My tentative prediction when I looked to the happy new land that is post-Overload Golden Age Constructed involved much speculation about just how far you could go with large amounts of attack pumps and the necessary guts required to use them in an aggressive manner.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one. After a strong showing in Amsterdam from a Marvel Knights Concealed deck, it can’t really be considered rogue, but I would nonetheless wager that it slipped under a lot of testing radars for this weekend. Submitted on a form with “Mein Deck” written on it in big friendly letters was Karl-Heinz Bergt’s deck, designed by Kristian Kockott and based on a very similar build played by Kristian in Amsterdam.
Characters
4 Mikado and Mosha
3 Hannibal King
4 Iron Fist, Danny Rand
3 Death-Stalker
4 Elektra, Elektra Natchios
3 Yelena Belova ◊ Black Widow
4 Luke Cage, Street Enforcer
4 Daredevil, Matt Murdock
1 Micro-Chip
1 Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man
Plot Twists
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Crime and Punishment
4 Crushing Blow
4 Flying Kick
4 Quick Kill
3 Swan Dive
4 Wild Ride
Locations
2 Punisher’s Armory
Aggressive much? With all of its characters being concealed (aside from Daredevil, who will generally choose to hide, and Spider-Man, who is often late to the party entirely), Bergt will almost always be in control of tempo with regards to who gets stunned and who doesn’t. The amount of attack pumps allow for some savage curve jumping, and the KO effects serve to ensure that when opponents swing back through his empty board, they will have slightly less characters with which to do so.
Currently sitting at 6-2, Bergt is on the bubble for the last couple of rounds in his bid to make Top 8, but it would appear that his deck has all the tools it needs to get him there. Its only truly bad matchup is Teen Titans, who have a nasty habit of being able to stun his characters in spite of their trying to hide, and then swinging to the face for considerable amounts of damage with the help of Titans Tower. The New Brotherhood frequently turns into Deathrace 2000, in which the characters in black seem slightly favored. Between Swan Dive and Mikado and Mosha, a fair race has every potential to be skewed by sneaky tricks from the Marvel Knights.
If you are looking to apply greater beats than any other player in the room, this deck might just be for you.