RvdH's GermanToast Argus (5th @ German nationals) (MWL2.2)

Based on Wet Toastie's "EuroToast", this is another toaster deck from the Enschede-meta.

I had no real clue what to play after it was announced that the MWL 2.2 would be in effect for this tournament. I was planning on bringing Potatoes before, but now that was off. So I took this decklist and made it into something workable, although it's definitely not perfect.

The deck went 4-1 in swiss and 1-2 in the top cut. Once you know the list it's way easier to play against it, although I know from experience it's still scary as hell. Together with my Engolo-Laamb MaxX deck it got me 5th place in swiss as well as 5th place overall.

The tournament was well organized and everything went like a breeze. I met some really great people again over the weekend and I had a lot of fun in King of Servers, swiss and top cut. I felt really welcome!

Swiss:

Unfortunately, I can't remember exactly how I won the first two games. In at least one of those rounds I killed by making a runner hit a Snare! with Dedicated Response Teams on the board. Might have been both games.

• Round 1 against Alexander K. on Valencia: kill
• Round 2 against Jan P. on Hayley: kill.
• Round 3 against Volker E. on Pirate-Geist: I install-advance-advance a Global Food Initiative while I'm on 6 points with two False Leads scored. Forfeited both False Leads to score the Food for 7 points. Luckily that one Peddler did not have The Source on it.
• Round 4 against Yannick S. on Hayley: loss. He played the matchup really well and at a certain point in time I felt he had the game under control. Nothing I could do.
• Round 5 against Marcellus on tag-me Liza. My opening hand was pretty much the nuts: Economic Warfare, Hard-Hitting News, High-Profile Target, and two random agendas. I man-draw a second Economic Warfare and the game is pretty much played. I put an Atlas in the remote and take two credits, he Dirty Laundrys it and actually doesn't go tag me. I Hard-Hitting News him into the ground and kill him next turn.
• Round 6: ID
• Round 7: ID

Cut:

• Round 1 against Bantwins on Val: loss. He kept his money up and he ran on the right clicks. I had trouble getting my money up. The 3 Deuces Wild he played really helped him. It is a fantastic counter to this deck, since you can clear a tag on the same click you run. He found the last points in Archives.
• Round 4 against Dome on Hayley: kill. I found two False Leads really early which helped, but my money was down. I clicked up for some credits. He ran a Snare! on click 1 (with a 5th click from Beth). A Dedicated Response Team cleared his hand. Forfeiting the False Leads and Consulting Visit into High-Profile Target for the kill. The game can be found on stream from Trace 5.
• Round 5 against Bantwins on Val: loss (again). He kept his money up again. I score one False Lead, but money problems made this game go nowhere for me. He Rebirths into Edward Kim which makes a late game open HQ with a handful of operations not really great, to say the least. I had no chance in this one.

Things I would change:

In general, money is the real issue here. It's quite hard to get your money up high enough.

• Too Big to Fail is fine, but not great. I think one or two are fine, but for sure I would switch one for a Hedge Fund. Once you're up in money, it is a very awkward card. Switching one for a Stock Buy-Back could also be great.
• I considered SSL Endorsement and Standoff, but I feared a lot of Valencias would have Turntable, so I went with only 1 and 2-pointers.
• Last minute I switched an Illicit Sales for a second Chronos Project, because I expected a lot of MaxX. There was a lot of MaxX, but I didn't play any. Often enough I was too low on credits to force a HHN threat. Too bad Profiteering is no longer legal. I think a Gila Hands might also work here, since often enough you're just clicking for credits, but that just might be too slow. I never scored a Chronos, although often enough I had one on the board for ages. You actually don't want to score it, because you want to hit enough of their stuff and that not-scoring is just bad.
• I never used the Casting Call. I see its use, but I just never did use it. Early game with a False Lead scored it can be great if you can overadvance an Atlas, but late game when the runner acquired enough points it's not great. Maybe another Snare! would be better.