Rixty Minutes - Worlds 2017 Top 16

spags 7948

image Ants
Having made CTM on a lark for our team’s testing gauntlet, I slowly came to love it, and settled on it for Worlds 2017. Props to my teammates for the help on it: aandries, dashakan, paranoid, Webster, cranked, leburgan, jake, and mmychal.

Some notes on it:

AGENDAS

There’s a divide between those that love 3x ARES (me) and those that love 3x QPM (everyone else). I understand that power of QPM late, but early ARES swings the game completely, wrecks Ed Kim, and turns MVTs into nightmares.

15 Minutes is one of the best cards in the deck, being a great EOI target or never advance (NA) tool.

ASSETS

There was a fair amount of consternation that went into the mix here. I decided to drop a Bankers for Whampoa last minute, to deal with Maw/Hacktivist/Ed Kim hand attack. It helped, but may have been better as a Bankers, and jamming a Preemptive back in. DBS is really good, and whenever it lived (most games), HQ stayed clean, and basically saved me.
Let’s talk about a severely slept upon card in the environ: Marilyn Campaign. It is my new fave card, and a NA monster. Being able to have it make its rez cost back on its first turn firing is great, and I frequently overwrote it. It can provide a lure into a deadly remote at little cost, and recurs. It also provides a shuffle, which helps when using Whamp to push tech back into R&D. At 1 INF, I find it to be an excellent include for glacier dex looking to lure runs and make money, too. It won me at least 2 games at Worlds. MVP.

UPGRADES

MVT is awesome. ‘Nuff said.

OPERATIONS

This is where CTM dex can wildly vary. We added SEA into our package late in testing, and found it was the missing link v. Misdirection Shaper. You can usually outmoney non-Opus Shaper, which turned out to be almost all of them. When you do, and they run, you can drop a SEA/Closed/HHN turn on them, which will lead to EOI and a game end, usually. Aaron Andries found an even more sick play, firing a value SEA when the Runner ran and dropped Tap. I wish I knew this, as my only Swiss loss was because the Hayley got out of the above combo with Tap money (I should’ve overpayed). When a Runner runs for the Wrm, and you’re on heavy money, fire a value SEA, for almost all of your creds. They either pay down, Vamping themselves, or let your Closed Accounts them. Then, you have turns to burn through the SacCons and Wrm while giving them little to no money.
The other tech cards win games. Psycho is great for when they go full ham on tags, and the one Biased did heavy work in a Hayley meta.

ICE

Very straight forward here. We dropped the Information Overload toy for a 2nd Tollbooth, still one of my fave ICE, and credit for credit one of the best ICE in the game six years running. The rest are cheap gear checks, and standard tag punishers.

CONCLUSION

This deck was really fun. I love Yellow dex, and really love Yellow Glacier. I so wanted to bring Sol Glacier to Worlds, but the 3x SacCon meta crushed Keegan Lane (not with Navi Mumbai Grid, though). Scarcity in Sol is so good, and fantastic now. That deck could’ve done major work at Worlds, as hardly anyone was on Opus, meaning it was a Resource meta. Instead, I played this, which punishes tags more.

This deck has two speeds: rush hard early to setup up ARES and get to near game point, and then build ICE on R&D and the remote, keeping HQ clean with DBS and Whamp. Then, you start playing the NA game in the remote, eventually breaking both the spirit and body of the Runner.
The deck performed well, defeating Smoke, Smoke, Ed Kim, and Ed Kim, tying with Hayley, and losing to Hayley on a 5 point Indexing turn, and Val in the cut. All of the Runners played Misdirection, and all still got heavily tagged at points. Yellow is not dead.

15 comments
6 Nov 2017 moistloaf

My heckin hero, this build looks sick

6 Nov 2017 Dr_Feelgood

Good job! Your streams have put hope in my heart, that CtM isn't dead and inspired to play CtM on our nationals. It was version with BOOM!, but I've sloted in Zealous Judge instead of Whampoa. I am a huge NBN fan aswell and believe, that this deck is much more interesting to play with/against (and watch), than those PU or CI stuff.

6 Nov 2017 AkAnderson

I feel like you just get me, man.

6 Nov 2017 spags

FWIW, I jammed all 3 season of Rick & Morty, which I never saw before, in the two weeks before Worlds. Hence, the deck name ref.

@moistloafcheers @Dr_FeelgoodI cannot play those non-interactive dex. This forces decisions on both sides. @AkAndersonXD

6 Nov 2017 SneakdoorMelb

Awesome deck as always Spags! Yellow never die

6 Nov 2017 spags

FWIW, I jammed all 3 season of Rick & Morty, which I never saw before, in the two weeks before Worlds. Hence, the deck name ref.

@moistloaf cheers @Dr_FeelgoodI cannot play those non-interactive dex. This forces decisions on both sides. @AkAnderson XD

6 Nov 2017 hi_impact

Is that a superjail clip?

7 Nov 2017 neuropantser

The Yellow is dead; long live the Yellow

7 Nov 2017 Mechanoise

"Hey Morty, let me ask you a question real quick. Does evil exist, and if so, can one detect and measure it?...Rhetorical question Morty. The answer is yes, you just have to have to look at Spags' CtM deck."

7 Nov 2017 skydivingninja

I never gave ARES any thought in my CTM build but now I want to try this build. It looks super fun. Congrats on making the cut!

7 Nov 2017 evilgaz

I like 2x AR and 2x QPM. I'm a special snowflake too.

9 Nov 2017 Admiral Hotcakes

I love this, I love you, and I love Ants In My Eyes Johnson.

13 Nov 2017 spags

@Admiral HotcakesThanx, thanx, and agreed.

@evilgazyou truly are.

@skydivingninjaThanx! ARES was the main reason I went back to CTM pre-Worlds.

@neuropantserYes. I mainly wanted to play Yellow to shoot down all that 'Yellow is ded' talk pre-Worlds. I think people knee-jerked on the new meta instead of actually exploring it fully.

@hi_impact'Rick & Morty'.

@SneakdoorMelbNever will. Cheers!

13 Nov 2017 Swiftie

Nice list, will try it out at some point. One of the second most asked comments when i'm playing on jnet is if i'm a fan of rick and morty or people start the game by saying 'get swiftie'... :faceplam:

16 Nov 2017 ransomman

Love the deck and I'm def on team ARES! This just came to me: what do you think about a single Media Blitz to activate the ARES in the runner's score area and potential clear out a pesky Emp Strike? Just a thought I had that could be cool. I always wished those Mandatory Upgrades/Media Blitz decks did better!