srry double post.

I think A, that he meant FTN's deck shouldn't be classified as a Squadron varient, not because it's better or worse, but because it isn't one.

It's a varient of a varient of the Squad deck. Which really does qualify it as something else.

And B, I also think that FTN's success is a bit more telling of the deck's capabilities than your testing. No offense intended. Dalton or Alex T. wanna chime in with the won/loss record in the PC of MHS vs. Classic and Varient Squadron?

-Mike

Actually between the deck (Light and Chimp Show) that made 7-3 there's one tht is UNIQUE in the tournament. It's an original creation of an italian skilled player. I suggest to search for it ;)

yes

Well, the FTN deck isn't really a Squadron deck. There are no Other-Earths, Answer the Calls, Panacea Potions, or Rocket Centrals. They only have 1 Archer, 1 Nuke (if that), and the only Squadron drops which have more than 1 are Shape and Ape X. So, I think it hardly qualifies as a Squadron deck. If anything, it is a "Big Guy equipment deck" which utilizes equipment (Panther, Steel, Jester, Ape X). I would even call it a Marvel Knights variant before Squadron because they run Wild Rides and has an MK guy at every drop.

One of them said they thought it was a bit like High Voltage. I forget which one. Prolly Tennet, he has the biggest mouth around here. (Goochy sucked bad, eh?)

Here is what I see after looking at standings after day 1 against the decklists that were posted on metagame:

_______________________________

I think it's a mistake to lump Ivy League in with some of those subpar "Killing Joke" lists.

of the 10 you posted that went 7-3 or better, 100% of those were Ivy League, 0% of those were "Killing Joke".

18 people team members played the deck, and in addition 2 people who had no business being gifted the deck the last week before the tournament also played the exact copy of our deck (Jack Garrett and Tim Rivera).

10 went 7-3 or better
5 went 6-4 (1 more including Garrett)
3 did not day 2 (1 more including Rivera)

Jack Garrett day 2'd at 96th, after starting off 2-4 and impressively winning his final 4 rounds. Where as Tim Rivera went 2-5(drop).

Now that percentage is starting to look a whole lot better than 10 out of 41. It could really be referred as 10 out of 19 going 7 wins or better, and 16 out of 20 day 2'ing.

And then you can factor in the biggest problem with having a team our size, playing one another. Adam Fears played 3 teammates (accounting for 3 of his four losses), I played 2 (accounting for one of my three losses), in fact, of those of us that day 2'd, I think the average player had to play a teammate twice. This isn't quite the case with FTN. I know Vidi played Kim during the tournament, but I didn't hear about many more than that, but I imagine there was probably one more. Pairing us up against one another causes losses, it sucks but it's true. Obviously this is an acceptable loss for such a big team, but it doesn't aid in showing a deck's overall metagame strength.

While FTN's deck did incredibly well, and believe me when I say that I respect it (it smashed me thoroughly in the t8), and I respect those who played it, but I do think that some of these numbers have been skewed against us.

Saying my decklist was like Mark Slacks is like saying Vidi's deck was Squad. It's just not the case.

Here are the day 2 finishes for other JLOA decks that weren't Ivy League (aka The Killing Joke):

William Postlethwait had the highest day 1 finish of Killing Joke decks at 48th, Khare, Anand at 62nd, Gabby Izsak at 66th, Tommy Ashton at 69th, Joseph Carey at 82, Ryan Lockard 91.

So of the 21 that didn't play our list, but instead playing what I'm referring to as "the killing joke", there were 6 that day 2'd at 6-4 and 15 that did not day 2. That is a massive difference from the numbers Ivy League put up.

If we are talking purely about a deck's strength in a metagame we should look at how it performs against decks that are not mirror matches. Because there will be a split percentage against the mirror (obv), forcing losses that don't really show off the metagame edge.

I'm going to go ahead and apologize for any statistical information I misinterpreted, the length of this post, and if you think I'm coming off as "look how good my deck is," because that is not the intention.

I just want to take another valid look at the results of day 1.

jason hager

actually, i found that post really informative. i knew there were "sub par" versions in the field, i just didn't know how many. you make some good points.

thank god it’s banned. :grin:

Thanks for stealing my thunder, Hager. I just finished an article studying the breakdown of the discard decks.

Should be on Star City soon, it has the statistics.

It's Ivy League to me...cuz Jason Hager is my hero. As a matter of fact perhaps if I keep gushing about his deckbuilding skills he'll come on over to the "Modern Spiderfriends" thead and help us out trying to make SF viable. Hell, we'll call it Spider-School.

See you in Indy Stu.

CC

And we decided not to go with it over there, so here it is:

Facing the Fear.

Rian Fike

“Aren’t your wants and my wants the same? Don’t we all drink from the same human cup?”

-Chris Stevens, Northern Exposure

Wow, what a week. I can’t even begin to wrap my brain around all that has happened in the world of Vs. System this past seven days. You can be my therapist, let me tell you what’s going on. It all started last Sunday in San Francisco.

Those bloody Brits outwitted every other player at the Pro Circuit and set my brain on fire. Ian Vincent became the first non-American PC Champion by somehow climbing his way to the top of the best collection of talent ever seen on Day Three. It gave me hope.

Hope was not in the Champion’s deck. She was in the Ivy League discard deck that turned our world upside down and started shaking the coins out of its pockets. Justice League of Arkham gave us all nightmares and the paranoia carried over into the daytime. It was terrifying.

The scariest part of being a member of a professional playtesting team is the potential for leaked secrets. The Donkey Club had perfected the Ivy League deck over months of dedicated hard work, and they were frantically trying to keep the lid on their tech. In these situations, at least for the first two full seasons of Pro Circuit events, it is impossible to keep a secret. Two weeks before the event, a slight buzz began on the message boards about Justice League of Arkham decks. Every other playtesting team in the world seemed to have known about the strategy for months, many of them finding the archetype on their own. I think we do. We all drink from the same human cup. It is like we are all connected by the mind.

Some of these connections were direct. The Donkey Club deck showed up in some of the testing circles nearly identical to the final list, so there seems to have been an actual leak. More fear, more doubt. Like I said when I started, this has been a rough week. It happens every time a Pro Circuit rolls around.

When the tournament started and the tabulation of the metagame was complete, guess what happened? The secret discard deck was the most played archetype in the environment. It must have been a conspiracy or something.

Whether it was a sinister plot involving sell-outs and leaked decklists, or a simple case of obvious simultaneous strategy… the cat was out of the bag. I know quite a few people that insist that they were working on discard decks from the first day that Justice League of Arkham was released. It looks like many people had the same idea, and we can look at the Pro Circuit decklists to see how similar their tech actually was.

There seem to be three major Justice League of Arkham builds that showed up in San Francisco. I know for a fact that Scott Cozzolino started working on the “Bugs!” team version of a discard deck immediately following the JLA Sneak Preview tournament. The boys from Indiana that are not Donkey had a build very similar to the bugs, but different from the TOGIT deck. I guess I can call it the TOGIT version, although an outstanding network of players who span the entire East Coast played it. Neither of those groups had The Donkey Club version. A network of friends shared and played the TOGIT list, and there are two names that played the top secret Ivy League deck that are not on their official roster.

You like statistics too? Great. Here is the breakdown of the Pro Circuit San Francisco environment:

Justice League of Arkham discard - 41
Squadron variants - 35
“Good Guys” – JLA / JLI Ally - 25
Checkmate Toolbox (inc. “Chess”) - 21
G’Lock - 15
Fate-a-Tron (decks that involve getting all the artifacts) - 9
Anti-Green Lantern - 8
Shadow Creatures (“Gremlins”) - 8
Faces of Evil (inc. X-Faces variants) - 8
Avengers reservist – 7
Burn (High Voltage Style) - 6
Brotherhood reservist - 5
Injustice Gang Hand-Flood - 5
Midnight Sons control - 5
Marvel Knights concealed - 4
Justice League Task Force - 4
Underworld / Secret Society (KO pile manipulation) - 4
Villains United Toolbox - 3
Shadowpact - 2
JSA / Checkmate - 2
X-Mental - 2
Secret Society leader - 2
Morlocks / Parademon combo – 2

Other decks (including GLEE, Manhunter hidden, Spider-Friends, IG / Villains, JSA, Villains / Revenge Squad, Villains control, Checkmate / Syndicate, SSociety, Villains United, Unaffiliated, Concealed beats, IG Army, Hellfire / MK, X-Men beats, Avengers / X-men Team Attack, X-Energy) – 38

If we continue to focus on the discard deck, we can create examine both the structure and the make-up of each individual build that was played:

The “Slack Bug” discard deck: 3 players.

Characters
1 Cardiac, Elias Wirtham
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
1 Glorious Godfrey, Persuader
1 Gorilla Grodd, Simian Mastermind
4 Hope, Amazon Bodyguard
4 Maxwell Lord, Financier
1 Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction
3 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
2 Poison Ivy, Kiss of Death
1 Scarecrow, Fearmonger
4 Sue Dibny, Charistmatic Coordinator
3 The Penguin, Arms Merchant
1 Ultra-Humanite, Evolutionary Antecedent

Plot Twists
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Justice League of Arkham
4 Sorcerer's Treasure
4 Straight to the Grave
3 Teamwork
3 UN General Assembly

Locations
4 Phantom Zone
4 Slaughter Swamp

This deck, like all the others, attempts to get a loop in play using Dr. Light, Master of Holograms to allow Hope to flip the Justice League of Arkham multiple times and force an opponent to discard their entire hand before recruiting. Preferably on turn four. The Slack Bug edition works with Sue Dibny and Maxwell Lord, Financier to fill your row with that nastiest of team-ups. Mark Slack and Vince Greco played that exact version, and Keebler Powell played a slightly more buggy build.

The “East Coast Network” discard deck: 18 players.

Characters
1 Amadeus Arkham, Architect of Insanity
4 Archangel, Angel
4 Beetle, Armorsmith
1 Black Cat, Master Thief
1 Cardiac, Elias Wirtham
1 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
1 Glorious Godfrey, Persuader
1 Gorilla Grodd, Simian Mastermind
1 Hawkeye, Clinton Barton
4 Hope, Amazon Bodyguard
1 Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction
3 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero

Plot Twists
4 Enemy of My Enemy
3 Hard Sound Construct
4 Justice League of Arkham
3 Sorcerer's Treasure
4 Straight to the Grave
2 The Ring Has Chosen

Locations
1 Phantom Zone
3 Slaughter Swamp
4 X-Corp: Amsterdam

This version of the deck won some serious money. Joey Carey finished in 20th place to lead the charge. It is very similar to the Donkey Club’s Ivy League version, with one major difference. The East Coast Network build tries to get one more use of its Justice League of Arkhams by digging with Sorcerer’s Treasure like the Slack Bug deck.

And that brings us to the “secret deck” which was finished to perfection in The Donkey Club stables and became the first team-build to place four players in a Pro Circuit Top 8. Without further ado, I bring you Ivy League.

The “Ivy League” discard deck: 20 players.

Characters
4 Archangel, Angel
4 Beetle, Armorsmith
1 Cardiac, Elias Wirtham
1 Coach, Manipulative Mentor
2 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
4 Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
1 Evil Star, Servant of the Star-Band
4 Hope, Amazon Bodyguard
1 Kyle Rayner, Last Green Lantern
1 Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction
1 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 Psycho-Pirate, Roger Hayden
1 Roy Harper ◊ Speedy, Mercurial Marksman
1 The Phantom Stranger, Wandering Hero
1 Yellowjacket, Rita DeMara

Plot Twists
1 Breaking Ground
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Hard Sound Construct
4 Justice League of Arkham
4 Straight to the Grave

Locations
1 Birthing Chamber
1 Phantom Zone
4 Slaughter Swamp
1 UN Building
4 X-Corp: Amsterdam

Michael Jacob and Gabe Walls finished third and fourth at Pro Circuit San Francisco with that masterpiece, and then Michael turned around and won the Hamilton $10K with it the following weekend. It seemed as if Vs. System would be trapped in a haunted house of diabolical discard decks and that we would never be able to recruit past turn five ever again. It was a ghastly future for the fairest game of them all.

And then UDE saved our lives.

The day was June 9. The time was around midnight. The discard deck was given a death sentence. It was a welcome relief and a new page for Vs. System history. Effective July 1, just in time for $10K Charlotte at HeroesCon, Justice League of Arkham is banned from tournament play. It was a decision that set off a firestorm in the community.

The vast majority of the community welcomed the banning of the discard demon with open arms. There was another announcement the same day, however, and it was met with a surprising amount of outrage. Antarctic Research Base, a location from the very first Vs. System set: Marvel Origins. The card was only legal for Golden Age tournaments, but it was also banned. Since the proceeding ten expansion sets have included such a wide array of zero-cost equipment and further card-drawing potential, the extra card that ARB provided to toy lovers was just too powerful. Daniella Grijalva had been abusing the Antarctic Research Base by combining it with the Fate Artifacts at a Last Chance Qualifier tournament in San Francisco. She did it in front of the UDE brass. They knew of the potential, and they had a few more combinations that could allow a player to draw their entire deck on the third turn. ARB had become too powerful. It needed to be banned.

There were many players who needed to vent. It seems that this game controls people’s attention and emotions on a large scale, because a three-dollar rare like Antarctic Research Base caused some serious commotion. Things settled down fairly quickly, as UDE released another in a long line of behind-the-scenes looks at their decision-making processes. Dave Humphreys detailed the issues surrounding both of the bannings, as well as the errata that kept Parademon from being able to go infinite with Callisto. It proved, once again, that the designers and developers of Vs. System pay close attention to the community.

Even though they could obviously not satisfy every bit of the concern, which is actually impossible when people divide themselves into separate opinion-groups, UDE restored the confidence of many by clearing the air and identifying their position. It was also very encouraging to see them “stick to their guns” and stand firm, ready to move on.

And move on we do. I attended a Pro Circuit Qualifier in South Florida this weekend and saw an amazing Kent Farm/Kandor deck which only uses three cards not locations and characters. I will try to get you that decklist next week. The Silver Age seems to be wide-open again. It is the format for the Charlotte $10K tournament next on the horizon.

No matter how frightening the events of the past week have gotten, I always knew the sun would come up on another day for Vs. System. It looks like it will be awfully bright indeed. Thanks for listening. I feel much better.