If you are like me, you think about Vs. System at least twelve times an hour. When I am imagining and refining risky strategies for our game, I always include at least twelve 1-cost Army characters. Recently, I had an idea so exciting that I cannot contain it anymore . . . Hold on tight, here we go!
I am announcing the creation of a new playtesting team called “The Tiniest Threat.” You are invited to join if you meet these three requirements:
- Every deck we build and test will contain at least twelve copies of a single 1-cost Army character. This is my favorite way to play Vs. System, and birds of a feather should swarm together.
- At every Pro Circuit that we attend, we will play with a deck that contains at least twelve 1-cost Army characters. This is not as much of a challenge as it seems. Four of the previous six Pro Circuits have included at least one such deck at the top tables after Day 1. This includes Michael Jacob with Soldiers of New Genesis in fifth place at PC Indianapolis 2005, Vince Greco with Wild Pack in eighth place at PC Amsterdam, and me with Wild Sentinels in nineteenth place at PC Indy 2004.
- Each new member of The Tiniest Threat must create or revise a Starlings deck to be admitted to the team.
Yes, you heard me correctly. I said Starlings. That card holds the most intense 1-cost Army artwork. It allows one of the riskiest strategies in all of Vs. System. Since it is considered a non-competitive and strictly casual character card, Starlings will serve as the perfect initiation ritual for prospective members of The Tiniest Threat.
This madness began when Steve “Goop” Rogers of the Swedish Mafia team out of Northridge, California started a thread on VsRealms.com about Starlings. He called his deck “Star Wars” because he was planning to use Starlings with Starro the Conqueror and World War III. The online community slapped a few Starlings ideas around, and then Jason “Korinthe” Steel from Mega Comics and Games in Gainesville, Florida sent me this decklist with his outstanding commentary:
A Starling Named Valeria
Characters
16 Starlings
4 Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl
4 Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards
2 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
2 Invisible Woman, Protector
3 Evil Star
Plot Twists
4 A Child Named Valeria
4 A Day Unlike Any Other
4 Cosmic Radiation
2 Millennium
4 Signal Flare
Equipment
4 Catcher’s Mitt
4 Fantasticar
Locations
4 Birthing Chamber
Here’s what he had to say about the deck:
Mulligan for Mr. Fantastic.
Turn 1: Make no play, or play Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl.
Turn 2: Play Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards.
Turn 3: Play Invisible Woman, Protector; or Invisible Girl and two Starlings; or Dr. Light with a Catcher’s Mitt.
Turn 4: Play two Starlings and Cosmic Radiation, discard two cards, and play four Starlings from your deck.
Turn 5: Play as many Starlings and Fantasticars as you can. Birthing Chamber should be online by now and drawing an extra card each turn, or possibly grinding through two cards.
Turn 6: Evil Star. Nail the opposing 6-drop. If you have the Starlings to support it, which is entirely possible with a great draw, use Cosmic Radiation and nail a second opposing drop as well.
Turn 7: Repeat turn 5. Fantasticars are especially potent on this turn if you have the initiative, allowing for some nasty team attacks. You may also use Evil Star yet again to nail the opposing 7-drop if one hits the board. These are the turns when you can feel free to dump your hand of any unused copies of A Child Named Valeria, Fantasticar, and the like to use Cosmic Radiation on as many Starlings as you possibly can. You don’t really need to save anything but Cosmic Radiation, and even then, save just enough to throw down as many Starlings as you can.
Tips: Save A Child Named Valeria for Flame Trap if you know that you will be playing against it. Use it on Roy Harper/Terra if you are facing Teen Titans. The early game is all about stall and reinforcement with Catcher’s Mitt to stand up against fast decks until the brutal later turns when the KO engine gets running. The trickiest part is deciding what to discard from your hand. If you are playing against a deck built to stop swarms, be more judicious in your use of key cards and try to avoid discarding them. Remember, Evil Star can KO any character you control. So, Evil Star himself (if you have an extra copy) or the Fantastic Couple are perfectly valid characters with which to KO to the Servant of the Star-Brand . . . if it means KO’ing your opponent’s highest drop.
Now that I’m satisfied that the deck itself can draw what it needs with solid consistency, it needs to be tested against prevailing archetypes. It definitely has explosive capabilities. Bastion and Nimrod are fair game for Evil Star. Lower but deadlier drops like Terra and Roy Harper are even easier to KO. Off-curve characters with powerful stats, such as Black Panther and his ilk, are sickeningly easy to deal with. All in all, this looks like a good start.
Now I’m off to build the Injustice Gang version to see how it performs. I’m going to go with the global card-drawing plot twists to help fill my hand with additional Starlings, as well as the multitude of effects that key off 1-drop Army characters. The Injustice Gang version has no protection from Flame Trap and no way to use a Starlings the turn it comes into play. But it does have more ways to draw cards and keep the engine alive if your opponent successfully picks your board apart.
As soon as I read that, I had dreams of forming a new team with Jason Steel. After he sent me the next deck, I became obsessed with Infestation and was convinced that The Tiniest Threat would become a reality. Here is Jason’s Injustice Gang Starlings deck with instructions:
Feeding Frenzy
Characters
16 Starlings
4 Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee
4 Shadow-Thief
3 Circe
4 Felix Faust
1 Evil Star
Plot Twists
1 A Day Unlike Any Other
4 Criminal Mastermind
4 Gang-Up
4 Infestation
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Secret Files
3 World War III
Locations
4 Hard-Light Storage Tank
Here’s what he had to say about the deck:
Your mulligan condition is Zazzala ◊ Queen Bee to get the engine rolling as early as possible. You want even initiatives. This one just doesn’t care what you do except throw out Starlings and try to crush your opponent with an insanely ridiculous direct Infestation attack.
Turn 1: Play Starlings.
Turn 2: Play Zazzala hidden and a free Starlings at the end of the turn. Flip over Gang-Up and/or Criminal Mastermind as quickly as you possibly can. That holds true throughout the game.
Turn 3: Play Shadow-Thief with a free Starlings, or activate and play as many Starlings as you can.
Turn 4: Play Felix Faust, getting up to three Starlings from the KO’d pile. Or, play Circe, turning a Starlings with a KO trigger on the chain into a Starlings from your deck.
Turn 5: This turn is all about dropping Starlings to set up an insane turn 6. If you have to do it by dropping Felix for 3 and activating a Starlings to get two more, so be it. Normally, this turn is about activating three to five Starlings and getting six to ten into play, and maybe dropping a new copy of Zazzala and dropping another Starlings from your hand (in addition to Zazzala’s free copy).
Turn 6: You may or may not need Evil Star, and even if you drop him, you might simply attack a character directly. This is your kill turn, and it is a doozy. There are two ways to accomplish this. First, you can KO all of your Starlings with World War III to clear your opponent’s entire side of the board, then team attack directly with your remaining characters and Infestation for the win. You need to have twelve Starlings in play to wipe out your opponent’s 5- and 6-drops, but that is more likely to occur than it seems, thanks to Hard-Light Storage Tank and Felix Faust. Alternatively, you can use all of your non-Starlings characters to clear the opposing board. Use one of your copies of Infestation (if you have more than one) along with a couple of Starlings on the team attacks to ensure that the opposing drops are stunned.
You need to do the math at the beginning of your attack step to figure out whether World War III or Infestation will be the more efficient win mechanism. Sometimes, it will be a combination of the two. For example, you might be able to KO the opposing 6-drop by KO’ing seven Starlings, attack the opposing 5-drop with Evil Star, and then team attack for the finish with Infestation.
Unlike the FF version, this deck has no way to counter Flame Trap. It instead opts to draw massively redundant copies and recover slightly later with Felix Faust and the like. This version is definitely weaker to swarm hate, and its means of compensating don’t even remotely compare to the Child Lock response.
Feeding Frenzy is potentially more explosive than the other version, and with a great game, it can end things very early. If you drop a Starlings on turn 1 and another on 2 thanks to Zazzala, and both survive, on turn 3 you can play one from hand and go search for four more (total count seven so far, though one likely dies this turn). On turn 4, you may very well drop Shadow-Thief and a free Starlings and play another one from hand. Shadow-Thief, Zazzala, and maybe some Starlings can try to take down the opposing visible characters with team attacks and some help from Savage Beatdown. If your opponent misses two drops, you may be attacking with six Starlings. With one copy of Infestation, that is huge. With two copies of Infestation, the laughter begins.
Our new team, The Tiniest Threat, is all about Vs. System laughter. The Starlings mirror match is simply hilarious—you should try it someday. The funniest thing is this: Pro Circuit Atlanta has only one legal 1-cost Army character! Kang’s Guard stands alone . . . at least until the X-Men set is released. Does that mean we should abandon our team mission? Absolutely not. That just means we need to head back to the drawing board. We’ll meet you there.
Rian Fike is also known as stubarnes, and he is serious about forming this team. If you would like to apply for membership to The Tiniest Threat or just rant about something else, contact him at rianfike@hattch.com.