Argh!us

I've always had a soft spot for Argus, but always struggled with it. I've been honing an argus zealous judge kill deck for quite sometime now. Using Prisecs and a CTM style money war with Friends in High places and Mumbad virtual tours. Then aaron miron came out and it became harder. Siphon was also a problem, and key hole decks. Slowly I adapted it with 2 crisiums and 2 dedicated response teams. I was running a voter intimidation for quite some time with 2 snares. Finally I realized MCA informant was the perfect replacement and swapped out 1 snare and the voter for 2 MCAs. The sweet spot with this deck is the fact that Zealous judge can be rezzed AFTER you use a terminal operation on the runner's turn, such as HHN & MCA. Once you start playing around with the nuances of this deck it provides an uncommon challenge to the runner. Once a runner can't keep up with your asset s and protection of them its makes the tag and meat damage hard to deal with. For example if you steal an agenda I rez a dedicated response team - you have to take 2 meat damage from the agenda or suffer 2 meat and tag. The Argus Tax stacks and with the prisecs and judges to make it scary. I like this deck because it plays like a CTM - Jinteki mix, putting runner's in difficult positions, while still being able to tag them even if they have a big credit lead. I have a lot of fun laying out a bare agenda or even a single advanced atlas with a prisec on it and an unrezzed zealous judge for a surprise. The Prisec tag is unavoidable - so the dedicated response teams will fire as well. Cards to play around - Employee strike, Try not to use your Hostiles unless you have to for econ as the bad pub makes it hard to keep your assets alive. The scorch is a often a surprise kill since they trash your boom and think they are safe. It also lets you do a 1 zealous and consulting visit kill. People are surprised With a 2 dedicated respons team rez before they hit a prisec surprise that's 5 meat damage and potentially 2 tags. Once they are hard hitting news'ed they have to spend time trashing assets which slows down their tag removal. Once you get a feel for the deck the play is fun and different. Dedicated response teams are also a soft counter to siphon & vamp. Use your MCA informants to blow up aarons and potentially be the extra tag for a poorly thought out run onto a prisec. The deck is primarily kill with a back up score options. The ice is meant as gear checks - so be thoughtful. Primarily protect your assets with prisecs and mumbads. Using jackson to recycle specific cards is an art as well as using your FFIHP. Consulting visits do work and money wise this deck keeps up pretty well with commercial bankers. A double prisec'ed server with an agenda is tough to run on. Snare is a tasty surprise. This is not a tier 1 deck by any means, but it's solid and is tasty in terms of Flavor. Argus - using the legal system, informants, and dedicated response teams to kill the runner for taking agendas. Protection guaranteed indeed. :)