Sea Creatures and Sea Monkeys and Chia Pets! Oh, My?

If you’ve watched The Wizard of Oz in the last lifetime or so, you know that Dorothy’s cadre of companions develops throughout the movie.  She starts as a solo act (unless you count Toto), but as she picks up steam her party gains a Scarecrow, a Tin Man, heck - I think there’s even a lion in there somewhere.

Now, if you think my article is going to somehow connect Colossus, Crane, and Cheetah because of their resemblance to the Oz-ians, you’re way off.  Instead, I’m merely comparing the way my ideas develop to a long trip down a yellow brick road.  Still confused?  Alright, I’ll start from the beginning (as opposed to going all Memento on you!).

This week’s blog started with my excitement over the new preview cards for Marvel Universe.  Like everyone else, I was bent on breaking these new cards before most of set was even revealed.  This is a ridiculous idea when you consider that the cards that these preview cards will have the most synergy with are usually in the same set, but I defy you to sit idly by while your would-be competition is popping out innovation after innovation (Speaking of innovation, you have to check out The Jank Has Chosen over on the Versus Network, it’s cool).

I was over on Full.Body.Transplant the other day when Stu was unveiling Squirrel Girl to the rest of the world.  Her cohesion with other previously revealed SHIELD cards was obvious.  Prior to seeing her we had been privy to the new Nick Fury and the Helicarrier, both of which support an army deck.  After only seeing these three cards, it seems that SHIELD will be the new Moloids.  Doomed Earth sent Moloids to the KO’d pile where Doom, Mole Man, and Mr. Fantastic could bring them back; Helicarrier sends your SHIELD minions to your hand where Squirrel Girl and Nick Fury can bring them back.  I made the comment on Stu’s blog that perhaps Nicky Fury could bring in two Sea Creatures since they become one-cost characters when Aquaman is in play.  Captain Spud immediately pointed out that Sea Creatures only cost one less when being recruited instead of when they come into play, therefore Nick could only put one into play every turn. I was immediately put off until I remembered that Dr. Light could only put one two drop into play a turn, and he was still good.

I went around looking for already posted Sea Creature decks to see if Nick Fury could actually help some of them out.  The one Google brought me to was on Planet Kalee.  It was titled Roguer’s “Mystiqal” Sea Creatures and used Mystique instead of an actual Aquaman so that the Sea Creatures could take advantage of The Next Brotherhood and the card drawing power of Genosha.  Here’s the list:

13x Sea Creatures, Army
4x Nocturn, Talia Wagner
4x Destiny, Future Sight
4x Magneto, Mutant Terrorist
4x Mystique, Shapely Shifter
1x Stonewall, Freedom Force

4x The Next Brotherhood
4x Common Bond
4x Marvel Zombies
4x Thanagarian Invasion
4x Mobilize
2x Call in a Favor

4x Genosha
3x Underground Resistance
1x Poseidonis

If Nick Fury was put into this deck over Magneto you would lose the ability to use Genosha, at least for its full effect, but you could put in Birthing Chambers instead.  I’m still not sure if this would actually improve the deck at all, but I just really hope that if someone does make a deck that successfully combines Nick Fury and Sea Creatures they call it “Aquamarines,” because how perfect is that?

Sea Creatures technically make an Aquaman legend as long as your deck contains twelve of them, so I was whisked back to the days when I couldn’t stop thinking about ways to break Aquaman.  It’s not that I’m even a fan of Aquaman, it was more about the fact that he had yet to be used to his full potential.  As an odd side-note, my second post ever on vsrealms.com was in responce to a call for all possible viable legends decks.  I responded with an incomplete version of a Secret Society/JLA Aquaman legend deck that I called “Sea Monkeys.”  The post looked something like this:

“Aquaman has good potential. Here’s an incomplete list of SEA MONKEYS!!

 Characters
1. Mr. Mxy
2. Charaxes and Deadshot
3. King Shark and Black Manta
4. Aquaman and Gorilla Grodd
5. Black Manta and Basil Karlo
6. Aquaman
7. Gorilla Grodd

Plots
A Clash of worlds
Straight to the Grave
Monkey See Monkey Do
Coup D’Etat
Anger and Hate
Forced Consription
Master Plan
Shadow Strike
Unnatural Selection
Battle Training
Crisis Averted
Mightiest Heroes
New Era

Location
Poseidonis
Gorilla City
Hidden HQ
Remote Facility
Hall of Justice
The Watchtower

Just a list of cards with synergy that needs to be filtered. Any help would be appreciated. A Clash of Worlds can be replayed via the 5 drop Black Manta or the 6 drop Aquaman, so you should never be replacing characters. Poseidonis and both of the Aquaman’s have great synergy with the Secret Society’s KO’d pile theme. I like the idea of powering up, returning the card with the 4 drop Aquaman, powering up again, then playing Anger and Hate to remove that card for a +6/+6 attack! Also, this deck is simultaneously a Gorilla Grodd Legend Deck. That was completely by coincidence and I still consider it Aquaman-themed because he needs loving too. Hope this sparks some ideas!”

The problem with this idea is that I was using Coup D’Etat without the doom five drop Ultron, Ultron 11, Army, which is the true way to abuse it.  This didn’t mean that I had to abandon the idea of an Aquaman legend deck, or even the idea of a Secret Society/JLA team-up; I just had to take another approach.  Gorilla Grodd has too much going on, so I decided to see what else I could do with with Secret Society.  It was then that I remembered the deck that Michael Brenden took to a top eight at LA’s last Mega-Weekend. It went a little something like this:

2x Jamie Reyes <> Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
2x Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4x The Riddler, Riddle Me This
3x Chemo, Toxic Waste
1x Charaxes, Moth Monster
4x Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
4x Poison Ivy, Intoxicating
3x Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace
1x Deathstroke the Terminator, Lethal Weapon
1x Black Manta, Underwater Marauder
1x Giganta, Rampaging
1x Bizarro, Bizarro World’s Finest
1x Doomsday, Engine of Destruction
1x The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero

4x Straight to the Grave
4x Forced Conscription
4x Cannibal Tech
2x Level 12 Intelligence
1x A Proud Zinco Product

4x Soul World
4x Dr. Fate’s Tower

4x Helm of Nabu
2x Amulet of Nabu
2x Cloak of Nabu

This deck has a lot going for it.  It uses Poison Ivy, Intoxicating to put a ton of Riddler’s into play so that your opponent is constantly being locked down on his plot twist options.  It also uses the Fartifacts to make sure that you have ten cards in the KO’d pile for Deadshot to go off.  Obviously this deck is pretty strong if it made it to a top eight, however; Poison Ivy’s little plants would grow a lot better if we could only find a way to add some AQUA to them!  That’s why I decided to build a deck I like call…

CHIA PETS!

4x The Riddler, Riddle Me This
2x Chemo, Toxic Waste
2x Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4x Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
1x Charaxes, Moth Monster
4x Poison Ivy, Intoxicating
4x Aquaman, Founding Member
4x Black Manta, Underwater Marauder
4x Aquaman, Lord of Atlantis
1x Doomsday, Engine of Destruction

4x Straight to the Grave
4x Cannibal Tech
2x Forced Consription
1x A Clash of Worlds
1x We Had a Team-Up, Team-Up

4x Dr. Fate’s Tower
4x Poseidonis
3x Soul World
(or Remote Facility, Non-Unique)

3x Helm of Nabu
2x Amulet of Nabu
2x Cloak of Nabu

An unexpected funeral this week meant that I did not have as much prep time for my deck as I usually do, so my pointers are purely theoretical.  The first thing you might notice is that I run waaay more higher drops in my build than Michael’s.  The reason for this is that you will likely be blowing your Straight to the Graves early to get as many Riddlers as possible into play.  You’ll want to remember to search out A Clash of Worlds (I know the card is not legal yet, but I need it in the deck to make Aquaman non-unique) or We Had a Team-Up when you’re using Straight to the Grave so that you have them in your KO’d pile for Black Manta to scoop up.

The reason for adding Aquaman to the mix is threefold:

1)  Aquaman, Founding Member is great for replenishing your hand.  You can Straight to the Grave for a second Riddler, scoop him to your hand for free with Aquaman, then discard him to Remote Facility, Helm of Nabu, Dr. Fate’s Tower, Cannible Tech, etc.

2)  Aquaman, Lord of Atlantis is super-sweet!  He gets you back a character and a non-character from your KO’d pile.  Isn’t that exactly what Straight to the Grave just put there?  I love the idea of replaying old Helms from the KO’d pile for extra draw.  He also gets back anything that Forced Conscription put in your KO’d pile and allows you grab any Straight to the Graves from your KO’d pile in case you need to put a different plot twist in there for Black Manta to grab.  So many uses!

3)  Poseidonis is also a sweet card, and probably one of the biggest reasons for building this team-up.  It can put anything back on top of your deck.  You can get back a fartifact anytime your opponent KO’s one; You can bring back any resource your opponent KO’s (except, of course, Poseidonis); You can stack your next drop on the top of you deck in case you’re missing Remote Facility/Soul World.  This card is the reason that we can trim some of the other numbers in the deck.  Speaking of Remote Facility… it is undeniably better than Soul World (see reason #1), but if you can’t team-up Aquaman in time, you will not be able to fetch him with it.  Until I can playtest this deck, I will not know which one of these to use.  If anyone can help me with this that would be great!

The deck does lose the ability to use Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace, which I will admit is much greater than Aquaman, Founding Member.  However, at the same time, I feel that Aquaman, Lord of Atlantis is greater than the six drop Bizarro.  Poseidonis is really the reason I wanted to make this switch.  I feel this build has great potential to be extremely consistant.  Also, this deck was built with “legend” qualifications in mind, which makes it really hard to compare to the original build.  I hope you guys enjoy and see you next week!

UDE Vs. DC Vs. Marvel Vs. Me; Vs. System

We all know there’s been a lot of speculation about the future of Vs. lately, especially on Vsrealms.com. In a way this situation kind of reminds me of our country’s current political situation because people are so busy trying to predict the Democratic frontrunner that they’re unwilling to wait until things sort themselves out. Most people are of the opinion that Hillary Clinton’s decision to stay in the race is damaging to the Democratic Party’s chances of winning a presidential election at all. If it weren’t so tragic this would be an almost hilarious contrast to the beginning of the race which saw the first real chance of a black man or a woman taking the mantle “Commander in Chief,” the very idea of which got tons of people into politics for the very first time.

What does this have to do with Vs.?  Well, some Realmers first got word that UDE might be done making DC sets because some info. was leaked about the next Marvel set while we hadn’t yet heard a peep about DC’s next outing.  This got the speculation train rolling, and I’ll admit my cogs were turning too.  What would my game be like with no DC?!  The first thread on the matter can be found here:

Big Brother’s House

“At this moment the entire group of people broke into a deep, slow, rhythmic chant of ‘B-B! …. B-B! …. B-B!’-over and over again, very slowly, with a long pause between the first ‘B’ and the second-a heavy murmurous sound, somehow curiously savage, in the background of which one seemed to hear the stamps of naked feet and the throbbing of tom-toms.” ~George Orwell’s 1984

Instant Harm Paragon

A paragon is a model, ideal, or standard; therefore an instant harm paragon is something that sets the standard for instant harm. It comes as no surprise then that when you rearrange the letters of Samantha Parrington, you get… instant harm paragon! Coincidence? Yes! Cool? Also yes!

When you first look at Samantha Parrington (once you get over the hotness of the card that is), it’s hard not to notice that her stats are unusual for a four drop. Her attack value is on par with a three drop while her defense value is on par with a five drop. Like Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker and Darkseid, Apokoliptian Oppressor, her stats are justified by an amazing ability. In fact, with the abilities of the three aforementioned four drops, you’d rather have high defense values to keep them on table as long as possible.

Mega Weekend - Great Success! (Modern Age)

Alright, I’m back.  I fared about as well Sunday as I did Saturday, but I thought I’d give ya a write up regardless.  I decided to play the hidden Injustice Gang deck despite the fact that everyone knew it would showing up in force.  My reasoning was that it was extremely simple to pilot so the fact that I hadn’t played in a while would be irrelevant to my losses.  In the end, the deck didn’t prove to be a bad choice; just a particular card or two should have been different.  My car-mates Eric and Paul Madden played today as well.  Paul ran the Revenge Squad deck that top-eighted the last Modern Age tournament because it had a good matchup against the hidden Injustice Gang deck.  The only change in his deck was that he ran Natasha Irons as his alternate two drop instead of Brainiac because I didn’t have any yet (turns out two months is not enough time to get them from the points store!).  Eric ran a hidden Injustice Gang deck similar to mine, but he had Crushing Blows instead of Crime Syndicate of America; Call in a Favor instead of Mobilize; and two of his Skreeeeeee!’s were All Too Easy instead.  This wasn’t his choice, but rather my lack of enough of all those cards!  Here’s the deck I ran:

Mega Weekend - Great Success! (Silver Age)

So I managed to actually make it to a Mega Weekend for once… and it was fantastic!  A couple of friends of mine (Paul and Eric Madden) accompanied me on the long journey from Minneapolis to Chicago - a whopping six and a half hours.  We got there on Friday too late for the Silver Age tournament, but it gave us some time to practice for the next couple of days.  This was practice we all desperately needed considering none of us had played in a tournament since Indy 2007.  My choice for Saturday morning’s Silver Age tournament was a Shiloh Norman-based deck.  I wanted to build the Team Superman deck that I had written about a couple of weeks ago, but I didn’t have all the rares for it yet.  I decided instead to build the Spider-Friends version I talked about in the first installment of my “It’s a Miracle!” two-parter.  To flesh out the deck I took elements from Dan Debenham’s deck that top-eighted at the last Mega Weekend.  Here’s the build:

60 CS

Like most of you guys out there, I’m spending this week trying to get ready for the Mega-Weekend in Chicago.  I’m pretty much resorting to net decks because I’m going to get in roughly zero games of playtesting (give or take zero games).  While this strategy will almost ensure that I get no wins, I don’t care; I’m just going to have fun.  I will probably just use the hidden Injustice Gang deck despite the fact that it will be heavily teched against.  This deck will require little to no thinking, which is already more than I’m capable of!  If you’re going to be there, make sure to say, “Hi.”  I’d like to start putting faces to all your names.  I’ll probably be wearing a Green Lantern shirt (in case you haven’t noticed I’m a fan).  I’ll throw up a picture here, but don’t stare at it directly or you’ll go blind.  P.S. I don’t always look this silly… just in pictures.

It’s a Miracle! - Part II (AKA The Miracle Wonder-Drug)

Confused by the title? This article is not about aspirin, or even cannabis (maybe we’ll devote a blog to that in the future), but about that oh so stimulating synergy of Shiloh Norman, Mister Miracle and Wonder Woman, Deflection Diva. That’s right, the team I chose to abuse Shiloh with is… Team Superman! In case you never noticed, Team Superman has previously unabused themes revolving around protected characters and attack redirection. I plan on using both of these themes because both are ways to steer your opponent directly into Shiloh. If you have no idea who Shiloh is, or what I’m talking about, that means you did not read my last article. If that’s the case shame on you; get to it!

***Warning: side effects of this miracle wonder-drug may include you reading the article of a noob blogger… and diarrhea***

It’s a Miracle!

Last Christmas, when I was busy praying for Vs.-related gifts and watching the traditional Christmas movie fare, something caught my attention. I looked closely at the DVD box art of ‘Miracle on 34th Street’ and saw something I had never seen before. The Santa in the background looked oddly familiar. It was then that I remembered that they had to add a subtitle to the movie to keep it in line with all five of its sequels and prequels. The new subtitle was: ‘Miracle on Yancy Street’. Now I might just be getting this movie confused with ‘Star Wars’, or it’s possible that my opening diversions are just getting much more insane; either way, I was inspired. But instead of trying to find a way to abuse Yancy Street itself, which would pigeonhole me to Golden Age, I decided to settle for just a miracle… Mister Miracle to be exact.

Beast Boy Bouillabaisse

This article is brought to you by the letter “B”.

For my first article I tried to avoid talking about a legend because it seemed like that was all everyone was talking about, and I wanted to be different. But those legend cards just kept calling to me. They’ve even infiltrated my airwaves. Just yesterday I was listening to the Beastie Boys, and if their name wasn’t enough to drum up thoughts of our resident green machine, the song’s title, ‘B-Boy Bouillabaisse’ (pronounced bool-yuh-beys), would be. At one point in the song they even say, “Like a buffalo soldier I’m broader than Broadway.” Since our Beast Boy can literally be a buffalo soldier, I went about trying to make him bigger than Broadway; and when I say big, I mean big enough to bash that angry red-head back to Xavier’s mansion and show her who the ‘king of counters’ really is. My ambition was to make my Beast Boy about as big as a nine or ten drop. A minimum of 25/25 on turn six. Interested? Thought so.