Saturday, October 25, 2014

Nasty Surprise


The coolest perk I got out of writing for tcgplayer.com back in the day was getting to write previews of cards in upcoming sets. I did quite a few of them, but my first and sentimental favorite was the 4 drop Silver Sable in MTU. I really liked that card, and it held a special place in my heart, but I could never assemble a deck with her in it that I was happy with. Mostly, she sat in my binder inspiring nostalgia.

That all changed when I started reading ukyo_rulz's blog and discovered his Hail HYDRA! deck. Suddenly, a 250 watt light came on. I played around with ukyo's concept for many weeks, but as I kept seasoning the deck to taste, I realized that I no longer wanted it to be an aggro-control deck in the Crisis Doom mold. I wanted more aggro. So I started looking for characters that were thematically similar to Sable, and I soon came up with a deck akin to my Muramasa Blade deck, but way more fun. I hope you like it.
Characters - 28 
[2 - 7]
4x Yelena Belova <> Black Widow, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. - HYDRA
3x Sin, Synthia Schmidt - RAID
[3 - 6]
4x Sabretooth, Reformed Killer
2x Albert Mailk <> Red Skull, Axis of Evil
[4 - 5]
4x Silver Sable, World’s Deadliest Mercenary
1x Kingpin, War Profiteer - HYDRA
[5 - 4]
4x Cyclops, Ultimates
[6 - 3]
2x Holocaust, Nemesis
1x Rogue, Powerhouse
[7 - 2]
2x Gorilla Grodd, Psionic Simian
[8 - 1]
1x Thanos, Alpha and Omega 
Plot Twists - 32 
[1 - 10]
4x Nasty Surprise
4x Flying Kick
2x Teamwork
[2 - 2]
2x Optic Blast
[3 - 12]
4x Mobilize
4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Superhuman Registration Act
[4 - 8]
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Trouble with Dinosaurs
The 2 drops are holdovers from my version of the Hail HYDRA! deck. They work pretty well here primarily because they are both hidden. Yelena of course fits perfectly with the deck's theme of bouncing or KO'ing opposing characters, although when the rest of the deck is working as designed, you don't need her effect. Sin's effect is really not needed here either, but she's a 3/2 concealed character with the Crime Lords affiliation, so she fits just fine. There is an all Crime Lords curve through 4 that you can play if you have Mobilizes and no team-up, but it will be hard to win with your alternates on 3 and 4.

The preferred 3 drop is Sabretooth, who works best if you have even initiatives and a hidden 2 drop. When attacked, he can designate two opposing characters who can't recover this turn. He should stun one of the two himself, and hopefully your 2 drop can stun the other during your attack step. If you curve out from 4 on, it will be almost impossible for your opponent to recover. The alternate 3 is Red Skull, who has the Crime Lords affiliation and can fetch you the team-up you have to have by turn 4 for the deck to work. You can still win if you have to play him, but it's much harder.

The centerpiece of the deck is the main 4 drop, Silver Sable. When I wrote my preview of her, I said that the two supporting cards she most needed to be effective were Flying Kick and Nasty Surprise. I'll take four of each, please. Once she has +3 ATK and flight, she can take down most 4's and 5's on init, and with +5 ATK while defending, she can do the same off init. So regardless of which init you get, you have a very good chance of bouncing the opposing 4 drop on turn 4. Even if you missed Sabretooth on 3, that probably means advantage you going into turn 5. The alternate 4 drop, Kingpin, isn't bad, but you don't want to use him unless you missed your team-up, and there are enough different ways to get it that that should rarely happen. But if it does, he has a decent effect on your off-inits.

Another cool card that I never found a use for until now is the 5 drop Cyclops from Marvel Ultimates. Boy, has he found a home. He is absolutely ideal for this deck. He isn't guaranteed to KO every character he stuns, but if you plan your attacks right he will generally get his man. And on your off inits, your opponent had better have a tiny guy sitting in the hidden area that he can exhaust after someone stuns, or he will have to forego one of his attacks.

If you are on evens, then turn 6 should be your kill turn. Rogue fits better with the theme of the deck, but if the game is ending on that turn, there's not much to be gained by her effect. It doesn't work at all off init, so she's not a great choice if you are on odds. So Holocaust is usually my preferred play. If you are attacking on 6, he can take out two characters all by himself. If you are defending, he has an effect, much like Cyclops's, that can create headaches for your opponent, who either has to take out Holocaust last, or attack him with his smallest character.

Turn 7 is probably your kill turn if you are on odds, unless you hit the jackpot with pumps on turn 5 while facing an obliterated board. Unlike the earlier drops, Grodd doesn't bounce or KO characters that he stuns. He steals them. As with Rogue, this is probably a moot point, since the game will likely end on this turn, but in the event that it doesn't, he will insure that you have board advantage going into the next turn.

This deck doesn't really need an 8 drop; it's built to win on 6 or 7. So feel free to play two different 7 drops and skip the 8. Starfire would be good if you wanted to tech against stall, for example. But the first change I made to the Hail HYDRA! deck was to plug in Thanos as the 8, and now I can't bear to part with him. If you do go to 8 and get to attack, though, he is a load, as he will obliterate half the opposition the first time he attacks, just as Thanos wiped out half the population of the universe in the Infinity Gauntlet saga.

Superhuman Registration Act works better for me than Hail HYDRA! did, for a couple of reasons. First, Hail HYDRA! requires you to reveal a Crime Lords character card from your hand in order to play it, and that was sometimes a problem. Second, being able to recruit a character card from on top of your deck slightly increases your chances of hitting your drops in the mid- to late-game. If I were going to play a different team-up, I'd actually be most tempted by Government Sponsored, which works well with Sabretooth, but then I'd want to play X-Factor characters on 2-4 instead of Crime Lords, and the other X-Factor characters wouldn't work nearly as well. I also really like Teamwork in this deck, since it doubles as a tutor for SRA and as protection for it. Earlier builds played Pathetic Attempt and Omnipotence, mainly to protect against resource row hate, but Teamwork addresses that concern pretty well. A wiser man than I would probably dump Thanos for another Teamwork.

Like the original Hail HYDRA! deck, this one is able to play both Mobilize and Enemy, and even search for unaffiliated characters with them, all because of the team-up, which gives all your characters a common affiliation. These are by far the two best tutors in the game, and very few decks are able to play both of them effectively. I think the only other deck where I have successfully used both is Crisis Doom, and even it doesn't play 4 of each.


Lots of attack pumps in this deck. Flying Kick is clearly the most important because it gives Sable and Cyclops flight, allowing for surgical strikes that will create board advantage. Savage works well here, and most of the time it is not an issue that you can't use it until 4. The same is true of Trouble with Dinosaurs, which is pretty much always a +4 to a +6. If you find yourself missing needed attack pumps on turn 3, you can go with something like Blinding Rage instead of Dinosaurs.

Then there is Nasty Surprise. Back when the game was alive, I never found any uses for this card. Now I love it. Because of the nasty effects of Sabretooth, Sable and Cyclops, your opponent has to attack very carefully. He can either swing up the curve with a little guy, knowing that he will lose him. Or he can try to make "safe" attacks swinging down the curve (e.g., attacking with his 5 drop into Sable). Nasty Surprise throws a giant monkey wrench into the safe attack plan, because Sable with +5 ATK can take down a lot of 6 drops, let alone 5 drops. Starting on turn 5, Optic Blast becomes copies 5-6 of Nasty Surprise or Savage, take your pick. As long as Cyclops is on the field, it becomes your best pump, although it can be negated by Pathetic Attempt, where the other ones cannot. Nevertheless, it fits nicely. Another card that used to sit idle in my binder but now has a chance to shine.

This deck has some bad match-ups. Sentinels is brutal, for example, largely because of Hounds, as is any other deck that might leave you with no characters heading into turn 4. If you can't recruit Sable on 4, you are toast. Our Weapon X deck is another nemesis, for the same reason. But this is also a nasty deck to play against, especially for curve decks, and when it works as designed it can be devastating. It has become one of my favorite decks, if only because it finally gives me a reason to play my beloved Silver Sable. Reason enough.

Monday, October 20, 2014

Golden Age Insanity


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

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

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

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

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

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

Update on 11/7/2014:

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

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

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

Update on 1/26/2015:

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

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

Sunday, October 19, 2014

Coolest Proxies Ever


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

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


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

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


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


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


The two Joker cards are especially awesome.


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


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


Lots of attack pumps.


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


 Some miscellaneous plot twists.


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


Some more plot twists, and a few locations.


The Slaughter Swamp is especially cool.


Also some more tutors.


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


A whole bunch of cool character cards.


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


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


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







Saturday, October 4, 2014

A Custom Spidey Stall Deck


Still doing a lot with custom cards lately. Right I am now working on coming up with custom versions of all the cards for a few of my decks. I've done a custom version of Crisis Doom that I am pretty happy with, and the other night I finished a custom version of my Spidey Stall deck (take 2). Here are some of my favorites for that one.

Some Spideys:




Some Spider-Friends:



Some other key characters:



Some tutors:


And some other pieces of the toolbox:




It's been a lot of fun to work on. Sadly, I like a lot of my other Spider-Man cards just as much, but this build of the deck doesn't play them.