The Magnificent Dean Sohnle, Pro Circuit finalist, multiple $10K-winner, former MechWarrior World Champion, former Star Trek CCG world player, and all-around gaming god, has recently traded his hiking boots for snow boots. Despite ending his European adventure and moving back to the wilds of Western Canada, he hasn’t lost his edge. “I’m actually in one place so I can test and have a regular play group, which is helpful—I have teammates instead of acquaintances,” he explains. “I don’t have to build decks in my head anymore—having the cards around me helps.” Currently moving on to Day 2, thanks to his innovative and teched-out build of X-Faces, Sohnle has caught a number of opponents off-guard.

The deck, which relies on massive character advantage combined with powerful search effects and global attack pumps, netted him eight wins over ten rounds. His 8-2 record even belies the strength of the deck—he received a game loss in the ninth round after mistakenly taking an extra card off Stormfront-1. “I thought he had Melissa Gold and he didn’t,” he says. “I’m half-asleep right now, I can’t think straight which is why I got the game loss.”

Sohnle started testing for the Pro Circuit the moment The X-Men was released. After writing off stall decks and pure X-Men decks, Dean’s friend Mitchell Fujino started playing. “This deck came along and it beat just about everything other than Avengers.”

Swapping his Morlock build for Fujino’s X-Faces a week ago, Dean quickly put his own spin on it. Sohnle added in more Hard Sound Constructs and Marcus Daniels ◊ Blackout. He upped the number of low-drop characters, put in a kickin’ sound system, and had the chassis lowered. Although a lot of people were working in the same direction, Sohnle—with his team of Albertans—tested the deck for hundreds of games. He found that, to his surprise, Time Breach was one of the best cards in the deck, so he raised the number to four. “We realized how badly the deck lost to Avengers, so we tried teching it out, and then it started to click. It usually beats just about every deck out there at least 70 percent of the time.”

Sohnle and his crew, working from their Fortress of Arrogance hidden in the ice fields of Alberta, tweaked the deck with Mob Mentality and Brave New World to protect the deck from stun effects. “Earl Prusak, Mitchell Fujino, Olav Rokne, and I probably tested the deck in 40 games against hardcore opponents,” Sohnle says. “Mitchell and I sat down on Monday and tested it against every possible matchup for a couple of games . . . and a whole lot of Avengers testing.”

Project Liberator was added at the last minute to counter both Hawkeye and System Failure. Literally five minutes before handing in his deck, Sohnle had a brainstorm and realized that it could be the turning point in a number of matchups, so he took out one copy of Hero’s Demise to make room for the obscure rare. “It won me one game. I played it before my recruit so that my opponent was forced to waste his Hawkeye on a useless character rather than the person I was playing Blackbird Blue on,” he says. The deck, which plays like a turbocharged version of Faces of Evil, takes a lot of planning. The key is balancing the resources—you can’t just flood the resource row with Faces of Evil. You have to keep track of what you might need: the team-up with X-Men, the Mob Mentality for Hawkeye.

The early turns are spent setting up and surviving. Archangel gets X-Corp, which fetches your team-ups, while Beetle and Yellowjacket net you character and card advantage. “It’s like playing a deck with nine Faces of Evil.” But the real power of the deck is the search effect potential, which is comparable to that of Evil Medical School. The entire deck is a toolbox with plenty of answers to flummox your opponents. “When you sense a massive attack heading your way, grab Blackout,” Sohnle advises. “That’s the key.”

He maintains that this was the deck to play for this Pro Circuit, and he hasn’t seen anything better. When future Marvel Modern tournaments come around, this will be the deck to beat. As for his chances tomorrow, Dean is quietly confident. “I have to go 6 and 3—I can do that in Draft,” he says. “But there is some luck of the draw. However, I think I can do this. It’s two and one in each pod.”

Characters
2 Archangel, Angel
1 Changeling, Kevin Sidney
1 Jubilee, Jubilation Lee
1 Lockheed
1 Jean Grey, Telekinetic Fighter
1 Longshot, Hero of Mojoworld
2 Cannonball, Blast Field
1 Joystick
1 Beetle ◊ Mach 1
2 Dallas Riordan
2 Melissa Gold ◊ Songbird
1 Erik Josten ◊ Atlas, Kosmos Convict
1 Speed Demon, Second Chance Speedster
1 Nathan Garrett ◊ Black Knight, Corrupt Crusader
4 Yellowjacket, Rita DeMara
4 Beetle, Armorsmith
1 Shocker
1 Marcus Daniels ◊ Blackout
1 Ape X
1 Melissa Gold ◊ Screaming Mimi

Plot Twists
1 Brave New World, Team-up
4 Faces of Evil
4 Mob Mentality
4 Time Breach
4 Angel of Mercy
4 Hard Sound Construct
1 Hero’s Demise
1 Mystic Summons
1 Project Liberator

Locations
3 X-Corp: Amsterdam
1 Stormfront-1

Equipment
2 Blackbird Blue