Casting For the Killv2.0

This has been a labour of love to build! Initially growing from a spotted synergy between Casting Call and Argus, the deck has developed and built from that small kernel into a very fun deck to pilot! I've started with the Casting Call/Argus synergy since it's probably the main feature of the deck, but I go on to explain my reasoning for all includes. See what you think...

Casting Call. In Argus. It's a thing. Here's the two main reasons why Casting an agenda in Argus is a problem for a runner:

• Runners don't ever like being forced to do something. You essentially force the runner to run first click or end their turn tagged, unless they are willing to take meat damage which few runners will risk, especially early game when essential breakers and hardware may still be in hand. Remember, they don't get any heads up that this is coming; if you Casting Call, Advance, Advance, they have to go first click or risk losing two important cards from hand.

• If they run a Casting Call agenda and take the tags, they need to spend THREE CLICKS AND SIX CREDITS to clear those tags! If they take the Casting tags and 2 meat, that's still a tax of 4 creds, two clicks and two cards just to score that agenda, not forgetting whatever they paid to penetrate your scoring server. Whatever their choice, that's a massive tempo hit early on. Often the runner won't even have that many credits to spend on clearing the tags. If he does, well, that probably creates another scoring window for you to exploit anyway. If he doesn't...BOOM! Scorcheds if he's tagged or Punitives if he made himself skint clearing all those tags.

• Even if they do run first click, if you have a Data Raven/Hunter that can get another tag on, then suddenly they face the prospect of definitely ending their turn tagged; that's often enough to make them jack out and let you score that agenda out undisturbed.

Money, Money, Money...It's not funny...

Beanstalks to recover from account siphons; Hedge Fund and Restructures to bolster the cash; the amazing Profiteering which you can abuse for silly amounts of money to burn through Wireless Net Pavilions and all that stupidity, and Hostile Takeovers. Stuff your coffers full why don't you? 30+ creds is easy with this deck.

Why so much money? Traces....the most important being SEA Source and Punitives, and/or being able to Snatch and Grab this deck's arch enemy, Film Critic (Weyland is quite happy with a bit of kidnapping). In addition Hunter is simply completely obnoxious for 1 credit and is great early ICE for R&D or to stick at the top of your scoring server and become another (early game) Data Raven, causing them to spend more clicks and credits having to clear yet more tags.

The ICE Suite:

• This deck can play very fast, with Atlas counters being able to tutor up the next agenda and chain them, so gear checking ICE (trust your gear checking ICE early game!) features heavily. We've gone for cheap ICE since we want to be able to rez what we need early, getting a two ICE server setup quickly (avoids the P.I.T.A. that is DDOS , Inside Job, etc) with a Casting Call agenda in there if its Atlas or The Cleaners. Ice Wall, Meru Mati, Enigma, and to some extent Data Raven (since most runners auto jack out when you rez that bad boy normally, let alone in front of a Casting Call agenda!) allow you to get a score early and relatively cheaply and get the pressure on. And pressure is scary in this deck, since it feels like making one wrong move against it will get you tagged and bagged...which, of course, it will.
• Hunter is especially annoying; 4 strength sentry with a Trace 3 that results in a tag, and all for just 1 cred rez cost, can have the same effect as a Data Raven early game.
• Wormhole is a very useful card in this deck. Don't have an agenda or Casting Call in hand to get scoring? Play out Wormhole on your scoring server and Advance Advance, building more tax for the runner to work his way through once you do. A strength 7 code gate for 5 creds is nice. It's also an effective card to use the Trash Program off Archer.
• Archer is Archer; it's always a beast, and you have lots of fodder to forfeit to it. Finally, Spiderweb is a great Lady/Faust taxer.

The Agendas:

• Conventional wisdom says never, ever, ever play 3 pointers, and I (almost!) agree; but The Cleaners is so compelling in this deck. In Argus, a runner will feel he HAS to go get it, making your Casting Call on it that much more unavoidable, as he can't let you have Scorched's that do 5 meat damage or Punitives that get bumped up by a point.
• Atlas is there to chain your agendas: Install Advance Advance it and you can fetch another agenda at the start of your turn and then IAA that one too, etc, or even fish out and score a Hostile Takeover form hand for the win on 6 points, which this deck can easily get to.
• Profiteering is an all-star in this deck. We don't care about bad pub, since runners can't use it to get rid of tags or against Punitives. It's not so good for Hunter, but that's mostly there to protect you early game anyway. We aren't building taxing-to-access servers once we are out of the early game...but rather taxing-to- make-yourself-safe-after-you-have-run servers! But 15 creds sets you up for Punitives, for countering Vamp potential, all sorts.
• False Lead is a brilliant card to score early, since you can pop it after they take tags and prevent them from getting rid of them. If you can Casting Call an agenda when you have False Lead scored, there's no way again they can get that agenda and avoid ending the turn tagged.
• Hostile Takeover is so good at maintaining your early game pace, and turns on Archer which forces the runner to slow down, which we like. Being able to score 3 points of your deck out of hand is never, ever to be underestimated.

Miscellaneous Cards:

• SEA Source: One of your main kill conditions and another reason we are trying to build so much money. With runners needing to clear all their tags, they aren't likely to be rich.

• Crisium Grid is so useful on HQ since Account Siphon became such a big thing again, and can prevent multi access runs on either central that are going to win the runner the game; if it isn't likely to however, let the runner multi access agendas and tax themselves out clearing all the tags again.

• Snatch and Grab: Your main way to get rid of Film Critic, which, thankfully, is starting to see less play again anyway.

Tactics: So, I know generally it's not clever to build a deck from an "If the runner does this..." basis, but this deck can rush score effectively enough. The rough plan with it is to, initially, play rush style, quickly scoring an early False Lead or Profiteering, maybe even a bigger agenda if you have punitive and money, behind gear check ICE. At some point, once the mid game is reached, usually once you see the runner has two breakers (or Corroder and tutor etc), it's time to switch to making a beastly scoring server and only installing agendas with Casting Call. - Here we must acknowledge that it becomes harder to keep the runner out but he has to really count the cost of running since its going to be really hard for him to steal and not end up tagged and running the risk of getting scorched. This is a very real threat by the mid game when you should probably have two meat damage cards in hand by then, or Atlas counters available to go fetch them. All the tax of running Casting Call agendas and having to clear tags is going to take its toll, allowing you to land Punitives easily and make them slow down whilst they build up cash again. These are your scoring windows. One thing: people often expect Argus to play the shell game. You can use this to your advantage since people are not usually happy to start just running if you install lots of remotes, fearing Snares and the like. I've used this to my advantage if I've been agenda flooded several times, just sticking out 2 or 3 agendas and leaving them there, scoring them when I need to.

I've had a total blast playing this deck so far, with mostly wins (usually kill) against some tough matchups like Eater/Keyhole Maxx. I'd love feedback on it!