Welcome back one and all! I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday break. Mine was especially nice, as I actually had some free time away from work to play Vs. System. When you’re working sixty to seventy hours a week, having a few uninterrupted days of playing time is a welcome blessing.
One question I have been asked on several occasions is if I dislike my job so much, why do I continue to do it? The truth is that I love my job! For those of you who don’t know, I’m a forensic accountant. I suspect that 99.9% of you out there have no idea what that means. As Geordie Tait once quoted me in an interview from PC New York, it’s a bit “like CSI . . . but with numbers!” Maybe that’s too glamorous a description, so I’ll redefine it a bit. In essence, I do investigative work for companies that are attempting to install white-collar crime prevention measures or detect potentially fraudulent activity. Bottom line: forensic accounting = anti-fraud (e.g., stopping bad guys like Enron, WorldCom, Adelphia, and so forth).
So, why am I constantly complaining about it? Well, one sacrifice that I made for my job was a “voluntary” assignment to a six-month rotation in another department.* It is this assignment that I am constantly carping about. And what on Earth could turn the affable BigSpooky into BigGrumpy?
One word: audit.
Ya’ll Gonna Make Me Lose My Mind!
In my opinion, auditing is the most hateful, cruel, debilitating occupation that any human being could ever have. Sure, some people may say that there are far worse jobs (working at McDonald’s, shoveling raw sewage, etc.). But after only a few hours of performing a typical “audit drone” task (like erasing hundreds of pages of notations and redoing them with a red pencil), any one of you would agree that one must truly be mad to want to be an auditor!
I am getting better about handling the inane world that is auditing. Granted, the pointless tasks and eighty-hour workweeks suck, but I can cope with them. One of the great tragedies of working in audit, however, is that the busy season (i.e., the period of time during which I have absolutely no prayer of taking a vacation) runs through March 31—exactly one week after Pro Circuit Atlanta.
If you just put two and two together, you came up with no PC Atlanta for Spooky.
On more than one occasion, I have considered leaving this job. In addition to getting away from something that consistently makes me crazy, I would actually get the chance to attend PC Atlanta. Both are powerful incentives to move me toward abandoning audit madness.
However, the logical side of me realizes that leaving would be a very bad idea. Sure . . . I could talk about how working in audit helps me to obtain valuable job skills and develop a strong work ethic and such. However, there is one paramount reason why I stay—money!
Lifestyles of the Rich and Spooky
I won’t go so far as to say that my job has made me rich. However, it has been a welcome change from the destitution that was my college days. For example, I drove a Geo Metro all throughout college because it was one of the few cars that I could afford. As it was, I spent five years paying it off (and had to borrow money from members of my family on a couple of occasions to make my payments). Today, I have enough money in savings to purchase a Metro outright. There has definitely been a shift in my standard of living.
One major problem with this lifestyle change is that I am wholly unaccustomed to it. When you grow up in “gamer” fashion (i.e., broke), you learn to engage in activities that are relatively inexpensive. For example, typical meals usually involved some type of pasta. Occasionally, though, I got to splurge at Quiznos or Subway—a real treat!**
I thought it might be fun to contrast these experiences with my dining experiences on December 16, 2005. By the grace of my employer, I was able to visit a couple of the finest restaurants in Dallas.
For lunch, one of the partners on the engagement to which I was assigned took us out to eat at Nobu. If you have ever watched Iron Chef, you might recognize Nobu as the restaurant where Chef Masaharu Morimoto made his name. The restaurant in Dallas is partially owned by Robert DeNiro and is widely acclaimed as the best place for Japanese cuisine in the city. While I don’t consider myself a big fan of sushi, I must admit that I enjoyed most of the dishes I tried.
For dinner, another partner treated a group of us to a very nice meal at Bob’s Steak and Chop House. As different as this meal was from my lunch, the quality was every bit as high (as the bill no doubt proved). There was a nice assortment of side dishes and appetizers. However, it was definitely the filet mignon that made the meal. As I told my friends after the dinner, it was the best steak I had ever tasted, bar none!
Well, I’m sure that you’ve had enough of my writing about all of the great restaurants in Dallas I’ve been to.*** My point is that my recent transition from college card gamer to upper-class accountant has resulted in a complete shift in typical experiences. I guess you might say I’m living in a whole new world . . . or at least some Other-Earth!
A Wondrous New Place
I realize that Other-Earth is not exactly a jank card, since it was one of the integral cards in the Squadron Rush decks that took PC LA by storm. However, I also think that there are some opportunities for the card outside of Squadron Rush. One definite possibility for Other-Earth is in a deck focused around the characters in Squadron Supreme that tout breakthrough replacement effects.
The breakthrough replacement strategy has been downplayed by many pros because it fails to deal a sufficient amount of damage. One aspect of this strategy that has been overlooked, though, is its overwhelming board control. Characters like Haywire and Arcanna may not deal much endurance loss, but they make up for it with effects that consistently dominate an opponent’s board.
Our challenge is to develop a working strategy using the Squadron Supreme breakthrough replacement effect characters and Other-Earth.
The Build
If we look back to the Breaking Ground article from a few months ago that featured Jericho, we can see that playing a card like Unfair Advantage severely restricts the number of plot twists we can play in the deck. In the case of Unfair Advantage, it turned out to be the only plot twist we played. Other-Earth is primarily an offensive card, though, so we can open up our plot twist selection a bit. However, to use Other-Earth consistently, we will need to lean pretty heavily on locations for support. Fortunately, Vs. System does have a team that touts locations as its forte—the League of Assassins. Given the location-heavy requirement of the deck, the League would seem to be a perfect companion team. Besides, there are also a couple of cool combos that the League can add to our build.
First and foremost, we want four copies of Other-Earth. Since it’s our theme card, we want as many opportunities to abuse it as possible. As far as other plot twists go, we need to keep our selections limited to cards we can play on off-initiative turns. One very good option is the League of Assassins’ disruption card of choice, Tower of Babel. Tower of Babel can be absolutely invaluable against off-curve decks that rely on team attacks to take down larger characters. Without team affiliations, our opponents can’t team attack. Moreover, several currently popular attack pumps (such as The Wrecking Crew) are nullified by Tower of Babel.
Our final plot twist choice is the League’s expediter of locations, The Demon’s Head. Since we have already stated that we are planning to use locations to support our deck, it only makes sense that we play the best location searcher in the game. More importantly, The Demon’s Head is a card that we will usually play only on turns where we don’t control the initiative. As such, it won’t conflict with our use of Other-Earth.
As far as locations go, we have a few apparent choices. Of course, we will need our standard set of team-ups, so we’ll include three copies of Metropolis. We’re also going to toss in a solo copy of Stormfront-1. Having a backup card with the version “Team-Up” can be helpful against cards like Quakemaster that can cause problems for Metropolis.
Of course, character search is reasonably important, so we’ll also include four copies of Mountain Stronghold. Not only does Mountain Stronghold give us a character search card in location form, but it also has the additional bonus of reinforcing any character named Ra’s Al Ghul we might have on the board.
Both Squadron and the League have some location ATK pumps available. Squadron Supreme has Squadron City, which is phenomenal when used on a character with a breakthrough replacement effect. Of course, it’s not bad when used on other characters either, since we won’t typically need a character to be ready on our off-initiative turns anyway. On the League side, they possess one of the best in Flying Fortress. This card, which I have dubbed a reusable Flying Kick, also fits really well in our build. While we may not need too much pump thanks to Other-Earth, these locations can be very helpful if we decide to go aggressive and execute some attacks up the curve. We’ll include two copies of each.
Let’s look a bit at some board control cards that might be useful to us. Obviously, having a board control deck that can’t maintain board control is a bad thing, so we’ll include some locations that are suited to this task. First, we’ll need a couple copies of Lazarus Pit. This card is a brutal counter to any KO effects that our opponent might toss at us. In addition, it can serve as a recovery tool in a pinch (assuming that you’re willing to sacrifice the resource). Of course, Lazarus Pit really shines when used in unison with our next card choice, Murderworld. Giving all characters on the board the ability to KO affiliated characters might seem questionable, but since we have a way of protecting our characters through Lazarus Pit, the exchange will be fairly one-sided. Finally, we’ll include a single copy of a card that makes great use of our protected and stunned characters—Pit of Madness. With a stunned character or two on the board, Pit of Madness can be invaluable for bouncing an opponent’s attack or ensuring a stunback.
Our final location choice is mostly a recursion enabler. Since we will be playing high-cost character cards that will be useless in the early turns, it only makes sense that we use these cards for our discard effects (such as Mountain Stronghold and Murderworld). Of course, we may want these cards back in the later turns, so a single copy of Slaughter Swamp would not be a bad idea. Since we can search it out with The Demon’s Head, we can feel free to discard our high drops with relative abandon.
On to the characters. We shouldn’t need any 1-drops in the deck, as there aren’t really any characters at that cost that suit our strategy. We’ll start our build at 2. Our primary choice here will be Haywire. While this might seem like a questionable play since Haywire will stun pretty much every time he attacks, his effect can be a strong board control tool in the early turns because he can prevent an opposing character from attacking on the following turn. In addition to Haywire, we’ll include two copies of Foxfire at the 2-slot. While using her effect too many times can be costly, she is a nice for disrupting decks that rely on specific cards in the resource row (such as Lost City and Midnight Sons). Our final choice at 2 is the League’s off-curve punishment card of preference, Assassin Initiate. Against a Child lock or a Masters of Evil swarm deck, the Assassin Initiate can snipe out the 1-drops that are central to the deck’s success.
At the 3-slot, we’ll continue our trend of board control with Hook. Assuming that we were able to keep an opponent’s 2-drop from readying on turn 2 thanks to Haywire’s effect, Hook should at worst trade with our opponent’s 3-drop. However, if we get lucky enough that our opponent trades his or her 3-drop into Haywire, then Hook will be rested and ready to KO the 3-drop at the start of the recovery phase (giving us a very nice early board advantage). As our backup at 3, we’ll include three copies of Moonglow. Not only is she a respectable 4 ATK / 5 DEF, but she also enables us to search out a Team-Up if we haven’t already hit one.
Turn 4 is where we should take complete control of the board and thereby the game. Our ace at 4 is none other than Ra’s Al Ghul, Eternal Nemesis. Ra’s Al Ghul has an absolutely brutal synergy with Other-Earth that we’ll take full advantage of. If we can get all of the necessary pieces in place, we should easily be able to KO our opponent’s 4-drop with Ra’s Al Ghul’s effect. Then, if our opponent has a remaining 2- or 3-drop, we can send our 2-drop at it, leaving Hook free to KO it with his effect. If we can successfully pull off such a maneuver, we’ll have an absolutely dominant lock on the board that our opponent probably won’t be able to escape. As a backup at 4, we’ll need two copies of Amphibian. I honestly can’t think of any scenarios where we might want Amphibian over Ra’s Al Ghul, but he can be a respectable under-drop on turn 5 or 6. Moreover, his effect can be nice for retrieving copies of Other-Earth from the KO’d pile.
There can be only one character at the 5-slot—Bane, Ubu. Bane probably hasn’t received his fair share of attention because the dominant 5-drop to come out of DC Origins was Garth ◊ Tempest. While Bane might not be quite as good as Garth, he is awfully close. And in a board control deck like ours, he can be the metaphorical nail in the coffin. We’ll want four copies of Ra’s Al Ghul’s bodyguard.
Turn 6 presents some interesting possibilities. Hopefully, our flurry of early-game board control will have pretty much sealed the game for us. If, however, our opponent is somehow still breathing on turn 6, we can take away that breath with Doctor Spectrum. Against some decks, losing your hand isn’t much of an issue. Against most curve decks and several combo decks, however, Doctor Spectrum’s effect is game ending. Imagine the anguish Fantastic Fun will feel as all of the cards stockpiled in hand by Antarctic Research Base are suddenly forced into the KO’d pile. Of course, Doctor Spectrum’s loyalty can be an issue if we miss our early team-ups. So as a precaution, we’ll include a copy of Sensei. At 13 ATK, Sensei can effectively deal with most opposing 6-drops. In addition, his effect can be very helpful for cleaning up our resource row.
Turn 7 has another clear-cut choice for us. As mentioned earlier, Arcanna is an obvious choice because of her impressive board control effect. On defense, her 17 DEF will be difficult for most opposing players to overcome. Hopefully, though, we’ll get the opportunity to take Arcanna on the offensive. With Other-Earth, Arcanna pretty much becomes a guaranteed “double stunner.” If we have managed to maintain board control, this will leave the remainder of our characters free to swing directly at our opponent.
Finally, at 8 we have our insurance trump card in Ra’s Al Ghul, The Demon’s Head. Unless your opponent has a very large 8-drop of his or her own to deal with Ra’s Al Ghul, the Demon’s Head will usually end the game.
Our deck is finished. Let’s take a look at our “breakthrough”:****
New Year, New World (60 cards)
Characters (31)
4 Haywire, Harold Danforth
2 Foxfire, Olivia Underwood
2 Assassin Initiate, Army
4 Hook, Hired Killer
3 Moonglow, Melissa Hanover
4 Ra’s Al Ghul, Eternal Nemesis
2 Amphibian, Kingsley Rice
4 Bane, Ubu
2 Doctor Spectrum, Joe Ledger
1 Sensei, Martial Arts Master
2 Arcanna, Arcanna Jones
1 Ra’s Al Ghul, The Demon’s Head
Plot Twists (12)
4 Other-Earth
4 The Demon’s Head
4 Tower of Babel
Locations (17)
1 Slaughter Swamp
2 Flying Fortress
2 Lazarus Pit
3 Metropolis
4 Mountain Stronghold
1 Murderworld
1 Pit of Madness
2 Squadron City
1 Stormfront-1, Team-Up
Initiative choice is really a matter of preference in this deck. Obviously, the scenarios I described above work around the premise that we take even initiatives, but there are several arguments for odd initiatives. If you can get Ra’s Al Ghul, Eternal Nemesis and Bane on the board with a Squadron Supreme team-up, having the initiative on turn 5 can be very advantageous; Other-Earth can enable Ra’s Al Ghul to KO the opposing 5-drop, and then Bane can safely attack down the curve on the opposing 4-drop and KO it during the recovery phase.
That’s all for now. I’ll be back again next week, though. If you have any comments or suggestions for me, please feel free to send them to BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. I apologize if I don’t respond to your email, but my employer is threatening to cut off appendages if I spend time on anything but auditing during the busy season.
* “Voluntary” meaning, “You don’t have to do this, Michael, but we strongly suggest that you do.”
** I have found, though, that even though I can now afford to eat almost anywhere I wish, I still eat a good deal of pasta. I believe that the Barenaked Ladies expressed this sentiment best in their song “If I Had $1,000,000.”
“If I Had $1,000,000
We wouldn’t have to eat Kraft Dinner.
But we would eat Kraft Dinner.
Of course we would, we’d just eat more.
And buy really expensive ketchup with it.
That’s right, all the fanciest Dijon Ketchup.
Mmmmmm!”
*** Of course, I guess I should tell you that my visits to Nobu and Bob’s will actually be my topics for discussion in the next two issues of Breaking Ground. I guess you’d better grab a snack before you read!
**** Sorry . . . bad pun.