Death Rattle - 1st at Reading SC

Nemamiah 3914

Look, it's a CtM deck!

I haven't played much over Christmas, so I hadn't really tested anything enough to be comfortable with it. I was going to take Engineering the Spags if I could get some games in, but spent the night before the tournament drinking and playing board games instead of anything constructive so just defaulted to CtM.

This version is slightly tweaked to be better against Dumbles (Wraparound and IP Block) which we assumed would be popular. It has a Biotic because sometimes it's your only way back in to a game that you're losing against Andy, but the lack of CBG means you're more likely to get in to that hole in the first place. This list is very light on money, so you have to play accordingly and be careful about rezzing ice or SanSan.

Runner side was Reg Whizz over Dumbles, because while you lose a bit against ETF you get it back against the field, which is a fair swap in my book. It's my World's list with a Slums instead of Plascrete, so doesn't warrant publishing by itself.

CtM went undefeated on the day, Whizz dropped one game to a cheeky Brainstorm flatline.

I'm pretty sure that Aaron Marron will be the final nail in CtMs coffin, but I thought the same about Temujin so maybe I'm wrong.

4 comments
10 Jan 2017 moistloaf

Damn cash must be tight af in this build

10 Jan 2017 Nemamiah

Yeah, it's poorer than a very poor thing that doesn't have any money. It's fine though, it has enough to run and you basically can't out money most runners anyway.

11 Jan 2017 rotage

@Nemamiahcongrats on the win. What are your thoughts on the ice placement here, how often do you try to build a remote? And if so what ice do you try to use on the remote /centrals?

13 Jan 2017 Nemamiah

Geez Dave, couldn't you ask a question that deserves a slightly longer answer so I've got something to my teeth in to?

Ice placement in CtM always tends to be a bit more match-up dependent than some other decks; that's a function of a low count, highly varied ice suite.

In this particular iteration the first 'hard ETR' drawn (Wrap or Quandary) will generally go on the remote to rush early agendas. If you don't draw one, then I'll tend to put permissive but taxing ice (Turnpike and Pop-Up) on a remote instead and bait the runner through it. That approach tends to lend itself to scoring via San San rather than rushing agendas.

Archangel is almost exclusively for centrals. Resistor is your most important ice against dedicated siphon builds so should be saved for a central in those matchups, but can be used as rush or taxing ice otherwise, depending on the precise circumstances. Cobra is for the remote in most games.

IP Block is almost exclusively for Dumbles and should usually go on R&D. Data Ward and Tollbooth are flex ice that are placed depending on the situation, though Data Ward is more reactive and therefore is more likely to be best placed on a central, while Tollbooth is more likely to be used for a remote.

That's a really high level summary; ice placement is one of the most complicated topics in the game but also very important to get right.