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 Continue reading...

Little Deck Creations: Revenge Squad - Ongoing

All right, untested deck reports rule. :)

I saw some mention of Revenge Squad in the VSR MWS Little Deck tournament and I figured before I saw any sort of decklist from the two people playing it I should try my own version and see what differences there were later. I figure it'll make for a fun comparison.

Jumping straight in, here's my list.

1 Drop
Hope, Amazon Bodyguard
2 Drop
Atomic Skull, Joe Martin
Brainiac 13, Mental Giant
Mole Man, Leader of the Moloids
Mr. Mxyzptlk, Fifth Dimension Imp
Terra-Man, Toby Manning
3 Drop
Lex Luthor, Champion of the Common Man
Lex Luthor, Megalomaniac
Lex Luthor, President Luthor
Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin
4 Drop
Atomic Skull, Cursed
Kiman, Chief Weaponer
Maxima, Empress of Almerac
Metallo, Kryptonite Heart
5 Drop
Preus, Citizen's Patrol
Mongul, Tyrant of Warworld
6 Drop
Brainiac 12, Upgrade Complete
Brainiac 2.5, Future Intelligence
7 Drop
Braniac 13, B-13

Battle for Metropolis
Bizarro Ray
Concrete Jungle
Death of Superman
Executive Privilege
Hostile Takeover
Null Time Zone
Omnipotence
Revenge Pact
Standoff
Toy Soldiers

Standoff may be one to jettison as I don't know how often it's really going to burn anybody for a significant amount, but without play testing it I like the card. If it had a lower threshold I'd like it more. It's probably best kept to a full size format where you can flip multiple of it on turn 4.

I also dabble in the 0 Defense Stun theme, as you can see. Kiman, Bizarro Ray and the Brainiac's all combine to provide some good potential for out of combat stuns. If nothing else stun backs or extra damage can't be scoffed at. Not when a game can be decided by getting that last 1-2 points on your initiative or losing next turn. I went this direction because the Revenge Squad 4 drops didn't excite me enough to include any but the ones I have.

That being said Metallo, Atomic Skull and Maxima are awesome. Burn, stun and big attacks are all very nice. In a perfect world I would hit Atomic Skull every game though. The reason why is he forces your opponent's attack order and controlling your opponent off-initiative wins games. Even optimal attacks can turn bad. But if they have to save Atomic Skull for last, chances are you can reinforce every swing that comes your way.

In my last post I mentioned the one major problem in the Little Deck format, Deck Out decks, but there's another thing that can cause problems for you. I don't see it as a problem with the format that needs to be fixed, but it's certainly something that will challenge you as you build with this format in mind.

Consistency.

While one-of's are often found in the most consistent of control decks, that's because they're able to manipulate the deck as much as possible by stacking a ton of search, mill and sifting effects. Four Enemy, four Mobilize, four Straight To The Grave, four Wild Ride is excessive, but there are tons of winning decks that run some 8-10 card combination of those to vast success. Yet, nearly all winning decks have something in common. The early game is full of 4x cards on the decklist. Four of the optimal two drop, four of the power one drop (often a search effect themselves), four of the best three drop.

In Little Deck you just can't do that. You can't even play Enemy of My Enemy or Mobilize ONCE, let alone four to eight times. So, the point of all this?

Look at Mole Man and look at Terra-Man on turn two. They serve vastly the same purpose. In fact the only difference in playing one of each as opposed to two of Terra-Man is flight/range, some Plot Twist interaction with team affiliation (pretty important if you need to fill 2 points on 5 and miss because Mole Man can't be picked up by Revenge Pact) is that you can have BOTH of them out on the field if you're lucky enough.

In fact, I'd be pretty pleased to set Terra-Man on turn two and Mole Man with Hope on turn three. Ruin is the obvious better choice, but if you have a row full of Ongoings without him, these growth minded 2 drops can swell into your second and third four drop on turn 5.

In what I've played of little deck, finding similar cards like this is one of the best strategies. Consistency is the best way to victory in our little game. If you can stack a ton of similar effects into your Little Deck you may find it playing very much like it's older brother varients.

The suite of Lex Luthors on three seemed the best option to me as backup for Ruin. They each do something effective and provide me with a way to power up in a format not very conducive to such a thing, which could lead to many surprise bricks on Defense or stuns on offense. It does lock me out of playing Lex at any other drop though, because I think his best options are at four and five and if you lose your three on those turns you're in bad shape.

This may be another change that has to be made to the deck once I start play testing, because while I'm very happy with the turn four options, the turn five options without Lex seriously SUCK. Preus is incredible. Mongul is a nostalgia choice. I had many great turns thanks to Mongul back in Man of Steel sealed pack. I don't think there's any better options for the Revenge Squad at five, but I all most considered playing Preus or Die as my turn five option. After all, with Revenge Pact and Executive Privilege I have a fair chance of cycling through a lot of my deck.

With them both active on turn three I can see more than half my deck. By turn 5 I will have cycled through it's entirety and begun drawing into cards stacked as I chose. Which can be used to your advantage by simply taking quick notes during play.

Which reminds me... I need to make a Longshot Little Deck. Hehe.

If I do have to replace Standoff, a strong choice might be Thinking Outside the Box which forces you to draw from the bottom of your deck instead of the top. Which means instead of waiting for your good cards to cycle back through the deck, you just pick them up next turn.

With such strong effects that simply require you to lay down your blues every turn, this concept seems like a powerhouse. You have to be wary though, because without Ruin you can end up rowing characters and losing your biggest advantage. Little Deck, like sealed, seems best suited for a 20/10 spread of characters vs. others. Meaning it's not that hard to face a hand full of characters on an early or mid-game turn.

With that in mind, in goldfishing the deck I've mulliganed for a hand full of blue or Ruin each time. So far it hasn't led me wrong.

To give you an idea of how different I expect this deck and the ones in the tournament to be, I heard mention of Reign of Terra and Total Anarchy. Yeah, Reign of Terra. The worst card in VS System history. lol And it was praised! So, I can't wait to see how that works. To further illustrate my point, here's a list of Ongoings I considered.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Absolute Dominance
Anti-Life
Assault and Battery
Bad Press
Banished To The Anti-Matter Universe
Blood In The Dark
Carrying The Torch
Dimensional Deal, Team-Up
Foiled
Global Domination
Help Wanted
Hostage Situation
Knowledge Is Power
Magical Lobotomy, Magic
Mob Mentality
New and Improved
New Mutations (before I realized I had a fair amount of flight and plenty of range, if I needed it)
No Hope
Research and Development
State of the Union
Thinking Outside The Box
Total Anarchy
Trapped In The Sciencells

That's a BIG list. Many of them would change the deck quite a bit. Well, I would be forced to change the deck quite a bit that is. I could just slot them in and it'd suck and they'd be useless. Hehe. But from teaming up to focusing on certain characters there's a lot of ways to build this, it'll be fun finding out which ones are most effective and how many of them are effective.

-Mike


Continue reading...

Incident Trouble, AKA Little Crisis Doom - Little Deck Creations

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? Continue reading...

Thunder Tactics - Little Deck Creations

Team Tactics is easily one of the most powerful cards in the game. I don't think it's ever gotten it's due, because (luckily, I think) it's a combo piece that needs a lot of work to pull off and isn't too hard to disrupt. Early versions of Tactics Abuse used Fantastic Four because they had very large stats to begin with, access to a great pump in It's Clobberin' Time and of course they had the best readying tech for a very long time, if not still, Cosmic Radiation.

Cosmic allows you to ready your entire team! You can't attack, but if you're all ready attacking, who cares! They also had a 1-drop Ant-Man who killed reinforcement, which is very important if the plan is to smash through somebody for lethal damage with Team Tactics. Basically they gave you eight cards to ready and eight cards to break reinforcement with while any other team would only have Press the Attack and Blindsided. The version I played also used A Child Named Valeria, the idea being to weenie up, draw a lot of cards with Antartic Research Base and play Thing, Heavy Hitter or Wolverine, New Fantastic Four on the kill turn. You attack with your unstunnable small drops, attack with the big guy, pump them to all hell and Press/Cosmic them into Tactics.

It was very fun. There was also versions with Doom as early as Marvel Origins. My friend Joe O'Brien built a deck with Doom-Bot, Doom's Throne Room and Tactics that played used a Doom-Bot or two to ready the Latverian overlord into a pump fueled Tactics kill. Boris was great at searching out the key plot twist, Doom-Bot being army made him easy to hit on three and Robot Destroyer on 5 was a good way of negating reinforcers.

The next major change to Tactics as a deck idea, that I remember was in the Avengers expansion. In that set the Thunderbolts debuted. A team of villains looking to get over as do-gooders that eventually decided they preferred the life of a hero had a sub-theme of being "ready" and thus had multiple ways to set an attacker straight ways.

So, this LDC is probably obvious by now, if it wasn't from the very subject line. I decided to build a Team Tactics deck that focused on the ability of the Thunderbolts to ready themselves. The first thing I did was pull out the super obvious choices. To me that consisted of 5 cards.

Speed Demon, Second Chance Speedster
Melissa Gold <> Songbird, Heroine Unbound

Blind Sided
Deadly Conspiracy
Team Tactics

Next I thought about what I need to make this work with the Highlander rule of Little Deck. Obviously you needs attack pumps and to make sure you get your Team Tactics the best solution outside of search is card draw. I also wanted ways of preventing reinforcement. With that in mind I set about building a curve.

At one, I chose two characters,

Count Vertigo, Werner Vertigo
Ogre, Weaponsmith

I'd play Dallas Riorden over Vertigo, but the only copies I have are in my Faces deck and I didn't want to replace her in there. lol He'll help out with reinforcement issues.

Captain Boomerang, George Harkness
Erik Josten <> Atlas, Kosmos Convict
Speed Queen, Female Fury
Tania Belinskya <> Red Guardian, Cold Warrior

Boomerang gets rids of two drops, Josten gets bigger and bigger and is just a nice attacker on turns 4 and 5. Speed Queen's readying effect is useful not so much for Team Tactics, but for card draw with Ego Gem. If Tania sticks around or you have to under drop, +4 attack for the turn is incredible.

Besides Speed Demon on three I have...

Dr. Doom, Richard's Rival
Hellcat, Patsy Walker
The Creeper, Jack Ryder

Doom will search out Tactics for you, Patsy is a pump that's likely to stick around even to turn 6 for Melissa Gold. The Creeper's card draw is very useful. He should net you at least 2 cards thanks to Evasion and he's only made better by being on everyone's team. And if I had any copies of Babs I'd totally play a copy of her over him though.

For four drops I picked 3 really strong card draw four drops.

Darkseid, Apokoliptian Opressor
Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem
Professor X, Headmaster

With luck, all of them will net you 2-3 cards per game. If you have an Ego Gem, Moondragon will guarantee at least one the turn she comes into play. And since you want the even initiative you can probably protect her until the next turn by making safe attacks.

As well as those three, I picked a card I've never really seen get used much, but I think is pretty good.

Dallas Riordan <> Vantage, Ionic Inheritor

She pumps her self at the cost of giving your opponents a card. But if you do you get a 10/7, which is pretty nice. It's too bad it only lasts for one attack.

Charcoal, Charles Burlingame
Paul Ebersol <> Techno, Man of Metal
Scarecrow, Psycho Psychologist

Since 5 is likely off initiative Charcoal makes for a scary defender. He'll stun just about anybody attacking into him. Especially if he's Hellcat's +2/+2 bonus on him. Paul Ebersol lets you get back a pump you might have used to stock up for turn 6, or if you somehow lost Team Tactics, he's a second copy. Scarecrow is a nice five drop or six drop and if you keep letting your opponent fill their hand with things like Vantage, Win-Lose Deal or bouncing 2 drops, he can deal a nice little stack of burn damage.

Finally, I'm packing one seven drop.

Beetle <> Mach 4, New Team Leader

He's got okay stats. Nothing bad, nothing phenomenal, but his ability can be very nice. Did you have to under drop last turn? Well, put that character adjacent to Beetle and give them +3/+3. Flight and range make him a good option as a Tactics finisher too.

That's a total of 22 cards, 19 characters, 3 plot twists. I all ready mentioned, Ego Gem and Win-Lose Deal which rock for card draw so let's make that 19 characters, 1 equipment, 4 plot twists.

Ego Gem, Infinity Gem

Win-Lose Deal

And that's 6 cards left. Pumps!

Barbaric Brawl
Combat Reflexes
Flying Kick
Justice, Like Lightning
Mega-Blast
Savage Beatdown

The only one that isn't at least 3 attack worth is Justice, Like Lightning which also allows you to exhaust target character if you play it on a Thunderbolt. No need to talk about these, they're just chocolate syrup. Once you get the ice cream in the bowl... Pour it on!

-Mike Continue reading...

Something Sinister This Way Comes (Little Deck Creations)

So, instead of the idea of a Week or Month dedicated to Little Decks, this will be a continuing series of articles.

I've always loved the Goblin Glider, so when I was pawing through cards looking for idea starters for little decks, I realized I HAD to do Sinister Syndicate. I don't have much Marvel Team-Up, but I had enough to add some real power to this deck. Looking through my old SS cards, it's easy to see why they never went far. Most of them outright suck. However, there's some serious gems.

Goblin Glider is ridiculous in a weenie deck. Flight, range, +4 attack and it usually costs "free." Thank you very much! I'll take one! Vulture, Adrian Toomes? He's a 2/1 with flight for one. You have to reveal as an additional cost, but you gain END for every bit of breakthrough he does. On turn one that's a 4 endurance swing a good lot of the time! And if you put the glider on him? Ridiculous!

Hammerhead, Gangster is a 2 drop, 3/2 that gives +2 attack to your characters while they attack directly. That's insane. Imagine 1 drop, Hammerhead, 2 drop + Toomes + Glider. Attack up into their 2 and 3 with the 1/2... Now swing direct with Hammerhead and Toomes and rock the endurance difference by 19! On turn three! I did just that with my Sinister Little Deck tonight.

Green Goblin, Norman Osborn can straight up KO a character in the support row. It can be played around by protecting that character, but the ability is so strong that even if it doesn't go off it should be because you can just fly over and kill the weenie not worth KO'ing for breakthrough. Then attack up into the character "protected" from Norman with some pumps. Like Spider Slayers. Then KO them with Sadistic Choice anyway. Hehe.

19 Characters

Chameleon, Dmitri Smerdyakov
Basilisk, Basil Elks
Doppleganger, Killer Clone
Razorfist, Sociopathic Mercenary
Tombstone, Lonnie Lincoln
Tinkerer, Phineas Mason
Vulture, Adrian Toomes
Vulture, Aerial Stalker
Electro, Shock Jock
Hammerhead, Gangster
Shriek, Frances Barrison
Silvermane, Silvio Manfredi
Swarm, Fritz Von Meyer
Trapster, Peter Petruski
Albert Malik <> Red Skull, Axis of Evil
Spider-Man Robot, Timespinner
Venom, Mac Gargan
Carnage, Psychopath
Green Goblin, Norman Osborn

1 Equipment

Goblin Glider

1 Location

Doc Ock's Lab

10 Plot Twists

The Contract
Crushing Blow
Flying Kick
Legacy of Evil
No Fear
Sadistic Choice
Sand Trap
Savage Beatdown
Sinister Salvo
Spider Slayers

Chameleon, Doppleganger and Red Skull are the only ways to facilitate The Contract, so I might cut that after I play more games, but so far whenever I've had it, I've had one of them. Carnage is a great game ending option on 5 with a one drop. For the most part my mulligan has just been characters, but hitting Hammerhead on two is usually at least 4 extra damage by turn 4. You lose a lot of endurance off Razorfist, Venom, Carnage, Electro and Doc Ock's Lab, but the way the curve looks I think the deck is supposed to lose if the games goes to six anyway. Hehe. Enjoy your endurance while you have it. Use it. I should probably play more pumps to make up for this, but I kinda like the deck so far.

Are there any stars of the MTU Sinister Syndicate that I'm missing? Leave a comment and let me know!

-Mike Continue reading...

Going A Little Crazy

I've become engrossed with making decks for the Little Deck Format. Read it about it here on VSRealms.com and I'll be waiting when you get back.

Okay...

So how crazy did I go? Yesterday I put together 8 decks! It's great! I have so many great cards in one ofs not the normal four-ofs you need for so many full size decks. But in a Highlander environment that's all I need! I have no Mobilize or Enemy of my Enemy, but those are banned! I think I'm in love! The first thing I built was actually an Avenger's Reservist deck. I always loved the deck, but never got to play it except in proxy.

In building it I was reminded of one big problem. You really only played Carol Danvers because you couldn't play 7-8x Hawkeye, Clinton Barton. So, now you still need 4-5 four drops, but you only have three on team! And I don't have Dr. Druid! Ack! What to do? Well, I looked through my Avengers cards and noticed Squadron Supreme had a lot of reservists. Lots of good reservists!

So in went Golden Archer and... Amphimbian. I could go with Brotherhood reservists, but those are in my TNNB deck and I didn't want to break it up. It's all ready got 4 random 2 drops because I don't have Amelia's. Hehe. Anyway, I looked around and I like some other Squadron reservists like Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Moonglow, Lady Lark (Linda Lewis) and Arcanna. Finally I grabbed Paladin and my curve was decided.

21 characters.

Beast, Furry Blue Scientist
Rick Jones, A Hero's Best Friend
Thermite, Sam Yurimoto
Dane Whitman <> Black Knight, Heroic Paladin
Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
Paladin, Intruders
Black Panther, T'Challa
Lady Lark, Linda Lewis
Moonglow, Melissa Hanover
Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
Amphibian, Kingsley Rice
Carol Danvers <> Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald
Hawkeye, Clinton Barton
Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Atomic Powerhouse
Hawkeye, Leader By Example
She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
Harry Delgado, Acolyte
Wonder Man, Simon Williams
Hercules, Son of Zeus
Arcanna, Arcanna Jones (...She's not related to Rick is she?)

This was always an attack deck, so I grabbed a few obvious pumps first of all.

3 Plot twists

Call Down The Lightning
Heroes In Reserve
Savage Beatdown

Next I decided if I should play a team up and figured with the ease of searching it, I might as well. The Squad and Avengers have their own team up anyway. It also made my non-Reservists, reservists... However, I didn't think I needed to play any non-Reservists. Plus depending on the team up would suck. But having it would occasionally make Answer the Call and Pancea Potion game winners! Even without the team up Answer is great on every turn I'm likely to play it except 6. To try and make my curve better, I also added Hibernaculum. At the discard of a Squadron Supreme character I can dig for my characters or bring back a character I lost earlier. It doesn't have to be Squadron either.

4 Plot Twists

Answer The Call
Hibernaculum
Pancea Potion
Supreme Sanction

I wanted more attack pumps so I grabbed Avengers Mansion, hard to argue with a reusable pump! Air Strike can be used as attack and a card draw. Might Makes Right is a nice 3 attack all the time and if I play into Answer, Pancea and Nuke it's Beatdown #2. That was 30 cards, but I kept coming back to a card that was in vogue with Reservist for a while, War of Attrition. It's like Have a Blast without the discard and most of the time and no drawback in this deck. I decided to keep it because I all most always play 61 cards and often play a little over 30 in sealed. I know the extras in sealed are bad, but mathematically the difference between 60 and 61 doesn't effect your mulligan condition.

1 Location

Avengers Mansion

3 Plot Twists

Air Strike
Might Makes Right
War of Attrition

Total = 31

Final List

21 characters.

Beast, Furry Blue Scientist
Rick Jones, A Hero's Best Friend
Thermite, Sam Yurimoto
Dane Whitman <> Black Knight, Heroic Paladin
Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
Paladin, Intruders
Black Panther, T'Challa
Lady Lark, Linda Lewis
Moonglow, Melissa Hanover
Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
Amphibian, Kingsley Rice
Carol Danvers <> Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald
Hawkeye, Clinton Barton
Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Atomic Powerhouse
Hawkeye, Leader By Example
She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
Harry Delgado, Acolyte
Wonder Man, Simon Williams
Hercules, Son of Zeus
Arcanna, Arcanna Jones

1 Location

Avengers Mansion

10 Plot Twists

Air Strike
Answer The Call
Call Down The Lightning
Heroes In Reserve
Hibernaculum
Might Makes Right
Pancea Potion
Savage Beatdown
Supreme Sanction
War of Attrition

So, once I get a few games in I'll update you with how it does. If you have any suggestions on how to make it better, I'd love to hear them, though this is me making decks out of what I have for now. Doesn't mean I can't be on the look out for new cards, hehe.

And seeing as I made 8 of these... Maybe I'll do Little Deck Week! Or maybe not... lol I'll definitely be posting a lot of these either way. If I feel up to it tomorrow you'll know.

-Mike Continue reading...