Let's Fix What We Started

by Scott Gerhardt

            Welcome to article three about playing Marvel.  As I promised in the last article, I wanted to talk a little about constructed play in this article.  I've thought quite a bit about playing in constructed and come up with a few decks.  I want to focus on one particular deck today.  This one is probably the worst deck I've built.  Why is it and why am I talking about it?  Well, it's probably the most realistic deck I've built.

"Scott, now what in the heck do you mean by 'realistic deck'?"

           I mean this is the deck you are most likely to be able to actually build in play.  Let me explain.  As a dealer, one of the comforts I have is that I seldom do not have the cards I need for a deck.  When your job is to sell a wide variety of cards, you have to have a lot.  Along those lines of thinking, I never worry about how expensive a deck gets.  Consequently, most of the decks I have built are chalk full of 4x rares.  In some other games that have been out longer, I might just tell you to suck it up and go get them.  Unfortunately, with Marvel being so new, the singles market has not completely developed yet.  Even dealers like myself are struggling with inventory that more closely resembles a large collection rather than a store inventory.  Sure, we've opened countless boxes, but that doesn't mean you have enough of everything yet.  When a game or set is new, it's easy to sell out of a single fast.  What this whole speech means is that I'm not going to build you a deck you can't find the cards for right now.  Don't worry - I'm not a techmonger.  I will divulge most anything I find and let it be common knowledge.  I just want to wait a little bit and give you a chance to find what you need.

          So after that long speech, where DID I start?  Well, what better place than the Starters.  They give you a couple of 40 card decks that you can start with.  I chose the X-Men deck because I felt it was the weaker deck and thus could use the most help.  So we have the challenge of taking this mediocre 40 card deck and making it a good 60 card deck without spending much money.  We can do this. :)  If you DO want to spend more money, cheap plug:  www.ShuffleAndCut.com. 

         First of all, I added no rares.  None - not a single one.  I will later.  In a couple weeks I will write a follow-up to this article on how to fix this deck by adding rares.  Right now, though, we want something viable, but not expensive.  I also tried to watch my uncommon count.  I took into consideration how important I felt a card was as well as how many the starter gave you to begin with.

        The first place you start is with your Characters.  If you run a base of strong characters, anything up to 3 cards up or down of 50% should be fine.  So you're looking for approximately 27-33 cards.  In constructed, curve is pretty key.  You need a good one or else you're in trouble.  We have some things to try to help us with this, but there isn't too much in this game right now.  Starting in the 1 drop, the answer was easy: Shadowcat.  You don't want very much in the 1 drop slot, and you need what is there to be good.  Shadowcat was simply far superior to Dazzler in this slot.  She works well defensively later too, so she's seldom dead weight.  Moving on to the two slot, two of the best two drops in the game belong to this team.  The two drop Nightcrawler and Bishop are both incredibly good.  Eight people in this slot is barely overkill, but you want to see one on turn 2, so we go with 7.  Give the nod to Bishop based on rarity.  He is more situational, but when he's good, he's ridiculous.  The three slot completely belongs to Wolverine.  He's the best 3 drop in the game potentially and he works amazing in this deck.  In the four slot, I put 6 cards - Jean Grey and Storm.  I like Jean Grey a LOT.  She helps with Resource acceleration and is pretty nice at a 6/8.  Storm has the situational ability of removing flight, and it slightly weaker at a 7/6.  Give the nod to Jean 4-2 on this one.

(Idiot writer errata:  Following my trip to UDE, one of the first things I was told as I went into the door was, "You think Jean Grey works differently than she does."  My apologies to anyone I might have misled with this article.  Jean Grey does not in any way add to resource acceleration as your resource points available for the turn are locked going into the build stage.  Using one, then saccing for another resource will NOT add to the number of resource points you get for the turn.  Sorry.  -Scott)

          At this point, our pickins are starting to get slim.  Then again, you've drawn a lot of cards at this point.  In the five slot, I have 4 of Cyclops.  While I feel the two drop Cyclops is not bad, the two drop slot is pretty well taken.  This one is the best common 5 slot we get get in there.  I could have looked at the 5 drop uncommon Wolverine, but already knowing I was going to play 5 Wolverines, I felt more than that could be bad for synergy.  I didn't put anything else in this slot because a turn 4 Jean Grey very well could cause you to skip this 5 drop all together and go straight to 6.  We don't want too many dead cards.  At the 6 drop is the ever powerful Rogue.  Go get the 4 you need.  I don't feel too bad on her in the uncommon slot.  She's an absolute monster and works quite well with some Plot Twists and Equipment we're going to add later.  Finally in the 7 slot, you opened that Wolverine - play him. :)  He's our  Card ff the Day for today, and he's SICK.  This is why he's rare. :)

      A quick tab has us at 30 Characters - that's perfect!  On to Locations.  On these, don't go overkill.  You can only have one in play at once, so playing 4 seldom does you good.  Danger Room is solid enough - play two of them.  Muir Island is really good.  Being able to trade semi-useless characters in your hand to save one on the board works for me.  Play two of these.  Finally, gaining endurance is all-right.  It can be a nice side strategy for those extra cards, but it's probably not fantastic.  You got one X-Corporation in the starter; we'll leave it in there.

      Equipment is important.  Permanent bonuses it a good thing.  Since we're going mostly commons with some uncommons, you might need some extra firepower.  I've chosen two of my favorite Equipments for this.  Dual Sidearms sometimes seems a little too good for me.  It give +2 ATK AND Range, for the low cost of...zero.  Nil.  Nothin'.  That is what makes it amazing.  It in no way, shape, or form messes with your curve.  Try slapping one of these on your 3-drop Wolverine.  That's fun.  :)  Since it doesn't mess with your curve at all, we'll play 4 - they're always good when you draw them.  Advanced Hardware is very nice, doing everything Dual Sidearms does, plus give it 1 more ATK and the direct endurance loss ability.  It's downfall it costing 1 to play.  That does suck since your curve is so tight.  If you miss your three drop and are force to slap this on a Nightcrawler, though, you're not going to be TOO upset.  Alternately, you can play Jean Gray on turn 4, and use her ability right away to generate 1 more resource that turn - this is a great thing to play with that resource. :)  We'll run 3 since it's not as versatile as Dual Sidearms.

       Finally, we have our Plot Twists.  Now the theme of this deck has been quite aggressive - try to pull off your maximum damage on offense, and starve off your opponent on defense.  Our Plot Twists definitely reflect this theme.  On defense, we have Acrobatic Dodge and Swift Escape.  Dodge takes a bad situation and can often make it a push for you.  You're not interested in stunning on defense - you can do that on offensive.  You want to simply be in a good position going into turns with initiative. Four Dodges help you do that.  Swift Escape helps get a character off the board that maybe you don't want there anymore.  Maybe you got your Wolverine ambushed.  Maybe that Shadowcat has become too much of a liability for you now.  Putting in three of these prevents those nasty little surprises.  On the Offensive side, we have One-Two Punch and Flying Kick - four of them each.  One-Two Punch is great in this deck.  You offense is usually enough to get the job done - you just don't want to get hurt back.  That 2 to defense while attacking can be very key.  Sometimes even the plus 1 to ATK can make all the difference.  The Flying Kicks are more for the flight ability.  Sometimes that comes is very handy when you need to hit the back-row in a pinch.  The +3 ATK is definitely nothing to sneeze at either.  When calculating BEL, that +3 can easily be a burn spell.  Our last Plot Twist is FInishing Move.  This card is ridiculously important in a budget deck.  If your opponent gets out a nasty rare that you have to double or triple team to stun, you do NOT want it coming back.  It works well early as well to keep momentum going on your side.

So our final deck is:

4 Shadowcat
3 Nightcrawler (2 drop)
4 Bishop
4 Wolverine (3 drop)
4 Jean Gray (4 drop)
2 Storm (4 drop)
4 Cyclops (5 drop)
4 Rogue (6 drop)
1 Wolverine (7 drop)

2 Danger Room
2 Muir Island
1 X-Corporation

3 Advanced Hardware
4 Dual Sidearms

4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 One-Two Punch
4 Finishing Move
3 Swift Escape
4 Flying Kick

       This is a deck that should not be too hard to put together, but is fiercely competative against most any casual deck.  I can't say it's high-level tournament worthy...yet. :)  We'll work on that more in a few weeks when I discuss this deck some more, and maybe a couple others I've been working on .

     Until then, keep playing!