The metagame is the game that surrounds the game. It's the jockeying, boasting, spying, and rumor-mongering that goes on before a tournament or any other organized event. When a player wanders nearby to see what you're trading for at the last minute, or when he or she looks online to see what deck you played last time, that's all part of the metagame.

Occasionally some smart players actually get together, look at the available card pool, and then build and test every viable deck out there. These people are usually known as "tournament winners." They seem to think that the metagame is knowing what the best decks are and what decks defeat what decks. I hate these guys.

Upper Deck Entertainment held an internal sixteen-player Marvel Constructed tournament a little over a week ago and, surprisingly, we already had a metagame going on around the office (mainly because I was taking careful notes as I watched people playtest their decks.) A few things became clear during my spying—I mean, research. Most people were playing rush decks, and virtually no one was playing late game control decks.

There was a lot of talk about Jake's speedy Brotherhood deck. It uses The New Brotherhood and a whole lot of offense to take down opponents on the quick. He even scored a few turn 4 kills with it in playtesting. I also knew that several players were diehard Sentinel fanatics, so they would be well represented. The other members of R&D had built a dozen decks and had loaned out several fast decks, so I figured they had to be playing slower decks (as no one else was.) Slowly but surely, a deck idea was forming in my mind.

I decided on a heavy anti-rush theme to take on most of the field, but with a strong discard component that could beat the slower control decks. Here's what the deck looked like:

Matt’s Tournament Deck, v1

1 Colossus
4 Cyclops, Scott Summers
3 Dazzler
3 Gambit
4 Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner
2 Professor X, Charles Xavier
1 Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath
4 Psylocke
3 Rogue, Power Absorption
1 Rogue, Powerhouse
1 Storm, Weather Witch
2 Wolverine, Logan
2 Wolverine, Berserker Rage
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Cerebro
4 Children of the Atom
4 Danger Room
2 Fastball Special
4 Flame Trap
2 Medical Attention
2 Political Pressure
3 Professor Xavier's Mansion

Psylocke; Prof X, CX; Rogue; Prof X, WMPT; and the Mansion are all part of the discard and control component of the deck. While Wolverine is certainly the better fighter at the 3 slot, Psylocke can punish a player who misses an early drop. This deck wants to start with the initiative, and Psylocke makes a great attacker on turn 3. Professor X, Charles Xavier is the key discard character in the game so far. He's even better when there’s a second version of him in play by way of Rogue, Power Absorption. The 7-drop Prof. X is great against the 5-drop Thing, Heavy Hitter; the 4-drop Dr. Doom, and any other high ATK character with a recruit cost of 5 or less. It's a great bit of control in the late game when the endurance runs low. Finally, Professor Xavier's Mansion is great for adding insult to injury. It's bad enough to look over at your opponent's formation and see three surviving characters after the dust of combat has cleared. but then to have to discard two cards is just rough all around. Children of the Atom often helps the Mansion trigger when combat takes its toll.

Gambit, Rogue, Flame Trap, Children of the Atom, and Storm make up the anti-rush component. The chance of the 2-for-1 kill with Gambit was an ever-present threat to the rush players in the tournament. They had to attack him first, as their team attacks would not be safe with him around unless they sent in more characters than were necessary. The only thing worse than having Gambit stun a character is to have him stun one during a team attack so the attack doesn’t even beat the defender. Against pure rush decks, a second Gambit by way of Rogue, Power Absorption is a nail in the coffin. However, the additional cost of discarding an X-Men character keeps this a back-up plan, as it can get a bit too costly to do too often. Worse yet, Flame Trap requires two discards, but it's worth it, especially when an opponent has multiple small characters in play. Children of the Atom is a rescue card against a rush deck. With lots of characters lying around, rush decks tend to use Finishing Move to get rid of problematic characters (like Gambit). If you play Children in response, it really sets them back for the turn, as the Move is negated. Not only do you not lose the character, but you're also up a character over what they thought you'd have. Finally, Storm, Weather Witch is a great way to hamstring a rush deck. Rush decks tend to set up in formations fully utilizing the front and support rows to protect certain characters and to make sure they can reinforce. When you have the initiative, it sets your opponent into full defensive mode. When he or she has the initiative, you might catch him or her flat-footed, denying a few characters the chance to attack.

The deck's coolest trick revolves around Nightcrawler and Flame Trap. I bet right now you’re looking at Flame Trap and saying to yourself, "But Flame Trap stuns characters of a cost of 2 or less, so Nightcrawler is vulnerable to it!" Ah, but Nightcrawler is a crafty little devil. If I want to set off a Flame Trap while he's in play, I just wait and do it while he's attacking. He can't be stunned while attacking. That power doesn't only keep other characters from stunning him, it prevents everything from stunning him!

I admit that I did throw in a few odds and ends cards, just based on what I had seen floating around the office. I was worried about a certain Alicia Masters deck that could get out a big Thing earlier than anything could deal with it, so I threw in a couple of Fastball Specials. I was very worried about Wild Sentinel swarms, so Political Pressure was my ace in the hole in that matchup. I really wanted the Mansion to trigger, so I threw in Medical Attention to make sure I always had three surviving characters each turn. I really didn’t know what other players would be playing at the 6+ cost level, so I threw in one of each, just so I would be prepared for anything.


Here's how my matches went:

Round One, vs. Hyrum and his Sentinel deck

Both games were very similar; we both missed a couple of character drops, so the games went into the later turns. We were both playing very conservatively, and I never drew my Flame Traps or Political Pressure against his Wild Sentinel swarm. But that swarm was shut down by the 3-drop Wolverine and Gambit. I drew a couple of Childrens, and that set him back a bit. In the end, it was just a race to the end, and I eked out two in a row.


Round Two, vs. William and his X-Men deck

William was playing the X-Men fairly straight up. He had a full complement of characters at each cost and a good supply of combat tricks. My Flame Traps were of no use against him, but the discard effects did start to eat away at him. In game 2, I recruited Prof. X on turn 5 and copied him with Rogue. That spelled lights out, as I had a 6-drop for the next turn and he didn't. Another 2-0 victory for me.


Round Three, vs. Danny and his X-Men deck

Danny was playing a total rush deck, as no character in his deck had a cost of more than 3. I never got out Political Pressure against him, but I did get my Flame Traps, and those seemed to work just fine. Three times in two games I set off the Trap, always to much crying and gnashing of teeth. The Trap fueled a huge comeback for me as well. On turn 4 of game 2, Danny was at 43 and I was at 13. He even asked me if I wanted to concede, but after a well-timed Flame Trap and a couple of swings with three mid-cost characters, victory was mine.


Round Four, vs. Omeed and his Fantastic Four Deck

Omeed was the only other undefeated player, so this was the clash of the titans for all the marbles. I got off to a good start, but he kept dropping the FF beatsticks on me turn after turn. Each character he brought out was larger than mine at the same drop, so I was always playing catch-up. I got an early Political Pressure going, but he was playing with a full complement of characters, so it ended up being worthless. Game 1 came down to a crucial moment. I had Danger Room out with Gambit and Nightcrawler in the front row and Dazzler in the support row. I had to get through the 11 ATK/11 DEF Thing with a team attack by the above three characters in order to allow my Wolverine, Logan to get in for an attack. However, all was lost when Omeed played a Ka-Boom!, nuking my Danger Room mid-attack, and in the process, knocking my attack down below Thing's 11 DEF. I went into the attack with a 12 ATK total and ended up with a 10 ATK. He crushed me soon after.

In game 2, I drew a heck of a lot of characters and was using them as resources half the time. I was on the defensive early and was just about to make a comeback when I was smashed for about 20 endurance by a mega-boosted 6-drop Human Torch. I had the initiative on turn 7, but lost when a Nasty Surprise took out my Colossus, dropping me below 0 endurance with no hope of getting Omeed any lower.


Hey, second place is nothing to sneeze at. What stinks is that Omeed wins 75 percent of our internal tournaments. He just seems to be good at the game. Hmm . . . maybe there is something to be said for the "practice makes perfect" metagame theory. I'll have to try it out sometime. Right after I set up a hidden camera over Omeed's card table, so I can watch him test his next tournament deck.


After the tournament, several people wanted to see my deck, but all I wanted to do was tune it up a whole bunch. I decided to rebuild it based on what I had learned at Upper Deck's very own little tourney. So what did I learn?

If your deck is meant to do something, you don't need to overdo it. (I dropped the Political Pressure.)

Don't play with every card that requires a discard from hand, or you'll soon find no more cards left in your hand. (I dropped Dazzler.)

A fast rush deck needs cards in hand as much as control decks do. They tend to run out of characters as they drop so many each turn. (I upped the number of Prof X: CX and his Mansion.)

Here's what the deck looks like now:

Matt's Tournament Deck, v2

4 Nightcrawler, Kurt Wagner
4 Wolverine, Logan
4 Psylocke
4 Gambit
3 Rogue, Power Absorption
4 Professor X, Charles Xavier
2 Cyclops, Scott Summers
2 Storm, Weather Witch
2 Colossus
2 Wolverine, Berserker Rage
1 Professor X, World's Most Powerful Telepath
4 Professor Xavier's Mansion
4 Danger Room
4 Cerebro
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Children of the Atom
4 Flame Trap
2 Flying Kick
2 Burn Rubber


The next time we hold a tournament, this is the deck I'll play. Now, am I telling the truth . . . or am I just trying to manipulate the metagame?

Please send any comments or questions about this article to mhyra@metagame.com.