Wait Until The Edges Get Dark

So The last two weeks I’ve been in class learning about Combatives(hand to hand fighting). Hence the complete lack of posts in the last two weeks when we’ve gotten some amazing cards. We learned arm bars, chokes, and other nonlethal means of finishing the fight. One thing they told us at the beginning of the class ‘Don’t just tap because they get a choke. Try to break it, wait until the edges start getting dark’. For the most part, we tapped after they got the choke and we failed to fight it off. Normally we didn’t let the effects of the choke actually take hold.

The last day I made a small mistake. You have to understand, one of my classmates had been doing Judo for over 30 years and he took the time while we were rolling to teach me, not just win because he was the superior opponent. The last time I got the pleasure of rolling with him, I steeled my nerves and decided I was going to wait until the last moment to tap. I was going to go balls to the wall and at least not lose even if I couldn’t win. I believe the word that best describes that feeling is ‘Hubris’. He got a cross collar choke on me while I was in his guard. I pushed past it and went for a leaning choke(Those of you who are familiar with MMA are probably wincing… I know… bad idea). The edges got black and I thought ‘I’ve almost got him’. When my brain was working 60 seconds later, he checked to make sure I was OK, laughed a bit, and patted me on the back for not breaking down even if it wasn’t the most intelligent way to do. I was so embarassed to actually pass out, even if it was for such a short amount of time.

This little story does have a point: Act of Vengeance. You play it so that you can redirect any stun on Red Skull to another person. This combined with Red Skull, Johann Schmidt and Vengeance or Invulnerability characters makes for a nasty, nasty mid-late game scenario. Oh delicious Irony: the two best teams for this scario: Revenge Squad and Team Superman. While I’m no fan of TS, I think Revenge Squad is a bit too obvious a choice.

There’s an easy set-up: Maggie Sawyer behind Red Skull, two Invulnerable people on both sides of Red Skull. You drop your Acts of Vengeance, and all the sudden you don’t take damage when they hit Red Skull. Why? Maggie reinforces him, prevent break through. You redirect the stun to say… Superman, Man of Tomorrow. He takes the stun, I take no stun loss, and I burn my opponent for 5.

But wait, Kenpachi, what about ‘winning’. Sure you’re going to be burning people for 5-10 a turn once Red Skull drops, so it should end by turn 7 when combined with your counter attacks… but how do you keep from being whelmed, or even OVER whelmed by the fact that you’re getting beaten on without hitting back? Well, to those haters I proffer two thoughts:

-The 3 Drop Crime Lords Bucky. If I have to explain more, I don’t believe you deserve to know.

-Red Skull can be equipped with +ATK type stuff, along with Team Superman defensive pumps, Nasty Surprise, Etc. He counters people who attack him, redirects the stun, giggles… etc. Think about it: Your 5 swings into my 5. It’s a mutual. Acts redirects the stun to Man of Tomorrow. My opponent burns for 5, then they take 5 counterstun. If I don’t have a way to counter the attacker I can Flying High their attacker, then throw Bucky back on the top of my deck to stun the attacker I can’t counter. Those foolish enough to raise arms against me are punished, God is in Heaven, all is good in the world.

It’s a janktastic combo, but incredibly powerful. My pushing past the choke you can reverse it and make your opponents suffer for their hubris. Or you end up staring at your opponent thinking ‘Where the hell am I, I should get up’ over and over again. *sigh* At least I learned something from it.

The End of All Things

The thing I’m digging about MUN is that a lot of the cards are inspiring to me as a deckbuilder. Last week was excellent, this week I’ve loved what I’ve seen. The thing is, they were all missing a certain je ne se quois. As I said a few days ago, I’ve got ideas. None of them compare, though, to the rampant abuse I’m seeing via JLA/Thunderbolts, and SHIELD/TT.

JLA Thunderbolts reminds me of isreali bandages and claymore mines. On the bandages, on the side of the bandage opposite the pad, it states in large, red letters even a blind man could see ‘Place Opposite Side on Wound’. LIke some jackass is going to put that on the outside… seriously. Same with a claymore. It seriously, not joking at all, says ‘This side toward enemy’ on the side you don’t want to be on. I love the faith our leaders have in us. *sigh*

The reason I say this is because of the discussion held on VSR about the implications of a Judgment Day on turn 4 or 5. The whole idea is ignoring the ‘This Side Toward the Enemy’ and facing it at both people. Take that obnoxiously obvious warnings! I IGNORE YOU!

The idea? Using Poseidonis/Construction Site and Modern Era you utilize Thunderbolts Mountain 5 times. This leaves 9 resources in your resource row. That’s enough for (shock) a Judgment day to come in and slaughter everyone’s resources. Nailing a Radioactive man on 3 means that he’ll have 1 counter on 4, and 1 on 5. That means they can only Bat Got Your Tongue?, or Jean Grey the bomb. That also means that once the resource reset goes down they can no longer play plot twists. This tends to be a good thing, as it will fill their hand, and on turn three: The quest for more money you drop Venom, “Mac” Gargan and he’s looking a very statuesque 10+ ATK.

The other thing it allows you is to use multiple copies of identical locations without fear of rebuttal. How, you may ask? By chaining their effects to Judgment Day you’ve already set to KO each resource you control. You simply KO them a step early. Example: You want to cycle your deck for another 1 drop to start next turn off well? Watchtower, then flip another one and watchtower on the chain. They’re going to die anyway. You want to make sure you get those heroic efforts you dropped to pump Radioactive man back? Poseidonis, Poseidonis and you have your next draw already squared away. The brief chained moment of playing Judgment day allows a bit more resource recklessness than one normally sees. Hooray freedom.

The kill condition is, of course, Venom and Aquaman. By running KO Tek you can take down your opponent’s 4 drop, finish him off, and be king of the scene for a while. With the afforementioned Heroic Efforts your Radioactive man should be able to withstand their 3 drop, and he dies on the next turn. It’s artificial board superiority that’s maintained until on turn 4 redux you’ve nickel and dimed your opponent’s life to the other side of the number line.

A difficult build, yes. But a powerful build. What good is a rush deck that can’t rush? What use is a curve deck if the mainstay of their curve is just a dead card for the whole game? The power is worth the price of tuning such a deck so finely. Once it’s where it needs to be its strategy is so left field that there really is no way to counter it without sacrificing your ability to play normal decks. Jank FTW.

I’m Unsure if this is Clarifications or an addendum

Ok, Captainspud asked about the inner workings of Stunt Doubles. Well, it’s a concept I’ve been working on, obviously, for a few weeks. It goes as follows:

You build your deck around two Legends. Right now it’s looking like Cap and Iron Man. It could really be any two legends. Hulk/Wolverine could be kinda funny. Anyway, the deck concept it basically that by running your legends/support characters on 2 and 3, Mystique on 4, Basil Karlo on 5, and your legends taking over again on 6 you maximize the effectiveness of Legends cards. For Instance: Running Cap/Iron man I’d be running SRA, Cap 2 drop, Avengers 3 drop, Mystique/Iron Man on 4, Basil on 5, Cap on 6, and Thor on 7. Clash of worlds leaves me with an army of two drop caps, or what have you. By maximizing two defensive type characters like that(Extremis/Recovery from iron man, mighty avenger, and Charging Star/Cap’s Shield from Captain America, The patriot) I could stall my way into a large hand on 7 which I then proceeded to burn through to pump Thor up into a killer.

The basic concept, whoever you play, remains unchanged: by finding two legends that have similar themes or at least can synergize, you run two back up characters to use their abilities in their absence and proceed to kill. All that with a few brotherhood and Secret Society Tricks from those two should make for a fun play.

Politics is about getting your enemy to stab themselves in the back

I love IG and GK. As The League of Extraordinary Wood Rats seems to be picking up momentum I’m forced to ask: What Meta can be used against Squirrel Girl. As her and nick seem to be pointing to a rush scenario utilizing Army+SHIELD, I’m interested if the decks will garner enough infamy and momentum to be considered a threat. And here’s where a fresh meta is fun, the only time I think Meta is fun.

I’m going to drop 1 small idea, a tiny fragment of a thought, and let the players decide if Squirrel Rush is strong enough for the following risk:

Turn 3 Owl Man, Turn 4 Hulk, Green Scar. The Kill turn for LoEWR is turn 4, and they should have at least 8 people on the field. Combine that with Criminal Mastermind, and Secret Files and you have an interesting scenario. You’re doing what they want. You’re fetching them Novice assassins with Secret Files, getting them the card draw they need to maintain a strong board presence. You’re MAKING their deck run the way it’s intended. Then when Hulk, Green Scar gets stunned Squirrel Girl’s ability triggers and the whole field goes back to their owner’s hand.

Using concealed characters and gumption, you let them swing into a single  visible defender every turn to soak up damage(if they have to send two assassins into a character on turn 3, that means they won’t be swinging for 16 they’ll be swinging for 4). Power Siphon keeps your defender alive and your endurance in the positive.  Taking even init, Hulk can swing into their assassin, blindside them, and HULK SMASH their face in. Throw an ATE! on him, and his DEF becomes 0, causing stunback. When he stuns the counter blows up and all of the sudden your opponent’s already bulging handsize gets an addition of 10+ cards. Owl Man comes in with a few All Too Easy! dropped on him, and finishes the game against their frail, undefended face.

Even without a finishing move on 4 you’ve made your stuff more powerful, and theirs less effective. It seems Warbound+Injustice Gang could be a nasty, nasty counter to the oncoming army rush scenario.

Tony Stark is a Coward

There is, for those who know me, no surprise that I have a low opinion of Tony Stark. I was vehemently anti-registration, and I have a few more issues with the character Tony Stark. That being said, I’m in love with Iron man, Mighty Avenger. And, as I’ve been happy with this whole set, flavor is seared with love into every card we bust out of packs.

This deck, which we’ll review later this week, is a flavor soaked rush of cherry infused goodness. It goes back to the TT/Avengers set up I’ve been tossing around. With Argent on 2, and Stark Armory you have a 10/10 Iron Man on turn 4. He becomes a 12/12 on 5. Better yet? He becomes an 11/11 on 5, you drop Basil Karlo, and transfer counters after Iron Man swings. That means you swing with an 11/11, then follow up with a 14/15. To finish everything up you have Beastboy, Garfield Logan as your 3 drop. Why, you probably aren’t asking? Because that means that instead of losing a fight and getting a little bit bigger Beastboy jumps a whole turn’s worth of stats up and recovers.

Now going to the tile, here’s why I think this deck espouses a sense of distaste for our Multibillionaire hero: He’s hiding behind children! By putting Argent and Beast Boy infront of, and next to him, by surrounding him with patsies, you maintain your whole board every turn. On top of that, both characters get bigger by losing. A bit of Burn Rubber, maybe a poker night or two, and you have a solid defensive wall. That selfsame wall makes every attack hurt your opponent. Every time they stun Tony’s bodyguards they get bigger, meaning they’re effectively higher drop characters for the final round. If all goes well you may as well be swinging with a low tier 7 drop, a low tier 6 drop, a high 5 drop, and a standard 3 drop.

Like in the Civil War, Tony Stark’s backhanded tactics will win the day.

Dude, If I Could Clone My Wife…

One thing about pumps is that 4 is the magic number. Any pump that’s 4 or higher is a surefire way to swing into someone two drops higher than you. Fantastic Four is fun because they have a great one: Family of Four. It gives +1/+1 for each of the fantastic four you have in play(only Dick, Sue, Johnny, and Ben) so it’s a potential +4/+4. BUT WAIT! What about Secret Society, who have a printed +4/+4 pump. On top of that, Poison Ivy is there.

The thing is Family checks for each character with that name in play. Invisible woman is the only 1 drop on the list, but that’s immaterial. All we need is 1 trigger for the card to be a first turn drop. Assuming you rock out Sue, then Reed on 2, Poison Ivy on 3, and finally you drop Johnny on 4, you have an interesting set-up in motion. Pam can get Sue from the discard pile, assuming a team-up, and put her into play without worrying about silly things like uniqueness. Silly rule book. That means on turn 4 you can have 3 Invisible Women(Dick, you’re a lucky lucky man), Mr Fantastic, and Human Torch in play. That makes Family of Four +5/+5. That’s savage beatdown worthy.

When we make it to 5 we have Thing, Heavy hitter. He’s naturally an 11/11. With the fourth and final Sue dropping to make the pump insane. That does two things: It makes Family a +7/+7, and allows use of Four Freedoms Plaza. If you can get all 4 in your hand, you have a 39/39 swinging for a win. 2 Savage Beatdowns and a Blindsided makes him 49/49 that can’t be reinforced against. That’s… massive. Anger and hate, Savage Beatdown, Acceptable Loss, and Family of Four give your deck about a 1:4 ratio of 4+ pump factors.

To keep everyone alive you have Invisibility, and Reed and Sue. The main issue is keeping everyone alive so Ben can finish things off on 5. If you can rock that out, you’ve won. Period.

Strangely, It Doesn’t Run ‘Heroes of Two Worlds’…

Mightiest Heroes and Avengers Reassembled are the best of times, and the worst of times. They don’t allow you to draw the card you searched for, but they do allow for search. AR lets you replace a resource you control. Avengers have reservist as one of their themes, so this makes sense. JLA, though, also has Reservists. 6 in fact, and they rock out on turn 1, 2, 5, and 6.

Spider-Man, New New Avenger is a 2 drop Reservist that you can reveal from your resource row to crossover Avengers and whoever. The fun thing about New New Avenger is that Avengers Reassembled will put him into your resource row if you pay your pound of flesh. That’s nice, as it allows you to have a team-up out without having it face-up and therefore a target for Batman, Founding Member. It also lets you crossover JLA and the Avengers on turn 1. Not often an issue, but one to be aware of.

Then we go into Captain America(Who, after 60 years as an O-3, probably should’ve been picked up for major by now). Here we find the crux of our deck. With 3 tutors(Avengers Reassembled, Mightiest Heroes, Mobilize), and a curve that runs through 7 (that’s right, 7) we can get to work.

Now, turns 1-3 are kinda strange. We’re going to start off with Aztek and blackbird, you’ll see why in a bit. From there we move into 2 sporting Captain America, The Patriot mixed with Gypsy, Operative. On 3 we hit Katar Hol, Hal Jordan, Founding Member, and Batman, Founding Member. 4 gives us Captain America, Champion License drops, with Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace as backup. 5 Drops Batman, Justice’s Shadow. 6 brings us Captain America, Living Legend, ending with Hal Jordan, Fearless.

The way the deck is set to run you hit your curve with Katar Hol being the first important drop. On 4, Champion License goes infront of Kator Hol. The shield goes on the Captain, and he swings into a soft target. Then the shield pops to exhaust another one of their people. When their last guy gets an attack, he either swings into Captain America, or he swings into Captain America via his ability. An auto-Power-Up makes Cap a 9/8. If you’d played a stalwart defense earlier, he becomes a 9/10 against their attack. Batman, Founding Member drops to give Captain America the ability to swing into the opposing 5 drop. A Charging Star turns him into a 9/12 for the attack. The Shield keeps exhausting an opposing character while Steve Rogers draws the big attacks to himself.

The finisher involves Hal Jordan, and a good mix of Fearless, Assorted Alias, and Savage Beatdown, if not Armageddon(yes, I said Armageddon) swinging into their softest target for 25+ ATK, which should finish them on turn 7. The proactive stall should keep whittling their board and endurance throughout the turns.

The last card important to the deck, and really the crux of the deck, is SRA. Superhuman Registration Act allows you to immediately recruit the guys you search our with Avengers Reassembled and Mightiest Heroes. That adds the little bit of speed you need to get the necessary edge for a proactive stall deck like this.

The decklist is going to change quite a bit over the next two months, but I think the general idea is going to remain the same: Mix Avengers and JLA for consistency and pumps, using Captain America to draw in fire from the opposing board while exhausting an opposing character every turn. It’s going to be a tightwire to walk until we get some more Avengers love. Even as is, it’s a delightfully frustrating deck to play against… at least in a game of Mental Vs.

Stuff I Need When My Wife Gets Angry

So the thing about gaming is that we’re all after the same thing. We want to get your endurance below 0, and lower than our endurance. That’s the point, right?

Well, taking things beyond cardboard, we find ourselves asking: Do we really want to worry about endurance? Looking at all things from a strategic angle, we should be able to agree most players come to the table with the intent of taking your endurance below 0, and keeping theirs higher than yours. You know where your opponent is going. Most deck archetypes you’ll see are already discussed or you have good experience with, so you know where they’re coming from. So then… what? You know what they’re going to do, generally speaking.

Sun Tzu made a good point: When they come left, you counterstrike right. Well that involves either AWC, or simply preventing them from reaching their end point through stall. The problem with AWC is their lack of prominence, and easy of execution. Stall is fine, but it’s just another path from point A to point B. You’re doing the same thing as your opponent.

As I was thinking about things a few days ago, I was discussing deck construction for my other game with my buddy Dev. While discussing how a player’s personality effects tek and strategy, he stated something that got me thinking: I don’t need to win, I just need to make you lose as much sanity in the process of making me lose as possible. So I sat down to think about how I could integrate this into a right strategy for the left strikes I was expecting at the tourney yesterday. To add to the issues, it was for Strange Bedfellows that I was going this.

My default base for any deck is GK. I love the versatility of GK, and I love Batman in general. He’s more or less the literary equivalent of the American Dream. His life has been one of tragedy, but he’s overcome and turned his scars into strength. He stands for Justice, even going so far as to defend a man who murdered one partner and crippled another because the way he was going to be taken down was unjust. He is a man of principles, and the will to realize those principles. He is willpower in action. Love Batman.
On a mechanical level they have a great attack pump(Taking Aim for a +8 is always nice), Card Cycle(The Hook-Up), Card Draw(Card Draw Barbie), a common Tutor(Bat Signal) and the ability to interrupt your opponent’s tek and disrupt their rhythm(Most Modern Legal Batmans, From the Shadows, Bat Got Your Tongue, Interrogate, etc.). So you have a solid base to build from. Mechanically they’re one of the best rounded teams in modern. So then with my mechanical inclinations, and literary devotion, I had a base.

Still, a base without meat and veggies is just broth. Also, to meet the Strange Bedfellows reqs I needed to mix a villain in with the whole thing. Joker+Batman=Robber Barons. Already played that last month. So then, who? A brief look through the old binder o’ love and I see Hush. Hush is definitely a Batman villain. Awesome.

So GK/Arkham Inmates. Taking these two, I found an idea fluttering around my head. The problem with Ideas fluttering around your head is that if they stay in there, they just bother you. You have to let them out. It’s similar to a fly fluttering around your car while you drive. You have to roll down the window and let it out. And so I sat down and let this idea out. When I rolled the window back up and looked down at the table, I saw all hidden GK characters, allowing me to have only one visible character: Hush. That meant that with no one visible but Hush, he’d be adjacent to no one. No one Adjacent meant his effect would trigger, and I realized what that idea was going for: If anyone attacked Hush, they’d die.

Let me backtrack here, to explain in full, the text of Hush, Silent and Deadly reads: While Hush is not adjacent to any character, whenever he stuns an exhausted character, KO that character. As you have to exhaust to attack, generally, that means anyone he counterstuns dies. Point blank, they’re gone.  Unfortunately at 7/7 on turn 4 he’s paid for that kind of skill with stats. What are Friends For? and Nasty Surprise make up for that, allowing him to counterstun up to a 6 drop. And thus, Wall of Silence came into its first incarnation.

The deck was run, it did well, but it needs work. The main problem is that I refuse to run Fartifacts. I find them immoral. The problem is that with Fate’s Tower, Fartifacts, and Shaw Industries, I’d have a 14/14 4 drop with an auto kill ability. The added cycle of Fartifacts would only make the cycle tek of the Gotham Knights more potent. That’s really what should go in the deck, but I’d feel like a sell out for running them. So I need a way to build up Hush. My inclination is to run Universal Weapon instead of a 5 drop to give him +3/+3, turning him into a 10/10. A few heroic efforts and I can rock him out as a 14/14 by the time all is said and done.

Now back to Dev’s comment and how it relates to Wall of Silence: Point A>Point B and the running off of said issue. Hush buffed to 6 drop stats means you’re unable to attack without losing people. A few defensive tricks like Against all odds, and general pumps like Great White, and Shaw Industries and even when outgunned by a team attack he simply repels the hate with Bruce and Company preventing opposing pumps and Tek. You Play completely defensively, contradictory to the common sense approach of A to B. You allow them to become stymied, unable to attack without losing a massive amount of people, and after they shatter against the deadly quiet you come in and clean up. Your “to” in the “A to B” is simply kicking the opponent’s “To” out of the equation, never allowing them to get to B. Not winning, but making them lose.

It’s a different way of looking at things. It’s not stall, because you’re not trying to make it to a higher turn. You end it on 6, after they’ve exhausted everything they have just to fail. Attrition. Hush’s job is not to die for his country, it’s to make some other poor son of a bitch die for his.

MUN is Making me Crazy

Wow. I can’t wait to see more from MUN. Right now, we have a slew of Captain America noise. Charging Star is amazing. Two decks I think that are going to make massive abuse of the good Captain:

Sincere Flattery: This is a strange mix of Legend abuse, and sheer silliness. Mystique on 4, Basil Karlow on 5, and Captain America himself on 6, you have a curve of people who can equip and use the shield. By getting the shields in play, and bouncing them back into your hand every turn you find yourself in an interesting situation: Stalling half an opponent’s board every turn. The thing about The Shield I haven’t seen much talk of(some, but not as much as one would think) is that exhausting Captain America is an effect, not a cost. That means ultimate stall on init, as you swing into their lowbies, and then send the shields back to your hand to exhaust their higher ups. As with most modern stall, you have the Darkseid/Endgame finisher unless a new late game coup de grace finds its way into the scene with MUN. I’m betting it will. The tek I’m looking to add: Low drop KO/Stun tek. X-Babies rush might help by running fastball specials. For the purposes of everyone being one team, It might behoove me to run Fatal Weakness(Spider-man, New New Avengers+World’s Worstest). The real trick of the deck is keeping their numbers no greater than 4(Let them stun 1 person. I’ll give them that.). I’m going to have to work on that, but the two copy cats along with Clash of Worlds and the Shield make for some nasty, nasty tek. More to come as more MUN is unveiled.

Patriotic Youth: This one I think is going to be able to hit consistent pretty well. Using Avengers Reassembles and Mobilize, along with massive resource replacement, you cycle your whole deck for effects via Teen Titans and get to the people you need. That’s really all it is: Eat your deck until it vomits the reservist you need. Use Cap 4 Drop to divert attacks into Garfield Logan(who consistently grows larger through standard beastboy tek). Really standard decktype that’s looking like it might make a comeback with the new avengers squad hitting.

Your Mom Went to College: Simple: Barracuda on 3, Human torch on 4, crossover IG and F4, and Circe on 5. Running Agamemno to put on your deck for a 9 burn you just sit back and play defensively while you burn with Circe, and Torce every turn(should be 10+ if IG card draw is functioning like it should. Simple, Elegant, but delicate. It needs work, but Your Mom has potential, I think.

As more previews meander along I see these decks getting fleshed out more and more. I think MUN is going to be worth every hour we’ve spent dreaming about it.

The Healing Power of Laughter

My wife… she loves the Joker. Aside from the fact his significance to the literary history of comics, he’s just a fun villain. Well… maybe not ‘fun’ like playing a game of football fun, but I don’t think fun is inappropriate. Anyway, the way things go he’s got some powerful effects. Let’s look at what The Joker has going for him:

Modern Versions:

Crazy for you, 6 Drop, Arkham Inmates, 12/12 Whenever The Joker is discarded, you may remove him from the game. If you do, shuffle your hand into your deck, then draw a card for each card you shuffled in.

Not that useful outside an Insanity deck… but super powerful in that madness. Still, he won’t make the cut.

Out of His Mind, 3 Drop, Arkham Inmates, 5/4 Whenever The Joker is discarded, you may remove him from the game. If you do, shuffle your hand into your deck, then draw a card for each card you shuffled in.

Interesting enough, but I don’t have the play experience to make the judgement. Still, holding him out for a power-up replaces a dead hand with a few extra pumps.

The Man Who Laughs, 1 Drop, 2/1 Arkham Inmates Whenever The Joker stuns a character, you may discard a card at random. If you do, target opponent loses 3 endurance.

I’ve posted a strategy thread on this guy. I think he could make for interesting rush Tek. Still, not for the deck we’re building.

Headline Stealer, 4 Drop, 8/7, Arkham Inmates*Injustice Gang, Each opponent can’t play plot twists from his hand with cost less than the number of cards in his hand.

The greatest of Jokers. He kills opponents dead. A staple in IG decks, and Joker Legend decks. An auto include.

Killer Smile, 6 Drop, 12/12, Arkham Inmates/Injustice Gang Whenever The Joker causes breakthrough, you may stun target character with cost less than the number of cards in its controller’s hand.

Wow. A powerful Game ender. He gets worse once you work in the fact that their handsize is going to be huge by Injustice Gang. So then, how to make the Joker realize true power? Well, the Joker’s Wild Pack.

Wildpack’s big draws are: Bounty Hunt, Capture Net, and Powell. Bounty Hunt fills your hand. Capture Net removes their character from the board and fills their hand. Powell goes straight to the KO’d Pile to find Criminal Mastermind, Bounty Hunt, and your Team-Up. Add to that a sniper situation with Hovercraft, and you have yourself a nasty set-up. Run Wild Pack rush through turn 3. On turn 4 you rock out Joker with Lex Luthor, Metropolis Mogul to complete their shutdown. Turn 6 brings in Killer Smile, and The Joke’s On You!.

IG has, hands down, the best pumps in the environment right now. Power Siphon and All Too Easy! make things nasty, and quick. Throw Laughing Gas on Killer Smile and we find ourself in a terrible predicament. We’re burning for our handsize, losing our biggest character because Killer Smile punked the 3 drop that’s survived this far, in addition to any break through and stun damage. As with every concept it needs work, but I think Joker’s Wild could be vicious in the wrong hands.