Welcome to Detective Work. This is the first of what I hope will be a new article series focusing on competitive Vs. System play. I will analyze events, from PCs all the way to PCQs, with the goal of determining the current metagame and helping you to decide which deck to play. Ever since I started playing trading card games professionally, I have been fascinated by the way the “best” deck evolves over time. Such change is based not only on new cards introduced into a given format, but also by advancement in the technology of a given archetype (cutting Master Mold out of Curve Sentinels, for example), and by the particular tastes of players at a given time (for example, the sudden fall in popularity of Big Brotherhood and Common Enemy). Knowing what your opponents will be playing at a tournament is probably the single most important factor for predicting your success or failure at that event.

Often, it can be daunting to try to piece together the metagame. You need to figure out not only what archetypes others will be playing, but also what card choices they are likely to make. Should you be playing around Tag Team or Nasty Surprise when playing against Curve Sentinels? Do you need to worry about Not So Fast when playing against Teen Titans? The answers to these questions dictate both how you should play a given matchup, and what cards you should be playing with in the first place.

Normally, players who don’t have connections with their local Vs. community are at a huge disadvantage when trying to predict their local metagame. Players “in the know” will have better decks and a better knowledge of their competition. So, I’m here to try to help level the playing field. Metagame.com has introduced a new feature that will give you access to more decklists than ever before. We have asked all of the Tournament Organizers to send us the Top 8 decklists from their PCQs to be posted right here on Metagame.com. This invaluable resource will let you know which decks are being played all around the country (and hopefully soon the world). If your local PCQs aren't listed on this feature yet, we encourage you to ask your Tournament Organizer to participate. It's a great way to highlight your region's local players- if you make a Top 8, your name and decklist will be posted for the world to see. You can find last week’s decklists right here.

By my count, the metagame breakdown from the PCQs looks like this:

Teen Titans: 12

Curve Sentinels: 10

Cosmic Cops: 3

The New Brotherhood: 2

Spider-Friends: 2

Common Enemy: 2

Fantastic Four: 2

My Beloved: 2

Big Brotherhood: 1

SuperSpider: 1

The Brave and The Bold: 1

League of Assassins: 1

X-Stall: 1

As expected, Teen Titans and Curve Sentinels were way out in front, with double digit Top 8 finishes across the country. But these stats also show that plenty of other decks broke into the top slots. This was the first weekend where Marvel Knights was legal, and I have to say that I am disappointed by the lack of MK cards in the field. It traditionally takes a while for new archetypes to be able to compete with the well-tuned, existing tier 1 decks, so while I am sure that there are many people out there testing with the new cards to see which ones work best, it may be a few weeks before we see Marvel Knights decks breaking into the Top 8.

Of the legacy cards in Marvel Knights, Hounds of Ahab saw a lot of play in Curve Sentinels decks, and Valeria Richards; Scarlet Witch, Eldritch Enchantress; Diplomatic Immunity; Web Shooters; and Scarlet Spider ◊ Spider-Man got some action in various other decks. I expect that some of the Marvel Knights teams will be making their debut this weekend at the $10K events in Los Angeles and London. With a metagame so heavily dominated by two archetypes, it shouldn’t be too difficult to find a strategy that is able to knock the current top decks off of their pedestals. We’ll find out what people come up with this weekend.

Another interesting development is the increase in the number of Not So Fasts and Detective Works seen in the Top 8 decklists. This is a natural response to the increased use of Nasty Surprise and Overload in Curve Sentinels and other tier 1 decks. It will be interesting to see if this increased “hate” against the best 1-cost plot twists in the game will be enough to influence people to play fewer copies of them in future builds.

Most of the decklists from the PCQ are things that we have seen before from recent $10K events and the PC, but there are two decks I would like to highlight.

The first is the only deck to use a team from the recent Superman, Man of Steel set:

SuperSpider
Jay Diraimando

Characters
4 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
4 Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote
4 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
3 Spider-Man, Cosmic Spider-Man
1 Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man
4 Scarlet Spider – Ben Reilly
3 Scarlet Spider ◊ Spider-Man
4 Longshot, Rebel Freedom Fighter
1 The Demon, Etrigan
4 Superman, Red
4 Superman, Clark Kent
4 Superman, Kal-El
1 Superman, Man of Steel

Plot Twists
4 Nice Try!
4 Clone Saga
3 Costume Change
2 Spider Senses
2 Savage Beatdown
1 Flame Trap
1 Overload

Locations
3 Cadmus Labs
1 Avalon Space Station

I don’t think I’ve ever seen a deck make better use of Costume Change. Using the power of Longshot, this deck can get out huge characters with a lot of power-ups to spare. Nice Try! is, as always, a great answer to Teen Titans tricks, and the Amazing Spider-Man can easily stall the game to ensure that either Cosmic Spider-Man or the Man of Steel can finish things off. I’m not really sure why this deck runs The Demon, Etrigan. It seems that extra copies of the on-team 8-drops would do a lot more work in this deck. Then again, the potential to KO all of your opponent’s resources is pretty exciting.

I’m not sure that this deck is tier 1, but it certainly does show that there is still room for innovation in the format. The largely untapped potential of the Superman set and the brand new Marvel Knights cards should make for an exciting season.

The other deck I’d like to highlight this week is the unusual build of League of Assassins that made Top 4 at a PCQ in New York:

League of Assassins
Francisco Quinonez

Characters:

3 Mimic

4 Ubu

2 Lady Shiva, Master Assassin

1 Assassin Initiate

4 Hassim

4 Ra’s al Ghul, Immortal Villain

1 Ra’s al Ghul, The Demon’s Head

4 Bane, Ubu

2 Kyle Abbot

1 Ra’s al Ghul, Master Swordsman

2 Bronze Tiger

1 Merlyn

Plot Twists:

4 Savage Beatdown

4 Tower of Babel

4 Tag Team

3 A Death in the Family

3 Acrobatic Dodge

4 The Demon’s Head

Locations:

4 Mountain Stronghold

3 Lazarus Pit

2 Flying Fortress

1 Latverian Embassy

This deck runs fewer locations than most of the successful League decks I’ve seen, relying instead on the power of The Demon’s Head to get key locations when needed. I have to admit that I was surprised to see Latverian Embassy in the deck, and I’m sure that many of Francisco’s opponents were, too! This is a really cool card to search for if your opponent hasn’t been thinking about it while playing plot twists during the early game.

The deck makes good use of Ra’s Al Ghul, Immortal Villain, which is a powerhouse against the location-heavy Teen Titans decks. To make up for uniqueness difficulties on turn 6, there are multiple copies of Mimic—a great combo with Lady Shiva, Master Assassin on turn 7. I am surprised that Francisco didn’t try to get more use out of Merlyn by playing more locations. Merlyn makes it so that Mimic will have something good to copy, whether you have initiative on turn 6 or on turn 7. I would also like to see one copy of Pit of Madness to search for. I can’t imagine not running that card in any mono-League deck. League of Assassins has some incredibly powerful cards and should, in theory, be able to hold its own against Titans and Sentinels. I am still waiting to see the right build that would put this deck on top, but some of Francisco’s innovations may bring the Vs. community closer to that build.

Well, that’s it for this week. As an additional feature for future editions of this article series, I would like to highlight really good and really bad plays sent in by readers. I’m looking in particular for cool plays that show great insight into the game, or for horrific plays that will make me laugh. I would prefer it if these plays came from competitive tournaments, but I’ll accept other submissions if they’re particularly good. I’ll post the best of these, along with the submitter’s name (which can be changed in the case of particularly embarrassing plays), in my next article. Of course, there will also be an analysis of this weekend’s $10Ks and what they’ll mean for the metagame in the coming weeks.