Let’s face it. It doesn’t matter how popular a deck is—some players will always flat out refuse to run the typical decks. Curve Sentinels, Teen Titans, Common Enemy . . . some people will avoid these like the plague when they build their decks. Such players attempt to surprise their opponents with the sheer shock of running a completely off-the-wall deck that’s unlike anything ever seen before. Sometimes the decks work, and sometimes they don’t. However, if something new and unusual is discovered and works well in a large tournament, what do you do?
Tym Bradly is one of those players. He brought a Fantastic Four/Gotham Knights Combo Burn deck to this tournament. The goal of the deck is to reduce the opponent’s endurance total to 0 or lower by means of Cosmic Radiation and a variety of direct endurance loss effects, such as Human Torch, Hotshot and Advanced Hardware. He came to Vegas to play in both the Vs. System $10K event and the Yu-Gi-Oh! Shonen Jump TCG Championship. He won one of the first Cyber-Stein cards released in America. For those of you unfamiliar with Yu-Gi-Oh!, Cyber-Stein has seen online auction prices as high as $23,000!
This tournament was one of Tym’s first major Vs. System events, and he intended to surprise players with his unexpected deck choice. During one of his games, Tym was able to reduce an opponent’s endurance total from a number in the 40’s to a negative integer by the end of turn 5. Worst yet is that Bradly isn’t the only guy running a deck like this! You honestly have to ask yourself, “What the heck can I do against such a deck?”
One of your options is to plan ahead and include some cards that fare well against such a deck. This is advisable only if you’re able search the silver bullet to your hand. For example, when going up against Cosmic Cops, a League of Assassins deck may include one or two copies of Assassin Initiate to slow down opposing strategies. Players with access to cards like Boris or Alfred Pennyworth may play a single copy of Flame Trap or Total Anarchy to deal with low-cost swarm characters. However, you won’t always be able to plan ahead like this. Sometimes, you have to work with what you’ve got.
Working with what you’ve got is exactly what Scott Anderson did in his game against Tym Bradly. With Tym’s cosmic combo approaching its climax, Scott had to think of a way to reduce his opponent’s endurance as quickly as possible. He used a low cost character to attack one of Tym’s 1-cost characters. He then played two Savage Beatdowns on his character, played Cosmic Radiation to ready the attacker, and played Team Tactics to increase that character’s ATK to 22! This was just enough for him to claim a victory against Tym, who lost by a mere 2 endurance.
As for Tym, tomorrow he’ll attempt to win another Cyber-Stein.