TAWC World’s Golden Age Win A Box Report.

Punisher/Batmobile Abuse

Joe Corbett

I was talking with Michael Barnes over the phone a few days before World’s & he mentioned he was going to participate in the Golden age win a box at Columbus. I was just planning on drafting that whole day in side events but after some contemplation I thought it would be allot of fun to play my old school Punisher abuse deck. Mike ended up playing Torch & Thing Vomit btw but that will have to be in another article for another time.

I came up with this deck originally after PCNY 2005. At the time I wasn’t having any fun playing against Curved Sentinel’s. I began desperately searching for some original deck I could play that could pawn on the Curved Sent’s. What I came up with was Punisher Jury abuse via old school Batmobile.

Originally the deck had a lot of problems. It couldn’t beat Teen Titans. Teen Titans Go, Foiled, Speedy & stupid unstunable Red Star gave it too many problems. Eventually, even though it gave Curved Sentinels a run for its money if I faced off against a skilled Curve Sentinels player I would often lose. Let’s just say I really hate Mark II. Yet the surprise factor alone won me many games. I took it to a 10k in Atlanta & went 6/4 getting 25th place just short of money. With all the newer cards however this deck has gotten allot stronger. Omnipotence alone helps against Titans & Sentinels.

Here is the deck I played at the Golden age win a box tournament at Columbus on the Thursday before Worlds. I ended up going 5-2 to make 3rd place overall.

4 Alfred Faithful Friend
4 Micro-Chip Linus Lieberman
4 Dagger Child of Light
2 Barbara Gordon Oracle Hacker Elite
1 Dick Grayson Nightwing Hi Flying Acrobat
1 Luke Cage Street Enforcer
4 Punisher Jury
1 Spiderman the Spectacular Spiderman
1 Batman Cape & Cowl
1 Punisher Angel of Death
1 Dr. Strange Stephen Strange
1 Carnage Symbiote Surfer

4 Wild Ride
3 Bat signal
1 Enemy of my enemy
4 Tech Upgrade
4 Salvage
3 Midnight Sons
3 Fizzle
2 Sniper Shot
1 Flying Kick
1 Political Pressure
1 Burn Rubber
1 Flame Trap
1 Omnipotence

1 Catchers Mitt
1 Scatter gun
4 Batmobile dor-024

The deck’s basic concept is to stall out to turn 8 via Punisher Jury getting free Batmobile’s. Originally, I didn’t attack much with Punisher but now with Scatter Shot attacking is more favorable. Your win condition is a boosted Dr. Strange & then attack everyone to the head. If you know your opponent cannot disrupt Spiderman 6 drop then your opponent doesn’t attack back on 8. Against control match ups abuse the hell out of sniper shot. Omnipotence is the key to allot of match ups that are typically unfavorable. Omnipotence neuters 8 drop Jean Grey, Roy Harper & laughs at Mystical Paralysis.

After playing 7 rounds with this new & improved Punisher/Batmobile deck these are the changes I would make.

+1 Mikado & Mosha
+1 Black Widow 1 drop or Harvey Bullock Gotham central.
+1 The Hook- up
- 2 Barbara Gordon Hacker Elite
- 1 Tech Upgrade

Initially, it made sense to play 3 drop Oracle. After 7 games however I never wanted to search for her & the times I did play her she didn’t help me that much. This deck really likes more direct search. Hitting Alfred a few times really helps the deck work. I think The Hook Up would be a better replacement for Oracle altogether especially since missing your team up kills the deck. I may tinker with adding 3 drop Dr. Doom or 3 drop Hal Jordan for more direct search. Sometimes their are problems consistently getting Alfred off
& when you don’t the deck suffers.

Here is what I played against at the win a box @ Columbus:

Round 1: Blazing guns. I won this match up in a fizzle war chained to a timely flame trap. 6 drop Batman won me the game though.

RD 1. Me vs Blazing Guns.

Round 2: AGL’s. I won this game on turn 6 attacking everyone to the head. AGL’s are wildly inconsistent even after he played Bad Press on turn 1. After turn 4 he couldn’t get past the punisher Batmobile combo & I was able to stall out until turn 6 FTW.

Round 3: Joe Bryans Gotham/Fantastic Four equips. I won this match up however Joe saw the worst draw ever. He missed 1-5. It would have been nice to have seen Joe get a better draw since Joe is such a great player. It would have been the most interesting match up of the day. Homebrew for the win!

Round 4: Outsiders. 4 drop Punisher with a Scatter gun, 4 drop Nightwing & flame trap made this match up very favorable for me. On a funny note Mike Batman & the outsiders my Alfred to stop me from getting my copy of political pressure on turn 5 making the game closer then it needed to be.

Round 5: The new next brother hood. This match up is very favorable for me unless I whiff on my team up so I cannot put Batmobile into play. Since this happened I lost my first game of the day.

Round 6: Crisis doom. This match up is very close. The punisher deck has a problem against decks that run Doom diabolic genius. That whole no plot twists from hand really stinks. This is the weirdest draw I have ever had. I went to turn 6 & didn’t see any equipment. This is one of those draws where I just couldn’t get Alfred off. Turn 5 he plays Lex & that was game.

RD 6. Me @ table 2 getting pummeled.

Round 7: New Evil Medical School. Sniper shot for the win. This was the only game I played were I boosted Dr. Strange FTW. I got lucky because the guy opted to play 3 drop Doom over 4 drop diabolic genius so he could replay Alfred on 4 & I didn’t complain.

Shane Wendel (fatalsync) provided all the pictures. Thxs Shane!

The Punisher/Batmobile deck is a lot of fun to play. Meltdown & Resource hate really hurt this deck. That is really the only reason to run fizzle. The deck has gotten allot better since its first incarnation. Both Sniper Shot, Omnipotence & Batman Cape & Cowl make this deck viable in the current golden age environment. This deck probably will not beat any Hi Voltage or Quicksilver inhuman by marriage decks. Luckily, most people playing Golden Age now refrain from those. If Hi Voltage is a problem in your area you might want to consider running a single copy of mutant of the year. Another nice thing about playing this deck is since so many decks run the MK engine it is hard for your opponent to decipher what they’re playing against. For the first 3 turns your opponent is thinking your playing Fat Bat, Rigged Elections or New School. Then when you bust out Punisher Jury on turn 4 you blow their minds. Often people will make play mistakes in the first 3 turns assuming you are playing an off curve deck. That is enough of an advantage to give you the win.

I would really like to tool around more with this deck as the MK engine may be obsolete for this deck. Causal Golden age is really a fun environment. I hope to be able to bust this deck out again in a tournament real soon.

Joe Corbett has been playing Vs. System for a long time, and playing casual decks and competitive decks alive.  Being an ultimate fan of all things not explored, Joe is constantly coming up with new and fun decks to tinker with. Joe is also known as Savage Tofu on VSRealms.