If you want more recovery than CotA, go with Muir Island instead of Ultimate Sacrifice.

1 stunned character: both are useless.
2 stunned characters: Muir Island is awesome as long as one costs 4 or less, Ultimate Sacrifice is useless.
3 stunned characters: equally useful as long as one of the characters you want to keep costs 4 or less (i.e. you have a stunned 3, 4, and 5 drop). Ultimate Sacrifice is better if the characters are 4, 5 and 6 drops or higher.
4 or more stunned characters: Ultimate Sacrifice rules.

You're going to have 2 stunned characters a lot more often than you'll have 4 or more. When you have 3, Ultimate Sacrifice will sometimes be better, but Muir Island can also be used more than once. Muir Island also can be used to recover an FF character before you team up. Location hate isn't a big deal, as only Global Domination will stop you from using Muir Island at least once.

Of course, Muir Island's biggest drawback is the discard. But I think that your deck can afford it, with the only discard being CotA, Gambit, Sunfire and Surfer.

I really feel that you are choosing some sub-optimal drops for your curve. Anarchy is a great idea to combat all the weenie rush decks that will undoubtedly be seen in the new metagame, but you really must have the characters to support it. Wolverine - Logan, simply put, is a powerhouse, especially in combination with Total Anarchy. All other playable three drops in the game must have some type of pump to push through him. While I dont want to get into a discussion about 'virtual card advantage,' think about it this way. Would you rather have a character who easily gets KO'd to your own Anarchy and draws you one card (Luke Cage), or a character that is synergistic with Anarchy and forces your opponent to have a card to deal with him every turn? (thus making your opponent 'lose' a card every time they want to attack him.) The reveal-loyalty is certainly a pain, but most definitely well worth it. An extra Bishop should probably go in the deck anyway to assure hitting the two drop consistently, and will help out with Wolverines requirements.

Because Wolverine would take the primary three-drop slot, the NFF Wolverine must be taken out. Medusa is nothing fantastic, but her ability is actually fairly underrated (works against TTG) and should buy you time to get to the later turns. Gambit should also probably step aside, as it becomes increasingly important to play a Fantastic Four character on turn four to supplement Things loyalty. One of the Things should also be taken out for another Sunfire to keep the X-Men character ratio the same, and to draw him 'naturally' on a more consistent basis.

Luke Cage certainly isnt needed, especially now that he lost his power ups in the three drop slot. Hulk provides the same function and is 'tutorable'. Professor X - The Worlds Most Powerful Telepath, is one of the strongest characters in the game. He is a great on and off initiative choice as his power is great on the defense, and he still has a high attack and a defense that is negligible due to Bamf/Clobberin Time on the offense. I agree with most of the other posters; the Professor X 8-drop is mostly just a 'win-more' card, and I would take it out unless you are expecting a large amount of Med-School variants.

I like your Plot Twist setup, with the exception of the Ultimate Sacrifice. Ultimate Sacrifice is only really useable in X-men weenie rush strategies, and even then it assumes you are in a losing position to make it work. With Four Children of the Atom, it is unlikely you will be in dire need of more recovery effects. Two of the Millennium can probably be taken out (although it 'cycles' itself, it only reliably goes online by turn 4, thus you can draw a bunch of teamups and no 2 or 3 drops.) Also, the deck looks like it can function without hitting a teamup until turn five or six, so you should be able to put up a reasonable fight even without a early teamup.

-4 Luke Cage - Reserve Member
-1 Luke Cage - Power Man
-1 Wolverine - New Fantastic Four
-1 Gambit - Remy Lebeau
-1 Mr Fantastic - Team Leader
-1 Proffessor X - Mental Master
-2 Heroic Sacrifice
-2 Millennium
13

+4 Wolverine - Logan
+2 Medusa - Medusalith Amaquelin
+1 Sunfire - Sunfire, Shiro Yoshida
+1 Proffessor X - Worlds Most Powerful Telepath
+1 Bishop - Lucas Bishop
9

I agree that Wolverine, Logan is a great card, but having tried him in several flavors of Mutant Nation and Heroes United, I really prefer a non-optimal 3 drop I can play to a really kick-ass 3 drop I can't recruit. It's happened way more times than I care to remember and makes the deck very inconsistent.

I agree about Power Man and Ultimate Sacrifice, though and probably Professor X. That'll get me to 60 cards pretty easily.

I'd be happy to test the deck against your version, sometime and compare notes.

What about Colossus or Emma Frost to replace Luke Cage 6 drop?

I'll probably just go down to three 6 drops since they're searchable anyway. I like Colossus, but without Cerebro to mill characters into my KO pile, it's less and less likely to turn him from "Artist" Piotr into "Angry Metal" Piotr. Signal Flare helps, but I still think Hulk is a better beatstick at 6.

As for Emma, I never really cozied up to her. I'll take another look at her and see if she's got any game.

Also, I would suggest Siege Perilous over Muir Island. It gets you at least one, possibly two recoveries in the late game, when you need them the most. And with XMen at 2 and 3, you should have at least 2 counters on it by turn 5.

the main 3 drop i use is shadowcat. she can hang around with TA out. She can pop people or herself to your hand for COTA, signal flare...whatever. plus if you dont have TA out her evasion can help out. tho my back up is logan. my build is a beat build but i kinda take turn 3 down a notch just to ensure that i go full steam ahead the rest of the way.

try her.

not to confuse you further with adding or removing cards. its not a bad idea to be running flame traps if you expect glee or tt.

I believe ya should try out the demon at 8, while adding professor x at 7 and rogue at 4.
While dont need wolverine at 4, powerman at 6, ghost rider, or fantastic at 7
as ya usually want evens so maybe add more walters or/and wolverine, and luke clashes with anarchy (which should be at 4, need very early)
might not need 4 atom, 3 is enough...
though invisible at 4 is brillant especially with the new meta....

also fastball works so well, especially sents...
also might want nasty to battle mags

just my experience at playing x-men since the start....

If I were running the Fastball United, I'd probably have The Demon at 8. But The Demon's not searchable and that's a deal breaker for me.

I'd really like to try the Fastballs United deck and see how it does. Maybe I'll do that in a future article.

since you are wanting odds so silver surfer steal on turn 8, i will forgive you for not playing wolverine: james howlett.

the deck looks solid, although the only thing i see the FF bringing to the x-men for a beats deck, is signal flare, true they have some great offensive cards, but clobberin times, more often than not, is simple used for a mini-bamf, a way not to get stunned on the offensive.

however, i would add in nasty surprises and finishing moves, both to be used on your opponents attack, i would drop rogue, since her ko power works only on offense, with a finishing move, you can ko their 6 just as well, and with hulk you won't need a nasty surprise. and by turn 7, rogue will ned more help than hulk will to fight.

It's a nice idea, but there are a few notable inconsistencies, such as, most of your early drops are X-Men, how do you guarantee you'll hit Thing? I know Invis. Woman is your main 4, but what if you can't search for her because of all the X-Men? And, isn't 'choosing' between Nightcrawler and Bishop a bit useless, because the probability of you drawing both is small, so wouldn't it be up to chance? Also, how about Wolvie: BR?

BR is a bad 7 drop, with TA out how many 4 or lower drops wil be around by turn 7, sure vs a weenie deck maybe, but he allready has plenty of ways to keep their numbers down.

Hey, I actually put this deck together as well after we talked. I came up with as follows (by cost, so no subtext)

3 Nightcrawer
4 Bishop

4 Luke Cage
3 She-Hulk

4 Invisible Woman
2 Gambit

3 Thing, HH
2 Sunfire

2 Hulk
1 Rogue, Powerhouse

1 Wolverine, Beserker Rage
1 Thing, TELBET

1 Professor X
1 Silver Surfer

4 Millenium
4 Heros United
4 Children of the Atom
4 Signal Flare
3 Bamf!
4 Savage Beatdown
4 It's Clobbering Time

I included more "creature kill" creatures in my version, but no TAs; I think that's just overkill (though heavier testing may prove wrong). I also didn't really think of fastball special, and while it might be worth trying I would be very hesitant; my guys are big enough where I shouldn't have to tap 2 to take something down; and curved enough that I shouldn't have spare weenies around.

This deck should do very well in the new metagame. Ultimate Sacrifice is mainly only great aagainst titans or in a more weenie-centric version, so I ultimatly decided against it.

The fastball special version would have to include more low drops and sacrifice; but neither really fit this deck's theme (curve, with the most efficient characters in the metagame backed by very powerful plot twists and tons of card drawing).

Tom is also right that Luke Cage and TA aren't a com; one or the other would have to go.

And for people knocking on the 8-drop professor, I would point out that games vs other major deck archtypes do go to turn 9. He also empties your opponent's hand, leaving them with just a few board tricks to work with. A gain, testing may prove me wrong here, but I think you want both weapons in the metagame.

-Dave

I played against a version of this deck yesterday and saw docx running his version. It is working out very well. My pure GL deck lost against it. I hadn't read this article before I played it, so I was surprised at the amount of weenie hate in it the first time I played against it. Total Anarchy seems to be a key card in the deck, too. It helped docx when he faced Titans and won.

8 teamups is pretty much necessary. Without that many, and no way to search for them, it can too-frequently miss them and hurt the deck. I played my post-ban Common Enemy against the deck that beat my GL and won. He didn't get a drop until 4, and I only had Valeria and Kristoff out until 4, but I had drawn 3 Doom/DGs by then. Still, the deck came back for a good showing later in the game, and we matched drops from there on. I ended up having enough beats for a decisive win at the end. It helped that my Surfer got initiative over his on turn 8 (picking evens when facing an potential opposing Surfer lets you go first that turn - if you have a character to discard).