Tuesday, December 2, 2014

Upper Deck Announces Plans for Gen Con 2015


Good news from the Gen Con folks:
Upper Deck’s first official VS release will launch at Gen Con 2015! The company also will release another new and exciting game at Gen Con 2015. More details will follow in their next Gen Con update.
Very good news indeed. July 30th, 2015 can't come soon enough.

Friday, November 14, 2014

Hulk Smash, Italian-Style


When MEV came out, I knew right away that the 1 drop Mystique would be a tremendous boon to Lost City-based decks, but I didn't realize until fairly recently just how good it was in a wide variety of legend-type decks. We put it in our Wolverine deck long ago, but I failed to see the possibilities for Spidey Stall and Hulk decks until my friends in Italy showed me the light. I had always built Hulk as a one-man-against-the-world type of deck, much like X-Statix/Villains, but this build is way better. When it gets even average draws and has its preferred odd initiative, it is very difficult to beat.
Characters - 32 
[1 - 8]
4x Mastermind Excello, Amadeus Cho (Warbound)
4x Mystique, Raven (Brotherhood)
[2 - 4]
4x Miek, The Unhived (Warbound)
[3 - 9]
4x Archangel, Champion (Warbound, X-Men)
1x Hulk, Exile (Warbound)
4x Vision, Earth-10101 (Weapon X, Avengers)
[4 - 5]
4x The Captain, Can't Remember His Real Name (Nextwave)
1x Hulk, Green Scar (Warbound)
[5 - 3]
2x Hulk, Gladiator (Warbound)
1x Hulk, Grumpy Green Goliath (Marvel Defenders)
[6 - 2]
1x Hulk, The Green King (Warbound)
1x Hulk, Earth-873 (Weapon X)
[7 - 1]
1x Hulk, Sakaar'Son (Warbound) 
Plot Twists - 21 
[2 - 4]
4x We Can Rebuild Him
[3 - 8]
4x Hulk Smash!
4x Enemy of My Enemy
[4 - 9]
4x Righteous Anger
3x Pathetic Attempt
2x Heroes of Two Worlds 
Locations - 7 
[2 - 4]
4x Avalon Space Station
[4 - 3]
3x The Great Arena
The preferred play on turn 1 is either Mastermind Excello or Vision with a popped shift counter, because you want to start drawing right away. Mulligan for one or the other. If you have both, but no Hulk or Mystique you can discard for Excello, play Vision. This deck wins as a result of having tremendous card advantage, so you need to draw as many cards as you can on turns 1-4/5 to set up the kill on your turn 5/6 initiative.

Turn 2 can be Miek, or Mastermind Excello and a Vision, or two Excellos, or two Visions. The latter play is easier to pull off if you have Avalon Space Station in your row. Miek is hugely important to the deck, but drawing is more so, so Miek is actually the least desirable play here if you have a choice. You can wait on him until 3.

On turn 3, the ideal play will depend entirely on what you have in hand and what you've played before. If you didn't play Miek on 2, you need to play him now. Miek+Vision or Miek+Mastermind Excello are both very good plays on 3. The 3 drop Hulk is a decent play only if you don't have a better one. On turns 1-3, you have two main priorities: drawing as many cards as possible, and recruiting Miek, who will allow you to take away your opponent's ability to reinforce attacks on your kill turn. Note that if Miek gets stunned here, you don't need to remove him from play right away, as long as you are sure he will get stunned again on turn 4, which should usually be the case. Also, you should never, ever recruit Archangel on this or any other turn. Think of him as a plot twist, not a character card

Your best play on turn 4 is almost always The Captain. Give him the name Hulk on 4, and he will net you an extra card. Pretty much the only time you would want to recruit the 4 drop Hulk instead is if you have The Great Arena, and you need to exhaust the opposing 4 drop in order to survive to turn 5. That has to be done in the build phase, when The Captain does not yet have the name Hulk.

Turn 5 can be either of the two 5 drop Hulks, assuming that you recruited The Captain on turn 4. If you played Hulk on that turn, then you will need to recruit Gladiator, and use his boost effect to stun the opposing 4 drop by KO'ing your own 4. This assumes that your opponent has his 3, 4 and 5 drops all still available. This will usually be the case, since you should rarely recruit a 3 drop on turn 3. In any case, it is important to have something smaller than an opposing 5 drop to attack first on a turn 5 init, because you need to get in one attack without being stunned back. By the way, a really good play on 5, if you are stuck on evens, is to recruit Gladiator and stun their 4, then sub him out for Grumpy and exhaust him for Great Arena. Now you have a 10/10. Next turn he will be an 11/11 on his first attack, and 12/12 on his second.

Let's assume, though, that you are on odds and that your opponent entered the turn with at least their 3 and 4 drops remaining, while you had only The Captain. You recruited Gladiator and KO'ed The Captain to stun their 4 drop, then they recruited a 5 drop. Your plan to win here should be to swing Hulk into their 3 drop with a boatload of pumps, some of which are for the turn, then ready him with Righteous Anger and make a second attack into their 5 drop. With even a modest amount of pumping power and some other key cards, Hulk is going to be huge. Suppose you have 1 Hulk Smash, 1 Archangel, 1 Enemy, 1 Mystique, 1 Righteous Anger, and Avalon in your row. Miek has taken away reinforcement. After declaring an attack into their 3 drop, use Enemy to get another Archangel. Play Hulk Smash and the two copies of Archangel, then discard Mystique for Avalon to get them back. Hulk now has 10+8+3+3+3+3=30 ATK for this attack. After it concludes, use Righteous Anger to stun and ready him. He still has 22 ATK to use going into their 5 drop, and that should be more than enough for game. What I just described was a rather sub-par hand, by the way. Normally you will have more ammo than that.

Assuming that you got stuck on evens and are trying to win on 6, the plan would be similar. Use Great Arena with your 5 drop to exhaust their 5 and do some burn, then recruit Green King with boost to make him an 18/18. You would want the Weapon X Hulk only if you were defending on 6 and needed to limit damage.

In a match you are going to win, you should never make it to turn 7. Nevertheless, you can play the 7 drop Hulk if you get here and it is your init, but if you played the Weapon X Hulk on 6 you might want to play Green King with boost instead, since he will be bigger, 19/19 instead of  17/17. If you are looking for somewhere to cut to make room for more pumps, such as Trouble With Dinosaurs, or Omnipotence or some other tech card, I'd probably start with the 7 drop and 3 drop Hulks.

I've discussed most of the plot twists and locations in the deck already. Obviously, We Can Rebuild Him is mainly for use with Vision in order to draw cards, but you can also use it with the Weapon X Hulk on 6 to bring him out for 5 resource points, then use the 6th on Excello or Vision. Heroes of Two Worlds is the other tutor besides Enemy. It can be used to fetch Archangel, The Captain, Hulk, or Mystique (note that you can name a different character and still use it to get Mystique). The Pathetic Attempts are mainly for countering opposing effects targeting Hulk, particularly anything that might stun or exhaust him, or KO him while stunned.

I also want to point out how versatile Avalon is in this deck. Its best use is on your kill turn, allowing you to fetch and replay spent copies of Archangel, and if you have two copies of Avalon in your row on that turn, even better. But it is also useful on earlier turns for creating card advantage, and for getting back used copies of Vision and Excello so you can replay them. If you have an Avalon in your row and a Mystique in hand, use them whenever possible to create 2-for-1's. Those extra character cards might come in handy later as discards for Enemy or Heroes or We Can Rebuild Him.

If you are one of those people, like me, who always played a straight Warbound build of Hulk back in the day, I strongly urge you to give this version a try. The tremendous draw power of this build makes it both more consistent and more powerful than anything else I've tried. And if you like it, you can join me in toasting my Italian friends yet again. There's no Charlize Theron in this Italian Job, but it's a winner nonetheless.



Friday, November 7, 2014

Trinity (aka Money.dec)


If you had to pick one Vs. set to be woefully underprinted, there are some good choices. MSM and DSM spring immediately to mind, with DLS hot on their heels. But no, UDE printed plenty of those sets. Instead, DC Legends is the one that they really shortchanged, as they printed only enough cards to fill all of their advanced orders from dealers and nothing more. Sadly, that means that arguably the best DC set is filled with expensive and hard-to-find cards, and that's not a recent development. Even when it was the current set that was the case. And so it was that the Gotham/JLA Trinity deck became known as Money.dec. How much money, you ask? I just priced the rares on the list below on coolstuff, and came up with a grand total of $1,100. Ouch! Custom proxies anyone?
Characters - 32 
[1 - 4]
4x Alfred Pennyworth, Faithful Friend (Gotham)
[2 - 7]
4x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante (Gotham)
3x Roy Harper <> Red Arrow, Coming of Age (JLA)
[3 - 6]
4x Batman, Founding Member (JLA, Gotham)
2x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Extraordinaire (Gotham)
[4 - 5]
4x Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace (JLA)
1x Aquaman, Founding Member (JLA)
[5 - 4]
4x Superman, Metropolis Marvel (JLA)
[6 - 3]
2x Batman, Cape and Cowl (Gotham)
1x Aquaman, Lord of Atlantis (JLA)
[7 - 2]
1x Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas (JLA)
1x Wonder Woman, Founding Member (JLA)
[8 - 1]
1x Martian Manhunter, The Last Martian (JLA)

Plot Twists - 28 
[1 - 6]
4x Mightiest Heroes
2x Bat-Signal
[3 - 14]
4x At Their Finest
4x The Hook-Up, Team-Up
2x Bat Got Your Tongue
2x At Your Service
2x Brains and Brawn
[4 - 5]
4x Savage Beatdown
1x From the Darkness
[5 - 3]
3x Indestructible
There are lots of ways to build this deck, and back in the day I tried many of them. For mostly financial reasons, the World's Finest (Gotham/Team Superman) build with no Wonder Woman got more run back in the day than the Gotham/JLA Trinity version, but if you have the cards (or the proxies), Trinity is definitely the way to go. Of course, if you have the cards, you probably have your own pet build already, but pretend for now that you don't...

Alfred does not work quite as well in the Trinity version as in the World's Finest build, which generally played Maggie Sawyer on 2. That deck could sometimes play Alfred once on 1 and again on 3 with a 2 drop, netting you two plot twists. Here you get his effect only if you play Alfred on 1 and Huntress on 2, or underdrop him on 2 and activate him on 3. The effect is so good, though, that I think he is worth playing. If you are trying to find room for other plot twists, however, it is reasonable to play fewer copies or drop him entirely.

Huntress is the preferred play on 2 if you have Alfred or Bat-Signal. Otherwise Roy Harper is probably better, just because of his stats. The main problem with this deck is that you can take a lot of damage on turns 1-3, and he helps with that, as does playing Huntress visible. I will sometimes play her visible on 2 and then sub in a hidden copy on a later turn for more attacking power.

On turn 3 you want Batman if at all possible, for several reasons. First of all, you want his effect and his ability to attack, and secondly you want to be able to use the plot twists that require him to be on the field. Ideally you want to recruit him on 3 and sub Barbara in on 6, then recruit the 6 drop Batman. You miss all the card advantage she creates for you that way, but it's just hard to win if you play her on 3, because you usually don't want to attack with her.

Turn 4 should always be Wonder Woman if you have a choice. Aquaman is a good card, but Diana is better. This deck generally wins by messing with your opponent, negating his effects and foiling his attacks. Wonder Woman can be a key player in that strategy, whereas Aquaman cannot. I have also played Batman, Twilight Vigilante as the alternate 4 in that slot. I don't have him here because he is fairly worthless if you played Batman on 3, but he is better if you didn't.

On 5 you simply must recruit Superman, because you will almost certainly lose if you miss him. He has great synergy with Batman thanks to Brains and Brawn and At Their Finest, and a strong effect. But what makes him so good in this deck is Indestructible. I generally take evens if I can, hoping to play Superman and Indestructible on 5, and recover him with Brains and Brawn in the event he gets stunned. The idea is to have your entire field (3-5) going into a turn 6 initiative, sub in Barbara, recruit Batman, play At Their Finest, and then swing for game with Batman, Superman, Wonder Woman, and Barbara. But as long as you have Indestructible, you should be OK on odd initiatives as well.

As I said, turn 6 should normally be Batman, subbing in Barbara if you still have your 3 drop. But if you don't have her, you can also play Aquaman and get back a character card and a used plot twist--maybe a Savage or At Their Finest, for example. I rarely play anything other than Batman, but I can imagine cases where Aquaman is the stronger play.

Since I rarely play Aquaman on 6, and sometimes have my 4 drop on 7, I usually play Aquaman on 7. Depending on how you form and how big your field is, he can get back one-three used cards for you. That effect can win you the game if you are on odds and he is getting back some used attack pumps for you. But if there's nothing but characters and tutors in your pile, and you don't have your 4 drop, Wonder Woman is the stronger play. Some people play the 7 drop Superman here, but I almost always have my 5 drop on turn 7 because of Indestructible and Brains and Brawn.

Given that all decks are effectively Golden Age now, I should probably ditch the 8 drop for another plot twist, possibly a fourth copy of Indestructible. It would also be nice to find room for a couple copies of Lasso of Truth, for that matter. Anyway, Martian Manhunter was a decent 8 drop when this was a Modern Age deck in a metagame that wasn't especially fast. He's really only helpful if you are on odds and failed to win on 7. Take your damage on your opponent's swing, then recover and ready your 7 drop and swing back with your 7 and 8. In practice, though, the game is normally decided before 8 or you are playing against a deck with a better end game that is going to beat you anyway.

This deck has terrific tutoring, thanks to Alfred and a trio of plot twists. Mightiest Heroes can normally get you all your drops from turn 3 on. If you don't have Barbara or The Hook-Up, though, you need to play it before you draw. Bat-Signal can do the same thing once you are teamed up. The exhaust is normally not a problem. The other tutor is At Your Service. It can only get you your 3 and 6 drops, but it can also get you At Their Finest, Brains and Brawn, and From the Darkness. Given a choice, save it for finding plot twists rather than characters.

In some ways the most important plot twist in the deck is The Hook-Up. You want to be teamed up if at all possible, but beyond that you want the card cycling that you get from it. Once it is on the field, you will see three new cards a turn rather than two, four if you have two copies of it out, and five if you have Barbara. That gives you a huge advantage over most other decks, and it's one of the main reasons the deck is as good as it is.

Negation is another strength of the deck, thanks to Batman and Wonder Woman and another trio of plot twists. From the Darkness is objectively a better card than Bat Got Your Tongue, but you have to have a ready Batman to play it. That's the main reason why I play more copies of BGYT. The other is that I can search for From the Darkness with At Your Service. The other "negation" card here is Indestructible, which essentially negates one key attack by your opponent. Aside from The Hook-Up, it's the best plot twist in the deck. I would play four copies, but it is generally only good on a single turn (5 or 6), making the second copy you draw a dead card. On the other hand, you always want one on that turn. Three copies is the sweet spot for me, but I understand the argument for four.

The remaining plot twists are Brains and Brawn and the two attack pumps, Savage Beatdown and At Their Finest. Brains and Brawn is a terrific card, both because it can be used with either Batman or Superman, and because it can be tutored with At Your Service. Imagine a turn 5 in which your opponent swings at your front row Superman with his 5 drop, only to be blocked with Indestructible. Now he swings in with his four drop and a pump. You reinforce and take 5. He thinks he is going to go into your 4 drop with his 3, but you recover Superman with Brains and Brawn, and now he has no play, or he has to go into Superman for a third time. If he can't, you swing back with Batman and a Savage to stun their 5, then head into 6 with huge board advantage. On 6 you play At Their Finest, turning your 5 into a 6, and your 6 into a 7, magnifying the effect.

This is not a great Golden Age deck, to be perfectly honest. When I play this deck now, against my son, I play it only against tier 2 and tier 3 type decks, because it simply won't hold up either against top tier aggro decks like Brotherhood Reservist or Migga City, or against really good control decks like Spidey Stall, Crisis Doom or X-Mental. But if you have the cards or don't mind playing with proxies (maybe even custom proxies, like the ones shown here), it is a really fun deck to play, with the added benefit of having three huge DC legends you can trot out onto the field. Winning with the Trinity characters is somehow always more satisfying than winning with, say, Ahmed Samsarra or Roy Harper.



Saturday, October 25, 2014

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.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Golden Age Insanity


The other night, my son and I spent some time plugging our new custom proxies into existing decks. Some of them we had to fight over, since we each have our personal favorite decks, but for the most part it went smoothly and painlessly. Because I had had several cards made specifically for his Insanity deck, those were all no-brainers. The more interesting part of the process came after deciding that it was time to tweak that deck a bit.

Our Insanity deck was built after World's Finest came out, obviously, and it was built to be a semi-competitive Modern Age deck during that era. Over time it got tweaked some, but for the most part it has always been a "Modern Age deck" in the sense that we never went back and put in pre-DWF cards to make it better. It was time we did.

Here's our new build. It's still a work in progress and subject to further change, but initial tests show that it is a better deck now, and has a far more interesting end game.
Characters - 30 
[2 - 7]
1x Calendar Man, Julian Gregory Day (Arkham)
1x Terra-Man, Toby Manning (Revenge)
1x The Penguin, Crime's Early Bird (Arkham)
1x Charaxes, Moth Monster (Arkham)
1x Brainiac 13, Mental Giant (Revenge)
1x Ragman, Patchmonger (Gotham)
1x Two-Face, Harvey Dent (Arkham)
[3 - 7]
1x The Joker, Out of His Mind (Arkham)
1x Batman, Problem Solver (Gotham)
1x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite (Gotham)
1x Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin, Power Suit (Revenge)
1x Two-Face, Jekyll and Hyde (Gotham/Arkham)
1x Satanus, Colin Thornton (Revenge)
1x The Creeper, Jack Ryder (Gotham)
[4 - 5]
1x Batzarro, World’s Worst Detective (Arkham)
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante (Gotham)
1x Hush, Silent and Deadly (Arkham)
1x Bizarro, Me Am Bizarro #1 (Revenge)
1x Maxima, Empress of the Almerac (Revenge)
[5 - 4]
1x Catwoman, Jewel Thief (Gotham/Arkham)
1x Matt Hagen <> Clayface, Mud Pack (Arkham)
1x Scarecrow, Fear and Loathing (Arkham)
1x Preus, Citizen's Patrol (Revenge)
[6 - 3]
1x Sondra Fuller <> Clayface, Mud Pack (Arkham)
1x Lex Luthor, Power Armor (Revenge)
1x The Joker, Crazy for You (Arkham)
[7 - 2]
1x Basil Karlo <> Ultimate Clayface, Mud Pack (Arkham)
1x Batman, The Dark Knight (Gotham)
[8 - 1]
1x Bat Mite, #1 Fan (Arkham)
[9 - 1]
1x Mr Mxyptlk, Felonious Fiend (Revenge)
Plot Twists - 28 
[0 - 1]
1x Certifiable
[1 - 7]
1x Beside Myself
1x Bat Signal
1x Crackshot
1x Flying Kick
1x Bizarro Brawl
1x Roshambo
1x Jack in the Box
[2 - 10]
1x Dimensional Deal, Team-Up
1x Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up
1x World’s Worstest, Team-Up
1x Battle for Metropolis
1x Knowledge is Power
1x Money Talks
1x Pick a Card
1x Interrogate
1x Future Shock
1x Smiles, Everyone!
[3 - 8]
1x The Hook-Up, Team-Up
1x Executive Privilege
1x Batter Up!
1x Burn Baby Burn
1x Imprisoned in the Source
1x Hidden Agenda
1x Enemy of My Enemy
1x Have a Blast!
[4 - 1]
1x Savage Beatdown
[5 - 1]
1x Omnipotence 
Locations - 2 
[2 - 2]
1x Graveyard of Solitude
1x Arkham Asylum, Team-Up
For the most part, the deck plays just like the old deck described in my earlier blog post, but better. Good generic cards like Flying Kick, Savage Beatdown, Enemy of My Enemy, Have a Blast! and Omnipotence are clear upgrades over their predecessors. And Forbidden Loyalties is a better team-up card than Truth and Justice, while Smiles, Everyone! is a nice Arkham-themed card from DSM.

We also replaced quite a few of the weaker 2 and 4 drops with better ones. The biggest change, however, was replacing the very OK Killer Croc, Cannibal with Batman, The Dark Knight. You may remember him from the Fat Bat deck that was built around him, back in the day. That deck tried to stall to turn 7, then attack multiple times with his very large body using Press the Attack.

Our idea here is much simpler. When an Insanity deck works (i.e., you got Beside Myself early on and drew a boatload of cards with it), you generally make it to turn 7 with lots of cards in hand, typically 10-15. These are great for use with the 6 drop Joker, to make one guy really big. Now that stockpile of cards has two uses. On a turn 7 init, you can attack first with Batman, then with Joker. If you have 12 cards in hand, Batman is a 19/19, too big for most decks to handle. Use him to take out their biggest character, then swing for game with Joker, after discarding all 12 cards to make him a 24/24 behemoth. 

Obviously things won't always work out that way, but it is a much stronger end game than the deck used to have, and lots of fun when you can pull it off.

Update on 11/7/2014:

Further testing has shown the 7 drop Batman to be a complete beast in this deck. We highly recommend this addition. To provide further drawing power, we are also going to try the following changes to the deck:

-1x Mr Mxyptlk, Felonious Fiend (Revenge)
-1x Roshambo
-1x Hidden Agenda
+1x Graveyard
+1x Kidnapping
+1x Mind Gem

We haven't retested since making those changes, but I suspect they will all be improvements.

Update on 1/26/2015:

Those last changes were good ones, especially Mind Gem. Since then, we've made one more change:
-1x World's Worstest, Team-Up
-1x Millenium
We are also considering dropping something else to make room for Invasion Plans. Haven't found a good candidate for dropping, though. We'd also like to squeeze in a Slaughter Swamp, Avalon, or Soul World.

Normally this is my son's deck. I rarely get a chance to play it myself. Last night I played it for the first time in the Golden Age version, and I have to say, this deck is WAY better than the old Modern Age build. Beat it early, because it has a very solid end game. I drew poorly, didn't get Beside Myself until turn 5, had a very poor percentage on coin flips, and I still had 10 cards in hand on turn 6.

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Coolest Proxies Ever


Back in August I was trying to finish off my Spidey Stall deck, but I was having trouble coming up with copies 3 and 4 of Spider-Man, Ultimates. As you probably know, this card is very hard to come by. It's a great card, and there weren't many printed, so you rarely see them on the market. I scored two from coolstuff early in the summer, then my luck ran out. Finally I decided that I might as well just create nice proxies of them and use those instead, so I contacted Joey Tufo about having some made, as I explained back in August. Little did I know at the time that I would become obsessed not only with other people's custom cards but with making my own. Four days ago, that obsession bore its first fruit, when I received a shipment of custom proxies that I had ordered from Joey.

The cards arrived in the box shown above. Like everything else I received, the box was hand made by Joey, and sealed with a sticker that says "Kansashoops Kustom Kards Via the Proxyc Avenger." The box was not treated kindly by the US Postal Service, but it's charming nonetheless, and it did its job admirably. Inside the box were 16 packets of cards, each wrapped in wax paper and marked with the same sticker used on the box. Very nice.


But I was blown away when we actually started opening the packets. Apologies in advance for the atrocious quality of the pictures that follow; they do not come close to doing the cards justice. These cards are so shiny that they reflect light like crazy, and I was too impatient to set up a proper photo-taking operation with my SLR and studio lights. So these crummy pictures were taken with my point and shoot with its mediocre flash.

First, here are the sliders. These are pairs of cards that combine to show a much larger picture.


All of them are stunningly beautiful. The least among them is far cooler than any Vs. card ever printed by UDE. I couldn't pick a favorite, but the Alex Ross Crisis on Infinite Earths card is hard to beat.


Next are some cards I had made for my son's Insanity deck.


The two Joker cards are especially awesome.


There is also a small group of Guardians of the Galaxy cards.


The four Mobilizes with more Alex Ross art are of course amazing, but I love the Cover Fires with Skottie Young's Rocket, too.


Lots of attack pumps.


You gotta love the Puny God version of Savage Beatdown, and the Flying Kick with Black Canary.


 Some miscellaneous plot twists.


You can't see the first Have a Blast! at all because of the flash, but it's amazing in the flesh. Bryan Hitch's artwork really pops here.


Some more plot twists, and a few locations.


The Slaughter Swamp is especially cool.


Also some more tutors.


I especially like these Mobilize and Enemy cards, with artwork by Bryan Hitch and David Finch.


A whole bunch of cool character cards.


The Poison Ivy at the top left is stunning. I also love Stuart Immonen's Mystique and Michael Turner's Wonder Woman on the bottom row, but unfortunately they are both washed out by the camera flash.


Finally, the Spidey Stall cards that started this whole thing.


The Ultimates Spidey with art by Mark Bagley is no longer my favorite custom card, but it will always have a soft spot in my heart, because if not for it, I probably would have never gone down this very interesting path. Huge thanks to Joey Tufo for his incredible craftsmanship and attention to detail. Great work, my friend. A follow-up order is forthcoming.