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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: Jeremy Gray

Jason Grabher-Meyer

December 03, 2004

Okay, so anyone who’s been reading metagame.com lately knows that I’m in love with Jeremy Gray’s stall deck that tore up the Minehead $10K tournament. Gray caught everyone off-guard with the deck and finished third, losing the semifinals to eventual winner Rich Edbury. The deck concept isn’t original, but the execution is, and I was thrilled to see that Gray played the deck again in the So Cal PC. His revised version of the deck definitely deserves attention.

The deck focuses on proactively exhausting the opponent's characters, staving off damage without sacrificing the ability to dish out beats. I’m going to look at Gray's latest build, made possible by a few key cards from the Web of Spider-Man set.

The deck naturally wants to mulligan into Puppet Master. Onslaught being sent to the bottom of the deck is the worst thing that can happen, and even that isn't a huge issue. Medusa is the deck's ideal 3-drop, especially when it does not have the initiative. On turn 3, playing Medusa usually means you'll only be attacked once, barring Pantha or a pumped 1-drop. The deck doesn't contain any characters that can reinforce Medusa on future turns, but has a couple tricks that can do the job.

Alistair Smythe is one of Gray’s post-Minehead additions. Alistair protects you from a few problematic cards, particularly Flame Trap and Reign of Terror. A Reign from an inexperienced player can be worked around, but if the opponent knows what's up, it's often deadly, and if you run into two Reigns, forget it. Alistair keeps that from happening. Later in the game he remains useful, protecting you from threats like It’s Clobberin’ Time!, Flying Kick, and Savage Beatdown on turns where you don’t have the initiative. When facing decks like The New Brotherhood, this is invaluable. Any small drops that you can't exhaust won't be able to get big and stun up the curve.

In the 4-slot we have the deck's lynchpin: Rogue, Power Absorption. In the early game, she mimics Puppet Master to give the deck more proactive exhaustion and gives the deck a good flying attacker. In the late game she can also mimic Blackfire. That's the point where the deck really starts to kick butt, turning from a pure stall into a horrifying juggernaut of board control.

The deck's 5-drops are Blackfire and Scarecrow. In most cases you'll want Blackfire, especially if you have the initiative. As good as she is then, she gets better as the game progresses. On turns when she has the initiative behind her, she can dictate your opponent's formation. Sometimes she'll force characters without range into the back row, acting as a source of mass exhaustion. Words can't express how key she is. However, if you're up against a swarm deck (such as TNB, Titans, or Wild Vomit), then Scarecrow and his bounce effect are what you're looking for. He's also a great turn 8 play against TNB or Titans. If you have the odd initiative and drop him on turn 8, he often spells game before turn 9.

Gray’s build at Minehead ran four copies of Mr. Freeze and one copy of Mimic. This build abandons Mimic entirely, relying instead on Freeze instead. Freeze is great in this deck: his high DEF means 6-drops have trouble stunning him, his range lets him attack while protected in the support row, and his effect ties down characters for future turns. He really shines against Titans. Remember, when a card states that you can not do something over a certain duration (for instance, Freeze’s effect preventing characters from readying on the current turn), that card takes precedence over cards played after its effect triggers. In other words, Teen Titans Go! ain’t got nothin’ on the frozen old man. His effect even works if he is removed from an attack! Baiting an opponenet into attacking Freeze and then using Swift Escape to get him out of the way can be a devastating, if costly, move.

Finally we get to the big guns. In the 7-slot, Magneto, Master of Magnetism compounds the damage Blackfire does and gives the deck a vicious turn 7 regardless of who has the initiative. At 8 we have Apocalypse, who serves two tech functions in addition to being really, really big. If your opponent fails to get Silver Surfer out on turn 8, Apocalypse makes sure he or she never will. Secondly, he can wreck team-ups. Onslaught may love fighting a teamed-up board, but Apocalypse against a divided squad is often game. If it comes to it, turn 9 is the "drop Onslaught and win" turn. You drop Onslaught, protect him if you don’t have the initiative, then blow up your opponent's board and attack directly.

Most of the plot twists serve obvious functions. Burn Rubber and Fast Getaway prevent breakthrough since the deck can’t reinforce normally. Entangle gives a source of proactive exhaustion regardless of who has the initiative, and Pleasant Distraction prevents attacks. Distraction is particularly important to the deck because it lets you stun down the curve when you have the initiative.

Swift Escape is one of the deck’s trickiest cards. At face value, it just grabs away little guys to keep them from getting crushed (and to keep you from taking massive breakthrough in the process). However, it also lets you take advantage of the effects of Medusa and Mr. Freeze without watching them get stunned. You can also use it to get two activations out of Puppet Master, if need be. Batplane does the same thing. Puppet Master may not have the keys to Batman's ride, but he can play with the ejector seat.

Lastly, there is Flame Trap, and it's hard to overstate its usefulness. Naturally it’s great against The New Brotherhood, Wild Vomit, Titans, and cop-based builds of Brave and the Bold. But wait, there's more! Tired of seeing your opponent exhaust Boris whenever Puppet Master does his thing? Flame Trap is the answer. You activate Puppet Master, chain Flame Trap, then let the chain resolve. Flame Trap stuns everything small, forcing something beefy to lie down. The downside is that Puppet Master also gets roasted, but you can always add Swift Escape or Batplane’s effect to the chain.

In short, this deck is awesome. It has good matchups against almost everything and tends to crush decks like Titans and TNB that don’t intend to meet their curve. After round 2 the deck hadn’t worked as successfully for Gray as it did in Minehead, but it definitely has a lot of potential.