Suicide Squad

While I was working on my Speed Force deck, I came up with the idea for this one. Or rather, I remembered it. Quite a while back, I was thinking of building a deck around five cards: Total Anarchy, Nasty Surprise, Fatality (DCR), Thanos (MTU), and Parallax (DCX). The basic idea was that everything would get KO'ed after getting stunned, and my deck would be prepared for that happening while my opponent's wasn't. I never built the deck, though, because it required too many moving pieces. But it later occurred to me that that would be a cool concept for a Suicide Squad deck, where every foray into combat was a suicide mission.

Once I began working on the deck and testing it out, though, I ended up backing away from the initial concept a bit. I still have the equivalents of four of those five cards in my deck, but the deck as a whole has shifted toward some more selectively applied KO effects. What I found during testing was that too many decks were able to use my own effects against me and achieve board advantage too easily. I was winning only with near-perfect draws. The current version is still not as competitive as my other custom card decks, but it is far more so now, and more fun to play as well.

Characters - 28

[2 - 7]
4x Captain Boomerang, Anger Management
3x Black Manta, Wet Work
0 Reverse-Flash * Danny West, Family Values
[3 - 6]
4x Harley Quinn, Hell Hath No Fury
2x King Shark, Squeeze Play
0x Joker's Daughter, Daddy Issues
[4 - 5]
3x Deadshot, Collateral Damage
1x Deadshot, Never Misses
1x Amanda Waller, Tough Choices
[5 - 4]
2x Captain Boomerang, Back from the Grave
1x Black Manta, No Mercy
1x Man-Bat Commandos, Army
[6 - 3]
2x Enchantress, Death Touch
1x King Shark, Taking a Bite Out of Crime
[7 - 2]
1x Deathstroke the Terminator, Bloody Executioner
1x Harley Quinn, Not a Team Player
[8 - 1]
1x Deadshot, Killer Swag

Plot Twists - 28

[1 - 7]
4x Boomerang
3x Eye for an Eye
0x Pure Insanity
[2 - 3]
3x Hammer Time
0x Chaos Theory
[3 - 18]
4x Suicide Mission
4x Task Force X
4x Mutual Assured Destruction
3x Covert Op
3x Body Armor
0x Empty the Clip
0x Doublecrossed

Locations - 4

[2 - 4]
4x Belle Reve Penitentiary

There are two main 2 drops, Captain Boomerang and Black Manta. Captain Boomerang has terrific synergy with two 1 cost plot twists, Boomerang and Eye for an Eye, especially the former. If you play either of these, targeting him, you get your plot twist back. Later in the game, with Boomerang in your KO'd pile, you can get it back by discarding a spare copy of him (or the 5 drop version). If you don't have either plot twist in hand, Black Manta is a good play, as you can use him to take out the opposing 2 drop. That play is in line with the original vision for the deck, which was to control the opponent's board until you are in position to take complete command of the game. The alternate 2 drop, Reverse-Flash, is not really worth playing. He's an artifact of the time before I came up with the Boomerang cards.

Harley Quinn is the main 3 drop, simply because there are so many good decks that are dependent on having an intact resource row. If you are playing against something that isn't, King Shark is a good choice, a bigger version of Black Manta. Like Reverse-Flash, Joker's Daughter is an artifact of an earlier time in the deck's development. She would fit nicely in an Insanity deck.

The Collateral Damage version of Deadshot is the main 4 drop, because he limits your opponent's ability to take board control via strategic attacks. If both players have a 3 and a 4, and the opponent lacks flight, he can't risk attacking down the curve into your 3 drop with his 4. This ability is game-changing in some cases, and fairly worthless in others. Which is why there are two alternate 4 drops. The other Deadshot is tech against all-hidden decks, which are a tough match-up for a deck like this. Amanda Waller is good in match-ups where you are trading blows with a curve deck, as you can sacrifice a smaller character you are going to lose anyway to make her permanently bigger.

The 5 drop Captain Boomerang is a bigger, better version of the 2 drop. He can turn a +5 ATK pump into a +10. The Black Manta is a sometimes useful remnant of the original version of the deck. Man-Bat Commandos is more tech against all-hidden decks, but he's also really good in cases where you can attack last with him without stunning back, and there's a plot twist for that.

The best 6 drop against curve decks is Enchantress. In most cases, she will either KO whoever she stuns, or she will force your opponent to forego an attack they would otherwise make. As with the Black Manta cards, the King Shark cards run with the everything-gets-KO'ed theme. They also have some wacky art that I perversely like.

Deathstroke is probably the best play on 7 in most cases, as he can take out two opposing characters himself. Harley is really good against decks that rely heavily on team-stamped effects, and she generally takes away reinforcement. If you are in a war of attrition and make it to turn 8, Deadshot can help you finish the job. If you managed to keep both your 6 and your 7 this long, he can give them +6 and +7 ATK, respectively.

Suicide Mission and Hammer Time are two versions of the same effect. They give a larger than normal ATK boost for their cost, but in exchange, your guy will most certainly get stunned back. Boomerang gives a pretty ho-hum +3 ATK, but the ability to get it back by discarding a dead copy of Captain Boomerang sweetens the deal. Covert Op is more tech against all-hidden decks. In case you couldn't tell, when I was play testing this deck early on, it was getting destroyed by decks like Skrull-Inhumans. Still a bad match-up, but now a winnable one. Empty the Clip is a basic +4 ATK pump, for builds that aren't concerned about hidden characters so much. Body Armor is really good if you have a Black Manta or a King Shark on the field, or a Man-Bat Commandos, but it's just generally good for building board advantage, 

Mutual Assured Destruction is intended to punish attacks down the curve by your opponent. If +3 ATK isn't enough, throw in an Eye for an Eye for good measure.

Pure Insanity is this deck's version of Total Anarchy, although I generally don't play it in the deck anymore. (Mutual Assured Destruction was its replacement.) I don't normally play with Chaos Theory, either, but it's an interesting card. You have to play it in the build phase and target an opposing character. If that character gets stunned while attacking this turn, it gets KO'ed. It got mixed results in testing. Doublecrossed is an OK effect, but doesn't have much synergy with the rest of the deck.

The only other cards are the two tutors, Task Force X and Belle Reve Penitentiary. There is nothing terribly special about either, but Task Force X does give a nice little bonus in cases where you discarded a Leader card as the cost for the effect.

This is probably the weakest of the custom decks that I have done. I really like the characters, and some of the art, but the deck is simply not as strong as the others. I normally aim for my decks to be competitive against the better Golden Age decks, but this one feels more like a good Modern Age deck. That's either a good thing or a bad thing, depending on your perspective, I suppose.

You can download the regular cards here. MPC-ready versions are here.