More fun than CtM (4th after Swiss / 7th after cut at Euros)

Ok so this is exactly the same as the Skorp list I posted about a month ago (https://netrunnerdb.com/en/decklist/49823/no-tech-skorp) but Euros was fast approaching and I had no clue what to do for corp, I had heard rumours of CtM being a hot favourite but something about the deck didn’t really click for me so in the end I just went with this Skorp list that I’ve been playing a lot recently and is also much more fun to play than CtM at the moment.

I already talked about my card choices and how the deck works there so perhaps here it’s more interesting to talk about cards I thought about including but ultimately decided that the original list was better

• Rashida Jareem – While definitely a very strong card and quite likely due to be uncontested in a remote due to fear of batty reprisals, one thing this deck does not like is the runner getting a bit too much out of their single accesses, you’re already playing 3x Batty and I didn’t feel comfortable with the prospect of there being 6x cards that will get trashed whenever accessed from centrals making it all the more likely the runner will snag that 1 or 2 extra points they need. The other thing is you’re already playing fast track in the list which in my opinion is a much better draw card in this list.

• SSL Endorsement – Yes I’m still playing graft, one thing this deck can do is operate perfectly fine on low credit totals, very rare are the games where you are going for any sort of tax plan where you want to rez loads of ICE so the extra money from SSL isn’t really needed. Graft is slightly better in the sense that if you actually manage to score it (which doesn’t happen often mainly due to it being a 1x) you gain a huge advantage and probably just grab whatever you need to win next turn with.

• Navi Mumbai City Grid – While this improves your shaper matchup, it’s too situational and not ‘always good’ like batty – besides if you expect a heavy shaper field this probably isn’t the deck to take.

• Cyberdex Virus Suite – I would have liked to find room for a cheeky CVS in the list because it’s one of the best ways to kill a turtle without committing a Hunter Seeker (which is good because a lot of people are playing extra turtles just to get them blown up by Hunter Seeker). Coupled with the ever present #slotsm8 issue with this deck and the low trash cost I decided not to include any copies but I feel it is worth slotting if you can find the room.

• Tithonium – This beefy piece of ICE was something I considered at the last minute, as a way to punish runners who think they are safe because they can deal with archer, and since you’re running 2x Standoff, 3x Hostile Takeover in theory you rez it for free most of the time. The reasons I decided against including it however, were for one you have to reconsider your whole ice package if you want to include this, because you are already on 3 archer and you don’t want to have 4/5 ICE in the deck that read ‘You can’t jam an atlas behind me turn 1’ so this pushes you towards cutting some Archers to play this. The problem then is it just isn’t as good as archer, sure trashing a resource might be nice when it fires, but Archer is miles ahead mainly for the reason that even if the runner has a way to break it, usually it’s going to cost them a lot and they won’t be overwhelmed with joy at the prospect of doing so. Sometimes against some runners (mainly shapers) you just have to make a remote with 2 archers on and say “I know you can get in, but you don’t really want to” and try and score in it. Tithonium doesn’t really enable this plan because most of the time if you have a barrier breaker, it won’t cost you much to break this piece of ICE. I would have liked to play a 3rd standoff, I didn’t want one in my list because I was worried about all the bad things turntable could do to my plans but didn’t end up seeing a lot of it on the day and in some games I just wanted something harmless I could IA/IAA in the remote to force the runner to go in only to find themselves on 0 more points and with another card RFGd the next turn.

Coming into Euros I was expecting a very anarch dominated field – so it was quite a shock on Day 1 to discover there were about 20 people Smoke and another 20 on Hayley most of which would either be on at least sac con or film critic

Nevertheless the deck managed to go 5-2 on the day, dropping one game to Aesop’s Hayley in the Swiss and another to Geist in the cut, the other decks I played against were Reina, Val, MaxX and 2x Smoke.

Finally thanks to everyone that attended Euros and helped organise it. Special thanks go to @echo & @lpoulter who’s takes on Skorp heavily inspired this deck, Tagore for his hospitality at Euros and all the Cambridge netrunners who have been playing Weyland since the dawn of time and helped me adapt to the Weyland way.