Nihil Novi Argus (14th @ Domecon 2019)

This deck granted me the 14th/35 spot at Domecon. It started as an Argus with Casting Call & City Works Project combo but soon it turned out people will steal that and won’t bother. It didn’t produce the wanted snowball effect with tags & meat damage. So after a discussion with my mentor Smieszny I added more Argus-y and more boring cards. It became faster and more efficient but lost most of its (jank) spirit.

The plan is to either win on points very quickly or punish the runner with tag&bag. Nothing new – well, it’s in the deck’s name.

Card choices: Armed Intimidation – love this card and like it more than Broad Daylight; might be individual preference, but the choice of 5 meat vs 2 tags is often just 2 tags or kill.

Boom! & HPT – one is for punishing 2 tags, one for 3 tags and more; 2 Consulting Visits are for getting the right one.

Archived memories – added for HHN and Boom!.

Only one Archer?! – yeah I guess one Hostile is the maximum I can pay for rezzing and any more copies would be redundant/dead draws – so either it happens to be drawn or you play with other cool cards.

Only one Snare!?! – because of influence spent on Archived Memories; Preemptive Action is for using it again.

Single Audacity – needed only for scoring the last Atlas for the win.

Single Best Defense – honestly just for trashing Misdirection for free.

Tournament report:

round 1: Bl4nk3t's Hayley - loss

I went too slow. In spite of not drawing his restricted card (Aesop’s) for most of the game, Bl4nk3t controlled the situation and sniped just enough agendas.

round 2: Odol's Kabonesa Wu - loss

I set out to go fast but that Comet Wu deck goes at the speed of light. Having stolen 6, Odol closed the game with Notoriety. I mistook it as Encore at first, making this even more weird. I managed to pick up my jaw from the table instead of shuffling it into my deck.

round 3: bye

round 4: rattkin's Hayley - win

The game took forever and I couldn’t score a thing. Rattkin stole a lot and rezzing Archer slowed him down just a little bit. He was just looking for his winning agenda but started accumulating Raven tags in the late game and finally I could go for my second win condition in dealing meat damage.

round 5: Pommes' Smoke - win

I just remember I won and I think it was scoring Agendas. So in this paragraph I tell you that Pommes is a cool guy and his t-shirt made me revisit the album ‘Born Dead’ on my next commute. I also have to tell you that Pommes made an elegant deck with Casting Call + City Works Project and in the team tournament he piloted it to win with Smieszny, which earned my lifelong respect.

round 6: adquen's Valencia - win

It took my opponent some time to find their Paperclip and I took advantage of that by shamelessly scoring 7 behind Border Controls.

Shoutout to Dome_ for organising a fantastic event. My first international tournament couldn’t have been better.