Concussive Force

Everyone hates the Marvel Evolution set because of the Exiles deck that abused Panoptichron and the 3 drop Blink. It's a shame, because if you can look past all the shift nonsense, you can find some really cool deck possibilities coming out of it. This Cyclops-themed deck is of my favorites, and even though all the key cards come from MEV, it has more of a Marvel Legends feel to it. That's a good thing.

Characters - 27

[2 - 7]
4x Forge, The Maker
3x Beast, Wild and Wooly
[3 - 6]
4x Cyclops, Mutant Hunter
2x Iceman, Jack Frost
[4 - 5]
3x Rictor, Julio Rictor
2x X-23, Genetic Miracle
[5 - 4]
3x Cannonball, Samuel Guthrie
1x Wolverine, Secret Avenger
[6 - 3]
2x Cyclops, Astonishing X-Man
1x Mimic, Earth-12 - Infected
[7 - 2]
2x Blink, Earth 295 - Team Leader

Plot Twists - 33

[1 - 8]
4x Crackshot
4x Flying Kick
[3 - 18]
4x Mobilize
4x Children of the Atom
4x Call in a Favor
4x Fearless Leader
2x Combat Reflexes
[4 - 4]
4x Concussive Force
[5 - 3]
3x Omnipotence

The deck starts a little slow, because the 2 drops are underwhelming. Not many great choices with the X-Men affiliation. I went with Forge as the main 2 drop, because this deck wants to be played on evens, and on a turn 3 off-init, he can make your 3 drop into a 4 drop. Beast is a decent alternative. On that same turn, he allows you to cycle two cards, which is great if you are still looking for key pieces.

Things pick up on turn 3. For a common, the 3 drop Cyclops is quite good. He's a 5/4 (and sometimes a 7/6, thanks to Forge) who doesn't stun while attacking. That is key in terms of building board advantage. If you are on your preferred initiative of evens, and you have your 3 and your 4 attacking, you are going to keep both, because only one of them can stun, whereas your opponent will likely lose his 3. He is also important because he enables the use of Fearless Leader and Concussive Force, as I'll get to later. The alternate 3 is Iceman, and he is an excellent fallback choice. On your first off-init with him, on 3 or 4, he is going to see to it that two opposing characters cannot ready in the recovery phase. That will make it easier to attack for maximum effect on the following turn. Unfortunately, his name is not Cyclops, so he's an alternate. In any case, I think I would keep any opening hand that had either 3 drop, or a way to get one.

The two 4 drops in the deck are both excellent, and I am increasingly torn as to which one should be primary. Against decks that count heavily on having certain cards in their resource row, Rictor is a one man wrecking crew. Just play any plot twist while he is in combat, either attacking or defending, and you get to replace a face-up resource. This guy is a common, while Phat is a rare? If you don't need to pump him, just play a tutor to trigger the effect. More and more, though, I am attracted to X-23. If you play a plot twist while she is in combat, she will KO whoever she stuns. Talk about board advantage. If you are attacking on turn 4, run Cyclops into their 3 (he can't stun), then have X-23 take out their 4. On turn 5, you will have your 3-5 drops, and your opponent will have a 3 and a 5. Since she's hidden, she can take out the 5 drop on 5, too, if he hasn't stunned already. In general, I prefer to play 4 copies of my main 4 drop and 1 copy of my alternate, but both are so good it's hard to choose.

When I first built this deck, I played four copies of Cannonball as the only 5 drop. Along with the move toward X-23, I have also added Wolverine as an alternate 5. Cannonball has an incredible combo with the 6 drop Cyclops, but Wolverine is excellent against all hidden decks, and if you use him strategically, you can get two attacks out of him on a single turn, all on his own. In general, if you are on evens, and you are going to play Cyclops as your 6, I would always play Cannonball on 5. In other situations, Wolverine merits consideration.

If you are on evens, this is the turn where you should win if you had even average draws. Assuming that you have a field comprised of Cannonball, 6 drop Cyclops, and maybe a 4 drop, you can really go to town. First, attack with Cannonball into the opposing 6 drop with one or more for-the-turn pumps. He won't stun, and he'll take down the 6 easily. Next, attack the 5 drop with Cyclops, readying Cannonball. If you both still have your 4 drops, take out theirs with yours. Now use Fearless Leader to ready Cyclops. He can only team attack, but if the opposing field is stunned, you can team attack to the face with Cyclops and Cannonball. That is this deck's go-to move, readying Cyclops after he has already attacked once, and then team attacking to the face with Cannonball.

But what if he stunned on his first attack? No worries. Just use Children of the Atom to recover him before playing Fearless Leader. I promise that if you team attack to the face on 6, the game will be over, because you will be doing a minimum of 29 on that one attack if you pumped Cannonball once.

The alternate 6 is Mimic, and in a vacuum, he is the better character. His effect is just incredibly powerful, although it's hard to tell just how good from the printed card. It sounds like he gets all the effects of all opposing characters that were on the field when he entered play. But he's even better. His effect is continuous, and he will gain and lose abilities as the opponent's field changes. Just an incredibly powerful card, but his name isn't Cyclops, so you play him only if you still have your 3 drop on turn 6, which can happen.

Let's say you are on evens, and you came just shy of finishing the job on the previous turn. You still have your 5 and 6, and your opponent now has a 6 and a 7. Before your recruit, play Concussive Force to make him exhaust his only two characters. Then recruit Blink and have her use her come into play effect to send Cyclops out of play until the start of your attack step. Your opponent will of course have no attacks, and when Cyclops comes back, he will be ready. Swing once with Blink into their 6, then attack the 7 with Cyclops and your 5. Ready Blink and swing to the face. More shenanigans are possible if you have another Fearless Leader and a Children of the Atom. In any case, the combination of Blink, Cyclops, and Concussive Force on turn 7 is just crazy good. Even if you can't exhaust their entire field, they will likely have only one potential attacker. So have Blink send everyone else out of play. Let her stay and soak up some damage, then the rest of your characters will come in during your attack step and finish what they started on turn 6.

One of the things that always held back mono X-Men decks was the lack of a good team-specific tutor. It's a real shame that teams like Defenders and Checkmate have terrific tutors, while X-Men has spit. Fortunately, there is Call in a Favor. It's got that horrible downside, like Secret Files, that your opponent gets to use your effect. But if you use it only when absolutely necessary, preferably on your off-inits, then it's typically a net positive. Just don't use it to get a power-up. Mobilize is of course the preferred choice, as long as your field isn't empty.

You will notice that all of the attack pumps in the deck are of the for-the-turn variety. Flying Kick, Crackshot and Combat Reflexes. This is because the deck wins by having one or more characters attack twice in the same turn, and if you are attacking twice with +3 ATK, that's generally better than once with a +5. (Mega-Blast would be even better here, but I was going for a Silver Age-type build. As if there were any Silver Age tournaments I could enter...) The only other plot twist apart from the combo pieces is Omnipotence. Use it to stop whatever you think will ruin your party. If you are planning on using Concussive Force, for example, I'd suggest calling Pathetic Attempt.

I've already explained how Fearless Leader and Concussive Force should be used in the deck. In general, I would save Fearless Leader until your kill turn. It is the more important of the two because this deck is built to win by attacking twice with one or more characters. Despite having the cooler name, Concussive Force is not quite as central to the deck's functioning, and you can easily win without ever drawing it. But if you are behind the curve, it can be a life saver. If you need it, don't wait until turn 7 to use it, because you might not get there. Go ahead and use it to neuter one of your opponent's inits. Last weekend, I was playing this deck against one that used Fastball Special. On turn 5, I was behind, and my opponent had four attackers, two of which were tiny. As I expected, he used Fastball to take out my 5 drop. Once his little guys were exhausted, I played Concussive Force to exhaust the two bigger guys. I took only 5 in damage, and I was able to turn around and wreck him on turn 6 for the win.

Children of the Atom serves a variety of purposes in the deck. The most basic one is preserving your field, but it also has great synergy with the rest of the deck, notably the 6 drop Cyclops, Fearless Leader, and also the 4 drop Wolverine. Let's say that he is attacking the last unstunned character on your opponent's field. He's going to stun him, but he's going to be stun back. Once he gets the stun, his readying effect will go on the chain. If you do nothing, he'll be stunned and the effect will fizzle. But if you chain Children, it will resolve first, and Wolverine will recover before the readying effect resolves, so he will be upright and able to attack again. This is yet another example of the terrific synergy in this deck.

This was one of the first decks I built with cards from Marvel Evolution, and it remains one of my favorites from that or any other set. I can certainly understand the feelings of people who hate MEV because of the ill-considered shift mechanic, and the set's association with the end of the game we love. But if you can set all that aside and give this deck a fair shot, I think you'll enjoy playing it.

Update, March 23, 2015:

Since writing this, I've switched to playing X-23 as the main 4 drop. I now play 4x X-23 and 1x Rictor. I only use Rictor for certain match-ups, such as Checkmate decks, where his effect creates huge problems.