Château'd (Glacier CTM 3-3 @Worlds 2017)

analogBrad 174

Actions at château'ds have consequences.

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My glacier CTM deck from Worlds. Did not finish high. Posting just cause I think it's fun and different to play. Strategy is to send the runner to #TraceHell (entirely different than #TagHell) with Aryabhata Tech and tracey ETR ICE that is stupid to break. Got me my three only Worlds wins...I ran with Reina-Cortez, doh! Losses included Sunny (ugh), Aumakua Lister Adam (fun!), and Smoke with early Indexings (meh). Won against Hayleys and MaxX. Also won my two ICE Breaker matches before I had to leave.

Some things it does:

  • Score out behind Macrophage and SYNC BRE. Even against Mopus it can be done. I'd play 12 Macros in this deck if it were legal.

  • Leverage a slight economic advantage into a big one. Esp by bring runner econ into Stinson range with overspent ETR traces. Luv'n me sum Value BRE ;)

  • Single advance an Explode-a with a Red Herrings behind ICE and then spend time building board state until HQ gets another agenda.

  • At least one Aryabhata fire on a Macro per game. Usually several. That’s an 8 credit swing per. Laugh to yourself when runners money up to break Macro while you still have other upgrades to mess up their math.

  • Lock game up with Surveillance Sweep and The News Now Hour.

  • Favorite play: put out an Aryabhata right after runner saw MVT in HQ or R&D. Don’t rez it even as you rez another one behind ICE. Screw up runner end game by rezzing on their last gasp.

  • BRE second sub has comical interactions with Ash and Herrings. Runner often thinks they can let it fire. BRE second sub...lol.

  • CTM fire comes more sparingly than you'd hope. Mostly serves to keep runner away from installed Aryabhata Tech and for occasional tempo hits on must trash upgrades.

Early game can be pretty bad without Ash or Herrings. Esp susceptible to Indexing...tho giving up early Explod-a's isn't terrible. Early econ is variable. This is an end game deck. Just keep chugging at board state. Best way for the runner to win is to link up, get R&D agendas before ICE is really taxing, or trash Aryabhata before it gets installed. (Still not a terrible deck without the assets, tho. Just less teeth.)

Strangely, this deck seems to play better in CTM than the other NBN IDs. I think it just messes with runner econ tendencies and math to too great an advantage. CTM may also make better use of hidden information than SYNC or Making News. Cheers.

4 comments
15 Nov 2017 Sanjay

Thank you for posting this! I really like seeing decks like this. It's exciting to fully appreciate the diversity of the Worlds meta.

Plus, I posted my lists and I only went 3-3, so thank you for normalizing my behavior.

Upgrade-y glacier CtM is a really interesting archetype and one I've thought about but never built. Really cool to see it in action.

Do you think you would make any changes to the list based on your experience at Worlds?

Did you find the slim amount of tag punishment to be a problem? I know sometimes I run a bit tag punishment light in my NBN decks and then the runner gets tagged and I don't have anything to show for it. Did that come up?

Incidentally, I really really really love the Red Herrings Exploda interaction. I'm so happy you got that working.

15 Nov 2017 Sanjay

Also, hi! It was great to see you at Worlds!

15 Nov 2017 analogBrad

@Sanjay Great meeting you at Worlds too! And thanks for commenting. I don't think tag punishment is a big deal. If they're taking tags, they're losing traces, and Aryabhata is firing. It could only be an issue if they trash all of your Aryabhatas before install, which is what happened when I lost to Adam. But that's pretty rare and two Pre-emptives is pretty good recursion. It feels weird not focusing on the tags...but so many traces with an Aryabhata out is pretty hard to deal with. This ICE suite tears the conspiracy breakers to shreds without some sort of alternate strength manipulation...when they actually need to break it. Even stealth can run into issues if you stack Macrophages and BRE on a remote and R&D.

I think you could make a case to switch the current to Scarcity rather than Surveillance Sweep...but I really didn't want to play Scarcity. (Cause I just dislike playing it.) I chose to go more for end game lock with Surveillance. It forces them to have enough credits to break all these 4, 6, and 7 strength ICE with multiple subs.

16 Nov 2017 Sanjay

I'm sorry you weren't able to get a loss to Apex! You were so close to completing the set.