By Joe Corbett

The Star Jammer is the base of operations for the Star Jammer’s. Some of Marvels finest to pilot the Star Jammer include Christopher Summers, Havok & even Thor. These pilots braved in epic battles across the Cosmos of the Marvel Universe. Depending on the story arc they battled everywhere from the Shi’ar empire to the great Brood home world itself. However, as exciting & spell bounding as these missions were I believe this Vs card previewed here today is one of the most intriguing & unique Vs cards I have ever seen.

So let us just get to the preview.

I was confused the first time I read this card. Initially, my thoughts gravitated towards the card DCL 199 Master Plan. Then I read the “you can build resources from any KO’d Pile” again & again annnnnnnnnnnnnnd again until it hit me. This card is ridiculous! It is one of thee most unique Vs cards ever. My next thought was how much I wanted to break this out against Galactus Giant sized. This card would be so nutty in Multiplayer. The Star Jammer simplified is a free card in your resource row every turn out of ANYONE’s KO pile & it does NOT target. Take that Galactus! Eat your heart out Garth!

Another high note about The Star Jammer is the fact that it has shift. This means it is probable that the Star Jammer’s do not have to go off curve to play The Star Jammer. Thus, you could use the shift ability on turn 1 or 2 paying 1 resource point so you can recruit it later at your leisure.  You may also have noticed that The Star Jammer has concealed optional giving this card a fighting chance to stay into play.*

Should a Proud Zinco Product really be able to take out a space ship?

For those of you who did not know the Star Jammer’s are going to have discard theme & what could be more perfect then to have free card every turn from anyone’s KO’d pile. Maybe if the Future Foes had The Star Jammer? I guess this makes it much easier to decide what to discard for Sex Muffin here:

By Joe Corbett

Hi! My name is Joe & this is my first preview.  First I want to thank everyone @ Ude especially TBS for giving us some previews here @ the Inky Blot. I also want to thank everyone that actually reads this article. I appreciate all three of you.

 Those of you that know me well know that I am a huge DC Comics fan. It has touched my heart considerably that Ude let me have Hyperion as my first preview. Especially, since Hyperion was loosely created to identify one of thee major players in the JLA. I will give you all a hint. It is not THIS ONE*:

All political humor aside, it is amazing that our VS designers from Ude really do know us. It is even scarier that they may even be monitoring us. I can imagine TBZ & TBS keeping a dossier on each & everyone of us. Do you think it could be like a naughty & nice list? Well enough babbling lets introduce our preview card of the day:

At first glance, I like most of you thought WOW you can bring this fellow out on turn 7. Then you may notice he has Shift & Invulnerability. Add in some super stats for a card that can come in on turn 7 & you have something to annoy the Shift out of your opponents. This makes me wonder if Hyperion will be the only Shift card that allows you to jump the curve.  The potential is intriguing.

One thing I love about what we have seen thus far with MEV is the fact that so many characters are duel affiliated. While Hyperion is sporting thee, infamous Squadron Supreme no hand theme it will be interesting if we see anymore Squadron Supreme characters in MEV. Even more interesting however is Hyperion’s Weapon X affiliation.

Hyperion Earth-4023 is one of many different Hyperion’s in the Marvel Universe. Some have been good & others well would even make Superman think twice before suing for copyright infringement. This particular Hyperion was with the Weapon X team. Team Weapon X was much like the Exiles except they morally did not care how they got the job done. In fact, Team Weapon X for better or worse even ended up doing a few missions together with the Exiles. Hyperion’s home world is Earth-4023. There he tried to rule his world but predictably, a few of his earth’s countries did not like that, so they inadvertently caused a nuclear holocaust that killed off everyone but Hyperion. After that, Hyperion did not have anything better to do thus making him the perfect candidate for team Weapon X. For more juicy details on Hyperion Earth-4023 go here:

http://www.marvel.com/universe/Hyperion_(Earth-4023)

Like most, I am interested in seeing how the rest of this set looks. To be honest Hyperion seems to pose more questions for what could be in this set. Thus far, Shift seems to be a viable keyword & Hyperion Earth-4023 will need to run a ton of Exile/Shift cards to make sure you can BONK him out on turn 7. However, will team Weapon X be able to support a Shift theme without the Exiles? Could there be a Tallus** equipment card? If so, could this Tallus** equipment be equipped by everyone or only by Blink & Gambit? Will Gambit & Blink have Weapon X versions? Could this Tallus** help with the Shift theme or will a Tallus** equipment card even exist? These are all good questions. Since Hyperion Earth-4023 seems to rely on support from the Shift mechanic it is hard for me to see anything outside MEV that combos well with him. Thus it will be very interesting what other Shift cards can support him. Especially those stamped with the Weapon X affiliation.

Outside of MEV, few cards came to mind that combo with Hyperion. However, both Captain America Ultimates 6 drop & The Triskellion Ultimates location card could help you fulfill your no hand requirement to recruit out Hyperion on turn 7. Now this does not mean that we know yet if Hyperion can run without Exiles but the Triskellion is definitely a card just screaming to be broken. While this combo really is more of a pipe dream & in reality probably not going to work yet the Triskellion is at least a card to keep in mind.

Well folks, I think I am the only one crazy enough to have put Snapper Carr*** in a MEV preview of Hyperion in the same article. Admit it, the first card you do not think of when you see this Hyperion card is Snapper Carr***. I guess I am trying to stay on the naughty list this year. Of course, the thought of TBZ coming down my chimney is frightening. You all have a Merry Christmas now!

Joe

* In the Second Presidential debates this year Senator John McCain called Senator Obama “That One” when referring to something that Senator Obama had voted on. I had to throw in something about the election.

** The Tallus equipment was worn on the arm of the leader of the Exiles & of Weapon X. Both Blink & Gambit wore the Tallus on their arm & its purpose was to transport them to their next destination after their mission was completed.

*** Here is a useless fact. Team TAWC has won both VS Quizzes due mostly to Michael Barnes uncanny ability to remember the versions of lesser-known characters. Interestingly, the first question of the first quiz @ Worlds this year was what was Snapper Carr’s version? Mike thought that it was lounge lizard. Turns out that was one of the few questions we got wrong. Luckily, for us no one else got it right either. I felt that Snapper Carr needed some more spotlight. Just leave me alone nobody is going to read this article anyway.

By Crazy Michael Barnes.

The term “combo control” refers to a deck that aims to win in the late game with early game board control followed by combination of specific cards in the end game.  Some examples of successful combo control decks are Evil Medical School, TDC Stall, and Circus of Doom.  This archetype is one of the most unique in Vs. System; and subsequently one of the most difficult to build and play.

Looking at the small population of cards that boast the keyword “Insanity”, there is one that screams “combo control”: Mr. Mxyzptlk, Felonious Fiend.  The 9-drop Mxy boasts an effect that may be one of the most powerful in the game.  Traditionally, players cannot bring characters in play before the player controls resources equal to that character’s cost.  There are a few exceptions to this rule, but not very many – resource acceleration effects are few and far between.  However, Mr. Mxyzptlk will bring ANY character into play once a character you control becomes stunned; provided that the character is on top of your deck AND your deck is insane.

That last part is the tricky part.  It’s already difficult enough to get to the late game with a dedicated stall deck that plays multiple copies of specific cards.  For an Insanity deck to play the stall game is a nigh-impossible task.  Consistency generally relies on having multiple copies of preferred card.  Insanity doesn’t get that luxury – it’s one copy of every card, baby!  However, if we can find a way to make it work, we’re virtually assured a win in the late game.

We’ll get back to the consistency issue shortly.  First, we want to discuss deck logistics.  Like I said, Mxy will only be amazing if we have the correct character on top of our deck.  About a year ago, I built a deck that attempted to abuse Mr. Mxyzptlk; using Professor X, Illuminati to stack the top of my deck.  In that build, I had something like eight 8-, 9-, 10-, and 11-drops.  The goal of the deck was to get The Monitor into play with Mxy’s effect, then evade a single character over and over to bring the rest of the characters into play.  The deck was not very competitive, but it was really cool when it worked!

I learned a couple of things playing this deck.  First, I really didn’t need to play a lot of big drops in the deck – certain characters coming into play would force a scoop from my opponent.  One of these characters was Stardust, Herald.  If I brought the nasty 10-drop into play after my opponent had recruited for the turn, they wouldn’t have a single character after Stardust’s effect resolved.  E-e-e-e-e-vil!!!  Second, Professor X really isn’t a good staging mechanism.  The deck isn’t really combat-centric, yet his effect relies on combat.  This creates problems with setting up the end game.  Fortunately, Marvel Universe brought us a number of strong cards for organizing cards on top of the deck.  By using these rather than Professor X, we can set up our Mxyzptlk triggers AND accelerate our resources on turn seven by playing Silver Surfer, Last Zenn-Lavian.  If a turn nine Stardust is broken, a turn eight Stardust is nigh unbeatable.

By Michael (Cuckoo) Barnes

 

 

 

One of my current favorite deck archetypes is Insanity.  To be certain, it is not the most competitive of deck types.  Even the sheer stupidity of the power levels provided to cards with Insanity text can’t make up for the lack of consistency.  But Insanity decks are almost always guaranteed to be fun to play.

Now let’s ignore what I just said for a moment and consider what a “good” (i.e. competitive) Insanity deck would look like.  This topic has actually been one of the more active threads on VsRealms as of late; and the opinions on the matter are quite diverse.  Everyone has a notion of what cards are “good” in an Insanity deck.

To me, though, cherry picking cards for an Insanity deck is a bit like putting the cart before the horse.  Okay… bad analogy; as putting the cart before the horse would truly be an insane thing to do… heh heh!  However, I personally believe that you need to have an idea of what your deck is trying to accomplish before you can argue what cards belong in the deck.  Sure… if you’re just playing for fun, then you can play whatever cards you like.  But, like I said earlier, we are ignoring our initial assumption that Insanity decks can’t be competitive, and trying to come up with a competitive Insanity deck.  Yeah… it makes no sense.  Then again, it doesn’t have to – it’s INSANITY!!!

To me, there are two distinct gameplans that an Insanity deck can be built towards: 1) Dementia (aggro); and, 2) Paranoia (combo control).  If you take a look at the Vs. Cards with Insanity text, you’ll notice that most of them fall into one of these two categories.  On the Dementia side, you have aggressive cards like Burn Baby Burn; Money Talks; and The Joker, Crazy For You.  For Paranoia, you have more subtle control cards like Roshambo; Obey or Die!; and Bat-Mite.  That is not to say that each Insanity card only fits within one archetype – cards like Beside Myself, Pick a Card, and Jack-in-the-Box are good whether you happen to be demented or paranoid.

Using this as the foundation for insane deck building, we’re going to look at two different Insanity decks – one for each gameplan.

DEMENTIA:

“Dementia” is loosely defined as “Loss of intellectual capacity often characterized by aggressive behavior”.  Yeah… dementia = aggro.  For an aggressive Insanity deck, we want to focus on the cards that provide us with combat bonuses.  Specifically, pumps and big characters are keys to a potent Dementia deck.  The Insanity cards that support this theme are:

Batzarro, World’s Worst Detective

The Joker, Crazy for You

Batter Up!

Bizarro Brawl

Burn Baby Burn

Why So Serious??

Additionally, we’re going to include a few Insanity cards that don’t necessarily support the theme, but are still very good from a gameplay perspective:

Scarecrow, Fear and Loathing

Basil Karlo <> Ultimate Clayface, Mud Pack

Beside Myself

Certifiable

Jack-in-the-Box

Money Talks

Pick a Card

Arkham Asylum, Team-Up

That’s 13 cards – 48 more to go!  Yeah… 61 cards in the deck.  Like I always say, you have to be INSANE to play more than 60 cards in a constructed deck!

First, we need to know what age we are building to.  First, we’re going to exclude Golden right out of hand.  The main reason for this is because there is no way to make an Insanity deck that could even remotely compete in Golden – the card pool is just too big.  On the other hand, Modern Age is a bit too narrow.  I don’t agree with D-Block 354, but he made a good point when he said “MA insanity is stupid and pointless and whack and boring and there’s not enough card draw.”  Okay… so that was a bit extreme, but that’s D-Block for you.  In Modern Age, there aren’t that many strong non-character search cards in the environment.  Professor Emil Hamilton<>Ruin is the only effective plot twist searcher; and there are no location searchers that aren’t team stamped.  In Silver Age, on the other hand, you have quite a few more possibilities in this arena.  Thus, our age of choice for building will be Silver Age.

Next, we need to determine what teams will make the cut.  Obviously, Arkham Inmates and Revenge Squad are no-brainers for Dementia; since we are playing cards stamped to those teams.  Since we will be playing on a curve (as evidenced by the inclusion of a 5-, 6-, and 7-drop), we may not need more teams than that.  However, we will probably find it beneficial to splash off-team drops.  So we will say that our deck is Arkham Inmates/Revenge Squad with a few off-team drops.

In order to determine the remaining cards to include, we need to identify the themes within the deck, and which cards support them.  Our primary theme is aggro; meaning that we need to play plenty of pump and big characters.  Here’s a list of additional cards that we’ll include to support this theme:

Harley Quinn, Mr. J’s Girl

KGBeast, Anatoli Knyazev

Natasha Irons <> Starlight, Everyman Project

Great White, Warren White

Lex Luthor, Champion of the Common Man

Mr. Zsasz, Scar Tissue

Bizarro, ME AM BIZARRO #1

Firefly, Burning Desire

Livewire, Leslie Willis

Manchester Black, Union Jack

Batzarro Beatdown

Big Leagues

Blinding Rage

Crackshot

Flying Kick

Savage Beatdown

Trouble With Dinosaurs

Blackgate Prison, Maximum Security

Stryker’s Island

These 19 cards all provide some form of ATK stat benefit; whether it’s an ATK stat pump, or simply characters with much larger than average ATK stats.

The other major theme within the deck is ongoing plot twist support.  With a card like Bizarro Brawl in the deck, we would like to have at least a few other strong ongoing plot twists to make the ongoing plot twist as potent as possible.  However, we need to be careful not to dilute the power of the deck with these cards.  Thus, the ongoing plot twists will be focus on providing combat benefits.  Here are the cards that will be included to support the ongoing plot twist theme:

Terra-Man, Toby Manning

Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival

Ilsa Haupstein, Great Heart

Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin, Power Suit

Battle for Metropolis

Dimensional Deal, Team-Up

Executive Privilege

Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up

Hostile Takeover

Never-Ending Battle

World’s Worstest, Team-Up

While Executive Privilege and World’s Worstest don’t exactly meet our criteria for inclusion, they have been included simply because the provide benefits that are equally useful.  Executive Privilege is a great way to cycle through cards in the deck, control our discards, and potentially gain hand advantage.  World’s Worstest is a global crossover card that allows us to “toolbox” off-team drops.

Between the Insanity cards, aggro support, and ongoing plot twist support, we’ve filled 43 spots in the Dementia deck.  The remaining cards will provide sub-theme support for the deck.

Search/Draw/Cycling:

Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity

Calendar Man, Julian Gregory Day

The Joker, Out of His Mind

Catwoman, Jewel Thief

Call in a Favor

Mobilize

Straight to the Grave

Usual Suspects

 KO/Board Control:

Tally Man, Tax Time

Hush, Silent and Deadly

Recursion:

Winslow Schott <> Toyman, Child’s Play

Charaxes, Moth Monster

The Penguin, Crime’s Early Bird

Matt Hagen <> Clayface, Mud Pack

Sondra Fuller <> Clayface, Mud Pack

Its Mud not Vanilla!

NOTE ON THE INCLUSION OF THE “MUD PACK” CHARACTERS: There has been some debate on the VsRealms forums about whether or not the Matt Hagen and Sondra Fuller are good choices in an Insanity deck.  Without trying to go into too much detail, the simple answer is that it depends upon the type of deck that you are playing.  In a deck with enough draw and cycling power that you can consistently hit specific characters on turns five and six, the Mud Pack characters are unnecessary.  More importantly, such an Insanity build would probably be more focused on control; meaning that character effects are more critical than in standard aggro builds.  Thus, playing 5- or 6-drops with effectively blank text can be detrimental to your strategy.  In an aggressive combat-based Insanity deck, however, the inclusion of the Mud Pack should be a no-brainer.  First, they give you more versatility to use discard effects.  This is especially important with cards like Blackgate Prison and Batzarro Beatdown.  Second, they have above average stats.  While character effects might be critical in control, they don’t usually matter as much as stats in combat-based decks (unless it is a stat-based effect like The Joker, Crazy for You).  Finally, they allow you to trade search and recursion for more pumps.  In a control deck, you need a lot of search to ensure that you hit a specific card on a specific turn.  In an aggro deck, you can sacrifice some of the search since you have easy access to your 5- and 6-drop (especially with Straight to the Grave in the deck).  ‘Nuff said.

Other:

Mad Hatter, Mad as a Hatter

Kryptonite Man, K. Russell Abernathy

Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul

That’s all 61 cards.  Let’s look at the final build:

DEMENTIA (61 cards)

CHARACTERS (32)

Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity

Harley Quinn, Mr. J’s Girl

Mad Hatter, Mad as a Hatter

Winslow Schott <> Toyman, Child’s Play

Calendar Man, Julian Gregory Day

Charaxes, Moth Monster

KGBeast, Anatoli Knyazev

Kryptonite Man, K. Russell Abernathy

Natasha Irons <> Starlight, Everyman Project

Terra-Man, Toby Manning

Tally Man, Tax Time

The Penguin, Crime’s Early Bird

Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival

Great White, Warren White

Ilsa Haupstein, Great Heart

Lex Luthor, Champion of the Common Man

Mr. Zsasz, Scar Tissue

Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin, Power Suit

The Joker, Out of His Mind

Batzarro, World’s Worst Detective

Bizarro, ME AM BIZARRO #1

Firefly, Burning Desire

Hush, Silent and Deadly

Livewire, Leslie Willis

Manchester Black, Union Jack

Catwoman, Jewel Thief

Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul

Matt Hagen <> Clayface, Mud Pack

Scarecrow, Fear and Loathing

Sondra Fuller <> Clayface, Mud Pack

The Joker, Crazy for You

Basil Karlo <> Ultimate Clayface, Mud Pack

PLOT TWISTS (26)

Batter Up!

Battle for Metropolis

Batzarro Beatdown

Beside Myself

Big Leagues

Bizarro Brawl

Blinding Rage

Burn Baby Burn

Call in a Favor

Certifiable

Crackshot

Dimensional Deal, Team-Up

Executive Privilege

Flying Kick

Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up

Hostile Takeover

Jack-in-the-Box

Mobilize

Money Talks

Never-Ending Battle

Pick a Card

Savage Beatdown

Straight to the Grave

Trouble With Dinosaurs

Usual Suspects

World’s Worstest, Team-Up

LOCATIONS (3)

Arkham Asylum, Team-Up

Blackgate Prison, Maximum Security

Stryker’s Island

There you have it – a strong and consistent aggro Insanity deck (aka Dementia).  While it may not win first place in a City Championships event anytime soon, it is sure to turn a few heads at the level of power it brings to a match.

That’s it for now.  However, part 2 is coming; and we’ll be looking at the other side of Insanity – combo control… otherwise known as PARANOIA!

By Michael Barnes

This story begins with a thread posted on these very Realms.  One week before the VsSystem World Championships, I was reading Yoel Izsak’s tournament report of Mega Weekend New York.  Of particular interest to me were Yoel’s impressions of Marvel Universe from a limited perspective.  While I fancy myself a decent limited player, I willingly admit that there are players out there (such as Yoel) with far better understanding of the limited side of Vs. System.  Considering Yoel’s prior success with the Vs. System limited format, I figured that I could learn a lot from his comments.

 

 

Initially, I was a bit distraught by his statement that Marvel Universe limited is a “fast format”.  While I have played rush and off-curve in limited formats in the past, I find that I am far more comfortable playing control curve in Sealed and Draft.  However, Yoel’s initial comment was merely a setup for his thoughts about how to use this trait to your advantage by playing cards that would allow you to play towards the later turns.  In particular, he identified endurance gain and reinforcement tricks as being key to pushing the game towards later turns.  While Marvel Universe has some amazing pumps and dominating low-cost characters available in limited, they also contain an underrated group of reinforcement and endurance gain cards.  And, according to Yoel, foremost among these is Messiah Complex.

 

 

Okay… so I readily admit that I never really considered Messiah Complex to be a “power card” in limited.  I come from the very basic school of thought that the only non-character cards worth playing are pumps (offensive and defensive), draw/cycling effects, and board control cards (recovery and KO).  To me, endurance gain has never seemed like something that had the potential to be “game-breaking” in limited.

 

However, I am willing to admit that Yoel probably knew what he was talking about.  So I started actively picking copies of Messiah Complex in practice drafts (as well as other endurance gain/reinforcement tricks).  And you know what?  Yoel WAS right.  In the right decks, Messiah Complex proved to be absolutely amazing.  Not only could you pitch your late drops for various discard effects; secure in the knowledge that you could retrieve them, but you could gain substantial benefits in the bargain.  Seven extra points of endurance may not seem like much.  But if you consider that gaining seven endurance is the pseudo-equivalent of completely nullifying an opposing 4-drop’s attack, it becomes clear how good such an effect can be.

 

Fast forward to Day 2 of Worlds.  I had just finished a disappointing Day 1; where my 4-3 performance was a pale shadow of the 5-2 or 6-1 record I had hoped to post.  Of course, I was still grateful to be playing on Day 2.  However, given the power level that we judged Warbound at, I felt that I should have put up a better performance.  Unfortunately, a few poor draws conspired to ruin my chances of a better record.

 

I was able to go 2-1 in my first draft pod; and I knew that I would have to 3-0 the second pod if I wanted to have any shot at Day 3.  From the experience in my first pod, I realized that control archetypes – particularly Crime Lords – were being sorely under drafted.  So, I decided to force Crime Lords; drafting off-team characters with high defensive values (like Daisy Johnson) and using cards like The Initiative and Hail Hydra! to make them Crime Lords.  In some regard, I was successful in this feat.  I managed to pull three copies of the much vaunted Red Skull (two 3-drops and one 5-drop); along with a copy of Acts of Vengeance.  Additionally, I had several defensive tricks that would catch my opponents off guard (like three copies of No Retreat, No Surrender – one of the most underrated cards in the set).  On the other hand, I didn’t manage to draft a single 7-drop; which is a bit of a problem for a deck trying to stall for the win on seven.

 

However, I did have one ridiculous combo in the form of Messiah Complex and The Beyonder.  When I first drafted these cards, it didn’t occur to me how amazing they could be together.  But in my first match of the second pod against Travis Frazier, when I managed to push the game to turn seven after going into negatives, I realized just how amazing the combo could truly be.  I was able to use the combo again to great effect in the second match of the pod.  Despite the fact that I didn’t see Messiah Complex in my third match (instead having to rely on the Boost from No Retreat, No Surrender to pull off the victory), I considered the combo to be the MVP of my second draft.

 

About that time I started brainstorming to find a way to abuse the Messiah Complex combo in Constructed play.  While it wouldn’t be nearly so amazing in Constructed, I still felt that it was worth of consideration; especially since the Modern Age metagame was likely to shift after the success of MKKO, Avengers Reservist, and SHIELD Burn at Worlds.  The ten point endurance gain could be perfect for control decks that might need help getting to turns six and seven; where they could take control.

 

I initially thought about trying to integrate the combo into a Crime Lords build (since I absolutely loved Red Skull in draft).  However, I really couldn’t find too much synergy with the combo and the deck.  It was about this time that Todd Carlson showed me the decklists for the Top 8; and I got to see Mike Jiles’ Secret Society deck.  Now HERE was a deck that had synergy with the Messiah Complex combo!  Apart from the obvious benefits from the combo, Messiah Complex fit neatly into the Secret Society’s KO’s pile-centric theme.  If you didn’t draw into a copy of Remote Facility, Messiah Complex could be used in a pinch with Straight to the Grave.  Additionally, the inclusion of the toolbox 10-drops The Beyonder and Death gave Secret Society some additional tools to combat KO effects (like Quick Kill and Punisher, Secret Avenger) and some KO power of their own to deal with problematic characters (like Radioactive Man, Containment Suit and Human Torch, Secret Avenger).  Of course, playing the Messiah Complex combo with Black Manta allowed for the possibility of gaining endurance with the combo every turn (as Manta could keep recurring Messiah Complex).

 

The build was effectively the same as Mike Jiles; with a few changes for certain matchups… and the Messiah Complex combo, of course.  Here’s the build that my teammate John Hall and I settled on:

 

Society Complex (60 cards)

 

Characters (31)

1 Chemo, Toxic Waste

2 Dr. Polaris, Polar Opposite

4 The Riddler, Riddle Me This

2 Charaxes, Moth Monster

4 Dr. Sivana, Mad Scientist

1 Dr. Psycho, Demented Dwarf

4 Poison Ivy, Intoxicating

4 Gorilla Grodd, Grodd Awful

1 Sinestro, Yellow Lantern

3 Black Manta, Underwater Marauder

1 Deathstroke the Terminator, Killing Machine

1 Mr. Freeze, Cold Blooded

1 Doomsday, Engine of Destruction

1 Death, The Second Force of the Universe

1 The Beyonder, Inhuman

 

Plot Twists (24)

4 Agility

2 Death of the Dream

2 Going Ape

4 Messiah Complex

4 Mobilize

4 Savage Beatdown

4 Straight to the Grave

 

Locations (5)

2 Gorilla City

3 Remote Facility, Non-Unique

 

 

Aside from the combo, the only major changes that we made were to add a copy of Dr. Psycho for the MKKO match to get rid of Black Cat (since the extra card draw from her effect is just plain ridiculous); and to add a couple of copies of Death of the Dream as an answer against combo decks.  Birthing Chamber was a tough cut, but we found that the deck had plenty of cycling power already.  Besides, in the new aggressive Modern metagame, we didn’t feel that we’d be in too many situations where Birthing Chamber would be useful.  Also, Pathetic Attempt was cut simply because we thought that two copies of a pure reactive card weren’t enough to be useful in most matchups.

 

It’s already been documented how John did with the deck; managing three feature matches and splitting for first place with Robert Rietze.  However, here’s the report of my experience with the deck:

 

Round 1 – Matt McDonald (MK/Avengers Reservist)

Matt was essentially playing an Avengers Reservist deck with the addition of Wild Ride to search some of the dual team stamped characters (Iron Fist, Dr. Strange, etc.)  In my testing with John, we found the Avengers Reservist matchup to be very favorable.  While the deck has probably the most consistency and power of any of the Modern Age aggro decks, it can only maintain that level of aggression for a brief period of time.  After turn four, the deck leans very heavily on big characters and the burn from Human Torch to finish the game.  The results from Mike Jiles’ match against Matthew Ross at Worlds are a bit deceptive; as Ross drew into an insane amount of pump, and Giles completely missed his 5-drop in game 2.  Before the addition of Messiah Complex, the matchup was slightly in Secret Society’s favor (probably 60-40).  After the addition of Messiah Complex (which can easily extend a game an extra turn), the matchup became closer to 80-20.

 

Sure enough, Messiah Complex was the difference maker in this match.  Matt drew well in the match, but I was able to use Messiah Complex twice (for a net gain of 17) to draw the game out until turn six.  Even though Matt had the initiative, I had so much board presence on six that I was guaranteed to get an attack in.  In the end, that extra character made the difference; as I was able to send Mr. Freeze in directly with a Savage Beatdown to take Matt lower in the negatives than I already was. 1-0

 

 

Round 2 – William Baldwin (Avengers Reservist)

Up to this point, I’d actually had a long run of losses to William.  He’d already beaten me soundly three times earlier this weekend.  Of course, he was playing Avengers Reservists; and was certainly one of the strongest players to be wielding the deck at this event.  However, like I said earlier, my deck has a very good matchup against Avengers Reservist.  William had his Top 8 match at Worlds against Mike Jiles still fresh in his mind; and remarked that he just needed to watch out for Going Ape.  Of course, when I managed to draw BOTH copies of Going Ape, I knew that it was going to be a good match for me. 2-0

 

 

Round 3 – Wilson Fisher (World’s Finest)

Generally, Secret Society can hang in this matchup if 1) it is able to draw into its curve; and 2) Riddler can mill the appropriate cards to shut off negation.  Unfortunately, neither of those things happened in this matchup.  While I had Riddler from the start of the game, he didn’t mill the right cards at the right time to allow me to neutralize Wilson’s negation (which was considerable; with both Bat Got Your Tongue? and Early Edition in the deck).  Additionally, Wilson had a near perfect curve; with Alfred on one, then Alfred and Maggie Sawyer on two.  But the nail in the coffin was when Wilson flipped a copy of Phantom Zone.  While the primary purpose of the devastating location in the deck is to remove cards to make Early Edition more effective, it has the added bonus of completely wrecking Secret Society.  I never had a chance in this match. 2-1

 

 

Round 4 – Bilal Murphy (Warbound)

After getting trounced by the World’s Finest (which, from a flavor perspective, is exactly what should have happened), I had to venture into unfamiliar territory against Bilal and the Warbound.  I had never actually played this matchup, but I was pretty familiar with the Warbound deck (obv!)  I knew that most of the plot twists cost either 3 or 4; and that there were a number of cards in the deck at those respective costs (nearly 3/4ths of the deck).  So, Riddler could be a valuable ally in the matchup.  I was fortunate enough to hit Riddler on turn one; then get a second copy in play via Poison Ivy on three.  On four, I milled a copy of Hiroim; blocking all of Bilal’s search.  Subsequently, he completely missed his 4-drop.  Another 3-cost card hit the bin on five; and Bilal missed on that turn as well.  While he did have a 6-drop, my twin Riddlers milled a 3- and 4-cost that turn (meaning that Bilal wouldn’t be playing any search, Hulk Smash, Trouble with Dinosaurs, The Strongest One There Is, Blood sport, Hulk Red, Righteous Anger… do I need to go on?)  A couple of attacks later, Bilal scooped up his cards. 3-1

 

Round 5 – Jerome (Avengers Reservist)

My profuse apologies to Jerome, but I couldn’t recall his last name; and I didn’t have it written down on my score pad.  Jerome was apparently new to the game, but it seemed that his Avengers deck was doing well for him.  It was reminiscent of Matthew Ross’ Worlds deck; with a minimal amount of search and disruption, and a whole lot of pump.  Jerome hit me extremely hard in the early turns, dropping me into the teens by the end of turn four.  However, I was able to stabilize with a copy of Messiah Complex to return The Beyonder to my hand.  On five, Jerome managed to pull of stuns on both Black Manta and Gorilla Grodd.  He then went for the win with an all-out attack on Charaxes with Echo.  But after he dumped something like ten points of pump on Echo, I used Beyonder to recover Grodd, then KO’d Charaxes to his effect.  This pretty much sucked the wind out of Jerome’s sails, and not even the might Luke Cage could stop the Society onslaught on turn six. 4-1

 

Round 6 – Dan Clark (SHIELD Burn)

A few players at RIW Hobbies in Livonia Michigan are highly acclaimed for their accomplishments in Magic and other TCGs… So much so that players like Dan Clark don’t get the recognition that they deserve.  However, I have a LOT of respect for Dan’s play and deck building skill; and he’s an all-around nice guy.  The only other time that I played Dan, I had an amazingly strong draw to assist me in my victory.  In this match, I found success more due to Dan’s poor early game draw.  He failed to draw into any of his search or cycling effects, so he was never able to put any real pressure on me.  I was able to stun Squirrel Girl every turn to prevent Dan from bouncing his characters back to his hand.  After the draw step on six, with me still sitting at over 30 END, Dan scooped. 5-1

 

Round 7 – John Hall (Mirror)

Matches against a teammate at this point in a tournament are somewhat bittersweet.  On one hand, we were both happy to face one another; because that meant that one of us would definitely make Top 8.  On the other hand, it also meant that one of us was going to lose; putting that person in a “do or die” situation for the final round.  The match was pretty uneventful; with both of us hitting the exact same curve for the first four turns.  The difference came on five; when John milled a 3-cost card with his Riddler.  I had a copy of Straight to the Grave, but I couldn’t play Messiah Complex; meaning that I was going to miss my 5-drop.  When John recruited his Black Manta, I scooped. 5-2

 

Round 8 – Jon Phillips (MKKO)

With my loss to John, I had to win to make Top 8.  Fortunately, I was paired up against Jon Phillips; who had a 6-1 record.  So, even if I won the match, Jon would still make Top 8.  Unfortunately, Jon was playing a very aggressive MKKO deck; which is a somewhat unfavorable matchup.  I told him that if he was able to draw into 3 or more KO effects, that I probably couldn’t win.  I was somewhat fortunate in the fact that Jon missed Black Cat on one, decreasing his odds of drawing into his devastating KO cards (I would later find out that he didn’t play Black Cat in his deck).  However, that didn’t stop John from still hitting FIVE KO cards – two copies of Finishing Move, one copy of Quick Kill, and two copies of Punisher, Suicide Run.  Normally, that kind of a draw would be enough to force me to scoop.  However, I did have a few things working in my favor.  First, drawing all of those KO effects meant that Jon wasn’t drawing as much pump.  Second, I was able to maintain my endurance and board presence with Messiah Complex for The Beyonder on four (who was subsequently discarded to offset Punisher attempting to KO my Gorilla Grodd).  Third, my Riddler activations created a lot of trouble for Jon in the early game; and he was forced to under drop on turns four and five.  Despite Jon KOing Black Manta on five, I sat at a very healthy 34 END going into turn six.  Mr. Freeze provided the size I needed to deal the final points of endurance loss to Jon; giving me the win and a Top 8 berth.  6-2

 

 

Quarterfinals – Robert Rietze (SHIELD Simmer)

Anyone who’s ever met or played against Robert Rietze can tell you that he tends to be a bit obnoxious.  But once you get past that, he’s actually a fairly friendly and EXTREMELY chatty guy.  Moreover, he is one of the more innovative deck builders that I have ever met.  His impressions about deck building are so far off the radar that they are either completely mad or totally genius (maybe both).  Against other SHIELD decks, I knew exactly what to expect.  Against Rietze, I never know what to expect.

 

My hope in this matchup was that I could get an early copy of Messiah Complex, then use it to push the game into the late turns; where my deck could take over.  However, despite a strong early draw, my deck was not forthcoming with any copies of Messiah Complex.  With the initiative on turn five, Rietze attempted to end the game with a hefty flurry from Wolverine and SHIELD Helicarrier-enhanced 1-drops.  While Chemo took care of the Helicarrier, Rietze still had enough pump to put me to -3 END.  On my attacks back, I pitched a copy of Sinestro to give my crew flight.  The resulting attacks from Poison Ivy and Grodd too Rietze to 9 END.  The final attack sent Black Manta into a SHIELD Agent.  Two power-ups and activation of Gorilla City took my 5-drop to 14 ATK – enough to put Rietze at -4 END.  With no cards in hand, Rietze flipped the card that he had placed into his row from his earlier Thunderbolts Mountain activation – Dangerous Liaisons.  Good game.

 

Good game.

 

 

 

 

Following the event, John and I decided that two copies of Death of the Dream were too many.  Instead, the deck would probably play one or no copies.  Additionally, one copy of The Stamford Incident could be game-breaking against SHIELD.  If you could resolve it during the build phase off-initiative, then you could potentially swing directly with all of your characters.  With Straight to the Grave and Black Manta, this play becomes possible as early as turn five.

 

Other possible cuts would be the other copy of Death of the Dream (you can rely on Chemo to replace resources if necessary) and Dr. Psycho (who is really only good for getting rid of Black Cat and *possibly* Blizzard).  That being said, though, there weren’t any cards that leapt out to either me or John that we should add to the deck.  For the cut copy of Death of a Dream, another copy of Gorilla City could be good.  As for the cut Dr. Psycho, it might be nice to include a copy of Gorilla Grodd, Psionic Simian (the 7-drop); or perhaps a game-ending 8-drop (such as Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch or Helmut Zemo <> Baron Zemo, Master of the Moonstones).

 

That’s all for my tournament report.  Sorry it took so long to write, but I hoped that you enjoyed reading!

 

Michael Barnes (a.k.a. BigSpooky) is an avid Vs. System player who is a founding member of Team Alternate Win Condition (TAWC). When he isn’t concocting crazy deck ideas that no sane person would think of, he occupies his spare time working as an accountant in Dallas, TX. Any questions, comments, suggestions, or guesses regarding which deck will show up next week that you might have for Michael can be sent to him at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com.

by Zachary Thorp

Inspiration strikes in the most amazing ways. Sometimes it can start from the smallest thing, like seeing a plastic bag be blown into trees. Sometimes, it stems from larger things, such as one person’s dream of greatness. In this game, however, it is most often inspired by cards and by the characters behind them.

Or maybe inspirtation can come from what is in an Unstable Molecular Suit?

 For years, I’ve had a deep love of the classic X-men storylines, especially the Shi’ar Empire and the long-distance love affair of Lilandra and Mr. Xavier. And for the life of Vs. System, I’ve longed to see them in print, hopefully along with the Starjammers added in. When they finally did appear, I cheered… only to see a total of three cards printed with the affiliation, later a fourth with the dual-team Prof. X. Not quite the printing I was hoping for, but at least I could pit it against a rival Skrull deck if I wanted.

 That said there is certainly room to add to this base, much like there was with the Skrulls. Fortunately, I’ve been designing stuff since I was seven or eight, originally game play for things like Super Mario Brothers, some of which actually made it into the SNES release Super Mario World (or so I was told). I did a full set or two for M:tG, but for Vs. System I only did a handful of cards, among them something like these. If the game survives long enough, I’d love to see cards like these in print:

Nathan Summers — Corsair

Summers Clan – Starjammer

Character – 4, X-men / Shi’ar

7/6, Range

While you control another character that shares a version with Nathan Summers, he is +2 ATK and +1 DEF.

Nathan Summers

Air Force Pilot

Character – 1, X-men

2/1, Flight

When you play Nathan Summers, if you control a character with the version Summers Clan or Starjammer, you may search your library for a card with one of those versions. Reveal that card, shuffle your deck, and put that card on top of it.

Interesting mechanic, no? Best of all, a card like this would interact nicely with other Summers-clan cards like Cyclops, Cable, Jean Grey, and Rachel Summers and the other Starjammer effects. The Imperial Guard could work a similar way, if they ever saw print, with the M’Kran Crystal a sort of Gamma Bomb effect. Still, I can dream – I’m not sure I’d accept a design job with UDE at this point, but I wouldn’t mind the offer someday.

Back on topic, I had to work with what cards are available when concepting the deck, and with Marvel Universe, that was three Shi’ar characters. Two of them have already found a great home – see the Revenge of the Empire article on TCG Player. Matt Wishart already made them work in the form of SHIELD affiliation, but I had a bit less to work with when I was building. Since I couldn’t find an answer to the problem of “how do I keep non-concealed characters in play for Gladiator”, I worked with Shi’ar Soldier instead, the defensive parallel to Marvel Origin’s Skrull Soldier.

As mentioned above, the problem with all the Shi’ar affiliation is keeping your board intact (read: hidden). This is compounded when the character you want to play has a recruit cost of 2, not 1, and is undersized at that. There are now four useful ways to hide them: the Marvel Defenders affiliation, the Shadowpact affiliation, the team-up Underground Movement, and the Invisible Woman-stamped card Invisibility. Since it served the dual function of keeping the deck in Modern Age and creating a Legend deck, I went with the last option. Here’s the deck, tuned and tested:

Feminine Wiles

3 Invisible Woman, Walking on Air

2 Professor X, Mutant Benefactor

10 Shi’ar Soldier, Army

4 Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four

4 Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker

2 Franklin Richards, Child of the Cosmos

1 Invisible Woman, Sight Unseen

1 Thing, Conscientious Objector

2 Invisible Woman, Shield of the Four

1 Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd

2 Galactus, Devourer of Worlds

2 Metropolis Reborn, Team-Up

4 Marvel Crossover, Team-Up

4 Empire’s End

4 Dirty Tricks

3 Invasion Plans

3 Combat Veteran

2 Pathetic Attempt

4 Signal Flare

4 Invisibility

At its heart, this is a stalling deck – it barely even makes an attack or stuns an opponent before turn 7, but by then, it has likely already won, no matter what the endurance totals stand at. The strategy is simple enough – play a high defense character in the visible, fill in the ranks around him or her with Shi’ar Soldiers, then hide them all via

Invisibility or 5-drop Invisible Woman. Barring that, start flipping as many Empire’s End and Dirty Tricks as you can to keep any soldiers you have out intact and milking Franklin Richards for all he’s worth.

As difficult as this sounds to get off the ground, it usually isn’t an issue. Most curve decks don’t run 1′s, and often whiff on their 2′s, so you often have a nice pocket of breathing room to get your stall on. The same cannot be said for swarm and short-curve builds, such MKKO or High Voltage, but those matches can be winnable if you get only a light amount of burn to the face and can cripple their characters with a few Dirty Tricks. A tough matchup to be sure, but sometimes a winnable one. In any case, a normal hand is often something like this:

Turn 1: Professor X, Mutant Benefactor

Turn 2: Shi’ar Soldier, use Prof. X.

Turn 3: Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four. Flip Dirty Tricks.

Turn 4: Shi’ar Soldier x2, Marvel Crossover, and Invisibility.

Turn 5: Mr. Fantastic, exhaust Invisible Woman for Invasion Plans. Brick wall.

Turn 6: Signal Flare for Thing, play Thing. Brick wall again, draw again.

Turn 7: Invisible Woman, Shield of the Four. Attack; discard to her ability, brick wall.

Turn 8 & 9: Win

For those nay-sayers out there, this is not the idealized hand, but a perfectly normal one. Between the draw from Invasion Plans and Mr. Fantastic, you can easily pull enough to fill the curve out. Since the deck is also off-curve, it is extremely flexible about when it plays things – for example, it may drop a trio of Shi’ar Soldiers on turn 6 and immediately hide them, having just soaked damage in earlier turns. That alone gives you 9 points more defense to use, more if you’ve salvaged additional soldiers along the way. I just wish I could also run Cover Fire in this MA version.

There are a few key weaknesses in the deck that I just haven’t found a way to deal with effectively. First, as mentioned, the swarm and burn decks, or more generally anything that plays a ton of characters on the early turns and runs a ton of attack pump. The deck needs to survive until 7 to really start winning and you’re often 10-20 endurance shy by the time you get there, if you get there at all. Second, any deck packing KO effects can cripple your brick walling character, and this is particularly devastating if that character is Mr. Fantastic – his draw is critical to the deck’s success. Third, decks packing any number of Foiled! Or Flame Trap effects can ruin your day, including all variants of Human Torch. Fourth and finally, exhaustion builds can ruin you, since your Shi’ar Soldiers need to be ready to work. Pathetic Attempt only goes so far to correcting these difficulties, but there isn’t room for anything more – it’s at 62 cards already.

 Briefly, here are a few of the reasons for picking the cards I did:

Professor X: Like Invisible Woman, he’s a great early defender, and surprisingly helpful at helping your draw or removing your opponent’s key Mobilize that they’ve needed all game to make their Shadowpact deck explode.

Mr. Fantastic: Besides being a great defender, he is an amazing and crucial card drawer. Unlike Birthing Chamber, which is rather inconsistent in this build, he picks one of your top three and fixes your draws like no other. As a bonus, he’s always reinforced by Invisible Woman-3.

Franklin Richards: Decent attacker, and serves as a source of endurance gain in a deck that could really use it.

Invisible Woman, Sight Unseen: A necessary addition to the Invisibility suite. As a plus, she can often attack early on to keep a key character stunned.

Thing: Incredible brick wall character, similar to 6-drop Blob in that respect. Plus, he often takes down their best character, sometimes twice with the right defenses.

Silver Surfer: Still a beating, from his first debut in Common Enemy and continuing today. With the draw in this deck, it’s no issue at all to keep discarding.

Galactus: Although Onslaught would work here, this beater is in-theme for the deck (as a foe), while also winning the moment he hits play.

Invasion Plans: Birthing Chamber was annoyingly inconsistent in this deck, but this great card draw card – generic, no less – came just in time to make it.

Pathetic Attempt: Possibly better replaced by Cosmic Radiation, but possibly not. If nothing else, it keeps a key exhaust or stun off my characters.

Combat Veteran: I’d love this to be Cover Fire, but that’s not Modern Age legal. Still, that little +2 can help out more than you’d think.

Dirty Tricks / Empire’s End: Mmmm, swarm screwing, and oddly enough, curve screwing as well. When you drop a 6-drop and it only has 6-7 attack that turn, you must be doing something right. Just watch out, as it affects you as well.

I can attest that this deck can do some very rude things and is a fun addition the Marvel universe as a whole. If Hobby League would ever get back around to playing the Legends or Modern Age format, I would happily continue smash faces with it. Like good friend Joe Corbett has said, though, it could certainly be expanded to include the SHIELD affiliation, leading to a possibly hybrid of this deck and Revenge of the Empire.

In the meantime, however, I’ll continue to smile every time a deck must team attack with a 2, 3, 4, 5, and two big pumps to pull down my Thing. I may have created a monster, but at least it’s more fun to play against than a fully powered Spiderfriends.

Enjoy!

Cheers,

Zachary Thorp

By Joe Corbett

On July 26, 2008 we had our first crack at The Bring Your Own Team format @ our local gaming store. The Marquee was held at The Gatekeeper in Topeka Kansas. I love this format. Depending on what teams your opponents play almost every team could be viable. Unfortunately, we only had 6 attendees including myself. 

We went ahead & played a round robin style tourney so everyone got to play everyone. After 5 Epic Rounds Tom Cox, brother of Reid Cox playing in his first tournament for VS, “Hulk Smashed” the competition with a 4-1 record with his Warbound control deck.

Hulk Smash!

Online MUN Sealed Tournament Top 8.

By Reid Cox

To start off I want to throw a big thanks to Flashback for hosting an incredible online sealed tournament.  One of the things I miss most in VS. is the limited play opportunities.  It is easily my favorite format. 

Now on to the show….

Two of your Inkyblot hosts were able to pull in 3-1 records in the swiss rounds to secure spots in the Top 8 this week, Shane “Inkedlawyer” Wiggans and myself. Early on in the tournament visions of a TAWC Final danced in my head, however now we will just have an epic battle of the bloggers Semi-Final and you can full well expect another recap on here for your enjoyment. 

Flashback polled the members of the Top 8 in regards to play out the Top 8 and it was decided to do a new sealed for the best 2 out of 3 matches in the Top 8. 

The Decklist:

My packs were a huge step up in the Top 8.

In the initial sealed I saw one pump in my 5 packs and that card was Satan Claw, an equipment. However, in the Top 8 sealed, my first pack had 4 pumps and in the end I had more pumps than I could legitimately play in the deck. So much so that I had to cut four pumps that were Thunderbolt specific due to a lack of solid Thunderbolt presence in my pulls.

I also saw a lot of Warbound support with Hulk, Gladiator, Hulk, Exile, Mastermind Excellio, Rick Jones, Miek, Brood, and Archangel. However, my plot twist support for Hulk was non-existent and I dislike Warbound in limited play by nature.

With that in mind I opted for a deck that could cut down my opponent by Turn 6 in most cases.

Characters:

Deadpool, Independent Contractor

Kang, Time Warrior

Miek, The Unhived

Eric O’Grady, Antman

Justice, Vance Astrovik

Speedball, Repentant Masochist

Falcon, Secret Avenger

MODOC Squad

Human Torch, Secret Avenger x3

Sharon Carter

Hulk, Gladiator

Black Panther, Secret Avenger

Sasquatch, Walter Langkoswski

Invisible Woman, Secret Avenger

Mar-Vell, Warden of Prison Alpha

Melissa Gold, Songbird

Hercules, Secret Avenger x2

Plot Twists/Equipment:

Switching Sides

Now I’m Fighting Dirty

She-Hulk Smash

Shield Slash x2

Collateral Damage

Grudge Match

Trouble With Dinosaurs

Public Outcry

Equipments:

Satan Claw

The Match:

Top 8: SpecialsauceReid vs Kingfish

Game 1:

Reid wins the dice roll and selects evens.

Turn 1:

Kingfish – plays a resource and passes

Reid – plays a resource and passes

Score:  50/50

Turn 2:

Reid – plays a resource and passes

Kingfish – plays a resource and plays Rick Jones

Rick Jones attacks directly for 2

Score:  48/50

Turn 3:

Kingfish – plays a resource.  Rallys with Rick Jones reveals Spidergirl and fails.  Passes

Reid – plays a resource and recruits MODOC Squad

King passes attacks.  MODOC Squad into Rick Jones.

Score:  48/46

Turn 4:

Reid – plays a resource.  Recruits Human Torch behind MODOC Squad

Kingfish – plays a resource and recruits Mr. Fantastic in front of Rick Jones

MODOC Squad attacks Mr. Fantastic.  Reid plays Trouble with Dinosaurs on MODOC Squad.  Mr Fantastic Rallys for a plot twist revealing Satan Claw and fails.  Both stun.  Reid plays Switching Sides on Mr. Fantastic exhausting Human Torch.  Kingfish plays Invasion Plans exhausting Rick Jones and passes attacks.  Reid recovers Mr. Fantastic.

Score:  45/40

Turn 5:

Kingfish – plays a resource and recruits Sasquach.  Both Rick Jones and Sasquatch in the front row.

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Black Panther with Boost putting both counters on Black Panther. 

Kingfish flips Alias Investigations, exhausts calling character revealing Phyla-Vel and succeeds.  Rick Jones attacks Human Torch.  Kingfish plays She-Hulk Smash on Rick Jones (+4 attack because Black Panther is front row as I am dumb).  Sasquatch gets a +1+1 counter.  Reid powers up Human Torch with another Human Torch.  Kingfish flips Slobbernocker.  Reid exhausts Torch to his ability putting Invisible Woman on top of his deck and burns for 6.  Both stun.  Sasquatch attacks Mr. Fantatstic.  Reid uses Mr. Fantatstics effect to put Invisible Woman on the bottom of his deck.  Mr. Fantastic stuns.  Reid passes on attacks and recovers Human Torch in recovery.

Score:  35/32

Turn 6:

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Mar-Vell burning Kingfish for 6.  Human Torch in front of Mar-Vell

Kingfish – plays a resource.  Rallys for a character with Alias Investigations revealing Falcon and succeeds.  Recruits Saakar.

Reid flips Collateral Damage with Boost.  Human Torch attacks Rick Jones.  Rick Jones activates and returns to hand.  Human Torch attacks Sasquatch. Kingfish plays Public Outcry on Human Torch giving Sasquatch +1+1 and Torch -1-1.  Reid powers up Torch with another Torch and plays Now I’m Fighting Dirty with Boost for +3+3.  Both stun.  Mar-Vell attacks Saakar and both stun.  Black Panther attacks directly.

Score:  25/1

Turn 7:

Kingfish – plays a resource and flips SHRA.  He activates Alias Investigations naming a character and reveals Hulkling for success.  He recruits Hulk 7.

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Hercules from his resource row with no replacement. 

Kingfish scoops.

Games Score: 1-0

Game 2:

Kingfish chooses odds.

Turn 1:

Kingfish – plays a resource and passes

Reid – plays a resource and passes

Score:  50/50

Turn 2:

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Deadpool to the hidden area.

Kingfish – plays a resource and recruits Capitan America.  Rally reveals She-Hulk Smash and fails.

Deadpool attacks direct and Capitan America attacks direct.

Score:  47/46

Turn 3:

Kingfish – plays a resource and flips SHRA.  He recruits Falcon and Rallys for Mr. Fantastic for success. 

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Falcon and Rallys for Black Panther for success.

Capitan America attacks Falcon and Kingfish plays Shield Slash.  Both stun.  Falcon attacks Reid directly.  Deadpool attacks Falcon and Reid plays Public Outcry on Falcon.  Kingfish plays Public Outcry on Deadpool and stonewalls that attack.  Deadpool stuns.

Score:  37/44

Turn 4:

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Sharon Carter to the hidden area. 

Kingfish – plays a resource and recruits Mr. Fantastic.

Sharon Carter attacks Falcon.  Kingfish triggers Mr. Fantastic’s effect revealing Shield Slash for success.  Mr. Fantastic readies.  Kingfish activates Alias Investigations naming Character and reveals Spiderman for success.  Falcon stuns.  Reid’s Falcon attacks Mr. Fantastic and Reid plays Trouble With Dinosaurs.  Both stun.  Capitan America attacks Reid directly.

Score:  31/36

Turn 5:

Kingfish – plays a resource and activates Alias Investigation naming Character and reveals MODOC Squad for success.  He plays The Capitan and recruits Satan Claw on The Capitan.

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Black Panther with Boost.  Both counters go on Black Panther.

At the start of combat Kingfish names Baran Strucker for The Capitan.  Mr. Fanstastic attacks Falcon.  Falcon Stuns.  The Capitan exhausts to Satan Claw effect to stun Sharon Carter.  Both will trigger recovery at the start of recovery.  Capitan America attacks directly.  Reid plays Switching Sides exhausting Black Panther targeting The Capitan.  In recovery The Capitan and Sharon Carter recovery via Satan Claw and Falcon recovers normally. 

Score:  20/32

Turn 6:

Reid – plays a resource and recruits Melissa Gold with Satan Claw on her.

Kingfish – plays a resource and activates Mr. Fantastic revealing Invasion Plans and Mr. Fantastic readies.  Exhausts Alias Investigations for a Character revealing Hulkling for success.  Recruits MODOK behind Mr. Fantastic. 

Reid discards a character for Sharon’s effect and attacks Capitan America.  Kingfish exhausts Capitan America to return Shield Slash and powers up.  Capitan America stuns.  Black Panther attacks Mr. Fantastic. Mr. Fantastic stuns.  Melissa Gold attacks MODOK.  Reid flips Collateral Damage on MODOK, Grudge Match on Melissa Gold, and Shield Slash on MODOK. 

Kingfish scoops.

2-0 and the win.

I would like to thank Kingfish for a great match and for letting me post this report.  He was a great sport and I look forward to playing him again both casually and competitively. 

Reid Cox is a new face on the competitive VS scene, and to TAWC, who in a short time has enjoyed success at different levels.  He loves building and playing competitively as well as all jank tournaments and decks 

For the Bring your own team format

By Joe Corbett

 Does anyone remember Superman Matt Meyers? He was Superman’s biggest fan back in the day & nobody worked harder to make Team Superman more viable then Matt. Matt ended up in 12^th place just 1 win shy of top 8 @ a 10k in Phillipsburg NJ January 15^th 2005. He was a member of Team Realmwork & briefly a member of TAWC. One of his big contributions to Vs was The Phantom Phone Booth deck.

  Here is the old metagame article: http://www.metagame.com/vs.aspx?tabid=46&ArticleId=983

 Here is the old list:

Phantom Phone Booth
played by Matthew Meyers

 I met Matt Meyers there in NJ in 2005 & it seemed fate had crossed our paths. Interestingly, I was also playing a Team Superman clone deck. Since Matt & I were both playing Team Superman we had a bit to talk about. Here was my build:

Joseph Corbett

Characters

3 Cir-El ◊ Supergirl, Daughter of Tommorrow

4 Girl 13, Traci Thirteen

1 John Henry Irons ◊ Steel, Peerless Engineer

1 Krypto, Superdog

4 Lois Lane, Star Reporter

3 Strange Visitor, Sharon Vance

2 Superman Robots, Army

2 Superman, Blue

4 Superman, Clark Kent

1 Superman, False Son

3 Superman, Kal-El

2 Superman, Man of Steel

4 Superman, Red

Plot Twists

1 Acrobatic Dodge

4 Burn Rubber

4 Cover Fire

2 Have a Blast!

4 Man of Tomorrow

4 Savage Beatdown

1 Tag Team

Locations

4 Cadmus Labs

2 Genosha

If anyone wants to see all the deck list’s from that tournament here is the link: http://www.metagame.com/vs.aspx?tabid=46&ArticleId=1011

This event was a big wake up call for me. My performance was awful. This was my first real competitive event & I realized then if I wanted to compete at events I couldn’t just play one of my favorite superheroes. Yet I was still in denial. I just couldn’t believe UDE made Team Superman the worst team in VS. I was determined to make a Team Superman tier 1 deck. After 4 months of trying I gave up & started playing Teen Titans. I just couldn’t admit that Matt’s PPB build was as good as it got. In those 4 months I tested allot with Matt’s PPB build. There was just too many ways you could play around it if you knew the match up. The deck wasn’t consistent in hitting its drops either. It always sucked when you couldn’t make Superman non unique which happened from time to time.

Much time has passed since that 10k in New Jersey. Both the DCL & DWF sets have given us some really good Superman’s. It is Unfortunate the JLA set didn’t give Team Superman enough of a boost competitively. By the time the Worlds Finest set hit the shelves everything from DSM was buried in golden age forever. So when UDE announced this bring your own team format the first deck I wanted to retool was Phantom Phone Booth.

Here you go guys:

Phantom Phone Booth 2008

 28 Characters

1 Gangbuster Jose Delgado

4 Krypto Guard Dog of El

3 Hiro Okamura <> Toyman

4 Superman Red

1 John Henry Irons <> Steele-Steel work

1 Superman Clark Kent

3 Superman Last Son of Krypton

1 Superman Blue

3 Superman Metropolis Marvel

1 Supergirl Kara Zora el

2 Superman Ka-El

1 Superman Founding Member

1 Superman Deterrent Force

1 Eradicator Soul of Krypton

1 Superman Man of Steel

25 Plot Twist

4 For the Man who Has Everything

4 Man of Tommorrow

3 At Their Finest

3 Cover Fire

3 Impervious

3 Savage Beatdown

2 Indestrucible

2 Early Edition

1 Look alike Squad

8 Locations

4 Cadmus Labs

4 Phantom Zone

I really think Phantom Zone is a Meta call. Back in 2005 when Matt busted  PZ out the top decks were:

1)      Teen Titans

2)      Curved Sentinels

3)      X-Stall

4)      TNB

5)      Common Enemy

6)      Big Brotherhood

7)      Medium Brotherhood

      Wild Vomit

6 of these decks abused the graveyard. With Garth, Jean Grey, Avalon Space Station & Reconstruction Program it is no wonder why Phantom Zone was the only reason you used to play Team Superman. With that being said if you think 50%+ will be abusing their graveyards then Phantom Zone is a great call.

 There are 4 things I don’t like about this deck:

1)      PPB doesn’t have any KO pile recursion.

2)       You must be cautious when replacing Cadmus Labs & Phantom Zone. Make sure you can tutor first for a character you need because you don’t have a way to get characters out of the row.

3)      All of your Characters are Superman. Thus if your opponent has Omnipotence or Utility Belt you could lose if they can stop Cabmus & get rid of Superman Red. Also, you may be tempted to power up Superman allot since all your characters are Superman. The general rule is to wait to power up on your kill turn or unless absolutely necessary.

4)      There are many Team Superman cards you could add to this deck. Deciphering which is needed is the key & sometimes heartbreaking. Personally, I would love to run Solar Powered.

If you do not think you will need PZ then here are some suggestions for replacement. Messiah Complex is easily my favorite card from Marvel Universe. Grabbing a card from the KO pile is really needed sometimes in this deck. The fact that you can gain life though is priceless. If that doesn’t work for you then I would suggest more pump, Cover Fire or Impervious. Some people refuse to play Impervious. Against all odds is a decent substitute here. I’ll remind you however that usually you will use Cover Fire on the first attack anyways. Many of you may wonder why I would play Cadmus Labs over Look Alike Squad. The reason is because the main theme of the deck is to brick wall your opponent. This is a defensive deck. Cadmus gives you the +1 +1 & a replacement effect which makes it more versatile then Look Alike Squad.

 Matt Meyers Phantom Phone Booth deck ran 61 cards. At that time their where many competitive players that believed running a 61 card deck was the way to go. In tribute to Matt Meyer & his Phantom Phone Booth deck I thought it would be fitting to leave it at 61 cards. I do not agree with the 61 card deck theory but sometimes traditions just need to be kept.

Lastly, here is my Superman Clone little deck:

16 Characters

Lois Lane Star Reporter

Gangbuster Jose Delgado

Kelex Faithful Servant

Hiro Okamura <> Toyman Whiz-Kid

Krypto Guard dog of el

Superman Red

John Henry Irons <> Steel Steel Works

Superman Clark Kent

Superman Last Son of Krypton

Superman Blue

Superman Metropolis Marvel

Superman Kal-El

Superman Earth 2

Superman Deterrent Force

Superman Avatar of Peace

Superman Man of Steel

11 Plottwists

For The Man Who Has Everything

Early Edition

Man of Tommorrow

Look Alike Squad

Solar Powered

Impervious

At Their Finest

Indestructible

Cover Fire

Soaring to New Heights

Hero’s Welcome

3 Locations

Soul World

Cadmus Labs

Slaughter Swamp

Well I hope you enjoy these lists. Tune in next week when we explore a deck revolving around a Prophecy.

 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 on VSRealms as Savage Tofu.

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.