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

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!