10.04.04 

Hey all, and welcome back to the VS Deck Garage! I’m having a blast playing with the new Web of Spider-Man cards (Go X-Men! You finally have good 4- and 5-Drops!), and I hope you are, too. In fact, I know some of you are, because this week’s contributor, Brian, submitted his deck based around abusing the Scarlet Spider.

Brian wrote…

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Hi Paul, when I saw the "Scarlet Spider, Ben Riley" at the pre-release I wanted to make a deck around getting out lots of SpiderMans and beating my helpless opponent senseless. The deck has changed since then because most of the people in my area play really fast decks either new brotherhood or sentinel and well it just dosent match up money is kind of tight notice the 2 savage beatdowns not 4 but I will do my best to get anything you say I just want to beat somebody bad and rub it in there face for once.

4 Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly
4 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
3 Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote
1 Spider-Man, Cosmic Spider-Man
1 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
4 Solo, James Bourne
3 Nova, Richard Rider
4 Black Cat, Master Thief
2 Ezekiel, Spirit of the Spider
2 Firestar, Hot Stuff
3 Human Torch, Friendly Rival
4 Mary Jane Watson, MJ
1 Prodigy, Richie Gilmore
3 Rocket Racer, Robert Farrell
3 Will O' The Wisp, Jackson Arvad
2 Costume Change
3 Going My Way?
3 Midtown High School
3 My Hero
4 Mega Blast
2 Savage Beatdown
2 Have a Blast

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The first thing I would recommend for Brian is to lower the number of characters hanging out in his deck. Right now, he has a whopping 42 dudes, when all he really needs is between 30 and 35. Thus, the first thing I’ll be doing is dropping some of the dead weight.

Unless you are running Sentinels, then all you really need is four 1-Drops at most. Doom has Boris, Gotham Knights have Alfred, and Sentinels have Longshot. Other than that, many decks don’t even need 1-Drops at all! I think this statement is true for Brian’s deck, since neither card really contributes to the win as much as cards like those listed above, or even Vulture or Destiny.

-4 Mary Jane Watson, MJ
-3 Rocket Racer, Robert Farrell

I’m not sure I like Solo too much. Yes, he comes fully equipped with a 4 ATK, but his 1 DEF means he is a *huge* liability throughout the game. Instead, why don’t we put in Jessica Drew * Spider-Woman, Venom Blast? She’ll help pump Black Cat, the other 2-Drop in the deck, and she has evasion, meaning more likelihood of her hanging around for the long-haul.

-1 Black Cat, Master Thief
-4 Solo, James Bourne
+3 Jessica Drew * Spider-Woman, Venom Blast

You’ll notice that, as compared to many other decks, Spider-Friends tend to be slightly small. It isn’t Doom small, but they don’t compare to the likes of Fantastic Four and X-Men when it comes to the early game. However, Web of Spider-Man introduced an equalizer that prevents these characters from bullying the Spider-Friends: Prodigy. A 4/4 for 3 isn’t too much to be impressed with, but with Prodigy on board, many opponents will have to think twice about swinging into the lower-cost characters on Brian’s board. The point I am trying to get at (in a long, drawn-out way) is “play more Prodigy”.

+2 Prodigy, Richie Gilmore

I am definitely in favor of Will O’ the Wisp continuing his run in Brian’s deck, but I think he needs a partner for the 4-Drop slot. Checking out the abundance of characters from Spider-Friends that cost four resource points, I narrowed it down to either Puma or Punisher. Puma offers a large body and an ability to bail on combat if it goes poorly, while Punisher allows Brian to rid the world of troublesome characters. In the end, I think Punisher provides a larger benefit at the cost of his DEF.

+3 Punisher, Vigilante

Next, we hit the 5-Drop slots, which is where we’ll be trimming a bit of the fat. Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote fits perfectly with the theme of this deck, so why don’t we up the count on him to four. Brian probably doesn’t need eight 5-Drops, so we have to decide between Firestar, Human Torch, and Daredevil. Looking at Brian’s original request for deck help, I saw that The New Brotherhood and Sentinels were running rampant in his area, making this choice easy: Firestar. Brian already has these in the deck, so it is just a matter of releasing the Torch from his service.

-3 Human Torch, Friendly Rival
+1 Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote

A centerpiece to this deck, Scarlet Spider has to stay, and he really needs to occupy four slots. I’m not sure any more 6-Drops are necessary. By this point in the game, Brian will either a) likely have drawn a second, or b) no longer need his effect. Either way, it enables him to simply drop Ben Reilly into play. Anything else is eating space.

-3 Nova, Richard Rider

I’m not sure how I feel about Ezekiel being in Brian’s deck. At first glance, Ezekiel is a vastly superior character to the Amazing Spider-Man, as each time he lands, Brian will likely draw three or more cards. However, this is a Spider-Man deck built around abusing the Scarlet Spider, so shouldn’t Ezekiel take a backseat? In the end, I opted to leave the 7-Drops as they were, but reluctantly. Brian: if you don’t seem to be drawing enough Spider-Men, Ezekiel should be the first to go.

Now we have whittled the character count from 42 to 35, and the characters are of slightly better quality. Let’s turn our attention to the Plot Twists, Locations, and (possibly) Equipment.

The first thing I noticed when looking at Brian’s deck was a severe lack of Spider-Senses! If Acrobatic Dodge is insanely good, aren’t Senses better? As far as I’m concerned, every Spider-Friends deck should run at least three, if not four, of these.

+4 Spider-Senses

I’m also a huge fan of Nice Try!, which allows Spider-Friends to cause a lot of havoc against decks like Teen Titans. Adding Nice Try! will also allow Brian to power-up and Savage Beatdown and Mega-Blast his characters as large as he wants, since Overload won’t be able to touch them.

+3 Nice Try!

I have absolutely no complaint about Savage Beatdown, but I’m not so sure about Mega Blast. It seems like Flying Kick is still a better call, if only because you don’t give away that you have it by the way you arrange your characters. I’m always amused by seeing a Sabretooth, Feral Rage on the Support Row when his controller has initiative. He might as well flip the card over right then and there.

-4 Mega-Blast
+4 Flying Kick

I’m not so sure that Brian should be playing Going My Way?, if only on the grounds that I don’t like playing Danger Room. It doesn’t seem like it provides enough benefit for the slot it eats up.

-3 Going My Way?

My Hero seems to be another card that just doesn’t do enough. I can’t think of any card in Spider-Friends that can stonewall an opponent’s offense. Most characters who have abilities like that which My Hero provides are *big*, like Ubu or Blob. Unfortunately, My Hero doesn’t even stop Fliers from beating down Brian’s Support Row, so I think it is best if we cut the card.

-3 My Hero

I wavered for quite a while on this next card, but I think that, in the end, it is better that it is in the deck: Twist of Fate. Yes, it is possible to miss with this card (though with 35 characters, Brian should hit a lot), but it is really the only worthwhile tutor that Spider-Friends have. I’m putting in three, but if something has to get cut, these are the first.

+3 Twist of Fate

Finally (with regards to Plot Twists, at least), I think this deck can use one more Have a Blast! It isn’t for any particularly great reason; it’s just that good.

+1 Have a Blast!

I don’t think I’m a big fan of Midtown High School, because if all goes well, Brian shouldn’t be able to pay any resource points. Some cards, like Optitron, have great effects for that lost resource point, but I don’t believe drawing a single card makes enough difference.

-3 Midtown High School

The one locations that the Spider-Friends have that I do like, though, is easy to get ahold of: the Daily Bugle. It allows so many goofy combat tricks, and it can’t hurt being able to flip down a Savage Beatdown every once in a while.

+4 Daily Bugle

With this last change, let us look at how Brian’s deck came out…

CHARACTERS (35):
3 Black Cat, Master Thief
3 Jessica Drew * Spider-Woman, Venom Blast
3 Prodigy, Richie Gilmore
4 Spider-Man, Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man
3 Punisher, Vigilante
3 Will O’ The Wisp, Jackson Arvad
2 Firestar, Hot Stuff
3 Human Torch, Friendly Rival
3 Spider-Man, Alien Symbiote
4 Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly
2 Ezekiel, Spirit of the Spider
1 Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man
1 Spider-Man, Cosmic Spider-Man

PLOT TWISTS (21):
2 Costume Change
3 Have a Blast!
4 Flying Kick
3 Nice Try!
2 Savage Beatdown
4 Spider-Senses
3 Twist of Fate

LOCATIONS (4):
4 Daily Bugle

I hope that helps, Brian, and good luck beating down all of those Brotherhood and Sentinel decks in your area.

I’ll see y’all next week!