Hard-mode CtM (with help from spags)

bubbathegoat 605

This is my corp list from Gencon, on which I was lucky enough to get a lot of help and advice from spags (Mumbad Virtual Tour). I made it to day 2 with this deck, which is honestly a lot more than I expected. My runner was cams Hayley (kiv build + Deus Ex), which was my decidedly weaker deck. This deck finished at 7-3 across both days.

This deck wins by scoring 7 points, no other tricks to it. It does this by a mix of Fast Advance, EoI, and risky never-advance. In most games, runner become desperate and will end up taking tags (either from ICE or going broke) to prevent you from scoring out.

Many runners won't check every remote, particularly not on turn 1. I used this to my advantage and scored a 3-2 early in many games. Mid-game opportunities can be manufactured as well, read your opponent well and you won't need ICE to score.

Mumbad Virtual Tour is the MVP of this deck. The runner must trash it when it is installed, which will trigger the ID trace. There are lots of powerful shenanigans that can be pulled off with this card in the CtM ID. My favorite is installing MVT onto a rezzed SSCG to bait a clot, and then letting the runner plant right into it. It is also a powerful deterrent to repeated runs on HQ/R&D, or as a naked server if the runner is checking every remote. This card is good, maybe even 'bonkers' in this ID. The only limit to its uses is the corp player's creativity.

The ICE is a bit light, and they rarely cost the runner much money to get through any piece. The goal of ICE in this deck is to drive runner credits down and corp credits up. Thus 0-rez cost Resistor and Pop-up Window are stars, as is Turnpike since runners will pay at least 2 credits to get through, or take a tag (which is even better in most cases). I almost never bother to ICE a remote, and I never put any ICE on archives, so the 9 pieces are basically split between 2 servers. I don't like big ICE because rezzing it puts me down more credits than the runner.

I had added Aryabhata Tech to give some extra teeth to the traces. These are particularly effective against runners who end on 8 credits to shed HHN tags, since losing 1-2 credits will leave them wearing a tag. They worked well in some of my earlier games, but by the end I wasn't convinced they were giving me much value. Stronger opponents played around the traces, often avoiding them completely. Given how often I clicked to draw, and the games I lost to R&D lock/agenda flood, I think Sensie Actors Union would be much better in these 3 slots. Sensie is also another card that makes the 'must trash' list that you want to make the runner respond to.

SanSan City Grid, Exchange of Information, Psychographics, and Biotic Labor are key cards, but they aren't doing anything new in here.

2 comments
11 Aug 2016 moistloaf

baffling to me that you're playing without Sensie Actors Union. it works beautifully with Virtual Tour as protection/deterrant

11 Aug 2016 bubbathegoat

@moistloafYeah, I think Sensie Actors Union is better than Aryabhata Tech, and I've switched back. In my local meta, I was having some problems with runners going tag-me on Keyhole runs, so I really needed a way to tax them out of R&D runs. Losing traces to Aryabhata is expensive, so it worked well for my local meta, but wasn't very useful at Gencon.

I'm back on Sensie Actors Union now. Maybe it could have brought me a better result at Gencon if I had changed sooner.