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Vs. System
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The
Tinkerer's Vs. System Workshop
X-Change
08-08-05
Wow, look at me go, two
articles within one week all for your viewing pleasure. This
week I got an e-mail from a guy named Andrew who would
like….well here is what he writes, you can see for yourself…
“Tinkerer,
I love your articles on Pojo, and was greatly excited by the
prospect
of seeing an X-Change deck up and running. I'm a relatively
new player
to VS, being an ex Yu-gi-oh player, but X-Solo is definitely
my
favorite build so far. I've hardly been playing a week and
I'm
already sick of Sentinels! Please write up an X-Change
build!”
Well Andrew, you’ve sure got me as a member of the I Hate
Sentinels Club (so sorry Katie) and knowing as you must by
now what a huge X-Statix fan I am I do just so happen to
have a Team X-Change deck that I used to tinker around with
handy. I simply call it my Double X deck until I get another
X-team released ::cough X-Force UDE come on now cough:: to
be able to make my XXX deck. Until then we’ll just have to
deal with the slightly cleaner version.
So once again without further adieu, the deck list:
3 x El Guapo
1 x Professor X – Mutant Mentor
4 x Cyclops – Slim
4 x Wolverine – Logan
1 x Orphan – Guy Smith
1 x Plasm
3 x The Spike
2 x Nightcrawler – Fuzzy Elf
4 x Anarchist – Tike Alicar
1 x Vivisector – Lunatic Lycanthrope
1 x Colossus
1 x Storm – Weather Witch
1 x Rogue – Powerhouse
1 x Anarchist – Man of the People
1 x Professor X – Worlds Most Powerful Telepath
1 x Professor X – Mental Master
3 x Acrobatic Dodge
2 x A Death In the Family
3 x Bamf!
3 x Grandstanding
2 x Go In Swinging
2 x Marvel Team Up
2 x Mind Over Matter
2 x Never Give Up
4 x Team X-Change
3 x Cerebro
2 x X-Statix HQ
The thing about this deck is that I made it all for fun. I
doubt highly that there is any build with these two teams
that can win consistently of at a highly competitive level,
if you want that go with the X-Statix / Marvel Knights deck
that works incredibly well. So in sticking with the fun
theme I play a lot of different cards in here. Normally I
don’t play many two of cards in a deck simple for the
inconsistency in drawing into them when most needed. Now let
me go into an explanation of the cards chosen and why
starting with characters.
El Guapo – Read my previous write up’s about this team and
you’ll see why I like this guy. He can be such a pain to
your opponent you’ll wonder how you ever lived without him.
Oh yeah, all the X-Men characters are garbage in the 1-drop
spot so none made the cut over Robbie.
Professor X-Mutant Mentor – Not a bad choice sometimes in
the course of a game if you can meet his double loyalty
restriction. With Team X-Change searching out specific cards
named Professor X it only makes good sense to include him.
Cyclops-Slim – I wanted to make this deck all about team
attacking and KO’ing the characters on that other side of
the field. Since Cyclops gives all team attacking X-Men
characters +2/+2 I couldn’t see any way around using our
little one eyed friend here.
Wolverine-Logan – Almost a no brainer with his beefy 6/6
frame and his recruitment restriction shouldn’t be much of a
problem either with so many X-Men characters here.
Orphan-Guy Smith – I can’t make a deck with X-Statix
characters in it without including at least one single
solitary copy of an Orphan in it. That’s really the only
reason there’s one in the deck.
Plasm – Is just too good not to have if you get in a pinch
in later turns stuck without a character to recruit. If you
can’t get a new character into play at least you can stun
one of your opponents.
The Spike – Yes, he is a just slightly smaller Feral Rage
without a recruitment restriction. No, the part where you
have to KO him if you don’t control two other X-Statix
characters will not be a problem. Spike is a beast, plain
and simple for our needs.
Nightcrawler-Fuzzy Elf – Nightcrawler has always been, since
Marvel Origins released, one of my favorite 4-drops in the
game. His ability to give any other character you control
flight and range can be almost invaluable when you need to
team attack a support row character.
Anarchist-Tike Alicar – Tike was the first piece of this
puzzle that fell firmly into place. It just seemed too good
to be able to Bamf! and then Never Give Up to ready and stun
and KO multiple characters on the same turn, and you know
what? It is.
Colossus – Turn 6 brings three different characters for your
pleasure. One is a beater, one follows our KOing theme, and
the last is for a nice control element for your off
initiative. Colossus is the beater of the bunch 16/12 is
nothing to complain about, you’d usually want to play him if
you’re task is nearing completion and you need to close the
deal quickly…just make sure you get those characters into
the KO pile quickly.
Rogue-Powerhouse – Quite obviously our KO’er she’s the other
choice to play if initiative comes your way on turn 6 and
you want to clear off the board some more.
Storm-Weather Witch – Easily our off initiative character of
choice, Storm always catches you opponent by surprise,
ALWAYS!! Most of them will even have to lean over wanting to
read her effect. When they do they’ll be realizing that the
formation they made with all the big ranged characters in
the back row just became useless and they’ll be taking a
beating if they can’t get to Storm somehow.
Anarchist-Man of the People – He’s a 16/16, what’s more to
want. He’s a beater and that’s about it. You’ll almost never
be using his effect unless something totally unforeseen by
me occurs in your game, but I warn you to do it at your own
risk.
Professor X-Worlds Most Powerful Telepath – Can do a lot of
damage at any point during the turn he comes into play, and
potentially screw up what ever attacking play your opponent
had.
Professor X-Mental Master – I don’t recall any games ever
having to go past turn 7, but again using Team X-Change to
fetch this guy, there’s no harm in including him. Plus his
boost can be invaluable if you come up against some form of
a stall deck.
Moving onto the support part of our little chat (What good
are characters without a little Plot Twist action?) we can
now get into the goods.
Acrobatic Dodge - is an invaluable asset to our deck since
we will stand a much better fighting chance with our
characters not stunned.
A Death In the Family – I’m sure you all are thinking right
about now what an idiot I am for including this one. Well,
personally I don’t blame you. This card does however fit in
perfectly with our KO theme we got going (and to be honest,
we need things off the field if there’s going to be any hope
of winning for us.) The life loss should be negligible for
the amount the cards doing us, plus X-Statix HQ will soak up
most of the damage anyway. Do watch out for anyone playing
with League of Assassins though as a well timed Lazarus Pit
just ruins your day.
Bamf! – I’m team attacking you, you’re getting KO’d and none
of my guys are getting smacked back? ‘Nuff said.
Grandstanding – This card is just so amazing when played
properly. Think of El Guapo (if he’s still hanging around)
team attacking with Anarchist (5), then hitting
Grandstanding to stun El Guapo to make a Anarchist 17/15
team attacker KOing their dude. It is still a team attack
though so sorry guys, no breakthrough on this one. Best part
is this still leaves your 3 and 4 drops able to attack at
will.
Go In Swinging – This is just another “you can’t stun me
back” trick that’s here just in case Bamf! or your team-up
doesn’t show up in time. This will come in handy most of the
time.
Marvel Team-Up – The generic team-up card in the deck. Just
here to make sure you can team-up as soon as possible.
Mind Over Matter – With plus 3 attack, flight and range, and
the ability to get one of your little guys off the field
when they’re in danger, how can you go wrong?
Never Give Up – This was one of the cards I thought would be
a shining star in any game it got played. Strangely I don’t
believe I ever found any use for it at all. If I were going
to rebuild a new version of this deck it would probably get
replaced by a Children of the Atom or a couple Savage
Beatdowns.
Team X-Change – The main way of making our two teams (who
are not very friendly with each other by the way) play nice.
Professor X is the only thing that could make these two
teams work together and the card reflects this by allowing
us to go grab any copy of him we want to. That deck thinning
alone makes this better than Marvel Team-up or any other
generic team-up card.
There are only two locations in this deck, but both are very
integral to us for a smooth running game.
Cerebro – Just a very nice little card for cycling through
your characters that will help to ensure you have your
Anarchist ready to drop on turn 5.
X-Statix HQ – Another great tool that comes in the form of
life gain and card draw. It is however very situational
depending on how your game is going. Play with caution since
we do want to keep as many characters on our field as
possible.
So there it is. Another edition of my Workshop has come to a
close. Now remember, this is just something really fun to
play with friends and such. Now like most fun decks, there’s
very, very little chance of it ever winning you a tournament
of any kind, but there’s still that one bit of this game
that people forget about sometimes. Yes, it is supposed to
be competitive. It is also for FUN. I wish people would stop
copying the latest 1st place 10K deck lists and open up a
can of originality. It’s in you all and those are the pretty
much the only kind of decks I respond to. So if you have one
of those rare animals and think you need help with it,
please send it my way and I’m always happy to help.
So until next time we meet,
Adios Amigos
Tinkerer
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