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I, like pretty much every other competitive Vs. System player, have a keen desire to one day win a Pro Circuit. I suppose many would say that I should be thankful for the success I have already had . . . and I am. I came within one match of achieving every Vs. System player’s dream—a Pro Circuit championship. Given the small percentage of players who will ever achieve that kind of success, I am both proud and humbled.

However, beyond the riches of a $40,000 payday, I have another, sillier reason for wanting to become a PC champ. You see, I would like (for one day, at least) to be able to change my pseudonym from “BigSpooky” to “King Spooky.” Call it whimsy; call it stupidity; call it what you will. I just think it would be cool to hear someone say, “All hail King Spooky, Pro Circuit Champion!”

Stepping away from my depraved dreams of grandeur, I pondered what exactly I wanted to write about this week. I have a couple of ideas for future articles, but I still haven’t solidified the framework in which I would like to represent the featured cards. Besides, my mindset from the Pro Circuit is still so attuned to testing the TAWC Checkmate / Villains United deck that I haven’t been able to expand my thoughts much beyond the Silver Age metagame.

Anyway, I was up late on Saturday night (or, more appropriately, early Sunday morning) when I saw a late night / early morning rebroadcast of WWE Raw from the previous Monday. Despite my affinity for pro wrestling, I haven’t been keeping up much with all of the recent happenings within the WWE. So I put down the remote and watched the broadcast.

All in all, the show was rather mediocre. There were a couple of good matches, but nothing that really justified my staying awake into the wee hours of the morning. Near the end of the broadcast, though, WWE superstar Triple H made an appearance. When his entrance music hit, I expected to hear the familiar chords from Motörhead’s “The Game” (as that is Triple H’s nickname). Much to my surprise, Triple H’s entrance music had changed to a different Motörhead song, “King of Kings.” Now, as much as I liked Triple H’s old entrance music, I found myself liking this song even more. Apparently, this sentiment was echoed by the fans in the arena, as many of them were screaming in unison with the music, “Bow down to the . . . bow down to the king!”

The word “king” has very powerful implications whenever it is used. According to Dictionary.com, “king” is defined as “One that is supreme or preeminent in a particular group, category, or sphere.” In casual conversation, many people use the word “king” to exemplify something or someone as the best.

It’s probably no wonder then that Vs. System cards with references to the word “king” are such potent cards. One of the original Marvel Origins cards, Blastaar, King of Baluur, had a very nasty stun effect (albeit often at the expense of a player’s hand). Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas is one of the most powerful recursion cards in the game, with an effect rivaling Garth ◊ Tempest for sheer effectiveness. And Black Panther, King of Wakanda is one of the lynchpin cards in both Shaun Heyward’s monstrous High Voltage deck and FTN’s very potent Mexican Hardware Store build that found so much success at Pro Circuit San Francisco.

Of course, there is an entire subset of cards that refers to the term “king” as it relates to chess. In chess, the king is the single most important piece for either player. In the Vs. System, these King cards are all-important in their own right. For the Hellfire Club, Shinobi Shaw, White King and Sebastian Shaw, Black King are characters that can determine the success (or lack thereof) of the “one visible character” theme. For Checkmate, Ahmed Samsarra, White King; Harry Stein, King in Check; and Maxwell Lord, Black King are all characters with stats above the average for their cost and absolutely game-breaking effects. Of course, this power comes with a cost, as losing any one of these characters to the KO’d pile results in an immediate game loss.

Listening to Triple H’s new entrance music and thinking about the “Kings of the Vs. System,” I recalled a post on the TAWC forums by my teammate John Tatta. In the post, he discussed the possibilities for a Checkmate / Hellfire Club deck that uses Ahmed Samsarra to search for the all-important locations for the Hellfire Club strategy. We eventually gave up on the idea, as we had already invested a great deal of time and energy into working on the Checkmate / Villains United deck that we all played in San Francisco. Still, the notion greatly intrigued me. Aside from having a wide assortment of Kings, the merging of Checkmate and the Hellfire Club could very well yield a very powerful deck for the Silver Age.

So, we’re going to bring the Hellfire Club Kings and Checkmate Kings together into one royal build and see what we can come up with. With such a powerful collection of monarchs, we should have no problem bringing any opposing Silver Age deck to its knees!

The 1-drop position is a bit too early for us to be considering Kings. However, we can include a nifty search cards for a few of our Kings. Connie Webb is not much to look at stat-wise, but she does fit the necessary requirement of being a 1-drop with utility beyond the first turn. If we are fortunate enough to have her in play on the first turn, then she can single-handedly fill any holes that we might encounter for our drops on turns 2, 3, and 4. Of course, given the character-cycling power of the Checkmate team, she is an easy discard for payments in later turns, as well.

Our other 1-drops will be two of the alternate recruit cost characters for our teams, Jacob Lee and Hellfire Club Initiate. Unlike Connie Webb, we will probably never play these characters on the first turn. However, these characters can be indispensable in later turns for improving our board presence without having to sacrifice precious resource points. In addition, they provide optimal use for any dead location or character cards that we might be holding.

At 2, we absolutely must include a copy of Sarge Steel. I can’t say enough good things about this card. He is a very capable 3 ATK / 3 DEF 2-drop with range and a useful boost effect. However, it is his primary effect that makes him shine. When you set Sarge Steel in front of a character, he becomes a protective menace. While we are defending, our opponents will be forced to attack through Sarge Steel to get at any character that he may be protecting. While we are attacking, we can use Sarge Steel as cannon fodder to take the stun for one of our attackers to prevent our bigger characters from getting stunned back.* He may only be a 2-drop, but he is certainly a monster for his size!

Our main 2-drop is going to be Friedrich Von Roehm. On our off-initiative turns, Friedrich Von Roehm is not all that impressive. With decent 2 ATK / 3 DEF stats, he is good but not great. But oh my, how he improves when we control the initiative, leaping to a mammoth 5 ATK / 3 DEF. This is, of course, contingent upon the fact that Friedrich is visible. But as we will see, we will usually want to play our next few drops in the hidden area.

Our 3-drop is also our first King of the deck, Ahmed Samsarra. This character is indeed a double-edged sword. His 6 ATK / 6 DEF puts him in the upper echelon of 3-drops as far as stats go, and he has an absolutely unreal effect that allows a player to put any location in his or her deck directly into the resource row. However, all of this power comes with a price, as Ahmed Samsarra bears the infamous King text:

To borrow from my good friend Rian Fike, this is one of the grandest examples of risk vs. reward. Compared to pretty much every other 3-drop, Ahmed borders on completely broken. But if he is sent to the KO’d pile from play in any way, we lose the game, period. While he will certainly be beneficial to our deck, we need to be cognizant of his very critical loss condition and do everything in our power to make sure that it isn’t ever an issue.

At 4, we will include our second King, Harry Stein. In most people’s opinions, is not nearly as powerful (or playable) as the other characters with the King text. However, Harry is still a very formidable 8 ATK / 8 DEF 4-drop with an effect that can help several of our characters become bigger. And with the amount of defensive power that we will be packing into this deck, it will be quite difficult for our opponents to stun Harry Stein, anyway.

Our primary 4-drop, though, is not a King. Rather, she is the powerful rook, Madelyne Pryor. As far as stats go, she doesn’t come close to Harry Stein. But her effect more than makes up for her weak stats, as she can bestow flight and range on our characters and a devastating -2 DEF on our opponent’s characters for the minor cost of KO’ing a character that we control. Just don’t KO Harry Stein with her effect!

Our fifth turn presents a couple of Kings for us to play. Our Checkmate King is Maxwell Lord, Black King. Much like his predecessors, Maxwell Lord has the nasty King text. But he also has above average stats and a nuclear effect that can rob one of our opponent’s characters of team affiliation and payment powers for the turn. Let’s see how powerful Speed Demon, Second Chance Speedster is when we remove his ability to ready . . . heh heh!

Of course, as good as Maxwell Lord is, Shinobi Shaw may be even better. He is already on par with Maxwell stat-wise. And, assuming that we can get him alone in the visible area, he will only get bigger! Every attack by or on Shinobi Shaw awards him a +1 ATK / + 1 DEF counter. After just a couple of attacks, our 5-drop will be the size of a 6-drop. And Shinobi Shaw doesn’t possess the annoying King text, so we don’t have to fret about losing the game if we lose him.

With all the Kings in the deck, it’s only fair that we have at least one queen. In this case, it is Huntress, Reluctant Queen. Huntress is a decent 13 ATK / 12 DEF 6-drop. But her presence on the board is not our reason for playing her. Rather, she fills a dual role of being able to negate annoying plot twists that might cause problems for us. Is your opponent trying to use No Man Escapes the Manhunters to bring Ahmed into the visible area? Negate it with Huntress. Are bad times in store against an opponent who wants to play Systematic Torture on your stunned Maxwell Lord? Negate it with Huntress. Huntress fits beautifully into the Checkmate team with her ability to nerf opposing plot twists directed at your characters.

Our other 6-drop is the dynamic Donald Pierce. Staring down most average 6-drops is a hefty task, and staring down a potential 14 ATK / 14 DEF 6-drop is a very hefty task. Throw in Shaw Industries, and Donald Pierce becomes a gigantic 16 ATK / 16 DEF—bigger than most 7-drops! He is the perfect foil for our opponent’s attack plans in the later turns; he becomes an absolute wall through which very few attacks can pass.

Our final character is none other than the Black King of the Hellfire Club, Sebastian Shaw. Where Donald Pierce displays defensive fortitude, Sebastian Shaw provides the offensive power. Already a massive 16 ATK / 16 DEF (and usually bigger thanks to The Hellfire Club), Sebastian Shaw can absolutely decimate an opponent’s board with two attacks in a turn. It is indeed good to be the king!

Our plot twist selections will be fairly basic. With the abundance of Checkmate Kings in the deck, Threat Neutralized is an obvious first choice. We would like to avoid losing any of our Kings if we can help it. However, Threat Neutralized ensures that even if one of them becomes KO’d, we will still live on to fight another turn. The +1 ATK / +1 DEF bonus it provides to one of our characters for the turn is just gravy.

On the character search front, we’ll include three copies of Join the Club. Our deck has a character with concealed at every drop. As such, it only makes sense for us to include the Hellfire Club searcher that can fetch pretty much any of our preferred drops. The Hellfire Club character discard may be problematic early on, but it shouldn’t be an issue once we get a Team-Up online.

While we’re discussing searching, let’s talk about the two copies of that we’ll have in the deck. While we probably won’t need much help searching out locations thanks to our good friend Ahmed Samsarra, we may find it necessary to look for a plot twist from time to time, such as the aforementioned Join the Club and (especially) Threat Neutralized. With a couple of copies of Power and Wealth, we can rest a little easier knowing that our elusive plot twists will be around when we need them.

In fact, one prime target for Power and Wealth will probably be our single copy of Power Play. Having the initiative in the late turns with any deck cannot be overstated. Of course, having the initiative two times in a row is even better! With such huge characters at our disposal, Power Play can allow us to clear our opponent’s board on turn 6, then take advantage of those efforts by dishing out an insane amount of punishment on turn 7. Big characters + initiative two turns in a row = good game!

Our final plot twist choices are the near doppelgangers Army of One and Knightmare Scenario. Assuming that we have Checkmate and Hellfire Club teamed-up, these cards both grant a +2 ATK / +2 DEF boost to one of our attacking or defending characters. Army of One requires that we control a single visible character, while Knightmare Scenario mandates the exhaustion of a location. In both cases, they are amazing cards. With the versatility of playability while attacking or defending, it will be very difficult for our opponents to make headway against the giants on our side of the board.

Finally, we have the all-important locations. Our first and probably most obvious choice is four copies of Checkmate Safe House. I love this card! Defensive pumps in any deck are always at a premium. But having a reusable defensive pump that also acts as a Team-Up is just plain . . . wow . . . I don’t have the adjective to describe it! Think back to our 16 ATK / 16 DEF Donald Pierce. Now imagine putting him in the support row with a couple of copies of Checkmate Safe House in play. Now he’s at 18 DEF. It would take two average 5-drops to take down our single 6-drop . . . and that’s assuming that we don’t have any more DEF pumps!**

Another location that we want four copies of is Brother I Satellite. This card is very reminiscent of Mountain Stronghold for the League of Assassins. But whereas Mountain Stronghold required an eventual discard of a League of Assassins character card, Brother I Satellite can use any character card to fulfill its discard requirement. This can be very helpful when you start out with a character-light draw.

Now, since we’ve already said that we’re going to be incorporating the Hellfire Club’s “one visible character” strategy into the deck, we will definitely need a couple of copies of Shaw Industries and The Hellfire Club. Both cards are critical to the deck theme and provide benefits. Shaw Industries turns our single visible character into an absolute tank. The Hellfire Club moves our characters so as to keep Shaw Industries active and provides a marginal ATK bonus to our hidden characters.

Of course, you may have noticed that we do have a few characters that don’t have concealed, so they can’t be moved by The Hellfire Club. Well, since we’re already including some rooks in the deck, we might as well toss in a copy of Rook Control. This card effectively acts a reusable location version of Deadly Game. We now have a way of hiding Harry Stein and Maxwell Lord to keep them out of the path of attacks. Once we have a Team-Up online, we can move the character with concealed that they traded places with back into the hidden area with The Hellfire Club.

One thing that the Hellfire Club lacks is a location that acts as an effective ATK pump. Luckily, Checkmate has what may be the best one in the game in Brother Eye. Checkmate has all the tools to fill our resource row with locations, and Brother Eye can turn those locations into a source of potent offensive power. Who needs Savage Beatdown or Blinding Rage when we have a reusable location that can do the same job?

Massachusetts Academy can be devastating to us if we use it on one of our Kings without a Threat Neutralized in play, but it is such a powerful card that it’s worth that risk. With the ability to turn a stunned character that we would lose to a KO effect or the wrap-up of the recovery phase into a marginal ATK boost and an extra card, it is a definite one-of inclusion. While it will probably never be game-breaking, it is certainly a solid card with an effect that can help us make the most of our board.

Finally, we might want to have some occasional character recursion (especially in the case of Huntress). So, one copy of Slaughter Swamp goes into the mix. With the ability to fetch back our character cards from the KO’d pile, we needn’t fear the discard costs of our character searchers nearly so much. In addition, it can turn redundant cards in hand into extra power-ups, or in the case of Huntress, reusable plot twist negation.

The Kings have spoken; we are done. Let’s see how well the royalty has assembled:

The preferred initiative is probably evens, as a timely Power Play on turn 7 will enable you to have two attacks in a row. More importantly, the deck has enough power in the locations and immense size of the characters that you probably won’t need any plot twists after that point anyway.

Much like any Checkmate engine, your mulligan needs to be for Ahmed Samsarra or a way to get him (Connie Webb, Brother I Satellite, or Join the Club). Ideally, you’d like to have the Team-Up online by turn 3 or 4 so that you can use Ahmed Samsarra to search out extra copies of Brother I Satellite to fetch whatever character you need at a particular drop. The play after turn 5 is much the same as the standard Hellfire Club strategy. However, you also have Knightmare Scenario and Brother Eye at your disposal to supplement your attacks.

And that wraps up another week here on Breaking Ground. If you have any insights that you would like to share with me, please send me an email at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. As I have repeatedly said, I am the worst person in the world about returning emails. Nevertheless, I would love to hear what you have to say.

Take care, and we’ll see you back here next week for another “regal” look at all of the possibilities the Vs. System has to offer.

* In fact, I personally feel that the combo built into Ian Vincent’s PC-winning deck of Sarge Steel; Talia, Daughter of Madness; and Science Spire is one of the greatest Vs. System combos in the game to date. The ability to use Sarge Steel to absorb up to two attacks in a single turn is just amazing.

** Yeah, yeah . . . I know someone out there is saying, “But if Donald Pierce is in the support row, he can’t attack!” Oh, how quickly we forget about Madelyne Pryor . . .