Old Hampshire CTM (4th/58 Reading Regional 2017)

tomdidiot 574

This is your new, slightly emaciated CTM list post nerfhammer to sensie. It's a lot weaker than it used to be, particularly because 1 Sensie is a lot less consistent that 3 Sensie, because DBS costs money, and because you no longer print money with Commercial Bankers. You also get hit by a lot of the incidental anti-Moons tech like Aeneas, Slums and Strikes. Credit to Kenny Deakins for the original list - the only difference between this and the New Hampshire Regional winning list are -1 Resistor, -1 CVS, -2 Data Raven +1 Turnpike, +1 Snek, +1 DBS, + 1 IP Block.

Round 1: Noise (Mark Rist). Noise doesn't like Tags. Noise is poor and noise needs his wildside. Noise is very sad vs CTM and CTM builds a remote noise can't get into.

Round 2: Tough Times Whizz (Chris Dyer): Turns out having a blank corp ID card and playing with only 12 influence sucks.

Round 3: Maw Whizz (Lin Kirby): This is actually a far better matchup than Tough Times Whizz, because a lot of the hate that it packs isn't as specific for CTM as it is for Moonies. Maw is obviously annoying, but the best solution to Maw is to have 2 DBSes running and now to keep anything you can't play that turn. Lin is evidently very scared of Tags, and I am able to build a remote she can't really afford to get into and score out from a Sansan there.

Round 4: Matrix DDM (Tim). Tim only has one clone chip, so I can generally fast advance with impunity. I use my Breaking news tags to trash his money, and generally make it difficult for him to contest my assets. He gets 2 DDMs off to steal 4 points, but I manage to stack up a 4 ice server on R and D, which stops him from pulling a 3rd one off. He goes low on credits after a DDM run, and I land a bunch of Tags on him. I eventually score out with a PsychoBeale, after forgetting I could psycho a food too!

Round 5: Siphon Keyhole Whizz (Ben Ni): This was ultimately a very close game that comes down to the wire; Ben does a very good job of keeping my board state clear and keeping my money down with Siphon, but I manage to stabilise by makign HQ very unpalatable to run using a tollbooth. My hand very quickly clogs up with agendas - I push out a Breaking News and swap it for a Food that Ben had stolen earlier. Ben then starts going nuts on R and D , keyholing through a Turnpike; however, he makes sure to stop once he gets 5 tags, because he knows I can psycho-beale to win from 6 tags. He builds up to try to siphon me again, and I am forced to psycho out an astro with a view to psycho out a beale next turn. unfortunately, once I play the psycho, he is able to hammer R and D and trash a breaking news with the keyhole. In retrospect, I probably should have just waited a bit longer.

Round 6: ID with Aeneas Andy (Ciaran Maxey). This deck is a bad matchup and is dumb. I'm lucky he agreed to ID - his Aeneas andy wrecked me. There is no way CTM can deal with someone clicking for 7 creds.

Cut Round 1: Tough Times Whizz (Chris Dyer): This is a redux of the previous game, but slightly closer. ultimately, he does a good job of controlling my board. There was a turn where I had a Breaking News behind a Tollbooth that he couldn't break, and he ran HQ, seeing an Exchange. If he had seen and stolen one of the two agendas in there instead, I could have scored the BN, exchanged, trashed the Ice Carver, and possibly jammed out behind the tollbooth. Possibly. Instead he didn't, I trashed the Slums that he had redundancy for, and I went on to lose the game.

Cut Round 2: Aeneas Andy (Dan Strong). I open with two sweeps weeks and a NASX. He goes ham on R and D with a massive medium dig, stealing 6 points before I can stem the bleeding. Fortunately enough, the money difference means I could hard hitting news him, and then I was easily able to lock up the various servers; firstly a Tollbooth/IP Block on R and D, a Resistor on HQ, then a tollbooth, ressitor on my scoring remote. He does several HQ random accesses where he hits an Archangel that I use to bounce his expensive cards, tries to siphon me (I duck it with a sansan). I am able to fast advance a Beale and a breaking news (And exchange it), and I am able to exploit a scoring window when he goes poor for a single access on R and D to score my last Food.

Overall, I'm quite happy with CTM and how it performed; it's still a powerful, and incredibly fun deck to play. Thanks to all my opponents for some very enjoyable games!

4 comments
3 Jul 2017 kollapse

How did you find the loss of Raven, and did Cobra do enough to justify the include?

3 Jul 2017 tomdidiot

@kollapseI dont mind the loss of Raven. It's easier to play around than Turnpike, and you don't have anything that truly punishes being tagged in the middle of a run (i.e. QPMs). Cobra is excellent and won me some nice tempo in a couple of games where I saw it; against Chris Dyer, I actually sniped the last mimic out of his hand (he lost the previous one to an inject), and would have been able to lock him out if it weren't for parasite :p

4 Jul 2017 emilyspine

CtM buddies!

How did you find IP Block on the day?

5 Jul 2017 kollapse

That's interesting, and I agree that as a facecheck punisher Turnpike is better. I have found Raven working quite well as etr on remotes, allowing me to never advancing BN/Astro from behind it. Good players probably run through it though, so I may have to try your ICE suite out.