Today’s deck is an odd team-up between an underused team and a location that many a player has turned up his or her nose at. The deck is a weenie rush of Sinister Syndicate and Team Superman characters. Kandor is the key card, and it allows you to go for the win on turn 6. When playing this deck, you want odd initiative.
Appreciate This
4 Jimmy Olsen
4 Lana Lang
4 Lois Lane
4 Vulture
4 Beetle
4 Gangbuster
4 Silvermane
4 Man-Wolf
4 Mysterio
4 Rose ◊ Thorn
4 Kandor
2 Metropolis
2 Acrobatic Dodge
3 Finishing Move
2 Flying Kick
3 Home Surgery
2 Marvel Team-Up
2 World’s Finest
Have you ever seen this many 1-drops outside of a Wild Vomit deck? Me neither. Lois Lane is a fantastic 1-drop, but you really don’t want to play her on turn 1. You won’t have a team-up online, and you don’t want to knock a bunch of good Sinisters to the bottom of your deck. Lana and Jimmy are decent on turn 1, but Vulture is the best. Since this is a weenie deck, it needs to start delivering the beats as soon as possible.
Turn 2 is options time. If you’re playing against a deck that uses Army characters, Gangbuster can win you the game. If your opponent doesn’t make a turn 2 play, then Silvermane, with his ever-increasing ATK, is the way to go. If your opponent is matching you drop for drop, consider the protective shell of Beetle. However, you must also consider which of those two you would rather hold to play with boost in the later turns. (Beetle and Silvermane, in case you’re curious, are the two characters that originally gave me the idea for this deck.) Kandor only helps characters that cost 3 or less, and these guys get that bonus even when boosted. A boosted Beetle on turn 6 is an 11 ATK/15 DEF monster. Put Jimmy Olsen behind him, and he can not only take down 95% of the 6-drops in the game, he can also survive the encounter.
On turn 3, you have another big decision. Man-Wolf and Rose ◊ Thorn are both very good when you have the initiative and pretty bad when you don’t. If your opponent is likely to play a character with a decent ATK on turn 3, Rose can survive the encounter at 7 ATK/7 DEF. If you don’t have the initiative, Man-Wolf is just okay, but I would play him over Mysterio as the deck’s boosted turn 4 play.
Turn 4 is where your opponent might pull ahead of you on the character size front. However, the boosts this deck packs will keep you happy and well through turn 7. Turn 4 is where you can take the advantage in bodies with a boosted Mysterio. Having some extra bodies around will allow you to play Finishing Move and Home Surgery. Those 1-drops need to do something useful as the confrontations between you and your opponent become more epic.
Turn 5 is a great time to play a boosted Man-Wolf, and if you have the initiative, he’ll be an 11 ATK/4 DEF character. He may not survive an attack, but he’s gonna take someone down. The other worthwhile play on turn 5 is to recruit two or three characters, setting up well for turn 6 when they’ll be big.
On turn 6, you most certainly want to recruit a boosted Beetle. Don’t forget to flip Kandor, either. Even if you took the odd initiative, the +3 ATK/+3 DEF will be a giant hurdle for your opponent to overcome. This is also the turn when you want to play your Acrobatic Dodges so that you can “break serve,” getting in a counterattack after your opponent fails to stun your team. Oh yeah, don’t forget to get two of your team-ups into your resource row. I like to flip Metropolis on turn 2 to make the team-up, given the choice. I’m fine if my opponent Ka-Boom!s it, as I have plenty of low drops to hit. It’s a very good idea to soak up the location destruction on Metropolis so that your Kandor doesn’t have to go away. Better yet, have a spare Kandor in your resource row.
If the game manages to go to turn 7, a boosted Silvermane will have 17 ATK/5 DEF if you have Kandor up. That should smash your opponent’s 7-drop, and then the rest of your crew can team-attack his or her 6-drop. At the end of the turn, you should find yourself with the higher endurance total. Why? Because when your characters get stunned, you lose between 1 and 3 endurance. Meanwhile, your opponent has been losing 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7 at a time, if not more. Your characters cost less, so you take less stun endurance loss. It’s like built-in endurance gain, and that should be enough to make a substantial difference.
I hope this deck has at least sparked an idea for you about how weenie decks can work. I also hope that you’ve come to appreciate my Kandor (Danny made me write that).
Questions or comments may be sent to mhyra@metagame.com.