Otherwise, you can still clone the repository and make use of: git reflog or git fsck to find your last commit and change the HEAD.

I don't understand: when I clone a repo, I get a copy of all the branches/tags and the commits they point to & the trees/blobs from those commits. If the repo is wiped, I get a single master branch with a single commit with a single tree and a single blob, and no reflog because that is local to the repo, and I (as a fresh cloner) haven't updated any refs.

Perhaps they are thinking about a mirror clone? That still won't include the reflog, but you can at least find dangling commits and guess which one was master.