One thing of note about Hannover’s $10K tournament is that despite many traditional deck archetypes being played, there was a great deal of innovation. Some paid off and some did not, but Michael Goldschmit’s changes to TOGIT’s X-Stall were some of the best made.

Here’s what Goldschmit’s deck looked like.

Michael Goldschmit’s X-Stall

Characters
4 Puppet Master
2 Banshee
2 Wolverine, Logan
4 Rogue, Power Absorption
4 Jean Grey, Marvel Girl
2 Scarlet Witch
3 Sunfire
3 Mimic
3 Storm, Weather Witch
4 Professor X, World’s Most Powerful Telepath
4 Jean Grey, Phoenix Force
1 Onslaught
1 Imperiex

Plot Twists
4 Burn Rubber
4 Pleasant Distraction
4 Children of the Atom
3 Acrobatic Dodge
1 Xavier’s Dream

Locations
2 Avalon Space Station
2 X-Corporation
4 Cerebro

Like any X-Stall deck, the curve begins with Puppet Master. Puppet Master gives one of the deck’s three key powers to copy for use with Rogue and Sunfire, and is a definite staple. It’s at the 3-drop spot that Goldschmitt mixes things up a bit.

Wolverine, Logan beats the curve by almost two full points in ATK and DEF. He trumps the cream of the 3-drop crop by an entire point in both categories, and has always seemed like a no-brainer for X-Stall. His stats are just so good he can’t be resisted. However, being a veteran X-Stall player myself, I can vouch for the fact that despite Logan’s strength in the early game, in many cases, he quickly becomes a dead card around turn 5. Goldschmit replaces two copies of Logan with two copies of Banshee instead, and it’s an interesting choice to make.

The change is a trade-off. There’s no chance that Banshee can be as good as Wolverine on turn 3, or probably even on turn 4. Although he begins with a lower level of utility within the deck than Logan, Banshee gains utility as soon as he hits the mid-game while Logan loses it. It’s in those late-game turns where Logan becomes a real stinker that's useful for little else other than reinforcement, while Banshee becomes a double-exhausting kamikaze.  Pretty cool trick, especially when his effect is used on big bruisers with range hiding in the back row.

From there the deck is textbook until the five-drop, where it replaces Professor X, Charles Xavier with Scarlet Witch. This was a change adopted by several topnotch players, including the finalist of the Malaysia $10K, and it’s a nice little piece of tech that screws Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal as well as many other cards. It’s great in a mirror match, and it prevents the deck from ever having to KO its 5-drop in order to recruit its 7-drop. It also provides more synergy with Avalon Space Station, allowing the deck to garner some card advantage from its second effect.

Emma Frost is replaced in the 6-drop slot with Storm, Weather Witch. The deck loses a bit of its hand control, but instead gains two really neat combat tricks, forbidding some characters from attacking while at the same time being able to fake out an opponent with formations you don’t intend on keeping on the board anyways. Since Storm doesn’t see a lot of play, it can be fun to play her and just pick a wickedly stupid formation, changing it before the opponent can attack. Most opponents will be caught off guard and not expect the position shifts you’ll be making. At the same time, Storm is also nice insurance for times when an opponent attempts to use direct stun effects to isolate weaker characters.

[Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath] rips apart the opponent with his or her own characters on turn 7, and Jean Grey, Phoenix Force controls turn 8. On turn 9, you can either drop Imperiex if Jean was able to blow away the board, or you can play Onslaught if you weren’t so fortunate. I’m not sure that a 1/1 split between Onslaught and Imperiex is the right way to go, because Imperiex is far better.  However, it does give the deck a bit more resiliency for the times it just can’t get Jean on the board, so it definitely has some merit.

One copy of Xavier’s Dream is clever. Not necessarily broken or brilliant, but clever.  Many opponents, when facing an X-Stall, simply won’t play as many characters as they normally would. This keeps endurance loss down from the copied effect of Professor X. Fantastic Four is especially good at doing this since Silver Surfer can take the initiative away from something large like Imperiex or Onslaught and then make an effective counter attack before combat passes. This results in damage for the X-Stall player and no glorious explosion of the opponent’s side of the board, as Onslaught and Imperiex need to be, you know, awake for their effects to work. Xavier’s Dream is great because it forces an opponent to play out characters and try and force stuns. I don’t think I’d try to use it as a major win condition, but it’s a great card to use to put pressure on an opponent.

The last innovation this deck contains is a more common one. It drops two copies of X-Corporation for two copies of Avalon Space Station. If any X-Stall players haven’t done this yet, they probably should. It might even be a commendable choice to play three or four copies of Avalon. If you’re going to drop copies of X-Corporation you need to be replacing it with something that can get Jean Grey into the KO’d pile. Avalon Space Station is a superb choice, especially when its effect is used with a Brotherhood character. With this deck’s discard effects, it really thrives on the card advantage Avalon can give.

Not all these changes may be adopted into typical X-Stall canon. However, they’re all wise innovations that deserve attention. Some are new and some  have been seen before, but if X-Stall is to survive past the release of Marvel Knights, it needs to evolve.