This is easily my favorite Little Deck so far. Doom was my very first love in VS. The very first pack I opened had the 6-drop and as I commented to a friend, "Man, I got the 6 cost Dr. Doom. I think he's really good!" Talk about an understatement. Of course, the 4-drop we all know, love
, fear and loathe was the break out star because of things like Mystical Paralysis, Reign of Terror and Boris: Personal Servant of Doom, but still the 6-drop was good enough that even in an age of Curve Deck domination it wasn't uncommon to replace your turn four play a mere two turns later. As long as that turn six play was a certain dictator in a little known European country named Latveria.Even Big Brotherhood usually tried not to replace characters that close together. Unless we were talking about a certain dictator of a small nation of mutants named Genosha. We all know how good HE was too, but since he doesn't show up in this deck lets keep moving on.
Doom's controlling nature and the power cards making up a Skeleton Deck led to multiple strategies being playable in the months after his debut. You could play Gamma Doom trying to stall out with Puppet Masters, Mysticals, Reigns and Robot Sentrys to win after setting up a recurring Gamma Bomb starting turn 7, thanks to Beast: Dr. Henry McCoy and Latveria.
You could team up the Common Enemy route and control with Doom, while the Fantastic Four played out the super beats of a lifetime with It's Clobberin' Time, Thing: Heavy Hitter and Savage Beatdowns. Not to mention Signal Flare was old school for "Consistent," back before "Consistent" meant rarely missing a drop.
And of course you'd be remiss not to mention Evil Medical School. Shimmer, Dr. Light: Arthur Light, Alfred, Boris, GCPD Officers and another deck that went to the late game to win. With what I think is probably the best win condition ever. Boosting Dr. Light on 9 is beyond cool! I mean, you snag all your guys in the KO pile and dump them on the board, stun anybody you please and attack for lots? Hell yeah.But that's a lot of exposition. As I said, Doom is what I love! So, it's easy for me to go on and on about him and his team. Lets get down to brass tacks.
For Little Deck I decided to emulate a more recently version of Dr. Doom debauchery, the Crisis Doom deck. The deck plays Crisis on Infinite Earths to make your characters non-unique and hopes to spam out Latverian Overlords, with help from somebody else's friends to fill the gaps.
The first thing to do was to pick out Dr. Dooms to go in the deck. Victor Von Doom and Diabolical Genius are the first two, followed very closely by Richards's Rival. Next I put Lord of Latveria in, Sorcerous Savant fills up your six drop slots nicely. Scientific Sorcerer is okay, I'd rather play Fearsome Monarch, but I don't have him. I'd also be playing Latverian Monarch and Power Hungry if I had them for the record.
Dr. Doom, Richards's Rival
Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
Dr. Doom, Sorcerous Savant
Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
Dr. Doom, Scientific Sorcerer
Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
Next I decided to bring in the "Skeleton Deck" that every Doom deck really should play if it can. Doomstadt is a ridiculous pump that gives most of your characters +3 something. In this case Defense. I don't have Castle Doom or I'd play both. lol Reign of Terror, Mystical Paralysis, Faces of Doom and Boris: Personal Servant of Doom.
Boris, Personal Servant of Doom
Doomstadt
Faces of Doom
Mystical Paralysis
Reign of Terror
That leaves us with gaps to fill. Let's start with characters. You need two drops, you need five drops. Five is one of the more important drops in any game so let's start there. Kristoff is unplayable in this format as everything is one-of anyway. I considered Post: Kevin Tremain in the tradition of Thing: Heavy Hitter since if all your characters are Crisis affiliated you don't stun anyone, but I'm not going to have Crisis every game. I know that. However, if I miss it, I'd rather underdrop than get my 5-drop auto stunned. So the only Loyalty character I'm going to play is Garth <> Tempest: Atlantean Sorcerer. For a mere 3 end you get to fish back all those insane one-of's you're going to play. Like Reign of Terror!
On team I decided to play Robot Destroyer and Ultron <> Ultron II: Army. They both offer good options. Out of combat stuns are always strong, even if you trade a five for their four. With a Mystical Paralysis, Robot Destroyer can often turn that into a dead initiative for your opponent. Worse for them still if you exhaust a three drop to Mystical. Or worse, have a Puppet Master too boot. Ultron can be KO'd to either your 6-drop, your 3-Drop or just at the end of the turn and boomerang back to the board keeping your presence up. He also lets you play Mask of Doom for a much less costly price.
Garth <> Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer
Robot Destroyer, Army
Ultron <> Ultron II, Army
At two, I went with San to search up locations because Doomstadt is so important and Doom also has some other very nice locations. Puppet Master and Robot Sentry help you to control the flow of the game and finally Kristoff Von Doom allows you a way to control Doom. Better yet he gives a +1/+1 pump to most of your five drops. With that in mind I figured filling in a little of the Doom army theme would be a good way to close out my drops.
Kristoff Von Doom, The Boy Who Would Be Doom
Pupper Master, Phillip Masters
Robot Sentry, Army
San, The Alienated One
On three I added Doom-Bot and Doom-Bot Corps. Being able to ready a Dr. Doom I control is crazy in this deck. Ready my six drop and attack for the win? Yes, please! For 3 endurance your Doom-Bot Corps can become Dr. Doom for a turn and take advantage of your Doomstadt* or Mystical or activate Faces. On four I picked up Mr. Fantastic: Doom's Adversary. Free characters rock and you have two three drops that fit the bill of his ability. However if you have Robot Sentry in the KO pile you might as well try and take advantage of the whole effect so I also added Tibetan Monks. With all these Army characters, and a focus on your characters being Dr. Doom, Decoy Program became an easy addition as well as Dr. Hauptmann.
Dr. Hauptmann, Diabolic Inventor
Tibetan Monks, Army
Doom-Bot, Army
Doom-Bot Corps, Army
Mr. Fantastic, Doom's Adversary
Decoy Program
That brings us to 24 cards. We have 6 slots left. One has to go to Crisis on Infinite Earths, obviously. Next I decided to run Mask of Doom since we can return characters and run a freebie, and two search cards is much better than one. With location search I looked at Doom's locations. Latveria, Latverian Embassy and Doom's Throne Room are all great cards. In Little Deck the Embassy, like it's character counterpart 5-Drop Kristoff, is sadly useless. Latveria though, that's VERY useful. Nearly global reinforcement can really kill a rush deck, worse yet if they're trying to get past an extra 6-9 defense too boot. Not to mention the occasional chance to Reign or Mystical on turn 3. Sadly I don't think we'll be playing enough plot twists to run the Throne Room, because I really like that card.
Seeing as Doomstadt is so nice as a global pump for Doom, I looked for other Doom Legend cards. Power Cosmic is nice, but without a huge closer like Sub-Mariner: Ally of Doom I don't want to risk losing all my resources. Micro-Size and Supersize aren't big enough pump, but I did like Expendable Ally. You can't rely on it as a Savage Beatdown, but as a Fizzle/Nasty Surprise it works just fine. Bitter Rivals is a way to bring the attack bonus of Castle Doom online, though very limited. I've found it very useful in combination with Sorcerous Savant and Lord of Latveria though. You play it on 4, keep it a couple turns before that drop dies off and then switch the target by replaying it. Finally I decided to add Diplomatic Immunity, however I'm thinking it may need to be cut. It just hasn't done much, but at the same time I haven't played it more than a couple times.
Here's the list...
Little Crisis Doom
Boris, Personal Servant of Doom
Dr. Hauptmann, Diabolic Inventor
Tibetan Monks, Army
Kristoff Von Doom, The Boy Who Would Be Doom
Pupper Master, Phillip Masters
Robot Sentry, Army
San, The Alienated One
Doom-Bot, Army
Doom-Bot Corps, Army
Dr. Doom, Richards's Rival
Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
Mr. Fantastic, Doom's Adversary
Garth <> Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer
Robot Destroyer, Army
Ultron <> Ultron II, Army
Dr. Doom, Sorcerous Savant
Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
Dr. Doom, Scientific Sorcerer
Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria
Decoy Program
Doomstadt
Bitter Rivals
Crisis On Infinite Earths, Team Up
Diplomatic Immunity
Expendable Ally
Faces of Doom
Mask of Doom
Mystical Paralysis
Reign of Terror
In place of Diplomatic Immunity I think I'm gonna try Have A Blast! because with the one-of rule in Little Deck, you can blast some very powerful twists and then safely expect to never see that crap again! Hehe.
-Mike
*You don't have to use it and then flip Doomstadt do you? It says you are considered to control Dr. Doom, but that doesn't mean the same thing as a character named Dr. Doom does it?
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