Metagame.com - Take Your Game to the Next Level

Part 1

Moving on to the resources, there are a few classes of cards to consider. First are those necessary to the functioning of the deck in the end-game: The Alley, Conjuration, and Team-Ups. On top of those are the core cards that help out the most, such as Dracula’s Castle. Because our primary 3-drop has evasion, the need for Club Dead is reduced. This releases some of the pressure on our resource row (and the pressure on San, in fact). The third class of cards are the “it would be nice” cards. They include one-of locations; additional endurance gain like The Darkhold, Sewer System, or Medallion of Power to fuel Erg; defensive pumps like Acrobatic Dodge or Strength of the Grave; recursion like Slaughter Swamp; and utility cards like Meltdown.

The first draft of our character curve contained thirty-four character cards, although there may well be a couple of cards’ worth of slack in that list. Eight slots will immediately be occupied by Enemy of My Enemy and The Alley, and another eight with one copy of Hypnotic Charms, three copies of UN Building, and four copies of Gravesite. Usually, I would be loathe to include Gravesite in a deck because of the extent to which it can smooth out my opponent’s draw, but for a deck like this, I’m willing to consider an exception. The amount of card-filtering it provides will allow us to run slightly fewer characters at the high end of the curve, probably moving us down to two copies each of Zatanna, Showstopper and Dr. Fate, Kent Nelson. The ability to streamline the deck to run better with Gravesite means that we should be able to make greater use of the card than our opponent, even if he or she also benefits.

The two copies of Conjuration in the original list provide a good starting point. While that would leave us just over a 50% chance of drawing one by turn 7 without Gravesite, flipping a single Gravesite on turn 1 increases that all the way up to 80%. With four copies of Gravesite and the card-drawing power of Zatanna, Showstopper (remember that we can pay endurance with Zatanna all the way down to 0 on turn 7), those two copies should be just enough. We can always add the third later, but Conjuration is the kind of card that a deck like this wants to skimp on if possible so that it can fit in more cards that increase your chances of getting to turn 7 in the first place.

That’s eighteen resources so far. Added to our newly reduced character total of thirty-two, it leaves us ten slots for other resources. Three copies of Dracula’s Castle take us to seven open slots, and at this point it seems valuable to take a second to think about the kinds of decks we’ll be facing.

One development in Golden Age has been a shift away from combat as the determining factor of most turns. More and more time is spent in the recruit step, working through draw and utility engines with cards like Frankie Raye ◊ Nova, Optimistic Youth; The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero; Dr. Light, Master of Holograms; and so on. Stall decks featuring all of the above were prominent at the recent Pro Circuit at Gen Con So Cal. Of the eight Day 3 decks at that event, the only one that actually ran a conventional ATK pump (Savage Beatdown!) was Ryan Jones’s Crisis Doom. Simply recruiting characters with high base DEF values should be sufficient for us to slow the game down to a pace we’re comfortable with (and don’t forget the +1 DEF ability of Dracula’s Castle in a pinch). As a result, we don’t have a pressing need for cards like Acrobatic Dodge.

Those stall decks do, however, flag up Mephisto, Soulstealer as a possible tech character whose ability to empty KO’d piles at will can be devastating in Golden Age. Unfortunately, just as Asmodeus, Duke of Hell and Blackheart, Son of Mephisto clash with Zatanna, Showstopper on turn 6, Mephisto, Soulstealer clashes badly with Dracula, Vlad Dracula on turn 5. Although my final list won’t include these characters, it’s worth remembering them in case you decide that your local events are slow enough to make it worth pushing the win to turn 8 rather than turn 7 against decks particularly vulnerable to a character like Mephisto.

What does all this rambling mean for the deck? Broadly, it means that we should probably not be too concerned with adding cards to help out in combat. Rather, we should be looking to interfere with our opponent and make our own game plan more reliable, and we should be considering resource disruption of some kind rather than going nuts for more endurance gain or DEF.

As such, I’m going to go in what may be a completely unexpected direction—the equipment toolbox. Yes, you did read me right. Admittedly, it’s not a very big toolbox, but think about what you can do with those seven slots! Mix in one Reality Gem, one Medallion of Power, and one Cloak of Nabu, add three copies of Tech Upgrade and season to taste. That leaves us with a final slot for a copy of Slaughter Swamp, which would be almost criminal to go completely without in a deck that depletes itself as much as this one. If we had more space, the addition of equipment would make Salvage a very attractive proposition, allowing us to discard locations to cards like Gravesite before flipping Salvage from the resource row to bulk up our hand size. Unfortunately, space is one thing we don’t have infinite amounts of.

The last change I’m going to make is one that will make the deck better against the more controlling off-curve decks that (over)use Dr. Light, Frankie Raye, and The Phantom Stranger. I’m going to replace the Steel Winds with Tar Baby, Adhesive Ally and rebalance the 4-drops toward Underworld a little, giving an extra shot of ammunition against the omnipresent recursion defining the format.

The revised build should be a little more able to cope with some of the excesses of the Golden Age format while making up for the hit in consistency suffered with the loss of Detective Chimp. The addition of the equipment package and the switched 2-drop may make a surprisingly big difference, giving unexpected access to reusable KO’d pile and resource hate. Medallion will turbo-charge Erg against curve decks, and Cloak of Nabu can stop Reign of Terror, Mystical Paralysis, and other annoyances. Remember that equipping Reality Gem to Healer or Tar Baby guarantees that you’ll be able to get it back into your hand at will—for example, in response to a Meltdown (although clever opponents will wait for your character to become stunned and the Gem trigger to go on the chain before playing the Meltdown).

I hope that you’ve found this week’s Deck Clinic useful. As with the Jackal combo, this would seem to be a deck that hasn’t been hurt as much as might be expected by the banning of a seemingly important card.

As always, if you have any decks for submission to the Clinic, email me at vsdeckclinic@googlemail.com. Until next time, I hope the Legion of Super Heroes Sneak Preview has you thinking about some new ideas for decks—whether that’s taking a trip back to Titans Tower or Apokolips, or breaking new ground with the Future Foes or Legionnaires!

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.