Argus Supermodernism, 5-2, 3rd Pittsburgh Regional, 1st Seed

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Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Argus Supermodernism (6th Place Birmingham UK Regional 1)
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schrader 350

Argus deck I piloted alongside Noise (6-1) in Pittsburgh Regional. 4-1 in swiss, netting me 1st seed in top cut, and 1-1 in top cut to get me 3rd place out of 35. 3 flatline wins, 2 agenda point wins. Decklist based off of TWA Argus, and their summary is pretty succinct.

Rush out money agendas early behind cheap ice; an early Profiteering does wonders (always take 15 credits) and turns on the SeaScorch threat. Paper Wall, Ice Wall, and Quandry prevent early free accesses and let you rush out early agendas. Data Ravens and Archers go on remote and R&D, though Data Raven can go on HQ vs Criminal if you've got nothing else. Two Posted Bounty give more kill options and can net you the kill if the runner is too rich to Sea Source and net you a kill through Plascrete if you're able to triple-advance it. Salem's Hospitality is mainly for taking out I've Had Worse against Anarchs; if you Salem's two IHE and leave the Runner at 3 cards, you can Sea Source Scorch Earth to kill. Against Criminals, Siphon is always a good card to name. Against Shaper, Indexing is probably the best choice. No Corporate Town because you're stacking bad pub so it's hard to keep around, and as a one-of it's too inconsistent. The deck is pretty strong against Whizzard because they use Faust and D4v1d to break ice and Whizzard credits to trash assets, so the bad pub doesn't really matter, and Data Raven and Archer are pretty good against that breaker suite.

Quick Regional recap:

Game 1: DLR Leela - Win. Trashed Mongoose from either Snare or Argus ability, so I Archer'd HQ to prevent him from getting tags from Siphon. He eventually Siphoned, used Faust to trash down to zero cards to break Archer, and I rezzed DRT so he had to access. He hit an agenda, which flatlined him.

Game 2: Whizzard - Loss. The only economy cards I saw the entire game were two Beanstalks and one Hostile, so I didn't have any money to really do anything. Not much else to say; just got unlucky. I did Salem's a Wyldside on turn 1 though, slowing him down.

Game 3: Stealth Jesminder - Win. Jes is a rough matchup because her ability cancels out yours and lets her basically ignore Data Ravens, but he couldn't get a Killer out early enough to stop me from scoring out.

Game 4: Noise - Win. Got money early from hedge and agendas. Noise was being Noise. When his stack was almost gone, I install-advance-advance'd a Posted Bounty. A turn or two later he Levy'd, and on my turn I advance-scored it for a tag and double Scorched for the kill.

Game 5: Whizzard - Win. Scored an early Profiteering, worked my way up to 5 agenda points with a money lead. Next turn he ran a Snare and ended the turn with 4 cards in hand. There were already two IHW in the trash, so I SeaScorched him for the win.

(Noise Win Winner's Quarters)

Winner's Semis: Whizzard (from Game 2) - Win. Got an early Profiteering, and got up to 5 agenda points behind a Data Raven and a Quandry. Power drew with Jackson to find two Hostiles and scored them from hand for the win.

(Noise Loss Winner's Finals)

Loser's Finals: Whizzard - Loss. Had an early credit lead and judged that he had IHE's in hand from how he was running. Eventually got Salem's Hospitality, 2x Scorch, and Sea Source in hand, and took a risk by ditching two Atlas into Archives. Whizzard shortly closed the money gap with Career Fair and Liberateds. I wasn't able to get far enough ahead on money, and he played Employee Strike and ran Archives for the Atlases, getting him to 6 Agenda points and avoiding the tags. Eventually I drew Posted Bounty and install-advance-advanced it behind an Ice Wall for a desperation win, and Whizzard ran it and won, placing me in 3rd. I took a risk and it didn't pay off.

10 comments
9 May 2016 Deadboy13

I had the pleasure of playing you on saturday. I was the jess player. Its a great deck and a ton of fun to play against.

9 May 2016 lolpaca

Argus decks seem to be really growing in agenda count :) What do you do vs Film Critic?

I don't really understand DRT here - surely with all the bad pub you'll be floating they're just way too easy to trash?

9 May 2016 Chuftbot

@lolpaca I won't speak for @And_Man, but in my experience Argus doesn't really lean on its ability for the kill. It's just a tax, and Film Critic eating a bunch of clicks taxes the runner plenty. Plus SEA Source doesn't care.

9 May 2016 dormio

My hero <3

9 May 2016 schrader

@lolpaca Like @Chuftbot said, Film Critic isn't too bad. It makes multiaccess runs a little bit safer, but otherwise it causes the runner to spend two clicks instead of one click and two credits to remove a tag.

As for DRT, I played this deck with Whizzard in mind (who over half of my games were against), who already trashes DRT for free. You usually only rez DRT to get a kill off of a Data Raven or Snare access or to prevent/punish Account Siphon and Vamp. You can install multiple naked remotes with a mix of Snares, DRTs, and agendas, so they'll be dangerous to run; if the runner hits a Snare instead of a DRT, then they take 5, 7, or 9 damage depending on how many DRTs you have installed. Also, always be sure to ask if the runner is accessing before you rez DRTs.

11 May 2016 OuterCrow

Bailiff for Ice/Paper Wall? Or do you feel like it is more important to get that ETR sub at the lowest possible initial cost? Also, Corporate Sales Team over Geothermal Fracking? (mentioned in TWA thread). Less bursty, but also less click intensive and no bad publicity. Guessing burst economy might be key here...

16 May 2016 WhackedMaki

@OuterCrowBaliff is 0 str which makes it instantly die to Parasite. Paper Wall and Ice Wall are both str 1 which makes them survive a turn. This is very important when rushing out agendas on turn 1 and 2, which is why for me Vanilla will not replace Paper Wall. As for Fracking vs CST, the bad pub is irrelevant. Fracking makes more money and makes it faster. The money to track down your house and blow it up now is infinately more valuable than having it 10 turns from now. You will also eat Turntable a lot with this deck, so getting a full CST will be extremely rare. At the end of the day what's the difference between 6 and 8 bad pub either way? I've won a game on 11 bad pub with this deck before, it's completely irrelevant in a meta with a lot of Faust, Stealth and B&E reliant decks.

@lolpacaWhen I play this deck it is almost always DRT that gets into the protected remote past turn 3. Agendas go naked, people are afraid to check the remotes. Keeping DRT alive behind something like Data Raven + Archer makes their lives very difficult though.

16 May 2016 WhackedMaki

How did you find the loss of Corp Town for Salem's? I've removed a Beanstalk from mine for it because Corp Town can often do a lot of heavy lifting on its own. Beanstalk is good for catching criminals unaware after they Siphon you to 0 and float tags (Turn 1 Siphon SOT Siphon after my Hostile opener), but I often find myself discarding econ cards as they fill up my hand while I'm scoring agendas I set out a while ago.

18 May 2016 schrader

@OuterCrowlike @WhackedMaki said, insta-dying to Parasite hurts a lot, especially in a Whizzard/Anarch heavy meta. The 2 credit cost is a pain too, since you want to establish an early lead.

@WhackedMakiI'm not missing Corp Town too much. I think I will try cutting a Beanstalk for it though, on the off chance I'm able to get it out early.

18 May 2016 schrader

I just usually don't find that it's worth it to rez if I can't get it out early, since once the runner is set up, it's hard making it stick more than one turn. And in most situations, I don't find one resource trash to be worth one agenda point.