Bizarro World and The Pool of Insanity

One of my favorite decks of all time was the infamous Bizarro World deck that took the Vs. world by storm after DC Legends was released, when the text of Bizarro World was changed to read, "Characters you control named Bizarro have all character names and identities." With a Bizarro World on the field, the already powerful 4 drop Bizarro suddenly had access to a wide range of character-stamped effects: Mystical Paralysis, Force Field Projection, Juggernaut's Helmet, Berserker Rage, Gift Wrapped, and many, many others. For a brief period in late 2007 and early 2008, Bizarro World dominated the Silver Age metagame,

The deck was built on the Checkmate location engine, to guarantee that you could have Bizarro World out by turn 4. The real key to the deck, though, was a single card from MVL that until recently had been considered binder fodder. With all four members of the Fantastic Four on the field, Four Freedoms Plaza could be activated to fetch any card in your deck and put it into your hand. All on his own, Bizarro met that requirement. Fetch a card with FFP. Activate Black Thorn to ready it, and you could do it again. Activate Ahmed to replace it with another copy, and you could do it a third time. This card was the real key to the deck: you could play 1-2 copies of key plot twists and fetch whatever you needed for that turn. Once the engine was up and running, bad draws became non-issues, because you could get whatever you wanted whenever you wanted anyway. Everyone either loved this deck or despised it; no one was indifferent.

The madness peaked at the So Cal Mega-Weekend in February. If you played at that event, you were either playing Bizarro World or playing something you thought could beat it. Or you weren't trying. Along with my son and a friend of ours, we flew from Colorado to Los Angeles for the event, which was one of the last big tournaments before the game died. Lots of great players were there, and plenty of fun people I had been chatting with online for years. It was a wonderful weekend, which got even better when I made the top 8. Of course, my deck completely crapped out on me at the point. It had been incredibly consistent throughout the tournament, but suddenly I either couldn't draw Ahmed or couldn't meet his loyalty requirements. Crash and burn. Patrick Yapjoco won with a better build than mine, though, so I had no room to complain.

UDE had had a large contingent of people at the event, to witness first-hand what they had wrought. A couple of weeks later, they responded with rule 201.8b: "Some cards check if you control more than one named character. Characters with multiple names can satisfy only one of these checks." With that, Four Freedoms Plaza was no longer playable in Bizarro World decks, and without it the deck was a shadow of its former self. I never saw anyone play the deck after that.

Seven years later I found myself missing my old deck, and I decided to see if I could build something fun to play and reasonably competitive that didn't need Plaza. After a few unsatisfying false starts, I hit on an idea that I instantly loved, a Bizarro World cocktail with an Insanity-laced twist. Whereas the old version was a model of consistency, this one would be a model of serendipity. 48 cards would form the base deck. The remaining 12 would come from The Pool of Insanity, made up of 24 cards, all of them unique. Before each match you separate all the cards into two piles of 48 and 24. Shuffle the 24 cards face down, and pick 12. These 12 then get shuffled in with the base deck to form a regular 60 card deck, while the other 12 get set aside. The result is a crossbreed of the old Bizarro World deck and an Insanity deck, since you never know which 12 cards you are going to get. I have to say, it's unquestionably one of my better ideas.

Base Deck - 48 

Characters - 24

[1 - 6]
3x Connie Webb, Knight (Checkmate)
2x Alexander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger (Villains)
1x Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom (Doom)
[2 - 4]
4x Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne (Checkmate)
[3 - 4]
4x Ahmed Samsarra, White King (Checkmate)
[4 - 6]
4x Bizarro, ME AM BIZARRO #1 (Villains/Revenge Squad)
2x The Captain, Can't Remember His Real Name (Nextwave)
[5 - 2]
1x Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul (Injustice Gang, Revenge Squad)
1x Talia, Daughter of Madness (Villains/League)
[6 - 2]
1x Bizarro, Bizarro World's Finest (Revenge Squad)
1x Huntress, Reluctant Queen (Checkmate)

Plot Twists - 4

[3 - 4]
4x Enemy of My Enemy 

Locations - 17

[1 - 1]
1x Doomstadt, Castle Doom
[2 - 11]
3x Brother I Satellite
2x Bizarro World
2x Checkmate Safe House, Team-Up
1x 31st Century Metropolis, Team-Up
1x Dr. Fate's Tower
1x Checkmate Armory
1x Soul World
[3 - 4]
2x Brother Eye
1x Poseidonis
1x The Science Spire
[4 - 1]
1x The Great Arena 

Equipment - 3

[0 - 3]
1x Cloak of Nabu
1x Juggernaut's Helmet
1x Captain America's Shield, Unique * Badge of Courage 

Pool of Insanity - 24 

Plot Twists - 20

[1 - 1]
1x Warp Shards
[2 - 1]
1x Follow the Leader
[3 - 8]
1x Berserker Rage
1x Healing Factor
1x Bodyslide
1x Adamantium Claws
1x Force Field Projection
1x Iron Extraction
1x Gift Wrapped
1x X-Gene Decoded
[4 - 8]
1x Concussive Force
1x Hulk Smash
1x Fury of the Amazons
1x Unstoppable
1x Righteous Anger
1x You Dare? Epic
1x Mystical Paralysis
1x From the Darkness
[5 - 2]
1x Indestructible
1x Wave of Destruction 

Locations - 2

[3 - 1]
1x Neverland
[4 - 1]
1x Genosha 

Equipment - 2

[0 - 2]
1x Muramasa Blade
1x Hulkbuster Armor

Through turn 3, the deck plays like any other Checkmate-centric deck. Connie Webb is a great play on 1, Black Thorn on 2, and Ahmed on 3. If you already have Ahmed, Alexander Luthor is also a good play on 1. Boris should be saved for later unless you have Doomstadt.

Turn 4 is where things get interesting. On this turn you always want the 4 drop Bizarro if at all possible, since he allows you to flip Bizarro World and open Pandora's Box of Chocolates. The only other decent play is The Captain. He's OK, in that you can give him the name you need to play Mystical Paralysis, or whatever, but there's no point in naming him Bizarro until turn 5, because he's not Revenge Squad.

Quick digression before we continue. Once Bizarro is face up on the field along with Bizarro World, he has all names. If you later want to recruit a second card named Bizarro, you can. Say you want to recruit a second copy on turn 5. You place his recruit on the chain, and a check for uniqueness is performed. The first one has all names, while the second one has only the name Bizarro, so there is no match on names since an exact match is needed for the uniqueness rule to kick in. The second one comes into play alongside the first, and now he has all names as well. Because of this, you can play a Bizarro on every turn from 4 on if you want.

There are LOTS of options for turn 5. The standard play is a second copy of Bizarro. If necessary, you can play Alexander Luthor, use his effect to get Bizarro, and then recruit him. Or you can play Boris and The Captain, who is a decent play once you have Bizarro World flipped. Boris can get you a good plot twist to compensate for the underdrop. You can play Lex Luthor if you need to shut down troublesome opposing characters with activated powers. You can play Talia and then discard that Boris to bring him into play for free. Or you can play a 4 drop and use your fifth resource point on Checkmate Armory to fetch an equipment. The fact that the 4 drop Bizarro has 11 ATK on his own means that you can go in any number of directions without feeling the need to curve out, especially when he is so easily given a continuous ATK boost with Juggernaut's Helmet or Doomstadt. It's not hard at all to give him 19 ATK.

Turn 6 can be a 5 drop and a 1, of course, but the normal play is the 6 drop Bizarro. His effect can make attacking a bit tricky, even if you are on your preferred even initiatives, but all the Bizarros have flight, so it's usually not a problem to have your opponent choose who attacks next. You just need to be sure to activate Ahmed before your attack step. Huntress is also an option, but normally she should be treated as a plot twist. The deck runs out of gas fast after turn 6, but most matches will end by then, one way or another, so plan accordingly.

Apart from four copies of Enemy, the rest of the base deck is mainly locations. Checkmate Safe House and 31st Century Metropolis are your team-ups, with the latter being especially good when you have The Captain on the field. Brother I Satellite is the go-to tutor once you are teamed up. Brother Eye is a reusable attack pump, and Checkmate Armory is a great card to have on turn 5 when you've just recruited Bizarro or The Captain.

Soul World can be used to get back needed character cards. Dr. Fate's Tower can fetch a Cloak for Ahmed or transfer equipment from one Bizarro to another. The Science Spire can be used to save you from a king kill, or to let you dig for cards on the final turn of the game by bouncing Ahmed or a stunned character.

The others are all character-stamped effects. Doomstadt gives all your Bizarros +3 ATK. Poseidonis gives you a way to reuse cards from the KO pile. But the best of these locations is The Great Arena, as my son proved last night when he was playing this deck against me and my Instant Replay deck. On my turn 4 init, he had Bizarro with Cap's Shield, Black Thorn, and Great Arena. In the build phase, he activated Arena to exhaust my 4, then readied Bizarro with the Shield and Arena with Thorn. He then exhausted my 3 and nuked my init entirely. We both took some burn, but I was going to KO his Bizarro if I had gotten to attack, so the game took a huge swing at that point.

The other two cards in the base are Juggernaut's Helmet, which can turn Bizarro into a 16 ATK behemoth, and Captain America's Shield (the MEQ version). As illustrated above, this card is beastly in this deck. Off inits you can use it to ready Bizarro after exhausting him for Arena, and on-init you can use it to get two attacks out of him. If it wasn't unique, I'd probably play two copies of it in the base. It is that good.

As I indicated before, The Pool of Insanity is a collection of 24 one-of cards, of which you will play half of them in any one match. Some of these, like Berserker Rage, are so good you will be tempted to move them to the base, but I really think it adds to the fun of the deck to have 1/5 of the deck be selected randomly. Anyway, these cards fall into several groups.

Hulk Smash is probably the best of the attack pumps. +8 ATK is darned good, although Adamantium Claws is probably just as good if you have a way to attack twice with a single Bizarro. Fury of the Amazons gives +4/+4 for a single attack, which can help keep Bizarro from stunning back. Follow the Leader can also keep him upright. Berserker Rage and Righteous Anger both let Bizarro attack twice, while Unstoppable lets a single Bizarro take out two characters in one attack. Late in the game, Hulkbuster Armor is better than Juggernaut's Helmet, and Muramasa Blade can turn Bizarro into a 13 ATK monster who knocks out whoever he stuns.

Lots of good defensive cards. Indestructible keeps Bizarro from being stunned by an attacker. Force Field Projection negates an attack entirely. Mystical Paralysis and Gift Wrapped let you exhaust one specific character, while Concussive Force lets you exhaust two of your opponent's choosing. If you know what character your opponent is about to recruit, you can use Neverland to force him to enter play exhausted. From the Darkness negates an opponent's plot twist. In our match last night, it may have won my son the game. I was going to play two copies of Flying Kick on Grace, The Bouncer, so she could take out both 6 drop Bizarro and Lex, but one of them got negated, so I got only one attack out of her, and he got in an extra attack that turn.

Several other cards are good for creating or maintaining board advantage. Iron Extraction lets you KO someone that Bizarro stunned. Healing Factor lets you recover him and gain endurance. Bodyslide lets you move Bizarro out of the way on your opponent's init and then bring him back to attack during your attack step. Warp Shards can be used to either move a troublesome opposing character out of the way, or to effectively recover one of yours (on the following turn).

The remaining cards are kind of a hodge podge. Genosha is a great play on the final turn of the game, or on turn 7 generally, to dig for more useful cards. Wave of Destruction can obliterate an opponent's row. You Dare is good against weenie decks, but can also be used to ensure that larger attackers get stunned back by smaller defenders. And X-Gene Decoded is a wonderfully random effect that can ruin an opponent's future plans by getting rid of key plot twists.

If you are looking for a really fun deck that is reasonably competitive, look no farther. This deck is a blast to play, and it holds its own against any deck that isn't crazy fast or wildly broken. And there is lots of room for customization. Feel free to move cards in or out of the base deck as you see fit, and to replace cards in the Pool of Insanity that you don't like with others that you do. This version may not be as powerful or consistent as the original, but it's got everything that was good about that deck and then some.