Each choice of primary search card has significant implications for the rest of our deck. Creation will make us want to skew our character numbers toward Heralds at the higher end of the curve (from the 4-drop up, as a Heralds 4-drop can be discarded to fetch Crystal, Elementelle on turn 3) and run multiple copies of Galactus. Refuge encourages cheap plot twists and locations that we won’t mind flipping early in the game. The face-up resource plan also encourages us to make Black Bolt, Illuminati our preferred 2-drop, as he can help get Refuge going early in the game by cycling into more resources that can be flipped in the recruit step.
So, we have a skeleton of common characters and two “packages” of characters involved in running each search card. This modular approach to deckbuilding can be a great way to build a number of different decks with similar themes quickly after a Sneak Preview, as you do a lot of the work only once. When you can see a number of different ways to take a deck, you can effectively and rapidly pull together lists and highlight common cards between multiple builds. That, in turn, can be a good way of picking up on the less obvious powerful cards for particular themes.
Core (23)
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend
2 Black Bolt, Illuminati
1 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
4 Crystal, Elementelle
4 Morg, Corrupt Destroyer
4 Karnak, The Shatterer
2 The Fallen One, The Forgotten
1 Galactus, The Maker
1 Tyrant, The Original Herald
Creation of a Herald (35)
3 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
2 Firelord, Pyreus Kril
2 Stardust, Merciless Warrior
1 Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
3 Galactus, The Maker
1 Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
The Great Refuge (31)
2 Black Bolt, Illuminati
1 Tonaja, The Responsible One
1 Plasma, Replacement Herald
1 Nahrees, The Negative One
1 Thing, Rockhead
1 Maximus the Mad, Mental Manipulator
1 Invisible Woman, Flame On!
One thing you may notice is that, as might be expected, the need for extra copies of Galactus pushes the total character count higher in Creation. Firelord is included at 3 and 6 to help compensate for that by giving us more ways to use high-cost characters (like spare 7-drops) as virtual plot twists (either by discarding to pump our characters or by discarding to Creation).
Resource Selection
The choice of primary search card will also have an effect on our choice of resources; The Great Refuge needs a face-up resource row to keep operating smoothly on-curve. As such, there are a few types of resource that will be particularly attractive, such as locations with terraform and low cost plot twists that we are happy flipping early in the game.
Again, I want to put together a resource core that can be supplemented by modular groups of cards similar to the ones listed above based on which search card the deck is working with. The first cards that will go straight in are the cosmic enablers. Extended Family will be present to the tune of four copies, as it provides both team-up ability and cosmic counters. The choice then is between The Power Cosmic Unleashed, which is a flexible (although single-use) way to add a counter to a Heralds character, and the ongoing plot twists Terragenesis and Pacification. Both have restrictions. Terragenesis only provides counters when a character recovers, and Pacification requires we have more cards in hand than our opponent at the start of combat. In the end, it’s the flexibility offered by The Power Cosmic Unleashed that is the deciding factor.
The next thing we want to add is our secondary search card, Kindred Spirits. Whichever of The Great Refuge and Creation of a Herald we end up using, Kindred Spirits will complement it well. It can find copies of Galactus for Creation or characters to recruit, and as a 0-cost plot twist, it can easily be flipped early to satisfy The Great Refuge and other cards dependent on face-up resources.
Moving on, we also want some combat tricks. We are an aggro deck, after all! Inspiring Demise is the most powerful one available, providing a massive +4 ATK / +4 DEF boost to an attacker, although the fact that it causes our opponents to gain 4 endurance means that it’s only useful for managing which characters get stunned each turn. On the downside, it has to be played from our resource row. This realistically renders it out of bounds for the Refuge build, as we will never be able to play Inspiring Demise on a turn when we have to Refuge for our recruit. The Royal Guard is a solid +2 ATK / +2 DEF pump for Inhumans, while Relentless Onslaught is a not-too-exciting +2 ATK pump made palatable by a card draw. Now, let’s move on to putting together our “modules” for resources.
If we’re going the face-up resource route, we also have access to It’s Slobberin’ Time! and Blue Area of the Moon to help stop our attackers from stunning. The last combat trick that bears mentioning is the Inhumans-stamped Exploiting the Flaw. This is a powerful card, one that effectively lets your most powerful character attack twice, and it has a particular appeal for us. If we can avoid him stunning on his first attack, then we can use it to return multiple characters with Morg in a single turn.
This pushes me somewhat in the direction of the face-up resource plan, as It’s Slobberin’ Time! and The Royal Guard, along with Blue Area of the Moon, may make that more achievable than Morg’s paltry 5 DEF might suggest. The only downsides to Exploiting the Flaw are that it relies on the character we want to attack twice surviving its first attack without stunning, and it’s only useful in certain situations (generally later in the game). We don’t want to get stuck in a situation where we have too few resources that we can comfortably flip up earlier in the game, or we risk losing access to our character search card.
There is one obvious warning sign being thrown up at this point—we need to be careful not to include too many non-character cards that we aren’t happy to have face up in our resource row on turn 3, otherwise we can’t ensure that we can use The Great Refuge to search for Crystal, Elementelle reliably. As such, we need a balance between powerful combat tricks and cards that can be played without compromising our game plan. As mentioned, Inspiring Demise becomes problematic for the face-up resource build, as we can only play it on a turn we don’t need to use The Great Refuge. The Royal Guard is probably the best alternative, playable for +2 ATK / +2 DEF while attacking for the turn. Without the enormous +4 ATK / +4 DEF boost of Inspiring Demise, Exploiting the Flaw will sadly not be quite as effective. We’ll still include Blue Area of the Moon as a cheap terraform location with a useful ability, but we won’t be making our resources as dependent on each other as we were in danger of doing. The last few slots will be taken by two copies of Attilan, which should now be able to activate reliably on turn 4, and a copy of The Substructure as another cheap terraform location that can help fix our resource row without running into issues with our unique locations. At this point, I think it’s correct to make a change I flagged as possible back when we were going through the character curve—replacing the 2-drop Black Bolt, Illuminati with San, The Alienated One. San was a little underwhelming when we were only sure about the inclusion of The Great Refuge, but with the range of additional terraform locations, he moves up greatly in our estimations; the ability to fetch Attilan, The Substructure, or Blue Area of the Moon compensates for his low ATK.
For the Creation package, It’s Slobberin’ Time! and Blue Area of the Moon won’t be reliable. Relentless Onslaught will take their place (remember, the Creation build has space for fewer resources). The card draw helps to fuel Creation, and it is also a self-replacing combat pump that we can put on top of our deck with Silver Surfer. We’ll add a copy each of Elemental Converters for some extra card draw and Pacification for a cosmic enabler. Both are searchable with Surfer. The card draw from Relentless Onslaught, particularly played from the resource row, should make us more likely to be able to use Pacification.
Core (11)
4 Extended Family
4 Kindred Spirits
3 The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Creation of a Herald (25)
4 Creation of a Herald
4 Inspiring Demise
4 Relentless Onslaught
1 Pacification
1 Elemental Converters
The Great Refuge (29)
4 The Great Refuge
4 The Royal Guard
4 It’s Slobberin’ Time!
3 Blue Area of the Moon
2 Attilan
1 The Substructure
Final Builds
Taking the various parts together, this gives us two initial lists to work with:
Creation of a Herald Build (60)
Characters
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend
2 Black Bolt, Illuminati
4 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
4 Crystal, Elementelle
2 Firelord, Pyreus Kril
4 Morg, Corrupt Destroyer
2 Stardust, Merciless Warrior
4 Karnak, The Shatterer
2 The Fallen One, The Forgotten
1 Firelord, Harbinger of Havoc
4 Galactus, The Maker
1 Tyrant, The Original Herald
1 Galactus, Devourer of Worlds
Plot Twists
4 Extended Family
4 Creation of a Herald
4 Kindred Spirits
4 Relentless Onslaught
4 Inspiring Demise
3 The Power Cosmic Unleashed
1 Pacification
Locations
1 Elemental Converters
The Great Refuge build (60)
Characters
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend
4 San, The Alienated One
1 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways
4 Crystal, Elementelle
1 Tonaja, The Responsible One
1 Plasma, Replacement Herald
4 Morg, Corrupt Destroyer
1 Nahrees, The Negative One
1 Thing, Rockhead
4 Karnak, The Shatterer
2 The Fallen One, The Forgotten
1 Maximus the Mad, Mental Manipulator
1 Galactus, The Maker
1 Invisible Woman, Flame On!
1 Tyrant, The Original Herald
Plot Twists
4 Extended Family
4 Kindred Spirits
4 It’s Slobberin’ Time!
4 The Royal Guard
3 The Power Cosmic Unleashed
Locations
4 The Great Refuge
3 Blue Area of the Moon
2 Attilan
1 The Substructure
There are obviously a few things we’d like to fit into the decks but can’t. Exploiting the Flaw is the most obvious, and extra copies of The Substructure would be nice for the Refuge build. But then, there are always things that won’t quite fit, and only testing will tell whether, for example, we can afford to cut a cosmic enabler for such a card, or whether one of the cards we have included in the above lists isn’t pulling its weight. Such discoveries will help us to make space for the cards we have floating outside the list as 61st and 62nd cards.
Final Thoughts
Working out the different ways in which competing team themes can allow you to build what are in essence decks with the same end goals is a useful approach to deckbuilding that gives you a number of final lists. Probably the most obvious alternate way to make use of the approach, and the one that may be the most familiar, is in the way a deck like Curve Sentinels uses the “empty space” left after the core characters and resources. That empty space is one of the deck’s biggest strengths, as it can be filled with tech cards to adapt to the current metagame. Often, those cards would fit together into packages similar to the ones above—Flame Trap and Total Anarchy against swarm, Juggernaut, Cain Marko and Flying Kick against decks packing A Child Named Valeria, and reinforcement effects to avoid endurance loss in the later turns. The ultimate extension of this strategy in decks heavy on search cards is the “silver bullet” or “toolbox” approach, which uses single cards that can be searched out to tech against multiple decks.
So, we are left with two lists, both working toward the same goals but setting up those goals in quite different ways. Which is better? That depends on a lot of things, including which Heralds of Galactus strategies end up turning into popular decks. My gut tells me that while the build using The Great Refuge seems a little more fiddly, the more consistent combat tricks and greater ability to prevent stunbacks with DEF pumps may win out over the more consistent searching of the Creation of a Herald build. But as always, the best way for you to find the answer to that question is to test them yourself against your expected metagame. Hopefully, you’ll have some fun doing it!
Remember, if you have any lists that you want to submit to the Deck Clinic, send them to vsdeckclinic@gmail.com.
Tom Reeve is a member of the Anglo-Canadian Alliance (like the Rebel Alliance, but with public transport instead of X-Wings) and a 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.