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1 Oliver Queen ◊ Green Arrow, Emerald Archer

1 Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero

4 Crystal Frost ◊ Killer Frost, Cold-Hearted Killer

2 Forbidden Loyalties, Team-Up

Plot Twists (20)

3 Hero’s Welcome

3 Revitalize

4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

Locations (4)

4 Slaughter Swamp

Equipment (6)

4 Nth Metal

2 Quadromobile

The testing proved to be very insightful; I lost only a single match throughout the entire day of testing. The gauntlet of decks I tested against included Good Guys, JLA / JSA (“Better Guys?”), Checkmate / Villains United, Injustice Gang Army, and Shadowpact. While many of the matches were close, JLA / Secret Society prevailed via mid-game board lockdown followed by late game dominance with characters like Gorilla Grodd, Aquaman, King of the Seven Seas, and Psycho-Pirate.

So impressive was the performance of the deck that Tom Magel, owner of JJK Cards, asked if he could play it at the PC. While this was encouraging news, I was a bit concerned that the deck still had a lot of room for improvement. So, I decided to spend the next couple of days refining.

The Intermediate Build (August 7, 2006)

Following work the next day, I sat down with the deck and attempted to refine some of the rough spots I had encountered the day before. The second build of the deck was as follows:

Characters (32)

4 Fiddler, Isaac Bowin

4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton

2 Deadshot, Dead Aim

4 Shayera Thal ◊ Hawkwoman, Thanagarian Enforcer

1 Oliver Queen ◊ Green Arrow, Emerald Archer

4 Crystal Frost ◊ Killer Frost, Cold-Hearted Killer

Plot Twists (19)

4 Dodge the Bullet

3 Hero’s Welcome

3 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

Locations (6)

4 Slaughter Swamp

2 UN Building, Team-Up

Equipment (3)

2 Nth Metal

1 Quadromobile

There are some very noticeable changes in this decklist. First and foremost was the addition of the Secret Six cards. One major problem that I encountered with the deck was that it struggled on the even initiatives. Since the entire deck engine relied on having Dinah Laurel Lance ◊ Black Canary, “Pretty Bird” and Crystal Frost ◊ Killer Frost, Cold-Hearted Killer in play, trying to keep them both on the board when an opponent had the initiative on turn 5 was a very difficult prospect. Even with Killer Frost’s impressive DEF and multiple power-ups, she usually couldn’t bounce the attacks of Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Thanagarian Enforcer. To address this issue, I tested out Revitalize. While it was a good answer, it was never great. The major problem was that even if I could avoid BWA HA HA HA HA!, it was possible for my opponents to stun my board even after I recovered a character with Revitalize.

This is where Dodge the Bullet comes in. I had already decided that I wanted to try out Fiddler, as he could be invaluable for fetching power-ups and character cards sent to the KO’d pile via Straight to the Grave. Deadshot, Dead Aim was also a natural addition because he has the Secret Society team stamp and can be used to power-up Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. So, the notion of trying to use Dodge the Bullet was certainly within the realm of possibility. If I could move Black Canary or Killer Frost out of harm’s way on turn 5, then they should both be present to perform some lockdown shenanigans on turn 7.

One concern I had, though, was that removing one of my defenders from play would probably leave me vulnerable to enough direct breakthrough endurance loss that I would never see the later turns. But then I realized that Dodge the Bullet in unison with Killer Frost would actually reduce the overall amount of damage that I would take. Say, for example, my opponent attacks Killer Frost. Once the attack becomes legal, I simply power-up Killer Frost and use her effect, targeting the attacker. Then, I play Dodge the Bullet on Killer Frost, removing her from the attack. Normally, the attacker would ready. But thanks to Killer Frost’s effect, the attacker remains exhausted and the damage the attacker would have caused is averted.

Granted, Dodge the Bullet is still vulnerable to BWA HA HA HA HA! But four copies would hopefully give the deck a fighting chance in the unfortunate circumstance that it has to operate on the even initiatives.

One of the other major changes included dropping Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

for more copies of Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. My rationale for this decision is detailed in an excerpt from an email to Tom:

At 2, I didn’t feel like Trickster did enough for the deck. His evasion was nice, and his ability to send cards from the top of the deck into the KO’d pile was marginally helpful. However, he didn’t really do anything for board control. I debated for a while about whether to include Captain Boomerang, George Harkness. He has a great effect from a board control standpoint. However, it occurred to me that Deadshot, Floyd Lawton was a lot more versatile. He can take out a 2- or 3-drop on either player’s initiative, so he’s a lot more versatile than Captain Boomerang. Of course, you have to get ten cards into the KO’d pile. But with enough copies of Straight to the Grave, Hero’s Welcome, Roll Call, and Funky’s Big Rat Code, ten cards in the KO’d pile should be possible by turn 3.

Also, I tried to trim the fat (so to speak) by removing tech cards that weren’t really working. Adam Strange wasn’t a bad idea, but I found that I was only ever playing him when I drew into him because I never wanted to waste a search card on him. While he was nice in the Injustice Gang Army matchup, he didn’t do much for any of the other matchups. Besides, Deadshot, Floyd Lawton and Oliver Queen ◊ Green Arrow, Emerald Archer tended to give that deck enough trouble by themselves.

Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero was put into the deck so that I could always have a search option on turn 4 with Hawkwoman. But I found that if I missed Black Canary in any of my games (except the Injustice Gang Army matchup, where I always wanted Green Arrow), I was probably going to lose anyway. So, the logical conclusion was that putting Hawkman in the deck was a waste of deck space.

Finally, the Nth Metal count was cut back to two. Unlike in Good Guys, where you want to play as many copies of Nth Metal as possible, I really only wanted one copy of Nth Metal in any given game. More importantly, the recursion and character search available in the deck meant that I never really needed Nth Metal. So, the number of copies dropped significantly to accommodate other cards that were more critical to the smooth flow of the deck.

This version of the deck ran much more smoothly than the first. I found that the change in 2-drops generally led to me taking more early game damage, but the endurance sacrifice resulted in much more effective early game board control. (Deadshot is da bomb!) Still, there was some room for improvement.

The “Final” Build (August 8, 2006)

From the prior deck testing, I was able to fine-tune the deck a bit more. The third build was pretty close to what would end up being the final build. In addition, in honor of Killer Frost, I settled on a deck name of “Cool Chicks.” Given that it was designed to beat Good Guys, I thought that was appropriate.

Here’s what the end result of the testing looked like:

Characters (31)

4 Fiddler, Isaac Bowin

4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton

1 Deadshot, Dead Aim

3 Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue

2 Shayera Thal ◊ Hawkwoman, Thanagarian Enforcer

1 Oliver Queen ◊ Green Arrow, Emerald Archer

4 Crystal Frost ◊ Killer Frost, Cold-Hearted Killer

Plot Twists (20)

4 Dodge the Bullet

4 Hero’s Welcome

4 Ted Kord ◊ Blue Beetle, Heir of the Scarab

Locations (5)

4 Slaughter Swamp

1 UN Building, Team-Up

Equipment (4)

3 Quadromobile

1 Nth Metal

The major change to the build came at the 3-drop slot. As much as I like Hawkwoman, I didn’t find her nearly as useful in this deck now that the number of Nth Metals had been cut to one. True, she was useful for searching out Quadromobile (which I had come to love dearly), but that wasn’t really enough of a reason to play a dedicated 3-drop. In addition, I found that my 3-drop was generally KO’d by the end of turn 4 anyway. So, I decided to try out a character that would provide some utility beyond the two turns it saw play. Many people feel that Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue is a very bad character. After all, you are wasting precious resource points to get a single card back from the KO’d pile. In this deck, however, he turned out to be phenomenal. Like I said, I generally wasn’t able to keep my 3-drop around past turn 4, so Floronic Man became a much stronger play than Hawkwoman because he could fetch cards back from the KO’d pile to help me set up for my all-important late game turns.

“So,” you ask, “if Floronic Man is so great, why is Hawkwoman still in the deck?” The answer is that I had originally taken her out of the deck altogether. But after a few games, I noticed that I was missing my 3-drop a lot more than I did before I dropped Hawkwoman. I came to realize that Hero’s Welcome was a good part of the reason that I was consistently hitting my drops. That being said, it made sense to keep Hawkwoman around in a diminished capacity (since she was still good at fetching Quadromobile and Nth Metal) but also to try to make Floronic Man the primary 3-drop. So, two copies of Hawkwoman and three copies of Floronic Man made the cut for the deck.

And thus ended the testing. The deck was set and ready to try to take PC: Indy by storm!

Aftermath

While I would love to tell you that Tom went to the PC and destroyed all comers, that isn’t at all what happened. Both Tom and Jayson Cody (who was running a modified version of the build) ended up barely missing the cut for Day 2. But that wasn’t necessarily an indication that the build was bad. In fact, after speaking with Tom and Jayson, I found that the main reasons for their difficulties were missed drops in the late game and mistakes made while playing the deck. Tom did say that he actually won two matches against Good Guys when he had the even initiative, which indicates that the deck was performing well at a very basic level.

Of course, hindsight is 20/20. After seeing the amazing deck that won the PC (Anthony Calabrese’s Secret Society Fate deck), I realized that there were some definite improvements that could be made to this deck. First, his early game engine to acquire the Fate Artifacts was probably much stronger than what I currently had built in. Second, as nice as Fiddler and Dodge the Bullet were, they probably weren’t necessary to the success of the deck; just having a strong basis for the deck (i.e. the Fate Artifacts) would probably be enough to sustain its strength. Finally, 3-drops may have been sorely overrated!

All that being said, here’s how the build looks post-PC: Indy (borrowing a lot from the PC-winning build):

Cool Chicks (60 cards)

Characters (28)

2 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton

4 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose

1 Fatality, Flawless Victory

4 Crystal Frost ◊ Killer Frost, Cold-Hearted Killer

Plot Twists (15)

3 Hero’s Welcome