Bosom Buddies (AKA Solitaire)

If you are looking for a reason to hate the Marvel Evolutions set besides the hated Exiles deck, look no farther. This deck allows you to do as much damage as you want until it is ready to pop, then it aims to bury you under a mountain of damage. I've only been playing test matches with it, and not really keeping track of damage, but it's clear to me that it could sometimes do 200+ in damage on a turn 5 initiative. You read that right.

Characters - 18

[1 - 4]
4x Moonstar, Danielle Moonstar (X-Force, S.H.I.E.L.D.)
[2 - 5]
4x Deadpool, Independent Contractor (S.H.I.E.L.D., Weapon X)
1x Cable - Soldier X (X-Force)
[3 - 5]
4x Vision, Earth-10101 (Weapon X, Avengers)
1x Deadpool, Earth 5021 (Weapon X)
[4 - 4]
4x Cable, Dayspring (X-Force, Avengers)

Plot Twists - 40

[1 - 3]
3x Losing The Argument
[2 - 13]
4x Black Box
4x Intergalactic Summit
4x We Can Rebuild Him
1x Only Human
[3 - 18]
4x Bosom Buddies
4x Techno-Organic Virus
3x Cutting Loose
3x Bodyslide
2x Call in a Favor
2x Have a Blast!
[4 - 6]
4x Heroes of Two Worlds
2x Pathetic Attempt

Locations - 2

[3 - 2]
2x The Peak

I readily confess that I'm still learning to play the deck. It seems like it should be able to win on 4 pretty regularly, but so far I have only got it to go off on 5. Maybe I am being too timid with it. When the deck works, you draw your deck during the course of a turn, and you team attack with a Cable and a Deadpool over and over until you run out of combo cards. First you clear their board, then you team attack to the face. Over. And over. And over.

It seems to me that the mulligan condition for this deck is Moonstar. There are other decent opening hands you can have, especially ones with Vision, but Moonstar is what you want. Play her on 1, activate her effect, get 2-3 plot twists, then play her again on the next turn and do it again. Playing Vision to draw 2 is also a good move on 1, or you can just put a shift counter on a Deadpool or Cable.

My build of the deck is an amalgam of other builds I've seen. If I were going to try to play this deck in a tournament, I would probably experiment with playing more of the 3 drop Deadpool and less of the 2 drop, which I don't like. The 3 drop has shift, and the 2 drop requires you to attack every turn or get bounced. But I only built the deck to see what all the fuss was about, so I doubt I will do much tweaking of it.

The 4 drop Cable is significantly better than the 2 drop for the simple reason that it lets you draw more cards with Techno-Organic Virus. The 2 drop has a better effect, and is easier to recruit, but in most cases the 4 drop is the one you want.

There are four key plot twists in this deck. The first is Black Box, which should never have been printed. Even with its errata'ed text, it is horribly broken, as it allows you to take three spent combo cards (except itself, post errata), shuffle them back into your deck, and then draw a card. You have to play with or against this deck to fully appreciate just how powerful that effect is. The purpose of the one location, The Peak, is to allow you to put a single copy of Black Box back in your deck so you can use the effect five times instead of four. As if four weren't bad enough. 

The second is Techno-Organic Virus, which might as well read "Draw four cards and then discard one or two you don't need." Sometimes you only get two cards with it the first time you play it, but after that it is almost always three or four. Because of Black Box, you can generally play this card 8-12 times or more in a single match.

The third is Bosom Buddies. This is the card that allows you to team attack with Cable and Deadpool over and over again without getting stunned. It also gives them both +3 ATK for the attack, but the card would be almost as powerful if that effect were omitted. At some point it doesn't really matter whether they have 12 ATK or 18 ATK, because you are attacking with them so many times. As long as you can get through the biggest defender, it doesn't much matter, because there are only three possible outcomes: 1) they have a way to shut you down (Caliban, for example); 2) you are going to fizzle out of your own accord; or 3) you are going to do way more than 50 in damage in one turn.

The fourth is We Can Rebuild Him, which lets you draw two cards, once you have a Vision in hand or in the KO'd pile. When you begin attacking on turn 4 or 5, you will have only a few of the cards that you need to really go off. At a minimum, you would want a single copy of each of these four cards (or two copies of Virus instead of the We Can Rebuild Him), plus Intergallactic Summit. That sets you up to attack twice and to draw some cards. Early on in the turn, you want to use Black Box to put back the two draw cards; once you get near the end of your deck, you can start putting back Bosom Buddies. As I said, I'm still learning to play this deck, so I generally wait for more than the minimum number of combo pieces, but I suspect that a more experienced player of the deck might be OK going with just the minimum.

The two tutors are better here than they are in most decks. Heroes of Two Worlds lets you discard any character card to get three copies of a character with a given name, and to keep one of them. Usually you would use this for getting Cable or Deadpool, but you can also use it to get Vision or Moonstar. Call in a Favor requires you to discard a character card with the same affiliation as the one you want to search for, then your opponent gets to do the same thing. That's not much of a downside here, though, since this deck doesn't really care much about your opponent hitting their curve. Note that once you have all your combo pieces in place, and you are starting to attack, you can and should play any copies of these cards that you have left to purge your deck of character cards, so that everything you draw will be a plot twist.

The team-up card in my build is Intergallactic Summit, which isn't technically a team-up card. I've seen other builds that play The Select, but it seems to me that Summit is more flexible, since you can play it from your hand and get the team-up effect for the one turn that you need it. If I'm getting ready to go off on turn 5, I don't want to have to forego playing the copy of The Peak I just drew, just because I still need to play my team-up. Summit also can't be countered with Have a Blast! or Death of the Dream.

Only Human, Have a Blast! and Pathetic Attempt are tech cards intended to counter cards that might otherwise prevent your combo from going off. Only Human shuts down Dr. Doom, for example. Have a Blast! gets rid of Omnipotence. Pathetic Attempt counters Reign of Terror, Mystical Paralysis, etc. I'm really not sure what the optimal number of copies of each would be. The one card that absolutely wrecks this deck is Caliban, Pestilence, but as far as I know there is no way to counter it. Only Human can't touch him because he's not in play.

Cutting Loose is kind of a win-more card, and I think if I needed more room for something else, this is where I would make cuts. It gives Cable and Deadpool each an extra +2 ATK for the turn. If they each attacked only 4-5 times, this would be a 4-of card, but they can attack so many times that this card isn't really needed.

Bodyslide allows you to go off on an off-init. Suppose you are on evens, but failed to go off on 4. On 5, you can just Bodyslide out Cable, and possibly Deadpool as well, before your opponent attacks, then bring them back at the start of your own attack step.

Losing the Argument is a draw two card with a caveat. You have to put two cards back on top of your deck. There have been a couple of times where it allowed me to keep going when I was about to stall out, so I think it is worth playing, but in general you have to be careful with it. Best time to use it is just before you play Black Box or search for something with one of the character tutors, because you are probably putting back two cards you don't want to turn around and draw again.

This deck reminds me of a couple of the OTK (One Turn Kill) decks I used to play when I played Yugioh. Somewhat interesting to learn how to play well, but not at all fun to play against. Say you are on odds. Turns 1-4, your opponent probably gets to swing freely to the face. Turn 5 comes, and they are way ahead. Then they get to sit for fifteen minutes and watch you play solitaire. Or, if they know what's coming, then will just wait to be sure that you have everything you need, then they will just scoop. Yawn. 

I've seen lots of people say that UDE just didn't care about the game any more by the time MEV came out, and didn't bother to test the new set as thoroughly as they should have. I knew some of the design team members back in the day, and I don't think that's true. I think they were just given limited time and resources to work with, and did the best they could under the circumstances. Some of the newer cards and paradigms are really good, and shift in itself is a fun and interesting game mechanic. But there were cards in that set that shouldn't have been printed, or should been watered down before being released, and some of them can be found in this deck. I'm glad I built and played with it, to understand what it is and how it works, but I would never play it in a tournament, and neither should anyone else.

Postscript: After writing this, I finally found Shadowtrooper's blog post about this deck on tcgplayer.com. I had seen references to it before, but had never read it, because the blog is no longer accessible. You can, however,  find it on the Wayback Machine. More and better information about this deck than I can provide.

Spidey Stall, Take 2

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 - 32

[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

Whereas 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.

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.

New Migga City

This deck is a work in progress, but it is based on a cool build of this traditional powerhouse that my new Italian friend Luca shared with me recently. What distinguishes it from other Migga builds I've seen is the use of Aunt May. A very clever addition to the deck. Really wish I could say I thought of it myself. I'm calling this variant of the deck New Migga City because of the inclusion of Aunt May, which I think makes an already strong deck even stronger.

Characters - 30
[1 - 10]
4x Aunt May, Golden Oldie (Spider-Friends)
4x Mystique, Raven (Brotherhood)
2x Harley Quinn, Dr. Harley Quinzel (Arkham)
[2 - 10]
4x Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose (Arkham, Injustice Gang)
4x Mad Hatter, Jervis Tetch (Arkham)
2x The Penguin, Crime's Early Bird (Arkham)
[3 - 2]
2x Juggernaut, Champion of Cyttorak (Brotherhood)
[4 - 5]
3x Blob, Fred Dukes (Brotherhood)
1x Rogue, Southern Belle (Brotherhood)
1x Hush, Silent and Deadly (Arkham)
[5 - 4]
1x Spider-Man, Secret Avenger (Spider Friends, Avengers)
1x Matt Hagen <> Clayface, Mud Pack (Arkham)
1x Mr. Sinister, Visionary Geneticist
1x Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul (Injustice Gang, Revenge Squad)
[6 - 1]
1x Human Torch, Herald

Plot Twists - 12
[2 - 4]
4x Straight to the Grave
[3 - 4]
4x Enemy of my Enemy
[4 - 4]
4x Pathetic Attempt

Locations - 13
[1 - 3]
3x Lost City
[2 - 10]
4x Avalon Space Station
3x 31st Century Metropolis, Team-Up
2x Soul World
1x Empire State University

Equipment - 3

[0 - 3]
3x Nth Metal

 Aunt May is the optimal play on turn 1, but she can be played for free on any turn where you need her. Her purpose is to fetch you a copy of Mystique (aka "Spider-Man"), who can be a power-up for any character on your field, then be sacrificed for Poison Ivy to get a location. I am torn between playing three copies or four. At some point you run out of Mystiques in your deck, and you have all your locations, and then she's not so good. Early on, though, she's gold, so you want to draw her and play her early and often. Mystique, on the other hand, you don't want to draw at all. You want to get her with Aunt May. It's OK to recruit her on 1, especially if you have your team-up already. Once you have teamed up Arkham and Brotherhood, Harley Quinn is just as good as Mystique, since she can power up anyone on the field. Together, Mystique and Harley make this deck incredibly strong on both offense and defense. It's not unusual to be able to give a single character +12/+12 or even +15/+15 for one attack.

The key to this deck is Poison Ivy, and she's your mulligan condition, her or a way to get her (e.g. Straight + Avalon). Even if you draw all your locations, you still want to be able to replace spent copies of Avalon with Ivy, so she is potentially valuable even late in the match. The Mad Hatter is also a 2 drop, but you never want to play him on 2. You want to play him on 3 and pay 1 resource point to steal the opposing 2 drop, attack with it, then sacrifice it to Ivy. The Penquin should be considered a plot twist. You never want to recruit him. When you discard him as a cost, you can remove him from the game and return an Arkham character to your hand. Once you are teamed up, he is the perfect discard for Avalon, as you can get back three characters in exchange for your one discard. I am still trying to decide whether to play two copies or three of him.

On a turn 3 where Hatter is not a good play (such as when your opponent missed his 2 drop), you can recruit Juggernaut instead. He's a big body, especially with an Nth Metal on him, and a copy of Lost City in your row. He can be an especially good play on 3 if you aren't teamed up yet and need to try to preserve your field. 

The best play on turn 4 is usually Blob. This deck wants to win on 5, and he can really help you to preserve your field on this turn. Put everyone else in back, so they have to go through Blob to get to you, then throw all your power-ups into him for defense. It's pretty common to have four +3/+3 power-ups to give him, and that means they have to go through an 18/21 wall, i.e., an 8 drop. Rogue is a tech card to be used mainly against combo decks and stall decks that do multiple activations per turn. Hush is not quite as big a body as Blob, but when he stuns an exhausted attacker, they get KO'd. You can also play Anne-Marie Cortez in this slot.

Turn 5 is where you want to win, and you have several choices here. The Spider-Man is primarily a tech card, but he's also someone you can search for with Aunt May when you run out of Mystiques, and with 31st Century Metropolis in your row, you can give him the Brotherhood and Arkham affiliations for the turn. Mr. Sinister and Lex are also tech cards who shut down certain decks, and as with Spidey you can give them the proper affiliations for the turn. Clayface is good only because you can discard him for Avalon on turn 4, then come back on 5 and recruit him from your KO'd pile.

If you failed to win on turn 5, or you are on evens, on turn 6 you can either play a 5 and an Aunt May, or the lone 6 drop in the deck. Human Torch is yet another tech card. He's good against burn decks, in particular.

There are only three different plot twists used in the deck. The two tutors are Enemy and Straight. Enemy can search for all but two characters in the deck, and Straight can get the other two. Straight also gives you more chances of hitting your critical turn 2 Ivy. Pathetic Attempt is mainly for protecting your row from Have a Blast! and Death of the Dream, although your opponent can get around it with Dream if they target their own resource with the main effect, and one of yours with the secondary one.

This deck is all about locations, of course, starting with Lost City. This is the one you have to have, or the deck simply doesn't work. You can get by without the others for a turn or two if you have one of these and a big-bodied Brotherhood character like Juggernaut or Blob on the field. This is the card you generally need to protect with Pathetic Attempt.

The next most important location is Avalon Space Station. Part of what makes this deck so good is that, once teamed up, you can discard almost any character card to get two cards back with Avalon (generally Mystique or Harley), then use Ivy to go get another copy of Avalon. If you had two copies of Penquin in hand, you could actually get six cards in exchange for two on a single turn.

The other key location is the team-up, 31st Century Metropolis. It not only lets you team up Arkham and Brotherhood; it also lets you give those affiliations to one other character per turn. You can use it on a character stolen with Hatter, or on a 5 or 6 drop, or even on an Arkham character, if they decide to Have a Blast! your team-up. It's really the perfect team-up for the deck, although I am thinking about replacing one copy with the original Metropolis.

Soul World and Slaughter Swamp are both good in this deck. I went with Soul World because of the card advantage. Especially late in the game, your hand can get pretty depleted from all the discards for power-ups, so being able to get back a card without discarding can easily be worth 4 endurance. Empire State University is a card I'm experimenting with right now, and the jury is out. In theory, being able to get one card with Aunt May, then exhaust her to get another with ESU, then sacrifice her to Ivy to get a location, is really good. But there's a bit of a timing problem, because you usually have to sacrifice Aunt May to go search for it, so then you have to wait until the next turn to get the effect. This may end up going for another Soul World or a Slaughter Swamp.

One card I've always played in any Lost City deck is Nth Metal. It's just too good to leave out, in my opinion. It's a reusable power up, and thanks to Lost City it turns Juggernaut into a 9/9 and Blob into a 9/12. I'm playing three copies now but want to get to four. That experimental ESU may give way to the fourth.

Before Luca shared his build with me, I merely liked Migga City. I actually preferred playing my Brotherhood of Justice deck, which is based on ukyo's. Now it's my favorite Lost City deck, and I'm having a lot of fun tweaking it, trying to get the build just right. So once again I raise my glass and toast the Italians for their Vs. System ingenuity. But I draw the line at drinking Italian Chianti. You'll have to settle for being toasted with Kentucky bourbon, my friends.

Spidey Stall

There were a few really good newer cards that I never got a copy of before I stopped playing the game, one of the most noteworthy being the Ultimates version of Spider-Man. Consequently, I never knew how good that card was until fairly recently. I had seen lists for some Spidey Stall decks that played it, but until I started experimenting with this variant I didn't recognize his full potential. My eyes are now open.

I take no credit for this deck. It's almost entirely the work of the Artist Sometimes Known as KardKrazy. Although he has later builds, I kind of like his original one, and mine is a minor riff on that one.

Characters - 34
[1 - 4]
4x Aunt May, Golden Oldie (Spider-Friends)
[2 - 7]
4x Blade, Nightstalker (Spider-Friends)
3x Black Cat, Nine Lives (Spider-Friends)
[3 - 6]
4x Spider-Man, Ultimates (Spider-Friends)
1x Cardiac, Elias Wirtham (Spider-Friends)
1x Spider-Girl, Daughter of Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
[4 - 8]
4x Spider-Man, The Sensational Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
4x 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 - 20
[2 - 5]
4x Indebted
1x Clone Saga
[3 - 10]
4x Gift Wrapped
4x Have a Blast!
2x Mobilize
[5 - 4]
4x Omnipotence
[6 - 1]
1x Siphon Energy

Locations - 6
[2 - 6]
4x Empire State University
1x Avalon Space Station
1x Soul World

This deck really, really wants to hit Aunt May on one. I think I would keep virtually any hand that had her in it, because she can get you whatever Spider-Man you need most. Get the 3 drop one if you don't have it, or one of the 4 drops if you do. When you get another copy later, play her again. This deck needs lots of copies of Spider-Man. You can almost never have too many. She is also the perfect character to exhaust for Empire State University.

Turn 2 is not a critical turn for this deck. You can play a two drop, or another Aunt May, or both. Blade is the most thematically relevant character you could play here. You can use him to keep big troublemakers like Radioactive Man exhausted into the next turn. Black Cat is good for cycling through your deck, and her evasion allows you to keep her around as long as you need her. I've seen some people play Black Cat as their primary 2. Maybe as I play this deck more I'll flip them, but for now I've gone with Blade.

On turn 3 you always want the Ultimates Spider-Man if at all possible, so I would mulligan for him or a way to get him. He is one of the three key characters in the deck, and if you don't have him, it doesn't work as designed. More on him in a moment. Cardiac is better than nothing, especially against a deck that plays a lot of 1 drops, like Faces, but you will probably lose if you have to play him. Spider-Girl is some tech that I added. She's for shutting down the 5 drop Lex, but I wouldn't recruit her until 5 or 6. When she's stunned, she takes away his ability to negate all the payment powers that this deck needs in order to work, and since she has evasion, that's easily done. (Evasion is a form of payment power, but Lex doesn't negate it.)

Your best play on turn 4 is the Sensational Spider-Man. If you hit your 3, he will come into play with two web counters. Save them as long as you can. Use his ability to exhaust their 3, and use a Gift Wrapped to exhaust their 4. In a pinch, you can pop all four of your web counters, though. Keep in mind that you can replenish his web counters by subbing in a new copy of him. Also keep in mind that you absolutely must get a copy of Scarlet Spider by this turn, or you won't be playing a Spidey here. He is not intended to be played, although you can play him on 6 if you have nothing else. Think of him as a plot twist, like Clash of Worlds.

The best play on turn 5 is generally a Zombie Spider-Man and an Aunt May, preceded by an Omnipotence activation naming Pathetic Attempt, unless you know for certain that your opponent doesn't play it. (If they PA your Zombie, he won't come back.) Exhaust their 3 with the Sensational Spider-Man, pop 4 web counters to exhaust their 4 drop, then activate and KO the Zombie to exhaust another character. When he comes back at the end of the turn, two more web counters for him. The interaction between the Ultimates Spidey and the Zombie one, made possible by Scarlet Spider, are the key to this deck. It is so good, sometimes you don't even need Gift Wrapped in order to win. You can play Zombie on 4 if you need to, but beware of Pathetic Attempt. Better to wait until 5 if you can.

The alternate play on 5 is the 5 drop Spidey, but he is here only to negate characters that would otherwise wreck you. For example, last night I played this deck against my IG Handfill deck, which is a tough match-up because of all the burn effects. It doesn't need to attack to win. My son got off one activation of Circe on 5 before I could use Omnipotence on her, but after that she was shut down. On turn 6 I recruited the 5 drop to shut down Scarecrow. (Discarding for Spidey's effect was not going to be a problem.) We played it out, but the game was over at that point. I was exhausting his field on every turn, and he couldn't burn me.

On turn 6 you can either play a Zombie and a 2 drop, or a pair of 3 drops. The first will enter play with 4 web counters, and the second with 6. If you play the 3 drops, you can afford to spend 6 counters this turn to exhaust their 6, because at the end of the turn, when your Zombie returns, he will get 6 more, 2 from each of the 3 drops. Even on turns when you can't exhaust all of your opponent's characters, you can usually exhaust all but one. So you take one attack, which you reinforce, and the damage is minimal. If you are taking a maximum of one reinforced attack per turn, it won't be a problem stalling to 9, which is the goal.

Turn 7 can be a 4 and a 3, or either of the two 7 drop Spideys. The Amazing one is just that, assuming that you have enough character cards in hand to exhaust the characters that you can't exhaust otherwise. Still the best stall card ever printed. Stark's boy is pretty good too, though, especially when paired with a copy of Gift Wrapped. But honestly, if you got this far, it probably doesn't much matter what you play here, because you've likely been exhausting their field on every turn, in which case any of the three possibilities will do the trick. With Protégé, keep in mind that on your init you can attack down the curve with him, then use his effect to exhaust someone else.

Turn 8 could be a pair of Zombies, the other 7 drop, or the 8 drop Sentry. Sentry won't exhaust anyone, but -17 ATK will neuter them to the point that they are harmless. As with Protégé, you can attack someone with him if you are on evens, and then use his effect.

Turn 9 is where you win, generally, if your opponent hasn't scooped beforehand. Galactus comes into play, you take all of their endurance, and then you attack for game. Or you exhaust their field and do nothing, either way. You want odds if you can get them, unless you are up against another stall deck that plays Galactus on 9. In that case, you want his big guy to come into play and take all your endurance, and then yours comes in and takes it all back. The catch here is that some stall decks play him on 8, thanks to the Last Zenn Lavian. If you are worried about that kind of match-up, you should make him one of your 7 drops, so you can win on 8 instead of 9. If I were building this as a competitive deck, I think I would do that.

Apart from Aunt May, the main tutor is Indebted. You can use it to get Scarlet Spider by discarding a Spider-Man, but generally you use it to get a Spider-Man. There were three changes that I made to KardKrazy's deck with regard to tutors. First, I added two copies of Mobilize. This was done primarily to increase the chances of hitting Scarlet Spider by turn 4, which is critical. Second, I added Clone Saga. With it on the field, you can search for Galactus with either Indebted or Mobilize. This deck really needs to finish with him, and I think it's a mistake to count on having a particular character when you can't search for him. Finally, I added Siphon Energy. This can be your fifth copy of Indebted, Gift Wrapped or Have a Blast!,  or your third Mobilize. Or, if your opponent was thoughtful enough to leave a copy of Enemy of My Enemy in his row, you can use it and get Galactus that way.

Gift Wrapped supplements the effects of the Spideys. Especially against things like Faces and army decks, you need to hit a Gift Wrapped or two along the way in order to stop all their hordes of attackers. Against curve decks, you might finish the game with two-three copies you never used.

Have a Blast! is here primarily to shut down opposing copies of Omnipotence that name Spider-Man. That card can shut down all payment powers belonging to characters named Spider-Man, which is game over if it happens. If you prefer Death of the Dream, or Reality Gem, or Transmutation, or some combination, that's fine. The important thing is to have ample chances of drawing or searching for at least one of them by turn 5. Speaking of Omnipotence, it is here in force primarily to stop Pathetic Attempt, although it can also come in handy against certain decks, as illustrated by my account of the IG Handfill match-up.

The main location card is Empire State University. It's not critical that you draw it, but things generally go more smoothly if you can get one early on, and it gives Aunt May something to do besides reinforce during attacks. This is basically a combo deck, and it helps you to cycle through your deck to get to combo pieces faster. Avalon and Soul World are just for recurring spent copies of Aunt May and any Spider-Man characters you need now that you had to discard earlier. Soul World is better because of the card advantage it generates, as long as the self-burn doesn't create problems.

I haven't been playing this deck for very long, so please consider my build as more of a rough sketch than a finished blueprint. I've seen lots of other builds of this deck that were very successful, and most of them don't look much like it. ukyo has a good one, for example. The main thing that attracted me to KardKrazy's build, and the thing I would urge you to consider if you haven't already, was the complete commitment to the Ultimates/Zombie interaction. I read his description of how the deck worked, and it intrigued me enough to build my own copy and futz with it a bit. Now it's my Spidey deck of choice. Maybe it or something like it will become yours as well.

Predators

By the time Marvel Evolution was released, the writing was on the wall. UDE had already stopped supporting the game overseas, so North America was bound to follow. MEV was clearly one last money grab before they pulled the plug. Consequently, I didn't buy many boxes of the set. I bought enough to get playsets of all the uncommons, then bought singles of any other cards I knew I wanted. As things worked out, I got plenty of rares for some deck paradigms, like the Cyclops legend deck, and few or none for others. Somehow, I missed almost all of the good Weapon X cards, so I never did anything with what I did have at the time.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when my son and I started playing the game again. One day I came home from work and he had built a Weapon X deck. It lacked polish, but when it worked, it worked really well. It was oozing with potential. We played with his build for a few weeks, and then I started tinkering with the deck myself. I made a few small improvements, but still wasn't happy with it. So I started looking around for other people's builds and discovered that we had a) completely whiffed on the single best Weapon X card, Mesmero, and b) failed to recognize just how good the 4 drop Maverick was. I rebuilt the deck with those two cards as mainstays, and suddenly we had a powerhouse. It can't compete with the very best Golden Age decks, but it's pretty darned good, especially against other aggro curve decks.

Characters - 31
[2 - 8]
4x Mesmero, Vincent
4x X-23, Laura Howlett
[3 - 9]
4x Iron Man, Earth 2020
4x Vision, Earth 10101
1x Nuke, Weapon 7
[4 - 5]
4x Maverick, Agent Zero
1x Chamber, Jonothon Starsmore
[5 - 4]
3x Stepford Cuckoos, Weapon X
1x Predator X, Genetically Engineered Monster
[6 - 3]
2x Sabretooth, Earth 295 - War
1x Wolverine, Unleashed
[7- 2]
1x Ultimaton, Weapon 15
1x Deadpool, Party Pooper  

Plot Twists - 30
[1 - 8]
4x Flying Kick
4x Nasty Surprise
[2 - 8]
4x We Can Rebuild Him
4x Erased
[3 - 7]
4x Mobilize
3x Call in a Favor
[4 - 3]
3x Savage Beatdown  

Locations - 4
[2 - 4]
4x Weapon Plus Satellite

In my son's original build, the main 2 drop was Captain America, Weapon 1. He's good, not great, and he is a hunter. You could definitely make a case for playing him over the current build's alternate 2 drop, X-23, who is not a hunter. But she is a 6/2, which means she can take down most 4 drops without a pump. This deck is a slow starter anyway, so the fact that she comes into play exhausted is not that big a deal. And half the time she comes into play after turn 2 as a bonus. In any case, the star of the show is Mesmero. Terrible stats; devastating effect. As long as your opponent's hunted character is not stunned, your opponent cannot play plot twists during the combat phase. No attack pumps, no defensive pumps, no tutors to fetch power-ups, no Pathetic Attempts, nada. If you have Mesmero and Weapon Plus Satellite out at the same time, your opponent is in big time trouble.

The pace picks up a bit once Iron Man hits the field. Every time he stuns a hunted character, you can bring in a 2 drop character for free, so long as you don't already have that a character with the same name already on the field. Ideally, you want odds, and you would recruit X-23 on turn 2. On turn 3 you would recruit Iron Man and hunt the opposing 2 drop. Iron Man has flight, so as long as the 2 drop is visible, he can get him. Attack with Iron Man, stunning their 2 drop, then bring Mesmero in for free with his effect. Mesmero is a hunter, so now you hunt the opposing 3 drop, whom you can take out with X-23. When you can pull that off, you can usually finish turn 3 with three characters to your opponent's one, and on the next turn he won't be able to play plot twists as long as his 4 drop is unstunned. In any case, Iron Man is your mulligan condition, because you can always bring out a 2 drop with his effect later if you miss on 2.

The only true alternate 3 is Nuke. He is card #61, so if you care about such things, cut him. I put him in because he is a decent alternate 3 (a 7/6 in combat with hunted characters), whereas Vision is not. Vision is a plot twist. He's great to have in your opening hand, and he's great in conjunction with We Can Rebuild Him. You never want to recruit him. Do keep in mind that missing on 3 is not the absolute end of the world if the opposing deck isn't moving too fast. There have been a couple of times where I missed on 3 but put the shift counters on Sabretooth, then recruited a 6 and a 3 (or a 4) on turn 6.  

The main 4 drop is Maverick, and Chamber is the alternate. In my son's original build, those roles were reversed, because we were suckered in by UDE, who made Chamber a rare and Maverick a common. One of the many dubious decisions made for that set. Anyway, Maverick is way better. He just sits in the hidden area, waiting for Iron Man or X-23 or whoever to stun the hunted character. When that happens, you pay 2 to insure that that character won't recover for the rest of the turn. Between Maverick and Erased, you can absolutely devastate your opponent's field. And if you have Satellite working, too, you can sometimes take out two characters in one turn, one with Maverick, one with Erased.

The main 5 drop is Stepford Cuckoos, which is almost always your preferred play. She gives the hunted character, and all adjacent characters, -3 DEF. So when you are defending, your opponent can no longer make safe attacks down the curve. Cuckoos can easily take down the opposing 6 drop if it has -3 DEF. When you are attacking, by contrast, you can easily swing up the curve, because Cuckoos gives your attacker the equivalent of a Flying Kick. The X-23 you brought out for free on turn 4 can take down the opposing 5 drop without a pump. Predator X is good as well, and if you need to attack into a field of little guys, it is a much better choice than Cuckoos. But against most decks, Cuckoos will be better.

The two 6 drops are both good, but if Wolverine weren't hidden, I would probably just play three copies of him. Sabretooth gets the nod as primary because he's visible and a better defender, and you want to be defending on 6 if possible. If you are attacking on 6, then Wolverine is way better. Because of all the card drawing and the tutors, you almost always have your choice of 6 drops on that turn. One other nice thing about Sabretooth is that he has shift, so if you get him in your opening hand, you can put a shift counter on him. On turn 6, recruit him, and use the other point to shift out Vision with one counter, then pop him to draw two cards.

When this deck works, you can usually win by the end of turn 6, because you will be facing depleted fields from turn 4 on. But there are two great 7 drops to choose from if you make it that far. If you are defending, you want Ultimaton, since he can't be stunned by a hunted character. Because of Satellite, your opponent will have some poor choices when trying to attack him. Hunt the opposing 7. If your opponent attacks with the 6, use Satellite to make him the hunted. When he attacks again with his 7, flip another Satellite from your row, and hunt him. The deck doesn't play an 8, so the lost resource doesn't hurt. If you are attacking on 7, Deadpool is usually better. Hunt the opposing 6, and attack him with Deadpool. Chances are he won't stun, but the other guy will. Ready Deadpool and go after their 7. It's an extra attack with a guy with 17 ATK. Should be game over.

The attack pumps are Savage Beatdown and Flying Kick. Kick is the more important of the two, because this deck has very few characters with flight, and you need it to get at the hunted character sometimes. The other "pump" is Nasty Surprise. I always undervalued that card, I think, and never used it much until recently. In this deck, it is really good, because you want to take away the possibility of safe attacks by the hunted character. Use it to force the "surprise" stunback, then take the attacker out of the game with Maverick or Erased. It's not unusual to begin combat on turn 5 with two 2 drops, a 3, a 4, and a 5, versus an opposing 3 and 5. Almost impossible for your opponent to dig out at that point.

The best plot twist in the deck is Erased, and it's the card that inspired my son to build the deck, I think. Unlike most cards that KO opposing characters, there is no cost for using this effect. If you stun the hunted character, you can KO them. The synergy between Erased, Maverick and Satellite is terrific. Use Maverick to take out characters when you can, and save Erased for characters that you had to attack with Maverick himself. When you do, that usually means you took out two guys in one turn, wiping out your opponent's field, most likely.

The tutors are Mobilize and Call in a Favor. I usually play 8 tutors in a deck when I can, but this deck has enough drawing power that I felt comfortable cutting it back to 7. As always, don't use Call if you don't have to, since your opponent gets the effect too, and use it only on off-inits if you can, so that you don't bail out your opponent on a turn when he was going to have to underdrop. We Can Rebuild Him is terrific in this deck. Remember that you are not limited to using it to draw cards. If you discarded a 6 drop early and have no tutor to get another one now, you can use WCRH to bring it back, shifted out of play with one counter. Bring him into play, and you still have one resource point remaining.

Arguably the single most important card in the deck is Weapon Plus Satellite. There's no way to search for it, so sometimes you miss it entirely or don't get it until it is too late. Those are games you usually lose. If you get it by turn 3, though, it becomes an absolute nightmare for your opponent if they have no way to get rid of it, especially if Mesmero is on the field. Without it, you can only hunt their second biggest character on your init. With it, you can hunt their biggest character on every turn, and frequently two different characters in a single turn. 

This deck is like a street racer with a turbo charged 4 cylinder engine, custom tuned by Paul Walker & Co. Mesmero, Maverick, Erased, and Satellite are the four cylinders, and Iron Man is the starter that kicks the engine to life. If you are hitting on all four cylinders, you are probably winning. If you are running on three cylinders, you might win anyway, simply because your opponent is driving while impaired. But if you are running on less than three, you are probably sputtering along and falling behind. You can have some really bad games with this deck, but when it is working, it is definitely a well-oiled, vicious killing machine.

Psionic Stall

One of the few nice things about the game being dead is that you can do whatever you want. If you want to build a deck that uses banned cards, go ahead. It's not like there are any hobby leagues or tournaments to play in any more (at least not in most places). In that spirit of rebellion, I put together the ultimate stall deck, banned list be damned. It's kind of fun to play, and challenging (if not fun) to play against. I did it more as an exercise than anything else, an attempt to answer the question, "if there were no banned list, how nasty of a stall deck could I make?"

Characters - 34 

[1 - 7]
4x Blizzard, Frosty Friend (Thunderbolts, S.H.I.E.L.D.)
3x Frankie Raye <> Nova, Optimistic Youth (Heralds of Galactus)
[2 - 12]
4x Puppet Master, Philip Masters
4x Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose (Injustice Gang, Arkham Inmates)
1x Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways (Heralds of Galactus)
1x Mimic, Earth-12 (Exiles, Brotherhood)
1x Shimmer, Selinda Flinders (Fearsome Five)
1x Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne (Checkmate)
[3 - 4]
4x Dr. Light, Master of Holograms (Emerald Enemies)
[4 - 4]
4x Rogue, Power Absorption (X-Men)
[5 - 2]
1x Sunfire, Shiro Yoshida (X-Men)
1x Mr. Sinister, Visionary Geneticist
[6 - 2]
1x Mimic, Calvin Rankin (Brotherhood)
1x Darkseid, the Omega (Darkseid's Elite, Revenge Squad)
[7 - 1]
1x Koriand'r <> Starfire, X'Hal's Fury (Teen Titans)
[8 - 1]
1x Cyclops, Mutant Messiah (X-Factor, X-Men)
[9 - 1]
1x Onslaught, Psionic Spawn of Xavier and Magneto 

Plot Twists - 12 

[2 - 4]
4x Straight to the Grave
[3 - 4]
4x Enemy of My Enemy
[4 - 4]
4x Press the Attack 

Locations - 15 

[1 - 2]
2x Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters
[2 - 9]
2x Battleworld
2x 31st Century Metropolis, Team-up
1x UN Building, Team-Up
2x Avalon Space Station
1x Slaughter Swamp
1x Soul World
[3 - 3]
2x Birthing Chamber
1x X-Corp: Amsterdam, X-Corp
[4 - 1]
1x The Rock of Eternity

Pretty darned nasty. It's based on the old X-Stall and TDC Stall models, but incorporates some cards that didn't exist at the time. The goal of course is to get to turn 9, then obliterate their field with Onslaught, but it often wins before then, because of all the stun and burn damage it can do on turns 7 and 8.

You want evens with this deck if at all possible, for a reason I'll explain shortly. There is no hard and fast mulligan condition for the deck, because there are so many combo pieces it needs in order to work. Generally "you know it when you see it," but I guess basically you want a hand that has two of the first three key characters or a way to get them. 

The first key character is Puppet Master, whom you want to get out as soon as possible, to start disrupting your opponent's initiatives. If you make it to turn 5 in good shape, he will become gradually less important thereafter, but you will have a hard time getting there if you don't have him by turn 4 at the very latest. There is a way to get him a second or even a third activation per turn, and there are multiple characters who can copy his effect. As soon as possible, you want to get to the point where you can exhaust their entire field with some combination of these effects.

Key character number two is Poison Ivy. She can KO another character that you no longer need to go fetch one of the many locations that this deck needs in order to work properly. There are a bare minimum of 2 and preferably 4 locations that you need to hit, and the only way to hit them consistently is to have Ivy fetch them for you. She makes it possible to play 2 copies of these instead of 4, which is a main reason the deck works as well as it does.

Key character number three: Dr. Light, who allows you to dump 1 and 2 drop characters into your KO'd pile and bring them into play for free, one per turn. For example, you can dump Puppet Master or Ivy into your pile with Straight to the Grave on turn 3, and have him bring them into play. Or you can activate Puppet Master, KO him with Ivy to get a location you need, then bring him back for seconds with Dr. Light. Early you use him to bring together your combo pieces; later you use him to bring back toolbox characters.

Key character number four, Blizzard. After a while, your opponent's field will become unwieldy if you have to exhaust them all with Puppet Master-based effects every turn. Starting on your turn 4/5 init, you can make things easier for yourself by making Blizzard's effect your main source of exhaustion, since any characters you exhaust don't ready at the end of the turn. On the following turn, it is then easy to exhaust the remaining characters with Puppet Master effects, and the turn after that you can go back to Blizzard. He is why you want evens, to allow you to start doing this on turn 4 rather than 5. Note that he has substitute, so if there is a Frankie on the field, or an unusable 2 drop Mimic, you can substitute him in and use your Dr. Light activation that turn for something else.

Finally, key character number five is Rogue, who can copy the effects of Puppet Master or Blizzard as needed. Equally important, she has the X-Men affiliation, which enables you to use Xavier's School to get a second activation per turn out of Puppet Master or Blizzard. Later in the game you can sometimes use her to copy other effects as well.

The one other character played in multiples is Frankie Raye, who serves two purposes. First, she is great for allowing you to draw and cycle cards, to get to your combo pieces faster. Second, she is perfect fodder for Ivy, who needs to KO someone every turn in order to fetch locations. Once all the combo pieces are in place to exhaust your opponent's field on every turn, Dr. Light can just bring her back every turn to let you draw more and more cards.

The rest of the 2 drops are toolbox characters. Silver Surfer is great for fetching your higher drops and placing them on top of your deck, and he can also fetch Press the Attack. Mimic can be recruited or brought into play by Dr. Light to copy Puppet Master or Blizzard for a turn; once activated, he becomes fodder for Ivy. Black Thorn can be used to get an extra activation out of Xavier's Institute or Birthing Chamber. Shimmer usually isn't needed, but if your opponent has a way of flooding the field with army characters, for example, she gives you a way to exhaust their entire field; unfortunately, she works only on your init.

The two 5 drops are Sunfire and Mr. Sinister. Sunfire is great against decks like Faces that flood the field with more characters than you can handle with Puppet Master or Blizzard activations. In those cases, you can have Rogue copy his effect if you need to. Mr. Sinister is for shutting down characters who would otherwise shut you down, notably the 5 drop Lex and the 5 drop Scarlet Witch. If you are on odds, you can also use him to shut down an opponent's Mr. Sinister, since the first one recruited wins.

Mimic is the main 6 drop. He can copy the effects of Sunfire, Puppet Master, or Blizzard, as needed. He is essentially Rogue #2. Darkseid is a recent addition to the deck. He serves only one nefarious purpose: if you can get your one copy of Rock of Eternity into your row, and your opponent has a non-team-up plot twist in his row, you can flip Rock just before you recruit Darkseid, and then exchange it for their plot twist. If you do, and they don't have a way to get rid of it, it's probably game over, because they will not launch another attack the rest of the game.

Turn 7 belongs to Starfire, who will often win you the game almost by herself if you make it this far. Figure that the opponent will generally have drops 2-7 on the field at this point in the game, if they are playing curve. If she stuns all of them at the start of the recovery phase, that's 2+3+4+5+6+7=27 points in damage at the end of the turn. And she will probably do another 13-15 on the following turn. That's almost the game right there.

Turn 8 is Cyclops, who can exhaust the biggest opposing character and do 7 or 8 in burn damage in the process. If Mimic and/or Rogue copy his effect, you will probably win the game by the end of the turn, after Starfire stuns their field.

But if you make it to turn 9 (which generally means you missed Starfire on 7), then you can seal the deal with Onslaught. Simply exhaust their field, as you've been doing, then let Onslaught stun their field and attack to the face for the win. 

The deck plays only three plot twists. Enemy's use is obvious. It's key to making sure you hit Dr. Light and Rogue, in particular.  Straight is used in conjunction both with the locations that let you get back characters from the KO'd pile, and with Dr. Light. Press the Attack is sometimes a win-more card, and sometimes a key puzzle piece. On turns when you need one more Puppet Master or Blizzard activation to finish the job, you can use it to ready someone. Also, if you are up against an opposing stall deck that plays Galactus on turn 9, you can use it to get multiple attacks from Onslaught, to compensate for losing all your endurance. In that case, you will want to get Surfer out fairly early to fetch copies of Press, which you can then draw with Birthing Chamber.

The most important locations in the deck are the cards that give and combine affiliations. The primary one is Battleworld, which gives all of your characters the Heroes of Earth affiliation, and all of your opponent's the Villains of Earth affiliation. The latter insures that Onslaught's effect can go off on 9. 31st Century Metropolis is the main team-up card. Once you have Battleworld up, and Rogue on the field, you can use it to combine Heroes and X-Men. The best thing about it is that you can give someone, probably Puppet Master or Blizzard, the X-Men affiliation for the turn, which can be important if your opponent Have a Blast's your Battleworld or your team-up. UN Building is generally not needed unless you have to play Shimmer, and you need to team up Heroes, X-Men, and Fearsome Five. X-Corp Amsterdam just gives you an alternate way of fetching a team-up on turn 4 or later, once Rogue is out. 

Rock of Eternity is used strictly with Darkseid. Birthing Chamber just lets you draw and cycle through your deck once you have four characters or more on the field, and it combos nicely with Surfer and Black Thorn. Xavier's Institute is for getting multiple activations per turn out of Puppet Master, Blizzard, or Surfer, once you have your team-ups in place.

The other locations are all for getting back characters from the KO'd pile. This is important both because of Straight to the Grave, and because sometimes you have to discard a higher cost character early in the game. Avalon Space Station is the best one, simply because you can sometimes get two characters with it rather than one by discarding one of the two Mimics. If you team up Heroes, X-Men and Brotherhood with UN Building, then you will have more options to choose from. Honestly, though, it doesn't much matter, because you rarely need to get more than one character back in a turn. It's just a way to generate card advantage. For all other purposes, Slaughter Swamp and Soul World work about as well, apart from the burn factor with Soul World.

An ideal curve would look something like this: Frankie on 1. Puppet/Ivy on 2. Dr. Light on 3, bringing back Ivy/Puppet. Rogue on 4, with Dr. Light bringing back Blizzard. Sunfire or Sinister on 5, with Dr. Light bringing back Frankie, Surfer, or Black Thorn. If you hit a curve like that, then the remaining turns should be easy. You want Battleworld and a team-up by turn 4, Xavier's School by 4 or 5, and Avalon/Swamp/Soul World as soon as you can get one of them. Early on you use them to get back Frankie, so you can keep sacrificing her for Ivy and drawing cards; later you need them to get back any higher level drops you discarded.

Although I designed this to be the ultimate stall deck, it is not a competitive deck by any means, even if you set aside the issue of the banned cards (Dr. Light and Frankie Raye). Anything that can disrupt the resource row consistently will give it fits (e.g., X-Mental), as will anything that plays the 5 drop Lex and/or Mr. Sinister. Reign of Terror is a PITA (hello, Crisis Doom). Galactus can be a problem too, especially in decks that bring him out on 8 with the Last Zenn-Lavian. There are no Pathetic Attempts here, no Omnipotence, no Caliban, really no counter measures at all other than Mr. Sinister. Certain opposing decks are almost auto-losses. But this deck wasn't designed to be played in a tournament. It was designed to be played just for fun against aggro decks as kind of a mental exercise, for both players. This combo deck has a lot of moving parts, and it's fun to play--both with and against it--once in a while, just for the challenge. If you like playing stall decks, you'll probably like this one. If not, you will probably find it tedious beyond measure. If you've read this far, chances are you are in the former group, in which case I hope you like it. If you are in the latter group, I'm really surprised you made it this far...

Hypnotic Charms

I always thought that the 1 drop Black Bolt from Marvel Universe was ripe for abuse. In a Skrulls deck, a Black Bolt and a Quantum Bands can easily turn 2 resource points into a 4 drop-sized beast with flight and range. That's pretty good. It's also nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to what he can do in this deck. One day while googling for something completely unrelated, I ran across a deck that the Italians call "Black Bamboo". I wasn't familiar with a couple of the key cards, so I didn't understand how it worked at first, but it sounded sort of intriguing (thanks to Google Translate), so I put it together and did a little goldfishing. O.M.G. This deck can win consistently on 5 against almost anything, and fairly often on 4. It is simply amazing.

Characters -  30 

[1 - 14]
4x Orb, Drake Shannon (Underworld)
4x Black Bolt, Enemy Within (Inhumans, Skrull)
2x Spider-Man <> The Spider, Earth-15 (Weapon X, Spider-Friends)
1x Alpha Primitives, Army (Negative Zone, Inhumans)
1x Professor X, Mutant Messiah (Starjammers, X-Men)
1x Timebroker, Keeper of the Panoptichron (Exiles, Weapon X)
1x Green Goblin, Insanity Unleashed (Thunderbolts, Sinister Syndicate)
[2 - 2]
1x Viper, Madame Hydra (Hellfire Club, Crime Lords)
1x Mr. Fantastic, Protector of the Power Gem (Infinity, F4)
[3 - 8]
4x Vision, Earth-10101 (Weapon X, Avengers)
1x Blade, Independent Contractor (S.H.I.E.L.D., Marvel Knights)
1x Dr. Doom, Richards's Rival (Doom)
1x Sub-Mariner, Protector of the Time Gem (Infinity Watch, Atlantis)
1x Barbara Gordon, Hacker Elite (Birds of Prey, Gotham Knights)
[4 - 2]
1x Ethan Edwards, Visitor from Another World (Skrull, Spider-Friends)
1x Batman, Twilight Vigilante (Gotham Knights, Outsiders)
[5 - 2]
1x Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul (Injustice Gang, Revenge Squad)
1x Sunfire, Famine (Marauders, Horsemen of Apocalypse)
[6 - 2]
1x Wolverine, Unleashed (Weapon X, X-Force)
1x Martian Manhunter, Founding Member (JLA, JLI) 

Plot Twists - 20 

[1 - 4]
4x Hypnotic Charms
[2 - 8]
4x We Can Rebuild Him
4x Straight to the Grave
[3 - 4]
4x Enemy of My Enemy
[4 - 4]
4x Pathetic Attempt 

Locations - 10 

[1 - 4]
4x The Dark Dimension
[2 - 6]
4x Tarnax IV
1x Slaughter Swamp
1x Avalon Space Station

I usually take odds with it, because turn 5 is the target kill turn, but it doesn't matter too much. It can win easily on either init, and it can win on an off-init, for that matter. Mulligan for Orb, or for Black Bolt and a way to get Hypnotic Charms.

The basic idea behind the deck is to fill the KO'd pile with characters with different affiliations, with a Hypnotic Charms in your row and a hidden Black Bolt who just keeps getting bigger and bigger. With Charms in your row, he gets every affiliation of every character in the pile, and every new affiliation gives him a +1/+1. How big can he get? Depends on how long the match goes. If it goes to 6, he could easily hit 20/20. Really. Just count the number of distinct affiliations in the deck. There are about 30 of them, and the longer the match goes, the more of them he is going to get.

A recent match against Brotherhood Reservist will illustrate just how explosive this deck can be. On turn 3, the reservists dished out 20 in damage thanks to four characters swinging to the face, each with a +2. Pretty good. Should finish the job on their next init, right? With a field consisting of Orb, Black Bolt, and Barbara Gordon, packing a Tarnax and a Charms in the row, the hidden guys swung back. Thanks to all the cards in the pile put there with Orb and Dark Dimension, Black Bolt was a 13/13 at that point, and quickly took the TNNB guys from 48 down to 37. Then Barbara swung with Tarnax for 18 in damage. This is on a turn 3 off-init, mind you. It's now 26-19. Next turn, more affiliations get dumped in the pile, out comes Ethan Edwards, and another Tarnax goes into the row face down. Five Brotherhood characters stand quaking in their boots. In comes Black Bolt. He's an 18/18. Yep, he's an 8 drop, but he's just clearing space. After Barbara takes out a would be reinforcer, Orb hits with Tarnax number one. He's a 20. Then Ethan Edwards seals the deal. He's a 27 on his own, but the second Tarnax makes him a 47. Forty. Seven. On turn 4. I've seen that much damage done on one turn before, but never on turn 4.

Most incredibly, the deck didn't even get off its best trick, which is to use We Can Rebuild Him to shift a copy of Black Bolt out from the KO'd pile (with Charms on the field and a Vision in the pile, he has the Weapon X affiliation), and then bring him into play during the combat phase with Timebroker. That maneuver can be pulled off fairly often on a turn 5 init. You shift out a Black Bolt with the plot twist, shift out Timebroker manually, and then recruit Ethan Edwards. Attack with the first Black Bolt, bring in the second one (the first one goes away, but who cares) and attack again, attack with Ethan Edwards, then attack with Orb or whoever with Tarnax. The amount of damage this deck can inflict by the end of turn 5 is just insane, and it does it pretty consistently. In a bad game, Black Bolt will be only 12/12 on turn 5. That's a 6 drop. In a good game, he's an 8 or a 9 drop, and he's hidden, so you can attack with him both on- and off-init.

Aside from Black Bolt and Ethan Edwards, there are two key characters, Orb and Vision. Orb lets you draw and cycle through your deck, dumping hidden character cards with two affiliations into the pile as you go, hopefully. Vision is of course used with We Can Rebuild Him to draw more cards, which is hugely important, because this is basically a combo deck, and it needs to draw lots of cards in order to hit all the key combo pieces rapidly. The best opening hands usually contain Orb or Vision.

Most of the other characters are here mainly for their multiple affiliations, but many also serve special purposes. Dr. Doom is for searching out Hypnotic Charms.There is an Underworld character named Mobius you can play who can find it, but I think the deck works fine without him. Alpha Primitives can fix your row, allowing you to drop a Charms or a Tarnax from your hand into your row. Barbara Gordon gives you more draw. Spider-Man can protect Black Bolt from Reign of Terror and other effects that might target him. Sub-Mariner can work with Black Bolt, Professor X, or Mr. Fantastic to get back a key card like Tarnax or Charms from the pile, if all your copies have gotten dumped into it accidentally with Dark Dimension, or if you put one there on purpose with Straight to the Grave. And Lex Luthor can shut down stall decks to give you a chance to attack. Some people also play the 3 drop Spider-Girl, who can shut down Mr. Sinister, but if you have a Tarnax, you can just attack him with someone who has flight in your first attack of the turn and shut him down that way.

Obviously, Hypnotic Charms, along with Black Bolt, is the key to everything. Without it, the deck doesn't work at all. You need to find it ASAP, and then protect it while it is up. That's mainly what the Pathetic Attempts are for, besides protecting Black Bolt. If you play a lot against control decks that pack resource row hate, you may want to trade some location cards for copies of Omnipotence. Most builds of this deck that I've seen play Have a Blast! themselves, but I'm not sure it's needed; perhaps it's for some gnarly match-ups that I haven't tested against yet. Now that I play strictly for fun, I don't worry about teching against specific decks too much.

The tutors are Enemy and Straight to the Grave. Very easy to use Enemy in this deck, because there is so little overlap in affiliations. Straight serves two important purposes. When you are gathering your combo pieces, you can use it to dump the character you need into your pile, for retrieval with one of the location cards or with We Can Rebuild Him. Once you have everything, use it to dump characters with missing affiliations into the pile, to give Black Bolt another +2/+2, and Ethan Edwards and whoever is using Tarnax another +2 in ATK. In the match against TNNB, I did that twice, which resulted in four different characters getting an extra +4 in ATK.

Tarnax IV is obviously the MVP of the locations. Being able to discard a card to give someone +12 ATK or more on turns 4 and 5 is crazy good. I've had a copy in my Skrulls deck for a long time, but it is way better here. Slaughter Swamp and Avalon are obviously for retrieving character cards from the pile. Once Hypnotic Charms is up, though, Dark Dimension is even better at that. You dump the top three cards from your deck into the pile, then select any Underworld card from it. Just be sure you've discarded a copy of Orb first, though, or no one will have the Underworld affiliation. Some builds play another Underworld character or two, which makes it a little easier to get that affiliation into the pile. So far I haven't had any issues with that.

I've seen other decks do more damage in one turn, and I've seen some decks that perhaps win fast more consistently than this one, but I don't know that I've seen another deck that can do so much damage, so quickly, so consistently. In that example I cited earlier, it did over 100 points in damage in six attacks over two turns. That's over 16 in damage per attack. At that rate, three attacks and you're done. Boom! Even if you don't have all the cards to build the deck (I didn't, and I have a huge collection of cards), proxy it up and give it a try. It's an amazing deck, and you have to see it in action to believe it.