Ah, spring! The time of the year when a young man’s fancy turns to love. Yes, true believers . . . even one as spooky as me is not immune to the wiles of the fairer sex. Besides, I come to realize more and more each day that I am no longer a young man. I occasionally notice a wrinkle that I hadn’t seen before or a more pronounced lack of hair adorning my head.*

Many of you may know that my teammates and friends John Hall and Shane Wiggans are in pretty serious relationships with their respective ladies. In fact, Shane is getting married shortly after Pro Circuit Indy this coming August. And, of course, crazy Dave Spears tied the knot with the love of his life just prior to PC: LA last year. I figure that if those goobers can find their soul mates, it should be a snap for me! So I need to figure out what particular traits I possess that a woman might find appealing.

If I were to write a personal ad, it might go a little something like this:

SWTCGM seeks single female for friendship and perhaps more. I enjoy comic books, card games about comic books, and playing World of Warcraft for hours on end. I am an excellent chef. (I make a mean mac and cheese!) I can recite Pi to the 75th decimal. My apartment isn’t much to look at, but I try to clean it every couple of months. If you’re looking for a special guy who still lives his life as if he were a teenager, then I am definitely your boy . . . er . . . man!

Geez . . . no wonder I’m still single!

“Bonjour, amour!”**

Given the caliber of the ladies who adorn the pages of popular comic books, many comic fans have an unrealistic standard. Why would anyone want to take a chance asking out a girl when they can spend time with the likes of Jean Grey and Wonder Woman without fear of rejection? Moreover, it seems like the ladies in comics are always doing something of interest. Emma Frost and her harrowing mind-blasts are worth watching. But if the White Queen were to make even a hint of a suggestion that her guy spend the afternoon shopping at The Gap with her, then he’d probably go running for the hills. This is all probably an overt attempt by comic book publishers to stick to topics that interest the masses. After all, have you ever seen The Invisible Woman ask Mr. Fantastic to take out the trash?

Must Love Spiders

As far as dream girls go, every comic book geek has his personal favorite. I am certainly no exception to this rule. Sure, those X-gals are great. And it’s obvious why Oliver Queen has such affection for Black Canary. But for my money, there is no woman—real or fictitious—who could ever compare to Mary Jane Watson. Granted, she’s not technically a “super heroine.” But in my mind’s eye, Mary Jane is far and away the most wonderful woman in either comic universe. First and foremost, she’s a redhead. Absent all other considerations, this automatically places her in the upper echelon. Secondly, she’s a glamorous model and actress. Many women dream of being one or the other; very few get to be both! Finally, she uses the word “tiger” . . . a lot! If Mary Jane were ever to say to me, “Face it tiger, you just hit the jackpot,” I would faint dead away.

(Hmmm . . . I’m daydreaming about flirting with a comic book character. That can’t be good!)

It is a measure of my respect for Spider-Man that he’s still one of my favorite superheroes even though he married the girl of my dreams.

(Okay . . . now I’m talking about being jealous of a comic book character. I think I may need some professional help.)

As part of my ongoing therapy, I’m going to get Mary Jane out of my heart and into a deck. It’s time for MJ to show Vs. System players far and wide that even supermodels can be a forceful presence on the Vs. board!

Before we get too carried away with building the deck, we really need to consider what kind of deck to build. Mary Jane Watson has two effects. First, she provides reinforcement for protected defenders. This can be extremely beneficial, as it will usually prevent breakthrough on at least one or two opposing attacks.*** If your opponent is playing a curve deck, it is conceivable to avoid breakthrough damage altogether. Secondly, Mary Jane gives you a free card whenever your team attackers stun a character. Unless you’re playing against an Injustice Gang deck, a free card in not at all a bad thing.

These two effects in unison lead me to believe that our deck should be an off-curve, team attack–focused deck. We could probably put together something akin to the Wild Pack deck that Vincent Greco (among eighteen others) played at PC: Amsterdam. However, some of the newer sets have provided interesting opportunities—particularly the Avengers set.

The Build

So, let’s see what the teaming-up of Spider-Friends and Avengers has to offer. At the 1-slot, we’re obviously going to have four copies of Mary Jane Watson. She provides benefits while both attacking and defending. Besides, she’s the deck’s theme card!

Also at 1, we’ll include three copies of Beast, Furry Blue Scientist. The great news for us is that, unlike with traditional reservist builds, Beast actually does have a purpose in this deck besides being a 2 ATK / 1 DEF Avengers reservist. His ability to search out our Team-Up will definitely be welcome because so many of the effects in our deck rely on our characters having a specific team affiliation. Our other 1-drop is Rick Jones. He may see play in the early turns, but Rick Jones’s primary purpose in the deck is to provide an extra reinforcement option on defense and a free character on offense to bolster our team attacks.

At 2, we have a wealth of interesting choices. On the Spider-Friends side, we’re going to go with three copies of Hornet. While he is somewhat undersized in the current environment, Hornet has a neat burn effect that we can put to good use on our off-initiative turns. The extra 5 or so damage that our opponent will take from his effect could potentially help us end games earlier or win games that we wouldn’t have otherwise.

The remaining 2-drops in our deck are Avengers, and they are all quite good! Three copies of Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy seem like an easy choice, as her effect is tailor-made for a team attack deck. I recall many times in Avengers Draft when my opponent would take out both my 2- and 3-drops with a single team attack including Natasha Romanoff. If we happen to run into another off-curve deck, her effect can be an incredible equalizer. Two copies of Wasp also seems like a good call, as her effect complements an off-curve team attack deck quite nicely. And should we happen to be worried about our opponent clearing our board, we can always recruit her hidden.

Our final 2-drop is not a popular choice. However, I quite like Falcon. He is not much good in a standard reservist deck, as there are usually few to no leaders from which he can gain a boost. However, we should find enough leaders in our deck that Falcon will frequently be at least +2 ATK / +2 DEF. Besides, his boost can be very beneficial for helping us plug holes in our curve.

At 3, we need the maximum four copies of Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger. In a team attack deck, this guy is just plain amazing! He already boasts respectable stats of 4 ATK / 5 DEF, but with the right support cards, we will be able to attack as many times with Quicksilver as we have characters. Many an Avengers Draft of mine ended with Quicksilver adjacent to Wasp and attacking and stunning every character on my opponent’s side of the board. The prospects of Quicksilver in this deck are just too amazing not to play four copies. Our other 3-drop isn’t as “amazing,” but at least he’s “friendly.” Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man also works well in the team attack theme, as he can enable our characters to swing without fear of stunning back. So, we’ll include three copies of MJ’s main squeeze.

Turn 4 will likely be a spot for us to under-drop. However, we do have a couple of characters to play in case we would like to follow the curve. In the current metagame, off-curve decks are quite prevalent. As such, we would be wise to include at least a single copy of Hawkeye, Clinton Barton. He can keep those rabid Anti-Green Lantern and Squadron Supreme rush decks at bay and allow our weenies to take care of bigger characters. Also at 4, we’ll include a copy of Iron Man, Tony Stark. On his own, Iron Man isn’t much to look at. But hopefully, we’ll have plenty of friends for Iron Man to give a boost. With our deck’s strategy, that extra +1 ATK / +1 DEF, flight, and range could certainly swing the balance of our matchups.

At 5, we have another couple of tech choices. To support the team attack theme, we’ll play one copy of Monica Rambeau ◊ Captain Marvel. Whether you like her or hate her, you can’t deny that she allows you an extra attack for a very low cost. With our deck, that extra attack can be a key to maintaining board control. Speaking of board control, how about a copy of Firestar, Hot Stuff just for weenie decks? Flame Trap may be gone during the Silver Age, but we still have a character that can handle the task of 1- and 2-drop management. Of course, we do need to be careful that we don’t end up burning ourselves in the bargain!

Our final character is at 6 and none other than Captain America, Super Soldier. Like Iron Man, he is not too impressive on his own. But he gives those characters around him an amazing boost on either attack or defense. While we will be doing a lot of under-dropping with this deck, Captain America can certainly be a nice finisher for us in the later turns.

Moving on to non-character choices, let’s start things off with equipment. Our sole equipment card for the deck is Armored Spider Suit. Now, in pretty much any other deck, Armored Spider Suit would be a 2-cost equipment that gives +2 ATK, +2 DEF, and reinforcement. In our deck, however, this card will usually be a 0-cost equipment once we get the team-up online. Since we know that we’ll often be recruiting multiple characters a turn, it only makes sense to include four copies of this card, as it becomes a great value. Heck, even if we recruit on curve, we can use the free recruit option of Rick Jones to make our Armored Spider Suits free!

Now, let’s look at our location choices. Without a doubt, we are going to need four copies of Playroom. This card provides no attack or defense support, but the extra damage it can inflict when we attack can be substantial! Assume that we team attack four times in a late turn, stunning an opposing character with all four attacks. Playroom will net us a total of 16 endurance loss! When compared with other burn cards like Surprise Attack and Flamethrower, that is absolutely enormous! With relatively few successful attacks, the combination of the burn from Playroom and the stun damage our opponent takes should be enough to end games in the early turns.

Also, we’ll need three copies of Birthing Chamber. While we will not always have the requisite four characters in play to draw from Birthing Chamber’s effect, the extra cards that we do get will most certainly be welcome. Between Birthing Chamber and Mary Jane, we should have little trouble drawing an extra ten cards a game.

Those extra cards will certainly come in handy for our first plot twist choice, Forbidden Loyalties. Both Spider-Friends and Avengers have team-up cards that we could use for this deck. However, Clone Saga is a bit too restrictive, and Two Worlds is really only good in multiples. Instead, we’re going to play a Team-Up that merges our two teams and confers a benefit (in the form of a +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter) on one of our characters. We may have to discard to realize that benefit, but we should have plenty of cards to spare.

Since this is a team attack deck, I suppose that saying we’ll be including four copies of Legendary Battles is a foregone conclusion. There are so many great combinations possible with this card that it would be impossible to play this deck without it! For example, the “infinite” attack Quicksilver becomes much more potent when he gets that extra +1 ATK and can’t be stunned. One of the best combos, though, would be sending all of our 1- and 2-drops at an opposing 1- or 2-drop and activating Firestar’s effect in the middle of the attack. Voila! All of your opponent’s weenies get stunned, while all of yours are free from harm.

Of course, one major problem for this deck would be facing a deck full of characters with concealed. Since we don’t have a way to attack hidden characters, we’ll just have to make them visible with No Man Escapes the Manhunters. This card is just what we need to make concealed-based decks manageable. And, if the deck we face doesn’t have any hidden characters, No Man Escapes the Manhunters doubles as an effective ATK pump.

Most of the cards that we have discussed so far support the offensive team attack theme. It might be nice if we provide a little bit of protection for our characters (while creating some pandemonium for our opponents). This is why we’re going to play three copies of Nice Try!. A year or so back, this card was the ultimate counter to Golden Age terrors like Overload and Finishing Move. In the Silver Age, Nice Try! can be an effective foil to cards like Mikado and Mosha, No Man Escapes the Manhunters, and Mutant Massacre (all cards that could create problems for our deck).

Finally, we need a character searcher for the deck. If we were playing more leader characters, then we could conceivably justify playing Avengers Assemble!. Unfortunately, the five leaders in our build are not a sufficient basis to justify a searcher that uses them exclusively. So, we are relegated to Enemy of My Enemy. If you need any explanation of why this is the search card of choice for this deck, please see pretty much any one of my articles since the X-Men set released for an explanation.

Is that it? Are we really done so soon? It would appear so. Let’s take a look and see what kind of wonder I have prepared for my favorite fictitious redhead:

Mary Jane Watson-Barnes (60 cards)

Characters (31)

3 Beast, Furry Blue Scientist

4 Mary Jane Watson, MJ

3 Rick Jones, A Hero’s Best Friend

2 Falcon, Sam Wilson

3 Hornet, Eddie McDonough

3 Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy

2 Wasp, Janet Van Dyne-Pym

4 Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger

2 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man

1 Hawkeye, Clinton Barton

1 Iron Man, Tony Stark

1 Firestar, Hot Stuff

1 Monica Rambeau ◊ Captain Marvel, Lady of Light

1 Captain America, Super Soldier

Plot Twists (18)

3 Enemy of My Enemy

4 Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up

4 Legendary Battles

3 Nice Try!

4 No Man Escapes the Manhunters

Locations (7)

3 Birthing Chamber

4 Playroom

Equipment (4)

4 Armored Spider Suit

The preferred initiative will usually be odds, as this allows characters like Black Widow and Hawkeye to be most effective. The initiative management is critical, as you will often be dropping multiple characters on your victory turn to finish off your opponent.

The mulligan condition is somewhat open to debate, as you really want Playroom and Quicksilver to achieve maximum effectiveness. The deck has enough search and cycling effects that you shouldn’t have much trouble finding all of the cards that you need. However, if you fail to get everything up and online by turn 4 or 5, then you could very well have an uphill battle doing enough damage in the later turns.

And that wraps up another thrilling, action packed week of Breaking Ground. But please don’t be sad, as I am never too far away. In fact, if you like, you can even email me at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. I’ve gotten much better about responding to emails as of late (thanks to the blessed end of my audit rotation), so you will probably hear back from me. But even if I can’t get back to you, I would still love to hear what you have to say.

* Which explains why you will usually see me wearing my festive squirrel hat at most Vs. System events!

** Yeah . . . more French this week. I'm trying my best to reach out to our fellow Vs. System players across the Atlantic!

*** Of course, this also requires careful planning and proper setup in the formation step to get the most out of her effect. For a few good tips on proper approaches to the formation step, check out Shane Wiggans’s inaugural article in his new column on Metagame.com, Theoretically Speaking.