Walking around $10K Amsterdam, there are various decks that, while not necessarily sitting at the top tables, provide inspiration for deckbuilders everywhere. When metagames change, these decks can rocket from average to amazing—a Superman-esque change.

The latest of these that I have been somewhat impressed by is the following New Gods/Darkseid’s Elite creation from one Patrico Terrón.

4 Gole
3 Shaligo
2 Vykin
3 Big Bear
2 Himon
3 Trok
2 Izaya ◊ Highfather
4 Devilance
1 Metron
4 Brimstone
1 Big Barda
4 Royal Decree
1 Finishing Move
1 The Prophecy Fulfilled
2 Acrobatic Dodge
3 Hidden Surveillance
3 The Exchange
4 Ka-Boom!
4 Bad Press
3 Foiled
4 Firepits of Apokolips
1 The Source
1 Apokolips

There have been a few decks in the history of Vs. that have attempted to win by controlling what an opponent can and cannot do in terms of plot twists and amounts of resources. Dr Doom, Diabolic Genius has a very special place in the hearts of control players, and Latverian Embassy further makes life rather difficult for opponents in this regard. Decks running such platinum hits as The New Brotherhood and Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Sharpshooter have long been happy to keep the overall pace of the game down with effects like Ka-Boom! and Foiled. Then there are the decks that are all about getting Psimon into play and challenging their opponent to find an answer.

This deck is in many ways similar to classic New Brotherhood decks inasmuch as it is very happy to keep the overall resource count down and beat in with aggressive Deep Six characters. What makes it rather interesting is the fact that it all the while that it is restricting the characters that opponents can play, it is also severely restricting what they can do in terms of playing plot twists. The combination of Bad Press, Himon, Hidden Surveillance, The Source, and Firepits of Apokolips makes effective use of any sort of support for your characters very, very tough.

The following are just some of the fun plays that I can see for this deck.

Using Bad Press or Hidden Surveillance to ensure that your Firepits of Apokolips activations cannot be stymied by such frustrations as being flipped in response.

Using Firepits of Apokolips as a convenient target for your own Ka-Boom!s so that you can always be assured of having a target and being able to keep the resource count down.

Using The Source to get rid of your own team-up when you already have a duplicate copy in the resource row if there are no other targets. It is quite possible in this deck that your opponent won’t be able to flip many plot twists at all, and in effect making this play thins your deck by two cards and draws you two extra cards. None too shabby.

While it isn’t performing particularly well in today’s $10K thus far, I wouldn’t be at all surprised to see some iteration of this sort of build doing very well some time very soon.

You heard it here first.