Hello one and all, and welcome back to another exciting episode of Breaking Ground. As always, I am your host, and I am ready, willing, and able to lead you through an amazing odyssey of exploratory deckbuilding.

So, how about that Pro Circuit San Francisco? Quite a trip, eh? I’m sure that the amazing Constructed ideas we saw there will shake up the metagame for the next two-and-a-half months of Silver Age. It should be a wild and exciting ride!

Um . . . yeah, so . . . I have no idea what happened at the PC. I’m actually writing this article the week before. I’ve talked before about the delay between my submission of an article and the eventual posting of it on Metagame.com. It takes a little over a week for the editors to clean up my article and make sure that my Tim Batow short jokes aren’t overly insulting.

My point is that, if you’re waiting for some witty commentary on the events of the Pro Circuit, you’re going to have to keep waiting until next week. Obviously, there will be certain inevitabilities, such as far too many people playing <insert deck name here>, the finals being Vidi Wijaya against Michael Dalton, and me having to play against my teammate John Hall for the umpteenth time in a premier event. All of that aside, I’m completely in the dark. So, check back next week for my thoughts, commentary, and ridicule of the events at Pro Circuit San Francisco.

Pump Up the Recovery

This week, I am going to take a look at a deck suggested by Ryo Millioud. A few weeks back, Ryo sent me an email suggesting a team-up build between Secret Society and Underworld. The notion greatly intrigued me, as it is very apparent that these two teams have a lot in common. Both teams have quite a few powerful cards that interact well with the KO’d pile. Mephisto, Soulstealer has long been one of my favorite character cards with its game-breaking potential and an ability that can trump any opposing recursion deck. Sorcerer’s Treasure has some definite possibilities with its potential to make each plot twist playable twice in the same game. And Gravesite has multiple beneficial traits. Not only does it serve to fill your KO’d pile, but it also accelerates your draw and forces your opponents to make difficult decisions about what cards they want to keep.

But as great as some of the individual cards for these two teams are, I had some difficulty finding workable combos to build into the deck. Obviously, there are a few minor synergies, but I never really found any overwhelming interaction between the two teams that screamed, “Abuse me!” Fortunately, Ryo’s email shined the light on one combo that I had completely overlooked.

One of the most powerful recovery cards in Vs. System resides with the Underworld team in Club Dead. Having a reusable ability to recover a character (albeit a 3-drop or less) that doesn’t require a discard, the exhaustion of multiple characters, or other exorbitant costs is an astounding effect. Unfortunately, I never really found a character within the Underworld with whom this effect really seemed to matter. The free recovery is great and all, but I would need a very potent 3-drop to bother incorporating such a limited recovery effect into a deck.

The solution to that dilemma came in Ryo’s character suggestion. The Secret Society has a character that just screams, “Recover me!” I discovered the potential of Dr. Sivana while drafting Justice League of America. If I could find a way to keep Dr. Sivana from stunning during a turn, then it really didn’t matter what happened to my remaining characters because Dr. Sivana would recover everyone adjacent to him at the start of the recovery phase. Granted, this didn’t shut down effects like Death Trap and Injustice Gang Satellite, but knowing that I could potentially recover my entire board on any given turn was nothing to scoff at.

The Build

Of course, we are going to max out on our theme card, Dr. Sivana. I suppose that it’s also worth mentioning that we’ll be including four copies of the other card that we’ll need for the combo, Club Dead. If we only needed eight cards for a deck, then we’d be done. However, UDE has this rule about sixty-card minimums, so we’d better see what else we want.

I think four copies of the equipment card Quadromobile would be a wise play. Not only is Quadromobile a respectable +2 ATK with flight that is usually a free recruit for us, but it also has an additional effect from which we can probably get some mileage. Obviously, this deck should have little problem getting cards into the KO’d pile. The trick, however, will be getting cards back out of there. If we happen to use one of our numerous effects that fill the KO’d pile to put a character or location card that we desperately need in there, then Quadromobile can easily fetch that card back for us. Of course, we will probably have other cards that can recur cards. However, Quadromobile is a versatile card that can act as either an ATK pump or a recursion card in a pinch.

Speaking of recursion, another premier location for our deck will be Slaughter Swamp. We certainly hope that when a character card of ours hits the KO’d pile, it’s not gone forever. With Slaughter Swamp at our disposal, we can easily ditch our late game character cards to the KO’d pile and then fetch them back when we need them.

Staying with locations, we know that some of the best effects for both teams stem from filling up the KO’d pile. Accordingly, we want to have cards that fill the KO’d pile for us and cards that reap benefits from larger KO’d piles. With Gorilla City, we get a little of both. The activated effect of Gorilla City puts the top card of our deck into the KO’d pile to give one of our attackers a marginal boost of +1 ATK. Of course, once we get over ten cards, this ATK boost increases substantially to +3 ATK. Any card that helps us cycle cards out of our deck and gives us a reusable ATK pump is certainly worth playing in our deck.

We’ve talked about a location that puts cards into the KO’d pile. We’ve talked about a location that gets cards back from the KO’d pile. Now let’s talk about a card that does both. The cost is steep, but the payoff for Infernal Gateway is well worth the price. In any format, the strength of your deck is determined by the utility of your cards. I have lost many Sealed Pack matches holding numerous unplayable cards in my hand. The lesson is simple: one useful card is much more valuable than three useless ones. That is one reason why I was such a big fan of Infernal Gateway in Marvel Knights Draft. While it did require a pretty significant discard, you were effectively able to turn those aforementioned “three useless cards” into “one useful card.” Infernal Gateway can do the same for our deck. We probably won’t use it often, but those times when we do use it, it should help us tremendously.

Much like Club Dead, Dracula’s Castle can make use of the many, many character cards that we will undoubtedly have in our KO’d pile. Simply by sending one character card from the KO’d pile back to the deck each turn, we can gain 3 endurance each turn. In close games, that extra trickle of endurance can be the difference between a win and a loss. Of course, Dracula’s Castle can double as a DEF pump, albeit a small one. Still, the minor defensive boost is another form of endurance control because the extra DEF will lessen the amount of breakthrough that your characters take and perhaps even keep them from stunning altogether.

Our final location card is the Team-Up Stormfront-1. There are several location Team-Ups that are available to us. It just so happens that this is the one that strikes my fancy. Maybe it’s because I like seagulls so much.

We only have three plot twists to look at, but they are all quite important. First, we have our primary Team-Up in Funky’s Big Rat Code. Since we are certainly going to need a team-up to get our two teams to work together, we might as well play one that also advances our cause of filling up the KO’d pile. For the unprepared, sending three cards from the deck to the KO’d pile could be disastrous. However, we have multiple methods of interacting with the KO’d pile, so Funky’s Big Rat Code is an obvious choice for our deck.

While we’re on the subject of sending cards to the KO’d pile, let’s talk about the four copies of Gravesite that will go into the deck. Most people have a much-defined preference about this card—you either love it or hate it. It is definitely a great card for accelerating our draws, but it also tends to accelerate our opponents’ draws. While we never want to help our opponent, the minor incidental benefit conferred upon the opponent by Gravesite is lesser in comparison to the assistance that it provides us. It serves three very beneficial purposes: it accelerates our draw, gains us endurance, and puts cards in our KO’d pile. For that series of effects, I am willing to let my opponent have a better draw. Besides, as we will later see, forcing our opponents to fill up their KO’d piles can reap rewards for us, as well.

Our final plot twist is our obligatory character searcher. And guess what—it’s not Enemy of My Enemy! I think that we have enough capable recursion in this deck to support Straight to the Grave. While this card is not quite as versatile as Enemy of My Enemy, it is still a very capable searcher. More importantly, it is a much better fit for our deck. Not only can it set us up to hit our curve, but it also has the incidental effect of putting non-character cards into the KO’d pile. If we have Quadromobile or Infernal Gateway available, then Straight to the Grave can also act as an effective “any card” searcher for us. Yeah . . . Magneto and Sebastian Shaw may have an alliance that leads to great searching, but for our deck, the Superman-chucking Gorilla Grodd is where it’s at!

We have quite a few character selections to make, so we’d better get started. Of course, calling our 1-drop a “character” might be a bit of a misnomer, as he is really more of a generic discard for whatever effects we might have. I may not be able to say his name, but Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster (henceforth referred to as Mr. M) is nonetheless my new favorite card. Back when I played the Yu-Gi-Oh! TCG, I had a particular affinity for a card called Sinister Serpent. Having a character that comes back to our hand every turn is nothing to sneeze at. Mr. M decreases the overall cost we have to pay with Infernal Gateway and essentially turns Slaughter Swamp activations into free cards. And if we have multiple copies of Mr. M in the KO’d pile, then he’s a great target for Club Dead or Dracula’s Castle (as we would end up losing him on the next turn anyway). We may not ever want to recruit him, but Mr. M provides a benefit to us that no other card in Vs. System can effectively replicate.

At the 2-slot, we have characters from both teams making an appearance. For the Underworld, we have a couple of 2-drops that can really help us fill up the KO’d pile. Steel Wind is a bit on the weak side offensively, but her 4 DEF means that she will be able to weather the attacks of most 1- and 2-drops, and even a few 3-drops. But her real charm is her ability to move cards from our deck to our KO’d pile. If we want to be a little more aggressive, then Werewolf by Night is the play for us. Although he doesn’t move as many cards to the KO’d pile as Steel Wind does, Werewolf by Night is a whopping 3 ATK / 3 DEF on our initiative. Of course, the fact that he is hidden may be a problem because he cannot benefit from Dr. Sivana’s effect. Still, he is a solid character whose effect fits nicely into our deck’s theme. Finally, we have our representative from the Secret Society in Deadshot, Dead Aim. While Deadshot is probably better known as one of the “free” characters for the Secret Six, his dual team stamp allows him to be just as effective with the Secret Society. Having an extra character available to us can certainly be beneficial if we need a little extra “oomph!” to take down a large opposing character. In that regard, Deadshot is a great play for us, as he can be brought into play multiple times in a game simply by exhausting a character.

We’ve already discussed our play at the 3-slot in Dr. Sivana. True to my nature, I will not introduce any other 3-drops—he is the only one we want to play in any game.

At 4, I really like Witch Woman. She has very respectable stats at 7 ATK / 8 DEF, meaning that she can often attack other 4-drops without stunning back. In addition, her effect is very intriguing. While it is not as disruptive as Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius or Lex Luthor, Nefarious Philanthropist, it is nonetheless effective for putting the hurt on decks that rely heavily on ATK and DEF pump plot twists. In addition, her effect is another good candidate for use with multiple Mr. Ms in the KO’d pile. Our backup at 4 is Poison Ivy, Kiss of Death. Okay, so this version of Miss Isley is my least favorite. Still, none of her versions are bad, and this version is one of the best at messing with off-curve decks. Unless your opponent is able to stun Poison Ivy before any of his or her own characters stun, Poison Ivy can make him or her pay dearly by seducing our opponent’s characters to our side of the board. And if we are in a matchup against a straight curve deck, then Poison Ivy has a KO effect that can be just as debilitating.

Our primary drop at the 5-slot is the awesome Scarecrow, Fearmonger. The bane of Nimrod is just plain big at 10 ATK / 9 DEF. Of course, he holds the amazing potential to get even bigger. A simple stun on an opposing character by Scarecrow will net him a +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter. And if our opponents happen to have counters of any type on their characters, then Scarecrow will also snatch those counters to distribute +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters to our team. Fear the Scarecrow!

Our backup at 5 may be every bit as fearsome. The 5 ATK / 8 DEF that  boasts is a little misleading, as he has a very nasty effect. Once Mephisto hits play, our opponents can say goodbye to any character cards that they might have in the KO’d pile, because Mephisto is taking them and he ain’t giving them back! Thanks to Gravesite, we can be assured that the Lord of the Underworld will have plenty of souls to steal once he makes an appearance.

We have a couple of strong character choices at 6. Against off-curve decks, Blackheart is amazing. It doesn’t matter how big those characters in Faces of Evil decks may get. They won’t be able to stun Blackheart . . . ever. And if they are foolish enough to try, he will crack back on them with a whopping 14 ATK that is sure to create more than just a small amount of pain. Against curve decks, we’re probably more interested in board control. That’s where Charaxes, Killer Moth comes in. By the time turn 6 rolls around, we should have an abundance of characters in our KO’d pile. This makes Charaxes a very dangerous character for our opponents, as he will almost always KO any character he gets into combat with. With a nice 13 ATK, it is possible for Charaxes to attack up the curve for the KO. In a deck that has enough character cards to support him, Charaxes is the ultimate KO card.

No matter what character we play at 7, it’ll be a beating for our opponents. Solomon Grundy, Buried on Sunday may not look like much of a 7-drop, but unless our opponents team attack him, he will grow dramatically in size. The +3 ATK / +3 DEF boost that Solomon Grundy gets while defending against a single character makes him a match for any 7-drop and most 8-drops. He also benefits from us cycling through our deck. If we can get through the entire deck, then Solomon Grundy cannot become stunned and cannot leave play. Having a 7-drop that will stick around forever is certainly enticing. Our Underworld representative at 7 is similarly frustrating for our opponents. Varnae can be infuriating for an opponent trying to establish board control. With a simple exhaustion, Varnae can’t be stunned by any attacker. Moreover, he hands out a very large drop in DEF to the attacker, making it almost impossible for any character in the game to attack into Varnae without stunning back. They can’t stun my guy, but he almost always stuns them back—sounds like a winner to me!

Our final character is none other than the devastating Psycho-Pirate. Stat-wise, Psycho-Pirate is kind of a wuss. But it’s not his stats that are important. Since we should have a heap of cards in our KO’d pile by the time turn 8 rolls around, Psycho-Pirate will have plenty of fuel for his effect. Just imagine what happens when you start stealing your opponent’s Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar or Wonder Man. Not only will our opponents lose important characters, but we’ll also gain very powerful allies on our side of the board. It certainly is the best of all possible worlds!

Whew! That was a lot of characters. But it paid off, because we finally have a deck. Let’s take a look at what kind of awesome recovery machine Dr. Sivana and Club Dead give us:

The Dancing Doctor (60 cards)

Characters (31)

4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

2 Deadshot, Dead Aim

4 Steel Wind, Cyborg Cyclist

2 Werewolf by Night, Jack Russell

4 Dr. Sivana, Thaddeus Bodog Sivana

4 Witch Woman, Linda Littletrees

2 Poison Ivy, Kiss of Death

1 Mephisto, Soulstealer

3 Scarecrow, Fearmonger

1 Blackheart, Son of Mephisto

1 Charaxes, Killer Moth

1 Solomon Grundy, Buried on Sunday

1 Varnae, First Vampire

1 Psycho-Pirate, Roger Hayden

Plot Twists (12)

4 Funky’s Big Rat Code, Team-Up

4 Gravesite

4 Straight to the Grave

Locations (13)

4 Club Dead

1 Dracula’s Castle

2 Gorilla City

1 Infernal Gateway

4 Slaughter Swamp

1 Stormfront-1, Team-Up

Equipment (4)

4 Quadromobile

What the deck lacks in power, it makes up for in consistency and tenacity. Assuming that we can get the Dr. Sivana / Club Dead combo online early, it will be a difficult prospect for any opposing deck to achieve any kind of board control.

The preferred initiative is probably evens, which lets us make the most of powerful late game cards like Charaxes and Varnae. Tech cards like Mephisto and Blackheart are stellar answers to strong recursion and off-curve decks in the Silver Age metagame. Assuming that we can keep aggressive decks from taking us below 0 in the early turns, we should have little problem staying competitive even with a minimal amount of ATK and DEF pumps.

The mulligan will usually be for Dr. Sivana, as he sets up the core combo of the deck. However, holding on to an opening hand with a copy or two of Gravesite is probably not a bad play, either, as we should be able to draw into a copy of Dr. Sivana or Straight to the Grave. If we fail to draw into a copy of Club Dead, then Straight to the Grave can also be used in unison with Quadromobile to get a copy into our hand.

That’s all for another week of Breaking Ground. If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions for me, please feel free to email me at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com.

Be sure to come back next week for another bout with crazy jank builds. In addition, we’ll be taking a look at the aftermath of Pro Circuit San Francisco and how it may impact the upcoming DC Modern Age format.