Quoted for truth.

If you're just playing average curve drops in this format you will get Chop locked and you will deserve it.

The idea that Chopping Block "defines" the DC Modern metagame is kind of ludicrous. Is Chopping Block a good card? Sure. Is it unique in what it does? No. Sweeping Up, Emerald Twilight, Omega Beams, Rebellion on Oa - there isn't a shortage of good stun-elimination effects in DC Modern. It's like suggesting that Finishing Move or Death In The Family defined Golden.

What defines the DCM metagame is pretty much what defined the Marvel Modern metagame - a card base that's heavy on attack and crap on defense.

Consider the most basic ATK pumps available in DCM.

Oa
Light Armor
Femme Fatality
I Hate Magic! (effectively an ATK pump)
No Man Escapes The Manhunters (effectively an ATK pump)
Blood Feud
Astro-Force

And those are just the ones that are 3 or bigger. There's heaps of 2-point ATK boosts (Locked In Combat, Path of Destruction, Yellow Impurity, Golden Death, Prison Planet, etc.) To boot, there are characters like Myrwhydden and Arisia who can provide huge bonuses to your attackers. On top of that, there's a bunch of effects like Battle of Wills and Thunderous Onslaught to keep your attackers from being stunned when they attack. Plus there's Rain of Acorns to enable your weenies with Willpower to neutralize potential swing-backs!

On the defensive side of the equation?

Helping Hand
Pest Control
Men of Steel
Narrow Escape

That's everything that provides a DEF bonus of 2 or more in DCM, and most of it is total crap. Helping Hand is moderately playable. Pest Control is a desperation move that forces you to sacrifice a character's attack next turn (and given the amount of ATK pump in DCM, it isn't even reliable). Narrow Escape is too small. Men of Steel is horrible.

In terms of stall tactics, there's precious little to compare to even middling stall cards like Entangle in Golden. Prisoner of a Mad God is the best option, but it only works on your attack step and requires a lot of Willpower to use. Beyond that, there's only very weak cards like Dominus.

The recovery tricks available (Guardians Reborn, Lanterns In Love, New Genesis, Izaya) likewise don't compensate against this sort of damage, particularly when everybody and their brother has flight and range. "Oh, you're bowing guys? Gee, thanks. I guess you can't reinforce now." And the game ends on turn five or six. Practically every DC modern game I've played ends in six turns - even the much ballyhooed high-DEF characters don't make a difference. (Largely because they CAN'T STUN ANYBODY BACK.)

In the face of all that, Chopping Block is kind of an afterthought.

very nice chdb. tho i do have to say that CB has a flow that those other cards like chopping block dont have. it is a constuct which can be searched for so you can just run 1 or 2 and you will get it. i personally love the card cuz i like to destroy my opponents board.

Chopping Block is a searchable superior War Wagon that can be discarded for an uncounterable surprise effect. I don't think it's at all comparable to mass removal cards like Rebellion on Oa or Omega Beams. It's similar to the other cards you mentioned because it can be played from hand to remove a character from play, as they can. Sweeping up can't continually remove the largest opposing character from the game. All you have to do is get the biggest guy (against curve decks) then you've started the lock.

Also, Men of Steel isn't horrible!

As opposed to Sweeping Up, which is also a construct you can search for. Not to be snarky, but Chopping Block and Sweeping Up are about equal in strength; yeah, you can play Chopping Block from hand or attach it for multiple uses, but alternately you can play Sweeping Up from your resource row, and it gives you some draw-streaming in the bargain. And any competitive DCM deck is going to play a minimum of 4-6 of these anyway, unless they have a better option (Emerald Twilight, for example).

Well, yeah. That's kind of my point. Since there's no defense worth mentioning in DC Modern, matches are going to be won by who gets the advantage and hammers it into place. Board manipulation is the easiest way to do that.

And since it isn't transferable, any opponent just has to cheerfully stun your Chopping Blocker and KO him with their own effect, and the lock is ended. Because, and I feel I should stress this point, every competitive deck in DCM is going to be running 4-8 pieces of stun-kill tech.

This is my point: people aren't playing Chopping Block in lots of decks just because it's good. They're playing Chopping Block in lots of decks because there's no serious alternative to a aggro-control deck in DC Modern, and because aggro-control decks run Chopping Block.

If you could target ANY defender with it, maybe. As it stands, it's easy to work around, and like Helping Hand, is weakened severely because everybody is playing aggro control builds.

If the only way for a curve deck to deal with an early chop lock is to KO the equipped guy, it's forcing them to be willpower-based and run sufficient KO that they reliably draw it early on. I don't know if "define" is the correct word but it certainly has a strong influence on the metagame.

A turn 2 or 3 CB means going into turn 4 the curve deck must KO the equipped character without getting stunned else they're probably locked for the next few turns, which is basically game. Having the initiative helps too. Considering it's typically run in a deck with Prison Planets and G'Norts, avoiding the stun isn't always possible. This is all assuming the attacking character has flight - though that seems to be a prominent feature in DC Modern it's generally just found in the Green Lantern and Emerald Enemies affiliations, so again, a curve deck that isn't one of these will struggle to deal with the chop.

It's more powerful KOing multiple characters from turn 3 onwards rather than KOing one and making it easier for your opponent to get back into the game. CB has the added utility of being used from hand if the lock doesn't seem workable, and with no board requirements like having X willpower or a ready guy with willpower.

I have it in my Manhunter swarm deck. If I get an Orinda turn 4 or onwards, I typically keep one guy in the visible area, often Rocket Red. When he's got 4+ hidden characters to support the Men of Steel and it can be "Garthed back" (Plans Within Plans), he suddenly becomes very difficult to stun on top of those 13/13 above average 6-drop stats. I still don't play him on 5 when I'm evens without back-up to stop the KO though.

It doesn't have to be Rocket Red, it can be an Excavator or that 3/6 guy. Even to prevent breakthrough when the rest of your army is hidden by forcing one or two bounces it has its uses.

In the first place, I don't think there's such an animal as a competitive curve deck in DCM. The various stripes of rush deck (GL, EE, GLEE, and even a few Anti-Matter ones) completely annihilate the curve decks.

In the second place, just about every serious competitive deck in DCM is willpower-based anyway. This is partially because the Man of Steel teams are mostly uncompetitive in such an aggressive environment, and partially because the various willpower card effects are simply that much better than everything else.



Let me put it this way: if your deck can't beat an GL or EE rush deck, it's not a serious competitive deck in the metagame. Aggro rush is the clock for DCM, and that means everything else has to be able to handle it. That's pretty much what I call "defining" the environment.

I know GL/EE rush decks define the enviroment. When I said "it" I was referring to Chopping Block. I don't believe CB is as definitive as some claim but I see it on a similar level as Hounds of Ahab in Golden Age.

I think you're right in most of what you said, we just seem to disagree slightly on the strength and viability of a DC Modern chop lock.

funny thing is everybody thought this was going to be a stall metagame XD

Men of Steel is actually pretty good in team superman decks as it combos nicely with Clark Kent and Kal-El

The funniest thing I find about your post is that you go on and on that playing a 4 drop 7/7 with flight isn't your optimum play, but how can you achieve your optimum play if it was taken away to you.

Any anyway, the optimum play on turn 5 usually isn't playing all 3 drops as you have said. And playing two 3 drops on turn 4 apposed to playing one 4 drop causes you to only lose at most 3 points of attack power, and that's only if those two 3 drops were to team attack.

Plus the Manhunter 3 drops are average at worst. Don't go telling me they're terrible.

Now I'm not saying getting chopping blocked isn't bad. It's overcomeable though, and they way you're going on about it is that it makes Manhunters the worst team in DCM, which I'm not too sure about compared to the Man of Steel teams.

Bottomline: Even with Chopping Block, I still see Manhunter as one of the top 5 teams, or at least top 5 mono teams.

Reading comprehension?

That sounds damn accurate to me, does everyone agree?

Here's the thing... we still have TWO FULL MONTHS. By then there will be an answer... mark my words. The rush will get you to Day Two, but Top 8 will be pwnd by something else. Something much more sinister.

Warwolf, what I mean is that sure, a lot of other decks have optimum plays on turn 4 too, but that optimum play is taken away from them for whatever reason, how much better is their secondary play to the Manhunter's secondary play, especially when it isn't as terrible as you make it seem.