Many of you may have noticed that my writing style for Metagame.com entails my drawing on personal interests and experiences to derive ideas for cards and decks to discuss. I am fortunate in that I am quite . . . um . . . whimsical in nature (I believe the current buzzword is “A.D.D.”). While this aspect of my personality makes it difficult for me to focus on things that don’t interest me (can anyone say “audit”?), it does drive me to try to experience as much as life has to offer.

“I’m Standing On One Foot!”

One of the random interests I have is with a website called HomestarRunner.com. I am sure many of you are familiar with this wonderful website. But for those of you who aren’t, I will give you a quick rundown of the site.

HomestarRunner.com (HSR) is owned and operated by brothers Matt and Mike Chapman. The website is composed of literally thousands of flash-animation cartoons detailing the exploits of a character called Homestar Runner, who is an athletic, lovable, and not-so-intelligent guy. Homestar has a marked inability to pronounce the letter “R,” instead slurring it into a “W” (making his name sound like “Homestaw Wunnew” when he tries to say it). And, apparently, Homestar’s arms are not visible to the naked eye.

Like any hero, Homestar does have an eternal nemesis. This nemesis comes in the form of one Strong Bad. Strong Bad is an angry little man who is perpetually dressed in a “lucha libre” style wrestling outfit with (for some unknown reason) boxing gloves. If you were present at Pro Circuit Los Angeles last year, or if you read any of the event coverage, then you probably saw Matthew Tatar wearing a shirt sporting Strong Bad’s visage. Despite Homestar being the “hero” of the cartoon, Strong Bad is by far the more popular of the two with fans of the website.

Although there are a good variety of different cartoons and characters on the website, such as Teen Girl Squad and Tim Willoughby’s favorite, Trogdor: The Burninator, most of the cartoons deal with the eternal struggle between Homestar Runner and Strong Bad. Despite the fact that Strong Bad is stronger, more handsome, and a lot smarter than Homestar Runner, Homestar generally gets the best of poor old Strong Bad. It’s quite reminiscent of the relationship between Tim Batow and me.*

“The Grumblecakes Will Be Mine!”

If you were (un)fortunate enough to have witnessed any of my matches at Pro Circuit San Francisco, you may have heard me shouting out “Science!” occasionally.** This was a reference to one of my favorite Strong Bad emails, “Stupid Stuff.” In the email, Strong Bad takes a pseudo-bet where he tries to get Homestar Runner to say something “intelligent.” After dressing Homestar up in full lab gear, test tube and all, the only intelligent thing that Homestar can think to say is “Science!” When prompted by Strong Bad to say something else intelligent, Homestar responds with “Science again! I said ‘science’ again!”

“Science!”

This series of quotes has always been very funny to me. Imagine, however, the unfettered joy I had when I started playing TAWC’s Checkmate / Villains United deck, which was built with a copy of The Science Spire. I’m sure my continuous quoting of Homestar Runner every time I activated The Science Spire in a game (“Science!”) became really old really quickly to my teammates. Of course, if I activated it a second time in a game, it got even worse (“Science again! I said ‘science’ again!”).

My absolute stupidity to beat these quotes into the ground drove me to examine The Science Spire more closely. While it was often a game saver in the Checkmate / Villains United deck, it was not a card that saw play in every game. Personally, I think it is such an amazing card that it could very well support an entire archetype.

Enter team X-Statix. There were off-and-on rumblings of a possible X-Statix / Villains United deck making a splash in Silver Age. However, to my knowledge, the deck did not make an appearance at PC: San Francisco. This is a true shame, because the “return to hand” theme of the Villains United team could work very well with the mono-character theme of X-Statix.

The Build

Yes indeed . . . we need four copies of The Science Spire. We want to play the maximum so we can get our card cycling engine online as soon as possible. In addition, it might be nice to have a few extra copies available so that we have a backup in case one gets replace from the resource row.

Another location that we want to be sure to play is X-Statix Cafe. There is no denying that an extra +2 ATK / +2 DEF is impressive; it effectively moves our characters another spot up the curve. Given than many of our characters are already pretty big to begin with, this bonus could make them almost impossible to attack through.

Finally, we should probably play a couple of copies of Slaughter Swamp. While The Science Spire is wonderful for cycling dead cards out of our hand, we will all too often be shipping character cards that we won’t need until later into the KO’d pile with its effect. With Slaughter Swamp, we can change the KO’d pile from a deep abyss from which character cards can never return to a convenient holding place for our late game drops.

As far as plot twists go, we definitely want to play four copies of Coercion. While this card may not be quite as flexible as Midnight Sons, it is still very effective to say the least. With a single Villains United character in play, we can use character cards in hand to enable team-ups. This can be extremely beneficial to us for enabling reveal costs (like that of Orphan, Guy Smith) and conditional triggers (like Vivisector, Myles Alfred) when we don’t have another X-Statix character already in hand or in play.

Of course, this deck does center on the X-Statix lone character theme. So we will definitely want to include the standard suite of plot twists to support this theme. Probably the foremost of these is four copies of Spin Doctoring. It will already be difficult for our opponents to bust through the enormous characters protecting our side of the board. But Spin Doctoring ensures that even if they do bust through, they probably won’t get a chance to attack directly. In fact, that gargantuan character that they had so much trouble stunning initially will undoubtedly be swinging back on them!

Of course, what good is a defensive deck without some impressive defense? It doesn’t get much more impressive than Dead Weight. Sure, Dead Weight will KO all of your other characters and keep you from attacking for the turn, but since we probably won’t have any other characters in play and we won’t be doing much attacking, this is not a major detriment at all.

To round out the X-Statix suite, we have our grand ongoing guardians¾Star of the Show and Mutant of the Year. If we are forced to face off against a board control deck, a burn deck, or even a deck that packs a significant amount of disruption, then these two gems will keep us safe from adverse effects. Star of the Show will protect our individual character in play from effects that might do it harm, such as exhaustion effects (Rain Of Acorns), KO effects (Injustice Gang Satellite or Merlyn, Deadly Archer), and even stat modifiers (No Man Escapes the Manhunters). Mutant of the Year, on the other hand, keeps us safe from detrimental “target player” effects¾primarily burn effects like Flamethrower and Golden Archer. Taken together, our opponents will have little option other than to attack!

One problem that we might run into with this deck is that our attacks won’t often amount to much. While we will have size on our side, our opponents will likely have numbers, meaning that they can easily reinforce against our attacks. So, we need to consider some disruption options of our own. This is why we’re going to include three copies of No Hope. The purpose of this card is actually twofold. First, it provides an avenue for us to pull off some attacks on smaller characters for massive amounts of breakthrough damage. Second, it also provides us an outlet for unused resource points (which we will occasionally have). Turning our excess resource points into direct endurance damage is certainly not a bad thing. And even though the payment effect of No Hope is limited to one activation per turn, multiple copies in the resource row can add up very quickly!

Our final plot twist is our standard character searcher. Obviously, The Science Spire has amazing synergy with the X-Statix theme. But the Villains United character searcher Baddest of the Bad has just as potent a synergy. Since we will be clearing our board of characters early every turn anyway, we might as well get some benefit out of it. And Baddest of the Bad allows us to search our deck for any affiliated character card! With a single copy, we can get our team-up online even if we are unable to draw into an X-Statix character card.

Our last non-character choice is the equipment card Force Field Belt. As mentioned earlier, we will often have extra resource points at our disposal. As such, it certainly behooves us to have a few ways to utilize those points. Force Field Belt is a great way to keep our characters in play “ahead of the curve,” so to speak. On a character like Orphan, Guy Smith, a couple of extra +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters can easily make him the size of a 4- or even 5-drop.

Onward and upward to our characters. Our 1-drop is fairly obvious: The Calculator, Noah Kuttler. This car is everything that I look for in a 1-drop. Not only is he a playable Villains United character that allows us to get The Science Spire, Baddest of the Bad, and Coercion online early, but he can also be discarded to search out Coercion. 1-drops that can be effective in later turns as well are always good in the book of Spooky.***

Our primary 2-drop choice may be a little controversial. In a metagame where 3 ATK / 3 DEF 2-drops run rampant, Ishmael Gregor ◊ Sabbac is on the small end of the scale. However, Sabbac’s stats are a bit deceptive given his utility in this deck. Since his vengeance effect requires him to become stunned to trigger, his small stats are actually beneficial for us. In the case of most 1-drops and many 2-drops, attacking into Sabbac will result in 4 to 5 points of damage each attack (3 for Sabbac’s effect and 1 or 2 for the stun). And since we probably only want to keep Sabbac around for a couple of turns at the most due to the mono-character deck theme, his small stats will not be an issue for us in the later turns.

Our backup 2-drop is really not a 2-drop at all. Rather, Vivisector, Myles Alfred is more of an alternate burn card for our deck in the mid to late turns. With a boost of 1 resource point, Vivisector creates a slow but effective burn for our deck that can steadily chip away at our opponent’s endurance total. Better yet, this boost effect has tremendous synergy with Baddest of the Bad and The Science Spire. Since the resolution of the boost effect will put Vivisector back in our hand anyway, adding Baddest of the Bad or The Science Spire to the chain is an easy way for us to get something for nothing. Simply play either card in response to Vivisector’s boost. Vivisector will go back to the hand and enable the effect of the particular card to resolve. Then, even though Vivisector has already returned to our hand, his boost effect will still resolve to burn our opponent for 5 endurance. Combo!

At 3, we have quite possibly the most powerful character in the deck. All alone, Orphan, Guy Smith will start out as a 6 ATK / 6 DEF on turn 3. If we have no other play on turn 4, then he improves to a respectable 7 ATK / 6 DEF. But this is where the magic of the X-Statix deck comes into play. With the X-Statix Cafe in play, Orphan jumps to a 9 ATK / 8 DEF on turn 4. Additionally, if we use the effect of Force Field Belt to give him a couple of +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters, he leaps to an 11 ATK / 11 DEF on turn 4 (assuming that the Force Field Belt remains equipped). Consequently, Orphan can become 14 ATK / 13 DEF on turn 5, 17 ATK / 15 DEF on turn 6, and a colossal 20 ATK / 17 DEF on turn 7. Even if we don’t drop another character for the remainder of the game, we will still have a behemoth presence on our side of the board ready to take on pretty much anything our opponent throws at us . . . and he’s a friggin’ 3-drop!

At 4, we have the lovely and devastating Fatality, Flawless Victory. A deck that only has a single character in play probably doesn’t need to worry too much about an effect that KO’s all characters with a cost of 3 or less. However, most opposing decks will have to worry about this. With the proliferation of Checkmate decks sporting Ahmed Samsarra, any effect that can put this King into the KO’d pile will be cause for major concern. More importantly, Fatality’s effect will give the X-Statix something that they didn’t have much of before: board control. Now we can snipe off our opponent’s smaller characters, forcing our opponents to deal with out characters with only their larger characters. With a severely diminished board, most decks won’t be able to keep up.

Also at 4, we’re going to be extremely cruel and toss in a single copy of Metallo. With the newfound popularity of decks featuring the Fate Artifacts, equipment KO effects have renewed significance. Metallo has probably the best equipment KO effect in Silver Age, immediately KO’ing all equipment on a character that he attacks or defends against. So what happens when we make Metallo our only character in play? He’ll be too big for non-equipped characters to attack through and impossible for equipped characters to attack into without losing all of their precious artifacts. It’s pandemonium, my friends, pandemonium!

The best choice for our character at 5 may be a point of some contention. Mr. Freeze, Brutal Blizzard is definitely a consideration with his 10 DEF. However, his effect probably won’t do much for us, as he will rarely get stunned while attacking, and his effect isn’t all that helpful when he becomes stunned while defending. Instead, we’re going to try to make do with Black Adam, Teth-Adam. With only 8 DEF, it is highly likely that Black Adam will become stunned. But this is actually a good thing for us, as it places a crippling -3 ATK / -3 DEF counter on an opposing character of our choice. This can be a beautiful setup on turn 6 as we send Black Adam into an opposing 5-drop, which in all probability will lead to a stun on Black Adam. We can then use Black Adam’s effect to weaken our opponent’s 6-drop, send Black Adam back to our hand with a variety of effects, and then crush our opponent’s significantly weakened 6-drop with a 14 ATK / 14 DEF monster.

Our 6-drops of choice fill a variety of roles. Our backup at 6 is Dr. Psycho, Twisted Telepath. While he may not be much of an offensive or defensive threat, his effect certainly deserves a second look. Considering that we will usually have only one or two characters in play tops, Dr. Psycho’s effect will probably only hurt us for 3 to 6 points of endurance in any given turn. However, our opponents will often have many more characters in play. Against a deck like G’Lock, Dr. Psycho could conceivably burn for upward of 15 endurance. Any character that can generate that level of damage without any associated payment is certainly worth playing at least a single copy of.

Of course, our main man at 6 will obviously be Zeitgeist. The ability to stun any character in play is absolutely amazing. While Zeitgeist does have a stringent set of requirements that he must meet to make this happen, he can literally change the tide of the game with a timely activation. Zeitgeist is one of the best reasons we have to play the one-man X-Statix strategy. He is a game winner!

Quite often on 7, we may find ourselves using The Science Spire to return Zeitgeist to our hand and simply recruiting him again. He makes a good drop for pretty much every turn after 6. But if we find that we’d rather dish out some damage instead of replenishing Zeitgeist’s cosmic counter, then we can play The Calculator, Crime Broker. With The Science Spire offering continuous replenishment, it is a near certainty that we will have plenty of character cards in our hand by the time turn 7 rolls around. The Calculator turns these cards into effective burn cards, dishing out a couple of points of endurance loss for every character card we discard. If we save up ten character cards by turn 7, then The Calculator will unleash 20 endurance damage on our unsuspecting opponent. With that kind of burn, we could feasibly not do any damage until turn 7 and still pull off a victory.

Finally, we have the one and only Doop, Ultimate Weapon at 8. Without mincing any words, Doop is just plain big! That 25 ATK on his front end can lead to some serious pain for our opponents (especially in unison with No Hope!). Granted, Doop will stun pretty much every time when he attacks an opposing character. But our green friend has that handy invulnerability to prevent the loss of any of our endurance. Moreover, his ability to become stunned easily leads to a keen combo with Spin Doctoring. Just use Doop to unleash a whooping on an opposing character, then recover and ready him via Spin Doctoring to repeat. With multiple copies of Spin Doctoring, Doop can become a one man . . . er . . . alien board clearer!

And once again, we have reached the conclusion of our joint building venture. Let’s see if our endeavors paid any dividends:

She Blinded Me with Science! (60 cards)

Characters (27)

4 The Calculator, Noah Kuttler

4 Ishmael Gregor ◊ Sabbac, Malevolent Marvel

2 Vivisector, Myles Alfred

4 Orphan, Guy Smith

1 Plazm, Protoplasmic Protagonist

4 Fatality, Flawless Victory

1 Metallo, John Corben

2 Black Adam, Teth-Adam

1 Dr. Psycho, Twisted Telepath

2 Zeitgeist, Axel Cluney

1 The Calculator, Crime Broker

1 Doop, Ultimate Weapon

Plot Twists (22)

3 Baddest of the Bad

4 Coercion, Team-Up

4 Dead Weight

2 Mutant of the Year

3 No Hope

4 Spin Doctoring

2 Star of the Show

Locations (9)

2 Slaughter Swamp

4 The Science Spire

3 X-Statix Cafe

Equipment (2)

2 Force Field Belt

 

 

The mulligan is for The Science Spire, pure and simple. If you can get it up and running early, then you should hit every other card that you need within the course of the game. Don’t worry about under-dropping or even missing drops. As long as you have a character in play, you should have little trouble staying in the game.

Initiative preference with the deck probably depends on what type of deck you are facing. In all probability, odds would be the preferred initiative, enabling you to activate Zeitgeist on your off-initiative on turn 6 and then swing with him and The Calculator on turn 7 (hopefully for some decent damage with No Hope). Of course, if you’re up against a slower deck (like G’Lock), then you might want to wait for a turn 8 win with Doop. You also have to keep opposing endurance gain in check to avoid losing to Captain Marvel, Champion of Magic. Fortunately, The Calculator and other burn cards in the deck should help with that task.

Thus ends another week of Breaking Ground. Of course, if you feel the need to share any thoughts, ideas, or humorous HSR quotes with me, you can send me an email at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com.

I’m off now to enjoy some delicious Grumblecakes. Take care, and I’ll see you again next week!

* Though comparing Tim Batow to Strong Bad is probably not all that accurate. From the size perspective at least, he looks a lot more like The Cheat.

** One or two of the people who heard me bellowing “Science!” thought that I was making a reference to Thomas Dolby’s “She Blinded Me With Science!” Hence the name of the deck.

*** Which is undoubtedly a pop-up book.