Welcome back to Deck Clinic, where we’re taking a look at forum poster Burnout’s Shadowpact / Green Lantern stall deck.

Having taken a first pass at the character base for the deck, we have some important jobs left to do. The first one was referred to yesterday: sorting out some of the tension between two competing plot twist versions. The deck includes search cards for both Magic and Construct plot twists, along with one 2-drop and two 3-drops that give some kind of payoff for playing plot twists with that version.

The most important consideration, really, is what we should expect to get out of those interactions. There’s a strong temptation to “go nuts” and try to squeeze as much as possible out of every synergy available, but I don’t think that route is likely to give the best results in a deck like this. In a deck completely focused on one version and set up from the start to abuse the available interactions, this can work out incredibly well—see, for example, the TDC Shadowpact / Secret Six deck from Pro Circuit Indianapolis. We, though, haven’t skewed our entire character base around these synergies, so we need to be more restrained in our expectations.

Basically, I see the role of characters like Manitou Dawn, Spirit Shaman and Jade, Jennifer-Lynn Hayden in this deck as providing a slow, steady flow of free effects that will add to other effects such as Sector 2814. It’s not abuse, it’s not going to explode suddenly in a big flashy turn, but they will sit there in the background, gently ticking over and keeping the deck on track. It’s the same with Zatanna, Magical Manipulator. Some of the time, you won’t even want to use her power (against burn decks, for example). And in slower matchups, she’ll be a powerhouse, letting you massively outdraw your opponent and set up the turn 7 win with Captain Marvel, Champion of Magic.

Taking all that into account, what it comes down to is that we should have a bias toward Magic and Construct plot twists, but also that we shouldn’t let that consideration dominate our thinking. If there’s a much better card available to do the same job that isn’t one of the key versions, then we should still consider it on its merits.

Core Cards

First of all, let’s get the core resources out of the way—Team-Ups, search cards, and so on. The first card up for discussion, No Evil Shall Escape Our Sight, Construct, is a prime example of what I was referring to in the last paragraph. Obviously, it has an advantage in its version, but other than that, it has two issues. The first is the 3 threshold cost. Removing the possibility to team-up on turn 2 is irritating, although rarely critical. The other problem is that there’s no advantage other than teaming-up. We can afford to be greedy with the number of strong Team-Ups around these days. Green Lantern Ring provides secondary team-up duties in the original deck (along with bolstering the willpower count for The Ring Has Chosen, Katma Tui, and so on), and although it is somewhat attractive, I don’t feel it really does enough to warrant space. Opening the deck up to disruption by equipment removal is also an issue.

Instead of both these cards (although a copy of No Evil Shall Escape Our Sight may remain as a Kyle search target), Hard-Traveling Heroes has three significant advantages: First, a threshold cost of 2. Second, the ability to team-up Green Lanterns, Shadowpact, and Emerald Enemies (Malvolio, Lord of the Green Flame) with a single Team-Up—note the “choose two or more team affiliations among characters with willpower 1 or greater you control.” Third, and perhaps most important, are those three little words every deckbuilder longs to hear as often as possible: “draw a card.” Those three factors combined are enough for me to switch happily to Hard-Traveling Heroes as the primary Team-Up (given that, with the team-stamping of many of the Shadowpact resources, we do need a Team-Up).

As for search cards, I see no real reason to switch away from Enemy of My Enemy and The Ring Has Chosen, with the caveat that The Ring Has Chosen should not be expected to be as reliable in this deck (or virtually any post-banning willpower deck) as in a Dr. Light-fueled deck. Still, thanks to the 3-drops with willpower 2 and the willpower 3 Malvolio, it will search for Katma and then on up the rest of the curve.

Given the power of recovery effects in this deck, both for keeping board presence and for specific tricks with certain characters, cards like Guardians Reborn and Revitalize are worth bearing in mind.

The last generic resource I want to talk about right now is Sector 2814. I’ve already mentioned what will possibly remain the ideal Sector 2814 deck—the Qward / Shadow Creatures Anti-Matter stall deck. While this deck can’t expect more than 2-3 endurance per Sector per turn, that’s an amount I’m comfortable devoting a card slot to; 8-10 endurance over the course of the game is a significant amount, especially when taken alongside other sources of endurance gain.

One last card that’s worthy of note is Coast City. Without recursion, Tomar Tu won’t be reliable, but Coast City has always been exceptional at funnelling enemy attacks into an order of your choosing, ready for recovery effects to switch things from “difficult” to “impossible.” Protect Sinestro with Katma Tui? Protect your 3-drop with Malvolio on turn 4? Protect Guy Gardner with virtually anyone? Sounds good to me.

Constructs

With Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern now only usable once over the course of an average game, the number of singleton “silver bullet” Construct plot twists will have to be restricted. Searching for a plot twist after turn 2 will now cost us hard resource points. That said, there are still some great cards that will be making the cut here. The first is Rain of Acorns. As less of a mass exhaustion tool now, Rain of Acorns will require more careful management than in the past because of the lack of a never-ending stream of free 2-drops, but despite all this, it will remain one of the most efficient stall cards available to the Lanterns.

Lanterns in Love is a personal favorite, and has fantastic synergy with many of the characters in the deck. Helping Hand is our first real casualty of the switch to curve. Without the extra characters provided by Dr. Light (or a swarm of hidden Shadow Creatures), Helping Hand simply isn’t likely to do enough reliably enough to make the kind of difference we should expect from our cards. Thankfully, Shadowpact will be providing an answer to this particular problem in just a minute. The last couple possible inclusions are Catcher’s Mitt, which overcomes the minor drawback that it isn’t a plot twist (and thus won’t trigger Jade) by providing a powerful, global reinforcement effect, and Breaking Ground, which yada yada replace locations yada yada replace ongoing plot twists. I mean, really, there’s only so much you can say about Breaking Ground—it’s a great card that you won’t need against some decks, so adjust the final list for your local circumstances (more or less resource hate).

Magic

It’s this part of the list that I feel has the most potential for useful change. The original list only ran a scant five Magic plot twists (compared to eleven Constructs), and two of those were the quite narrow Otherworldly Battle. Given that we have two characters who have Magic-triggered powers and only one that does the same for Constructs, it seems only right that we take steps to redress that imbalance. Thankfully, there are some strong options to choose from. The first is Abjuration. The +3 DEF from Abjuration is as good as it gets, and the 5 endurance payment, while unpleasant, is balanced by the fact that if Abjuration is in your resource row, it can gain that endurance back again if you ended the previous turn dangerously low. In most cases, preventing a stun with Abjuration will save you more than the 5 endurance it costs anyway, leaving aside for a second any considerations about board presence.

Conjuration is a key card against other slow decks, but you shouldn’t need more than a single copy. Between under-dropping for Madame Xanadu on turn 4 or 5 (something you can much more easily afford to do against other true stall decks) and drawing extra cards using Zatanna, Showstopper’s payment power, a single copy should prove relatively simple to access. Divination is a possibility simply for extra card-filtering, but I’m more attracted to The Conclave. Like Fizzle, a lot of time spent not playing against the plot twist negation effects can make you forget just how brutal they can be. With the odd initiatives (which you should be selecting when possible), The Conclave gives you a good shot at completely denying your opponents their 3-drop recruits, as their Mobilizes turn to ashes in their hands.

Final List

While drawing up the final list, I made a few tweaks to the original character base. Recognizing the fact that The Ring Has Chosen is noticeably weaker in the early game than in previous Lanterns builds, I’ve cut one copy. The upshot of this is that Salakk becomes a much lower priority, and he was already playing second fiddle to Madame Xanadu, Cartomancer. Cutting the three copies of Salakk lets us buff up our numbers on 2-drops and 3-drops, reducing the need for early character search. I’ve also decided, now that Hard-Traveling Heroes is our primary Team-Up, that the single copy of Alan Scott, White King is worth another look. At least having the option to go aggressive is nice, and he can carry out one important job very well: clearing out a protecting character to allow Rain of Acorns to be used to exhaust a back-row high drop. Obviously, you’ll need to use your judgement about whether he’s likely to get hit by a KO effect, but with The Conclave and Lanterns in Love backing him up, I like his chances. Also, and possibly more importantly, he provides a second unique 4-drop in case you need to under-drop on turn 5 to recruit Madame Xanadu.

Characters

4 Madame Xanadu, Cartomancer

4 Manitou Dawn, Spirit Shaman

4 Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern

4 Zatanna, Magical Manipulator

3 Jade, Jennifer-Lynn Hayden

4 Malvolio, Lord of the Green Flame

1 Alan Scott, White King

3 Katma Tui, Green Lantern of Korugar

1 Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar

1 Zatanna, Showstopper

1 Guy Gardner, Egomaniac

1 Captain Marvel, Champion Of Magic

Plot Twists

4 Enemy of My Enemy

3 The Ring Has Chosen

4 Hard-Traveling Heroes

3 Lanterns in Love, Construct

2 Rain of Acorns, Construct

1 No Evil Shall Escape Our Sight, Construct

4 Abjuration, Magic

2 The Conclave, Magic

1 Conjuration, Magic

Locations

4 Sector 2814

Equipment

1 Catcher’s Mitt, Construct

The final build will actually play fairly similar to the original list, but hopefully it’ll be that bit more effective and reliable. It has more card-drawing effects, a more reliable package of defensively-oriented plot twists, and the same devastating endgame.

In case you want to fiddle around with the deck, the Sectors are probably the most flexible card slot. They provide useful endurance gain but they aren’t a Construct or a Magic card, we can’t search for them, and they are probably the prime candidate to cut if you think that other cards will help you stall out the game more efficiently. You may wish to consider more recovery effects, like the already mentioned Revitalize or Guardians Reborn; Coast City; or resource replacement effects like Transmutation, Magic or Breaking Ground, Construct. Maybe your local metagame is simply loaded up with resource hate that will stop the locations from staying on the table long enough to make a difference.

More than anything, I hope you enjoy playing the deck. There’s plenty of space for customization, from little tweaks to new Constructs and Magic cards to search for, all the way up to completely removing one of the plot twist versions to really try to abuse the other.

Don’t forget that if you have a deck you’d like to see get the Clinic treatment, email me at vsdeckclinic@googlemail.com or post on the submission thread on VsRealms.

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.