While there are a good number of Vs. System players who get involved in the game over the allure of generous prizes, most Vs. players—especially the casual ones—derive their interest from their love of comics and superheroes. I fall into that latter category. Sure, I enjoy winning cash while playing the game just as much as anyone. But I spent a great deal of my childhood and teenage years surrounded by comic books and superhero paraphernalia, so I would undoubtedly be playing the game even without monetary incentive.

One of the reasons I love playing this game is that it gives you the opportunity to take your favorite comic book characters into battle. While I try to play an assortment of decks, I find that the builds I enjoy the most are the ones that feature my favorite superheroes. Despite the fact that it has a very tough time beating rush decks, I play my Spider-Friends deck quite frequently. In three out of the four PCs that I attended, I played a deck that featured the Gotham Knights. And it’s no coincidence that two of my most recent articles had Martian Manhunter somewhere in the decklist.

Here’s hoping that the upcoming X-Men set has new versions of Bishop and Colossus. If it does, I think I could die a happy man!

Sadly, the march of time did eventually catch me in its steps, and the comic enthusiast grew into a boring accountant. It seems these days that the only books I get into are my clients’ financial records, but I recently made an effort to get back into the comics groove by purchasing some graphic novels. I just finished reading the “Hush” compilation from the Batman comics, and I am moving on to the “Ezekiel” comics from The Amazing Spider-Man. Unfortunately, I no longer have the time or energy to maintain a constant interest in the world of comics.

Somebody Save Me!

The one consistent tie I have kept with the superhero realm is my interest in the television show Smallville. Yes . . . I know what you’re thinking: “How can you watch that meaningless drivel? It’s so bad!” Okay, I will grant you that the first season of the show was little more than Dawson’s Creek with some Kryptonite mixed in. But the writers seem to have made a more concerted effort in later seasons to draw from the mythos of the Superman comics. The end result is a show that panders not just to the WB teen faithful, but also to old-school Superman comics fans.

I just finished watching the fourth season of Smallville on DVD. With the exception of a couple of episodes, the show fit the comic book story mold of developing an in-depth plot line throughout the season. For those of you who don’t watch the show, the fourth season was centered around all of the main characters searching for three “stones of power.” Lana Lang was possessed by the spirit of a 400-year-old witch; Lex Luthor was in a constant struggle with both his father and a rival family; and, of course, Clark Kent was trying to find the stones while keeping his family and friends safe.

After much trial and tribulation, Clark did eventually manage to gather the stones together. They fused into a crystal (not so ironically shaped like the “S” shield on the chest of Superman’s uniform). In true homage to the original Superman movie (and in one of the best season finales I have ever seen), the combined power of the stones transported Clark to the Arctic Circle, where he tossed the crystal deep into the snows. The end result of that is also the theme card of this week’s article . . .

. . . the Fortress of Solitude!

When I originally saw Fortress of Solitude at the Man of Steel Sneak Preview, I thought it was the kind of card that would force a player into playing Team Superman in Sealed or Draft formats. Granted, my assessment of the card may have been a little extreme at the time, but I still believe it’s formidable . . . at least in the correct deck.

Now, the first effect of Fortress of Solitude is certainly not bad—a +1 ATK / +1 DEF bonus for all defenders protecting other characters. Combined with some of the “protective” characters from Team Superman, such as Scorn and Superman, Kal-El, you could have a very formidable defensive deck. However, I am more interested in Fortress of Solitude’s second effect. A +2 ATK / +2 DEF bonus for a defending character essentially means that any character receiving it will be defending at an ATK/DEF level that’s a whole cost higher than its printed cost. In essence, your 3-drops will defend as 4-drops, your 4-drops will defend as 5-drops, and so on.

Of course, the restriction on this generous bounty is that it only applies if the character is alone on the board. Hmmm . . . lessee . . . is there a team out there that thrives on having only a single character on the board?

Superman, Man of . . . Statix?

“Solitude” is the perfect word to describe the solo X-Statix strategy. The team has some of the most powerful tools in the game for making a single character on the board a force to be reckoned with. It makes sense, then, that Fortress of Solitude fits perfectly into the X-Statix theme. Our challenge today is to find a way to fuse Team Superman and X-Statix so that Fortress of Solitude and other single character–enhancing cards can make a solo superhero into a defensive dynamo.

Since we want to feature Fortress of Solitude prominently in the deck, we should put four copies in our build. While we’re at it, we might as well toss in some of the other locations that are key to the mono X-Statix build. So, four copies each of X-Statix Cafe and X-Statix HQ go into the deck as well.

Keeping with the locations, we might find the need to return character cards from the KO’d pile in the late game. So, we’ll toss in three copies of Avalon Space Station’s new doppelganger, Slaughter Swamp. Granted, there is no functional difference between the two cards in this build, but it might be nice to try out a new card for a change. Having Slaughter Swamp in our build will allow us not only to fetch characters back from the grave, but also to utilize any redundant location cards we might have sitting in hand.

Finally, we need a team-up card for the deck. Since we’re looking at a very heavy location build, we might as well make Metropolis the team-up of choice for the deck. Besides, it’s only fitting that last son of Krypton should do battle in the city where he resides.

Whew! That’s a lot of locations! Fortunately for us, our first character choice is perfect for a deck that plays a lot of locations. Kelex is Superman’s robot housekeeper at the Fortress of Solitude. That alone should qualify him for inclusion in the deck. However, if you add in that he can actually fetch locations for you, then he is an early game MVP and no doubt a mulligan condition in our deck.

We’ll include a backup at 2 in Vivisector, Myles Alfred. Of course, we really want Kelex at 2, but Vivisector has added utility because his boost effect makes him decent in later turns. And if we fail to hit an X-Statix 3-drop to get the team-up up and running, Vivisector can fill in that role, as well.

At 3, we’re going to include a single copy of Superman, Red so that we have a character to search for with Man of Tomorrow. However, our priority will be to follow up Kelex at 2 with a strong X-Statix character at 3 to activate our team-up. Orphan, Guy Smith is certainly big, and he could be invaluable if we miss our 4-drop. However, his character-reveal cost could hurt us if we somehow miss having another X-Statix character in hand. So, we’re going to go with Sluk as our primary 3-drop. He’s average sized for a 3-drop, but he can substitute as a 4-drop in a pinch and his effect works well when it comes to making single characters defensive powerhouses. As a backup at 3, we’ll have Plasm for the same reason that we included Vivisector—his additional utility in later turns.

Thanks to Sluk’s boost, we are not overly concerned about having that many characters at 4. We’ll include the requisite copy of Superman, Clark Kent. While his effect probably won’t be overly helpful in our deck, it could be fairly effective in unison with Sluk. Just divert the attack to Superman and KO Sluk to prevent the stun. Of course, we will probably want the even initiatives, so we might want to consider a more offensively minded 4-drop. Alpha Centurion fits that role nicely. With Alpha Centurion’s effect, we usually have to set up our attack sequence so that he is the last one to attack. However, with only one character on the board, he will almost always be the last (and only) attacker. That makes exhausting all of the characters on your side of the board rather easy.

At 5, there is only one character that we ever want to have—Superman, Returned. I got giddy just thinking about the possibilities with this character here. On turns when your opponent has the initiative, you can activate his effect to target himself. If your opponent does manage to stun him (not an easy task with Fortress of Solitude and X-Statix Cafe complicating matters), you won’t take the stun damage. Then, you can do a little Spin Doctoring to recover and ready Superman and do a little attacking back. Even if your opponent manages to stun Superman a second time, you still won’t take the stun damage. What a deal!

At 6, we’re back to our single Supes arrangement with Superman, Kal-El. He’s essentially just a last resort precaution, as his effect is absolutely useless in this deck (though I suppose you could pay endurance to move him around the board for fun if you like). Our best plays at 6 will be either to boost Plasm or Vivisector, or to bring out the king of off-initiative stuns, Zeitgeist. Anyone who has used a mono X-Statix deck (or ever played against one) will tell you exactly how crippling Zeitgeist can be. If you have a solitary character on the board, then your opponent can pretty much bid farewell to his or her largest character for the turn. With enough defense, opponents may find it nearly impossible to attack through Zeitgeist with their lower-cost characters.

Our only character at 7 is a single copy of Superman, Avatar of Peace. Much like his 6-drop version, Superman, Avatar of Peace’s effect is all but useless in our deck. Given his immense size, however, he can be a forceful presence on offense or defense.

Finally, we wrap up at 8 with a couple of key character selections. We’ll have our requisite Kryptonian backup in Superman, Man of Steel. His effect could potentially be helpful for preventing defensive damage, and he is certainly a big boy at 20 ATK / 20 DEF. However, I think I know a character that might be even bigger. Since we are playing a defensive deck, we probably won’t focus heavily on board control. Assuming that our opponent hits his or her curve and we don’t take out more than a few opposing characters, the opponent will probably have anywhere from three to five characters on the board. With those numbers, Amazo would be a nice pick for “most likely to lay some heavy smackdown on the opponent.” Granted, Amazo cannot receive the bonuses conferred by Fortress of Solitude and X-Statix Cafe, but given his potential to reach the upper 20s in both ATK and DEF even without our helper locations, I think he’ll still be a force to be reckoned with.

Finally, we need to make a few key plot twist selections. We’ve already mentioned two of our choices in Man of Tomorrow and Spin Doctoring. Since we’ve stocked our deck with at least one copy of a character named Superman at every drop between 3 and 8, Man of Tomorrow helps to ensure that we maintain our curve through those crucial turns. Spin Doctoring, on the other hand, helps us make the most of the character that we do have on the board by allowing it to take stuns easily and still dish out more punishment.

Our last plot twist choice is quite simply one of the best defensive plot twists in Vs. System. Dead Weight is a very poor choice if we plan to keep several characters on the board. However, since we are wholly adopting the single-character theme and trying to focus on defense, Dead Weight is a no-brainer for this deck.

Now that the building is done, let’s take a look at what Superman and his new mutant buddies have come up with.

Mr. Lonely (60 cards)

Characters (29)

4 Kelex, Faithful Servant

3 Vivisector, Myles Alfred

2 Plasm, Protoplasmic Protagonist

4 Sluk, Byron Spencer

1 Superman, Red

2 Alpha Centurion, Marcus Aelius

1 Superman, Clark Kent

4 Superman, Returned

1 Superman, Kal-El

3 Zeitgeist, Axel Cluney

1 Superman, Avatar of Peace

2 Amazo, Ivo’s Android

1 Superman, Man of Steel

Plot Twists (12)

4 Dead Weight

4 Man of Tomorrow

4 Spin Doctoring

Locations (19)

4 Fortress of Solitude

4 Metropolis

3 Slaughter Swamp

4 X-Statix Cafe

4 X-Statix HQ

As stated earlier, we should probably aim for even initiatives with the deck because the activated effect of Superman, Returned is such a powerful play on turn 5. However, we could also be served well by odd initiatives via the combo of Sluk and Superman, Clark Kent. In either case, our primary goal is to play defensively until the later turns, when Zeitgeist and Amazo can dish out a great deal of pain.

In my playtesting of the deck, I noted that it actually had a really good matchup against weenie decks. However, it tended to falter in the later turns when dealing with big drops like Silver Surfer and Mogo, The Living Planet. While Amazo is great, playing a board-clearing character like Onslaught or Imperiex might be better for later turns. And given the deck’s tendency to replace its drop each turn, Look-Alike Squad might also work.

That’s enough for this week’s edition of Breaking Ground.* If you have any suggestions, comments, or lucrative job offers, they will always have a home at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. I apologize if I don’t immediately respond—it’s nothing personal. I’m hoping that I will have a chance to catch up on my email over Christmas break. However, I live in abject terror that my boss will find me over the holidays to work what little life remains out of my bedraggled self.

Maybe I’ll go hide out in the Arctic Circle . . . build myself a big complex made out of ice and crystals. You know . . . a place to get away from it all.

* It occurs to me that I have not made my token insult about Tim Batow this week. Truth be told, watching him do handstand pushups at PC LA kind of sucked all of the wind out of my sails, as I know that’s a feat I’ll never be able to replicate. Besides, I’ve made so many short jokes about him that I’m starting to run out of material. Maybe I should reassess my goals for this column and try to make fun of a larger variety of people. I’ll think about it . . . maybe that’ll be my New Year’s resolution.**

** Hmmm . . . all this talking about Tim has gotten me to thinking about building a deck that abuses Ant Man. I wonder why?