Unleash This! #7; Name this Deck

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Wow, what a crazy couple weeks it's been huh? I hope you all had a fantastic holiday with family, friends/equivalent.

I'm back after doing the tango on my school finals and the Christmas retail rush seems to have died down, I now have some decent energy to put into some hopefuly entertaining literature (would I call this stuff literature? no. But I work at a book store and as such I'm required by law to use big words =/)
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And that brings us to this week's entry. I was playing some MEV sealed with some of the BotB participants a couple weeks ago, and two cards popped out in my matches as performing rather stellar: Alex Wilder and Random, Alex. Jeremy "Sheye" on the realms joked that I should make a deck whose theme was that all the cards shared my first name -> well without further delay, here we go!

We know we need Alex Wilder and Random, Alex in the deck for thematic purposes. Luckily, their drops don't conflict. Although, there isn't too much synergy between the two. We might have to go into Golden Age to make this work, but that said I want this to "feel" like a modern age deck ... let's see what this gets us
+ 4x Alex Wilder, Child Prodigy
+ 4x Random, Alex

Who else is named Alex? After doing a quick search on Marvel.com, DC and wiki, we've got Havok and Alexander Luthor to add to our arsenal of vs cardboard. So, now we're up to 4 affiliations. Great. Lucky for us though, Villains United are very good at teaming up. Not only that but they even have a searcher whose name is Alex!
+4 Alexander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger
+1 Alexander Luthor, Insidious Impostor
+3 Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double
(Are you loving the alliteration these 3 Alex cards? I am.)

Let's talk about Havok. After doing some research [read: reading parts of a wiki article], Alex Summers is a pretty deep fella'. He's played many roles in his various teams, ranging from the Living Pharoh's play toy to the leader of X-Factor. Did some traveling with Wolverine, fought some terrorists in Mexico, and had a thing for Polaris.

While the most vs-scene impact Havok gave us was his 4-drop from MXM, unfortunately Havok, Critical Mass won't be making the list today. While GA cards are fine, putting him in would feel too golden and would stray away from the Modern feel I want the deck to have.
+2 Havok, Age of Apocalypse
+3 Havok, Mutant X
+2 Havok, Proud Son

And what would having Havok in mean without having his brother*?
+1 Cyclops, Mutant Messiah

While looking around at some other Alex lore, I found this. We got a Sentinel O*N*E* in MUN, but this deck is pretty stretched as far as affiliations go already. Instead, let's add Valerie Cooper to the deck. She's got some background in the O*N*E* program, or at least her flavor text says she does. Also, she's X-Factor. That'll be important later.
+ 4 Valerie Cooper
+2 Layla Miller (if you combine letters from her name and the "X" from X-Factor you can spell Alex. It's the truth.)

So before we leave the character discussion, we need some 3-drops. Well, with so many low cost dudes that are important, we might have to play dr. Light, Furious Flashpoint. What's cool about him is if you can recover from playing Alexander Luthor 1 on turn 2, fetching Flashpoint, and vengeance-trigger bring in Alex Wilder on 3. It gives you a ton of breathing space for recruitment, getting bodies on the board. This build is starting to seem a little character-heavy ... might need to do some cutting as we get further along.
+4 Dr. Light, Furious Flashpoint
+1 Dr. Polaris
+1 Riptide

So how are we doing?

4 Valerie Cooper
2 Layla Miller
4 Alexander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger
4 Alex Wilder, Child Prodigy
2 Havok, Age of Apocalypse
4 Dr. Light, Furious Flashpoint
1 Dr. Polaris
1 Riptide
1 Alexander Luthor, Insidious Impostor
4 Random, Alex
3 Havok, Mutant X
3 Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double
2 Havok, Proud Son
1 Cyclops, Mutant Messiah

38 characters! That's a little heavy, we'll have to do some cutting. But that'll wait until we're done with the plot twists.

Mutant Town Messiah: I like it. possible double-usage from Alex Wilder early on if teamed up, multiple uses of Random is good to preserve board going into the following turn. Making sure Random is the defender could be tough though ...

Underground movement: ding ding

Government Sponsored: Hm maybe there's something to this character-heavy deck thing. But with so many team-ups, we're not going to have too many tricks. Also, don't forget to team-up X-Factor and Runaways, otherwise Alex won't let you use his power.

Join us or Die: a bizarre move could be to force your opponent to only have one legal target to attack. lolol. Oh ... there's also the interaction with Dr. Light. Hey, that could be good.

So if I max those cards out, I have 6 slots left. Let's go with ... 3x Coercion and 3x Mobilize. Mobi might not be a 4x just because we have insane card draw/rally with Alex Wilder, Valerie Cooper, lexi and Government Sponsored, plus Dr. Light, our main turn 3 play, is searchable via Alexander Luthor. It's also worth noting that there are 17 characters that Valerie can hit in the deck.

Final List: Alex.dec

4 Valerie Cooper
2 Layla Miller
4 Alexander Luthor, Duplicitous Doppelganger
4 Alex Wilder, Child Prodigy
2 Havok, Age of Apocalypse
4 Dr. Light, Furious Flashpoint
1 Dr. Polaris
1 Riptide
1 Alexander Luthor, Insidious Impostor
4 Random, Alex
3 Havok, Mutant X
3 Alexander Luthor, Diabolical Double
2 Havok, Proud Son
1 Cyclops, Mutant Messiah

4 Mutant Town Messiah
4 Underground Movement
4 Government Sponsored
4 Join us or Die
3 Mobilize
3 Coercion

So there you have it! Version 1.0 of Alex.dec!**
























If your name is also Alex, I highly suggest you give this deck a spin and tell me what you think. To everyone else ... be sure to try making your own name.dec. Something truly chaotic and enjoyable might come out of it.
- Alex "OSM" Lloyd

* I'd add the other brother to this list, but Vulcan sucks. lol.
** I've never felt so good about a deck that has 10 1-drops and 11 team-ups in it ... ever.