All,

I was wondering, has anyone seen a competetive x-men beatdown deck that at least went the distance against some of the Top Tier Decks in VS? I've seen a couple of versions but I'm not really sure if those are the best configuration(s) for this team. What's the best config you guys can think of?

I don't have all the cards for it yet, but I think there's a true treasure coming out that allows X-Men to compete in a tourney. Most XMen decks see too many options and got the "kid in the candystore" style of play. No focus, each one doing its thing.

I figure with their ability to recover -many- chars a turn, and to KO several they wish, X-Men have one SERIOUS advantage over others: Board control. Magneto, Lord Magnus bugging you? Shadowcat+Dazzler Fastball coming up, School out Dazzler for a Finishing Move.
3 guys got Stunned? Muir, CotA, freebie.

X-Men work better it seems, as one cohesive team. You need the core, and the parts will fit in. You got to stick with a theme, and alas a -straight- beatdown ain't it. A selective targetting, survivalist themed deck seems to be what they should go for.

Yeah that's true that you can control characters with small ones but until you can pull out berserker rage or Powerhouse Rogue,the middle X Men are far less powerfull than others...(in my opinion off course)
But it's true that forge+Blackbird+Danger Room make cheap char feeling heavy hitters ^^

I'm in agreement with everything that Trans has said so far. To me, the problem with X-Men is that they and all of their abilities are so card intensive: CotA, Muir, Gambit, Forge, Dazzler, etc. all require you to discard X-Men characters from your hand. And it seems the only way to get them into your hand (besides Cerebro, which still doesn't provide you with a net advantage) is Longshot, who's iffy at best. Possibly a version of X-Men would work with multiples; Cyke, Nightcrawler, Wolverine, Rogue, Storm, along with Longshot could net you some card advantage to utilize all of those nifty abilities. Just my two cents. :)

i saw the decklist of an Xmen deck that got 2 the top 8
he had a few Longshots and used Colossus as the 6 drop
i personally think Colossus is the best six drop 4 the Xmen
he takes advantage of all the discards you have 2 do
and 16/12 is really good 4 a 6 drop, and then he can take out
almost every 7 drop except Juggernaut

I think Cerebro is very important 2 Xmen, no matter what type
of Xmen deck u run, i recommend 3-4, they giv u so much
card advantage, toss the useless 2 drops and keep the drops
you'll need later on, i also found it speeds up Colossus A LOT.

I think the board control theme is a good idea, and there are
a lot of Xmen cards that support that theme, so maybe that
is the right build 4 the Xmen deck, and in that case
Rogue would be a better 6 drop than Colossus

that Longshot idea is good Zambo
maybe putting in 12 Wolverines into the deck
and then using Nightvision 2 name the top card and Wolverine
it wouldn't be as dependable as Wild Vomit, but i think the
card advantage could definitely help

BtW, there are also a good assortment of X-men cards 4
stalling, so that might be a good build 2 use as well
4 drop rogue, dazzler, Professor X(7 drop) and Storm (6 drop)
all have good effects of preventing attacks..
i've been trying 2 find a stall deck build 4 the Xmen
2 drop Phoenix Force or Apocalypse on 8th turn and call it game
but i havn't gotten it exactly right yet.

I'm playtesting an Xavier's School deck now, concentrating on the cards that can benefit from the school most: Fastball Special, Finishing Move and Team Tactics. The loophole that allows a character to target themselves with Team Tactics is huge and can really shine in an X-Men deck using the School. Bishop, Archangel and Wolverine especially can get way bigger than any character you would want to face on Turn 3.
X-Men own the early turns so I plan to hold a Fastball Special for turn 4 or 5, depending on when I have initiative. Another good combo on Turn 5 is attacking with the 5-drop Cyke and the 2-drop Nightcrawler. That's 11 pts. of attack (prior to any pumps, of course) that can't be stunned back.

It boils down to how you can survive the X-Men's two weakest turns, because on turn 6 you get some pretty good options again. Again, I'm having the aforementioned "kid in the candystore" syndrome. Colossus, Rogue, and Storm are all good. I think I'll pick Storm just 'cos she has the total package. I'm talking range and flight, you pervs, not the hoochie mama outfit! Combine that w/ her shut down the opponent's support row ability and you've got serious control. I don't think we'll have a tourney this week since half our playgroup and our judge are at Origins, so it'll be two weeks before I can report back on my tourney playtested progress.

Man, I've really tried to refine my X-Men deck and it still falls like ... er ... a deck of cards.. :)

Basically, the strongest X-Men deck I can muster is helped with the Blackbird. It really makes a huge difference, with the +2/+2. Couple that with the Danger Room for even more bonuses. Forge can assist in getting the Blackbird in your hand early. Other musts are Gambit, Rogue: Powerhouse, Cyclops' 5 drop, Colossus and many Wolverines. I also rely on Muir Island/Moira McTaggart/Children of the Atom to help keep X-Men on the board. Fastball special is a cheap-o way to disable or get rid of some heavy opposition.

I've been trying to integrate Jean Grey: Phoenix Force into the deck, but I haven't been that successful. Maybe we'll get some more X-Men with more team effects in a future set.

Jeff

I run a very competitive X-Men deck but it is far from a beatdown. It is based around Colossus and Cerebro. Cerebro makes sure I have 5 characters in my KO'd pile so Colossus is a 16/12 on turn 6. Turn 7 is Wolverine and for turn 8 I added in a couple Apocalypse in case the game makes it that far (it rarely does but I have seen several FF stall decks that stall until turn 8 and drop Apoc).

Ask GoofyTroll about his X-Deck. I have a set of tier-1 type decks against it and it's competitive almost every time.
He calls it the Movie Deck, basing it aoround the characters from the X-Men movies. It runs multiples (Wolvie, Rogue, Gene, Cyclops and Storm are the bread and butter) with ESU labs so unless you can pummel it early on the reinforcement will always be there. It runs CotA's, Fastballs, abd Team Tactics along with some burn rubbers (greatest card ever). Muir Island, X's school are in there. I personally think the only thing it's lacking is Forge/Blackbird, but it's a very solid deck.