Same Old Argus - 8th at Worlds

This is (almost) the same old Argus list that has been played in the UK seemingly forever. In the run up to Worlds I was unsure what decks to play, and ended up bringing 3 different corps and 4 different runners to practice the day before. After losing several grindy games with NEH against various crim decks and going 2-1 in three quick practice games with Argus, I settled on this list. For my runner I chose Compilation Hayley due to previous practice and comfort with previous versions of the deck, which made me appreciate the potential of Argus to have very quick games even more.

This list has two changes from the 'canonically correct' Argus list most recently published, both decided upon by the (much better than me) deckbuilders and Argus players in the UK testing group:

• -1 Fast Track +1 High-Profile Target

This change was primarily made because of the prevalence of Stargate, meaning losing both your HPTs from R&D was a very possible scenario. Losing Fast Track makes it slightly harder to push an Atlas with a token early in the game, but this was only an issue in 1 of my games, and I did not miss the Fast Track at all on the day.

• -1 Archer +1 Excalibur

Including an Excalibur gives you an additional out against runners without an AI breaker/Pelangi by combining it with Border Control. It also helps against Apocalypse decks if put on a central.

I believe I only rezzed the Excalibur once over the tournament, though together with the third HPT it did win me a game against Freedom as he went tag-me after seeing two HPT in Archives, and Excalibur stopped him from collecting Stargated agendas for the win the turn before I could Consulting Visit for the last HPT.

Overall this deck went 7-1, losing a single game to Apocalypse Val in the last round of Day 2 Swiss where I drew 9 pieces of ice, nearly all my non-econ operations and no agendas until too late. In the Swiss it beat Security Nexus 419, Smoke, Apoc Val, and two Freedom. In the top 16 Cut it beat an Apoc Val and a Pelangi/Surfer Hayley (by purging Clot 4 times). The Hayley game was shown on stream.

My runner went 5-1 in the Swiss, sadly going 0-2 in the cut against the winning Asa Group list and the 3rd place Sportsmetal Combo list.

A big thank-you to the entire NISEI team that ran an amazing event, and to my opponents on both days, all of whom were extremely friendly. A special thank-you to the lovely Australian player (sorry I forgot your name!) I played against in Round 1, who after giving me my only loss on Day 1 gifted me a small plush Koala that I kept on my playmat for the rest of my games for luck. Given my placing it seems to have worked :D.

Worlds was an amazing experience, and I would highly recommend it to anyone thinking about going next year. NISEI did a great job running the tournament, and hopefully we will have many more in the future!