In any competitive TCG, the stereotype about rush was about running out of gas. This means anything from board position, hand count, and/or life control. In the beginning of the game, The New Brotherhood’s major turns were the first 4 with Sabretooth as the finisher, but sadly after that it’s a toss-up on whether control or another rush deck beats it instead.

Especially in recent silver events, the front-liner of rush decks is Quicksilver/Syndicate. What defines rush is an extremely potent and damaging early game that most other decks don’t have. Syndicate has really good low drops while offering the Contract as a way to convert the guaranteed endurance lead, while Quicksilver does his job by being the best aggressive 2 drop. However, the deck plays more like a combo in that, getting all 3 pieces (Quick, The Contract, lots of pumps) will beat most decks. However, anything besides that will put the deck in a coin-flip of ‘if it can finish the job before dying to itself.’ This is extremely important in a format where visible 6/6 bodies with possible Fate upgrades and Deadshots are prevalent.

Then PC Indy 2007 introduced something new on many points: 12-Man Quicksilver. Many problems with rush is the curve reach. Quicksilver/Syndicate has an average reach of turn 3-4, then hopes to get one last stun for the win barring rush hate. X-babies rush has reach via Cable as its burn damage allows productive turns on any initiative.

Here’s Tommy Ashton’s list as an example:

Characters
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend
4 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
1 Tonaja
1 Dewoz
1 Karnak
1 Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth

Plot Twists
4 Final Decree
4 Crackshot
4 Flying Kick
4 The Royal Guard
4 Mobilize
4 It’s Slobberin’ Time!
3 Cannibal Tech

Locations
4 The Substructure
4 The Great Refuge
2 New Baxter Building
2 Soul World
4 Blue Area of the Moon

Equipment
1 B.P.R.D. Signal Device
4 Ego Gem


12-Man’s reach is the ability to hit curve…with just 12 guys. Duh. Considering Lockjaw is really more of a turn 1 tutor than an actual drop and Quicksilver an auto-4 of, that’s 4 guys left to hit 3, 4, 5, and 6. The closest thing able to have even close that low of a character count are Checkmate builds. However, Ahmed’s loyalty-reveal restricts the minimum character base to at least 18 if non-mono. A combination of Ego Gem, Final Decree, and two tutors allow the deck to hit curve 2-6 almost as much consistently as Checkmate. Having less characters mean more locations and pumps, which means 12-Man will have an active hand far more times than Quicksilver/Syndicate because of card quality. For each spare Lizard or Lockjaw in the Syndicate’s hand, that would most likely be a pump or tutor in the 12 Man’s.

A second new point was rush reach. The deck does its usual Quicksilver shenanigans on turns 2-3 but after that, the deck switches to a hidden beatdown deck. Tonaja will usually get her counter barring a Skree/Uni-power assault, which means the average board will look like this: Quicksilver, Dewoz, Tonaja+Counter. That gives 2 4-drop atk power and a 2 drop that can attack twice. With the endurance lead Quicksilver usually gives, going all-out concealed won’t be such a problem. Cards such as It’s Slobberin Time and Blue Area of the Moon further emphasizes that lead with one-way stuns that opposing decks really can’t afford. On turn 5. Karnak comes out. With a perfect row, Blue Area lets Karnak become a 9/11 beast. His ability is critical to steal games away on turn 6. Speaking of which, the 6 drop Quicksilver is the saving grace to close up any games. He works extremely well in decks that can keep board advantage easily, which Dewoz provides.

The third point is synergy. There are 12-16 Terraform locations, which means cards like Final Decree and opposing resource hate like Have a Blast! And Chemo become more like free card draw. Turning 4 resources into 4 pumps because of a single card is one reason why 12-Man has more reach than Quicksilver/Syndicate.

My main conflict about Quicksilver is, if I were to run it, which version would I run? The Syndicate version has a far more potent “nut hand” than 12-Man could ever hope for, but on the off-side anything not close to that will be really hard to pull a win. 12-Man can replicate their character board far more consistently, and relies on redundancy instead of all-in burst damage, but missing Quick after turn 3 makes it extremely difficult to win, too.

It’s a good example of burst vs. redundancy. Syndicate’s out after the turn 3 slaughter is Carnage and a quick reload from Legacy of Evil. 12-Man’s out is making the opponent still pressured after Quicksilver’s turn with a MKKO-style beatdown. A card like Human Torch might be good against Syndicate because of their mostly-small bodies, but bad against 12-Man because Dewoz or Counter Tonaja can stun him easily. On the other hand, resource hate like Dark Matter Drain or a bad Have a Blast! replacement is more fixable with Syndicate via Alpha Primitive or Fusion compared to 12-Man’s….uh, luck. Mind you, if someone Dark Matter Drain’s a 12-Man during their build phase, they’re really ballsy.

Summary: I don’t want to face Quicksilver ever. :cry:

Good Read.

Agree with final statement.

I would prefer 12 man because I think Syndicate is not as forgiving. Because of contract its not hard to take the game back because of parrallel low endurance totals while 12 man takes big lead early and then uses that to win later without killing itself.

I still like the original deck of the QuickFate deck!
The one with Blue Beetle and Poison Ivy.The fastest one of them alll that can win on turn three leaving them with a least 5 endurance.

It's also the most illegal of them all.

You should write for vs-blog.com.

The really nice thing about the 12 Man is it doesn't autoscoop to HaB like Syndiquick frequently does.

I think Taekmkm has a dual-personality... he writes these great analytical posts and then he switches to some Tasmanian Devil with sackage powers at tournaments.

Hey he writes right here for the vsrealms.com massess. Stop trying to steal our writers!

This is safe harbor for some of us who can't reach every willy-nilly blog on the net, and we'd like to have a little content left. Thank you very much.