While the interests of Vs. System players run the gamut from art, politics, and death metal, there are certain interests that you can be sure will have a devoted following among Vs. System players (other than Vs. System, of course). One interest that has an immense following is professional wrestling. What’s not to love about wrestling? Everyone in the wrestling business has a big ego, not unlike some TCG pros. In essence, pro wrestling is a soap opera.

Finally, BigSpooky Has Come Back To Metagame.com!

I have no shame in admitting that I’m a wrestling fan from way back. I used to watch wrestling every Monday night before the WWF changed their name to the WWE. Heck, I used to watch it even before Monday night wrestling was called “Monday Night Raw.” I have been, in order, a Hulkamaniac, part of the Warrior Nation, a Little Stinger, a Nature Boy wannabe, a Hulkamaniac again, and a dedicated Goldberg follower. I have watched every Wrestlemania to date, even if only on video. Finally, I even went to go see “No Holds Barred” the day it came out in movie theaters.

Of course, my favorite thing about wrestling has to be the catch phrases. For me, the Hulkster started it all off with, “What are you gonna do when Hulkamania and the largest arms in the world destroy you?” Not long after that, I found myself quoting the “Nature Boy” Ric Flair constantly, saying, “To be the man, you’ve gotta beat the man!” And I think everyone loves it when The Rock says, “If you smell what The Rock is cooking!”

In more recent years, catch phrases have become an even stronger tool for wrestlers to capture the minds and hearts of the fans. I’m sure I’m not the only one who mimicked Kurt Angle by saying, “It’s true! It’s true!” The Undertaker, of course, imparts the theme of his persona with, “You will rest in peace.” Even lesser-known wrestlers nowadays have idioms attributed to them, such as Gene Snitsky saying, “It’s not my fault!”

Probably the most well-known expression currently being used by a pro wrestler is John Cena’s. To be fair, when I first saw him wrestle, I really never thought all that highly of Cena’s talent or wrestling skill. Add in the fact that the WWE decided to make him an Eminem wannabe, and he just naturally became a target for ridicule. However, Cena found a way to captivate the imagination of wrestling fans through his antics. His rebellious, never-say-die attitude was ever-present in the matches he fought and the interviews he gave, but nowhere is this point of view more apparent than in his catch phrase:

“You can’t see me!”

Chain Gang Soldier or Intangible Alien?  You Be the Judge

While John Cena’s “You can’t see me” catch phrase is actually a metaphor for people who don’t understand him, we’re going to take his saying literally in our selection for this week’s theme card. A while back, I made a joke on the VsRealms.com message board that if John Cena were in the Vs. System, he’d have to have concealed (because of his catch phrase . . . get it?). Recently, this got me thinking about a character that can literally wave his hand in front of his face and disappear.

Enter Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz.

Martian Manhunter (a.k.a., Mars) has an effect that is highly regarded as one of the best in the game. His ability to give adjacent characters reinforcement and +2 ATK while defending is excellent, to say the least. However, where Mars really shines is his ability to move back and forth from the hidden area. For an investment of 2 endurance points, you can make sure that Mars won’t be a target for an opponent’s attack, barring a card like High-Tech Flare Gun or Sabretooth, Savage Killer. But as good as Mars is, most players consider him to be a strong support character rather than the focal point of a deck.

It occurs to me, however, that the ability to reinforce any character is just what a team like the Crime Lords needs. While I played around a lot with a Marvel Knights/Crime Lords deck during the first Marvel Modern Age, I never saw much potential for the Crime Lords to have any kind of significant impact on the metagame. Of course, the main problem was that there were so few viable effects that could provide reinforcement for the characters, other than exhausting an adjacent character.

Martian Manhunter changes all of that. We’re going to turn the Justice League’s favorite shapeshifter/telepath/cookie monger/ethereal alien into a defensive dynamo for the Crime Lords!

The Build

As you probably guessed, we’re going to start off with four copies of Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz. This begs the question—what else should we include? For starters, we’ll put in one of the game’s best character searchers, Roscoe Sweeny. While Roscoe Sweeny may be fragile with 0 ATK / 1 DEF, there’s no denying his effectiveness when it comes to hitting our drops. If we have him in play at the start of the turn, we are almost guaranteed to have a character on curve for that turn. Granted, he can only fetch his Crime Lords teammates, but a quick team-up with JLI should enable us to search out a much broader range of characters.

Speaking of team-ups, we’re going to need a copy of Lacuna in our deck. I’ve tried not to overuse her in recent weeks, but given the importance of teaming-up in our deck, and because she can easily be fetched with Roscoe Sweeny, it would be a “crime” not to put a copy of the Media Darling in our deck. In addition, we’ll also need one copy of Cobra. He’s not much to look at on his own, but combined with his literal partner in crime, Mr. Hyde, Calvin Zabo, he becomes a substantial force to be reckoned with.

Our preferred drop at 2 is going to be Maxwell Lord. If we can swing the one-two punch of Roscoe Sweeny and Maxwell Lord, we can pretty much ensure a turn 3 team-up for our deck, assuming that we can keep both of our guys around. That will definitely be good for business, as we can then use Roscoe to search out characters from either team.

Our first character on turn 3 is the aforementioned Mr. Hyde. While he has a nice effect in tandem with Cobra, they really don’t do a lot to help our deck, so we’ll limit him to one copy. Another “one-of” at 3 is going to be Rocket Red #4. Given that our deck’s focus is making it tough for our opponent to pull off attacks on our characters, Rocket is a great addition, since his effect will usually ensure either a bounce (by pumping DEF) or a stun back (by pumping ATK).

But our star at 3 must be Kingpin, Wilson Fisk. His stats aren’t much to look at, but the Kingpin has one of the best defensive effects in the game, as he can offer an extra +2 DEF for your Crime Lords characters with reinforcement. Since we have Mars around just to give our characters reinforcement, Kingpin will usually be a guaranteed +2 DEF from turn 5 on.

Our 4-drop of choice works very nicely in unison with our 3-drop. Where Kingpin gives our defenders extra DEF, Saracen does the same for ATK. If we are able to pull off the combo of Kingpin and Saracen on the board at the same time, we will usually get +2 ATK / +2 DEF for all of our characters while defending, which is certainly not a bad thing. As a backup, we’ll include one copy of Kimiyo Hoshi ◊ Dr. Light. While this card doesn’t really aid us defensively (aside from having a decent 8 DEF), she can be useful in later turns if we need some extra firepower while attacking.

We’re going to be daring and make Martian Manhunter our only character at 5. At 6, though, we have a couple of good choices. Our first one is the master assassin himself, Kirigi. Kirigi’s effect to enable us to attack hidden characters could be useful in the unlikely event of a mirror match, I suppose, but it is his other effect that makes him shine. Playing any attack pump on Kirigi effectively makes that pump +2 ATK more. Wouldn’t you love the ability to turn your Flying Kick into Savage Beatdown? My man Kirigi can make that happen!

Our other choice at 6 is Power Girl. Simply by protecting another character, Power Girl becomes 14 ATK / 14 DEF. If you have Kingpin and Saracen on the board, she becomes 16 ATK / 16 DEF while defending with a little reinforcement. If Martian Manhunter is the one giving the reinforcement, Power Girl becomes an 18 ATK / 16 DEF 6-drop! I could go on, but I think you get the general idea. Suffice it to say, Power Girl can get really big!

At 7, we need a couple of copies of Bullseye, Master of Murder. If we build our deck properly, we should be able to ensure that our opponent can’t attack into any of our characters without stunning back. Bullseye will make sure that our opponents will pay a hefty price should they decide to attack into us. Once our opponent starts losing characters from Bullseye’s effect, we’ll gain a substantial amount of board advantage.

Our final character is none other than Dr. Fate. Assuming that we reach turn 8, we will be in a prime position to finish our opponent off thanks to Dr. Fate. On offense or defense, we can rest assured that we probably won’t take any damage whatsoever thanks to Mars giving our characters reinforcement and Dr. Fate giving them invulnerability. It’s hard to beat a deal like that!

Onward and upward to the plot twists. We have 29 spots left open in our deck, so we need to make them count! Our first priority is to team-up, as many of our effects will not work without a team-up, so let’s include four copies of Justice League Task Force. With this Team-Up, we get the added benefit of boosting our team attacks by at least 2 points (assuming two attackers). If we can get a couple of these cards face up with Dr. Light on the board, we could feasibly swing a 1- and 2-drop into a 6-drop! It’s pretty sick when Roscoe Sweeny is laying down the beats! As an additional precaution, we’ll insert a copy of Marvel Team-Up for Lacuna to fetch if the need arises.

Of course, we can’t always rely on drawing into all of the characters we need to team-up. That’s why we’re also going to play four copies of the X-Men set’s money rare, Enemy of My Enemy. You may have noticed that, with the exception of 5, 7, and 8, we have a character from both teams at every drop. With Enemy of My Enemy at our disposal, we should be able to effectively hit most of our drops on the curve even if we never see Roscoe Sweeny or a Team-Up.*

Now let’s take a look at the defensive tricks that we’re going to include in our build. Obviously, the Crime Lords plot twists that give defensive bonuses based on reinforcement will be valuable, since our deck is centered on a character that gives reinforcement. So we’ll be playing four copies each of Rough House and Face the Master. Rough House is a very versatile card in our deck because it doesn’t require that we be teamed-up to be effective. It only requires that we control a Crime Lords character. Face the Master, on the other hand, does require the target character to be Crime Lords, but what it lacks in versatility in ease of use, it makes up for in the versatility of its options. If we think we can avoid a stun, we can opt for the +3 DEF. If we want to ensure a stun back, we can go for the +5 ATK. In either case, it’s a win-win situation for us!

The next choice is not a card that has received a lot of acclaim. However, I really like Marked for Death. I have dubbed it “a reusable Nasty Surprise.” While Marked for Death isn’t quite as effective from an “element of surprise” standpoint, it makes up for this shortcoming in other ways. In addition to being reusable, it can’t be countered by a lot of the cards that could potentially nullify Nasty Surprise, like Fizzle, Null Time Zone, or BWA HA HA HA HA!. If we consider the effect of Marked for Death with just the +2 ATK each from Saracen and Martian Manhunter, we are effectively giving one of our defenders +9 ATK! Just those effects alone will enable our characters to stun back attackers four to five spots up the curve. If we toss in Face the Master or one more Marked for Death, many 7-drops won’t be able to attack into Roscoe Sweeny without stunning back! Roscoe lays down the beats again!

Our last defensive trick goes in a different direction from the others. Sometimes, when you can’t out-pump your opponents, or if they remove the possibility of a stun back with a card like Bamf!, you just want to stop the attack. This is a very real possibility with our deck when we include four copies of Running Interference.

This attack squelcher has a natural combo with Martian Manhunter:

Step 1: Move all of your characters other than Martian Manhunter (who is happily sitting in the hidden area) to the support row;

Step 2: allow an attack on any character to become legal;

Step 3: move Mars in front of the character being attacked;

Step 4: exhaust a non-defending JLI character (Mars if need be);

Step 5: negate the aforementioned attack;

Step 6: lather, rinse, and repeat.

Yes, it’s true, my friends. For the low, low price of 2 endurance points and a couple of exhausted characters, you too can negate any attack!

Finally, we need some ATK pumps, so let’s give Call to Arms a try. Since we should usually be teamed-up by turn 3, Call to Arms will almost always be +4 ATK for our attackers. Of course, Martian Manhunter will get the +4 ATK even if there is no team-up on the board, since he’s dual team–stamped and all.** 

We’re done building, so it’s time for battling! Let’s take a look at our newest deck.

“You Can’t See Me!”  (60 cards)

Characters  (31)

4 Roscoe Sweeny, Fixer

1 Lacuna, Media Darling

1 Cobra, Klaus Vorhees

4 Maxwell Lord, Financier

4 Kingpin, Wilson Fisk

1 Mr. Hyde, Calvin Zabo

1 Rocket Red #4, Dmitri Pushkin

4 Saracen, Muzzafar Lambert

1 Kimiyo Hoshi ◊ Dr. Light, Starlight Sentinel

4 Martian Manhunter, J’onn J’onzz

1 Kirigi, Master Assassin

2 Power Girl, Karen Starr

2 Bullseye, Master of Murder

1 Dr. Fate, Kent Nelson

Plot Twists (29)

4 Call to Arms

4 Enemy of My Enemy

4 Face the Master

4 Justice League Task Force, Team-Up

4 Marked for Death

1 Marvel Team-Up

4 Rough House

4 Running Interference

(Almost unintentionally, this deck has no cards from the first two sets. More to the point, it would be legal in the Silver Age!)

Even initiatives are probably preferable, as that will give Martian Manhunter and Bullseye the best chance to be effective. The mulligan is relatively straightforward: keep any hand with Roscoe Sweeny in it! It’s not the end of the world if Roscoe doesn’t see play, but it makes things a lot easier. If you are somehow fortunate enough to get Roscoe and Maxwell Lord in your opening four, do not mulligan . . . not even if your other two cards are on fire!

With four copies each of Martian Manhunter and Enemy of My Enemy, you should have no trouble hitting Mars on 5. Be careful that you don’t burn your copies of Enemy of My Enemy too early, though. If you miss Mars on 5, then you will suffer greatly.

And with that, I am finished with another week of jank. Surely, though, I will have something new concocted for everyone next week. In the meantime, feel free to drop me a line at BigSpooky1@hotmail.com. I would love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or just general comments that you have for me about my column or the Vs. System in general. But no short jokes about Tim Batow—that honor is reserved for me, and me alone.

And that’s the bottom line—because BigSpooky said so!

* This is also why you will probably see Enemy of My Enemy featured prominently in many of my articles from now on. Since most of the decks I feature have two or more teams, having a search card that can virtually lock in your ability to team-up is an enormous asset. If you enjoy playing decks that have multiple teams in them, I highly recommend that you acquire four copies of Enemy of My Enemy. It’s that good!

** Martian Manhunter > Chuck Norris