A Modern Age Deck - The Accelerometer

So I was working on this idea to abuse Satan Claw with The Captain and Death Warrant. I wasn't going to worlds, but I figured I'd try and build various decks to throw at Paul Sung in case something worked. I don't know if I ever played this one against him, because I made it pretty late in the game, but after that I hadn't gone back to look at it. However, with my boxes of MUN arriving and a thread on

VSRealmstalking about abusing Satan Claw I decided to tweak it some more. It was then I realized what I really had sitting under my nose...

8x A.I.M. Agents, Army - A.I.M.
6x Cape-Killer Units, Army - Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
5x MODOC Squad, Army - A.I.M.
4x The Captain, Can't Remember His Real Name
4x Red Skull, Johann Schmidt - HYDRA
4x Baron Strucker, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucks - HYDRA

2x Cosmic Cube
3x Death Warrant
4x Satan Claw

4x Cut Off One Head...
4x Double Agent
2x Finishing Move
3x Underground Laboratory
4x Mobilize
4x Losing The Argument

The idea was simple, Cape-Killer was just there because they helped you pull A.I.M. Agents to hand, grabbed your three or let you throw down two 2-drops on 3. Turn 4 was The Captain and if you had Death Warrant he equipped a Claw and became Baron Strucker. If you had a Cosmic Cube you named him Red Skull to grab whatever you wanted. Red Skull on Five let you burn them when The Captain hit their 4 drop if it was still around, or when Baron Strucker 6 KO'd their 6.

It was fun and all, but I realized something today during a test draw. Do you know what Cut Off One Head... _does_? What it does is gives you 2 resource points. Don't believe me? Read it again! You KO a Crime Lords army character and put two 2-drop or less Army characters into play. When you put Cape-Killers into play they rally for an army character and if they're successful you gain a resource point!

So, when I realized this, I realized that the deck wasn't about breaking the parity of Satan Claw, it was about getting out a 7 drop on turn 5! With that in mind here is the first draft of what I call the Accelerometer.

6x A.I.M. Agents, Army - A.I.M.
8x Cape-Killer Units, Army - Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D.
5x MODOC Squad, Army - A.I.M.
4x The Captain, Can't Remember His Real Name
3x Red Skull, Johann Schmidt - HYDRA
4x Baron Strucker, Baron Wolfgang Von Strucks - HYDRA
1x Red Skull, Master of Creation
1x Magneto, Master of Magnetism

4x Cosmic Cube
3x Death Warrant
2x Satan Claw

4x Cut Off One Head...
3x Superhuman Registration Act
4x HAIL HYDRA!
4x Mobilize
4x Losing The Argument

Thinking about what 7-drops I'd want to play on turn 7, a few came to mind such as Sabretooth: Genocidal Savage, Hulk: Joe Fixit and Galactus: The Maker. However I realized the best choice was probably the most obvious. Magneto: Master of Magnetism is an old stand by and the fact is that he's always been a strong splash for one simple reason. His power is freaking amazing.

I stun you? You're dead. Bad enough I have a 7-drop on turn 5, but I also have one that doesn't even let you keep your biggest character. Any character at that! If I've been KO'ing your characters before now anyway, you're likely going to have a hard time reinforcing against or stunning Magneto.

The first question of course is, how consistent is it? Well, I got a draw good enough to play Magneto on turn 5 in 5 out of 8 test draws so far. He hit the board on 6 in another test draw. And in one of the 5 where he hit on 5 I all most could have forced him out on 4. I just would have needed another Losing The Argument.

The strategy is pretty simple, you wanna hit HAIL HYDRA!, Cape-Killers Unit, Losing The Arguemnt and Cut Off One Head... while ditching copies of the 2 drop into the pile. Turn 5, search out Magneto, stack the deck with Losing and Cut Off One Head... to put two Cape-Killers into play. Hit your rallies, play Magneto. Win. Odd initiatives, obviously, allow you to use Satan Claw on The Captain against their 4 and if you have a Death Warrant, you stun your 4 to KO their 4-drop.

Don't get the combo? Only hit one rally? You can still play Red Skull or Baron Strucker and pull it out next turn. I'm thinking there may be some more ways to make it more consistent, or maybe I should run one copy of The Sleeper: Doomsday Device * RAID.

Is it possible to go off more? Like can you pull off 2 Cut Off The Head... and gain 4 resource points? When? Turn 5? Can you do that on turn 4? Fin Fang Foom eat your heart out!

-Mike Continue reading...

Yay! New Cards In The Mail

I love getting new cards in the mail. Yes, I had no Checkmate Safe Houses. lol That brings my Moloid count up to 10. Also nice to have Flame Trap around. Especially 4x Foils, for like 60 cents each I think it was! That's freakin' awesome. Still waiting on another order... But this might be a clue about what I'm waiting for...

I'm excited for Silver Age Random Punks. I was bitterly disappointed to not make it out to BYOS Golden, so I've got my fingers crossed big time to make it for SARP.

I had a list of BoP/Darkseid all ready and I'll probably still try and buy the cards for the deck just cause it's fun, but I'm gonna be playing something a bit more juicy. You probably have seen the list if not, go searching across the VS Blog Network and you can find it. Consider it like a treasure hunt!

Here's my Dark Birds list if you're interested though.

4x Gypsy, Illusionary Operative
1x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite
2x Dark Firestorm
4x Darkseid, Apokoliptian Opressor
1x Cassandra Cain, Death's Daughter
4x Darkseid, 8th Century
1x Darkseid, Evil Reborn
1x Dinah Laurel Lance <> Black Canary, Cry In The Dark
1x Lady Shiva, Jade Canary

1x Ego Gem

3x Ancient Throne

4x All Hail Darkseid
2x Ancient Evils, Team-Up
4x Bat Signal
3x Battle Training
3x Crushing Blow
4x Dark Fury
4x Joining The Darkseid, Team-Up
4x Lord of Apokolips
2x Titans of Tomorrow
3x Unravel Reality

One thing I will say is that Battle Training should probably switch out for SKREEEEEEE! and switch the numbers on your 2's, or even run 4x Speed Queen/1x Huntress instead. I like Battle Training and I can usually team Darkseid up with JLA via Ancient Evils or have Gypsy still around for the kill turn, so it doesn't go wasted, but hitting into your opponent's hidden area will probably be too important to pass up in Silver Age Punks. Either way you have a lot of pump.

-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...

Something Just Seems To Be Missing Here.

The Illuminati previews have been this week and I really like the new Dr. Strange. I had an idea when I first saw him for a weenie deck with lots of equipment and Cable/Bodyslide to get a few extra cards whenever I can with Dr. Strange. I've been trying to figure it out and I have, oddly, 55 cards again. Only this time I think maybe it's missing some key card to draw it all together and make it work, unlike the Radioactive Man deck, which I think just needed some spice to make it really kick. This is more like missing a side dish or maybe even a portion of the meat.

I was trying to make it Silver at first, but I guess that didn't work out all the way cause by the time MUN is legal the MXM cards will be out of Silver Age. I think I'll come back to this idea once MUN is completely spoiled and either make it work in Silver or just go Golden Age, throw in Stretch and A Child Named Valeria because I mostly just want to play a version of Fantastic Fun anyway! Hehe.


It could partly be because I really wanted to also make The Elektra Situation playable, because... Well, look at it. That's a COOL card. This may just be two real decks that I'm trying to cram into one. I don't know... What do you think?

2x Invisible Woman, Walking on Air
2x Black Cat, Thrillseeker
2x Nick Fury, Col. Nicholas Fury
2x Shadowcat, Phase Shifter
3x Jaime Reyes <> Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero

2x Dr. Strange, Secret Avenger
2x Mr. Fantastic, Stringbean
2x Ant-Man, King of the Hill
2x Captain America, Secret Avenger
2x Professor X, Idealistic Dreamer

4x Cable, Nathan Summers

2x Punisher, Guns Blazing

1x Ghost Rider, Rider on the Storm

3x Dual Sidearms
1x Eye of Agamotto
2x Image Inducer
2x Katana
1x Ultimate Nullifier, One-Way Trip

3x New Baxter Building

4x Body Slide
4x Super Human Registration Act
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Mobilize
2x The Electra Situation

55 cards Continue reading...

Radioactive Waste! - A Preview Inspired Deck Idea

Thunderbolts Week begins for Marvel Universe previews and the first card I saw was a new version of Radioactive Man. Instantly I had an idea in mind... Because I've always loved counters and this adds another thing I love with counters, Control.

What's the plan? I wanna lock my opponents out of plot twists on turn three and hide this bad boy in the hidden area. Doom Patrol is the obvious answer for counters and I think to hide him the best option is Charles McNider <> Dr. Mid-Nite. I think I'll call it...

RADIOACTIVE WASTE!

4x Elasti-Girl, Rita Farr
3x Atom Smasher, Al Rothstein
4x The Chief, Niles Caulder
2x Erik Josten <> Atlas, Kosmos Convict
4x Radioactive Man, Containment Suit
4x Charles McNider <> Dr. Mid-Nite, Golden Age Academic.
2x Holocaust, Age of Apocalypse
1x Robotman, Cliff Steele
1x Beast Boy, Freak of Nature

3x Dayton Manor

4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Freak Out
4x Misfits
4x Heroic Effect
4x Forbidden Loyalties
3x Counter Terrorism
3x New Identity

55 Cards

I figure that leaves 5 cards for MUN to fill in, with Counter Terrorism and New Identity being easy to cut for better alternatives. The theory is simple. Put counters on Radioactive Man, immediately on turn 3. Lock out your opponent's twists so they can't get enough attack to stun him, hide him on 4 and keep adding counters to your board until you can just win out with Holocaust burn.

Heroic Effect, Counter Terrorism and Forbidden Loyalties all work on Radioactive Man whether you hit Doom Patrol or not, but obviously the idea is to team up Doom Patrol and Thunderbolts so you can Freak Out onto old Chen boy. Misfits lets you smooth the curve and Enemy is Enemy, no need to explain that one. Dayton Manor is perfect if you team up on three and is reusable every turn. On 6, and I can easily see even turn 5, you can flip another one without caring that it's going to KO a resource if you plan to win that turn.

Anyway, that's the idea. Can't wait to see how much better it gets during the week!

-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...

Math FTW!

So, I'm in bed, trying to go to sleep and my mind is wandering because I can never just "go to sleep." And I'm thinking about VS, pondering the idea Paul "The Deranged Bear" Sung brought to the realms of an all 1-drop Insanity rush deck.

http://www.vsrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57457 - VS Realms plug! Oh, I can't mention that and not mention the bad ass name he gave it either. One Inch Punch is the best deck name since... I don't know. Ivy League was pretty awesome and perfectly fitting.

Anyway, I'm trying to list all the pumps to use in the list because it's the kind of weird mental exercise that helps me get my brain to shut down. I think Flying Kick, Combat Reflexes, Crackshot, Blinding Rage, Beatdown-

It hits me. I'm a moron.

How much attack does Savage Beatdown give you? +5.

How much does Rabbit Fire give you? +2.

2+2 is still less than 5.

Why does this make me leap out of bed? Well, in the Elektra, Masterless Assassin decklist below I've got 4x Rabbit Fire because... "It's for the turn!" Never did I stop and think about the fact that even though I attack twice with Elektra on 5, Savage Beatdown is STILL better than Rabbit Fire. Ugh. At least I realized it on my own and didn't have someone point it out to me. :)

So, now I feel better having pointed this out to the world and I can go back to bed.

G'night world.

-Mike Continue reading...

If You Don't Beat It, Play It

Hopefully going to make it out o Hobby League on Monday over in Berkley. I'd get back too late for a bus ride home so my only hope is to convince a friend of mine to become a new player and go with me. And get him a deck to play. Fun! Commence Operation: New Player!

If I do go, here's what I'm intending to play. In gold fishing it's hitting for over 44 every time on turn 5, 9 out of 10 times. Even hit 74 once. The idea came about after getting stabbed by Elektra, Masterless Assassin at the City Champs, as you can read about below, and really wanting to play something with Dr. Doom in it.

4x Frank Drake, Nightstalker

4x Tania Belinskya <> Red Guardian, Cold Warrior

2x Black Panther, King of Wakanda
4x Dr. Doom, Richard's Rival

4x Elektra, Masterless Assassin
4x Samantha Parrington <> Valkyrie, Chooser of the Slain

1x Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth

2x Mindtap Mechanism

4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Mob Mentality
4x Crackshot
4x Rabbit Fire (EDIT: I would later realize even double swinging I should just use 4x Beatdown.)
4x Lust For Power
4x Enemy of My Enemy
3x Wild Ride
4x Pathetic Attempt

-Mike Continue reading...

I Miss Slaughter Swamp

So Paul "TheDerangedBear" Sung replies to my first blog post telling me I need to get to tournaments and do tournie reports. I told him, it's not for lack of trying, but I ain't got cards for Silver Age for the most part. He tells me if I want to play City Champs I just need to get get him a decklist and onto Bart. So I see if I can get 20 bucks, I can. I send him a deck list and on Friday night it's all 100% confirmed.

(I'd like to pause for a second here and give a huge thanks to Paul and Jason "Doesn't Post On Realms" To, who got the cards I needed for me and put them in sleeves and everything. THANK YOU!)

Picking a deck was pretty easy for me. I wanted to play a card I've been waiting to play since I stopped. The last VS purchase I made was 4x Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. Mr. Lawton, if I do say so myself, is a bad ass 3-drop killah. Cold blooded.

Ahmed Samsarra... He's a 3-drop. That's a game winner. So, what's the best Deadshot deck? I don't know, but I liked this list.

Care of Tim Rivera - Mega Weekend SoCal Top 8

(You can read his very well written report right here!)

Characters
4 Jaime Reyes ◊ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman's Best Friend
4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
1 San, The Alienated One
1 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
1 Samantha Parrington
1 Punisher, Guns Blazing
1 Talia, Daughter of Madness
1 Annihilation Protocol
1 Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth
1 Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin
1 Basil Karlo ◊ Ultimate Clayface

Plot Twists
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Cannibal Tech
4 A Proud Zinco Product

Locations
4 Dr. Fate’s Tower
1 Rann
4 Soul World
2 The Great Refuge

I coulda tweaked it or something, but fact is that I haven't played in so long I have no idea what would be smart changes and what would be me newbing it up. I had to play 3x Level 12 Intelligence instead of all Zinco's and 1x The Phantom Stranger instead of the fourth Mxy. Not by design. Well, the TPS because removing a bunch of Mxy's would suck. I never saw TPS anyway so it never mattered. Besides I had no idea what to expect except that Ahmed would most certainly, definitely, for sure, 100% be there...

...Yeah, about that...

Among the 12 players, there wasn't a single Ahmed on site. Not that I saw or heard anyway. I think I would have heard about it too. Oh well, killing 3's and 4's should be enough to win most games anyway. Let's get down the nitty gritty of it.

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Game 1 - Glen - Poison Ivy/Riddler/Chemo Control

I love me some Poison Ivy in general, the new 3 drop is hella nice. Especially with Riddler and Chemo out there. I was doing pretty good early on, Deadshot was ready on 3, but he all ready had Ivy fated out. What really hurt me was on 4 we both had Fate Suits, his on Wondy Woman mine on big Pun, the murdering murder of all things smaller than him. So, with Wonder Woman out Ivy was still safe from Deadshot unless she stunned. Sadly that wasn't all there was to be said on that. I sent Punisher into Wonder Woman. He had the Level 12 and nuked my amulet mid attack. I shoulda traveled over the top and just killed Ivy with Punisher. But I got greedy, which is never the right play, and it probably sealed my deal.

On five I think I had Annihilation Protocal, but it didn't matter. Between Ivy and Wonder Woman I wasn't getting anything done. Black Manta just made it worse by recurring Level 12 so even though I had a new Amulet, he just sent it on a trip to the KO'd pile again.

Game 2 - Jason - Substibuse

I threw this one away. If I had like,... practiced or maybe even played the game in the last 5 months I probably woulda won this one.

I played out Mxy on turn one to some confusion, he swung, he stuck around a couple turns, then he went to do his thing in the KO'd pile. It was fun.

Basically the crux of the game was forgetting Ancient Throne was around as a I attacked Fated out Punisher into Darkseid 4 I played A Proud Zinco product on Darkseid's BRPD Cloak. He had the Lord of Apokolips face up. Which, while stupid enough to make me deserve to lose, was compounded by the fact that he top decked a second off the Hook-Up. He had Batman on 6, Cape and Cowl, and on 7 he had to play 5 drop Darkseid, 8th century. I had Basil Karlo who got smacked by the 5/4 drop Darkseids and Batman smacked around my still Fated out Punisher.

He did a good job of punishing my row through out the game, but that was never what really hurt me. In a couple cases he actually replaced something I didn't need with something nice. I think I could have moved the gear to Basil, but he just would have team attacked with Batman and Darkseid-4 into him instead of the double Darkseids. Either way it was enough to kill me when Punisher got taken down afterwards.

Game 3 - Miguel "CarlosTheDwarf" - JSA Shenannigans

Deadshot kills a 3 drop on 3? Finally! Gees, the only time it happened too. I shoulda fishbowled a couple extra times in the car. Got those suck draws out of the way. I coulda gone 3-2 or something maybe. lol

He had Little Mr. Terrific turn one, I played Mxy on turn 1. lol Yeah. Mxy. Again. I gotta figure out a deck that WANTS Mxy on the field, cause it was great to watch people react to him coming out like that. So on 2 he played down Jack Knight <> Starman, who's really pretty cool. I had San and some fate stuffs. I made what I think was a good play, but it cost me in the end. Off the helm I drew Zinco, Helm and Soul World (I think) and I have Enemy and Level 12 in hand. I need to Deadshot next turn, and I know Mxy isn't gonna be around come my next build phase so I keep the Enemy and Helm. Mxy went away, San swungy swung, not a bad turn. But...

I draw enemy. He played Michael Holt the big Mr. Terrific and it was Terrific how I killed him. Hehe. It was no turn 3 Ahmed kill (God, is it mean of me to want to experience that or just kinda lame?), but I was happy to take what I could get. Punisher drops, Fate Gear moves on up and on his side Katar Hol <> Hawkman, Eternal Hero has Nth Metal. Uh oh. I really coulda used the equip hate here. Cause he pumps out of a Punisher kill.

He misses 5, instead playing Prince Khufu <> Hawkpeoples and Michael Holt. Jack Knight + T-Spheres stuns my 5 with no pumps by the way. Wonderful. If I coulda Talia'd in a Deadshot it woulda been nice, but I just couldn't make him my first discard of the turn. Anyway, the game ended next turn when Superman, Earth 2 smacked me about. If I had killed Hawkman on 4... Different game I think. Oh well. I'd rather lose for playing well. Hopefully I was. lol

It wasn't exactly helping to use Soul World 4 times. Man, that hurt.

Game 4 - I'm sorry, I forgot to write down your name and I suck at remembering names - Elektra, Straight Up

This was the best game of the day. I lost. But it was a blast, man. My opponent was a real laid back dude just having fun and that's always a nice enviroment to play in. Lockjaw on 1, Quicksilver semi-fated on two, but he ran into a masturbating Tania Belinskya and was stunned. You know, she got exhausted for herself?

Deadshot was there for turn three, but he didn't get to do his thing. Punisher was there on four and he killed Tania, since Elektra, Masterless Assassin is a hidey hole skank! Next turn, she smashed my face for 45. It was pretty cool actually.

I was gonna say Soul World really hurt this game too, but looking at the score sheet I only activated it once. Still, I coulda used it more if I hadn't had to burn myself for 4. For 4 sucks. I really do miss Slaughter Swamp.

Game 5 - Brandon - Brotherhood Reservist (Sorry for the mistake!)

This is the one match where everything came together and worked exactly right for me. Deadshot and Punisher both murdered stuff on 4, Talia came out and threatened to let me Deadshot again at any moment while Punisher added Scanner to the Casket Club. It was just insult to injury when Terrax took up the mantle of Fate and told Harry Delgado to bite it. But only after San stunned Kleinstock Brothers and Terrax replaced an extra Fate Tower to stun Amelia Voght. Punisher, Talia and Lockjaw all faced him for the scoop.

I honestly felt kinda bad about this match. When direct KO goes off, you really just smash cats left and right the second they're on the field. I'd really like to know more about the BHR deck, as it obviously wasn't running TNBs and it didn't get to do it's thing with all the capping of asses going on. I like BH and reservist is one of my favorite keywords.

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So, 1-4, my big "comeback" turns up snake eyes, but I had a great time. VS is so much fun. Everyone was real cool. I got handed a stack of EAs/Shinies, which I never argue with. (New Baxter Building, Bastion, Agility x2, Royal Flush Gang x2) Also bought my first Legends packs, 2 packs of DC Legends, only 3 bucks each. Which rocked. 3 reprints in each pack was kind of a disappointment as it was stuff I always had and I really wanted new cards. lol But, ah well, I knew there was reprints. I just didn't expect three in each pack. Is that, like, standard?

(I pulled Injustice For All and Doomsday-7, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, the car ride back to Bart was pretty fun. Paul and Jason were entertaining. We talked a bit about VS. We got going the wrong way. Again. Hit Bart. Missed the bus. Got a ride. Ate. Sat in front of my computer doing nothing for a couple hours. Then started this. Still pretty exhausted.

When I got home I realized how drained I was and remembered how tough VS is mentally. It's like getting your brain punched all day. That's kind of what I like about it though. It's a serious challenge. You have to keep all these numbers and the math to go with them and the probable variables and proper sequences of events in your head the entire game.

I'm all about smashy-smashy decks, but even those aren't usually just turn guys sideways and auto-pilot. Do I use the pump here? Do I use the pump before formation? Do I row the pump or play it from hand? You're gonna lose a character this turn, but which attacks make it the most likely that you'll lose only one and it'll be the one you want to lose? Which one do you want to lose?

It's a tough game.

God damn it's good to be back.

-Mike
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Something Old, Something New

So, to get back into VS I've been organizing my cards and while doing so, I decided to get all the proxies out of my old decks. I'm not testing for highly competetive tournaments again (yet) and even if I was these would all be terribly out of date anyway. Going through my box of decks I found a deck I had totally forgotten about.

It was a varient on the Brave & the Bold using Barbara Gordon <> Batgirl, Guardian of Gotham to draw a lot of cards. I had always wanted to make more room in B&B for Utility Belt and once the Man of Steel set came out I had a good reason too. Plus I had always liked Twin Firearms as a one of in Titans on Roy up front. Made stunning 5 drops so much easier.

So, I got the idea of playing B&B Equips and set about making the list you see below. Remember, this is old. Very old. lol

Characters
3x Alfred Pennyworth, Faithful Friend
2x Dawn Granger <> Dove, Agent of Order
2x Mirage, Miriam Delgado
1x Spoiler, Stephanie Brown
1x Hank Hall <> Hawk, Agent of Chaos
4x Barbara Gordon <> Batgirl, Guardian of Gotham
1x Roy Harper <> Arsenal, Sharpshooter
1x Red Star, Leonid Kovar
1x Terra, Tara Markov
4x Vic Stone <> Cyborg, Human Machine
1x Batman, Caped Crusader
4x Garth <> Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer
1x Dick Grayson <> Nightwing, Defender of Bludhaven
1x Koriand'r <> Starfire, Alien Princess
1x Batman, The Dark Knight
1x Raven, Daughter of Trigon

Equipment
2x Jetpack
3x Utility Belt
1x Twin Firearms

Locations
2x GCPD Headquarters
2x Optitron
2x USS Argus

Plot Twists
2x Bat-Signal
1x Betrayal
3x Dynamic Duo
3x Fizzle
1x Heroic Sacrifice
4x Teen Titans Go!
4x The Brave And The Bold

1x World's Finest

In my evaluation I thought Vic Stone was better on 4 because he auto searched out Utility Belt or Jetpack, either of which made his 6/6 stats relatively decent. Terra was a 1 of because... I had one of her. Not that I had 4 Garth, but that's beyond the point.

It was about as consistent as any Brave and the Bold deck was, back then. I.E. not terribly so. I could usually pull off a good draw with or without the team up, but without the team up it wasn't strong enough to compete with other decks. Still, a Batgirl with a Jetpack on turn 3 was never a disappointment. Stun backs and card draw are always good.

Ideally I always wanted to play Alfred, Mirage/Alfred, Barbara, Cyborg, Garth, Nightwing or Starfire and then a big Batman, but like any Titans deck sometimes it payed to play Roy and boost Hawk/Dove out on 6 and use TTG! to board wipe people. Which works even better with Dynamic Duo and GCPD Headquarters.

The fun thing about the deck was that it had a lot of surprises. People did run Utility Belt in B&B, but usually not 3 of them. So dropping a Utility Belt on Mirage turn 2 wasn't even uncommon for me. Nobody expected Vic Stone and plenty of people forgot about Starfire on 6. And finishing with a Fat Bat was usually met with blank stares and then realization.

I'm not saying the deck was "1337 Tech" or even Tier 1 greatness, but it was very fun and certainly serviceable. I think I could have eventually tweaked it into a very strong contender, but I played it at the last PCQ in CA run by Innovation Gaming, got a lot of terrible draws and then didn't have any tournaments for like eight or ten months.

Thus, it went away as a dust collector in my deck box, only played across a dinner table. Or if you want to get technical a table at Crispy Crust Pizza where my friends and I used to meet every Tuesday to play.

I remember very specifically one of them asked after the PCQ if I would play the deck again at a tournament and I thought about it before saying I definitely felt it had the potential to win, I just probably needed to work on it a bit.

The funniest thing was that in round one of that PCQ I faced something of a mirror match as I remember it. Barbara Gordon, equipments and to my dismay... Flame Trap to compliment HIS Dynamic Duo. I think I posted a tournament report for that event on VS Realms. I know I used to have it on my LiveJournal, but considering I never kept up with the LJ I wiped it about a year ago. Except for one really emo post I made, because if LiveJournal isn't about being emo, I don't know what it's for.

Golden Age may not be the most supported format, but if I'm going to continue playing VS I have to play at home too. So in that spirit, I intend to rebuild the deck using all the new juicy equipment, Titans and Gotham Knights hanging around. And maybe even a more techy multi-team version. However, that'll be next time. Here's one preview though...

Until next time.

-Mike

P.S. What did you expect? Smoke Screen? If we're talking an equipment deck, you have to include Fate Gear!

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