Man. Armand "Geist" Walker: Tech Lord—what a complete box of tools. Seriously, just lookit his, what is that, a see-through shirt? C'mon! Total brohabitation.

BUT...

That ability is cool. He may look like the fifth Fall Out Boy, but like most overly-coiffed hipster douchebags, there's one thing he does that's cool. Most of the time it's home charcuterie or neckbeard-cozy knitting or something. With Geist, it's drawing a card when he uses a ability.

Oh, and he has 1, which is like that guy Duane—the one who always wears spats and works at the coffee roasting place that only uses locally-sourced stirrers—having, like, a vinyl copy of Guided by Voices Bee Thousand in mint condition: pretty cool, if you're into that kind of thing.

Which we here at Tech Talk Ranch most certainly are. Both of those things, actually. Mmmmm, "Gold Star for Robot Boy"...

Anyway, the R&D Dept. here at Tech Talk Ranch have been twiddling and tweaking and twerking with what they affectionately call "Old Drippy," a combination of Data Folding and Underworld Contact that, when up and running, moistens you with 6 every turn. Every. Turn. "Old Drippy" is a little spendy, though, costing 15 credits and six clicks, and that's not counting the 1-2 cards you'll have to play to turn on Underworld Contact and any extra MU cards you need in order to have a rig that doesn't shut off Data Folding. AND you want to get the whole package up early so it has time to generate you enough cashy-money to make the whole thing worth it.

We've tried it in Shaper (and it works: go look at Congress for the perfect version created by Daine, although workable versions exist for both Nasir and poor less Hayley.) We've tried it in Anarch (Reina and Eddy as well as a "hard mode" version with Quetzal). But what about in Criminal?

We'd want a native and some sort of draw-acceleration in order to get everything together... faster...

$#!t. We're going to have to invite "The Tech Lord" to this party, aren't we? He ALWAYS makes us call him that the whole time: "Hey, Tech Lord, can you hand me a crab rangoon from the snack table?" "Yes, Tech Lord, I'd love to hear about your one-man EDM-meets-folk band, The Prettiest Girl in School." "Hey, Tech Lord, you gonna be in there long, I need to pee!" How can you respect a man with TWO NICKNAMES?!? Is it "Geist" or is it "Tech Lord"? Get it together, man!

(We could go with Andy, what with her 1 and impressive starting hand, BUT, well, yawn. Feel free to put together that version of the deck and let us know how it goes.)

Building around "Old Drippy" in Criminal gives us Influence-less access to a couple very strong tools: Career Fair, to pay less for a few of our key pieces, and Forger, to get our turned on. Since we're going to have AT LEAST 2, we may as well look at Cloud 'breakers in order to lessen our need for additional MU to keep Data Folding turned on, and that means Crowbar, Shiv, and Spike. Those 'breakers work well with Geist's ability and they allow us to break ICE cheaply, which is good while we get "Old Drippy" set up.

Geist will then wander over to The Professor's Personal Workshop and pick up a couple-two-three Clone Chips in order to both reuse the Jailbreakers AND to trigger Geist's ability some more. While we're there, let's ask for a copy of ZU.13 Key Master, another Cloud 'breaker that gives us a little more reliability. We'll make sure while he's there to have Geist give his card to the Film Critic with whom old Four-Eyes is trying to hook up—she might come in handy some time and, in the future, arty, intellectual ladies love a see-thru shirt.

On the way back from The Prof's, Geist can drop by Noise's Off-Campus Apartment to borrow a set of keys and ask for a Corroder because, well, why not? It'll give us additional late game juice and it's what all the cool kids are using to break Barriers—all those "Lady"-losers are big time poseurs.

Back in his Criminal den, Geist will, of course, want a Femme Fatale (because digital ladies dig a see-through shirt even more than arty intellectuals) and a couple of Crescentus (for derezzing all those Archers and Enforcer 1.0s that are running around). Skeezy dude that he is, he'll also put a call into his Drug Dealer (what's a single when "Old Drippy" is giving you six a turn?), his drivers (bye-bye Batty, Caprice, Ash, and anything else bothering him) and his closest pals. He'll also try to booty-call Kati Jones but that lady, she's not into see-thru shirts, although she is into helping bring down the megacorps, so maybe she'll answer.

He'll round out his entourage with two Dyson Mem Chips, to help make sure "Old Drippy" is active ASAP, and meta choices e3 Feedback Implants, for Shiv-ing through Archers and Enforcers and still being able to Crescentus them, and Feedback Filter, for helping in the Jinteki matchup. He could easily put two other hipster dudes in see-thru shirts in those places, instead, which would help with the upcoming tagstorm meta AND like to crash out at Noise's place.

And there you have it, the Criminal version of "Old Drippy." Aggressive early game with tons of late-game staying power (you'll often be at 15+ credits with Kati Jones sitting at 12+). The Jailbreakers let you get in a couple times for cheap, your permanent rig allows for runs when you have the money. You don't have any multi-access threats BUT that hasn't really been an issue in testing thus far—you get to a board state fairly quickly where, like a Shaper, nothing is safe, you can go wherever you want whenever you want.

Go, play, return, and report. We here at the old Tech Talk Ranch will keep plugging away at it, too. Let's polish this guy up and make him, well... not as annoying. That shirt though, man. Gah.