Kergy's Korner #8: Splashback!

You’ve built your deck. Single team, two teams, five teams, whatever your strategy or game plan, it will more often than not revolve around certain characters that make it necessary to focus on certain teams. Some of the best cards, from Children of the Atom to Sabretooth: Feral Rage necessitate certain teams in order to work. Team-Up cards get around these 'team costs', and allow you to join various teams together to enjoy effect of different teams at once.

Once you have your team decisions set, and your basic deck made – with the various plot twists and equipment to fill in the extra slots – it’s now time to round out your deck with a few extra cards to keep your opponents on their toes. Your Savage Beatdowns, your Foileds, your Ka-Booms, these are all to become staple cards. But what about the look on your opponent’s face when you drop a Scarlet Witch in an otherwise all Doom deck, and their X-deck revolves around activation?

Now that we know the cards well enough to be able to build competent decks, I’m going to look at some cards that can be useful in decks composed of OTHER teams. These cards are ‘splash’ cards – cards you can splash into another deck without ruining the concept of the deck.


X-Men:
The X-Men have a number of great cards. And how great would it be to drop a Logan into any deck, with those power-stats? Unfortunately, you need another X-Man in your hand to play him. But there are many other great Xers that can fill spots in non-X decks.

Start with Archangel; Solid 2-Drops are no common in this game. In fact, for the first three rounds, it is key to play hardy characters who can give you a head start before the fourth and fifth round crunch time. Archangel has flight, with a +3 ATK bonus against support row characters. A solid character to eliminate those pesky back row gnats. Banshee is good in this type of situation as well, but as a 3-Drop with average stats, he’d be harder to justify in a non-X deck.


Next up is Beast. Any card that cheapens plot twists is a good card. Not many decks would be hurt by adding the Beast in to speed things up. He’s especially good in Doom and Sentinel decks.

Cycling is always a good thing, and Jean Grey and Longshot both cycle your deck nicely. Longshot is more of a long shot (-ahem-), because he only works in decks that are character-loaded. Jean Grey, on the other hand, is a good combo with Night Vision or Base of Operations to clear away any dead weight that has gathered in the resource row. She’s also good for setting up Sentinel decks and Doom decks.

Cyclops: Scott Summer and Nightcrawler Kurt Wagner are also solid additions, with strong stats and stun-proof attacking. They both can attack fro your support row, and Nightcrawler can attack your opponent’s supporters as well. Fuzzy Elf is also a decent splash card, as he can give other characters flight and range attacks as well.

Finally, Berzerker Rage is an obvious pound for pound choice as well. Unlike the other Wolvies, he doesn’t need any X-help, and his ability is one of the most brutal in the game. His only drawback is the cost, as most non-X decks have their own 7-Drop power cards, and may not be able to justify adding him in.


The FF:
Ant-Man is one of the best one-drops in the game. Removing the capability for reinforcement just got better with the FAQ confirmation that it over-rules every reinforcement effect. So when your opponent is smug with his Rush and Reinforce tactics, dropping an Ant-Man in a non-FF deck just might elicit a ‘THAT’S NOT FAIR!’

Ghost Rider is an oft-ignored character, but
I’m not sure why his ability is so underrated. 9/9 are not bad stats for a 5-Drop to begin with, but the +4 can be a life-saver if the game is starting to fall away from you. Hulk is the same type of underrated character. 12/12 for a 6-Drop is a good start, and if you don’t play a deck that uses all of its resources, his bonus can be brutal. These are both strong characters in any deck that is not focused on rush beatdown. If you are looking to overwhelm your opponent really quickly, or with a massive show of strength, then you’ll want Team Tactics and cards with effects like Cyclops: Slim’s. In a slower deck, it can be helpful to grab a mid-range bruiser to help hold the game until your 7- or 8-Drop falls.

Mr. Fantastic: Reed or Stretch are both solid characters to have in any equipment deck. Granted, most equipment decks will revolve around the FF, but if you do have a non-FF deck that uses a lot of equipment, these are the cards for you.

Finally, Yancy Street is a solid addition to any beatdown deck. Other decks can find good use for it as well, but in beatdown, you can be sure that your opponent will try and KO your stunned bruisers as often as possible. It is nice to have the security in knowing that your muscle won’t be taken out that easily.


Brotherhood:
There are only a few stand-alone Brotherhood characters that can slide neatly into just about any other deck. Destiny, Sauron and Toad are all cards that can be useful in certain situations, and Magneto: Master of Magnetism is BRUTAL, if, like the Berzerker Rage Wolvie, you can spare the 7-Drop.

But the key cards in Brotherhood are Scarlet Witch, Pyro and Quicksilver.

Scarlet Witch is a nasty card, because her stats are above-average for a 5-Drop and her ability is just plain cruel. Ranged attack means you can put her into your support row where her 9/10 stats can be put to good use. And she really makes your opponent pause and wonder if that discard, search or cycle ability is worth the 5 endurance it will cost them. If the endurance loss was any less, I’d be hesitant to jump all over the lovely Wanda Maximoff, but 5 endurance is a heavy price to pay for the use of most activated abilities.

Pyro and Quicksilver are self-explanatory. Being able to inflict direct endurance loss is almost always a good thing. If you need an extra character, these two should fit nicely in most decks.

Two other cards to consider are Avalon Space Station and Genosha – each one is best served in a Brotherhood deck, but their abilities for non Brotherhood can be very helpful in the right situation.


Doom:
One word: Darkoth. Darkoth is a vicious character. His stats are high, and his ability to KO a resource you control for a +7 attack boost can REALLY hurt your opponent. He is a VERY nice addition to Sentinel and Brotherhood rush decks, and can also work nicely in any other deck that doesn’t need high resource levels.

Dr. Doom: Diabolic Genius works best in a Doom deck. After all, it is always best to play the general behind his own army. But with decent stats, he’s a sweet plot twist recycler. It never hurts to be able to use those Savage Beatdowns over and over again, and multiple DGs means multiple PTs. Doom’s Throne Room is also a boon for plot twist decks, though, like Diabolic Genius, it works better in a Doom deck.


Others:
Negative Zone cards can be brutal – if you’re willing to put 5-6 cards into your deck.

Negative Zone on its own is not a bad card, though its ability is quite expensive. The Negative Zone characters make NZ very useful, though. Especially Annihilus. VERY nice stats (16/16) for a 7-Drop, and his auto-stun makes him as strong a character as Magento: MoM or Berzerker Rage Wolvie. The downside is that if you’re not playing at least two or three Negative Zones, the 15 endurance loss is a game loser. I say two or three Negative Zones, because if your opponent pulls a Ka-Boom! on you, and you can’t flip another one, you will be smoking the pain pipe.

Blastaar, on the other hand, is more manageable. 12/12 are decent stats for a 6-Drop, and a 6-Drop can be more manageably inserted into your deck. The auto-stun is especially nice on Blastaar, because it more than makes up for the loss-factor for not having Negative Zone – discarding your hand. By the sixth turn combat phase, you are not too likely to have a huge hand, so it’s not a huge loss to drop what hand you have (if any), unless you’re holding that 7-Drop game-breaker. The ability to play Blastaar without Negative Zone and without eating too much of a loss, makes him a better bet for a team that can’t spare a huge number of slots.

Both Negative Zone characters also have flight AND range combat, making them brutal all-around combat characters. Super-Skrull has this combo as well, and can pump to 13/13 with a 3-pt endurance loss for all of your opponents (which, on turn 6, can be a very nice bonus). He also has the bonus of not needing a ‘Negative Zone’ type card to be played; you merely have to discard a card to use his powers.

All three of these characters can be game-breakers, and are much more likely to see play than Apocalypse, Onslaught or Dark Phoenix, which are other all-team characters.

Two other characters to look for are Arcade and Spiral. Arcade, if played right, is a boon to any deck for his instant KO ability. Spiral is nice because multiple Spirals means whenever your Spiral is KO’d, you always have a Spiral in your hand.

So, to sum up:
The most important aspect of the game to remember when splashing cards is strategy. Look for what your deck needs – a bruiser, direct endurance loss, some strong rush weenies, or an ability that fits with your game plan.

And do not be afraid to expand beyond your team or hybrid decks. If you’re not playing a team but a character of that team can really help to move your deck forward, don’t fret over the loss of team attacks or reinforcement – a couple of copies of one character can sometimes help your deck a hundred times more than hinder it.

Nice article with good things to think about, Thanks!

Where's Juggernaut? I think he would make the cut, (edit: as far as other non-allinged characters go). especially if some of the negative zone characters did!

You'd have to build around his whopper of a drawback. Attacking only every other turn is a dealbreaker.

Juggie's okay, but he's not nearly as good as Berzerker Rage, Master of Magnetism - or even Annihillus. He is a must-win character, because he can only attack every 2nd turn. I wouldn't include him unless your deck was VERY speifically geared towards beatdown.

Juggie's more of a character to build around, rather than a character to use in other decks.

a stellar article, what are you a literature student or something? :knowing grin:

Where's Reconstruction Program?

In a non-Sentinel deck, you'd be better served by Avalon Space Station since you can get more than four uses out of it.

I'd recommend Avalon above it because you can re-use it (yes,there's a cost, but it's worth it)

haha, obviously Zaxx is on the same wave-length today;)

Locations and Ongoing twists can suck. I am looking very closely at using only non-ongoing plot twists.

I disagree Zaxx, I think the xmen can benifit from Recontruction Program because of all the discarding that deck does. You do not want to have to discard even more with Avalon.

stubarnes:

Every card has benefits and drawbacks, depending on the situation. RP can certainly be a better card, but overall I'd take Av. Sp. St. over it.

gottr:

A solid X-Men discard deck is one type of deck out of *many*. I'm trying to look at an across-the-board picture, not focus on specifics.

yer right. In fact... is the game TOO balanced?

(and... do you see enough Ka-boom and Foiled to warrant eschewing all locations and ongoings?)

I don't think EVERY card is balanced some just suck. =/
I don't think Ka-Boom entirely gets rid of all us wanting to play locations, just being more careful about bringing them about =/

Well, I figure that it's VERY unlikely to see more than a couple of Foileds and/or Ka-Booms in a deck. I mean, four of each would be 8 slots, and no deck can afford that and emain competitive - 'counter' and 'discard/destruction' decks just won't work in VS with what we have right now. Ka-Boom will be more popular than Foiled, though, as locations are more prevalent and there just aren't enough quality OPTs to put more than 2 Foileds in a deck at MOST.

&& if you need a location or ongoing PT to win the game then your deck needs some work. No deck can survive without at least a few alternative win strategies. And playing multiple locations in a deck will help to avoid getting Ka-Boomed to death - I play 3 Negative Zones in one deck to ensure that if my Annihilus is out, I have a darn good chance of NOT dying for him;)