“I had been the author of unalterable evils; and I live in daily fear, lest the monster whom I had created should perpetrate some new wickedness.”

—Victor Frankenstein

Mobilize is my monster. I have toiled long and hard over the prospects for and applications of this marvelous generic search card from the impressive Legion of Super Heroes expansion. This week, I had intended to examine further the possibilities of its use and explore a couple of old and new deck ideas, but to be honest, the beast needs to be slain. Well, perhaps not slain, but it could certainly do with a kick in the rear. Don’t get me wrong—I am not claiming responsibility for the furor surrounding the card, but I think it would do me good to not add to the situation.

The hullabaloo surrounding the card has grown to quite amazing proportions, probably because it is (in my humble and possibly ill-informed opinion) amazing. The card has an awful lot of potential and many argue over its true worth; resale values are through the roof and single copies of the card are posting the sort of numbers normally associated with a play set of Savage Beatdowns. I have been particularly keen to tout it as one of the most important cards in Vs. System, but now I think we all need to step back, take a deep breath, and relax. I will return to Mobilize in the future, but for now I don’t want to fuel the fire.

Today, I would like to talk about an aspect of the recent Golden Age Pro Circuit that I found completely staggering. I could not believe how little resource hate there was at this event. (My information may not be 100% accurate because I was not there myself, so I am working from the Metagame.com coverage and a few conversations with friends who attended the event.) I thought it was common knowledge that there would be many decks reliant on their resource row.

Adam Prosak successfully piloted his Devil’s Due deck to the top honor (congratulations, Adam!) and people knew about the deck in advance.

I had heard about the Crisis of Infinite Dooms deck and I was 5,456 miles away.

The Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage deck was public knowledge for weeks before the event, and while it might not have featured in the Top 8 it was certainly a popular choice among many competitors.

All of these decks have essential elements fixed in their resource rows and I would have said that this alone would have constituted reasonable cause to tech out your deck with resource hate. Even if the specifics of these decks were not known, there have been glaring neon signs flashing furiously for weeks citing the importance of KO’d pile recursion; three of the most common forms of this are Slaughter Swamp, Avalon Space Station, and Soul World. Of course, I’m just a scrubby player whose wife won’t let him anywhere near a plane heading to a PC location, so I might be extremely wide of the mark.

Yes, I don’t mind admitting it—my wife is king in our house. I have come through some very nasty scrapes over the years. I have had to defend myself against knife-wielding muggers, been caught up in full-scale football hooliganism, fought guys twice my size in tournaments . . . but argue with a 5’1” redhead with the temper of mistreated Pit Bull? No thanks.

Anyway, please feel free to correct me if I’m wrong, but it seems that resource hate would have been a major bonus. In the buildup to PC: LA, I became more and more convinced that a solid arsenal of resource hate would give any player a reasonable chance of hitting Day 2. With this in mind I began working on a deck designed specifically to exploit it, just in case any of my teammates had a last-minute change of heart about attending the event. I decided to employ a team-up between Kree and Darkseid’s Elite. I know, it doesn’t have tier 1 stamped all over it, but please—give it a chance.

Why Kree and Darkseid? Well, there were three cards that really screamed “Synergy!” at me.

The first was Improper Burial. Anyone fancy a pint of Finishing Move with a battery acid chaser? This card is really, really good. Character removal has always been a good thing, but with so much KO’d pile recursion, having a character sent Straight to the Grave isn’t quite as bad as it used to be. We want our opponent’s characters off of the board, but we don’t really want to help our opponent by sending them to his or her “second hand.” There are cards like Removed from Continuity that would do the job, but forcing your opponent to place potentially unusable cards in his or her resource row can only increase the chances of your primary strategy succeeding.

The other Kree card that spoke to me was Ronan the Accuser, Starforce. He could really help me lock down my opponent’s options and further increase the effectiveness of the deck. He has good numbers for a 4-drop, although I would have preferred the larger stat to be his DEF. Still, I don’t make the cards, I only flip them. I noted the obvious weakness—the potential loss of the cosmic counter. This was something I would clearly need to address when I fleshed out the deck.

The third and final card that convinced me to build the deck was Kanto. This largely forgotten card from the Superman, Man of Steel expansion would clearly be incredible if we could get everything set up in his favor. Just in case you don’t remember the card (which would be forgivable) and you’re too lazy to click the link, here are his details:

Kanto, Darkseid
Team: Darkseid’s Elite

Cost: 6

Ranged
12 ATK / 11 DEF

Okay, so clearly there is nothing too exciting about those stats—in fact, one could go so far as to say that they are poor. But as Peter Parker would probably not say, “With little power comes a wicked-cool ability.”

Pay 3 endurance >>> KO target character if its cost is less than or equal to the number of face-down resources its controller controls. Use this power only once per turn and only during your attack step.

Wow. Think about it: pay 3 to potentially KO your opponent’s 6-drop. That’s a mere 3 endurance. It doesn’t say, “KO target stunned character.” It doesn’t even say, “Pay 3, activate.” You simply pay 3 endurance to kill your opponent’s highest drop, and you still get to attack with Kanto.

Of course, if your opponent is playing an off-curve deck you won’t have to try as hard to get the most out of his ability, but against a curve deck we want to ensure that our opponent has at least four face-down resources.

I began to examine the options for cards that would facilitate the Kanto killing spree. At this time, I had little knowledge of metagame specifics. I was quite convinced that the majority of the field would be split between rush or short-curve decks and some combo nastiness. High Voltage seemed to be less of a threat than in previous events, so I began planning around that. I had two objectives:

1. Ensure that the opponent has a good number of face-down resources; and

2. Ensure that we can actually reach turn 6.

The early builds favored a Kree-heavy start. Lieutenant Kona Lor or Dr. Minerva would follow the turn 1 play of Sintariis. Commander Dylon Cir was my 3-drop, followed by Ronan on turn 4. As I began to tackle the problem of protecting Ronan’s cosmic power, it became clear that defensive pumps were not going to cut it. I tried accepting the inevitable and planning on Ronan being a one- to two-turn trick, but the results were not great. Not awful, but certainly not great. At the same time, we started to get indications that there might be more curve and stall decks than I previously thought. This once again highlighted the need to have Ronan’s ability working for as long as possible. I was mulling over the problem down at my local store when someone (sorry, I don’t remember who) suggested using Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth. I must admit that I had never considered the card, and after just a few test games it was clear that shipping Ronan into the hidden area was the best way to go about things. It doesn’t guarantee his survival, but it certainly makes it more likely. The deck began to take shape and started showing some very positive results.

Since Legion of Super Heroes has been revealed to us, I have begun to look at any potential inclusions from the new wave of Darkseid characters. Here is my current list for your consideration:

Darkseid of the Kree

Characters

4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend

4 Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter-Earth

4 Commander Dylon Cir

1 Crystal, Elementelle

1 Lashina

4 Ronan the Accuser, Starforce

1 Virman Vundabar

1 Stompa

1 Glorious Godfrey

1 Bron Char

2 Dark Superboy, Mockery

4 Kanto

2 Ronan the Accuser, Supreme Public Accuser

1 Darkseid, Lord of Apokolips

Plot Twists

4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Improper Burial
4 Conquered Planet
4 Extended Family
4 Trapped in the Sciencells
3 Political Pressure

Locations
3 Planet Weapon

Equipment
3 Reality Gem

You want the even initiatives, primarily to make use of Kanto and to protect Ronan wherever possible. An ideal opening hand would include Franklin Richards and our primary 4-drop. Of course, we don’t live in an ideal world, so you should really aim for Franklin or Franklin-by-proxy via Lockjaw. I used to mulligan for Ronan, but unless you have Franklin, Ronan’s effect is somewhat limited. 

The character selection was not particularly complicated. We have essentially eight copies of Franklin Richards, so hitting him with an aggressive mulligan is not too hard. Commander Dylon Cir was chosen for his attractive power and makes a very good recipient for the Reality Gem. I’ve spread the odds with two backup 3-drops that have decent abilities but are also good for finding Ronan with Enemy if required. Ronan the Accuser really makes the deck tick. If you are worried about losing his counter while attacking with him, then just don’t do it—unless, of course, you have a copy of Extended Family to spare. 

My primary drop on turn 5 had been Bron Char, but since I found Dark Superboy, Mockery, I’ve switched over to the Darkseid character. With turn 5 being an off-initiative turn and Ronan ideally tucked away in the shadows, the chance of getting a result from Dark Superboy’s ability is quite good. 

I went with four copies of Kanto because he is a must-have and the deck’s primary win condition. If you want to make a bit of room in the deck you could chop him down to three (or further, if you’re feeling brave), but having the odd spare copy doesn’t hurt if you want to power-up (or discard for the 8-drop).

On turn 7, we get a bigger and more aggressive Ronan. Your opponent gets to flip all of his or her resources during the build phase, but they will go away again at the start of combat. I decided to add the 8-drop Darkseid from Superman, Man of Steel once we realized that there were a couple of decks playing around with the late game.

Of the support cards, I really love Trapped in the Sciencells and Planet Weapon. Those two can really put the hurt on your opponent, especially if you manage to get a couple copies of the plot twist online (hence the four count). I went with Extended Family for the Team-Up after a fair bit of debate. Your primary objective with the card is to team-up Darkseid and Kree, but if Ronan loses his cosmic counter you can team-up with Inhumans and replace it. This is not an ideal play, but Ronan really needs that counter.

When I’ve discussed the theme of this deck with other players, they have often dismissed it out of hand. “Resource disruption doesn’t win games” is a common retort. Yes, that’s right in the normal scheme of things, but with such an aggressive approach and such a lethal turn 6 play, this deck really has the potential. 

Recently on VsRealms.com, there has been a lot of discussion about Vs. writers and articles. There have been a few who say that no one really reveals their “good stuff” to the community because at the end of the day it’s a competition and we’re all in it to win it. Well, I might not be a hardened pro and I may not have won a substantial amount of money playing the game, but one thing I am is totally transparent. I would absolutely run this deck in a Golden Age tournament tomorrow, be it a $10K, Master Challenge (yes, they have been confirmed for 2007*), or PC. I truly believe that this strategy could work in the current environment. Perhaps some of you who are more skilled at deck construction can build a better version, but I have no doubt that there is a lot of potential in this deck. So, here I am laying my cards on the table. Are any of you “serious” players and writers out there prepared to do the same? Yes, you have just been challenged.

Okay guys, that’s all from me. Please feel free to drop some feedback, criticism, observations, jokes about my sister—anything.

Steve Garrett

* Two Master Challenge events have been announced for 2007 in Europe. The first will be a one-day Golden Age event on February 10 in Essen, Germany. The second event will be a two-day Silver Age event on June 23-24 at the Game07 convention in Manchester, England. Stay tuned; I will try to get more info over the coming weeks.


Steve “Kamiza” Garrett is an ardent supporter of casual Vs. play and has been an active member of the vast Vs. System online community since day one. If you have any comments or suggestions, please feel free to email him at kamiza989@gmail.com or pester him at his website, www.the-kamiza.com.