After I finished my Awesome Mix deck, I was surprisingly motivated to do another set of custom cards. In no time at all, I had some ideas. I wanted to work with a team that had been given short shrift by UDE, and I wanted to play with a fun game mechanic that had been underused. I was always unhappy with how little attention had been given to the Flash--although I had heard the story that Speed Force was to have been featured in the next DC set after DCL if there had been one, and that the Energize mechanic used for X-Force was originally intended for Speed Force. I also remembered thinking many times that Press was a great mechanic that should have been featured more than the one time. Put them together and, presto! I had my idea.
If you are not familiar with Press, here's the way it works: each time you recruit a character with Press, your next character costs one less to recruit (minimum cost of 1). So on turn 3, you can recruit a 2 drop, then another 2 drop, which costs only 1. On turn 4, you can recruit a 2, another 2, then a 3. And so on. Obviously, the Press mechanic relies heavily on 2 drops, because you need to recruit two of them each turn from 3 on in order to maximize your recruits that turn. If you can only recruit a 2 and a 3 on turn 4, you might as well recruit a 4 and save the 2 and 3 for the next turn.
The mono-team Kree deck was a solid play in Modern Age when MHG was the current set, and Kree-Villains was a good deck in Silver Age for a while. Both decks, however, had the same basic problem, which was that they really couldn't win consistently before turn 6, and that's a big problem, especially when you are on odds. The only Kree-centric deck that really solves it is a deck known as Press Chess (Kree-Checkmate). I fooled around with it back in the day, but I never realized that the key to making the deck work was a normally mediocre card, Neutralization Protocol. ("Stun another character you control >>> Gain 1 resource point. Spend this resource point only to recruit a character card with the identity OMAC Robot. Use only once per turn and only during your recruit step.") Years later I learned of my folly while reading ukyo's write-up of the deck on his blog.
The basic idea behind Press Chess is that you get your Neutralization Protocol out on 4 and keep him there, then you do a normal Press chain on 5 where you go 2-2-3-4. But Neutralization Protocol lets you gain a resource point that you can use to recruit an OMAC Robot. So you stun a 2 (or maybe a 1 drop Jacob Lee), and now you can recruit a 5 drop in addition to the other four characters you just recruited. That's 16 resource points worth of characters on one turn (although you do lose someone, probably a 2 drop). If you are on evens, you can do 2-2-3-4-5-5, for a total of 21. Bottom line: the deck now has the firepower to win on a turn 5 initiative.
So, the first thing I did with my deck was to come up with a way to get a 2-2-3-4-5 Press chain on turn 5. If you've never played a Press deck before, this probably seems ridiculously broken. The thing you have to understand is that a) on turns 3 and 4, a Press deck is playing multiple smaller characters rather than one big one, and b) you normally have only one character left over from the previous turn, whom you usually bounce and re-recruit. Consequently, Press decks really don't gain board advantage until their kill turn, and fare poorly against faster decks that can win before they get there.
Anyway, back to getting the 5 drop out on turn 5. What I came up with was a plot twist called Cosmic Treadmill. To play it, you have to bounce a 2 drop back to your hand, then you gain a resource point you can use to recruit a character with the identity The Flash. To me this seemed fairly comparable to what Press Chess can do, and I added in the restriction that you could use the effect only once per game, whereas Press Chess can do it on both 5 and 6 if it wants.
The other thing I did with The Speed Force was to have it give the deck a way to break uniqueness. I really didn't want the deck to have to play any minor Speed Force characters. I wanted all the focus on Barry Allen, Wally West, Bart Allen, and Jay Garrick. But I also didn't want you to be able to play multiples of the same card. So it allows you to play both the 4 drop Barry and the 5 drop, but not two copies of the 2 drop, for example. There's plenty of precedence for this with Superman and Darkseid decks, most notably. If you think about it, it makes sense for these guys not to be unique, too, since they can travel through time and have encounters with earlier/later versions of themselves.
That's enough background, I think, so let's look at my current deck list and then get into the cards themselves.
Characters - 33
[1 - 6]
3x Wally West * Kid Flash, Truly Speedy Sidekick
3x Iris West Allen, Barry's Bride
[2 - 11]
4x Barry Allen * The Flash, Speed Force Conduit
4x Bart Allen * The Flash, Speed Force Scion
2x Wally West * The Flash, The Thinker
1x Jay Garrick * The Flash, One Last Time
[3 - 9]
3x Barry Allen * The Flash, A Study In Scarlet
3x Bart Allen * The Flash, Full Throttle
2x Wally West * The Flash, Against a Deadline
1x Jay Garrick * The Flash, True Original
[4 - 4]
2x Barry Allen * The Flash, Quick Change Artist
1x Bart Allen * The Flash, In Death's Shadow
1x Jay Garrick * The Flash, Relentless Crusader
[5 - 3]
2x Barry Allen * The Flash, Rebirth of a Legend
1x Wally West * The Flash, Sidekick No More
Plot Twists - 15
[2 - 2]
2x Fast Forward
[3 - 4]
4x Molecular Magic
0x Scarlet Speedster
[4 - 7]
4x Infinite Mass Punch
3x Race Against Time
0x Into The Speed Force
0x In Hot Pursuit
[5 - 2]
2x Cosmic Treadmill
Locations - 10
[2 - 8]
4x The Speed Force
4x Speed Vortex
[3 - 2]
2x Crimson Tornado
Equipment - 2
[0 - 2]
2x Costume Ring
The two 1 drops are both character tutors. Wally West lets you get any Flash character card you want, at the cost of a discard. Iris West Allen has eyes only for Barry.
As I hinted at earlier, the 2 drops are the key to any Press deck, so there are a lot of them. If you have a way to bounce him at the start of turn 3, then Bart is the best one to have on turn 2. When he leaves play, he gets you a location. If not, then Barry is the better play, because he helps generate card advantage. Wally is best used on turns 3 onward as your second 2 drop recruit. Same for Jay Garrick. Wally can make your opponent replace a resource, Jay just helps you press out on subsequent turns, because he can bounce himself back to your hand.
Brief digression: all of the Barry, Bart, and Wally cards have range, even though Upper Deck never gave them range. This is partly a concession to the needs of the deck, but I think it's justifiable in that all of the more recent versions of The Flash can generate cyclones and vortices that can take out an opponent without ever touching him. A bit of a reach, I suppose, but not a silly one.
There are also quite a few 3 drops, because they are almost as important as the 2 drops for making Press work, and it helps to draw one of them rather than having to search for one. Barry is not especially strong on turn 4, but he can be helpful on later initiatives. Bart is probably the best play until your kill turn. Wally is a stronger version of the 2 drop. Jay is like the 2 drop version, except that when he leaves play he can get you an equipment card.
The 4 drop Barry and Bart are both very strong plays on your kill turn. Bart is better on turn 5 than Barry if you are on evens. Jay is only useful on your initiative.
The 5 drop Barry is clearly the best play on your initiative, as he gives all adjacent characters a big boost. Wally is good on off-initiatives, and as the final recruit on a turn where Cosmic Treadmill is allowing you to go 2-2-3-4-5-5.
Along with the 2 drops, the locations are the keys to the deck. If you are searching for a location, and don't have it already, grab Speed Vortex. It is this deck's equivalent of Stargate. The usual play at the beginning of each recruit from 3 on is to bounce a 2 drop back to your hand, then search for a character that you need. If you don't have it, Crimson Tornado (Science Spire) is a decent substitute. If you have both in your row, even better. More about that combination later. The Speed Force is what gives this deck its firepower, when it is working as designed. If you can get Speed Vortex and 2-4 copies of The Speed Force in your row, the deck should really click. The Speed Force is also critical on later turns for breaking uniqueness. You can give your characters even more continuous boost if you can get Costume Ring out. I tend to put it on the 5 drop Barry.
None of the plot twists is a must-have in order to win, but they all help. Race Against Time is another effect that gives all your characters +1 ATK. The greater cost requirement is normally a non-issue, since most attacks are up the curve anyway. Infinite Mass Punch is generally a +3 to +6 attack pump for one character. If it's a +6, you are probably going to win without it. Molecular Magic allows a Flash character both to hit the hidden area and to attack as if he had flight. In Hot Pursuit would be a good card against curve decks with big bodies to be taken down, as it gives each attacker in a team attack against a character +3 ATK,
You can win on 5 without Cosmic Treadmill, but it sure makes things a lot easier. It's tempting to play three copies, but you can only play one per game. Fast Forward is a good substitute for Speed Vortex, or a complement to it. You don't need to bounce everyone every turn necessarily, but you definitely want to be able to do a full Press chain every time, and Fast Forward helps with that. The last two plot twists are ones I probably wouldn't play. Into The Speed Force is kind of like Switching Sides. Scarlet Speedster helps cycle through your deck.
This deck is quite good, and quite fun to play, but probably not as good as you think. Although the deck can win on a turn 5 initiative, it is still vulnerable to losing on a turn 5 off-initiative. Other than having lots of characters who can potentially reinforce, it has no defensive presence, and all the characters have minimal DEF. In almost all the test matches I've played with it, when it has lost, it has lost on 4 or 5. I have not tested much against stall decks because, frankly, those are probably auto-losses. Anything built to win late can probably survive this deck's 5/6 initiative, and it will run out of gas after that. The results of a recent test match will tell you much about this deck's strengths and weaknesses.
I was playing my Instant Replay deck. My son was playing this deck, so I could get his impressions of it. On my turn 5 initiative, I was way ahead and almost finished him off. I was attacking with my last ready character, and I had a whole bunch of pumps available. I could have gotten him down to 5, if not for Crimson Tornado. I had played 10 in pumps already, and I was afraid that if I played one more Savage or Trouble With Dinosaurs, he would bounce the defender and reset my attack. So I settled for a 40-15 lead. If he had not drawn Crimson Tornado, I might have won on 5. But he did.
In fact, on his turn 6, he had a row consisting of Crimson Tornado, Speed Vortex, and all four copies of The Speed Force. Because he had Crimson Tornado very early on, he had been bouncing characters back to his hand with it on each turn and cycling through his deck. His hand was loaded. He had almost everything you could have: 2x Infinite Mass Punch, 3x Molecular Magic, 1x Costume Ring, and 2x Race Against Time. He pressed out completely, 2-2-3-4-5-5, then recruited Iris for free by discarding. His first attack was with her. She had 8 ATK. Everyone got bigger from there. When the dust settled, I had gone from 40 to -65. 105 in damage on that one turn. I have since toned down a few of the cards, but even with those changes I would have been at -51.
I know that account sounds ridiculous, but that was virtually a best case scenario for this deck. I've never come to close to doing that in any of my other test matches, and I've lost quite a few of them to decks you wouldn't think of as overpowered, like Skrulls / Inhumans. This deck basically loses that match-up every time if it doesn't draw Molecular Magic, and one copy might not be enough.
In short, I think this is a really good, really fun deck. Very good against some decks; not nearly so good against others. It would be a tournament-worthy deck, but not necessarily one you could win with. Which is really the sweet spot for me with these custom decks I've been building (Star Wars, Watchmen, Guardians). I want to create decks that you would feel good about playing against almost anything, even if you knew you couldn't beat it. Completely overpowered decks like Bosom Buddies don't retain my interest, any more than woefully underpowered ones. This one seems about right to me.
You can download the cards from here. MPC-ready versions are here.
Brief digression: all of the Barry, Bart, and Wally cards have range, even though Upper Deck never gave them range. This is partly a concession to the needs of the deck, but I think it's justifiable in that all of the more recent versions of The Flash can generate cyclones and vortices that can take out an opponent without ever touching him. A bit of a reach, I suppose, but not a silly one.
There are also quite a few 3 drops, because they are almost as important as the 2 drops for making Press work, and it helps to draw one of them rather than having to search for one. Barry is not especially strong on turn 4, but he can be helpful on later initiatives. Bart is probably the best play until your kill turn. Wally is a stronger version of the 2 drop. Jay is like the 2 drop version, except that when he leaves play he can get you an equipment card.
The 4 drop Barry and Bart are both very strong plays on your kill turn. Bart is better on turn 5 than Barry if you are on evens. Jay is only useful on your initiative.
The 5 drop Barry is clearly the best play on your initiative, as he gives all adjacent characters a big boost. Wally is good on off-initiatives, and as the final recruit on a turn where Cosmic Treadmill is allowing you to go 2-2-3-4-5-5.
Along with the 2 drops, the locations are the keys to the deck. If you are searching for a location, and don't have it already, grab Speed Vortex. It is this deck's equivalent of Stargate. The usual play at the beginning of each recruit from 3 on is to bounce a 2 drop back to your hand, then search for a character that you need. If you don't have it, Crimson Tornado (Science Spire) is a decent substitute. If you have both in your row, even better. More about that combination later. The Speed Force is what gives this deck its firepower, when it is working as designed. If you can get Speed Vortex and 2-4 copies of The Speed Force in your row, the deck should really click. The Speed Force is also critical on later turns for breaking uniqueness. You can give your characters even more continuous boost if you can get Costume Ring out. I tend to put it on the 5 drop Barry.
None of the plot twists is a must-have in order to win, but they all help. Race Against Time is another effect that gives all your characters +1 ATK. The greater cost requirement is normally a non-issue, since most attacks are up the curve anyway. Infinite Mass Punch is generally a +3 to +6 attack pump for one character. If it's a +6, you are probably going to win without it. Molecular Magic allows a Flash character both to hit the hidden area and to attack as if he had flight. In Hot Pursuit would be a good card against curve decks with big bodies to be taken down, as it gives each attacker in a team attack against a character +3 ATK,
You can win on 5 without Cosmic Treadmill, but it sure makes things a lot easier. It's tempting to play three copies, but you can only play one per game. Fast Forward is a good substitute for Speed Vortex, or a complement to it. You don't need to bounce everyone every turn necessarily, but you definitely want to be able to do a full Press chain every time, and Fast Forward helps with that. The last two plot twists are ones I probably wouldn't play. Into The Speed Force is kind of like Switching Sides. Scarlet Speedster helps cycle through your deck.
This deck is quite good, and quite fun to play, but probably not as good as you think. Although the deck can win on a turn 5 initiative, it is still vulnerable to losing on a turn 5 off-initiative. Other than having lots of characters who can potentially reinforce, it has no defensive presence, and all the characters have minimal DEF. In almost all the test matches I've played with it, when it has lost, it has lost on 4 or 5. I have not tested much against stall decks because, frankly, those are probably auto-losses. Anything built to win late can probably survive this deck's 5/6 initiative, and it will run out of gas after that. The results of a recent test match will tell you much about this deck's strengths and weaknesses.
I was playing my Instant Replay deck. My son was playing this deck, so I could get his impressions of it. On my turn 5 initiative, I was way ahead and almost finished him off. I was attacking with my last ready character, and I had a whole bunch of pumps available. I could have gotten him down to 5, if not for Crimson Tornado. I had played 10 in pumps already, and I was afraid that if I played one more Savage or Trouble With Dinosaurs, he would bounce the defender and reset my attack. So I settled for a 40-15 lead. If he had not drawn Crimson Tornado, I might have won on 5. But he did.
In fact, on his turn 6, he had a row consisting of Crimson Tornado, Speed Vortex, and all four copies of The Speed Force. Because he had Crimson Tornado very early on, he had been bouncing characters back to his hand with it on each turn and cycling through his deck. His hand was loaded. He had almost everything you could have: 2x Infinite Mass Punch, 3x Molecular Magic, 1x Costume Ring, and 2x Race Against Time. He pressed out completely, 2-2-3-4-5-5, then recruited Iris for free by discarding. His first attack was with her. She had 8 ATK. Everyone got bigger from there. When the dust settled, I had gone from 40 to -65. 105 in damage on that one turn. I have since toned down a few of the cards, but even with those changes I would have been at -51.
I know that account sounds ridiculous, but that was virtually a best case scenario for this deck. I've never come to close to doing that in any of my other test matches, and I've lost quite a few of them to decks you wouldn't think of as overpowered, like Skrulls / Inhumans. This deck basically loses that match-up every time if it doesn't draw Molecular Magic, and one copy might not be enough.
In short, I think this is a really good, really fun deck. Very good against some decks; not nearly so good against others. It would be a tournament-worthy deck, but not necessarily one you could win with. Which is really the sweet spot for me with these custom decks I've been building (Star Wars, Watchmen, Guardians). I want to create decks that you would feel good about playing against almost anything, even if you knew you couldn't beat it. Completely overpowered decks like Bosom Buddies don't retain my interest, any more than woefully underpowered ones. This one seems about right to me.
You can download the cards from here. MPC-ready versions are here.
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