VS Deck Garage
The Doom Army
by Paul Hagan

05.17.04  Hey all, and welcome to another edition of VS Deck Garage! I’m Paul Hagan, and I’m here to fix your decks. If you’d like your deck in the VS Deck Garage, drop me an e-mail at Hagan0001@aol.com  and I’ll get back with you. Just make sure to include everything you think I need to know, like what cards you want to keep, which cards you can’t get a hold of, and if the deck is meant for tournaments or casual.

Before we get started, I’ve gotten a few questions regarding last week’s Deck Garage and what I would suggest if Casey had access to the full amount of Sabretooth, Feral Rage, Savage Beatdown, and Genosha. I won’t bore y’all with excessive explanation on that, but the decklist would look like this:

CHARACTERS (35):
4 Destiny, Irene Adler
4 Phantazia, Eileen Harsaw
4 Pyro, St. John Allerdyce
4 Avalanche, Dominic Petros
2 Toad, Mortimer Toynbee
3 Rogue, Anna Raven
3 Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt
2 Mystique, Raven Darkholme
2 Blob, Fred Dukes
4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage
3 Quicksilver, Speed Demon

PLOT TWISTS (17):
2 Foiled
4 Ka-Boom!
4 Savage Beatdown
4 The New Brotherhood
3 War on Humanity

LOCATIONS (8):
4 Genosha
4 Savage Land

The changes wind up losing a single character (Toad, Mortimer Toynbee x1), but adding four Genosha for card draw should make up for the loss. A pair of Sabretooth, Feral Rage has replaced a pair of Blob, Fred Dukes, and the Flying Kicks were cut in favor of the somewhat stronger Savage Beatdown. Hope that satisfies everyone’s curiosity!

THIS WEEK: THE DOOM ARMY

The deck up for fixin’ this week is from Joshua, who has been working to get his Doom deck up to par with decks like the New Brotherhood (see last week) and Fantastic Toys (Fantastic Four utilizing Antarctic Research Base and Equipment). Here is Joshua’s current decklist:

CHARACTERS (29):
4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
3 Tibetan Monks, Army
3 Robot Sentry, Army
2 Kristoff Von Doom, the Boy Who Would Be Doom
4 Doom-Bot, Army
4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
2 Dragon Man, Experimental Monster
2 Robot Destroyer, Army
3 Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
1 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1 Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria

PLOT TWISTS (27):
2 Acrobatic Dodge
2 Blind Sided
2 Burn Rubber
4 Faces of Doom
2 Flying Kick
2 Finishing Move
4 Micro-Size
2 Mystical Paralysis
1 Overload
1 Power Cosmic
2 Reconstruction Program
2 Reign of Terror
1 Relocation

LOCATIONS (6):
4 Doomstadt
2 Doom’s Throne Room

Joshua’s current strategy is to take the even-numbered turns and make good use of the uber-powerful Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius and its two almost-as-good counterparts, Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom and Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria. He backs this power up with a variety of good plot twists (made more accessible by Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom) and solid characters like Robot Destroyer and Sub-Mariner.

WHAT LOOKS RIGHT:

As Joshua pointed out in his e-mail, the deck already has a good mix of characters, plot twists, and locations. He seems like he has a good idea of who the good Doom characters are and those that are sub-par or can’t be fit, such Titania, Mary MacPherran. Likewise, he has a set of the really important Plot Twists for Doom, namely Micro-Size and Faces of Doom, hanging out in the deck, which is a great start.

WHAT NEEDS FIXIN’

Looking at Joshua’s build, I notice he has 62 cards, which can probably be cut down to 60 for better consistency. The character count can also probably stand to go up a little bit, somewhere around 31 or 32. The mix of characters can only stand a slight bit of adjusting as well to help maintain consistency and keep the quality up to par with opponents. Finally, some of the plot twists aren’t as useful as what they could be, so we’ll adjust that slightly.

HOW WE DO IT:

Joshua’s deck is really centered on making good use of the quality Doom characters mixed with a variety of plot twists to enable Joshua to overpower his opponents – though I shouldn’t say Overpower around Marvel games – and keep his characters up and around at the same time. I’d like to focus on using the mass amounts of Army characters available to Doom to make up in quantity what Doom can lack in quality. Although the deck will still utilize Dr. Doom, Boris, and others, wherever available, Army characters will be subbed in.

Before going further, though, I probably need to address the topic of Toolbox Doom. For those of you unaware of what this means, “toolbox” is a deck filled with 1-ofs and a way to search for them. That way, whenever a problem arises, you can search down the answer for it (out of your toolbox) and fix the problem. Although some feel Doom should be built this way, others do not. Joshua has requested I stay away from this build of Doom, so I will as much as possible.

Joshua also mentioned that Ka-Boom! is a popular card in his area (as it is in many!) and he doesn’t think that Latveria is very effective. It more often serves as a target rather than a resource. Thus, Joshua has opted to go with a more aggressive and less controlling version of Doom.

CHARACTER CHANGES:

Unless you are running a horde / weenie strategy, I really wouldn’t run more than four 1-Drops. With this in mind while looking at Doom’s 1-Drops, there really is only one character that fits this build of Doom: Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom. We’ll keep the set that is in the deck, but unfortunately, this means that the Monks must go:

-3 Tibetan Monks, Army

As I said earlier, I think Joshua would benefit from focusing on an Army strategy where possible. Thus, Kristoff Von Doom warrants an extra slot or two within the deck. Also, I’ve added in a fourth Robot Sentry just to help round out the 2-Drops:

+1 Kristoff Von Doom, the Boy Who Would Be Doom
+1 Robot Sentry, Army

Joshua mentioned in his e-mail that he was considering cutting Dragon Man, Experimental Monster in favor of more Robot Destroyer, and I think he’s right. Although Dragon Man is a solid 5-Drop, Robot Destroyer benefits more from what we are trying to do, and it helps against problematic characters, like Sabretooth, Feral Rage or Sentinel, Mark IV.

-2 Dragon Man, Experimental Monster
+2 Robot Destroyer, Army

Doom-Bots were one of the few cards I completely disagreed with in Joshua’s original design. In a game where characters are key, you want to keep as many of your good characters in play at a time and keep them busy doing damage. Doom-Bots just don’t quite fit the bill. However, browsing through the Doom character list, Robot Seeker keeps jumping out at me. The ability to have a made-to-order 6/4 (7/5 with Kristoff Von Doom) against Joshua’s opponent’s biggest threats makes me smile.

-4 Doom-Bot, Army
+4 Robot Seeker

Also, since Joshua *is* utilizing a lot of Plot Twists, meaning face-up resources, Volcana is a very good addition to the character list.

+3 Volcana, Marsha Rosenberg

Yes, I know I said we were going to concentrate on keeping Joshua in an Army state of mind as far as character selection goes, but Volcana really is just too good to pass up.

Honestly, I think the rest of the decklist looks good. I’m still slightly reluctant to cut Tibetan Monks, but in the face of all the other available cards, I think it’s for the best. Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom is a good fit in the 6-Drop slot, and Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom is simply a *house* if you get the drop on your opponent. Finally, I left in the Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria because with cards like Micro-Size and Mystical Paralysis (more on those later), the game has a tendency to drag into turn 8 or later.

The only other card that I feel needs explaining (or more, the lack of the card needs explaining) is Darkoth, Major Desmund Pitt. Yes, I am aware this card is uber-good, but since Joshua wants to hold onto his resources, and since he is using Micro-Size and Mystical Paralysis for character control, I think we can get away with not using him.

PLOT TWIST CHANGES:

The biggest problem that jumps out at me while looking at Joshua’s deck in the way of plot twists is that he is all over the place. He is sitting in no-man’s land between Toolbox and General, and although that’s not necessarily a bad thing, it could warrant some fixin’.

As Joshua requested, I’ve stayed away from the toolbox strategy for the most part, but Boris is too good to pass up, and he allows Joshua to play a few cards that normally might not make the cut, but if he only plays one of them, he should be OK. With the following adjustments, Joshua will be using one copy of the Power Cosmic, Relocation, Blind Sided, and Reign of Terror:

-1 Blind Sided
-1 Reign of Terror

The next step was to weed out the sub-par plot twists. Although some of these may be – in theory – good cards, they just take up too much space.

-2 Burn Rubber
-1 Overload
-2 Reconstruction Program

Next, since Joshua didn’t mention anything about cards being unavailable, I went ahead and cut Flying Kick for its bigger, better brother, Savage Beatdown.

-2 Flying Kick
+4 Savage Beatdown

I also bumped the Acrobatic Dodge count up to three, since Doom’s character selection can be on the small end sometimes and Joshua can use all the help he can get keeping his characters up and running.

+1 Acrobatic Dodge

LOCATION CHANGES:

Simply put, I made none. I think the set of Doomstadt is necessary, even if Ka-Boom! is running rampant in Joshua’s neck of the woods, and Doom’s Throne Room is definitely worth playing in a deck with massive amounts of Plot Twists.

So with these changes, what does the final decklist look like? Read on:

FINAL DECKLIST:

CHARACTERS (31):
4 Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom
3 Kristoff Von Doom, the Boy Who Would Be Doom
4 Robot Sentry, Army
3 Volcana, Marsha Rosenberg
4 Robot Seeker, Army
4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
4 Robot Destroyer, Army
3 Dr. Doom, Victor Von Doom
1 Sub-Mariner, Ally of Doom
1 Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria

PLOT TWISTS (23):
3 Acrobatic Dodge
1 Blind Sided
4 Faces of Doom
2 Finishing Move
4 Micro-Size
2 Mystical Paralysis
1 Power Cosmic
1 Relocation
1 Reign of Terror
4 Savage Beatdown

LOCATIONS (6):
4 Doomstadt
2 Doom’s Throne Room

Now Joshua’s deck should be able to throw down with the metagame decks like New Brotherhood and Fantastic Toys. Hope that helped, Joshua!

I guess that about wraps it up for this edition of VS Deck Garage. If you’d like your deck reviewed, drop me an e-mail at Hagan0001@aol.com and I’ll get back to you.

-Paul Hagan
 

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