If you read the comments posted here, you may have seen my friend Luca's comments on my earlier Spidey Stall deck, where he talked about the build he uses. There were some things in his that I really liked, and some that I didn't, but it definitely got me thinking about another way to skin the same cat. This deck is essentially an amalgam of my earlier Zombie-heavy build and his. Jury is still out, but it is definitely an interesting take on the archetype.
Characters - 32Whereas my previous Spidey deck was based around the interaction between the 3 drop Ultimates Spidey and the 4 drop Zombie, this one is based on the 3 drop and the 1 drop Spidey from MEV. Basically the deck wants to play some combination of the two every turn starting on 3, until all four copies of the 3 drop are out. In my tests so far, it is unbelievably easy to get all four out by turn 6 or 7, at which point every Spidey you bring out gets 8 web counters. I won't go over everything in this deck, since it is so similar to the other one, but I will go over the main differences.
[1 - 12]
4x Aunt May, Golden Oldie (Spider-Friends)
4x Spider-Man <> The Spider, Earth-15 (Weapon X, Spider-Friends)
4x Mystique, Raven (Brotherhood)
[2 - 4]
4x Black Cat, Nine Lives (Spider-Friends)
[3 - 6]
4x Spider-Man, Ultimates (Spider-Friends)
2x Vision, Earth-10101 (Weapon X, Avengers)
[4 - 1]
1x Spider-Man, Zombie (Spider-Friends)
[5 - 1]
1x Spider-Man, Secret Avenger (Spider-Friends)
[6 - 4]
4x Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly (Spider-Friends)
[7 - 2]
1x Spider-Man, Stark's Protégé (Spider-Friends, Avengers)
1x Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
[8 - 1]
1x The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good (Spider-Friends)
[9 - 1]
1x Galactus, Devourer of Worlds (Heralds)
Plot Twists - 19
[2 - 9]
4x Indebted
4x We Can Rebuild Him
1x Clone Saga
[3 - 6]
4x Death of the Dream
2x Mobilize
[5 - 4]
4x Omnipotence
Locations - 10
[2 - 10]
4x Empire State University
4x Avalon Space Station
1x Soul World
1x Slaughter Swamp
Aunt May is a staple in both builds. In this one, she is used mainly to get the 1 drop and 3 drop Spideys, or Mystique (aka "Spider-Man"). Mystique can be used as a discard for either Indebted or Avalon Space Station. Obviously she is especially good with Avalon because she turns 1 card into 2. The 1 drop Spidey is where this deck differs most from my other build. The idea is to play him once you have one or more 3 drops on the field, expend the web counters, suicide him into something, get him back with Soul World, Slaughter Swamp, or Avalon, then replay him on the next turn. Since he has the Weapon X affiliation, you can also bring him back with We Can Rebuild Him. He will get shifted out with one counter, so you can bring him in for free. If you get him on turn 1 or 2, don't play him. Shift him out and bring him in later, once there are 3 drop Spideys on the field.As in the other build, the 3 drop Ultimates Spidey is the key to the deck. The difference is, you want even more of them in this one. The other build relied on a combination of Spider-Man effects and Gift Wrapped to exhaust characters. This one relies strictly on the character-based effects. You want to recruit one of him on each of turns 3-6. Use the web counters from the 1 drops as much as possible, since you can suicide those guys and bring them back for more later. Save the ones on the 3 drops as long as you can; once they are used, you can't give them more. As in the other deck, he is the mulligan condition, him or a way to get him. For the deck to work, though, you really want to hit some combination of the 1 drop Spidey and Aunt May on 1 and 2. In fact, the 2 drop Black Cat will probably be dropped as this deck evolves, because the preferred play on 1 and 2 is always Spidey (shifted), Aunt May, or Vision (shifted out, then used to draw).
This deck relies heavily on We Can Rebuild him and the three locations (Avalon, Soul World, and Slaughter Swamp) to recur spent copies of the 1 drop Spidey and Aunt May. Avalon is the best, because when you discard Mystique, you can get two cards back, but the other two locations are useful too. (My next iteration of this deck will probably drop the four copies of Black Cat for some combination of Vision, Soul World, and Slaughter Swamp.) Soul World is especially good because of the card advantage, but you have to be careful with the self burn, since you will be suiciding one drops regularly as well. We Can Rebuild Him is great because you can use it to bring back a 1 drop Spidey and recruit him for free.I haven't played with this build as much as I have with the other, so consider this a very rough draft. So far it looks really promising, though, so I think I will keep working on this version for a while, and set the other one aside. Before trying it yourself, be sure to check out Luca's version, which you can find in the comments for my other Spidey Stall build. He uses No More Mr. Nice Guy, Bad Press, and some other cards, such as the 7 drop Starfire, that give the deck a very different feel. In any case, I owe you another toast, my friend.
5 comments:
Looking at the deck purely from the metagame point of view:
I will never take out Bad Press or Black Cat from this deck. :-p
Raise your opponent plot twist cost means no pathetic, no omnipotence, no ROT and no search card for Lex Luthor #5. All these cards just cripple you game plan and are widely played.
On turn 4 and 5 your are still building your board (preparing yourself for the Human Torch on turn six or for the awesome tricks people can pull out during the late game in Golden Age) and taking a double stun on both your Ultimate can be simply devasting.
(Side note... Bad press and Black Cat are also incredibly boring... they flatten the metagame in a way I hate.)
Since metagaming is pretty pointless for you I can see the reason of your choice, though. :-p
In your version I think cutting the Nine Lives Black Cat for 2 visions and a couple of Empire is probably the best choice. :-p
I think you are right that the combination of Spidey Stall and Bad Press/Black Cat makes for a better Golden Age tournament deck.
Since there are no tournaments of any kind around here any more, I generally avoiding teching decks out, and aim to make them as good as possible at doing what they do.
I also agree with you about what Bad Press and Black Cat do to other decks. I have been working on a Bad Press deck off and on, and that deck creates major problems for other decks. A while back I was playing it against my son's Rock of Eternity deck, and it was just comical, as locations cost him an extra four to play. He couldn't do much of anything.
We built a deck on the same concept some time ago. It's quite good and I like it for the "retro" fashion, since it's a deck strongly inspired by the classic Doom decks.
Since it's super annoying and no one really like it.
Here's the list:
CHAR (25)
4x Boris
4x Gatta Nera #2 (MSM)
1x Deadshot #2 (Quello occulto che rientra dal cimitero)
4x Sage #3
4x Doom #3
2x Professor Hamilton
2x Black Manta
1x Garth
1x Human Torch
1x Koriandola
1x Beyonder
PLOT (31)
4x Underground Movement
4x Bad Press
4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Straight of the Grave
4x Regno del Terrore
3x Paralisi Mistica
3x Messiah Complex
4x Savage Beatdown
1x Death of the Dream
LOCATION (4)
2x Avalon
2x Palude del Massacro
The deck usually switch strategy on turn six and start attacking with Savage (Manta/Garth really help there).
The deck works, but I think Ultimate Spiderman is a better control deck, so we usually just pretend this archtype doesn't exist. XD
I just realized that you can totally play Jean Grey, Phoenix Force in this because of Mystique. Could be a good alternative to The Sentry.
Great idea! I'll definitely take a look at that.
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