Little Deck Creations: Hidden (Little) Evil

All right, time for another of my ideas. I think I like this one quite a bit. Enough I may try and ebay the cards for it. Luckily with Little Deck even the most expensive card is only a one of so you never break the bank on them. Hehe.

Faces of Evil is a pivotal card in VS history. It rocked the world in Avengers sealed and had a starring role at PC Atlanta, where two of twenty players using the card made the top 8, though they didn't pass the second round. I'm sure somebody won a 10K with it too. I'm not looking that one up though, no matter how fun it is to read the old event coverage sometimes. (I seriously mean that!) I miss reading about big events more than going to big events I think.

Anyway, one variant that had some time in the sun and may have helped lead to the ban on Detective Chimp was Hidden Faces. The idea being that you could play a bunch of little guys in the concealed area and while you sacrificed swing through to the face, you always got to attack back. And because your board was replacable, or even dead at the end of the turn anyway (Hard Sound Construct) you could make great leaps in board position with the right attacks. Better yet, you could make great leaps in the endurance total.

I won't even mention the Kent Farm trick.

Anyway, I built my first copy of Hidden Faces for the Random Punks event way back when. It was long past Bobo T. Champanzee's time, but it still hit hard on a good draw. It was fun and I still play it casually. It still packs no rares and it still kicks a fair share of ass. So, when making that Revenge Squad Little Deck the other day I got the inspiration to put this together too.

After a little testing, I made some changes and it seemed to perk up quite a bit. Here's the list as it stands.

1 Drop
Anti-Green Lantern, Army
Black Bolt, Enemy Within
Dallas Riordan, Mayoral Aide
Green Goblin, Insanity Unleashed
Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
Surveillance Pawn, Army
Terry Sloane <> Mr. Terrific, Golden Age Gold Medalist
Yellowjacket, Rita DeMara
2 Drop
Beetle, Armorsmith
Bullseye, Lester
Captain America, The Patriot - Secret Avenger
Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter Earth
Joystick, Fun and Games
Melissa Gold <> Screaming Mimi, Mimi Schwartz
Warskrull, Infilltrator
3 Drop
Crystal, Elementelle
Shadow Thief, Carl Sands
Wolverine, Skrunucklehead
5 Drop
Paibok, The Power Skrull

Equipment
Image Inducer
Quantum Bands, Unique

Locations
Birthing Chamber
Hunte Castle
Soul World
The Hellfire Club

Plot Twists
Act of Defiance, Team-Up
Cannibal Tech
Faces of Evil, Team-Up
Tech Upgrade
Underground Movement, Team-Up

I started with the auto inclusions. Faces of Evil, Beetle, Yellowjacket, Dallas, Hunte Castle, Hellfire Club, Birthing Chamber. Then I added some personal favorites, Crystal, Surveillance Pawn, Terry Sloane, Shadow Thief, AGL, Captain America.

I thought I had a solid base here, but I was trying to think of more ways to turn up global pumps. This led me to think of Act of Defiance. Thinking about it, made me think of the typical Skrull deck with poor little kidnapped Franklin Richards doing all the dirty work. Hiding the evil Skrulls in the hidden area. Where Hunte Castle and The Hellfire Club could pump them even more!

Along with Act and Franklin I added Warskrull for his search effect and Wolverine: Skrunucklehead for his potential to swing for 12-13 or more. Paibok was added because with so little deck space, I imagine I wouldn't have more than my Global +1 pumps and so having a five drop that could provide another "global" pump would be a smart move.

To make sure I could share that pump with everyone though I had to think. What could I do? What granted everybody the same affiliation on my side. Well, Super Human Registration Act does. And it lets you recruit off your deck, which would be nice for off curve, but wait... Isn't there another team-up like that? Something that has something to do with the hidden area? Hehe. Oh yeah. Underground Movement, how I love thee! While SHRA hogs the spotlight, I think Underground is honestly an out and out better card.

In this deck it allows those great characters like Beetle and Melissa Gold and Joystick to jump into the hidden area and hang out in the castles and clubs the rest of the deck chills in. They're the kind of characters you'd play even if you couldn't hide them, which says a lot. Normally, in a full size deck, I'd play the one drop Joystick, but I added the two drop instead after another idea struck me.

When looking for small Skrulls I was reminded of Black Bolt: Enemy Within. What's better than a board full of hidden characters with global pumps? The same thing but with a fat, juicy 1 drop soaking damage in the visible area! With just the cards in the deck all ready, Black Bolt plus Quantum Bands had potential to be very large. Like a four drop on turn three or even just four.

With the addition of some of the dual affiliated Thunderbolts in Marvel Universe, the potential is even better. Joystick and Green Goblin add Sinister Syndicate while Bullseye provides his S.H.I.E.L.D. credentials. There's still other affiliations on the character list, I believe meaning with just my board he could (potentially!) be an 14/14. Wanting to ensure that if I hit Black Bolt I'd get him all affiliated up, I added an Image Inducer to the list giving me two equipments to bloat him up. Also added two search cards for the equipment. With Yellowjacket to search for Beetle, Beetle to search for Black Bolt and the two equipment searchers, it seems like he'll hit the board pretty consistently with a good bit of pumped up brawn.

Now, if I had all my affiliations out it might be a pretty bad situation for me, cause that'd take a long time and late turns aren't exactly where you wanna be with any Face variant. But Quantum Bands gives you every affiliation around. So most of the time your opponent will give him 2-3 points himself. Hopefully that's enough to end the game before their big hitters come out and snuff the (little) evil hanging out in the concealed area.

-Mike