Guardian of Io - 2nd in Cambridge UK store champs

This deck went 4-1 in swiss, losing narrowly to Pitchfork Hayley, and was defeated in the final of the top 8 by Minh Tran piloting siphon/eater/keyhole Maxx, coming 2nd out of 32.

Victories in swiss were against Kit, 2x Pitchfork Hayley and Ken Tenma running Faust. Victories after the cut were 2 flatlines against Dumblefork. My runner deck for the day was yet another Pitchfork Hayley and suffered defeats against the same opponents as Argus did.

Also came 1st out of 14 in a Crim Vs Weyland game night kit tournament with -1 caduceus, +1 Guard. Four rounds of swiss, against a field that was moderate/heavily teched against kill. Four wins, all flatlines.

Why Argus? Because it kills Faust. Hard. It also has a very good matchup against criminals with their lack of recursion for cards discarded by meat damage. Against shaper it's a bit more variable but is potentially fast enough to win before they can get too set up.

Card choices:

Agendas- Project Atlas: score with a counter unless it's your last agenda, score with 2 counters whenever possible to force your opponent to make horrible decisions. You need one scored as soon as possible to ensure the flatline threat, otherwise your opponent can take risks while you don't have the kill in hand. Apart from pulling SEA and scorch into hand can be used to add snares against legwork, beanstalk/hedge fund to give you money for the kill on clicks 2 and 3 if they float tags, and pulling the last agenda you need to score out.

Posted Bounty: sometimes the runner is too rich to SEA source, is playing carefully to not float tags or is just digging for plascrete without running. This lets you land a tag when the runner thinks they're safe, or forces them into running, and lets you tag them anyway. Also potential archer fuel Other agendas: money, money and archer fuel from hostile takeover.

Assets- Lizzie Mills: kills wyldside, aesops and artist colony. Is bad pub neutral if you’ve already scored a hostile takeover.

GRNDL refinery: makes money and baits runs to help tax cards, money and d4 counters. If they run and trash it it probably puts them behind in some way and can open scoring or kill windows. If they don’t run it you get a big cash injection, making your ICE scarier and them easier to kill.

Jackson Howard: is Jackson Howard. Puts snares back into RnD where they belong.

Snare!: ruins lives, forces runners to slow down or die trying to race you.

Operations: Hedge, Beanstalk and Subliminal: money and Subliminal encourages runners to make runs when they shouldn’t, turning on SEA source or making them waste resources on low value runs.

Power Shutdown: kills SMC, Faerie and other low cost programs. Can also be used to get rid of Plascrete if they’re running with only it installed.

SEA Source: because midseasons gets shut off by film critic. 1 of as you have other sources of tagging and is rendered useless if the runner goes tag me.

ICE- Changeling: acts as a double duty gear check or forces an expensive Atman out of shaper. 1 of because of cost and Atman getting through for cheap once it’s out.

Meru Mati: cheap as either a gear check or a strong 1st/2nd ICE on HQ.

Spiderweb: one of the best ICE in the deck, taxes faust for 3 cards or lady for 2 counters. Dies to parasite and datasucker but is a bit better post MWL with the slight clone chip reduction.

Enigma: 3 credits to tax faust for 2 cards

Archer: still good, even with all the d4 around as it takes a full one to break and lets you have money back to boot.

Assassin: a third archer tends to be a dead card and you don’t always get an early hostile to fuel it. Assassin fills the slot nicely and the high base trace strengths aren’t hurt too badly by bad pub from the hostiles.

Caduceus: something of a flex ice slot, useful as you can leverage your econ advantage to keep the runner out if you really need to or force a sentry breaker other than d4. Taxes faust for 3 cards as well, which is nice.

Data Raven: the best end the run ice in the game. When combined with your ID ability and snares they can make runners spend several clicks clearing tags if they want to get in or force them to take the meat damage option on steal. Either way it leaves runners more vulnerable to flatline.

Mother Goddess: ok if drawn later, amazing if drawn early. Most useful against shaper as it takes an (often expensive) AI to break but can work against criminals as well if they don’t have inside job ready. Works in Argus as your centrals are scary, letting you get away with not rezzing central ICE for a turn or two in exchange for an atlas or oaktown.

How to play: Mulligan for money first, a hand with money but no ice is fine if you’re not expecting siphon and can even be ok against siphon as the runner will be scared of floating tags.

Rush out agendas as soon as possible, 2 pointers and hostile takeovers preferred. If you’re rich and don’t have other agendas in hand then scoring bounties for points is ok. In most games you’re not trying to kill the runner, you’re trying to score out fast enough to win on points or force them in to a position where they give you the kill for free. If you’re not flooded with agendas at the start and don’t have to worry about siphon or keyhole you can start setting up a scoring remote and making money without icing centrals first. If you can make a two ice remote, great! If not, start scoring or advancing a GRNDL refinery behind one ice. If they get in through inside job, Faust, SMC, or any other means they’ve still had to spend clicks, credits and cards to do it, possibly taking their entire turn if they take a tag on steal and have to clear it. The potential cost and risk of being flatlined will often keep runners from contesting early advanced cards, letting you make money or get atlas counters.

If you’re drawing more ice and don’t feel like you need to add any more to the remote, start throwing some on centrals depending on where pressure is heaviest. Ice placement depends on the matchup. Spiderweb is your main method of taxing faust, supplemented by data raven and enigma. Forcing faust runners to drop below four cards to get in to your remote turns off I’ve had worse. Data raven and spiderweb also work very well against shaper, forcing atman to avoid putting a counter on the raven and taxing out lady counters respectively. Your 2nd most iced server will often be RnD. Early RnD multi-access often hurts the runner more than you, but the closer they are to winning the worse for you it becomes as they don’t have to worry about the consequences of a steal, only snares.

Jackson aggressively for agendas and kill pieces, you usually install him in your scoring remote to get multiple turns of draw out of him and shouldn’t be afraid to use him to shuffle back snares and econ when you need to make space in your scoring remote. One trick you can pull is to toss a couple of 1 pointers into archives when you’re in a good position to kill the runner and Jackson depending on how late in the turn they run archives. Early enough for them to draw up and clear tags? Jackson the agendas back in. 3rd or 4th click? Force them into a tough decision, preferably with no right choice.

There’s (almost) no such thing as an unkillable runner. If they keep a 5 card hand and install plascrete or keep 1-2 I’ve had worse in hand you can still kill them by getting a triple advanced posted bounty at the start of your turn then triple scorching them. 5 cards+1IHW+plascrete can’t be triple scorched but 4 cards or less can. 2 IHW+plascrete+5 cards won’t die unless you get lucky with snares or agenda meat damage. The more agendas you score the easier the kill is. Oaktown and hostile make you rich enough to SEA source, Overscored atlas fetches kill pieces or snares if you get HQ multiaccessed. Once you get to 5 points you can install a card in your remote and make the runner guess if it’s a snare or an atlas. If they guess right, install another card next turn and make them do it again.

TL;DR: Make money, score agendas fast to make runner go fast. Kill runner if they go too fast. Score out if runner goes too slow.