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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017
While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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| Deck Profile: Jerome McHale |
| Jason Grabher-Meyer |
| May 14, 2005 |
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Though it came into PC: Amsterdam with a great deal of momentum, X-Statix Loner was measured, metered, and unfortunately found to be lacking in Marvel Modern Age. The deck was promising, but it just couldn’t handle certain matchups. Apparently, though, it does just fine in Golden Age.
Yup, Metagame.com’s own Jerome McHale has been successfully piloting the only X-Statix deck at $10K Detroit. With a 3-0 record at the end of round 3, his build seems to be a highly successful one. Here’s what he ran:
1 Corkscrew
4 Vivisector, Myles Alfred
 3 Orphan, Guy Smith
2 Sluk, Byron Spencer
4 U-Go-Girl, Tragic Teleporter
1 La Nuit
3 Anarchist, Tike Alicar
2 Battering Ram
4 Zeitgeist
4 Anarchist, Man of the People
3 Professor X, Mental Master
1 Imperiex
4 Dead Weight
3 Mind Over Matter
4 Star of the Show
4 Spin Doctoring
2 Flame Trap
4 X-Statix Café
4 X-Statix HQ
3 Latverian Embassy
Vivisector and Corkscrew fill drops on turn 2, chosen from alternate 1- and 2-drops for their effects. Corkscrew can off himself as needed, making him a natural fit for the deck on turn 3, while Vivisector’s  boost effect is just too useful on later turns to ignore. The ability to burn an opponent for 5 or 10 endurance on a turn in which you can’t or choose not to hit a drop is invaluable. In addition, both of these characters are useful in the rather imposing Fantastic Fun matchup. Flame Trap adds to the tech.
Orphan, Guy Smith is just a Beast with his effect, easily becoming a 6 ATK/6 DEF on turn 3. Of course, he’s a 7 ATK/7 DEF when backed by a copy of X-Statix Café. He’s a powerhouse that can quickly exceed the average combined ATK and DEF value of an acceptable 4-drop on turn 4 and his ability to fill both turns makes him remarkably flexible. The same thing can be said of the deck’s turn 3 alternate, Sluk, whose boost effect allows him to fill in for turn 4 and who is, again, bigger on attack than an average 4-drop if he’s got a Café to help him. In addition, like Corkscrew, his self-KO’ing effect is both convenient in the long term and powerful in the short.
U-Go-Girl is the deck’s main 4-drop, and again, the skew of characters for this turn is oriented towards teching Evil Medical School and Fantastic Fun. With the ability to free up the field without necessitating the use of Dead Weight, U-Go-Girl is a great equalizer that lets the deck play loosely and strongly against early game rush decks withoout sacrificing its ability to maintain the loner theme in the mid- and late game. La Nuit serves as the turn’s alternate, functioning as a defensive wall in the proper matchup.
Anarchist, Tike Alicar and Battering Ram occupy turn 5, and while Anarchist is generally the preferred drop due to his ability to control both your field and your opponent’s, Battering Ram is integral for certain matchups. “I love going up against Curve Sentinels if I have odd initiative,” explained McHale. “I can drop Battering Ram, pop him, and as long as they don’t still have a Mark III out, it just bumps the game straight to turn 8.” It’s incredibly important to be able to do so, as the result is a deck that can outlast Curve Sentinels past turn 7, get it into its natural decline via Genosha, and then dominate it on turns 8 and 9.
 Meanwhile, turn 6 belongs to Zeitgeist. And sometimes turn 7 belongs to his friend “Another Zeitgeist.” He’s that good. Turn 7 can also be filled by Anarchist, Man of the People, while turns 8 and 9 are the domain of Professor X, Mental Master. Professor X is an integral card in the deck, as once the X-Statix survive turn 7 in a CS matchup (often through the use of multiple Dead Weights), the Professor can steal Magneto on turn 9, leaving insufficient resources in the Curve arsenal.
Dead Weight is a must-have, clearing the field as needed and giving huge DEF bonuses. It works exceedingly well, regardless of whether the target is an attacker or defender, and it’s a lynchpin card for CS and Evil Medical School. Mind Over Matter gives the deck a nice offensive pump, access to flight, and another way of clearing up characters that have outlived their usefulness. This is especially good when it bounces a character like Vivisector, who can be used as a normal drop and then cleared out later for re-recruitment to claim additional effects.
Star of the Show and Spin Doctoring are must-haves and a great deal of the incentive to tinker with the loner concept. They’re obvious picks, but less obvious is Flame Trap. A great metagame call, McHale was fast to praise its use. “Flame Trap is great! It tears up some of the best decks.” Indeed, it gives chainable stun in the FFun matchup and just brutalizes Evil Medical School.
Locations that the deck uses mirror this pattern. X-Statix Café and X-Statix HQ are predictable must-haves, but Latverian Embassy is another piece of hot tech. It pins down things like Bat-Signal, Signal Flare, and the offensive pumps that can hurt this deck so badly when it goes on the defensive. A second line of defense against Overload, after the obvious Star of the Show, are also golden.
One of the important things to notice about the deck is that it’s packed with alternate drops. While it can’t search them out at all, the deck uses them for more than just their toolbox-esque potential—it keeps the deck safe from the early game decks that pack Ka-Boom! and Foiled, such as Evil Medical School, Fantastic Fun, and TNB Blitz. This is an important thing to understand, as it covers the weakness of what is often seen as a very volatile deck that is easily victimized by resource depletion. Clearly, this thing’s been tested pretty heavily.
Packed with options that complement its core theory, this deck may very well Top 8 today. If it does, watch for X-Statix to raise some eyebrows at PC: New York. |
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