VS Deck Garage
Sinister Syndicate deck
by Paul Hagan

07.04.04  Hey folks, and welcome to another edition of the VS Deck Garage. What’s a deck garage, you might ask? It’s where you send in *your* deck that you think could be better, and I fix it up for you – free of charge! If you’d like to see your deck in the VS Deck Garage, drop me an e-mail at Hagan0001@aol.com, and I should be back with you within a couple of days.

Last week, I posted up an article around fixing a Spider-Friends deck. Not ten minutes after I had sent the final copy off (making it soon-to-be, but-not-yet-posted-on-Pojo), I received an e-mail requesting help for a Sinister Syndicate deck. I had to take this as a sign that I was to do a Syndicate deck for this week, so…here we are.

The Syndicate deck we will be reviewing was sent in by Deviaan, who requested that I keep it fairly low-budget, as some of the rare cards that would find their way into many decks (i.e., Savage Beatdown) are unavailable to him. Here is what Deviaan submitted:

CHARACTERS (24):
4 Vulture, Adrian Toomes
4 Electro, Maxwell Dillon
4 Rhino, Alex O’Hirn
2 Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavius
3 Kraven the Hunter, Sergie Kranieff
2 Green Goblin, Norman Osborn
3 Venom, Eddie Brock
2 Doctor Octopus, Doc Ock

PLOT TWISTS (16):
4 Crushing Blow
4 No Fear
4 Sadistic Choice
4 Sinister Salvo

LOCATIONS (8):
4 Doc Ock’s Lab
4 Osborn Industries

EQUIPMENT (12):
4 Advanced Hardware
4 Jetpack
4 Kevlar Body Armor

As usual, I will start off by saying…

WHAT LOOKS RIGHT:

A lot of people tend to bash Vulture for some reason, but Deviaan seems pretty bright, as he is packing the full amount. Also, he has a firm grasp on the fact that he would like to strive to just beat his opponent in the face early and follow through with a more control-oriented game plan. I am also incredibly happy that Lizard didn’t make the cut into Deviaan’s deck; that guy is horrible!

WHAT NEEDS FIXIN’:

The biggest problem that jumps out at me when I browse the decklist is that Deviaan has *way too much* equipment and not quite enough in the way of characters. In my opinion, unless you are running a Fantastic Four Equipment deck, you really shouldn’t have more than six or eight pieces of equipment, and even that is a bit heavy.

HOW WE DO IT:

Instead of working from characters down, I think we can go for a change of pace and start with cutting the equipment. As Deviaan wants to drop a character almost every turn, the equipment that costs one resource point or higher must go:

-4 Advanced Hardware
-4 Kevlar Body Armor

As much as I don’t normally care too much about running Jetpack over Dual Sidearms, I think that Deviaan’s deck must have the ranged aspect. He only has two characters with range, and with a limited card pool, it seems like Range is just better.

-4 Jetpack
+4 Dual Sidearms

In locations, I’m kinda diggin’ both locations, but Deviaan definitely doesn’t need to have a full set of both. Instead, I would recommend three of each (both are worth seeing almost every game) and adding in Base of Operations.

-1 Doc Ock’s Lab
-1 Osborn Industries
+2 Base of Operations

Deviaan’s Plot Twists are next on the agenda, and a lot of cuts are about to hit. Personally, I don’t like Sinister Salvo; it seems like a glorified Surprise Attack with a mediocre ability attached. Crushing Blow is limited in nature, making it not worth any slots, and No Fear is the same way.

-4 Crushing Blow
-4 No Fear
-4 Sinister Salvo

As I have taken out ATK and DEF enhancements, I should put more in, right? Flying Kick is still a great choice for any deck, and Acrobatic Dodge seems like it is almost everywhere (and for good reason). As always, Burn Rubber seems like a good call.

+4 Flying Kick
+4 Acrobatic Dodge
+2 Burn Rubber

Next, with New Brotherhood and Lost Brotherhood running rampant across the tournament scene, the “tech” card of the month seems to be Overload. Never one to ignore the metagame, I think it would be wise to add a couple to Deviaan’s deck.

+2 Overload

Finally, we reach characters. As I said earlier, the Vulture is an extremely good card, so I am thankful Deviaan has four of them in the deck. I’m not a huge fan of Electro due to his very limited ability; however, with no other 2-Drop in Sinister Syndicate available, I guess he has to eat up a few slots. The deck still requires a few extra two-drops. Electro can help Vulture break through, but only during Deviaan’s attack step, so what will Deviaan do when the initiative is his opponents’? Puppet Master seems like the obvious choice, so…

+3 Puppet Master, Philip Masters

Rhino is obviously a decent 3-Drop for the Syndicate, but Deviaan could use a few more 3-Drops. On the grounds of her being a generally good character, I think Rogue, Anna Raven should go ahead and fill the 3-Drop slots…

+3 Rogue, Anna Raven

Just because I’m not a huge fan of Kraven the Hunter, why don’t we go ahead and switch one of him to an extra Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavius.

-1 Kraven the Hunter, Sergie Kranieff
+1 Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavius

We still have a few extra slots, and I think it would be appropriate to add them in the 5-Drop slots. The Green Goblin is an obscenely good card (and my personal favorite in the Spider-Man vs. Doc Ock starters), so…

+2 Green Goblin, Norman Osborn

The remainder of the characters (6- and 7-Drops) are fine as is. Here is the final fixed decklist for Deviaan:

CHARACTERS (32):
4 Vulture, Adrian Toomes
4 Electro, Maxwell Dillon
3 Puppet Master, Philip Masters
4 Rhino, Alex O’Hirn
3 Doctor Octopus, Otto Octavius
3 Kraven the Hunter, Sergie Kranieff
4 Green Goblin, Norman Osborn
3 Venom, Eddie Brock
2 Doctor Octopus, Doc Ock

PLOT TWISTS (16):
4 Acrobatic Dodge
2 Burn Rubber
4 Flying Kick
2 Overload
4 Sinister Salvo

LOCATIONS (8):
2 Base of Operations
3 Doc Ock’s Lab
3 Osborn Industries

EQUIPMENT (4):
4 Dual Sidearms

Hopefully, this decklist will help Deviaan to start layin’ beats in his area.

I guess that about wraps up this edition of VS Deck Garage. I hope y’all enjoyed it! Again, if you want to see your deck in the VS Deck Garage, drop me an e-mail at Hagan0001@aol.com and I will get back to you.

Happy gaming.

-Paul Hagan

 

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