Now that we’ve all had a chance to see what the new X-Men set has to offer, I’m sure we all have thoughts percolating in our heads about what new decks we want to build—especially in Modern Age. I know from personal experience that my team, Team Alternate Win Condition (TAWC), has started furiously playtesting with the cards from the new set in preparation for PC Atlanta. I should probably warn the Vs. System community at large to beware of TAWC. They may be short one BigSpooky in Atlanta, but they’ll make up for it with plenty of cool combos to devastate the competition.
Combos and Synergy: The Keys To Vs. System Domination
Speaking of combos, this week’s article focuses on a combo idea I’ve been toying around with for the past few months. Shortly after PC New York, I wrote an article discussing the concept of synergy. Synergy, as defined by Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, is “a mutually advantageous conjunction or compatibility of distinct elements.” In layman’s terms, synergy means that the combination of two or more items is worth more than the individual values of those items put together. In other words, a combo is greater than the sum of its parts.
Synergistic combos are replete in the Vs. System. Perhaps one of the most well-known combos is Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal and Press the Attack. One card enables you to exhaust characters you control to a beneficial effect. The other allows you to ready a character if you control four or more exhausted characters. Individually, these cards are both strong. However, the combination of these two cards in a Teen Titans deck makes the value of both increase significantly.
The most popular and effective combos in the Vs. System are those that are limited to two or three cards. I recall a discussion that I had with Patrick Yapjoco on VsRealms after the Man of Steel release about the potential of Barbara Gordon ◊ Batgirl. I claimed that with a little tweaking, The Brave and the Bold decks could be amazing. Using the protection of Dynamic Duo, Batgirl and two other equipped characters armed with Utility Belts could attack a character. Once the character stunned, you’d draw three cards from her effect. Hopefully, the character also KO’d because GCPD Headquarters was on the board. In any case, you then played Teen Titans Go! to ready all of your characters and attack again.
While I took some personal pride in this idea, Patrick dubbed it a “non-bo.” His point was that it required too many cards to be in play at the same time to work effectively. Of course, I scoffed at the idea and built the deck anyway. And, after extensive playtesting, I found that Patrick was absolutely right. Just as too many cooks spoil the broth, too many cards spoil the combo.
Patrick “Majestic” Yapjoco – 1
Michael “BigSpooky” Barnes – 0
“It’s Peanut Butter Jelly Time!”*
Armed with the knowledge that we need to keep our combos small and simple, we’re going to explore our combo-enabling card of the day—Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Back in the heyday of Marvel Origins, I took part in a fairly successful draft where I picked X-Men almost exclusively. This success was in large part to a couple of Surprise Attacks I snagged and a vicious little combo involving Xavier’s School and Advanced Hardware. On turn 2, I was usually under-dropping with Shadowcat, Kitty Pryde so I could equip her with Advanced Hardware. With Xavier’s School in play, Shadowcat guaranteed at least 6 points of endurance loss every turn. By turn 6, that little three-card combo had usually resulted in 30 endurance loss to my opponent. If I was able to muster any kind of an offense, then I had little trouble dispatching my opponent.
Since then, I have seen Xavier’s School used in a number of different capacities. Some of the combos were fairly basic, such as using Xavier’s School to ready an attacking character to exhaust for Finishing Move or Fastball Special. A few of these ideas were truly ingenious, like Justin “Latuki Joe” Brady’s turn 3 kill combo deck using Xavier’s School and Team Tactics. Finally, one or two ideas were so brilliant that they had the potential to define a new archetype. My former teammate Mark Hunt had a Teen Titans/X-Men deck that abused Arsenal and Xavier’s School to an extent that I have never before seen. At the end of most games, he would usually only have one or two resources in play. However, his opponent usually didn’t have any characters in play, so it was a more than fair exchange. I lost many a game to that brutal combo.
Recently, it occurred to me that a combination of a couple of these ideas might make for an interesting deck. Dr. Light, Master of Holograms is obviously a strong card in a combo deck since he gives you extra character cards on the board for free. Using this effect once per turn is impressive enough, but being able to use Dr. Light’s effect multiple times in a turn would be absolutely absurd. This is the premise of our deck today: Dr. Light + Xavier’s School = Swarm of characters beyond our wildest dreams!
The Build
As we most often do, we are going to start out with four copies of our theme card, Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. In addition, we will want to have four copies of Dr. Light, Master of Holograms at our disposal. Our immediate goal will always be to have Dr. Light on the board with Xavier’s School so we can pump out as many extra characters on the board as possible. Of course, to do that we will need to get the Emerald Enemies teamed-up with the X-Men. We have a multitude of team-up cards that we could use for this task. However, we’re going to try out X-Men United from the new set. While it doesn’t give us the ability to draw a card like Millennium does, it has a potentially beneficial effect for the late game. Moreover, the Team-Up version gives us a little more versatility.
In addition, we will include a single copy of UN Building. As we will see shortly, our deck will boast a wide enough variety of teams that we should have no problem meeting the three team requirement of this Team-Up card.
Since the entire purpose of our deck is to abuse Dr. Light and Xavier’s School, we will want to include a wide assortment of low-cost characters. Fortunately, the X-Men have some of the best at 2 and below. The key to success with the deck, however, will be to maximize our efficiency with these characters. Let’s take a look at our selections:
Archangel, Angel: The newest version of Archangel boasts an impressive ATK along with a searching ability that we might find beneficial. In whichever manner he enters play, he will give us access to any one of the new X-Corp cards from the X-Men set. As we will find, this could come in handy for us.
Bishop, Lucas Bishop: While only a vanilla 2 ATK / 2 DEF character in some cases, Bishop becomes a whopping 5 ATK / 5 DEF against characters with range. Given the popularity of Teen Titans, AGL Rush, and G’Lock, we should include at least one copy of the man from the future.
Cannonball and Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner: For a very long time, I believed that the 2-drop Nightcrawler was the best 2-drop in the game. The only thing better than having Nightcrawler in our deck is having him and Cannonball—a character that has the exact same ability! Having two characters on the board that can’t be stunned while attacking is certainly not a bad thing, so we’ll include two copies each of Nightcrawler and his doppelganger.
Changeling: Dr. Light enables us to establish board presence through effectively free recruits. Changeling, on the other hand, will help us maintain board presence by allowing us to replace him with a fresh character. Then, on the next turn, we can simply use Dr. Light’s effect to bring back Changeling for another go ‘round.
Cyclops, Slim: Assuming we do achieve board control, there’s a good chance that, on our initiatives, we will have a few characters on the board that can attack directly. Cyclops turns a direct team attack by a few small characters into a crippling blow to our opponent. Assuming that we can pull off a direct team attack with three characters, we’ll get a bonus of 6 extra ATK. With the potential for that kind of attack power in the early turns, Cyclops certainly deserves a slot in the deck.
Dazzler, Alison Blaire: While we won’t be doing a lot of stalling with a swarm deck, Dazzler can be an unexpected surprise on the opponent’s initiative. If your opponent leaves a large character in the support row, Dazzler can take that character out of action for the turn. Against most decks, this can be a major problem for them . . . and a major help for us!
Jubilee: Okay . . . so she’s not much of an offensive threat. However, Jubilee’s burn effect can be amazing in close matchups. On our initiatives, we should be able to protect her to ensure the burn during the recovery phase. On our opponent’s initiative, Jubilee forces our opponent to deal with her or suffer her effect as a result. From a strategic standpoint, it’s helpful to know where our opponent must attack.
Lockheed: If we have any trouble getting characters into the KO’d pile for Dr. Light’s effect, Lockheed can be an effective way of discarding extra Energy characters. Add in that he’s a 2 ATK / 1 DEF 1-drop with flight and the potential for +2 ATK, and he certainly merits consideration.
Longshot, Hero of Mojoworld: He has range, solid stats, and a deck-cycling ability that can help us set up our hand for the later turns.
Shadowcat, Katya: Just like Lockheed, Shadowcat can help us get cards in the KO’d pile for Dr. Light. Of course, her 3 ATK / 3 DEF certainly doesn’t hurt!
In addition to the X-Men characters, we have several small Emerald Enemies characters that can be useful in the deck:
Fatality, Emerald Assassin: The major threat to any rush deck is the possibility that it will run afoul of an untimely Flame Trap or the like. Fatality helps us deal with these threats with a built-in negation effect. Granted, her cost of KO’ing a resource is pretty steep, but seeing as how we won’t be playing any characters that cost more than 3, it’s well worth the price.
Hector Hammond, Super-Futuristic Mind: While we hope to end our games in the early turns with an onslaught of weenies, we need to consider the possibility that we’ll have to play for a turn 6 or 7 win. Hector Hammond helps in this endeavor by providing a huge 6 ATK / 6 DEF body in the late turns.
Major Disaster: Having another disruption tool at our disposal to deal with cards like Lost City is probably not a bad idea. Major Disaster won’t be a card we use a lot, but it’s nice to have him available.
The Shark, T.S. Smith: Assuming that we don’t clutter our resource row with useless cards, The Shark will be a growing menace for our opponent, literally. The later the game goes, the easier it gets for this guy to attack up the curve.
Finally, let’s take a look at the characters from the other teams that we will need to include:
Beetle, Armorsmith: Simply awesome. The ability to search out almost any character in our deck is one we can’t go without. Four copies of this guy don’t seem like enough. Unfortunately, that is what we are limited to.
Paul Ebersol ◊ Fixer: Much like Fatality, Fixer is in our deck to prevent weenie-hating plot twists from decimating our board. Hopefully, the single copy we’ll be including will suffice for this task.
Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose: Though it may cost us a character, we can’t deny the power of bringing a location from our deck directly into play. Besides, Dr. Light will usually allow us to bring the KO’d character right back into play. Hmmm . . . Dr. Light + Poison Ivy + Beetle = COMBO!**
Viper: As a final piece of tech, we’ll include Viper from the Hellfire Club. If we get her into the KO’d pile, she could easily become a free +1 ATK for all of our characters. I think it would be hard to argue that a free +1 ATK is a bad thing.
Whew! That’s a lot of different characters. Now, let’s take a look at the locations and plot twists we’ll use to support our gang. We have already discussed that we will be using Archangel to fetch X-Corp locations for us. The two that come to mind as most helpful for our deck are X-Corp: Amsterdam and X-Corp: Hong Kong. X-Corp: Amsterdam has a decent defensive pump effect. However, the reason for its inclusion is really to have the Team-Up search for our deck. With the versatility of being useful whether or not we have a Team-Up in play, it’s a good card for our build. In addition, X-Corp: Hong Kong seems to be tailor-made for the deck. Our eventual goal is to have a bunch of small characters on the board. Presumably, we should have several that share the same cost, so X-Corp: Hong Kong hands out a free +1 ATK for all of those characters. Between that and Viper, our weenies are starting to grow at an alarming rate!
Speaking of having a bunch of characters on the board, Birthing Chamber seems like a good choice for our deck. Given the tendency of rush decks to run out of cards in the later turns of a game, having a location in play that can replenish our hand and potentially move cards into the KO’d pile would definitely assist our efforts.
Looking at our plot twists, we need to consider how our deck is designed to operate. The bottom line is that we must have Dr. Light in play for maximum effectiveness. That said, we’re going to include a search card that can allow us to get the good doctor in our hand should we fail to draw him in the first three turns. It is somewhat fitting that our choice for a searcher is the big card from the X-Men set—Enemy of My Enemy. Since we probably won’t lack for X-Men characters in hand, Enemy of My Enemy will allow us to discard an X-Men character to fetch Dr. Light from the deck. Once we get him into play, we can simply activate him to get the discarded X-Men character on the board. What a deal!
As a backup searcher, we’ll include a couple of copies of Time Breach. Presumably, we should be able to rely on Enemy of My Enemy and Beetle, Armorsmith to do most of our searching. However, having a card that can provide us with a couple of extra low drops is not a bad idea. Plus, the resolution of the effect allows us to discard a card. More targets for Dr. Light!
Of course, we can’t count on our undersized army to take on anyone without a little help in the form of attack pumps. Fortunately for us, the new X-Men set provides us with two incredible pumps. First, we’ll include two copies of Turnabout. Some players may recall how influential Trial by Sword was in the FTN deck that took PC Indy by storm. Well, this card is even better! Considering that we will be attacking and defending up the curve most of the time, Turnabout can potentially make our characters large enough to stun larger characters without getting stunned back. It is an awesome card to say the least.
The other attack pump we’ll look at is SNIKT!. Just one point off of Savage Beatdown, this card is sure to have a major impact in the Modern Age. While the discard may be troublesome for some decks, it actually fits right into our deck’s theme. Moreover, SNIKT! virtually ensures that our opponents will not be safe on attack or defense.***
Our final plot twist is just for fun (and a tribute to the aforementioned Justin Brady). We’ll include a single copy of Team Tactics. While it won’t be feasible for our characters to do an insane amount of damage with one attacking character (à la Thunderbolts Tactics and the like), Team Tactics does make it possible for a smaller character to take on a substantially larger one with the help of Xavier’s School. The look on your opponent’s face when you take down his or her 7-drop with your 1-drop makes playing a single copy worthwhile.
All rise! All rise! Court is now in session. Let’s see what the final verdict is on our swarming concoction:
Old Meets New (60 Cards)
Characters (31)
1 Archangel, Angel
4 Beetle, Armorsmith
1 Bishop, Lucas Bishop
2 Cannonball, Blast Field
2 Changeling, Kevin Sidney
1 Cyclops, Slim
1 Dazzler, Alison Blaire
2 Fatality, Emerald Assassin
1 Hector Hammond, Super-Futuristic Mind
1 Jubilee, Jubilation Lee
1 Lockheed, Saurian Sidekick
1 Longshot, Hero of Mojoworld
1 Major Disaster, Paul Booker
2 Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner
1 Paul Ebersol ◊ Fixer, Problem Solver
2 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 Shadowcat, Katya
1 The Shark, T.S. Smith
1 Viper, White Warrior Princess
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
Plot Twists (19)
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 SNIKT!
1 Team Tactics
2 Time Breach
4 Turnabout
4 X-Men United
Locations (10)
3 Birthing Chamber
1 UN Building, Team-Up
4 Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters
1 X-Corp: Amsterdam
1 X-Corp: Hong Kong
As we’ve already discussed, our mulligan is for Dr. Light or Enemy of My Enemy—no more and no less. From there we should be able to achieve a satisfactory setup where we can get a Team-Up and Xavier’s School on the board (with the help of Poison Ivy if need be). Initiative choice is probably odds. However, against a deck that has some sort of disruption or weenie hate, evens is probably a better choice since that allows us to get Fatality or Fixer into play first on turn 4 (the first turn that cards like Reign of Terror and Flame Trap can come into play).
I am on my way to a very short amount of sleep before I go back to a nightmare work week. But don’t fret . . . by the time you read this, I shall be done with 70-hour workweeks . . . and back to 60-hour to 65-hour workweeks, tops. Feel free to send any thoughts, suggestions, or words of encouragement my way at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. While I promise to read and treasure each and every email, I make no such guarantees about responding or maintaining my sanity during the audit busy season.
* Yes, that is another Family Guy reference. I thought it was fitting since peanut butter and jelly are the greatest combo ever.
** I keep saying “combo” so much that I feel like I am playing the fighting game Killer Instinct. Every time I type in the word, I keep hearing the voice from the video game saying, “COMBO!!!” Uh oh . . . voices in my head. That can’t be good.
*** I had this premonition that, after Bamf!, UDE would release SNIKT! to continue the theme of onomatopoeia-named cards for the X-Men. Don’t be surprised if we eventually see cards for the Gotham Knights called “Biff!,” “Pow,” and “Batow!” Okay, so that last one wasn’t really onomatopoeia . . . but it really should be!