Rock of Eternity

I started playing the game when Infinite Crisis was the current set, so I cut my teeth on the decks that came out of it. I dabbled with Shadowpact and straight JSA, played a lot with Villains United, but the decks that I kept gravitating toward all had one common denominator. Ahmed Samsarra, I absolutely hate missing drops on later turns, so I consequently loved the consistency of decks that never missed a drop once they hit their preferred 3 drop.

Over the years, I experimented with every team-up I could think of, for modern, silver, and golden. Villains, League of Assassins, Brotherhood, Kree, Inhumans, Marvel Knights. But the deck that I think is most fun to play is the Checkmate-JSA deck built around Rock of Eternity. Sadly, for me, my son loved it even more than I did, and promptly laid permanent claim to it. Consequently, I've never gotten to play it as much as I would have liked, and therefore am poorly equipped to write a definitive blog post about the deck. But I promised my son months ago that I would write it up for him, so I'm going to give this my best shot. Hopefully I can do the deck some justice.

Characters - 28 

[1 - 8]
4x Atom Smasher, Al Rothstein (JSA)
2x Jakeem Williams, JJ Thunder (JSA)
2x Connie Webb, Knight (Checkmate)
[2 - 4]
2x Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne (Checkmate)
2x Jack Knight <> Starman, Knight Past (JSA)
[3 - 5]
4x Ahmed Samsarra, White King (Checkmate)
1x Christopher Smith <> Peacemaker, Obsessed Outlaw (Checkmate)
[4 - 4]
2x Charles McNider <> Dr. Mid-Nite, Golden Age Academic (JSA)
1x Adrian Chase <> Vigilante, Street Justice (Checkmate)
1x Alan Scott, Golden Age Engineer (JSA)
[5 - 3]
1x Power Girl, Child of Crisis (JSA)
1x Annihilation Protocol <> OMAC Robot, Army (Checkmate)
1x Thunderbolt, Yz (JSA)
[6 - 1]
1x Huntress, Reluctant Queen (Checkmate, Gotham Knights)
[7 - 3]
3x The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero (JSA) 

Plot Twists - 17 

[1 - 3]
3x Threat Neutralized
[3 - 9]
4x Advance Warning
3x Revitalize
2x Transmutation, Magic
[4 - 4]
4x Knightmare Scenario
[5 - 1]
1x Check and Mate! 

Locations - 15 

[2 - 11]
4x Brother I Satellite
4x Checkmate Safe House
1x JSA Headquarters
1x Dr. Fate’s Tower
1x Slaughter Swamp
[3 - 2]
2x Brother Eye
[4 - 2]
2x The Rock of Eternity 

Equipment - 1 

[0 - 1]
1x Cloak of Nabu

In most Checkmate-based decks, you want Connie Webb on 1, and that's a decent play here as well. By far the best play, though, is Atom Smasher. This deck works significantly better if you get him on 1 and start making him bigger by exhausting him to add counters. If you do get him on 1, don't attack. His only job until you get Rock of Eternity out is to get bigger. Connie is a good play if you don't yet have Ahmed or another way to get him. And Jakeem Williams is a good play if you have Ahmed and want to grab a JSA 4 drop, although his best uses are often on turns 5 and 6.

There's really no strongly preferred play on 2. Black Thorn is good to have later on, to get two activations out of Checkmate Safe House. Starman is good for getting card advantage, although you have to be careful with him. Or you can play a pair of 1 drops, if need be. 

This deck plays an alternate 3 drop in Peacemaker, because that's better than missing a drop, but the deck really only works if you have Ahmed. As with all Checkmate decks, he's the key to everything. He fetches the team-up, the main tutor, the main attack pump, and of course the Rock of Eternity. If you miss him, you will miss one or more of them, and as a result you will almost certainly lose.

Turn 4 is when things start getting interesting. Adrian Chase is your Checkmate option. He's good if you aren't teamed up (which is bad). He also has a decent effect, since he can guarantee that whoever attacks Atom Smasher is going to get stunned back. Alan Scott is often the best play in hindsight, but he generally doesn't become valuable until a later turn, when he can help you recover a bigger character who got stunned while defending, allowing you to swing back with both of them after Rock readies them. More on him in a bit. McNider is normally the preferred play, I think. He allows you to move characters in and out of the hidden area for maximum advantage. Again, more later.

Despite the character counts, the usual on-curve play on 5 is Annihilation Protocol. His KO effect can wreak havoc with your opponent's field, and the cost of exhausting someone is less onerous here than in most decks because of Rock, at least on off-inits. Thunderbolt is a good play if you have Jakeem in hand, and really, really need a card like Transmutation or Advance Warning to keep you in the game. The strongest 5 drop is Power Girl, but she can be played on either 5 or 6, and if you are on your preferred even initiatives, she's better as your play on 6. If you played Alan Scott or McNider on 4, playing the other one here is a fine play, especially when on evens. If you have a Connie or Jakeem in hand, you can use one of them to search for your 4 drop,

Huntress is the only 6 drop, but she's really a plot twist. The usual play on a turn 6 initiative is Power Girl, and again, you can use Jakeem to get her. So how does that work, purposely underdropping on both 5 and 6? Glad you asked.

Here's a nearly ideal game for this deck. Turn 1, Atom Smasher. Activate for a counter and 2/2. Turn 2, Black Thorn. Activate Atom for 3/3. Turn 3, Ahmed. Use him to get a Checkmate Safe House, Rock of Eternity, Brother Eye, Brother I Satellite, or Dr. Fate's Tower. If you are facing a deck that can stun Ahmed out of combat, you need the Tower so you can get a Cloak. Activate Atom for 4/4. Turn 4, McNider. Activate Atom for 5/5. Activate Ahmed to get a combo piece. Exhaust McNider and Thorn somehow (maybe to return a Phantom Stranger from the KO'd pile?). Then ready everyone with Rock and attack. Atom Smasher has 5 ATK now, so he can take down a 3 or a 4, especially with a Brother Eye assist, or he can team with Thorn on their 4. Attack down the curve with Ahmed and McNider. Ideally you will wipe their field and preserve yours. Turn 5, Alan Scott. You can leave him visible or move him to the hidden area with McNider. Activate Atom for 6/6, and Ahmed for a combo piece. Attack strategically after your opponent has swung, to preserve your field, and maybe ding his.

On your turn 6 initiative, activate Atom to make him a 7/7 (i.e, a 4 drop) and Ahmed for another location. Recruit Power Girl. She comes in exhausted, but Rock will ready her. Swing her into the opposing 6 drop with a Brother Eye. When she stuns, recover and ready her with Alan Scott. Swing her down the curve into their 4. She gives other characters a +2 boost while she's exhausted, so use that to allow one or more characters to take down their 5. Then KO a resource to ready her, and swing to the face with everyone who is ready to finish the game.

It won't always go like that, and there are certainly lots of other ways to skin the cat with this deck, but that should give you the general idea. Just keep in mind that the scenario above was an example of one way you can go, and not a blueprint. Depending on what your opponent has and does, and what initiative you are on, you may want to play things very differently.

If you make it to turn 7 and haven't KO'd a resource on 6, you can play Phantom Stranger, or an Annihilation Protocol with boost, but the longer things go, the harder it is for you to win. This deck is designed to win on 5 or 6 using multiple attacks with Power Girl, and isn't really equipped to win later unless you are way ahead and just need to mop up.

Most of the plot twists are defensive in nature. Advance Warning is a +4 DEF for an exhausted JSA defender. Knightmare Scenario is a +1/+1 at minimum, but more often a +2/+2 or +3/+3. Threat Neutralized can give someone a +1/+1  for the turn, but is primarily here to keep you from getting kinged if they KO Ahmed. Together with Checkmate Safe House, these cards give the deck quite a bit of defensive prowess, and when it wins, it's normally due in part to having brickwalled one or more attacks. If you have a Thorn and 2 copies of Checkmate Safe House, everyone in the back row has +3 DEF. Sometimes your opponent will have to play an attack pump to get through your 1 drop with his 4 drop.

Transmutation is an important tech card, not only for getting rid of troublemakers like Lost City or New Brotherhood, but more importantly for taking out an opponent's Omnipotence. If they are able to shut down Ahmed, or prevent you from playing Rock of Eternity on 5, you are in trouble. Revitalize gives you another way, besides Alan Scott, to recover someone who has been stunned while defending, and also exhausting two characters so they can be readied by Rock of Eternity. Check and Mate! is an effect that's hard to pull off, since there is only a single copy, but it can be a game winner. Picture a turn 6 init where you already have Power Girl or a Brother I Satellite. You play Check and Mate! during the draw phase, and now characters cost 1 more to play this turn. That's perfect for you, because you were going to recruit a 5 anyway, but your opponent may not have an alternate 5, and if they don't, who knows what they will be able to recruit this turn? Maybe an alternate 4? A pair of 2 drops? Anyway, it's a terrific play on 6 or 7, especially if you are on odds, and not a terrible play on a turn 5 off-int if you are planning to underdrop and want to wreck their plans for the turn. The guy playing Faces of Evil who was planning to drop 4 weenies this turn will hate you forever. Nice.

One plot twist that is perfect for this deck, but not here, is Enemy of My Enemy. If you can find room for it, by all means play it. We can't, and we are at 61 cards as it is, which is a hard limit for me. There are enough tutors here with Connie and Jakeem and Ahmed and Brother I Satellite that you will rarely miss not having it, but it would sure be nice to have sometimes.

Lots of locations, obviously. The main Checkmate ones are Checkmate Safe House, which is your team-up and defensive boost. Brother I Satellite, your one non-character tutor. And Brother Eye, your main attack pump. Dr. Fate's Tower is for fetching the Cloak for Ahmed. Slaughter Swamp is for retrieving characters that you had to discard earlier but need now. Swamp is a recent addition to the deck. Or maybe this is a return engagement? I can't remember. For a while we played Swiss Headquarters, which was a nice-to-have card at times. Play Annihilation visible on 5, and exhaust Black Thorn to recover him later after he has been stunned while defending, so you can recover both him and Atom Smasher. But Slaughter Swamp seems more generally useful, so in it goes.

The other two locations are JSA's contributions. JSA Headquarters is a card that sometimes you need, and sometimes you don't. Its effect is decent, but more importantly it lets you exhaust a character like Annihilation Protocol that can't exhaust itself. This is important, because the one downside to Rock of Eternity is that, while it readies exhausted JSA characters once your attack step starts, it also exhausts any that are still ready. So for those characters without activated effects, you have to have a way to exhaust them before your attack step. Sometimes JSA HQ is the answer. Sometimes it is Phantom Stranger. Sometimes, on off-inits, it is for Revitalize or Annihilation Protocol's KO effect.

This deck is not terribly hard to play, but it is really hard to master. Besides figuring out how to win when you almost never attack before turn 4, and figuring out how to stay alive until your kill turn, and how to maximize damage on that all-important kill turn, you have to figure out when and how to exhaust your characters for maximum benefit. These are the challenges that make this deck so fun to play, but they can also give you a headache. This deck is not a good choice if you are the kind of player who wants to go all-aggro, all the time, or if you are simply not in the mood to do a whole lot of thinking while you play. It's not as taxing as Shadowpact, but it's up there.

In short, it's a thinking man's deck, like most Checkmate decks, but even more so. If you like a good challenge, or you are a Checkmate lover who hasn't tried this particular flavor yet, I can highly recommend it. I think you'll find it especially tasty.