The Tinkerer's Vs. Workshop

01.17.05 -

Howdy folks!  You can call me the Tinkerer and welcome to the Workshop.  I’ll be the new resident Deck Mechanic around these parts for a while.  I’m hoping to do one repair job per week and maybe squeeze in an extra article or two a month.  Since I don’t have anyone’s deck to fix this week I decided on an original creation of my own to share with you all.

Ever since the Web of Spider-Man expansion came out I’ve wanted to do something with either the card “Clone Saga”, or “Sinister Six.”  Now that the opportunity to write for Pojo has arisen, there was no time like the present.  I’ve never thought it was fair that the Titans were the only team (Brave and the Bold not withstanding) able to abuse Garth’s card recursion power and I wanted to find a way to get it without resorting to the Teen Titan cheese that we’ve all been exposed to for so long.  Clone Saga and Sinister Six were the answer.

See, before DC Origins was released some characters could only be recruited if you controlled another character of the same team name.  Then DC gave us the term “loyalty” to shorten what is basically the same effect, with one small difference.  The phrase “loyalty” means “Recruit this card only if you control a character that shares at least one team affiliation with this card.  “Clone Saga” and “Sinister Six” both read, “Play Clone Saga/Sinister Six only if you control a Spider Friends/ Sinister Syndicate character.  Ongoing: Affiliated character’s you control, as well as cards in your deck, hand, and KO’d pile have the Spider Friends/Sinister Syndicate team affiliation.”  Catching on yet? 

Okay, you’re probably a little bored by now, so without further adieu, the deck list:

Characters: 32

Prowler-Hobie Brown x 3

Tinkerer-Phineas Mason x 2

Dusk-Cassie St. Commons x 2

Electro-Maxwell Dillon x 3

Beast Boy-Garfield Logan x 3

Havok-Alex Summers x 2

Spider-Man-FNSM x 1

Nightcrawler-Fuzzy Elf x 3

Wolverine-New FF x 2

Garth-Tempest x 3

Scarlet Witch-Wanda Maximoff x 2

Nightwing- Def. of Bludhaven x 2

Storm-Weather Witch x1

Ezekiel-Spirit of the Spider x1

Superman-False Son x 1

Spider-Man-Cosmic SM

Plot Twists: 24

Acrobatic Dodge x 4

Clone Saga x 4

Have A Blast x 2

Savage Beatdown x 4

Sinister Six x 4

Spider Senses x 4

Twist of Fate x 4

Locations: 2

Avalon Space Station x2

The whole point of the deck is to take what I felt was the cream of the crop as far as characters were concerned and bring then together in some kind of harmony.  Since there are seven different teams present in this deck, standard team-up cards just won’t do it justice.  However just one Clone Saga will bring them all together as one united front.

Now allow me to go through my choices for card selection.

Characters:

1 Drops:

Prowler: I felt it was completely necessary to keep the one and two drops SF and SS exclusive for the optimum efficiency.  The SF one drops were really lack-luster so Prowler made the cut, not for his stats, but for his card drawing effect.

Tinkerer: Again, not for his stats, but for a most interesting effect.

2 Drops:

Dusk: Now I know how odd this may seem with Solo belonging to team SF and having so much of a higher attack, but I can’t rely on having another SF to reveal from my hand, so Dusk gets the nod for a decent set of stats.

Electro: Just a nasty card.  The first character that relies on a team affiliation for his effect.  Risky? Yes, but well worth it if it can be pulled off.

3 Drops:

Beast Boy: A potentially huge flyer that doesn’t rely on tricks, what’s not to love?

Havok: 8/4 attacker with range, makes me not care about him coming in exhausted.

Spider-Man: An extra back up for the Clone Saga, not a shabby effect either.

4 Drops:

Nightcrawler: In my humble still one of the best 4’s in the game, 7/7 flight and range…sort of.

Wolverine-New FF: Mostly just a huge attacker who’s effect won’t be used often…but is there if you need it.

5 Drops:

Garth: Here he is, the whole reason this deck was constructed, great for getting back those Beatdowns.

Scarlet Witch: Every deck that can run her should, just awesome.

6 Drops:

Nightwing: Some much needed card draw in a deck that is much lacking in that department.

Storm: Just an amazing choice for when you have the odd initiatives because it keeps your opponent’s support row characters from attacking.

7 Drops:

Ezekiel: Good enough stats, better card drawing ability - again for when you don’t have first attack this turn.

Superman-False Son: The new king in my book. Effect that goes off anytime, anyhow.

8 Drops:

Cosmic Spider-Man: This was pretty much a coin flip between him and Apocalypse, guess who won out.

Plot Twists:

Acrobatic Dodge: I figured we were in need of some defense in case the team-up fails on us.

Clone Saga: The heart.  This card  makes so much of the deck work we couldn’t live without it.

Have A Blast: Just all around versatility.

Savage Beatdown: Extra attack points don’t hurt, do they? We’ll play with a full set.

Sinister Six: Really just a back-up play in case Clone Saga doesn’t show up, still allows us to team attack and reinforce.

Spider Senses: It’s like Acrobatic Dodge, but really, really good.

Twist of Fate: Good character tutor, and since you only have to discard a SF character to grab a character of any team, shouldn’t be to hard to pull off without teaming up.

Locations:

Avalon Space Station: Usually a good idea for most decks.

Now I have to admit, I only built this about five minutes before I started writing and haven’t even had a chance to play test this deck.  I’ll give it a run this Friday and make sure to do a quick follow up in my next article about my findings.

So send me your decks, I’ll pick one per week to do my thing to; and to those who don’t get picked, try again next week. 

Until we meet again, sayonara.