Part 1

Welcome back to Deck Clinic. When I left off, I’d just finished explaining the new direction that I was planning for our resource denial Deck Clinic deck. We sent Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose and Pan, Manhunter Duplicate to the bench in favor of the much more threatening tag team of Kang, One of Many and Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius, and the devilish duo brought with them a much-needed piece of precision weaponry to complement the sledgehammer of the Philosopher’s Stone. A scalpel strike with Time Thief can both disrupt our opponent on its own and set up a much more devastating hit from the Stone—a one-two punch that we can drop into play as early as turn 3.

Now we turn to the implications this change has for the rest of our deck: The first casualty of the changes, other than the already-removed characters, will sadly be The Source. With a need to team-up Marvel Knights with both Doom and Injustice Gang, we’re unlikely to have either enough space in our resource row or enough copies of Midnight Sons to team-up with a fourth team. This also means that we can’t rely on using Midnight Sons, for example, to reliably satisfy the loyalty of an off-team late-game character like Garth ◊ Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer or Deathstroke the Terminator, Ultimate Assassin. I will therefore be looking for on-team or non-team-stamped late-game characters (ideally those that can be searched for with Enemy of My Enemy, which may rule out Apocalypse, En Sabah Nur).

Beginning at the beginning, the 1-drops will get more numerous. Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom will be added to the deck, along with Dagger, Child of Light and at least a single copy each of Micro-Chip, Linus Lieberman and Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction.

At the 2-drop slot, Kang, One of Many will be tagging in for Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose. Although we only have four copies of Kang to play with, there will be games where we’re in a position to flip Midnight Sons on turn 2 naming Doom and then Wild Ride for Kang. Although this isn’t recommended if you only have access to a single Midnight Sons, it bears remembering that Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius can turn an existing Midnight Sons naming Doom face down, allowing you to re-flip it naming Injustice Gang to turn on the Philosopher’s Stone.

At 3, there’s Panther. With four copies of Panther, four copies of Wild Ride, and several copies of Enemy of My Enemy able to search for him, I see no reason to play another 3-drop.

At 4, we have Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius as our primary 4-drop. For a backup (or simply additional options), we’re looking at either a Marvel Knights character or a member of the Injustice Gang (as IG will be the priority affiliation for our first Midnight Sons, generally) to give us a Wild Ride target if we can’t get to Doom. The best two options look like Luke Cage, Street Enforcer and The Joker, Headline Stealer, but Cage’s payment power looks the most tempting.

At 5, Daredevil, Matt Murdock has good stats and a useful (if slightly double-edged) payment power. Bulking out our theme, Kristoff Von Doom, Pretender to the Throne provides another layer of disruption for our opponents to overcome. Finally, the Injustice Gang contender for my money is Floronic Man, Alien Hybrid, who is capable of tearing vital locations out of our opponent’s resource row. Cards like Mystical Paralysis can keep Floronic Man safe from being stunned.

At 6, Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man will be our character of choice, with the possibility of including a non-loyal secondary character.

Turns 7 and 8 give us a few options. Dr. Strange, Stephen Strange is a distinctly mediocre 7-drop, but if we have the even initiatives and control Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man, he makes a very good 8-drop, exhausting our opponent’s board and then shunting it into the hidden area. Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch is another strong on-team choice at 8, capable of shutting down many decks with an activation. Good options at 7 are thinner on the ground, but splashed characters like Two-Face, Split Personality and Magneto, Master of Magnetism are worthy of consideration as Enemy of My Enemy targets.

As for resources, we will be keeping a number of them from the original build. Wild Ride, Midnight Sons, and Enemy of My Enemy are all guaranteed a place, as are some copies of Philosopher’s Stone (although probably not the full four). We will want to make room for Doom’s arsenal of plot twists, along with his home of Doomstadt, Castle Doom.

Other than that, the last resource I would like to fit into the deck is Flying Kick. I see Flying Kick as more likely to help Black Panther achieve breakthrough early than Blind Sided; it will both allow Panther to reach protected characters that have no one to reinforce them and ensure that his ATK is high enough to get the job done. One particularly nasty trick on turn 4 is to Flying Kick Panther and attack the opposing 3-drop. If your opponent doesn’t reinforce, then he or she takes a beating and Philosopher’s Stone triggers. If your opponent does reinforce? Well, that just sounds like an open invitation to wreck him or her with Reign of Terror, doesn’t it? Especially with the bonus from Flying Kick lasting for the whole turn! The only problem is that space is going to be very tight, considering that we have to make room for Reign of Terror, Mystical Paralysis, and Time Thief.

So then, a list!

Characters

4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom

4 Dagger, Child of Light

1 Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction

1 Micro-Chip, Linus Lieberman

4 Kang, One of Many

4 Black Panther, King of Wakanda

4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius

1 Luke Cage, Street Enforcer

3 Daredevil, Matt Murdock

1 Kristoff Von Doom, Pretender to the Throne

1 Floronic Man, Alien Hybrid

2 Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man

1 Dr. Strange, Stephen Strange

1 Magneto, Master of Magnetism

Plot Twists

4 Midnight Sons

4 Wild Ride

4 Time Thief

4 Flying Kick

3 Reign of Terror

3 Enemy of My Enemy

2 Mystical Paralysis

Locations

4 Doomstadt, Castle Doom

Equipment

2 Philosopher’s Stone

It certainly feels strange to be running some of these numbers, but I think it’s worth trying with pared-down numbers of, for example, Mystical Paralysis. I’ve cut down to two copies of Philosopher’s Stone, which gives us only a 2.5% chance of drawing both copies and leaving Black Panther without anything to search for (compared with around 16% if we play only a single copy). The deck wants the even initiatives so that it can Reign on turn 4, trade 4-drops, and then attack directly with Black Panther.

Now, before I sign off, some thoughts on choices of cards to name with Philosopher’s Stone against three of the most popular Golden Age decks:

Teen Titans

This is a matchup where a resolved Time Thief will help out immensely. The reason? Knowing whether your opponent has drawn a Teen Titans Go! or a Press the Attack yet, and knowing which locations he or she has or hasn’t drawn. The priorities here are (obviously) Press and TTG!, with Press usually the better choice if you will have the initiative on turn 6; this will prevent your opponent from using Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Sharpshooter and Press the Attack to stun Spider-Man and your 5-drop off-initiative. Otherwise, you can probably go with Teen Titans Go! to remove the chances of random TTG! turns that stun your board. The only exception to these general rules is if you played Time Thief and saw multiple copies of Meltdown in your opponent’s deck. If you see these, you may need to name them immediately or else give up on ever naming anything else. Another exception is when you can tell from the cards left in your opponent’s deck that he or she has drawn Terra, Tara Markov, and you won’t have the initiative on turn 4 to Reign of Terror his or her board and stop your opponent from satisfying Terra’s loyalty. If Terra is going to stop the Panther from connecting anyway, go ahead and name Teen Titans Go! If you are naming a card blind, I would recommend naming Press the Attack if you have the even initiatives and Teen Titans Go! if you have the odd initiatives.

High Voltage

As you’d expect, Time Thief will help immensely here, too. Time Thief will tell you if your opponent has drawn a Flamethrower, is currently hitting his or her drops, has drawn a search card, can power-up his or her characters, or has cards like Die for Darkseid! available that might affect the order in which you carry out attacks. This is one time when you probably will simply want to attack the consistency of the deck; if you see that your opponent hasn’t drawn an Enemy of My Enemy yet, name it. If it looks like he or she has a search card or two, name Die for Darkseid! or Mega-Blast. Time Thief should generally snipe out John Henry Irons ◊ Steel, Steel-Drivin’ Man. If you’re calling blind, name Enemy of My Enemy.

Doom

Here’s the one situation where either you need to be lucky or you need to have the even initiatives so that you can both Reign and prevent your opponent from playing his or her Reign on your Panther. You may get lucky; a turn 3 Time Thief may reveal that your opponent hasn’t drawn a copy of Reign. If he or she doesn’t have Boris on the table, pump the fist and strip every copy from the deck. If your opponent will have access to Reign regardless of the Stone, then name Mystical Paralysis to prevent interference with characters like Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man later in the game. If you’re calling blind, name Reign of Terror on turn 3 or Mystical Paralysis on turn 4.

Against unknown decks, you’ll simply have to work from what you’ve seen. Enemy of My Enemy is a good “safe” choice, but it often won’t have the most impact (with the notable exception being decks like High Voltage that run one or two copies of relatively important characters). Don’t rush into a “safe” choice when you’re choosing a card to name for the Stone; think about what your opponent has shown you so far, and think about what sort of powerful cards you might play in a deck with those cards. Get used to doing that, and not only will you find the Philosopher’s Stone itself more powerful, but you’ll also find your general play improving as you learn to anticipate your opponent’s actions. Isn’t that nice? You come in for an entertaining article, and you just might leave with some good advice!

As always, if you have a deck that you’d like me to work on in a future Clinic, email me at vsdeckclinic@googlemail.com—preferably with a paragraph or two of explanation if you think the deck needs it, or if there’s a particular interaction that you want to bring to my attention straight away.

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.