Custom Spidey Cards

I've been trying for a while now to complete my playset of Spider-Man Ultimates without much luck. Two down, two to go. Last night I had the brilliant idea to contact my new friend, the incredibly talented Joey Tufo, about creating a custom card instead. Arguably my best idea ever.

As some of you may know, there is a small group of people who gather on Facebook to share their custom card designs, and they do some truly amazing work. They design their cards using a program called Magic Set Editor 2, which is free to download, as are the card templates that they use. Not satisfied with mere theory, Joey takes things one step farther. He actually prints his designs out on transparencies, then attaches them to actual foil Vs. cards that have been stripped with acetone.

The result is a custom foil Vs. card that looks like the real thing. The picture above is of a card in the process of being stripped. The picture below is of a finished Crime Lords deck that someone commissioned from him, based on a list of mine from years ago.

If you are interested, check out the VS System Custom Designs group. Joey is not the only one in the group doing great work, but he is my personal favorite, mainly because of the Spidey card design shown above (which he knocked out in just a few minutes after I sent him the image), and the picture (below) that he sent me a little while ago of my soon-to-be cards fresh from the printer. Someday very soon, I will have the coolest Spidey Stall deck in the world...

To give you a better idea of why I'm so enamored with all this, here's another example of Joey's work. It's hard to pick a favorite, but this Silver Surfer slider just might be it.

Then again, there's the Guardians of the Galaxy version of Mobilize...

Not to mention the Puny God version of Savage Beatdown. So many great ones to choose from.

More News from GenCon

I confess that I was very disappointed initially by most of the news I heard coming from GenCon. The poorly done reprints of MOR cards. The botched rules sheet. The violation of the Living Card Game trademark. The duct tape on the GenCon banner to cover up said violation. Cue the circus music. It looked to me like the Vs. System revival was going to end before it really started.

Things started looking up a bit, however, when Upper Deck posted this announcement on their blog on Saturday morning: Upper Deck's blog post. Their post raised as many questions as it answered, but it at least made it sound like they wouldn't be deterred by not being able to use the Living Card Game moniker.

Then I watched this interview by Gamersledge.com with Jason Brenner of Upper Deck:

For the first time since news of their announcement came out, I actually began to feel somewhat optimistic that the game might return in a form that most of us would be happy with. I'm still plenty skeptical, to be sure--Upper Deck's track record with card games is not very good, to say the least--but the optimism-to-skepticism ratio is definitely trending higher now.

Family of Four

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming...

Waxing nostalgic about my old Skrulls deck got me to thinking about some of my other all-time favorites, and this deck was one of the first to spring to mind. I got a whole lot of mileage out of this deck in Modern Age tournaments in the months after Marvel Legends came out. A good thing, too, because it is one of the most expensive decks I ever built. The characters aren't too bad, but 26 of the 30 plot twists are rares. Ouch.

If you have the cards, though, it is a really fun deck to play, especially if you are the kind of person who enjoys brickwalling attacks as much as you do executing them. And I am. I played this deck the other night against my son, who was playing a Substibuse deck. On turn 4 he sent his guy into Mr. Fantastic with two or three big pumps, 17 ATK in all. That's pretty good for turn 4, except when my guy has 19 DEF. BWA HA HA HA HA!

Characters - 26
[2 - 8]
4x Luke Cage, Steel-Hard Skin
4x Human Torch, Matchstick
[3 - 6]
4x Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four
2x Thing, Idol O'Millions
[4 - 4]
4x Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker
[5 - 3]
2x Thing, Heavy Hitter
1x Invisible Woman, Sight Unseen
[6 - 2]
1x Human Torch, Flame On!
1x Dr. Strange, Ally of The Four
[7 - 2]
1x Thing, The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing
1x Invisible Woman, Shield of The Four
[8 - 1]
1x Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd

Plot Twists - 30
[2 - 4]
4x Stretch Out
[3 - 18]
4x Force Field Projection
4x Signal Flare
4x It's Clobberin' Time!
4x Mobilize
2x Reset
[4 - 8]
4x Family of Four
4x Savage Beatdown

Equipment - 4
[0 - 4]
4x Unstable Molecular Suit

The goal of this deck is to limit damage in the early and middle game with defensive tricks and then win on 7 or 8. Ideally you want odds, since that allows you to win on a turn 7 init or on 8 after stealing the init with Surfer, and it also means you will be defending with Mr. Fantastic on 4, allowing you to use his effect. I don't have a firm mulligan condition for this deck, but I think I would keep any hand that includes Luke Cage, a 3 drop, or Signal Flare.

The ideal play on turn 2 is Luke Cage, even though he's not part of the Family. This deck works best when you are generating card advantage with Luke and Mr. Fantastic. Torch is OK on 2, mainly because Sue can give him reinforcement, and having him makes it easier to get full value out of Family of Four. Be careful with Luke's effect. Wait until the end of the recruit to discard, to be sure you are going to be able to get his effect.

Turn 3 you want Invisible Woman if at all possible. One of the best cards in the deck is Force Field Projection, and it's a dead card if you don't have some version of her on the field. Let her sit in your hidden area giving other characters reinforcement, and presenting the threat of a Force Field Projection even if you don't actually have one. Thing is a decent alternative if you miss Sue. He has no effect, but he's a big body and he's part of the Family.

It is critical to hit Mr. Fantastic on turn 4. I would never make my 4 drop my mulligan condition, but it's tempting in this case. I don't even play an alternate 4 here because frankly if you miss him you'll lose. He is, quite simply, what makes this deck work. His 9 DEF presents a big problem for your opponent, especially if Sue is out. Especially on their turn 4 init (remember, you want odds), your opponent will have to pump to get through him, but excess pumps would be wasted, because he has reinforcement. Between Unstable Molecular Suit, Family of Four and Stretch Out, it is pretty easy to boost his DEF even further. And if they go all in on the attack to get through him, they risk having you fizzle the attack completely with Force Field Projection. "Sorry about the two Savage Beatdowns you just wasted." Not. Equally important is his activated effect. He can get you an extra card on turn 4/5, and if you are on odds and play Dr. Strange on 6, he can get you two more on turn 6, most likely. And because you get to see three cards and pick one, his effect makes the deck vastly more consistent in the mid to late game. If you need characters, grab a character or a tutor. If you are set on characters, grab the best plot twist you see. Even if all three cards are worthless, he is making your next draw better.

On turn 5 you want Invisible Woman if you missed her on turn 3 or somehow lost her. Her effect is good only if you have a 2 and/or 3 drop still around that you want to move out of harm's way. You should never use it on Mr. Fantastic. If you have your 3 drop Sue, obviously you want Thing. He's not as intimidating now as he was in MOR days, but he's still a big body who is part of the Family. He can likely take out the opposing 5 without stunning back, allowing Mr. Fantastic to do the same with the opposing 4. If you head into turn 6 with your 3-5 drops intact, it will be very hard for most decks to win, unless they were built to win late.

If you are defending on 6 and still have Mr. Fantastic, you want Dr. Strange. He allows you to get two activations out of Reed. If you don't have him, or you are on evens, then you probably want Torch. He has 1 more ATK, which isn't much, but he boosts the value of Family of Four. His effect is generally useful only if you are way ahead and using it allows you to finish off your opponent.

Turn 7 is usually Thing if you didn't play him on 5, and otherwise Invisible Woman. Thing's effect will rarely come into play. If you are playing against curve, the opposing 3 drop is probably long gone by 7. If you are playing against off-curve, the game usually ends by 5 or 6, one way or the other. Only against something like the second version of my Spidey Stall deck would you get much use out of his effect, and you probably aren't going to beat that deck anyway. Sue's effect seems decent if you are on evens, but I honestly can't remember ever using it, and I've played this deck many times.

Turn 8 is of course Silver Surfer, and he's the reason you want odds. You want to drag out the game until the later turns, then have consecutive inits on 7 and 8. Usually you will win on 7 anyway, but he's your insurance policy against other full curve decks that are really good defensively, like X-Mental.

The tutors are as good as it gets for a mono-team deck, Mobilize and Signal Flare. Signal Flare is better in the sense that you can use it on 3 even if you missed your 2 drop, while Mobilize is better in the sense that you can discard any card for its cost (e.g., an equipment card).

This is a defensive deck first and foremost, and it has plenty of defensive pumps and tricks up its sleeve. The best one is Force Field Projection, because it nukes an opponent's attack without allowing him to re-ready. As I said before, just the threat of this card being played will hamper your opponent's play, if he knows what he's up against. Reset is a good card as well. After they've thrown a couple of big pumps into an attack, play Reset to make them start over. Nevertheless, if there are other cards you want to add to the deck, this is a good place to cut. Stretch Out can be used only with Mr. Fantastic, but it is incredibly versatile, giving you +4 DEF off init and +4 ATK on. Similarly, Family of Four works on both offense and defense. On average it's a +3/+3 pump that can be used for either purpose.

On the other hand, this deck also has plenty of firepower. Savage Beatdown is better than average in this deck, since you spend more time than average playing with four resources. Clobberin' Time gives you less pop, but it normally allows you to attack without getting stunned back. That's hugely important here, because as with most aggro-control decks, this one wins by generating field advantage. Attacking without stunning back is a big part of the plan. As I said, Family of Four and Stretch Out do double duty, so they both add to your offensive arsenal. I tend to save them for defensive purposes, though, unless I really need to push through an attack.

Finally, there is Unstable Molecular Suit. Along with Reset, this is another place you can cut to make room for something else. Back in the day, when I was tinkering with this deck, these were the two slots I would experiment with. I think I spent more time with these two cards in the deck than without them, though, so that's how I have it built now. You could certainly make a case for replacing them with tech cards (Only Human, Omnipotence, Pathetic Attempt) or other defensive cards (Acrobatic Dodge, Against All Odds), however.

This is without question my favorite mono-team aggro-control curve deck ever. I guess that's not saying much, given that most similar decks are team-up decks (X-Mental, Crisis Doom, Checkmate/Whatever), and the other obvious candidate, Sentinel Curve, is not strictly mono-team. Then again, that's what makes this one so special. You normally have to team up to get this kind of balance between offensive and defensive prowess. If you want a mono-team deck that is really good at both, look no farther.

Vs. System Lives?

Well, sort of. In case you missed it, Upper Deck announced today at GenCon that they are reviving Vs. System in the form of a Living Card Game (LCG). Here's a link to a homemade video of the announcement.

I haven't seen many details yet, but the word from people at GenCon is that old CCG-era cards are not legal in the new LCG incarnation of Vs. I understand that they need to make money from this venture, and I guess some people will be OK with what they are doing, but as of now I am not one of them.

The cards in the pictures are all reprints of cards from MOR that we already had. But we can't use our old copies. Thanks so much, Upper Deck. From what I see so far, this is not what anyone except your stockholders was asking for. What we wanted was for you to clean up some of the messes you made previously (via bans and erratas of cards that were poorly thought out), introduce some exciting new cards that we didn't have already, and reestablish the game (hobby leagues, organized play in some form, etc). What you've done instead, apparently, is reprint and repackage a few of the old cards and then asked everyone who supported your game, even when you didn't support it yourself, to throw away all of their old cards and buy new ones. Gee, where do I sign up?

Of course, I am working with third and fourth hand information right now, and maybe I will like the official words better than the unofficial ones, but right now my take is that our favorite company has once again proven themselves to be utterly clueless. I hope I'm wrong.

Skrulls / Inhumans

I started playing Vs. when Infinite Crisis was the current set, so Heralds of Galactus was the first set I got to play with when it was brand new. I built pretty much everything you could build out of that set. Heralds/Inhumans stall, Syndicate rush, Kree press, Doomed Earth. The deck I think I ended up playing most out of that set, though, was Skrull/Inhumans. I loved that deck, and everyone I played against hated it, because it was so darned good.

It's not so great now, of course. There are plenty of newer and shinier decks that hit harder and faster than it ever did. But there was a time when it was one of the best Modern Age decks around, and it is still fun to play once in a while. If I were building it from scratch now, I would probably build it very differently, with different attack pumps and with Enemy as one of the tutors. As it is, I kind of prefer to keep this deck pretty close to how it was when I played it back in the day. When Vs. was alive and well, The Ben Seck was a cult hero, and I was learning to love the game.

Characters - 31
[1 - 4]
4x Lockjaw, Inhuman's Best Friend (Inhumans)
[2 - 8]
4x Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth (Inhumans, Fantastic Four)
4x Warskrull, Skrull Infiltrator (Skrull)
[3 - 8]
4x Captain America, Skrull Impostor (Skrull, Marvel Knights)
3x Wolverine, Skrunucklehead (Skrull, X-Men)
1x Tonaja, The Responsible One (Inhumans)
[4 - 5]
4x Ethan Edwards, Visitor from Another World (Skrull, Spider-Friends)
1x Nahrees, The Negative One (Inhumans)
[5 - 4]
2x Paibok, The Power Skrull (Skrull)
1x Karnak, The Shatterer (Inhumans)
1x Elektra, Pawn of the Gorgon - Hydra (Crime Lords, Skrull)
[6 - 2]
1x Super Skrull, Kl'rt (Skrull)
1x Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth (Inhumans)

Plot Twists - 20
[1 - 8]
4x Flying Kick
4x Interstellar Offensive
[2 - 12]
4x Act of Defiance, Team-Up
4x Extended Family, Team-Up
4x Skreeeeee!

Locations - 9
[2 - 9]
4x The Great Refuge (terraform)
3x Cosmic Tuning Fork
2x Tarnax IV

The basic idea for this deck is to get Franklin out on 2 and get him a cosmic counter. On 3 you want Captain America, who you want to move into the hidden area. You then team up Skrulls and Inhumans, and from that turn onward you can generally attack with everyone in your field from the hidden area without them getting stunned back. Because they are all hidden, you generally get to attack with everyone on every turn, preserving your entire field and obliterating theirs. Doesn't always work that way, but that's the idea. So the key pieces are Franklin, Cap and a team-up. The mulligan condition is Franklin or a way to get him (Lockjaw, Great Refuge plus another location), because Cap does you no good if you don't have Franklin.

The only play on turn 1 is Lockjaw. Use him to get Franklin if you don't have him yet. He can also be useful on later turns, once you've teamed up, so I generally save him if I already have Franklin. For example, suppose you got Franklin on 2 and Wolverine on 3, but you don't have Cap. On 4 you can play Lockjaw to search for Cap. Play Extended Family and discard to give Wolverine a counter, and then you essentially have a 1, 2, 3 and a 5.

On 2 your only play is Franklin. You want to recruit him and protect him. Never attack with him if there's any possibility of a stun back. You need him to get a cosmic on every turn so he can move other characters into the hidden area. Warskrull is technically a 2 drop but he's really a plot twist, or a location like X-Corp: Amsterdam. You stick him in your row and then use him to fetch Act of Defiance.

The ideal play on 3 is Cap, but it's not the end of the world if you miss him. You can play Wolverine instead, or Tonaja in a pinch. Wolverine is OK by himself on 3, but comes into his own once he gets a cosmic counter and falls under Cap's protection. After you team up Skrulls and Inhumans, Franklin, Cap, and Wolverine all have the three affiliations needed to attack without stunning back. And Wolverine with a cosmic has 10 ATK, making him a 5 drop for offensive purposes. Tonaja is better than nothing on 3, and you can search for her with Lockjaw or Great Refuge, but if you are playing her in lieu of Cap or Wolverine on 3, you probably won't be winning unless your opponent is also struggling.

The best play on 4 is Ethan Edwards, assuming that you already hit Franklin on 2 and Cap on 3. Once he's teamed up with Inhumans, he has 10 ATK and flight, and he gains 1 ATK for each additional affiliation. Not hard to get him to 12 ATK by playing additional team-ups to give him Fantastic Four and Marvel Knights as well. That would make him a 6 drop. Nahrees is to 4 drops as Tonaja is to 3 drops. A better play on 4 would be Lockjaw and Wolverine or Cap, whoever you didn't play on 3.

The best play on 5 is normally Paibok. He gives everyone in your field +2 ATK while in combat with other characters. If you have Paibok and a couple of copies of Act of Defiance in your row, your 1-3 drops will all have +4 ATK when in combat with larger opposing characters. Cap becomes a 9 when attacking a 4 drop or larger, while Wolverine becomes a 14. Karnak has a cool effect, but it won't help you on 5 unless you have an Extended Family you haven't flipped yet. If you do, though, it can easily be a -8 to -12 DEF for an opposing character. Elektra is one of the newer cards I've put in the deck. Not sure if she'll stick; might go back to a third copy of Paibok. She's a good play on 5 if you are on evens and planning on winning on 6, since she should be able to KO the opposing 5 drop.

This deck can win on 5 with good draws, but more often it will win on 6. I generally take evens with it, because if it has the juice to win on 5, it generally doesn't matter what init you are on, while if it goes to 6 you want to have the init. The exception would be against something like Syndicate Rush, which really, really wants to win on 5, and would love to swing to the face on that turn. Anyway, when you get to 6 you have two choices. Quicksilver is a dandy, because you can attack with him once and then attack with Franklin and use Quicksilver's Free ability to make him the attacker instead. Quicksilver with Paibok and a Flying Kick is an 8 drop who gets to attack twice. Super Skrull is a strong play if you are on odds. Instead of recruiting him and then moving him to the hidden area, leave him visible. He should be a 14/14, so he's going to soak up a lot of damage and stun back the attacker, plus you can activate him to do 6 in burn.

The key plot twists are the team-ups. Act of Defiance gives your smaller characters +1 ATK when swinging up the curve, and it can be searched for with Warskrull. Extended Family can be used to give cosmic counters to characters like Wolverine and Karnak on the turn when they come into play, or it can be used to restore counters that have been lost because your opponent was able to attack into the hidden area.

The other plot twists are attack pumps. Flying Kick is good for giving flight to allow surgical strikes, and it is also really good with Quicksilver. Interstellar Offensive is a poor man's Savage Beatdown in this deck, so long as you aren't swinging to the face. Skreeeeeee! is here mainly as an historical artifact. Back in this deck's heyday, you had to have it to win the mirror match.

The main location is Great Refuge, which aside from Lockjaw is the deck's only tutor. If you are building this deck for Golden Age play, I would replace Skreeeeeee! with Enemy to make the deck more consistent. There are a lot of times when you have Great Refuge or Lockjaw but they can't get you what you need because you aren't teamed up yet.

Cosmic Tuning Fork helps compensate somewhat for the tutoring limitations. It lets you see two extra cards per turn, hopefully allowing you to grab the next character that you need. Along with Elektra, Tarnax IV is the most recent addition to the deck. It's not nearly as good here as it is in my Hypnotic Charms deck, but it's a reusable pump that will generally yield +3 to +5 ATK for the cost of a discard. Basically it turns extra copies of characters from power-ups into attack pumps.

As I said, this deck isn't nearly as good now as it was back in its heyday, but it's still quite a bit better than your typical kitchen table deck, yet it is equally cheap to build. The only rares you really have to have are the four copies of Great Refuge. Karnak can be replaced by Elektra or Paibok; Super Skrull can be replaced by the MUN version or by a 6 drop Inhumans character; and Cosmic Tuning Fork and Tarnax IV are merely nice-to-haves. All the other cards are commons or uncommons. So especially if you are a player who came to the game late and are looking for a fun, reasonably competitive deck that's cheap to build, look no farther. There aren't many decks this good that are this cheap to build.

Bad Press

This is a deck I've been working on for a little while. I could probably make it more effective by making it less of a Crisis Doom-style deck and more of a Spidey Stall deck, but I'm stubborn enough to keep trying to make it work this way. And work it does. Sometimes.

Characters - 31

[1 - 4]
4x Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom (Doom)
[2 - 7]
4x Black Cat, Master Thief (Spider-Friends)
3x The Rose, Richard Fisk (Sinister Syndicate)
[3 - 8]
4x Sage, Xavier's Secret Weapon (X-Men)
4x Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival (Doom)
[4 - 1]
1x Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius (Doom)
[5 - 4]
1x Mr. Sinister, Visionary Geneticist
1x Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul (Injustice, Revenge)
1x Kristoff Von Doom, Pretender to the Throne (Doom)
1x Red Shift, Rift Walker (Heralds)
[6 - 3]
1x Human Torch, Herald
1x Dreadnought Tank, Arsenal of Doom (Doom)
1x Cable, Temporal Traveller (X-Men, X-Force)
[7 - 2]
1x Spider-Man, Stark's Protégé (Spider-Friends)
1x Koriand'r <> Starfire, X'Hal's Fury (Teen Titans)
[8 - 1]
1x The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good (Spider-Friends)
[9 - 1]
1x Galactus, Devourer of Worlds (Heralds)

Plot Twists - 28

[1 - 4]
4x Bad Press
[3 - 14]
4x Underground Movement, Team-Up
4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Mobilize
2x Death of the Dream
[4 - 7]
4x Mystical Paralysis
3x Reign of Terror
[5 - 2]
2x Omnipotence
[6 - 1]
1x Siphon Energy

Locations - 2

[3 - 2]
2x X-Corp: Amsterdam 

Obviously, this deck aims to win by wrecking your opponent's plans every way imaginable. No plot twists. No locations. No payment powers. No attack pumps. No defense pumps. No burn effects. When you draw the right cards for a given match-up, your opponent will be tempted to throw up his hands and walk away, because it will be very hard for him to do much of anything. On the other hand, when you draw poorly, this deck can lose very quickly. If you miss on turn 2 and have to play Dr. Doom on 3, for example, you probably aren't going to recover.

The basic plan is usually to play Black Cat on 2 and Sage on 3, ideally with at least one Bad Press in your row. If you do that, plot twists cost your opponent an extra 5 to play, and locations an extra 3. Then on turn 4, you want to play Doom 3 with a Boris to get a Mystical Paralysis and a Reign, so you can Reign their 3 drop and paralyze their 4 drop. On later turns you play whatever character counters their deck best. Along the way, your opponent will typically miss drops and suffer other mishaps as a result of being unable to play their plot twists and locations.

The best play on turn 2 is Black Cat, unless you are playing against a Checkmate deck or something like Migga City that relies on Lost City and Avalon. In those cases The Rose is the better play. It is tempting to make a 2 drop the mulligan condition, because most of my losses with this deck have been when I missed on 2 and didn't get the negation engine going early. On the other hand, I don't think I'd throw back a hand that had Sage in it, because missing on 3 is just as bad. I guess I would say to keep any hand with one or the other (or an Enemy).

Although there are two 3 drops, you want Sage on 3 if at all possible. What you want to have happen is to get Black Cat/Rose out on 2, and Sage and Underground Movement on 3. Once they are in combat, you can move them into the hidden area, out of harm's way. Odds is usually a better initiative for this deck, so you can declare an attack with Black Cat, move her to the hidden and evade, then attack with Sage and move her. Subsequent drops should remain visible.

Turn 4 is either 3 drop Doom with a Boris, or a 4 drop Doom. If you play the combination, recruit Boris first, then activate him when Doom's effect goes on the chain. That way you can get a Reign with Boris before placing Mystical/whatever on top of your deck. The 4 drop is the better play if you already have Reign or you don't have Boris. Play a Mystical in chain to his come into play effect and then turn it back down, or turn a used tutor back down.

Turn 5 is a toolbox. Lex destroys any deck that depends on payment powers, such as Checkmate decks or stall (see below). Mr. Sinister is good against various decks that depend on character effects that are used during combat. Red Shift is good against decks that rely on equipment or counters. Swing him into Radioactive Man, and when he comes back, no more counters. Kristoff continues the theme of negating plot twists. If you know you are playing against a deck that plays Sinister, you want odds, so you can recruit yours first. Since yours was recruited first, yours trumps theirs as long as both are upright.

Turn 6 brings more toolbox characters. Torch counters burn decks, among other things. The Tank is Reign of Terror on a stick, and hence is good against things like Faces and Brotherhood Reservist. Cable is used for flipping down spent copies of plot twists, notably Mystical Paralysis.

On turn 7, you can play Spidey if you need help slowing down your opponent. Against stall and other slow decks, Starfire is probably a better choice, since she will stun their field if she is upright at the start of recovery.

Turn 8 is Sentry. If you got this far, you are trying to make it to 9, and he will neuter the biggest opposing character to the point that they can do virtually no damage.

Galactus should normally win you the game on turn 9. If by chance you are playing against an opposing deck that also plays Galactus, and you are on odds, then you got all the remaining endurance when you recruited, only to have it all taken back. In that case, you had better hope that you played Red Shift on an earlier turn. If you did, then you will want to team attack with your Galactus into your opponent's. When everyone comes back, your Galactus's come into play effect will go on the chain first, followed by your opponent's, so yours will resolve last, allowing you to re-steal all the endurance.

Underground Movement is clearly an important key to the deck. It gives everyone a shared affiliation, including the unaffiliated characters, allowing everyone to be tutored by both Mobilize and Enemy. You can search for it with Doom 3 if need be, and when Sage is on the field you can also search for it with X-Corp: Amsterdam. As mentioned before, Underground Movement also allows you to move characters into the hidden area so they can't be attacked so easily. Normally you would do this only with the two 2 drops and with Sage.

Obviously, Bad Press is used to amplify the effects of Black Cat/Rose and Sage. It's not critical to hit one early if you have the two characters, but you will need it later to keep the negation engine going. Death of the Dream is used to knock out any ongoing plot twists or locations that your opponent was able to get into play before things got too costly for him. Omnipotence shuts down any key plot twists or payment powers that aren't negated any other way.

Mystical Paralysis and Reign of Terror serve their usual functions in a Doom deck, allowing you to jettison smaller threats and exhaust bigger ones. Against certain decks, such as Faces or an army deck, you may even want to replay a Doom or a Doom and a Boris on turn 5, just to be able to use these two cards on successive turns. Exhaust your 3 drop for Mystical, recruit the 4 drop and flip it back down, then recruit Boris and Reign someone. Siphon Energy can serve as your fifth copy of Mystical, Enemy, Mobilize, or Death of the Dream.

Last night I played this deck against my son, who had made the mistake of choosing our Psionic Stall deck. Quite the bad match-up. After an opening turn Boris, I played Rose on turn 2, which rendered Poison Ivy and all his locations useless. Then on 3 I played Sage who made his plot twists hard to play. On 4 I played the 4 drop Doom. Sadly I had lost Boris on the previous turn, so I had to settle for playing a single copy of Reign to bounce his Dr. Light. Meanwhile, Mystical Paralysis kept him from attacking with Rogue. On 5 I recruited Lex, who negated all of his exhaustion effects, although he was able to re-recruit Dr. Light and use him before Lex hit the field. A Bad Press revved up the negation engine a notch. By turn 6 I knew he had Mr. Sinister and was planning to play him, to shut down Lex during combat, but since it was my init I got my own copy first, and then it was scoopin' time, because my Sinister would trump his. No locations. No plot twists. No payment powers. No chance. My deck had worked like a champ.

This is not a top tier Golden Age deck, and I don't think a Spidey-based one would be either. If you don't get the right 2 and 3 drops on those turns, the deck simply doesn't work. That happens a little too often, and there's really nothing that can be done about it. But it is the kind of deck that can beat pretty much anything when it draws well, simply because it throws so many monkey wrenches into the works. It's fun to play, and it's also fun to tinker with the toolbox portions of the deck and with the late game. For example, for my next iteration of it I'm thinking of replacing Galactus with The Fallen One. Gotta love a deck that offers you a chance to play cards that have never seen the outside of a binder.