One of my all-time favorite decks. So many interesting synergies and interactions. Like most curve decks, it struggles against really fast decks when they are on their game, but against most other curve decks it is really solid. Aggro decks struggle with its defensive prowess. Control decks struggle with its deceptively strong firepower. All fueled and enhanced by the abilities of the 5-7 drops to replace and recycle plot twists.
Characters - 29
[2 - 8]
4x Sage, Tessa (Hellfire Club)
4x Captain Boomerang, George Harkness (Injustice Gang)
[3 - 4]
4x Dr. Doom, Richards's Rival (Doom)
[4 - 4]
4x Professor X, Headmaster (X-Men)
[5 - 4]
4x Emma Frost, Friend or Foe (X-Men)
[6 - 4]
4x Jean Grey, Red (X-Men)
[7 - 3]
2x Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas (JLA)
1x Koriand'r <> Starfire, X'Hal's Fury (Teen Titans)
[8 - 2]
2x Rachel Summers <> Phoenix, Phoenix of the Future (X-Men)
Plot Twists - 31
[1 - 5]
4x Acrobatic Dodge
1x Meltdown
[2 - 6]
3x Cover Fire
2x Mutant Massacre
1x Only Human
[3 - 12]
4x Enemy of My Enemy
4x Phoenix Rising
2x Bamf!
2x Have a Blast!
[4 - 6]
4x Savage Beatdown
2x Trouble with Dinosaurs
[5 - 2]
2x Omnipotence
Neither 2 drop is on team, but it doesn't matter, because this isn't really an X-Men deck. Sage is a mental character who allows you to cycle through your deck. This can be incredibly important, because the deck plays only 4 tutors, so you need to draw and cycle to compensate. Captain Boomerang is here, as in my Crisis Doom deck, partly to remove pesky opposing 2 drops, and partly to limit damage until the deck can gain board advantage in the middle game.
The deck plays only one 3 drop, and he's not a mental character, but he's absolutely vital to the deck's functioning. So much so, he's your mulligan condition. The 3 drop Doom can fetch any plot twist you need and put it on top of your deck. If Sage is out, you can go ahead and draw it with her ability. If you don't have both your 4 and 5 drops yet, or ways to get them, you should fetch a copy of Enemy. That is what makes the deck so consistent, despite playing only 4 tutors--the fact that you can get one of them with Doom. But if you do have your next couple of drops lined up, then you can use his ability to go get whatever tool you need out of your toolbox for the current match-up. When I play my Crisis Doom deck against this, my son always fetches Have a Blast!, to take out Crisis, for example. Against Good Guys, Meltdown is good for getting rid of Nth Metals. Against stall, Omnipotence is a good choice. And so on. The point is, Doom makes the deck both more consistent and more versatile.
The one 4 drop, Professor X, is important to the deck in a variety of ways. His leader ability gives Dr. Doom the X-Men affiliation, allowing you to give and get reinforcement, and even to team attack on occasion. If he is face up during recovery, he can draw you an extra card. And perhaps most importantly, he is a mental character, which allows you to fulfill Emma's recruit requirement if you missed Sage on 2. In addition, his defense-oriented 7/8 stats are ideal for this deck, which excels at brickwalling attacks.
By any measure, the 5 drop Emma Frost has to be considered one of the coolest Vs. character cards ever, both for her ability and for her unique alternate art. Like Doom, she makes the deck both more consistent and more versatile. You should always play Enemy and your most important tech cards from your resource row with this deck, because she gives you the ability to leverage any mental card in your hand into a plot twist by flipping it back down. 
The 6 drop Jean Grey is equally powerful, although her effect is wildly unpredictable. I have seen many matches where the entire resource row gets replaced with her effect. Sometimes the new cards are of no use whatsoever; sometimes you replace into plot twists that turn the game in your favor. More often, you get a mixture of the two. Win or lose, though, the unpredictability adds to the joy you get from playing the deck. You quickly forget the times that her effect bought you nothing, but you will remember fondly the time that you brickwalled a massive attack by replacing into multiple copies of Acrobatic Dodge or Cover Fire.
Adding to the deck's synergy, all those plot twists that Jean dumped into your KO'd pile can be retrieved by the main 7 drop, Aquaman. Form with as many characters adjacent to him as possible (it's usually 2 or 3), because that is what determines how many plot twists and/or mental cards you can retrieve with his effect. I prefer to be on odds with this deck, because it is usually hard to win on a turn 6 init. If you are on odds, you can form however you want, maximizing his effect, and use it to retrieve attack pumps, Bamf!, and mental characters--whatever you need to finish the job. The alternate 7, Starfire, is here primarily because she is a reservist, which is important because there is always the chance that Jean will replace all your 7 drops into your row before you can draw or search for them. But she is also really good against stall decks. I used to play Exodus here, because he's mental, but she is much better, and I have never had a problem arise because Aquaman wasn't mental. This does give you one fewer mental card to discard for effects, though.
In the event you go to 8, your opponent is going to have a hard time pushing through damage, because as long as Rachel is upright and you have another mental character on the field, they won't be able to play plot twists. Like Starfire, she is a reservist, so there's no problem if Jean replaces her into your row. Normally you would play only one copy of your 8 drop, but you sometimes have to discard her early for some mental effect, long before you know that you are going to turn 8. It's also good to have one in your KO'd pile if you are defending on 8, because that allows you to use Phoenix Rising on her, to keep the plot twist negation going.
To my mind, this deck's calling card is its ability to brickwall attacks. Four copies of Acrobatic Dodge and three copies of Cover Fire create an ample supply of defensive pumps, and of course the abilities of Emma, Jean and Aquaman combine to make it seem that you have twice as many as you do. Back when I wrote for tcgplayer.com, I did an article about playing an earlier version of this deck at a PCQ. Here I gave a concrete example of just how good this deck is at brickwalling:
That anecdote also highlights the other thing that the deck is really good at, which is creating board advantage. Two cards mentioned there are keys. I've seen people saying in various forums that cards like Bamf! are unnecessary if you attack intelligently, and to some extent that is true. But when you can attack with all your characters without fear of stunbacks, that means that not only are you not losing any characters, but also that you are not taking any damage. Say you and your opponent both have three characters on the field (3-5). Through intelligent attacks, you can probably keep two characters to their one, and lose 7 endurance in the process. With Bamf! you keep the 7, and your 3 drop. My old buddy on Realms, cchug2001, is the one who showed me the light on this subject, and I have played Bamf! in this deck ever since.
Phoenix Rising is even more important, because it allows you to preserve your field during off inits. This is especially important where Professor X is concerned, because you really want to be able to draw extra cards with him if at all possible. This deck plays a lot of effects that require discards, and you need his help to pay for them. The requirement that there be a copy of the character you want to recover in your KO'd pile is sometimes a problem, and it is tempting to play Children of the Atom instead for that reason. But that's one more effect that requires a discard, and that can create problems of its own.
For the longest time I played four copies of Savage as my only attack pumps, but recently I replaced a couple of rarely used tech cards with Trouble with Dinosaurs, which is pretty much always a +4 to +6. Not sure if these will stick or not, but it seemed like there were a lot more times I needed more pumps than times where I needed Political Pressure or Flame Trap. If you play against rush more than curve, you would probably want to reverse the change.
Another way that this deck creates board advantage is with Mutant Massacre. This card works best when you have Sage sitting in the hidden area doing little. If you can take out their biggest guy on turn 4 or 5 with this effect, it can definitely give you a big advantage heading into the next turn.
The remaining plot twists are tech cards. Omnipotence shuts down key plot twists or payment powers. Meltdown KO's key equipment cards. And Have a Blast! eliminates critical ongoing plot twists and location cards, such as Crisis or Lost City. Only Human is a card that goes in and out of the deck, depending on what decks I've been playing against recently. This is an IN phase. In some match-ups its value is negligible; in others it can be an MVP. Ideally you would want to use Omnipotence to shut down Pathetic Attempt before using it.
I can think of very few decks that I enjoy playing as much as this one, although these days my son is under the delusion that the deck is his, so I rarely get to play it any more. If you do build this deck, think of my list as a starting point, rather than a destination. Experiment with different tech cards, and different ratios of defensive and offensive cards. My build aims for balance, but you could easily shift the balance by replacing defensive pumps with attack pumps, or vice versa, and you can certainly change the flavor of the tech by changing the tech cards. As with my Crisis Doom deck, I am always tweaking the build on this one to keep it fresh, and I would encourage you to do the same.
To my mind, this deck's calling card is its ability to brickwall attacks. Four copies of Acrobatic Dodge and three copies of Cover Fire create an ample supply of defensive pumps, and of course the abilities of Emma, Jean and Aquaman combine to make it seem that you have twice as many as you do. Back when I wrote for tcgplayer.com, I did an article about playing an earlier version of this deck at a PCQ. Here I gave a concrete example of just how good this deck is at brickwalling:
Turn 6, my opponent’s initiative. He was playing old-style New Brotherhood and had Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr and Sabretooth, Feral Rage ready to attack. He also had one of the two copies of New Brotherhood he had played, the other having been axed with Have a Blast! Thanks to Phoenix Rising and Bamf!, I had preserved my entire field on earlier turns, so I had Emma Frost and Jean Grey, Red in front, with Professor X, Headmaster and Dr. Doom behind them. My opponent first exhausted the Dr Doom behind Jean with Magneto’s effect, then sent him after her. He flipped Genosha to search for pumps, and obviously found some, because he pumped him up to 23 ATK. Jean had only 12 DEF, so without the option to reinforce, I had some work to do. First I flipped a Cover Fire for +6 DEF (since everyone had range). Then I flipped an Acrobatic Dodge for another +3 DEF. Finally, I played another copy of Acrobatic Dodge from hand for another +3 DEF, to go to 24 DEF. When my opponent passed, I knew he was about out of pumps. Next he sent Sabretooth after Professor X with a Flying Kick, 16 ATK to my 8 DEF. When I discarded a Mental card with Emma’s effect to flip Cover Fire back down, my opponent simply scooped up his cards and extended his hand—and that was even before I showed him the other Acrobatic Dodge in my hand. I was going to completely brickwall both of his attacks, and no one was going to stun when I swung back, because the last card in my hand was a Bamf!
That anecdote also highlights the other thing that the deck is really good at, which is creating board advantage. Two cards mentioned there are keys. I've seen people saying in various forums that cards like Bamf! are unnecessary if you attack intelligently, and to some extent that is true. But when you can attack with all your characters without fear of stunbacks, that means that not only are you not losing any characters, but also that you are not taking any damage. Say you and your opponent both have three characters on the field (3-5). Through intelligent attacks, you can probably keep two characters to their one, and lose 7 endurance in the process. With Bamf! you keep the 7, and your 3 drop. My old buddy on Realms, cchug2001, is the one who showed me the light on this subject, and I have played Bamf! in this deck ever since.Phoenix Rising is even more important, because it allows you to preserve your field during off inits. This is especially important where Professor X is concerned, because you really want to be able to draw extra cards with him if at all possible. This deck plays a lot of effects that require discards, and you need his help to pay for them. The requirement that there be a copy of the character you want to recover in your KO'd pile is sometimes a problem, and it is tempting to play Children of the Atom instead for that reason. But that's one more effect that requires a discard, and that can create problems of its own.
For the longest time I played four copies of Savage as my only attack pumps, but recently I replaced a couple of rarely used tech cards with Trouble with Dinosaurs, which is pretty much always a +4 to +6. Not sure if these will stick or not, but it seemed like there were a lot more times I needed more pumps than times where I needed Political Pressure or Flame Trap. If you play against rush more than curve, you would probably want to reverse the change.
Another way that this deck creates board advantage is with Mutant Massacre. This card works best when you have Sage sitting in the hidden area doing little. If you can take out their biggest guy on turn 4 or 5 with this effect, it can definitely give you a big advantage heading into the next turn.The remaining plot twists are tech cards. Omnipotence shuts down key plot twists or payment powers. Meltdown KO's key equipment cards. And Have a Blast! eliminates critical ongoing plot twists and location cards, such as Crisis or Lost City. Only Human is a card that goes in and out of the deck, depending on what decks I've been playing against recently. This is an IN phase. In some match-ups its value is negligible; in others it can be an MVP. Ideally you would want to use Omnipotence to shut down Pathetic Attempt before using it.
I can think of very few decks that I enjoy playing as much as this one, although these days my son is under the delusion that the deck is his, so I rarely get to play it any more. If you do build this deck, think of my list as a starting point, rather than a destination. Experiment with different tech cards, and different ratios of defensive and offensive cards. My build aims for balance, but you could easily shift the balance by replacing defensive pumps with attack pumps, or vice versa, and you can certainly change the flavor of the tech by changing the tech cards. As with my Crisis Doom deck, I am always tweaking the build on this one to keep it fresh, and I would encourage you to do the same.
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