I humbly dedicate this article to Dave Spears, whose hysterical laughter whenever I mention the word “Mojo” has encouraged me to someday beat him with a Mojo deck in the finals of a PC . . . and laugh hysterically while doing it!
PC So Cal is right around the corner, and the big, bad, tier 1 decks are breathing down our necks. Everywhere I look, I see Common Enemy (ooh!), Doom Control (aah!), Teen Titans (whoa!), Curve Sentinels (meep!), and other tasty stomp decks. Well, enough of that! Those decks are all boring to play, and frankly, who wants to play the same decks everyone else is playing, anyhow? This week, I’m going to look at a fun deck. It is a janky tier 2 deck that has evolved since I first began playing it many moons ago.
Way back in mid summer, I brought a fun little deck to Origins as a secondary choice for the comic book tournament. It was a Random Punks deck that used Skrull Soldiers, Super Skrull, and our buddies Blastaar and Annihilus from the Negative Zone. The deck went 0-2 because of poor late game play and my brain-cramped misunderstanding of how Negative Zone worked. I thought that Annihilus and Blastaar needed me to control Negative Zone. I didn’t realize that it simply had to be in play. Rule Number One: Always read cards carefully. If you don’t know exactly what your own cards do, let alone the cards your opponent has, then you don’t deserve to win.
The two decks it should have beaten were Big Brotherhood and Common Enemy. The near-success of the deck spurred me into action, and with the (then) new DC Origins set out, there were dozens of juicy new cards for me to consider. I built the deck up and then eventually cut the deck down, eliminating 1-drops altogether (no more Lady Vic, King Snake, or Random Punks) and increasing the number of 5-, 6- and 7-drops. Web of Spider-Man added Mojoverse to the mix, and I briefly flirted with Murderworld until I realized that the discard requirement is just too expensive in a deck where every card counts.
Here is the latest version of my “Affiliate This!” deck:
4 Puppet Master, Philip Masters
1 Lockup, Lyle Bolton
2 Thunder, Gan Williams
4 Arcade, Master of Murderworld
4 Mojo, Ruler of Mojoworld
3 The Demon, Jason Blood
4 Blackfire, Komand’r
2 Lady Deathstrike, Yuriko Oyama
3 Blastaar, King of Baluur
3 Annihilus, Destroyer of Life
1 The Demon, Etrigan
3 Acrobatic Dodge
2 Boom Tube
3 Flying Kick
2 Focused Blast
3 From the Shadows
2 Have a Blast!
3 Home Surgery
2 Overload
3 Savage Beatdown
2 Mojoverse
4 Negative Zone
I’m not a big fan of 1-drops. I can see their value in certain situations, but outside of a swarm deck (or, at the very least, a deck that counts on hitting hard and early, like Burn), there’s just not a high enough chance of hitting a first turn 1-drop to make it worthwhile. I took the 1-drops out of this deck to make sure I’d get to Annihilus on time.
I flirted with the idea of removing Lockup altogether for a second copy of The Demon, Etrigan, but I found that missing my 2-drop hindered me more than missing my 8-drop. This deck just doesn’t go deep enough into the late game to need an extra Etrigan. Plus, with a barrage of character stun and a 5-drop that pretends she’s a 6-drop, I can handle not having Etrigan on turn 8.
I generally want Puppet Master on turn 2, but Lockup is a solid alternative. I usually take odd initiative, and Lockup’s bonus is nasty if I can keep him in play. He’s also vicious against recursion decks, since Garth Tempest, Reconstruction Program, and Avalon Space Station can’t bring those tasty cards back if there’s no KO’d pile. I actually toyed with the idea of adding another Lockup for anti-recursion, but there simply wasn’t enough room.
Turn 3 is Arcade’s domain, and this deck is packed with ways to keep him alive. From the Shadows is especially nice—with it and the odd initiative, Arcade can pile into anything without worry of being KO’d. From the Shadows is also nice with Mojo, who can take on higher drops and survive. Thunder is a solid alternative to Arcade, as he has decent stats and the ability to stop potential attackers from hitting me back. Even so, Arcade is the drop to hope for on turn 3.
Choosing 4-drops was tough. Mojo is a sure bet, even with Overload floating around. If Overload does pop up, it will come in the later turns when Mojo is big enough to fall to it, but I have Home Surgery to bring Mojo back. I originally had three copies of Mojo, three The Demon, Jason Bloods, and three copies of Spiral, Ricochet Rita. I dropped the Spirals because Jason Blood is simply the better choice, both for his ability to mine dead cards for draws and for his ability to fetch Etrigan. Sure, Spiral has flight and range (or pretends she does, at least), but Jason Blood’s abilities outweigh that advantage. I chose to play an extra Mojo over Jason Blood because he’s simply the better drop. In this deck, his non-affiliation boost is overpowering, and he can keep up with most major 4- and 5-drops. If seven 4-drops isn’t enough, you can always take out that Lockup for an extra Jason Blood.
My main drop on turn 5 is Blackfire, and she combines with Blastaar and Annihilus for a one-two-three punch that guarantees my opponent will lose at least one character before he or she can use it. Blackfire’s one drawback is that her ability, unlike Blastaar’s or Annihilus’s, has to be used in your attack step. However, because I take odd initiative, I can stun an opponent’s front line attacker without worrying about a Nasty Surprise popping up to take Blackfire down. My secondary 5-drop helps to ensure that I get a 6-drop—Lady Deathstrike essentially functions as a 5-drop against other 5-drops, but her stats take a nice big jump upward against higher drops. If I don’t draw Blastaar or a Negative Zone, and I have a hand I can’t afford to lose, then it can be advantageous to play Lady Deathstrike.
Blastaar and Annihilus are the sweet spots in this deck. There is no hiding from their abilities when they’re both on the table. That guarantees that your opponent’s 7-drop is toast before he or she can ask for mercy, and it also means that you should be able to win on turn 7 . . . if you’ve hit your drops. Between Blastaar and Annihilus, plus any other drops that have survived, there should be enough raw endurance bleed to take the win—especially if you have odd initiative. When I have odd initiative, I will often play Annihilus even without Negative Zone, because the 15 damage I take is well worth it when balanced against the damage my opponent takes. If it isn’t quite enough, Etrigan will make things better.
Etrigan comes down on turn 8. Talk all you will about Apocalypse, but Etrigan is my man. Especially with this deck, if your opponent has much more than 8 endurance remaining on turn 8, you’re already in trouble. In most cases, your opponent will be forced to lose all of his or her resources, which is much better than losing only two. In the worst-case scenario, your opponent will lose 8 endurance, which should be enough to take him or her down—especially with Annihilus and/or Blastaar on the board.
For locations, 4 Negative Zones are a must, as you really want one by turn 6. Mojoverse is a great card, giving an attack boost to just about all of your characters and allowing you to turn your Negative Zone characters into non-affiliated characters. This in turn gives them an extra boost, and it gives one to Mojo, too.
For plot twists, the Savage Beatdowns are great for helping characters like Arcade take out higher drops. As well, they help you get through high defense characters like Mr. Fantastic, Stretch. They’re also good against Unstable Molecules and players who use defensive pumps like Acrobatic Dodge. The Flying Kicks are there to give flight, as the majority of the early game characters don’t have it. I tried Combat Reflexes, but I eventually took them out for Focused Blast, which gives a nice dose of defensive burn on turns 5, 6 and 7. When my opponent has initiative and attacks me, if I can’t save the character, I exhaust for Focused Blast.
Defensively, I use Acrobatic Dodge because my characters have high enough ATK values to support it. I thought about Narrow Escape, but I didn’t like the cost of character exhaustion. This deck doesn’t like to exhaust characters for a DEF boost—there are too many other, better reasons to exhaust. I did replace Burn Rubber with Boom Tube, however, as I rarely use the reinforcement on front row characters and I like the option of removing a front row drop, if necessary. As well, it has a threshold cost of 2, instead of Burn Rubber’s 1, which means that it avoids all of the 1-cost hate. I also tried Fast Getaway, but the discard was (again) too costly, and most players don’t use Ant Man or Blind Sided any longer. Have a Blast! and Overload are there to take out Arsenal abuse or eliminate various plot twists or locations that could threaten you. I also had Not So Fast and Blind Sided in the deck, but decided that they just weren’t useful enough. Same with Bad Press—I tried three copies, but they didn’t see play often enough to truly hinder an opponent. Home Surgery is much more useful. It saves drops, and it really blows through certain late-game strategies. If you’re set against using Home Surgery, then Bad Press or Blind Sided are good substitutes.
In the end, this deck is consistent enough to go toe-to-toe with the big boys, but it probably won’t turn heads any time soon—it just doesn’t win often enough. Still, in a one-game environment, it may cause enough surprises to push you through.