CtM for a Modern Age

CryptoGraham 963

You know the drill!

Pester your opponent with every single turn!

Quickly score agendas!

SEA Source into Exchange of Information once you find the window!

BOOM! if they float two tags!

GO GO GO GO GO!

Good luck and remember:

CtM is the most fun corp in all of Netrunner

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In-depth analysis:

This is a heavily tested and curated list considering the current new state of the meta. I have gone through many angles of attack and decided that you need both tempo and to zoom.

Amani Senai is required to tempo the runner back to sniping agendas.

You will have to play whack-a-mole and hide the agendas.

Very often your scoring windows are extremely narrow and often comprise of "last turn I slammed three must-trash things onto the board, now that they're broke or recovering, this is my chance to eke out an ARES or Beale".

ARES first, as always.

Mumba Temple is the MVP as, in a very high-skill level matchup, both runner and corp will be exceedingly poor. Having Mumba Temple online allows you to still rez your important assets while being at 1 or 2 credits.

BOOM! is not required as a win con but it's there if you need it. Sometimes it being seen or trashed even just signals that your deck is a kill prison. Let them think that! Let them clear all but one tag. Then go for the EOI closer!

This list is a lot of fun. I think the ice selection is correct - some people are gravitating back towards resistor but from my testing I believe either the runner immediately embraces tags or it's a long, long money attrition battle where your resistor won't tax enough, so I'm sticking with IP Block (I'm happy to be proven wrong!)

With the current runner econ situation, Hard-Hitting News is difficult to land so it's ok to go down to 2. Slamming down assets is usually the gameplan.

8 comments
18 Jun 2020 Gauss

I'm guessing it's Bellona over GFI because of how poor this will keep the runner, but I would have thought the agenda advantage was too good. What made you make this call?

18 Jun 2020 CryptoGraham

Since it's now very unlikely you'll get hit by Whistleblower, the tempo hit from losing 5 credits to steal a Bellona hurts a lot. If you're playing well and pestering the runner, they should barely be able to afford this steal and you should be either able to punish it or it tempos the runner back enough to stabilize. I have also bled off 6 points of Bellona purposely to be able to SEA EOI EOI and close the game out!

18 Jun 2020 Radiant

@GaussBellona also reimburses you for the score to keep tempo

20 Jun 2020 manveruppd

Interesting approach, you don't go all-in on the boom, so I wonder how good it is as a spend of 3 influence in there. Notably, this would've been legal in the last MWL as well!

20 Jun 2020 CryptoGraham

@manveruppd It is, yes! The choice to go for Bellona over GFI is strictly related to the loss of Film Critic.

I've been running all sorts of CtM variants over the past year - from prison Lady Liberty Kill to all-in on Amani Senai un-installrunner.

I like having a one-off BOOM! as a just in case, however, off the top of my head, if I wanted to have something interesting to do with that influence, I would consider Drafter, Afshar, Jeeves Model Bioroids, Bass CH1R180G4, Lakshmi Smartfabrics.

Drafter feels pretty appropriate and a hard penalty for facecheck (6cr to break with Engolo!), Afshar is great if you're having porous HQ problems (and is Hippo/Cutlery proof!). Jeeves is extra tempo and absolutely horrid to trash, Bass allows for some FA shenanigans, but I admit it competes with the Calibration Testing slot. Lakshmi is actually really interesting and I wonder how it would do but my brain tells me that a lot of CtM's power is in the faced-downness of cards so maybe not quite that one.

2 Aug 2020 Ebrey

@cryptograham thanks for the list, I went 7-0 with this in the North American championships!

2 Aug 2020 CryptoGraham

@Ebrey That's incredible! Did you keep BOOM! or did you swap it for the suggested ice? I'm sad I didn't get to see any of the games. This is the deck I wanted to take but I had other plans this weekend :c

2 Aug 2020 Ebrey

@CryptoGraham didn't change a card. You can see me boom foilflaws here! www.twitch.tv