Martial Law v1.0

Few observations and questions at 1st glance:

1) Docklands seemes a bit slow, taking up 2 clicks and most runners would trash it the moment it shows its face.

2) Why don't you run searchlight instead of hunter? I feel it has the potential to land many more tags, more reliably, and you can psych people out with advancement counters.

3) Why no hostile takeovers?

4) On the same note why PSF?

5) Would port anson grid go on centrals or remotes? Also if you seek to give the runner REALLY bad choices wgat about hostile infrastructure?

6) Super hyped for a horizontal weyland shell game deck, and this looks like an amazing start. Mad props to you and I loved keystone and played nothing but it (and a bit of RP)

I'm not really sure about the strategy of a 2 cost Current and feeding them agendas!?

Agreed on the comments above as well - seems like Hostile is a natural fit, and Port Anson Grid seems very situational, plus you have to win the trace on Checkpoint for the 'combo' to even work, and you have to have DRTs that have survived. Seems like you might be better looking for more money, remembering that the shell game is still expensive if you are playing lots of 1 pointers as each costs you three credits and clicks, which is pretty intensive. For that same reason Docklands Crackdown seems very demanding of your limited resources and is difficult for the deck to protect.

Not sure on its viability, but the board might let you feed them those 1 pointers and not lose you too many games. Especially since the ability to search for the singleton of the exec is in faction.

Very interesting build. I think this is how many people are going to be approaching the ID, and it is going to be very frightening.

@IonFox 1) Docklands seemed to me to be a perfect fit-I've been trying several iterations of decks with Docklands in them at GNK tournaments, and the games I won were games I didn't get a Docklands and instead scored out :P you're right, you've gotta protect it. But what if there's only a Data Raven in front of it? Or a Checkpoint? Honestly, I don't plan to spam it. One or two on it is fine by me. They'll be losing cards or taking tags often, which means clicks drawing or clicks spent dropping tags, which means less clicks installing. That is where Docklands and Accounting have a chance to work for this deck.

2) Searchlight was in here, but with the potential bad pub I didn't want to advance something only for a 1 link runner with 2 bad pub to walk through a full turn of advancements, instead do it to a hunter, which costs me a single credit and one click.

3) Hostile wants to be in this deck, but once again I'm on the fence about what level of bad pub I'm ok with until I get more playtesting in.

4) I'm not set on PSF, but it's flavor fits the deck and I needed a 2-pointer until I can decide what cards to cut. Especially, the deck has very little tag punishment outside DRT and Scorch, so I thought, sure, let's try this.

5) Anson gets installed behind a Data Raven or Checkpoint to try and make the DRT play less linear. A lost program with meat damage everywhere, possibly Docklands out, and possibly Accounting, seems detrimental enough to try. Anson is the other option for a deck that hangs on "when/if this run is successful" and solves the Data Raven problem of the runner just jacking out on Data Raven encounter- I want Checkpoint and Data Raven to be as punishing as possible since the runner can just jack out on both.

6) awesome to hear! Keystone took well over 6 months of me playing Supermodernism and slowly changing it bit by bit until it played the way I wanted. This deck has a long way to go but hopefully can be tuned faster since I'm more active and skilled now.

I like the idea here--I played the NEARPAD deck for awhile and it gave the runner a lot of things to worry about. What is missing to me, here, is the "surprise" tag on access that triggers Dedicated Response Team. Without TGTBT, Snare!, Ghost Branch, etc, there is no way to ensure that the runner picks up a tag.

You might get them to run into a Data Raven, but my experience is that no one runs against Weyland without a sentry breaker on the board (call it the "Archer effect").

Checkpoint is SO awesome. It's going to be awful to play against.

Given that you have no particularly strong ETR ICE except Archer, you might have some trouble to score a PSF or overadvance a Project Atlas. Maybe some advanceable traps could work here? Cerebral Overwriter, Project Junebug, Aggressive Secretary? I also wonder if the influence spent on Port Anson Grid would not be spent better on Good Ol' Snares. ;)

I was also hoping that when O&C comes out, you could keep keystone updated as I'll probably still be taking keystone to store champs after O&C, and would like to see how the new cards would fit in.

There's a place for Keystone beyond O&C perhaps, but it's playstyle is going to change. There may not be a place for Biotic, or if there is, we may have to drop some of the other influence (as it stands now Power Shutdown is likely to be removed from the deck, so we could reduce Jacksons in theory as well since I literally only use them for recursion- maybe one of ten games I use it to overdraw and reset my HQ, otherwise they are remote-bait) to splash in more impactful ice for HQ. Wanton Destruction is the anarch Account Siphon, and it is going to get nasty. Will'o'the'Wisp is a possibility since Wanton is not the issue, Eater is. As it stands now Keystone's biggest weakness is mill strats; Noise and especially any deck with AI/Keyhole wrecks Keystone's flow. So Eater+Keyhole+Wanton is going to be everywhere, and the way I see it from here without a significant change it will singlehandedly wreck you unless you draw the perfect hand every time. Crisium Grid will likely be mandatory in Keystone post O&C to be put on HQ to help lesson the blow of Wanton (1 extra run means less clicks to spend). However there is still Immolation Script, which will be the undoing of Curtain Wall shenanigans, and Archives Interface, which will add insult to injury to combo decks (Biotic is officially useless to Keystone if it cannot be recurred, that is the whole point of spending the 4 influence for it) like Keystone, Scorched Imaging, and to some extent RP (taxing ice easily blown up when Noise mills 1 and Immo's it to trash the one on R&D, Archives interface to RFG Sundews so they can't be Interns, same goes for Ash/Caprice, the list goes on) so the "bad pub for days" style of Keystone will need some major adjustments to be relevant. I am eyeing the galactic ice in Blue Sun for the Keystone of the future, utilizing the cost savings and perhaps playing either Trick of Lights as the FA option, or Constellation Protocol and The Root (less a fan of this one atm) to get the signature burst of credits to pin the Midseason. Honestly though, I really do feel that nothing current Weyland has stands a chance against Order and Chaos anarchs. I think we will need to rebuild from the ground up, much more emphasis on multiple remotes instead of scoring remotes, more traps, more chip damage (hence my Argus idea) to disrupt the new Anarch and try to take their power cards away from them- THIS will be your scoring window now, the equivalent of knocking the Inside Job out of Andy's hand and then rezzing Off the Grid.

Alright thanks for your response. I'm just a bit sad at the moment as if O&C hits my nearby store's shelves on the 28th as advertised, it will be legal for the store champs on the 31st making it nigh impossible to get enough practice or deck building in, which is why I turn to here and reddit.

Concerning this deck itself, you may want to find room for other traps and such like snares or cerebrals or shattered remains (sry dinosaurus :c).

@ItJustGotRielle Just want to say that I think that 3x Crisium Grid is going to be better than ever. A Weyland glacier deck with just a ton of taxing ICE each with End the run is already pretty strong. Now it's going to be much more effective than ever. I used one and won a small tourney with it. It's more brutal than it seems at first becaused unlike HB glacier, you won't have a moment where the runner is going to click throught all your ICE. Just denying those few runs make a big difference on how many games you're going to win and loses.

I love your decks, but your fascination with Docklands Crackdown never fails to amaze me. :) I still think you made a good point in an earlier comment when you said the games you won with a Docklands Crackdown deck were the ones where you didn't install a Docklands and instead scored out. If you're determined to make it work, well, more power to you. Maybe your PSF should be a Helium-3 Deposit instead. (Half-joking. I think PSF is fine.)

I like Housekeeping, but I don't think this is the deck for it. My vision for Housekeeping involves a deck that wants to keep your cards trashed - like most Power Shutdown Weylands, for instance. On the other hand, it would add an interesting tool against the Noise matchup (or most Anarchs, for that matter, since now there's a lot of fun new things to install). If you're not worried about Noise, though, maybe consider the maligned Paywall Implementation instead - if they're going to waste their time poking at your face-down assets and upgrades, you may as well get paid for it.

I really like the False Lead/Psychic Field/Vulcan Coverup interplay; it's one of the few things our Argus builds have in common. I think scoring a False Lead is one of this deck's highest priorities, right behind scoring a Gila Hands; most people's assumption when playing Argus is "well, I can shake the tags on my last 2 clicks" or "I can draw back up on my last 2 clicks."

Is it wrong that I want to throw a Komainu into Argus? It's probably wrong. And it's so much influence.

@stoppableforce I like your insights :) I have actually tested this quite a bit, and it's not good (big surprise! :P). I have swapped in and out quite a few cards since then, sticking with the core idea of "assets the runner wants to trash hiding behind ice that is protected by Data Raven or Checkpoint" but the biggest problem is this: It's tooooooooooo slow. The shell game is WAY too high variance without cards like Mushin No Shin or like what PE leverages in Ronin, and a runner can fairly easily just run first click, then draw/clear the tag, then set up for the next turn. It is my opinion now after 30+ games with multiple iterations of what is essentially "shell game Argus" that it does not work, or that there aren't enough cards to punish it yet. I spend so many clicks installing remotes, and I'm not scoring agendas that give me credits (like Keystone did) so it's a big tempo cut every time I score out a one pointer; the runner runs and trashes a remote or two, then I advance and score out an agenda, and now they clear the rest of the remotes on their turn.

What I have as a vision now is really more of a typical spin-cycle era rush deck. I want the Argus meat damage to serve as disruption, and I still want to run Housekeeping (you made good points about Paywall Implementation with remotes!) now that I'm planning on playing a typical scoring-remote game. Having to trash cards for installing cards and trying to run quickly against a rush deck that is playing destroyers and Power Shutdowns might be the way to go. Honestly, I'm looking at my Keystone list (talking the GRNDL Keystone list from last year) and thinking I will try to do an 80% port over into Argus, and then tailor it to suit the disruption out of it. I think you play Midseason in this over Sea Source (being buried in tags will make a runner go tag-me, so I'm actually eyeballing Psychographics, not kidding) so that tag avoidance doesn't matter. As 2 of your 3-pointers, you run High-Risk Investment: if you can score that, use it first click, then Midseason them 2nd click using their credits (effectively). They pay to cut the tags to a small amount, going broke so you can score, or they take all the tags, and then you Closed Accounts maybe? I want the disruption of meat damage, so I want cards that make a runner who chooses to float tags be punished or help advance my game state. I think of Universal Connectivity Fee, Information Overload, Dedicated Response Team, Closed Accounts. What do you think?

Imagine cheap-edge binary ice (oldschool Enigma, Wall of Static, etc.), controlling the runner rig through Housekeeping and Power Shutdown (let's keep Docklands out of this one ;) and cards like Archer, Grim, Will'o'the'Wisp. I'm not sure if I want to run Snare or not in the deck or not (for the sake of influence, but I can't think of what I WOULD want to run...), but I do actually think Punitive Counterstrike matters in Argus if you are 'not' running the shell game 1-pointers deck- They take an agenda, take a tag or meat damage, On your turn, take more meat damage, no massive credit dump and 2 clicks required to tag you and scorch you. After playing this deck in its current form I feel pretty good about these new ideas.

I'm interested to know your thoughts! So far very few people are vocal about -actual- playtesting with different Argus builds so far.

Took this for a spin at a local GNK tourney (1/29). Won vs PPVP Kate, lost to agenda flood vs. Ken (mulled a hand of agendas to a hand of agendas and an archer, still made it do 5 points), got crushed by Eater-Reina. Don't have a tremendous amount to offer, but as a thought, Port Anson Grid could easily become Information Overload, which can help against a runner who just Plascretes up quickly and goes tagme (as Reina did, using Déjà Vu to recur them).

I've been playing a version with the influence spread into 2x Cerebral Overwriter, 2x Jackson, 3x Mushin, 1x Lotus, 1x Data Raven. I don't think the "mind games" or PE style "Death by a thousand cuts" deck is there. What I do think is that Argus is a decent deterrent for preventing big R&D digs, which is what my Supermodernism decks frequently fell prey to.

I think going back to older shells and then modernizing them is a good way forward. I'm probably going to start with my own old Supermodernism GRNDL deck and iterate forward from there.

I don't think Argus works without the big bursty econ agendas like Fracking and Hostile. (Nor does Gagarin, but Gagarin feels like it wants to go horizontal and play those drip econs at +1 to trash them all.) That's another thing that I think is indicating Supermodernism might be a good place to start.

I'll get back to you after some more in-depth playtesting - it's rezzed on OCTGN and most of my store should have it by now.

@ItJustGotRielle I had a similar thought too. I tried to make a viable PE style with Argus(slightly different set up than you) and I ended up thinking that it needs to make the runner want to take the damage OR let him go tag a use it at your advantage so I'll be able to use Psychographics on Governement Takeover. I think too that if you got with this Argus and Housekeeping, you better go with a lot of trash programs so they get into a closing vise where they won't want to take the damage because their hands keep getting smaller and they won't want the tags or the'll get Scorch/Accident to death or you'll score agendas with Psychographics.