Seamusmodernism

Card draw simulator
Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Repartition by Cost
Repartition by Strength
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Seamusmodernism V.2
Include in your page (help)

Seamus 4812

This is the Argus list I've been using for some time.

It's nothing particularly innovative but a couple of people have expressed interest in it so here it is. It has won the last three GNKs that I've attended, going either 12-1 or 11-2 depending on how good my memory is*.

Whilst similar to a couple of high profile tournament winning Argus lists, those that I've seen have a lower ICE density which causes we to question just how rushy they play. This deck, at least the way I play it, tends to win very quickly or doesn't win at all.

It's essentially just an updated version of Supermodernism which has been made possible by the release of Oaktown Renovation.

I've been playing a lot of rush decks lately as a response to the relative strength of runners in the current meta. The window for the corp to dictate the pace of the game is incredibly narrow these days and scoring an agenda turn 2 (Oaktown behind an ETR turn one if you're feeling particularly brave) is a really strong way of doing this.

Snares and the ID ability allow light or no defence of centrals while firing out agenda as quickly as possible.

Whether victory comes from flatline or points depends on how reckless your opponent decides to be in trying to prevent you scoring.

It has a pretty good match-up against most decks with Keyhole decks and Noise with Faust being the exception (if they get set up quickly enough to consistently challenge your remote every turn).

There's plenty of room for meta-choice slots without changing the fundamental structure of the deck:

Crisium Grid: If you're not seeing a lot of Eater/Keyhole these can be replaced with additional ICE/Econ or meta calls like Executive Bootcamp to deal with Valencia if she's big where you are.

Casting Call: If everyone is running multiple Film Critics then this can be happily swapped for a second SEA Source. I really like this card though. In two games in the last tournament I found myself in a tricky position, having to defend HQ (either under Siphon threat or massive flooding and no ICE for the remote) and took the risk of dropping an unprotected Oaktown with Casting Call. On both occasions my opponents assumed that I had the kill ready if they took and cleared the tags and allowed me the score.

Another favourite play is using this to double advance a Posted Bounty in a remote with Casting Call and the SEA/Scorch kill in hand or available via Atlas tokens. Before you ask, no, I don't have a lot of friends left.

Let me know what you think!

*Having discussed it with my meta I think it was a single loss across the three days. To Nasir. Well done, Dave.

10 comments
18 Sep 2015 Phoenix

Have you considered -1 Lotus Field, +1 Swordsman or Wraparound to help with the Faust problem if you see it? If they Faust through the Wraparound, more win for you anyways.

19 Sep 2015 Seamus

Swordsman suffers from the problem that either it's mid-late game by the time you find it and the anarch (let's pretend it might not be Noise) will already have recursion in place to get their breaker back or you draw it early in which case they run through it, losing Faust (temporarily), and still take the agenda.

You're then left with a scoring remote they can walk into by taking a single net damage.

Obviously the above is an over simplification and there are plenty of situations where a Swordsman over an ETR would be a beautiful scoring remote but without spending precious influence on multiple copies (never mind the ICE slots you need to be relatively cheap ETR) I don't think that's a situation you can rely on.

Certainly if your meta is beset by AI breakers swapping in a Wraparound would be a fine choice.

I'd definitely favour Wraparound since, even in the games where its special rule is irrelevant, it is still a cheap ETR you can quickly score behind. Swordsman is an irrelevance in too many match-ups for a deck like this which aims to force the runner to react rather than aiming to react to the runner.

You are right to identify the Lotus Field as a relatively weak include though. It's a holdover from the days (glory days) before Faust when the deck actually included two of them. It has retained its place for the reason that you can start scoring an Oaktown behind it turn one, rez it and then continue to score the Oaktown on your second turn whilst also remaining relatively taxing in the mid-game for a lot of standard decoders.

In the last tournament in which I used this deck I forced an anarch opponent to install their Net Ready Eyes to get through it in order to hit the Shattered Remains behind it. I trashed their eyes. It was lovely.

19 Sep 2015 dogstew

Thank you for posting this!

20 Sep 2015 Seamus

Hey dogstew - If you get a chance to play it let me know how you get on with it.

I had a look at your decks after our game and ended up putting together a version of your Gang Sign Edward Kim deck and have been having a fair amount of fun with it. Cheers!

20 Sep 2015 dogstew

@Seamus Definitely will do. Going to try it out soon.

Glad you liked the Kim deck! It's a fun one.

20 Sep 2015 SlayerCNV

2 power shutdown over 2 beanstalk? The thing I ve seem playing a real similar deck is that I can't play against shaper...

21 Sep 2015 Seamus

I haven't found Shaper to be a particularly tough match-up for the deck (beyond the standard truism that Shapers are very strong right now and that runners are generally slightly more powerful than corps in the current meta). Spamming ICE types onto the remote in an effort to out-pace them in their rig set-up has been pretty effective for me.

If excessive SMCs are causing you problems then Power Shutdown would be an excellent include (maybe even in the place of the Crisium Grids if SMCs are causing more of a problem than Eater/Keyhole). It's also nice for dealing with Faeries and Net Ready Eyes in Criminal and Anarch builds, of course.

However, if you're intending to switch out economy I'd recommend dropping the Restructures rather than the Beanstalks. Beanstalks does feel weak a lot of the time but for bouncing back from low credits it's amazing. If you're on the ten credits required for a Restructure it's often the case that you're in a position to start pushing out another Oaktown or Fracking.

23 Sep 2015 Vhalantru

Corporate town, professional killer, or snatch and grab as a film critic solution? Or are they just not being that big of an issue with the click tax?

24 Sep 2015 hi_impact

Atman 4 is so juicy against this deck. One of the most frustrating things for a Supermodernism style is when they play a universal breaker. Have you considered Patch, akin to the Rangus Security build a month back? It works wonders on Changeling (eating d4v1d tokens for Archer) or Archer itself, and you have 3x of each.

9 Oct 2015 Seamus

Vhalantru - While Film Critic is a bit annoying the click tax (plus the clicks the runner spends drawing and installing it) is still enough that the ID ability is relevant. I definitely don't think playing against Film Critic is worth sacrificing the speed this deck needs to play to. On the specific subject of Corporate Town, I love the card but it really hurts to rez an Archer (since the deck really is a race) and when it was in the deck I almost always either refused to rez it or regretted doing so. I'm actually considering dropping the number of Archers because giving up points is so antithetical to the game plan.

hi_impact - I hadn't considered Patch. We've been playing a bit less Shaper here recently so it hasn't been an issue but if it became one I don't think the deck would suffer from swapping Lotus Field for Wraparound to mix up ICE strength or swap a Crisium for Patch. These are definitely flex-slot options that one should use to respond to one's meta.