Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

Part 1

Even with this more stable core, there are still some questions left. The first is how we can make our off-team characters more reliable. There is, significantly, no Thunderbolts-specific search card that might help us find Katrina, but with four copies of a card that we expect to need on turn 5, we are left with a 66% chance of drawing her naturally. A single copy of a search card capable of finding her would increase that probability to 75%, and a second copy of that search card would take us up to 82%. Franklin is trickier, and will probably be one of our mulligan conditions. Assuming that we press Franklin out on turn 3 with a 2-drop, we have that same initial 66% chance to find him when we play no search cards capable of searching for Franklin, a 75% chance with one copy of a search card, and 82% with two copies of a search card.

The second question is whether there are any characters, rather than resources, that might help us protect Ronan the Accuser or keep his cosmic counter going. A few come to mind. The first is Crystal, Elementelle, whose ability to search out a Team-Up actually has two benefits. First, she can search for a copy of Extended Family to put Ronan’s cosmic counter back on. Second, she can search for a copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths for turn 7. The downside is that she’s an off-team 3-drop without press, which is quite a big deal. The second option is Commander, Military Leader of New Genesis, sadly another 4-drop (probably best press-chained out on turn 5 in place of Katrina) who can directly replace Ronan’s counter. Yet another option is Black Panther, King of Wakanda searching for Mother Box. Yet another option is Zatanna, Zatanna Zatara, a 5-drop who will replace Ronan’s counter when she comes into play. Zatanna is the most interesting option from my point of view because she fits better into our “Plan A” curve. Now we can recruit Ronan on turn 4, play a press chain into Katrina on turn 5, and replace Shatterax or Bron Char with Zatanna at the top of a second press chain on turn 6, allowing us to replace Ronan’s counter.

With these options in mind, let’s see if a look at possible resources points us in any particular direction. There are a few broad groups of resources that this deck will find interesting.

The first card to mention here is Crisis on Infinite Earths itself. The second Team-Up of interest is Extended Family, already mentioned above while discussing the possibility of running Crystal, Elementelle. With Nenora, Skrull Usurper in our deck, however, we have a fairly limited need for conventional Team-Ups, and Extended Family is the most attractive one if we can run it as a searchable one-of. We only need a single late-game copy of Crisis, but we also don’t want it to be replaced while the recruit effect of Ronan the Accuser, Supreme Public Accuser is on the chain. Thankfully, a solution to both quandaries presents itself in the form of Teamwork, which both searches for and protects Crisis and Extended Family. For the first draft, though, I’m going to leave Extended Family out. With Zatanna, Franklin, and our various defensive tricks, I want to see if we actually need more help with Ronan before devoting more card slots to the cause. Two copies of Teamwork and one copy of Crisis on Infinite Earths give us a good chance of being able to flip a protected Crisis on turn 7 in time for Ronan.

The first search card, Stargate, will remain from the original list. It provides card-efficient search for our Kree characters at the cost of returning Dr. Minerva or Kona Lor to our hand (whether this is much of a cost in a deck like this is debatable, of course). Two copies of Enemy of My Enemy (so few? heresy!) should be sufficient to give us the additional reliability we need to hit Franklin and Katrina when we need them.

Ah, defensive tricks. They are some of the most depressing cards in the game to anticipate, as anyone who’s attacked into a fully loaded GLEE board representing Cover Fire will know. It would almost be rude not to try to leave people with that same miserable feeling when attacking our shiny new deck. Sadly, in Modern Age, our options are quite limited. We thankfully have access to The Infamous Seven (the Kree team’s very own Men of Steel), but other than that one card, the Kree are more about vicious up-curve attacks and stunbacks rather than pure defense. There is another Modern Age–legal, generic, defensive plot twist that piques my interest, though it may seem like a more natural fit in a JSA deck—Deflection. Our deck isn’t really planning to do a whole lot when it doesn’t control the initiative; it wants to absorb damage, return press characters to its hand, and hopefully move into the next turn with a cosmic counter still on Ronan.

We obviously have access to the Kree press–themed tricks Live Kree . . . or Die! and The Lunatic Legion. Both are usable reliably on turns 5 and 6, as is the location Hala, the closest thing the Kree have to Avengers Mansion. The problem with Hala for me is that, taken together with Live Kree . . . or Die! and The Lunatic Legion, we risk having limited access to effective pumps before our press turns. Nenora helps, allowing us to play Live Kree . . . or Die! on turn 4 if we recruit her with Ronan and providing us a +1 ATK boost from Hala on any turn of the game once we’ve flipped it. The lower threshold cost and more focused effect of Live Kree . . . or Die! tips the scales in its favor for me.

The last pump is a slightly less obvious one, but it’s certainly substantial. Universal Weapon provides probably the best chance of keeping Ronan unstunned if we can’t move him to the hidden area or if we fear that he can be attacked in the hidden area—for example while playing against Checkmate decks representing access to Sewer System or Satellite HQ. Even if Ronan is hidden, such a substantial stat boost on your largest visible character (probably Katrina on turn 5) makes your job a lot easier when it comes to managing damage on your opponent’s initiative or making safe attacks on yours. In most aggressive press decks, this slot would probably be occupied by Nega-Bands, but we’re more concerned with maintaining our non-press characters than most Kree decks are likely to be.

By “press support,” I’m referring to the various cards that return your own characters to your hand. Remnant Fleet, Penal Colony, Space Gem, and Starforce Strike are the main choices. The first two choices are the most appealing because they provide a critical advantage over Space Gem and Starforce Strike: flexibility. Space Gem can be worked around or KO’d with something like Meltdown or Multiverse Power Battery, and Starforce Strike is useless on turns that you control the initiative. A single copy of Remnant Fleet, on the other hand, will go a long way toward “refueling” by pulling back a pair of stunned 2-drops on turn 4 or returning two characters after a turn 5 press chain. Penal Colony is a little less efficient, but until you’re allowed to run seven or eight copies of Remnant Fleet, it will just have to do. Improper Burial also made the original list, allowing Kree players to both build up and precision-manage their own boards while tearing chunks out of their opponents’. If we have space, it would be nice to include it here, since playing it when we have the initiative makes it that much easier to protect our board on the next turn when our opponent has the initiative.

Now that we’ve had a trawl through some options, let’s see what our list of resources is looking like:

That’s sixty cards, but there’s still a bit of a decision to make concerning the last resource slot. We only have room for a total of three copies of The Lunatic Legion, Deflection, or Improper Burial. The Lunatic Legion will be my first cut, since we aren’t as reliant on up-curve attacks from press characters in the endgame thanks to Ronan’s activated power. The choice between Deflection and Improper Burial is a tougher one, partly because both are improved by similar aspects of our deck—the off-curve, multi-character turns and the tendency to have extra small characters in the hidden area (either to exhaust to Deflection or Improper Burial). In the end, I’m going to choose Improper Burial because I see it achieving some of the same aims as Deflection (reducing our opponent’s ability to disrupt our board through attacks) while also disrupting our opponent by denying him or her access to the abilities of key characters.

After that last decision, here is the list I would suggest if you want to take Ronan and his merry band of Lunatics out for a spin in Modern Age:

As you know by now, vsdeckclinic@googlemail.com is the address to which you can send your ideas. If you fancy the idea of a pet deck of yours getting the Deck Clinic treatment, let me know! Until next time, good luck frustrating your opponents into premature hair loss and dementia with Ronan and his Merry Men!

Tom Reeve is a member of the Anglo-Canadian Alliance (like the Rebel Alliance, but with public transport instead of X-Wings) and would-be professional layabout from London, England. While his love of all things ninja has resulted in an arguably unhealthy affinity for the League of Assassins, that particular quirk turned into a healthy plus with the birth of the Silver Age deck Deep Green, with which teammate Ian Vincent took home the Pro Circuit San Francisco trophy to dear old Blighty.