Postmodernism v1.0

umbralAeronaut 804

Pick a Server, any server

Supermodernism is a great gameplan, but I like having an insurace policy for when it peters out before the seventh point. Once your gear-check ICE is obsolete and they've got their economy above the SEA Source waterline, it can feel like game over for Weyland. Postmodernism is here to give you a shot in the arm!

The basis of this deck incarnation is the excellent Seamusmodernism V3, refer there with questions about the basic gameplan. In brief: Mulligan for an agenda that will make back money as/when you score it. Start scoring it turn 1 or 2 behind gearcheck ETR ice. Try to immediately do this one more time if possible, icing up HQ with something irritating or nasty when you have a spare moment (Enigma, Meru Mati, or Cobra are perfect). Always, always try to get a counter on the first Project Atlas you see, preferably as the second agenda you rush following an Oaktown, Profiteering, or Geothermal.

By now the runner likely has programs, resources, credits, and the will to stop what you're doing before it gets out of hand, and this is the point when standard Supermodernism can start to have hiccups. This is when you start playing facedown cards into remote servers, trusting in Snare! and the Argus ID to keep pressure light on your centrals. Data Raven and Checkpoint are there to significantly up the ante on facedown card checks in your scoring remote in the mid-game. Bluff Shattered Remains and Ghost Branch as Geothermal and Snare! as Atlas, with Dedicated Response Teams and your Zealous Judges waiting to ambush a poor decision. Overtax the runner's ability to check remotes with the threat of death until you can sneak a third 2-point agenda through a scoring window, or they kill themselves by biting off too much to chew. Corporate Town can be either vital tech or asset spam fodder that will usually demand the trash money even if you weren't planning on rezing it in the matchup.

SEA Source was cut from the deck because it's just not reliable enough against upper-tier economy runners and Argus really hates having to make the choice between keeping cash on hand to threaten SEA/Scorch vs. rushing out another agenda. That card already does 90% of it's job when you have an Atlas token and it's in your binder anyway. The price of this decision was deck slots spent on Zealous Judge, but fortunately doing that really juices up the potential of Data Raven, Snare, and Ghost Branch. Kills will be entirely incidental to your scoring attempts, which is as it should be with Argus Rush... Some awful combination of damage from DRT, a desperate sprint through your Checkpoint, a naked remote Snare they had to check, the ID ability (because the runner thinks it is the only way to save themselves from ending their turn tagged, before you rez ZJ and make them cry), and usually a singleton Scorched Earth on your turn to clean up.

So far in it's current incarnation it's done well in casual store play and on jinteki.net. Switch-hitting from agenda rush to sudden 3x new remote server install turns right after you hit 5 points is very daunting for a lot of runners, even if it can be tough to get the cards to line up properly for a magical christmas-land Zealous Judge turn.

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