Why I am awake at midnight writing a miniature dissertation on my thoughts about Fred’s deck defies all logical reason. I have to be at work in eight hours! Sigh . . . I suppose even the great Tim Willoughby suffers from insomnia. Oops! I forgot . . . Tim never sleeps.
For those of you who don’t know me, my name is Michael Barnes (a.k.a. BigSpooky). I had my fifteen minutes of Vs. System fame at Pro Circuit New York when I piloted Xavier’s Dream (or Number One Dream, or “the greatest combo deck ever played” according to Rian Fike) to a third place finish. I still contend that if I’d had one more character card in hand during my third game against Adam Bernstein, it would’ve been me in the finals against Jason Hager (and, in all probability, Jason as PCNY champion). But alas, I have to be content with my third place finish. Of course, a $16,000 payday doesn’t hurt, either!
While I do not begrudge Adam his success, as he is a great guy and courteous to a fault, I do begrudge the rumor that Tim “Aqualad” Batow was the true inventor of my deck (Ben Kalman, how could you do this to me?!). Let’s set the record straight.
It was, in fact, Michael Barnes who built Number One Dream. Granted, it was a piece of crap when I first built it, and Tim Batow was the one who suggested the changes to make it work . . . But it’s still my deck!
Tim Batow may be the best deckbuilder that the Vs. System has ever seen. He could probably Top 8 a $10K with a deck that consists of 59 Backfires and a bubblegum wrapper. (Some may argue that Jason Hager is better because he could make the Top 8 with a proxy for the bubblegum wrapper). However, I’m a pretty good deckbuilder in my own right.
I have absolutely no desire whatsoever to be like Tim Batow! I mean, it would be cool to be able to do those handstands and all, but not being tall enough to ride on a merry-go-round would just plain suck.
Okay . . . okay . . . enough Aqualad bashing. On to the deck!
For those of you who are not familiar with the deck we’re reviewing today, here’s the original decklist:
Untitled New Gods/Brotherhood
Designed by “Fred” on VsRealms
Characters
3 Avalanche, Dominic Petros
2 Blob, Fred Dukes
4 Himon, Enigmatic Researcher
4 Izaya ◊ Highfather, The Inheritor
2 Magneto, Master of Magnetism
1 Metron, Time Traveler
2 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin
2 Orion, Dog of War
2 Rogue, Anna Raven
3 Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff
2 Scott Free ◊ Mister Miracle, Escape Artist
1 Takion ◊ Highfather, Josh Saunders
2 Vykin, Forever People
Plot Twists
4 Acrobatic Dodge
3 Astro Force
4 Combat Reflexes
2 Global Domination
3 Insignificant Threat
1 Marvel Team-Up
4 Royal Decree
4 The Exchange
Locations
3 Avalon Space Station
2 The Source
It took me a while to understand what Fred was attempting to do with this deck. Initially, I couldn’t identify any potential synergies between the two teams. But seeing Avalanche, Global Domination, and The Source all in the same deck led me to the conclusion that an effort was being made toward resource row disruption.
All in all, the deck isn’t a bad start toward that end. Fred included some basic attack and defense cards to add some power to the build. As it stands, though, the current build would have some problems contending with most tier 1 decks.
But that’s not a problem that can’t be rectified. Most Vs. players are well aware that the Brotherhood has some very powerful cards to work with. The New Gods also have some intriguing cards. To that end, we should be able to find a way to make these cards work together more effectively.
Working on our initial assumption that the deck’s theme is resource row disruption, let’s look at the key cards that achieve that theme:
Avalanche – One of the most underrated character cards in the Brotherhood, Avalanche is usually passed by for the Brotherhood 2-drops that can inflict more potential endurance damage (Toad, Pyro, and Scarlet Witch). For this deck, however, Avalanche is a key card for keeping troublesome locations off the field. So, we will go ahead and put four of him in the deck.
Global Domination – Michael Jacob and his $10K-winning Force deck showed the Vs. world how this little gem can single-handedly nerf the card drawing power of Genosha (as well as other locations) in Curve Sentinels. While it is indeed a formidable tool to be used in our build, it is also important to note that many decks out there don’t play locations. So, we will limit this card to three.
The Source – I love this card! In the right deck, it can ruin the plans of nearly any team-up deck. In addition, it’s a nice counter to several resource row plot twists that can create problems, such as Foiled!, Ka-Boom!, and The Demon’s Head, to name a few. If I had my way, I’d put eight of these in the deck. Sadly, it’s not an army location, so we can only run four.
This gives us our basic framework for the deck. However, we will need to address a few problems. First and foremost, we need to resolve the issues with the power of the deck. While Astro Force and Combat Reflexes are all well and good, they just aren’t as potent as we need them to be. Additionally, the four Acrobatic Dodges will only be marginally useful for defensive purposes.
Fortunately, the Brotherhood has one of the best (if not the best) offensive/defensive cards in the game—Lost City! With the correct compliment of characters, Lost City will ensure that our deck has some power to back up its disruption. More importantly, The Source is a counter to a toolbox card, Unmasked, which can hurt Lost City.
Of course, what would Lost City be without its partner in crime, Avalon Space Station? Given the natural synergy between these two, we’ll put four each of these key locations in our deck. Also, Avalon Space Station can be exceedingly useful with some other cards that we’ll be including later.
One problem that we will inevitably run into with this deck is disruption in our own resource row. Have a Blast! and its little brother Breaking Ground could ruin a good day for us by dropping a much needed character into the resource row. Moreover, you might run into these same difficulties when you play The Source. The only logical conclusion is to have a card that can filter those unwanted cards from the resource row. Fortunately, such a card exists in Clocktower. Not only will Clocktower enable us to put those resource row characters into the KO’d pile (where they can be easily fetched with Avalon Space Station), it will also substantially increase the rate at which we move through the deck.
So, as it stands right now, our locations look like this:
4 Avalon Space Station
4 Clocktower
4 Lost City
4 The Source
Now let’s see if we can resolve which plot twists we want. With the addition of Lost City, we have a very powerful attack and defense card. So, we can probably eliminate Astro Force, Combat Reflexes, and Acrobatic Dodge. In addition, with Clocktower increasing the speed of our deck cycling, finding one of our four Royal Decrees shouldn’t be too hard, so we can eliminate the Marvel Team-Up.
This leaves us with The Exchange and Insignificant Threat. The Exchange is a wonderful tutor card that works well in unison with Avalon Space Station. However, one of our future character card choices will improve our character tutoring even more significantly, so we should only need three copies of The Exchange.
Insignificant Threat is really a matter of preference for the metagame. While I think that it can be very useful against decks that consistently attack up the curve (like Teen Titans and GLEE), it might be hard to argue that Flame Trap is not a stronger card. Additionally, Null Time Zone has recently found favor with a lot of Vs. players for its ability to remove problematic plot twists from play for the turn. However, I can find no distinct reason why any one of these plot twists should be favored over the other, so we’ll stick with Insignificant Threat for now.
With these choices, our plot twists look like this:
3 Global Domination
3 Insignificant Threat
4 Royal Decree
3 The Exchange
Okay . . . on to the all-important character selection. Since we have established that this deck will be a curve build that relies upon Insignificant Threat and Lost City to control the late game, we are probably safe in not playing any 1-drops. At the 2 slot, we have already established that Avalanche is one of the key cards for the deck. As a backup, we will put three Vykins in the deck, as he has an ability that can be very helpful in controlling the speed of the early game.
At the 3 slot, things start to get interesting. We will divert a bit from the original decklist’s character selection. While Himon is very nice for keeping certain plot twists at bay, he is a major target for removal once he hits the field. And, as he isn’t exceptionally strong offensively or defensively, he won’t be much good to us. But one character that is very strong defensively is Sturmer. With his 7 DEF, he can fend off the attack of most opposing 3-drops. With one pump from Lost City, he can hold off most 4-drops, as well! On top of that, he has an ability that should make us drool, since Sturmer plus Avalon Space Station means that we will always hit our curve on turns 6 through 8. As a backup to Sturmer, we’ll put in two Mystiques, as she can double as Lost City fuel for our 6-drop.
Our choice at 4 requires some thought. Izaya ◊ Highfather is certainly big at 7 ATK/8 DEF. However, his ability really doesn’t do anything to assist the purpose of our deck. On the other hand, Lonar is a perfect choice for the strategy we are employing. With his built-in Night Vision, Lonar will tell you if that activation of Avalanche or The Source will replace your opponent’s card with a Bastion or a Genosha. And if the top card happens to be one that you don’t want to give to your opponent, you can simply send it to the bottom of his or her deck by paying 3 endurance. Of course, this can get expensive if you use it too much, but it could also be very worthwhile. As a backup to Lonar, we’ll keep Blob around. He’s not as big an offensive threat as Sabretooth, but he’s a defensive wonder that will help us move into the later stages of the game.
The drop at turn 5 is also critical from a defensive perspective. Metron has pretty good defensive stats and a decent ability. However, I have never found him spectacular. Scott Free ◊ Mister Miracle, on the other hand, presents some very interesting possibilities at 5. With Lost City and multiple copies of Scott Free, you can force your opponent to consume his or her power-ups in an effort to bring Scott down. And, if the opposing character does manage to get big enough to stun Mr. Free, you can simply activate and remove an attacker from the attack. This can be especially devastating in a team attack, as the remaining attackers will probably crash into a rather large defensive wall. As a backup 5-drop, we’ll add a copy of Scarlet Witch ◊ Wanda Maximoff. She can be especially helpful against decks that rely heavily on pesky activated powers.
As mentioned earlier, our 6-drop is none other than Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin. She is a respectable 12 ATK/12 DEF. She also represents the deck’s shift from defensive to aggressive play with an ability that can help us in later turns. Using our smaller characters to clear the way, we can set up Mystique to clean up the field and give us peek at our opponent’s plans for the upcoming turns. With a little bit of breakthrough, we can ensure that Two-Face or Apocalypse won’t make an appearance to ruin our day.
At the 7 slot is none other than the Master of Magnetism himself, Magneto. While we won’t be able to over-abuse him and Lost City with only three copies in the deck, his immense size should be plenty to keep most opposing plans at bay. Add in the fact that opposing characters won’t be recovering this turn, and we should see a substantial swing in board presence.
Finally, if we don’t put the game away at 7, Orion, Dog of War at 8 will help lock the game down once and for all. While not big for an 8-drop, Orion has two spectacular abilities that should allow our remaining forces to finish off our opponent without too much obstruction.
Now that we have analyzed the deck in its entirety, let’s take a look at the finished product:
Designs on Godhood
Designed by “Fred” on VsRealms
Edited by BigSpooky
4 Avalanche, Dominic Petros
3 Vykin, Forever People
4 Sturmer, War Dog
2 Mystique, Raven Darkholme
4 Lonar, Explorer
2 Blob, Fred Dukes
4 Scott Free ◊ Mister Miracle, Escape Artist
1 Scarlet Witch, Wanda Maximoff
3 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin
3 Magneto, Master of Magnetism
1 Orion, Dog of War
3 Global Domination
3 Insignificant Threat
4 Royal Decree
3 The Exchange
4 Avalon Space Station
4 Clocktower
4 Lost City
4 The Source
There you have it. It may not be the most consistent or widely played deck out there, but with a decent draw, it should accomplish its goals rather nicely. At the very least, it should leave your opponents baffled about how to deal with such a monstrosity.
Hopefully, you enjoyed my little discourse on deckbuilding. Maybe I can inspire enough readers out there to experiment with jank that one day, one of you will knock the mighty, mighty Jason “King of Jank” Hager off of his janky mountain.
I also hope that you all believe me when I say that I could take Josh Wiitanen in a fistfight. I mean, he may have better speed, better stamina, and better fashion sense . . . but I’ve got the eye of the tiger!
Finally, I hope that Fred goes out and whoops some major butt with his new jank deck!
That’s all, folks. Take care!
-Michael “BigSpooky” Barnes