One name is synonymous with Germany and pro-level TCG success, and that man himself, Kai Budde, was present and competing at the Hanover $10K tournament.
Playing a Brotherhood/League of Assassins build, Kai got off to a rough start in the day, but looked to make a quick recovery. “I don’t really play much Vs., but I wanted to come to today’s event so I asked Gabe Walls for a deck and this is what he recommended.” The deck’s base theory is simple. Take the raw stats and ability to turn diminished utility (behind-the-drop characters) into combat advantage of Big Brotherhood, and combine it with the League’s ability to seek out locations.
Oh, and their ability to shut down Fantastic Four and Titans. It always helps to shut out the metagame’s biggest deck and one of the runners-up to that title.
Here’s Kai’s decklist.
Kai Budde’s Brotherhood/League of Assassins
Characters
4 Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr
2 Magneto, Master of Magnetism
4 Merlyn, Deadly Archer
4 Mystique, Raven Darkholme
3 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin
4 Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff
4 Quicksilver, Speed Demon
1 Ra’s Al Ghul, Master Swordsman
1 Ra’s Al Ghul, The Demon’s Head
4 Talia, Daughter of the Demon’s Head
Plot Twists
4 Tower of Babel
4 The Demon’s Head
3 Insignificant Threat
Locations
3 Avalon Space Station
1 Flying Fortress
1 Lazarus Pit
4 Lost City
1 Savage Land
4 Metropolis
4 Mountain Stronghold
The deck runs the absolute necessities of the Big Brotherhood archetype and none of the extra fat that a Brotherhood-only deck might be packing. Both versions of Magneto, Quicksilver, and Mystique are included, but Toad, Blob, and Pyro are not. Sabretooth is removed as well in order to make room for League of Assassins characters. Kai filled out the deck’s drops with useful League members. Talia digs for locations and lets you cheaply fulfill the deck’s loyalty requirements. Merlyn feeds off the deck’s locations, fills the 4-drop slot, and KO’s directly all the way up to an opponent’s 7-drop under the correct conditions. Ra’s al Ghul, Master Swordsman fills out the curve, and his 8-drop counterpart serves to shut down decks like Teen Titans, Fantastic Four variants, and Curve Sentinels.
The deck is very location-heavy to take advantage of all its cards that search for locations, as well as to fuel Merlyn. Avalon Space Station and Lost City provide the incentive for the Brotherhood to be in this deck, providing combat power and a way to turn unnecessary characters from near-dead cards into virtual ATK-enhancing plot twists. Savage Land, Lazarus Pit, and Flying Fortress are all useful in certain situations, and by including only one of each, Kai leaves himself the option of searching them out with The Demon’s Head
without having to commit much space in the deck. Finally, four copies of Metropolis round out the deck to give the deck its needed team-up card. It’s a far better pick in this deck than Marvel Team-Up or World’s Finest, not just because it’s searchable with The Demon’s Head, but also because, in most metagames, Ka-Boom! is currently seeing less play than Foiled.
The result is a deck that can metagame hard against some of its better competition, KO characters directly with the proper setup, and be victorious in almost any must-win combat situation. It’s a basic synergistic masterwork and it maintains high utility on a per-card basis, but at the same time the deck exploits some key synergies that are difficult to deal with. In a Big Brotherhood deck, it’s often easy for one drop to be covered per turn, and the current turn’s drop is often the one that takes priority. Under this system, smaller drops can suffer, creating openings for an opponent to exploit. The deck counteracts this by being able to remove the threat of smaller drops through the use of Merlyn’s effect. This makes those brawls that involve large pumps from Lost City really count.
Brotherhood/League of Assassins got a good amount of exposure at the Hanover $10K tournament. With a strong, consistent core strategy that wrecks Teen Titans, it could be an important deck in the near future.