubber, turntable, OCA x2, peddler x3, utopia?
I guess you really want levy -1 OCA, -1 peddler, -1 utopia?
I’d like a fracter in the not awful category so we could lose the corroder, but Criminals aren’t allowed nice toys.
You need to play Bank Job. It helps a lot against NEH and it being bad against HB doesn’t matter because you already have a good matchup against them.
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I don’t think it’s that bad against HB. Early game it’s fine. If you have to click through Eli or whatever it’s 3 clicks and a card for 7 creds, which is nearly sure gamble good. Late game it’s probably not as good. Trading a breaker and a run for 7 creds is also fine. Sometimes there are unprotected campaigns.
I think the good vs HB/pretty crap vs NBN FA poster child is Crescentus. I can’t quite figure out what to do about that.
Sam Burdock pays influence for Gingerbread in Haley. This makes no sense, except when you think about it. Maybe? But probably not.
Most of the time it’s quite good because you can simply plop it down and make them rez ICE you can click through or spend a Shiv on. It just has games in which it cannot be played which makes it kind of bad IMHO.
You are right on Crescentus, though. It’s a neat card but I don’t run it and being bad against NBN is part of the reason.
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Maybe CBI?
How terrible an idea is Rebirth Andy-> Geist? It should help accelerate setup but if Rebirth is at the bottom of your deck you’re in trouble.