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.