So, story time. Spider-Man got me into this game, and after playing a few different SF decks, I've grown fond of stall-themed ones. This grew to include Heralds, Inhumans and most notably as of late the Illuminati. So as I'm getting ready for VS Worlds at Origins, and I'm looking at all the decks that could stall, Illuminati stands out like a beacon. I go to the light. I miss out on day 2 going 3-4. But, I wondered, what went wrong with them? I was getting pounded by mkko, disrupted by fan4, and PA'd by everything else. It was as if playing with the Infinity Gauntlet wasn't worth it anymore.
The time rolls around to get ready for Gencon. As I'm scrolling through the list of events, I see Silver age is up on Thursday. While waiting in between rounds during the MUN Seal
ed, I saw some of the Origins SA going on and saw Moloids did ridiculously good. My testing gauntlet included that, and I figured the safest and most me-ish of me would be to run SF Stall. So I search through OCTGN and pull out my latest SA list of SF and put it into a sticky note (I love that application, seriously.). Lazy me, my Illuminati list was still up in a sticky and I saw it as I was pasting the SF list in. It got me thinking. Hey ... they both stall ... Illuminati failed to stop the beats for me at Worlds, maybe they can get some Sensational aid. That's all it was at first, 8 slots. Sensational and Giftwrapped. As I was making the space for them, some of the illuminati tricks, like the 100 ideas and the infinity gauntlet, didn't seem as important as when the deck was mono-Illuminati. From there, I flat-out mesh them together and here's what came out of the melting pot:---------------------------------------------------
SF Illuminati, vsrealms event
Characters: 25
4 Professor X, Mutant Benefactor
3 Aunt May™ ~ Golden Oldie
4 Black Bolt, Enemy Within
3 Black Cat™ ~ Nine Lives
1 Dr. Strange, secret avenger
1 Mr. Fantastic, Protector of the Power Gem
1 Sub-Mariner, Protector of the Time Gem
1 Black Bolt, Protector of the Space Gem
2 Spider-Man™ ~ The Sensational Spider-Man
1 Iron Man, Protector of the Reality Gem
1 Human Torch, Herald
1 Spider-Man™ ~ Stark's Protégé
1 The Sentry, Mighty Avenger
1 Galactus
Plots: 31
2 Waking the Ancestors
4 Clandestine Operations
4 Gift Wrapped
2 Pathetic Attempt
4 Mobilize
3 Omnipotence
4 Secret Government
3 The Elektra Situation
4 Underground Movement, Team-Up
1 Call in a Favor
Locations: 4
4 Empire State University
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In hindsight, I'd add more Sensationals, take out an aunt may and I'd try out Human Torch (the MEX SF one) like what TDB has.
That said, the deck is rather fluid. You can play Black Cat on 2 or 3, and you have the first 3 turns to get 2 members of the illuminati online for Clandestine Ops. Even then if you miss that on 3, turn 4 you have Sensational and if you've got a giftwrapped then that does the same thing and you get an extra turn to try to get clandestine ops up. It's got the standard mobilize/UM interaction to hit my lategame, and that's enhanced by SF's awesome draw engine. If need be Sub-Mariner 3 can dig me back a ditched card, so hitting turn 1 prof or black bolt turn 2 black cat turn 3 sub mariner is pretty much as good as it gets. Iron Man is a reusable GW on a stick. Invisible Man worked for Brian, and he saves me a slot that PA would've otherwise taken. In initial testing I used Mr. Freeze (the remove 10 cards to lock everyone down Inhumans style), but it didn't work too well; I wasn't dumping enough cards to use it consistantly.
That's it. Maybe next time there'll be a tournament report, but I've really got to get moving on.
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AVENGERS BYOT
Now, I haven't been to a BYOT. Nope, I missed out on mine since I was working. But here's what I was thinking of doing: Using leaders, Spider-Man, secret avenger, and the team attacker tricks, I figured I could beat-stall pretty well. I didn't want to do clones, mostly because that's what the guys were expecting. The deck is very casual at this point, but here goes:
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Characters 32
1 Natasha Romanoff MAV
4 Wasp MAV
2 Captain America MUN
4 Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger MAV
3 Hawkeye MTU
2 Hawkeye MAV
4 Iron Man, Mighty Avenger MUN
3 Sub-Mariner MXM
1 Spider-Man MUN
1 Wolverine, Secret Avenger MUN
4 Captain America, Super Soldier MAV
1 Luke Cage MUN
1 Hercules MAV
1 Spider-Man MTU
Plots 28
3 Legendary Battles
4 Savage Beatdown
4 Avengers Assemble!
1 Call in a Favor
1 Mobilize
3 Gift-wrapped
4 Carrying the Torch
2 Big Leagues
3 Switching Sides
3 Stars and Stripes
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I'm sure you guys have plenty of questions, and hopefully most of them will be answered by this: I don't own 4 copies of every card ever (yet). Next, Avengers Assemble! plus stars and stripes plys carrying the torch is awesome. CtT works with Spider-Man so that anyone can use Giftwrapped. It even lets me break uniqueness so I can have two quicksilvers in play and use legendary battles! If I'm dealing with TNB or an akin rush deck, Hawkeye on 3, CtT then Hawkeye on 4 will clean them up pretty good. Iron Man + stars and stripes can recover my entire board. Switching sides is brutal, but I'm not sure if it's a 4-of. Either way, in 7 boxes I've only gotten 3 copies, go figure =/
So yeah, this section is rather brief but if you're going to the Battle of the Border, maybe you'll see a variant of this there.
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This final part of the entry is going to be about you. Whether it's your vsrealms s/n, your real name, both work just fine. If you had 30 character versions in vs, what would your version be?
Examples might be student, father, cubicle worker.
Or they might be Exiled, Heric effort, new perspective.
Here's my list:
Carbonized Crimefighter
Forum Fever
student
devoted son
new perspective
blog-o-rific
Ya-tah!
barista
beacon
*caffeine addict
pro circuit competitor
jank magician
that's what she segued
Heroes fan
army (WHAT!???)
Spider-Friendly
WAWA
positive thinker
Res Life
*Tennis Coach
United we stand
college bound
proactive
disciple
crisis intervention
English Invasion
king me
mediator
abudiabudai
full circle
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There. That wasn't so hard. Now you try. You don't have to do 30, and you don't have to type them up. Sometimes it might just be enough to reflect on who you are through some vs cardboard.
'Till next time gang,
- Alex "Orange Soda Man" Lloyd
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