Everyone was excited about Spider-Friends when Web of Spider-Man first hit store shelves. Packing huge quantities of evasion, strong synergistic effects, control, and one of the best 2-drops in the game, Spider-Friends Evasion and Spider-Friends Team Attack decks looked to be the next big thing.
But then reality hit. And those Will O’ the Wisps and Cosmic Spider-Mans hit trade binders and slowly made their way to the back. Keeping company like Salvage and Betrayal, they laid in wait for their chance to shine.
That chance has finally arrived! With a large number of players in $10K Orlando running topnotch Spider-Friends decks heavily teched against Curve Sentinels, Spider-Friends are ready to step up and prove themselves. Often there is one “deck to beat” in an environment. Currently Vs. has two, those being Teen Titans and Curve Sentinels. Spider-Friends can theoretically destroy both of them with the proper tactics, and Matthew Meyer and Frank Lepore are on the cutting edge of this hot new deck.
Meyer and Lepore worked together to create the build they both ran at $10K Orlando. Here’s the deck.
Tag, You’re It!
Characters
4 Ricochet
2 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
4 Will O’ the Wisp
3 Julia Carpenter ◊ Spider-Woman
4 Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote
3 Daredevil, The Man Without Fear
4 Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly
3 Iceman, Cool Customer
4 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
2 Spider-Man, Cosmic Spider-Man
4 Dusk
Plot Twists
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Spider Senses
4 Nice Try!
4 Costume Change
4 Spider-Tracer
“It matches up really well with the top two decks in the format,” described Meyer. “It does really well against Titans because you’ve got Ricochet[’s effect] all the way through turn five to protect you from Terra and Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal.” Dusk drops on turn 2 and Ricochet on turn 3, starting the trickery. Will O’ The Wisp is arguably one of the game’s best 4-drops, and backed up by Ricochet, he makes turn 4 very difficult for Teen Titans. Julia Carpenter ◊ Spider-Woman serves as a secondary drop of variable value depending on the situation, and Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote keeps the evasion flowing if it’s needed. If it isn’t, then Daredevil, The Man Without Fear makes an excellent source of aggression, and his presence in the deck marks the start of the deck’s tech against Curve Sentinels. “He’s golden in this deck.” Meyer’s sentiment was one that was echoed by a surprising number of non-Spider-Friends decks over the course of the day, as Daredevil popped up everywhere to counter Curve Sentinels.
Iceman, Cool Customer is one of the deck’s best tricks. Far better here than in Uncommon Enemy (where the theory was questionable and the actual reality was less than exciting), it’s a great turn 6 match to Bastion. Iceman forces an opponent playing Curve Sentinels, not to mention several other archetypical decks, to go all out to remove him from the field or risk losing the massive card advantage that Curve Sentinels likes to exploit.
The kicker is Spider-Tracer. It’s a nice tactical annoyance in most matchups, but against Curve Sentinels it’s an absolute game-winner. With aggressive play, it can cut off Bastion at the knees, and Lepore and Meyer were visibly excited about the card’s potential when I talked to them about it. “It’s what we named the deck for.” It’s one of those cards that you constantly see new uses for in different matchups.
Beyond that, the deck maxes out on copies of Nice Try! to keep it hard to target against with or without Ricochet. It’s a second line of prevention that fits exceedingly well into the deck and despite the changes the deck may undergo as it sees more play, it seems to be a permanent fixture in any incarnation of the deck.
Going back to characters for a moment, the deck’s high-drops are of definite note: “The deck runs Spider-Man, Cosmic Spider-Man on eight instead of just Ezekiel, like many other Spider-Friends decks. It’s just better.” They liked the aggression the card allows for, eliminating stun-backs in large offensive pushes.
The deck packs a lot of combat modifiers as well. “I really need the eight defensive modifiers”, Meyer replied when I asked him about the use of four Acrobatic Dodges and four Spider Senses. “It’s just impossible to punch through me sometimes. You know, Hank and Dove team-attack Ricochet . . . a single Senses bumps my defense so high that you can’t even Tamaran around it.”
The deck’s pretty easy to disassemble once you give it some consideration, but there were some tricks I didn’t immediately see. “As soon as they play Teen Titans Go! you evade your whole board,” said Lepore with a grin. “Well, you don’t evade your whole board automatically, you know, they might do something stupid and you wait for that,” Meyer chimed in. “But yeah, evasion is just the ultimate answer to Go.” They’re right. It’s the perfect answer to Titans’ attempts to wipe the board, resulting in the same amount of damage, but preventing the massive swing in momentum that suddenly having zero characters tends to present.
Tag, You’re It! is a versatile deck with a lot of synergy behind it. Decks similar to this one will definitely be making an impact on the Marvel Modern Age format, but in the mean time it looks like Spider-Friends might finally step into the limelight of Golden Age play.