Bankers CtM (7th Reading SC, #1 in Swiss)

Deck

I took this to top of Swiss at the 56 person Store Champ in Reading, making my first cut, finishing 7th overall and winning the Readox Bell in the process. It went 4-0 in Swiss and lost 1 game in the cut. CtM is still one of the strongest decks out there post worlds particularly given the rise in Dumblefork in response to Friends EtF, however I was struggling to update my list to cope with power tap Andy decks so Rotage sent me this list a couple of days before the tournament (thanks Dave). I was still deciding between this and Boom Blue Sun on the train to Reading - once I settled on CtM I added an extra EoI, cutting the MVT (although wished I had the MVT when playing against Temujin Smoke later in the day).

Games

• Round 1: Alex playing Chaos Theory. An early slums for CT is a surprise but with no econ they cannot keep up the pressure and I rush to 5 points scoring out a Global Food. I throw a Beale into the remote but a surprise Test Run for Shrike into a Stimhack forces me to give it up, however next turn I am able to score a Breaking News and Exchange for the win.

• Round 2: Toby playing Noise. Toby mentions Ixodidae while we are chatting so I throw my first piece of ice on HQ and put out a Commercial Bankers Group. He responds by installing a Medium and checking R&D. He looks alarmed and installs a Datasucker, milling a Hard Hitting News. This is a slight issue as I have an economic advantage for the whole game, however he cannot keep up with my remote servers and I am able to leverage this to get to 7 points quickly.

• Round 3: Max playing Smoke. Temujin and Employee Strike keep Max in the game for a lot of it and I nearly lose to an Indexing, but he floats tags after getting to 6 points and I Exchange for the win.

• Round 4: David playing Andy. Power Tap Andy is teched against CtM and I don't fancy my chances. I score out an early Astro under cover of a Hard Hitting News and sit on the counter weathering Siphons and losing 6 points, until David decides the game is in Archives enabling me to topdeck a Breaking News, scoring it with the Astro counter to Exchange back a Global Food and win.

• Round 5: It's 4.30 and I haven't had lunch yet, so at 7-1 I ask for an ID to get some time to prepare for my first ever cut. I eat lunch, chat with a World Champion, watch some friends playing, and try not to be nervous (which works fine until 10 minutes before the cut starts). I end up facing my round 5 opponent in the losers bracket and it may have been helpful to have experience of his corp in advance of that.

• Cut game 1: I'm playing Max who I also played in Swiss and choose to corp against his Smoke. He takes a Global Food early and I land an Hard Hitting News with a Beale in the remote hoping to score it under cover of the 4 tags. Max sees through this and takes the Beale, but floats a few tags. I choose to ice R&D instead of closing his accounts when he still has a couple of tags and 4 or so credits which ultimately costs me the game as I lose a window to Exchange back an agenda. I eventually lose to Indexing despite being on 6 points with an Astro token.