Checkmate Argus

moondark89 196

This deck is a nasty piece of work. The consequences of the Runner stealing an Agenda will ramp up crazy fast with this deck, until eventually, they will be totally locked out of everything.

Getting a Broadcast Square up and running ASAP is of high priority. Executive Boot Camp can also be used to tutor one of these up. Very few Runners will be looking to blow 5 credits on trashing a early, janky Broadcast Square right?

From then, the steam roller begins. Recklessly score out Hostile Takeover whenever they come along, and consider adding 1-2 credits on the resulting Broadcast Square trace if the Runner is looking wealthy. Will the Runner want to spend 4 credits to give you a single Bad Publicity, while you make 6 credits and an Agenda point? Most likely not.

If you can sneak out an early Profiteering or Geothermal Fracking behind an Ice Wall, your looking at a 15-21 credit boost, while still being able to dodge the Bad Publicity.

The Runner will eventually get sick of your Broadcast Square allowing you use these powerful cards without the drawback effects. They will likely trash one. Thats not a problem, you have 3 Broadcast Squares, 3 Executive Boot Camp to tutor them up and 3 Interns to install them from the dead. You will not run out of Broadcast Squares until the Runner has committed over 30 credits to trashing them.

Crisium Grid to protect your HQ from the dreaded Account Siphons. 3 Scorched Earth and always having credits to use them ensures that the Runner will have HEAVY respect for Tags in this game. If ever they steal an Agenda and take a Tag (potentially face planting an Enigma so they lose their click to clear it), make them remember why Scorched Earth is feared ;) This can even be combo'ed with a Vulcan Coverup or a scored The Cleaners for a staggering 10 meat damage.

While you have your Broadcast Square up and running, feel free to rez some Grims and Checkpoints, just keep an eye on what your credit pool will be AFTER you rez them, to make sure the Runner cant stick you with a cheap Bad Publicity because you ran out of credits. However, Economy is seriously not an issue with this deck.

You will want to work towards having a The Cleaners scored if possible, and all 3 Dedicated Response Teams rezzed, 2 of them protected by Data Ravens. The 3rd Data Raven will become your scoring server after this point.

At this point, there is very little the Runner can do. Running through a Data Raven with 3 Dedicated Response Teams rezzed is practically suicide (especially so if The Cleaners is scored). If you have managed to score a The Cleaners and the Runner steals an Agenda, they are faced with taking 3 meat damage or a Tag, which will likely mean a meat damage storm. You may be able to snipe them with a Vulcan Coverup after the 3 meat damage from Argus Security: Protection Guaranteed to secure the win.

Continue to hammer out Agendas behind the Data Raven scoring server, victory will come swiftly at this point.

11 comments
21 Oct 2015 rothri

Profiteering does not work unless you take the bad pub unfortunately

21 Oct 2015 Chuftbot

OK, this is really clever. The Profiteering combo in particular is genius, and the constant tax is disgusting. Couple questions though:

  • How's your econ? You really rely on agendas. How do you combat an early Account Siphon?

  • Have you been able to reliably stick tags without SEA Source or other proactive tag methods?

21 Oct 2015 moondark89

@rothri Wow, after reading that closely, you may be correct. I will have to think of an alternative.

@Chuftbot Maybe it was not clever enough according to @rothri, he may have a point, the wording is quite specific on Profiteering. But yeah, the Runner typically gives up on the Bad Pub after the first few tries and you get all these powerful cards without the downside :P I really just wanted to try and build a deck around Broadcast Square.

In my early play-testing, the econ seems okay until you get the Geothermal Fracking Hostile Takeover ball rolling, at which point it becomes crazy. Crisium Grid helps against Account Siphon, and I always throw an ICE or 2 on HQ (a Checkpoint on HQ can do huge work for 4 credits).

Tags do not typically stick much on a Runner who thinks carefully before he acts. Typically, a Data Raven tag means death later in the game. This deck doesn't aim to win with the flatline, it just stops them from being able to survive being tagged at the end of a run, which your Data Raven server causes. Even if it gets trashed, you can Interns the Data Ravens back.

21 Oct 2015 moondark89

I think @rothri was correct. Instead, swap out the 23 Profiteering for 3 Posted Bounty for the staple Posted Bounty Scorched Earth combo as another victory path.

21 Oct 2015 lolpaca

Yeah, Lukas made a ruling (https://twitter.com/RukasuFox/status/449599541566648321) on Broadcast Square/Profiteering, you don't get the credits if you avoid the bad pub. I remember trying it myself back in the day :)

Geothermal Fracking still works very well though, and yeah Posted Bounty sounds like a good replacement.

21 Oct 2015 SneakdoorMelb

Since the Broadcast Square combo doesn't work, would you drop in Midseasons/SEA Source to actively tag the runner? Also, why Grim over Archer?

21 Oct 2015 Alakallanar

Without the Profiteerings your only eco is Hostile Takeover, Geothermal Fracking, Hedge Funds and a single Shell Coporation. That's a bit low, especially since scoring an early Geothermal Fracking is often not possible.

21 Oct 2015 Chuftbot

@moondark89 That's a shame! Still an interesting concept for other single sources of bad pub though.

21 Oct 2015 Bigguyforyou518

@Alakallanar That's not quite true. Executive Boot Camp is quasi drip econ, especially when you consider that all of his ice and installable cards are fairly cheap as-is. 3x Interns can effectively be 2nd, 3rd, and 4th copies of Shell Corporation, which should already be fairly safe behind a Data Raven server (although admittedly with only a single Shell Corporation and no way to tutor it, this is far from a reliable strategy).

My own concern is actually that there's too much econ, or more specifically, the entire deck concept seems to center around utilizing the giant econ-agendas while avoiding the drawbacks, which is very cool, but...what's your endgame for making all this money? You don't have a single card that leverages that economic advantage (SEA Source, Midseason Replacements, Punitive Counterstrike, Ash 2X3ZB9CY, Caprice Nisei, Corporate Troubleshooter), or a large or expensive ICE suite.

I think it's very cool that you wrangled together a deck around Broadcast Square, but consider that the reason it hasn't been done yet is because bad publicity is kind of a joke for the decks that run with it. Aside from a few pieces of interesting ice, taking bad pub is generally meant to be an economic trade off (huge temporary boost for the corp, minor long-term advantage for the runner). Unless you're going to make a bad pub glacier, most of the things Weyland uses all that money for are not at all hindered by giving the runner those free run credits.

Even with the deck you have here, if you just gave the runner those bad pub credits...what exactly could he do with it? Trash your Broadcast Square more cheaply? It doesn't help him clear his tags from Data Raven, nor does it mitigate either of the consequences of stealing an Argus agenda.

TLDR: Neat synergy, but you should probably just not stress about bad pub, and play Snare! instead.

21 Oct 2015 moondark89

@SneakdoorMelb which combo not working? The Profiteering combo? I think that swapping Profiteering for Posted Bounty gives you a nice tagging option. However, you and @Bigguyforyou518 make a good point regarding the need to leverage the econ in this deck into a SEA Source or Midseason Replacements. Originally, Grim was chosen as a moderately nasty face-checking ice that still works as a moderate tax. However, after looking at the Agenda spread and how there are plenty of 1 pointer targets for Archer, you have swayed me to swap Archer in for some testing.

@Bigguyforyou518 Thanks for taking the time to give such solid feedback! I think you have an excellent point regarding not having enough options to leverage the Econ into something. The only problems are, what do I cut to get some SEA Sources in there? The 3 Data Raven are very key to locking down the game state, and dropping 1 Broadcast Square only allows you to slot 1 SEA Source. I guess the logic behind the dodging the Bad Pub was, most of the ICE is already cheap and not hugely taxing, giving Bad Pub greatly lessens the tax each run. However, you make a good point about the runner not being able to utilize the Bad Pub very effectively. Thanks for the feedback, you have given me a few things to think about.

22 Oct 2015 Dydra