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.

The Correlation of Fast and Right: An Observation

I work out every day with coworkers. Sometimes I choose the regimen, other times my supervisor calls the shots. I took charge yesterday, so he took it today. We ended up doing a circuit, a 1 mile cardio run, and finished it up with a few sets of Sprints. The problem? The guy behind me in the circuit was catching up while I was doing squats. So as not to hold up the others, I sped up. For those unfamiliar, a squat involves holding weight on your shoulders and squatting until your thighs are parallel to the ground. You have to keep your back straight or you end up hurting it. I sped up and my form suffered. 3 Tylenol later, I can walk and do my job. Wow.

So this coincides with Hulk Week. How funny. Maybe it’s just the excrutiating pain of running a mile with a strained back, or maybe it’s my gun shy attitude towards the Warbound. Still, I see a bit of a correlation. The thing is, the Hulk is turning into a turn 5 kill, turn 4 kill if you do it just right.  Think of it this way: Hulk 4 drop is an 8/7 with a built in flame trap. He kills rush. Batman, Founding Member is a 5/5 3 drop. Hawk girl is a 4/5 2 drop.

With the right pumps, you should be able to leave only thei 3 and 4 on the board on turn 4. Hawgirl gets a power-up to nail their 3 drop, Batman takes aim at their 4 drop. They should be around 40 endurance by the end of your onslaught. So 2x Battle Training and 1x Crackshot make the Hulk 19/7 for the turn. If he has an Nth Metal equipped he becomes a 20/8 each attack. Righteous Anger makes him a finisher on 4.

You might be saying ‘But Kenpachi, that belongs in the ‘never gonna happen’ thread!’. Maybe not that exact situation, but 4 turn long pumps(Combat Reflexes, Battle Training, Crackshot, and Flying Kick) can make up 20% of your deck. Fartifacts+Fate’s Tower take up another 20%. Heroes of Two Worlds,  Call in a Favor and Mobilize make up another fun 15%, with team-ups making up the last of it. JLA’s ‘New Era’ finds as many Fate’s Towers as you want/need, and turn it into metropolis when you’re done, teaming up Warbound and JLA. 3 pumps(which you’ve cycled into) plus fartifacts(which you’ve towered into) make Hulk a 20/11 for the turn while attacking. With the board cleared via Hawkgirl and Batman, you have a straight shot to your opponent’s face.

The strategy focuses on doing it right, not forcing the speed. It seems like the problem with loner decks is their necessity in the speed department. Slow is Smooth, smooth is fast. I think that as I await previews these next few days I’m going to try to keep that in mind. I don’t want Bruce pulling his back.

Throw Away Youth

So then it came to pass that Superhuman Registration Act was previewed today. It team stamps everyone with the Pro-Registration affiliation, makes you play with the top card of your deck revealed, and allows you to recruit the person you revealed that way if you haven’t recruited anyone else with that name this turn. Going back into my renewed interest in Reservist, I’m drawn to this.

I thought of using it as loyalty abuse, but CaptainSpud gave me a well earned slap in the ‘OMFG OLD!’ when 3 plot twists and two locations do the same thing(Well, that I can think of off the top of my head). It allows you to recruit people without taking a hit in the hand size. Rush deck? methinks yes. Titans are Kings and Queens of Team attack Rush. It accentuates their current build a good bit.

But there’s an interesting angle to this whole thing. What if you don’t like or need the card on top? That’s when we gamble. Tutors like Mobilize, Straight to the Grave, and Heroes of Two Worlds cause you to reshuffle your deck, yes? Now let’s look at a few other things in regards to gambling:

Cerebro: You look at the top two cards of your deck, put X-men in your hand, the rest on the bottom. This gets you a new top card.

Damocles Base: Name a character, top two card(or three if you named Kang). Copies of the named character go in your hand, the rest on the bottom of your deck.

Underground Resistance: Discard a brotherhood card to look at the top three cards of your deck, pick one and put the rest on the bottom of your deck.

Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker does the same thing without the discard. Forge lets you look at the top card of your deck and put it in your hand if its cost is less than the number of cards in your hand. A lot lets you move the top card of your deck if you’re not a fan of it. X-Men seems to be the best at it, between being able to run Forge, Cerebro, Damocles Base, and Domino using the predetermined card to protect herself and cable. Using the gamble with those people, statistically you’re going to be able to rush and force the odds to get you the card you need. New life for X-Babies perhaps?

Patriotic Youth

Wow. MUN previews are going down, and I’d like to point to two in particular I’m looking at with some love:

Captain America, The Patriot * Secret Avenger. This is a two drop with an ability to Rally for a character card. If the Rally works, a +1/+1 Counter goes on all characters you control. Avengers reassembled works with this pretty well because it puts an avengers character on top of your deck.

Then we Have Captain America, Champion License. He allows you to change defenders once a turn with his leader ability. In addition, when he gets clocked the rest of my characters have Invulnerability for the rest of the turn.

Now take this and mix in the shield, which I can return to my hand and exhaust the good Cap during the Combat phase to exhaust an opposing character. Stall, and strategy disruption. But who else do I know that can use counters and reservist.

Oh that’s Right! Teen Titans! To add to the mayhem, we have avengers reassembled as noted above. That searches out an Avengers character with the boost cost of discarding a card to replace a resource you control. Why is this so awesome? Spider-Man, New New Avenger is a team up from the resource row. That means you have tutors for your team up that pull double duty as character tutors. Now add Garfield Logan to the mix(Who captain America can make the target of… oh I don’t know… team attack) and you have a very interesting situation. I think TT/Avengers are going to mesh quite well. More to come when I can sit down and do a good post.

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.