The risky strategies that are presented in these articles are the result of inspired brainstorming in a virtual vacuum. When I concoct my crazy card combinations, I do not consider the competition. If a card’s ability rings a bell in my head, I follow that sound through the hallways of my mind until another card to harmonize with it is divined. I look for creative sparks that can be turned into bolts of cardboard lightning that make the game more fun. I have a strictly casual agenda.

Mike Lawson is a Metagame.com reader who takes another stance. He has decided to give the Pro Circuit a try and has a strategy that he adopted from this saying by Sun Tzu: “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles.”

Mike decided to “deconstruct” the top competitive decks that he will face as he attempts to qualify for future Pro Circuit events. He began with the GLEE pump decks that are currently dominating the DC Modern environment. He thoroughly studied the Top 8 decklists from PC Indianapolis, the PC Indy $10K, and recent PCQ Top 8s. He compiled a list of the core cards that appeared the most often in that deck archetype and the deck’s next most common “tech” additions. His study looks like this:

GLEE +ATK Deconstruct:

Characters

1 The Shark
2 Arisia
4 G’Nort
1 Major Disaster
1 Tomar Tu
3 Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern
3 Olapet
1 Hector Hammond
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
1 Guy Gardner, Strong Arm of the Corps
1 Remoni-Notra ◊ Star Sapphire

Plot Twists
4 The Ring Has Chosen

Locations
2 Birthing Chamber
4 Willworld

Equipment
1 Light Armor
1 Chopping Block

Tech Cards

Characters
Henry King Jr. ◊ Brainwave
Rot Lop Fan
Salakk
Ch’P
Light Brigade
Abin Sur
Krona
Tomar Re
Roy Harper ◊ Speedy
Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar
Kreon
Dr. Polaris

Plot Twists
Lanterns in Love
Hard-Traveling Heroes
Helping Hand
No Man Escapes the Manhunters
Shock Troops
Trial by Sword
¡Ole!
Emerald Dawn
Men of Steel

Locations
Oa
Prison Planet

This kind of study is valuable in many ways. If consistency is your goal, this method identifies the safest card choices. If you are looking to develop a rogue deck that will surprise the favorites, this kind of list shows you which cards your underdog strategy is most likely to face. If you are simply looking for the best cards to practice against, Mike Lawson’s deconstruction process is ideal.

 Let’s follow through with some of the possibilities. Longshot goes first, since Patrick “Cronos1388” Howitt was working on the same idea in the VsRealms.com Deck Garage. His “KangShot” deck uses Kang’s Guard as Longshot’s second named target, and it is almost completely devoid of any cards other than characters. Kang’s many abilities are so good that he acts as a powerful array of blue and green cards all by himself. Patrick also discovered that Kang’s Guard has a great trick for opposing Flame Traps and Scarecrows—it can KO itself in response.

While sharing his strategy in the forums, Patrick realized that Longshot typically gave him as many as eighteen cards in hand by turn 5. That caused him to dig through the card lists to find ways to exploit this huge card advantage. Since Batman, The Dark Knight has some serious loyalty issues, Zodiak became the splashable character of choice. Not only can Zodiak team attack with Kang and his gang, but his boost ability allows him to swing for huge ATK numbers on turn 5 or later. The artwork on Zodiak’s card is simply fabulous, so it looks like Longshot might have a new best friend.

Zodiak appears in the Marvel Knights set. This set is red-hot right now because of the results of the Dragon Con Atlanta $10K. Not only did David Leader and David De Michele pilot similar Marvel Knights/Hounds of Ahab builds into the Top 8, but Jason Tassitano also shocked the world by playing his way into Day 2 with an Avalon Space Station/Lost City deck that contained no Brotherhood characters. This was his masterpiece:

Jason Tassitano
Top 8
Dragon Con Atlanta $10K
 
Characters
2 Kang, Immortus
2 Kang, Lord of Limbo
3 Kang, Lord Kang
3 Kang, Ultimate Kang
4 Kang, Master of Time
4 Kang, Kang Ransom
3 Kang, Kang Cobra
4 Kang, Kang Kong
3 Kang, Rama Tut
4 Dagger, Child of Light
3 Mikado and Mosha
 
Locations
2 Psychoville
4 Avalon Space Station
4 Lost City
 
Plot Twists
4 Psyche-Globe
4 Midnight Sons
4 Reconstruction Program
4 Wild Ride

Not since Wild Vomit made Top 8 in the first-ever California PCQ has a deck created such a stir. Combining Kang with the Dagger, Child of Light team-up engine allows an archetype unlike any that Vs. System has ever seen. As more risky players realize the potential team-stamped floodgates that Midnight Sons opens into their strategies, we may be on the verge of a deckbuilding revolution.

Many inspired brainstormers are already working on an overthrow of the status quo. Kang is on the tip of most of their tongues at the moment. Continuing with the responses to last week’s risky article, Charles “Objulen” (whom I incorrectly identified as Paul) is still dreaming of giant Macrobots. I could not have written these inspired brainstorms better:

A good team-up for the Macrobots idea would be Anti-Matter, since Shadow Creatures are nice little motes of 1-cost goodness that are just waiting to be used for activated abilities. The fact that they are hidden means that most decks have to swing at the Macrobots, which can be made gigantic. Since it can be your only visible character, it must be attacked. Then, throw in other cards that use a lot of weenie activations (such as Qward), and this can become a very nasty early game start that can then flower into other strategies as the game progresses. Let’s not forget the Framistat, which is free with any exhaust and can be quite helpful when you have only a few characters in the visible area. If you add the fact that you can mix Kang, Master of Time and Birthing Chamber, you can set up quite a significant card advantage.

Another idea for Macrobots is to splash them into an unaffiliated Mojo deck with a gang of Random Punks. A massive Mojo and a massive Macrobots would probably be very good together, especially when you can throw out Lady Shiva, The Destroyer on turn 5 with Mojoverse.

Joe “CaptainCuba” Sanchez is taking his electric ideas for Kang’s control potential to new extremes by combining him with Dr. Doom. He is aiming at the upcoming Orlando $10K with this truly sick turn progression:

Turn 1: Boris and Doomstadt
Turn 2: Puppet Master
Turn 3: Kang, Kang Kong
Turn 4: Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
Turn 5: Kang, The Conqueror using the Entangle combo; Entangle the opponent’s 4-drop, use Kang’s ability on the opponent’s 5-drop, and Puppet Master the opponent’s 3-drop.
Turn 6: Various combinations of stall tricks.
Turn 7: Ditto
Turn 8: Apocalypse
Turn 9: Onslaught

My teammates think straight Kang is better, but Doom brings incredible
control to the table. Boris + Kang Kong = brutal fetch ability. Imagine turn 7 . . . Mystical Paralysis with current Dr. Doom, replay Dr. Doom, flip Mystical Paralysis, play Boris, activate, fetch Betrayal. Play Kang, Kang Kong, fetch another Betrayal.

This risky stall strategy is obviously designed to bring Curve Sentinels to its knees. We witnessed the flashy beginnings of that movement this weekend when Kang broke through to the Top 8 in the first Golden Age event where he was legal. The rest of the Avengers set will surely have many more abilities with which to defeat the established Golden Age favorite in the weeks to come.

I therefore leave it to you, risky readers. What other inspired brainstorms will form in your virtual vacuum and shake the Vs. System metagame to its core? Get as creative as you can and call down the cardboard lightning.

Rian Fike is also known as “stubarnes” in the VsRealms community. If you have questions, comments, or a risky strategy that you would like him to cover in a future article, drop him a line at rianfike@hattch.com