Time for a Reckoning .5

While I love the idea of Argus, in practice, it seems to work out to a 1 click, 2 credit tax on Runners a few times a game. People don't run on 4th click to ensure they can always clear the tag, and no one ever takes the meat damage.

The thought behind this (very untuned) deck is to force the Runner to make an actual choice through a couple methods. Hourglass and Enigma seem great for Argus, taking away the runner's ability to clear tags. So using that base, I tried to build on it by:

1. Click theft.
   False Lead steals their clicks. Enigma, Hourglass, Wormhole and Eli steal their clicks, or make them spend clicks or bounce. Either they're running Enigma or Hourglass last click to make the subroutines irrelevant, and opening themselves up to tag/damage, or they're running them early and having to break (see #2). IT Department and Patch are intended to add teeth to those Ice so that they actually have to be encountered, rather than just Datasucker'ed through.

2. Taxes: Since the Runner is unlikely to run on 4th (or even 3rd) click, they're likely going to use those clicks for economy or card draw. Utopia Shard, Patch, IT Department, NAPD, Ice Wall, Hive (in the early game) and Archer are intended to make those credits less useful. Everything should cost more than the Runner expects, and they should feel like they're just clicking to pay the taxes you're putting on them. Ideally, they'll get to the point where they feel like all they can do is bite the bullet and take the meat damage (I can't imagine anyone floating a tag against Argus unless they see 3 Scorched in the archive). Which means that next turn they aren't running early clicks, and they aren't running late.

However, I feel like the deck doesn't really enforce that. Patch is good in theory, but I feel like 3 deck space for it is a lot. 13 Agendas feels like a lot, and I felt like I had to push econ to the Agenda pool (Corporate War, Hostile Takeover). Overall I just worry that the deck will end up just trying for Sea Scorch, which is done better elsewhere.

The number of agendas I felt I needed pushed me to 54 cards - I considered pulling out the NAPDs, but they're so useful.

I also have Archer and Checkpoint, which will give bad pub, which is counter to the deck's purpose. It seems hard not to build Argus with both of those, but maybe I'd be better off with more standard EtR ice? But Checkpoint before Hourglass could well lead to the Runner jacking out before even encountering the Agenda in the server, because they're not taking the 5 meat (or 6 if I can get Cleaners out first), and aren't going to take the tag against the Scorched. I considered Elizabeth Mills to resolve that issue, but that's even more cards....

Comments are welcomed!