Daddy Skorp - Top Weyland at Worlds and Top 16

MrEhjiwurth 1640

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"Your not Alpha Skorp. Your DADDY Skorp" - The legendary PaulyG

"Stop telling me how to play Netrunner!" - A frantic Spags in cut

"Can you please tell me what this card does?" - A perplexed Dan previous world champ in Cut asking about half my deck.


Magnum Opus! The penultimate official end to all of Netrunner. The centre stage to the best and most devout players to play the most adrenaline pumping and high stakes games known to runners and corps everywhere. Everything is on the line to be the best and only the most structured, consistent and developed decks will reign on top of the meta. So what are you playing Alex? ....49 card Skorp? With SALEMS!?


Ladies and Gentlemen! Sysops and Bioroids! I present to you....the Borrill Effect! Image from Gyazo


The Deck

Okay I suppose I can talk logically about what the thought process of this deck was. Basically after Nationals I was getting a feeling more and more Maxx players would jump up. Even after the thankful death of the Zero, Clan Vengeance fiasco over the summer. And especially after Hunter Seeker was vanishing practically no one in their right mind would see Skorp as a threat. Welp they were't expecting this guy to think so brilliantly of the idea. Naturally the first problem was how on earth do we make Skorp good? Some intensely tight fast advance deck with the threat of rig removal for support? Pffffft! No how boring. A supermodernism deck with Hard-Hitting News and High-Profile Target? Oh please you insult my intelligence. ....Standard Procedure and Salem's Hospitality going for hand removal? NOW WE'RE TALKING! I tested the deck at a gnk in Reading and after a lovely Toby threw both my ID and Playmat in outrage against such a travesty of a deck I knew then that I was onto a real winner of a deck.


No I'm Not A Monster I Just Want Ibrahim Senpai to Notice Me!

Most of you will remember in the days of Mumbad NBN's theme was sorta hand information. Learning what's in the hand and how to get rid of it with Salem's Hospitality and Ibrahim Salem. The problem was especially was Salem's Hospitality was most of the time you'd have to burn one just to get the other to target a specific card you want to remove. Well in the latest cycle a delightful little card called Standard Procedure came out and suddenly you had a potent combo that not only gave you money (The thinking man's Sweeps Week), but also helped snipe key cards. Ibrahim himself gives you constant pressure to the hand. Allowing cards that would hurt your poor pretty corp face to be swatted away with our regal white gloves and removed from existence. This. Card. Saved. Me. So. Much. Removing deadly removal like Knifed and Spooned. Denying economy or even key breakers thye held tight in hand because there was a fear of installing a program. A fear.....of HORSES!

The Trojan kind to be precise. Trojan Horse is a nice little card that can be devastating to a poor runner. Especially an aggressive Maxx player or 419 this card can really save games. So this creates two situations. One where the runner be super aggressive to get in whilst they can. Or save up and cower on their side and either gives you massive advantages to lock them out or score out. And just to be sure you can get your tools out we pack a few Consulting Visit.

Then we have our delicious suite of agendas. SSL Endorsement for econ. City Works Project The thinking mans Obokata Protocol. And my guilty pleasure...actually no I don't feel guilty at all it's Underway Renovation. Oh baby I love this card from the day a Kit Test Runned a Magnum Opus and put it on the top of the stack. Then I draw Underway Renovation and install advance it trashing it. Ahhhh the days of playing it in GRNDL: Power Unleashed with Breaker Bay Grid and Simone Diego.


Memorable matches were practically all of them but sadly I can't remember the names of my opponents well all of them but the main statistics were only 2 losses in Swiss and 2 losses in Cut with Corp. I won against all Maxx players and even got to play two of the best Adam players who were incredibly awesome but alas Find the Truth is amazing for a Salems deck. The two loses were against a Ayla with Patchwork which was a really cool deck. And a Omar who survived a Snare! after successfully firing RNG Key.


This deck was such a dark horse of Trojan degeneracy and I cannot be more proud I was able to create such a devastating effect on my opponents on the final stage of official Netrunner. Thanks especially to PaulyG and Steffmonkey my other fellow Skorp players who helped encourage my deck and go over it. They really supported me as did all the UK team. My core meta the Readox meta. I hope I did you proud carrying us into the cut of Worlds. You guys made Netrunner from a good game into a great game I've dedicated myself into becoming a strong advocate for big plays and bigger moments. Thank you all for such an amazing time and I am glad to walk into the light of the NISEI driven future with you.

11 comments
25 Sep 2018 paulyg

The sheer joy of watching you play this deck was one of the best things about Magnum Opus! I enjoyed our little Skorp triumvirate during testing and was delighted you did so well. Extremely well deserved top-cut finish and I hope to see you clanking those medals around at many future tournaments.

25 Sep 2018 thunderfist

You also beat my Smoke in the 7th round of swiss. My corp was Azmari. Great games :)

25 Sep 2018 Saintis

This deck is madness and I love it so much.

26 Sep 2018 FreqKing

My hat is off to you for this innovative, even inspired, piece of deckbuilding. Well done. I also curse your name with my dying breath for empowering Skorpios, my least favourite corp card ever printed. Ambivalently yours, Marcus.

27 Sep 2018 Vortilion

Loosing every goddamn game with this deck. It seems way too easy for the runner to steal agendas....

27 Sep 2018 Radiant

Just out of curiosity, if you absolutely had to cut down to 44 cards, how would you do it? Almost every card in here seems un-cuttable (which I guess is the point).

28 Sep 2018 macydus2

Did you consider Kala Ghoda Real TV?

28 Sep 2018 MrEhjiwurth

@Radiant If I absolutely had to I'd cut one SSL Endorsement Go up to 3 Underway Renovation. Then I'd probably cut the Sapper or NGO Front

29 Sep 2018 Radiant

@MrEhjiwurth Am I misunderstanding or does that not only bring you down by 2 cards?

10 Nov 2018 Urziel

I absolutely adore this deck! I was building a very similar deck for some time, but I decided to give it a try. It exactly fits my approach to the Weyland and I absolutely adore the theme: Ibrahim Salem and Salem's Hospitality.

Trojan Horse is exactly what I need (I'm not very familiar with the newest cards, so it was like a revelation!), same for Standard Procedure.

The power of Standoff + Archer / Ibrahim Sempai is obscene, and if runner cannot break and eliminate your Underway Renovation or Salem then he can face a mighty deadlock.

Funny fact - Wraparound can be broken with D4v1d

Hortum + Wraparound is usually too much for most of the players playing Aumakua.

Possible changes:

  • Remove one Sapper - but what would be a good replacement - it's still "Trash program" and works from HQ? One option is to use Bloodletter - mostly for "trash two cards from stack" option - and hope for sniping something.

Summary: This deck is wonderful, I don't envy runners playing against it

19 Nov 2018 Urziel

OK, I think I have it!

Option number 1:

Option number 2:

Both options are great. Hired Help can help a lot, but it's not possible to use it as your sole HQ defense.