Nasty Surprise

The coolest perk I got out of writing for tcgplayer.com back in the day was getting to write previews of cards in upcoming sets. I did quite a few of them, but my first and sentimental favorite was the 4 drop Silver Sable in MTU. I really liked that card, and it held a special place in my heart, but I could never assemble a deck with her in it that I was happy with. Mostly, she sat in my binder inspiring nostalgia.

That all changed when I started reading ukyo_rulz's blog and discovered his Hail HYDRA! deck. Suddenly, a 250 watt light came on. I played around with ukyo's concept for many weeks, but as I kept seasoning the deck to taste, I realized that I no longer wanted it to be an aggro-control deck in the Crisis Doom mold. I wanted more aggro. So I started looking for characters that were thematically similar to Sable, and I soon came up with a deck akin to my Muramasa Blade deck, but way more fun. I hope you like it.

Characters - 28 

[2 - 7]
4x Yelena Belova <> Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. - HYDRA
3x Sin, Synthia Schmidt - RAID
[3 - 6]
4x Sabretooth, Reformed Killer
2x Albert Mailk <> Red Skull, Axis of Evil
[4 - 5]
4x Silver Sable, World’s Deadliest Mercenary
1x Kingpin, War Profiteer - HYDRA
[5 - 4]
4x Cyclops, Ultimates
[6 - 3]
2x Holocaust, Nemesis
1x Rogue, Powerhouse
[7 - 2]
2x Gorilla Grodd, Psionic Simian
[8 - 1]
1x Thanos, Alpha and Omega 

Plot Twists - 32 

[1 - 10]
4x Nasty Surprise
4x Flying Kick
2x Teamwork
[2 - 2]
2x Optic Blast
[3 - 12]
4x Mobilize
4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Superhuman Registration Act
[4 - 8]
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Trouble with Dinosaurs

The 2 drops are holdovers from my version of the Hail HYDRA! deck. They work pretty well here primarily because they are both hidden. Yelena of course fits perfectly with the deck's theme of bouncing or KO'ing opposing characters, although when the rest of the deck is working as designed, you don't need her effect. Sin's effect is really not needed here either, but she's a 3/2 concealed character with the Crime Lords affiliation, so she fits just fine. There is an all Crime Lords curve through 4 that you can play if you have Mobilizes and no team-up, but it will be hard to win with your alternates on 3 and 4.

The preferred 3 drop is Sabretooth, who works best if you have even initiatives and a hidden 2 drop. When attacked, he can designate two opposing characters who can't recover this turn. He should stun one of the two himself, and hopefully your 2 drop can stun the other during your attack step. If you curve out from 4 on, it will be almost impossible for your opponent to recover. The alternate 3 is Red Skull, who has the Crime Lords affiliation and can fetch you the team-up you have to have by turn 4 for the deck to work. You can still win if you have to play him, but it's much harder.

The centerpiece of the deck is the main 4 drop, Silver Sable. When I wrote my preview of her, I said that the two supporting cards she most needed to be effective were Flying Kick and Nasty Surprise. I'll take four of each, please. Once she has +3 ATK and flight, she can take down most 4's and 5's on init, and with +5 ATK while defending, she can do the same off init. So regardless of which init you get, you have a very good chance of bouncing the opposing 4 drop on turn 4. Even if you missed Sabretooth on 3, that probably means advantage you going into turn 5. The alternate 4 drop, Kingpin, isn't bad, but you don't want to use him unless you missed your team-up, and there are enough different ways to get it that that should rarely happen. But if it does, he has a decent effect on your off-inits.

Another cool card that I never found a use for until now is the 5 drop Cyclops from Marvel Ultimates. Boy, has he found a home. He is absolutely ideal for this deck. He isn't guaranteed to KO every character he stuns, but if you plan your attacks right he will generally get his man. And on your off inits, your opponent had better have a tiny guy sitting in the hidden area that he can exhaust after someone stuns, or he will have to forego one of his attacks.

If you are on evens, then turn 6 should be your kill turn. Rogue fits better with the theme of the deck, but if the game is ending on that turn, there's not much to be gained by her effect. It doesn't work at all off init, so she's not a great choice if you are on odds. So Holocaust is usually my preferred play. If you are attacking on 6, he can take out two characters all by himself. If you are defending, he has an effect, much like Cyclops's, that can create headaches for your opponent, who either has to take out Holocaust last, or attack him with his smallest character.

Turn 7 is probably your kill turn if you are on odds, unless you hit the jackpot with pumps on turn 5 while facing an obliterated board. Unlike the earlier drops, Grodd doesn't bounce or KO characters that he stuns. He steals them. As with Rogue, this is probably a moot point, since the game will likely end on this turn, but in the event that it doesn't, he will insure that you have board advantage going into the next turn.

This deck doesn't really need an 8 drop; it's built to win on 6 or 7. So feel free to play two different 7 drops and skip the 8. Starfire would be good if you wanted to tech against stall, for example. But the first change I made to the Hail HYDRA! deck was to plug in Thanos as the 8, and now I can't bear to part with him. If you do go to 8 and get to attack, though, he is a load, as he will obliterate half the opposition the first time he attacks, just as Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe in the Infinity Gauntlet saga.

Superhuman Registration Act works better for me than Hail HYDRA! did, for a couple of reasons. First, Hail HYDRA! requires you to reveal a Crime Lords character card from your hand in order to play it, and that was sometimes a problem. Second, being able to recruit a character card from on top of your deck slightly increases your chances of hitting your drops in the mid- to late-game. If I were going to play a different team-up, I'd actually be most tempted by Government Sponsored, which works well with Sabretooth, but then I'd want to play X-Factor characters on 2-4 instead of Crime Lords, and the other X-Factor characters wouldn't work nearly as well. I also really like Teamwork in this deck, since it doubles as a tutor for SRA and as protection for it. Earlier builds played Pathetic Attempt and Omnipotence, mainly to protect against resource row hate, but Teamwork addresses that concern pretty well. A wiser man than I would probably dump Thanos for another Teamwork.

Like the original Hail HYDRA! deck, this one is able to play both Mobilize and Enemy, and even search for unaffiliated characters with them, all because of the team-up, which gives all your characters a common affiliation. These are by far the two best tutors in the game, and very few decks are able to play both of them effectively. I think the only other deck where I have successfully used both is Crisis Doom, and even it doesn't play 4 of each.


Lots of attack pumps in this deck. Flying Kick is clearly the most important because it gives Sable and Cyclops flight, allowing for surgical strikes that will create board advantage. Savage works well here, and most of the time it is not an issue that you can't use it until 4. The same is true of Trouble with Dinosaurs, which is pretty much always a +4 to a +6. If you find yourself missing needed attack pumps on turn 3, you can go with something like Blinding Rage instead of Dinosaurs.

Then there is Nasty Surprise. Back when the game was alive, I never found any uses for this card. Now I love it. Because of the nasty effects of Sabretooth, Sable and Cyclops, your opponent has to attack very carefully. He can either swing up the curve with a little guy, knowing that he will lose him. Or he can try to make "safe" attacks swinging down the curve (e.g., attacking with his 5 drop into Sable). Nasty Surprise throws a giant monkey wrench into the safe attack plan, because Sable with +5 ATK can take down a lot of 6 drops, let alone 5 drops. Starting on turn 5, Optic Blast becomes copies 5-6 of Nasty Surprise or Savage, take your pick. As long as Cyclops is on the field, it becomes your best pump, although it can be negated by Pathetic Attempt, where the other ones cannot. Nevertheless, it fits nicely. Another card that used to sit idle in my binder but now has a chance to shine.

This deck has some bad match-ups. Sentinels is brutal, for example, largely because of Hounds, as is any other deck that might leave you with no characters heading into turn 4. If you can't recruit Sable on 4, you are toast. Our Weapon X deck is another nemesis, for the same reason. But this is also a nasty deck to play against, especially for curve decks, and when it works as designed it can be devastating. It has become one of my favorite decks, if only because it finally gives me a reason to play my beloved Silver Sable. Reason enough.