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Pojo's Vs.
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The
Tinkerer's Vs. System Workshop Welcome folks to this week’s installment of “The X-Statix Café” (The Tinkerer’s Workshop.) As you may be able to tell, this week is all about that wonderful, loveable new team we received in the Marvel Knights set, the X-Statix. I’m gonna start off with a full on review of each card the team has and then go into a little bit of the strategy behind playing these guys. Let’s start of by taking a look at the characters we’ve been given to play with.
For our level 1 characters UDE gave us 5 options. 1st is Coach. He has no attack (which makes some sense, he’s old, has only one arm, and is currently dead) an above average DEF at 2 and is concealed. With 2 separate effects, you might think Coach could be a versatile character. Wrong. Return him to your hand so one of your characters can attack an opponents hidden character, or you can discard him to gain 2 endurance. Coach is one of those cards that you’d really only include in a deck if you know your opponents are playing concealed characters. 2nd choice is Doop - Forward Observer. A 1/1 with flight is nothing special to me. When an X-Statix character you control causes breakthrough to an opponent, that player loses 1 extra endurance is nothing special either. KOing Doop to let you go searching for a Doop Cam can be awesome, that is if you’re going team-up in your deck. We are, however, not going team-up in this article. 3rd we have a little guy named El Guapo – Robbie Rodriguez. For those of you who don’t know, El Guapo is apparently Spanish for “The Handsome One”, El Guapo is currently dead too. His heart was punctured by his own skateboard. I’m awfully fond of this card. His effect is just a simple activation and he can reinforce any X-Statix defender you control. He’s great to play on turn one, setting up to work with Bloke on two, and he can reinforce anyone on your sided of the field, including himself. 4th is Professor X – Mutant Mentor. 2/2 for 1 is second only to Tombstone, unfortunately you’ll never see him hit the field first turn. Double loyalty makes sure of that. Not for us. Last but certainly not least is Phat – William (call me Billy-Bob) Reilly. Certainly not meant to be played on the first turn, Phat gets 2 +1/+1 counters for every resource point you boost him. Lets do the list, turn 1 he’s 1/1, 2 he’s 3/3, 3 he’s 5/5, 4 he’s 7/7, 5 he’s 9/9, 6 is 11/11, and after that he sort of becomes useless. So Phat is best suited to fill in for your 2-5 drops (cause 11/11 on turn 6 is a little weak.) Overload is Phat’s worst enemy so keep an eye out for it. Phat was unfortunately killed trying to save the rest of the team from an exploding Mr. Code.
Turn 2 brings us 4 choices. Let’s start with Corkscrew – Twisted Trainee. He’s a concealed character with good stats 3/2 and an effect that says; KO Corkscrewà target opponent discards a card. Not to much to say about him except that his effect is to costly for the very little bit it does. Oh yeah, he’s dead too, he was hacked up with an axe by Doop. Gin Genie – Beckah Parker is a far from interesting character. 2/2 is no better than average on this turn, and her replacing resource effect is not often going to happen since she’s hard pressed to stun anything. Remember, if she can stun a character you either replace no resources or one for every character you control. There is no in-between. I don’t know how she died, I only know she’s dead. Bloke – Mickey Tork is my personal choice for a 2 drop on this team. He’s only a 2/2, but exhausting another character you control will give him +2/+2 more. Not a bad way to swing on turn 2. Our last choice is Vivisector – Myles Alfred. Another character at 2/2, his effect only comes in boosted form. Pay 3 resource points to recruit him and burn your opponent for 5 as long as you control another X-Statix character. That adds up to 15 points on turn 9 if you recruit him three times. And don’t think for a minute this deck can’t last until turn 9 and beyond, I had three games go there just this past Friday at my local tournament.
Ok, onto another 4 characters for turn 3. Venus De Milo is the fourth concealed character the X-Statix has to give us, and like the rest she’s kind of sub-par in my humble opinion. 3/5 with flight and range is nothing to be to proud of and her activated teleport a character back to your hand ability will mostly be sending her back to your hand. That’s about all she’s good for. Sluk looks a little bit the freak now don’t he? It’s all good, he’s another dead one. He’s a completely standard 4/4 that can be boosted 1 to get +3 attack for the turn. KO him and target defender cannot be stunned this attack. Only problem is he’ll most likely be the target of your opponent’s first attack. Plasm looks really weak at first glance. 5 attack is great, but a 2 Defense on a 3 drop!!! Good thing he’ll never stay on the table if you play it right. Boost him 3 and return him to your hand and get a free stun on a character with a defense of 10 or less, right on. Orphan is your best bet for this turn unless you want to play Phat here instead. Orphan is pretty much this team’s version of Wolverine - Logan being a 6/6 if he’s your only character and a 9/8 on turn 4 with an X-Statix Café face up.
Another 4 ::sighs:: well at least there’s plenty of options. Saint Anna is a 6/7 who can activate to give target character +1 def for each other X character you control. Whoopdi do. La Nuit is a skinny green guy with the same stats as the Blob. Doesn’t make any sense to me either, but a 9 def is damn big on this turn. Back row characters also get +1 Def just for La Nuit being in the front row. Nothing too bad here. U-Go-Girl, a 7/7 with flight is average. She has a bouncing effect that lets you return a character you control to your hand and then return a character with a cost of 2 or less your opponent controls to their hand. This can most definitely still be useable on turn 4 when she comes in play. The Spike is one of the biggest 4 drops in the whole game. At 10/7 he’s just one attack point shy of a Sabretooth - Feral Rage. There’s a little matter of him being KO’d when he gets stunned unless you have two other characters in play, but that’s not to hard to get around.
Turn 5 is actually 5 choices, imagine that. Vivisector – Lunatic Lycanthrope is the 5 that shouldn’t be played until 6 or after. Stats of 10/8 are good, but as he only has a boosted effect similar to Plasm’s where if he is boosted you can exhaust a target character and return Vivisector to your hand. This is handy when there are no characters with a def of 10 or less to use Plasm on. Anarchist is another 10/8 who when team attacking can KO the defender, but the character the defender stuns in return would also be KO’d too. Go In Swinging can take care of this problem and net some much appreciated board advantage in the process. Battering Ram is pretty much an excellent character to support the “One Man Theme” version of the X-Statix build. 9/8 for 5 is alright, but his effect more than makes up for any shortcomings he may have. KO Battering Ram à Target player exhausts all characters he controls. Sounds great, right? Use this power only during your attack step. That part sucks. If you could do it whenever he would be a beast, but he’s more of a horned nuisance now. Orphan is a really big character at a 10/11, but his effect leaves me bewildered. If you control a character you recruited this turn, exhaust Orphan. I can only assume that means even if you recruited Orphan on turn 5 and he is the only character you control, you’d still have to exhaust him. A big wall maybe? With an X-Statix Café in play he’d be a 12/13 which is absolutely huge on turn 5. Dead Girl sucks. 8/8 is garbage and paying 10 endurance to keep her from being stunned, and then draw a card is ridiculous. Stay far away, this Dead Girl is stinking pretty badly.
Whew, back to 4. U-Go-Girl makes a reappearance in the 6 slot. It’s sort of a poor showing. 11/13 with flight isn’t bad at all. She has an effect that can change the target of a plot twist effect that targets a single character. This seems really cool at first glance, but in theory how many cards will her effect redirect? Finishing Move or A Death In the Family would be cool, but is anyone a bad enough player to do something like that with her sitting out on the field? I sure hope not. Venus De Milo is back again here too, this time in rare and non-concealed form. 10/13 is weak on the attack side, but flight and range again help her out if she ends up attacking. Unfortunately her effect is a little weak again. Pay 5 endurance return Venus to your handà Return target character with a cost of 5 or less your opponent controls to their hand. Now if that said just activate her, or pay 5 endurance to return a character with a cost of 6 or less that would make her much more relevant. The way her effect reads just makes her an underwhelming character. Mysterious Fan Boy’s name is Arnie, which I would assume is short for Arnold. Why UDE would name him ARTHUR Lundberg is beyond me and I demand an errata immediately. Anyway, 12/11, not too bad. Discard two cards for a built in Finishing Move. It’s kinda hard to discard two cards when your deck has no real draw power, but if you like it, go with it. Zeitgeist is the Mac Daddy of the 6 drops. 12/12 with range is good. Cosmic powers are usually nothing great, but there are always exceptions. This is the biggest exception ever. If Zeitgeist is your only character you can activate him and remove his counter to stun anyone. ANYONE. And you can only do this during the combat phase. ANYTIME during the combat phase. Sweet.
2 7’s YAY!!! Orphan again, only this time instead of being strong for his level, he’s barely average. 14/15 with an effect that goes best in more of a curved X-Statix deck, he gives other defenders +X def where X is the number of X-Statix characters you control. Anarchist is the star of the “One Man Show” theme. 16/16 with range is great. When he comes into play KO the rest of your characters and flip an X-Statix Café and look at the big 18/18 guy you control. Biggest level 7 you’re likely to see.
There is only one choice for turn 8 and it is a no brainer. Doop is the man. 25 attack is only second to Imperiex at 10 and Dark Phoenix too. Flight gives him the ability to pick off any of your opponents support row characters for huge breakthrough, and that 25 attack is more than enough to take out any threat you may be facing. He’s concealed so you can hide him away until you get to attack in case you don’t have the initiative. Invulnerability is so great here since Doop only has 1 DEF point, there’s no way he won’t be getting stunned in return to any attack. Doop is the only 8 drop we’ve got and there’s no way we could ask for anything better.
I think it’s time for a little break so I’m gonna hit the locations we’ve got before diving into Plot Twists. Training Theatre is the one location X-Statix has that encourages you to have more than one character on the field at a time, in fact you’re encouraged to keep 4 or more out. See, Training Theatre give all your guys +1/+1 as long as you can keep 4 on the playing field. That may not seem like much of a boost, but hey, every little bit helps. However this isn’t the way I want to build our deck today so there won’t be any more mention of this card. X-Statix Café is a franchised restaurant that caters to X-Statix fans kind of like McDonalds does to fans of freaky white faced clowns. +2/+2 on your character if it is the only character you control is just superb. The threshold cost is 4 which isn’t the most ideal thing, 2 would have made it so lovingly broken, but dem’s the breaks. X-Statix HQ is another one of the key cards this deck relies on for success. You’ll usually have someone out on the field you don’t want to have attacked for fear of huge endurance loss. Instead of having him or her attacked, why not get rid of him or her to gain some healthy endurance. You even get to draw a card in the process. Always remember to chain this effect whenever possible. I had some fun with this while facing a Lady Shiva of the LOA on Friday night. Tee Hee.
Plot Twist time. Dead Weight is now the best Def boosting card this game has seen. Forget Acrobatic Dodge, this is +4 Def with no attack loss. KOing your other characters is always what you’re going to want to do when you play this card because you’re bound to have an X-Statix Café in the waiting. That gives your character +2/+6 when you pull the combo off. Then just laugh as your opponent stares in disbelief. Falling Stars is something along the lines of a team stamped Finishing Move. Instead of exhausting a character to KO a stunned character you get the ongoing effect of KOing a ready character you control to KO another stunned character. Very nice for getting rid of those team members that have outlived their usefulness. Glory Hound is a very interesting card. Having the ability to have some kind of control over the way your opponent attacks is cool, even if it only affects team attacks. The replacement effect is secondary, but it’s a nice option to have. Go In Swinging should be a staple in every kind of X-Statix deck. Who cares if your other characters can’t attack this turn, you should only have one anyway and not getting stunned while attacking is a big thing. Grandstanding can potentially make your little guys freakin’ huge. Team attack with Coach and Sluk, then play Grandstanding and stun Coach for the cost and then your turn 3 Sluk just became am 11/11 character ready to take down your opponents 5 drop. Remember though, this is still considered a team attack even though there is only one character attacking and that character will cause no breakthrough endurance loss. Mind Over Matter is another support card that lets you get your own peeps off the field in exchange for something juicy. Return a character you control (ready, exhausted, or stunned) to your hand to get +3 attack, flight and range for the whole turn. It’s so good to be able to make use of that character you just attacked with that got stunned in return to give a helping hand to the next batter. Missed Drop is another defense boosting card that can come in handy but may also decimate your hand. Drop any number of character cards to get +1 DEF this attack for each card discarded. Bad hand management does not come at my recommendation. Nerve Strike is one I’ve never tried out, in fact it’s one I’ll probably never be to keen on playing. Returning a non-stunned character to your hand just to give someone else +2/+2 just doesn’t give a big enough boost for my money. All it would take is one extra Flying Kick or something along those lines and you returned a character to your hand for nothing. Granted with a Café in play that becomes a 4/4 boost if things go well. Never Give Up! is a good motto for this team because even when the rest of the team is dead, the last member will fight until the end. While this is a descent card in its own right it is a team-up exclusive so it will not be considered today. Overexposed tries to make good use of this team’s 6 concealed characters. There in lies the problem, we only have 6 concealed characters and with the exception of Doop (8) and Corkscrew none of them were really designed to attack. Of course you don’t have to play this on your own concealed character, though it does make sense if you can to get the +3 attack boost. The card only states that you have to control an X-Statix character to pull a character out of the hidden zone. You can rip out your opponents’ too. number of characters you control with a higher cost than your defender. Supporting Role is yet another defensive card that gives you +X Def where X equals the number of characters you control with a higher cost than your defender. This is far too situational to be used in any build of mine so we’re going to have to exclude this card from consideration. Spin Doctoring actually makes it a good idea to try to get stunned while attacking. You see, by discarding any card from your hand you can recover and ready a character you control so long as it’s the only character you control. That character won’t cause breakthrough anymore but it can still rid your opponent’s field of their pesky characters. This card can also be used defensively. Did the guy you’re playing find a way to stun your 18/18 Anarchist? Is he about to smack you for a whole bunch of direct endurance loss? Play a Spin Doctoring to change his mind. I guarantee you that if he found a way to bring him down once, it will not happen twice. Star Of The Show really is the star of this show. This card is so amazing it’s not even fair. Just discard an X character card and your lone soldier cannot be the target of any effects your opponent controls. Finishing Move? Nope. Lady Shiva? Nope. War Wagon? Nope. You get the point. This shuts down so many cards out there I can’t even think of all of them. There’s always a weakness to everything though, right? Puppet Master’s effect will not be stopped by this card and will probably ruin your day if you run into him. Hope you’re all playing in the Modern Age format.
There’s only one equipment for the team in the form of Doop Cam. It makes all characters on the field into X-Statix characters, but since all we’re dealing with is X characters we don’t need this.
I guess after all that pointless babbling it’s about time for a deck list, eh? So without further adieu I give you the ‘One Man Show”….
Characters: 35 4x Phat 4x El Guapo 4x Bloke 2x Vivisector – Miles Alfred 2x Orphan – Guy Smith 2x Plasm 4x The Spike 1x U-Go-Girl – Tragic Teleporter 2x Vivisector – Lunatic Lycanthrope 3x Anarchist – Tike Alicar 4x Zeitgeist 2x Anarchist – Man of the People 1x Doop – Ultimate Weapon
Plot Twists: 18 4x Dead Weight 4x Go In Swinging 2x Mind Over Matter 4x Spin Doctoring 4x Star of the Show
Locations: 7 4x X-Statix Café 3x X-Statix HQ
Now remember folks this is the exact deck I play. I’d prefer if you didn’t copy it exactly, but if you can’t resist trying it out as is, at least give me the credit and don’t call it your own.
This will be a quick rundown of how the game should play out from your side only. On the first turn it’s best to play El Guapo, resist the urge at any cost to play Phat here, you’re going to need him later. Turn two is designed solely for Bloke to show his stuff. If you have El Guapo on the field you’ve got a nice big 4/4 hitter or defender here. Turn three is a perfect opportunity to drop a boosted Phat. It can also be a good time to play Orphan here if you’ve missed any of your previous two characters. Use a Dead Weight on him if he’s the defender and you’ve got a 6/10 character for the turn. Turn four is The Spike’s turn to shine if you’ve hit your curve correctly, if not, recruit nothing and flip a Café so Orphan will be a 9/8, more than respectable for turn 4. Turn five is meant for the Anarchist, but Vivisector or a boosted Phat will do if you’re in a pinch. Six is where Zeitgeist gets his shot to be #1. By now you should have a HQ at your disposal so use it to clear your board some and gain some life back. Seven should be Anarchist again or another Zeitgeist perhaps, if you do not control the initiative. Eight will be Doop and should be the end of the game for your opponent, but if Doop doesn’t show up in time or he ended up in your resource row somehow, the level five Vivisector boosted is a great option, Plasm would work well too if your opponent had a character with a low enough defense.
The best bet with this team, while playing them or playing against them is to expect the unexpected. If there’s enough interest in it, I do have a very different, very defensive X-Statix build that I am willing to share with you all.
Also please send me all of your X-builds, I’d love to see what other people are doing differently than myself.
I guess that’s about all for this round. ♪Happy trails to you, until we meet again♪ Tom
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