Sinister Statix – a Match Made in Hell

Let me start of by saying that this deck is quite appropriately unstable. When you combine members from a power hungry faction of evil with a power hungry faction of heroes, you know there is going to be a little bit of friction. This transfers quite accurately into the deck consistency. Those that play X-Statix Loner will know that a successful game is dependent on getting the cards you need at the right time. I know this could be said for any deck, but it is especially prevalent with Loner.

I would not call the X-Statix a combo deck, but it is certainly tricky. Now, with all that complexity already built in, throw a team-up requirement into the mix and see what kind of mess comes out. I can hear you all wondering – “Why the hell is he sharing this crap with us then?” The answer lies in the beauty of this monster actually hitting every once in a while. If the pieces fall into place, this deck can be really scary.

Before we begin, I want to cover some of the basics regarding the Loner strategy. I took X-Statix Loner to the London 10K and made the mistake that so many new X-Statix players do. I placed far too much importance on having just one character out. The key to understanding Loner is to realize that it is not essential to play with just one character at all times. I made rookie mistakes and kept KO’ing characters quite unnecessarily. There are a several lynchpin cards to the Loner strategy. These are:

X-Statix Café
Spin Doctoring.
X-Statix HQ
Dead Weight

Loners may debate whether these are all “four of’s”, but I wouldn’t leave home without them. Another important ingredient is Star of the Show, but since we have got a decent look at the Modern Marvel Metagame, I no longer consider it essential to have a quartet of stars. That is more or less half of your support card allowance gone on those babies, so making room for another essential card (team-up) is tricky. Herein lies the deck's problem. So why should we be getting these two teams round for a cup of Rosie lea and sorting out their differences. Well, if you can get these guys to collaborate, then you’re onto something pretty good. I’m not going to go into every possible character, but there are several Syndicate guys that lend themselves to a Loner theme.

[card]MMK206[/card] : Mendel Stromm
Card Text:
KO Mendel Stromm -> Put a +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter on target Sinister Syndicate character you control.

[card]MSM-092[/card] : Tombstone
At the start of the your recruit step, KO Tombstone unless you discard a Sinister Syndicate character card.

Starting early, we have two KO effects right here. Tombstone has been around for a while. We all know him as the curve crusher he is. His stats are ridiculous for a one drop, but they have always been counter-balanced by his discard/KO cost. If you’re looking for a one shot cannon, then he is your man. If he gets KO’d we can live with that. The problem with him though is that you want to get your team up as early as possible. It is conceivable given the nature of the deck that you will not have two or characters in play to team up with. Given that we are going to have to KO him or discard an SS character (which we potentially won’t have) I would pass on Lonnie for the time being. However, Mendel is a different kettle of fish entirely. Ok with Mendel the stats are not so impressive, but we do not have the draw back of Lonnie. His self-removal could be helpful regardless of the counter he bestows on a comrade.

Now, I need to stop for one moment. From what I have seen and read, X-Statix Loner is a very different beast to other popular decks. Most decks have accepted curves that all players generally agree are the optimum characters to recruit on any given turn. With Loner, this is not the case. There are so many variants, all as viable as the next. There are perhaps two or three characters that most agree on, but aside from that the curve strategies vary a hell of a lot. My personal choice is to not recruit until turn three, when I play Orphan. There maybe mitigating circumstances that force me to recruit early (mostly against SS rush decks), but that is my general plan of action. I feel that the characters slots are better spent on late game plays given the potential length of an x-Statix game ( turn 9 is standard, but I have been up to 16 in the mirror). Given that, I don’t really want to be recruiting on turn one, so I am going to break the cardinal rule and not use all my resource points and recruit Mendel on turn 2.

Turn three. Here we have what is generally considered to be the optimum three-drop in Loner.

[card]MMK-060[/card] : Orphan – Guy Smith
Card Text:
As an additional cost to recruit Orphan, reveal an X-Statix character card from your hand.
While you control no other characters, Orphan gets +1 ATK for each resource you control.


This is one of the times that you really do want to have a singular character in play. At this early stage, you should not be too concerned with potential endurance loss, as during the course of the match you will probably make a good deal of it back. Ideally you want odd initiative. This is the turn you really want to get teamed up. Team them up, then use Mendel to make Orphan and impressive 7/7 on turn 3.

The reason you want the team up on three will become apparent when we get our four-drop.

[card]MSM-093[/card] : Venom Alien Symbiote.
Evasion. When Venom comes into play, you may KO a Sinister Syndicate character you control. If you do, put X +1 ATK / +1 DEF counters on Venom, where X is the cost of the character you KO'd.

This is your primary four-drop. While he doesn’t have loyalty per-say, his effect is about as useful as a chocolate teapot if you haven’t teamed up by now. Ok, can you do the maths? Venom comes in – KO orphan making him 10/10. Oh and this face down resource I had – the café – taking him up to 12/12 on turn 4. Now that is big bollocked bugger if ever I saw one. If you wanted to, you could make use of evasion in conjunction with spin doctoring to do some serious damage. Because of the conditional nature of his ability, I would recommend running a backup four-drop. From X-Statix, I like U-Go-Girl. In the modern meta she is very handy against pesky SS guys riding gliders, and Wesley snipes wannabe’s. Another option is La Nuitt who is quite simply a wall. From SS I would consider running Dr. Octopus. His self reinforce could prove handy, and exhausting a character would help counter the probable board advantage that your opponent has.

Turn five always seems to create more debate than any other turn when playing with X-Statix, and that is no different now we have thrown SS into the mix. Lets look briefly at some of the main protagonists.

Battering Ram – 9/8 with a blinding effect. He is my 1st choice in a standard X-Statix Deck, closely followed by –

Orphan 10/11 - In my mono deck, I run 2 drop Vivisector to use in conjunction with orphan, but given Viv’s absence in this build, Orphan’s value has depreciated for this drop. He is a monster – no doubt, but given that he is no more than a wall, do we need him?

Anarchist- 10/8 – He is quite offensive, but I’m not convinced. Many players swear by him.

With the syndicate, we have some interesting choices.

Carnage - 10/8. He is popular in SS builds, but not here. Considering he may be the only guy on my side of the fence, what will I be gaining? Also, if I I’m playing against an SS deck which (invariably run this guy), I could be giving my opponent a wholly unappealing advantage.

Green Goblin – 9/9 – with flight and range and a brutal effect, this guy can really control my opponent’s formation choice. He really is a contender.

Carrion – 9/8 – there doesn’t seem to be much love for this guy, but I think his effect could really work well in this deck. Considering a curve Vs curve fight, my opponent is likely to come of much worse than I.

Morbius – 8/8 – His low stats will hopefully be compensated for by the café, but that still doesn’t make him a big obstacle for my opponent. I really like his effect, but we need to make our characters particularly unappealing targets.

My choices for drop five would be split between Goblin and Battering Ram – so I’ll go with two of each.

At turn six, we have one of those turns where in a mono x-Statix deck, you have a character that picks himself. For the uninitiated – Zetgeist is simply awesome. Stun any character at any time during the combat phase for a mere activation and removal of cosmic counter. There is no denying this guy is a staple in the deck. However, SS throw a couple of interesting curve balls our way.

[card]MSM-084[/card] Sandman. When he comes into play, this guy is a huge 14/14, if you have the café 16/16. That’s a lot of sand for your money.
[card]MSM-021[/card] : Venom – Eddie Brock. Now, if things have gone well with our four-drop version, he could still be sitting around smacking the crap out of everyone. But uniqueness doesn’t pose the same drawbacks in this deck as it does in others. Eddie’s ability could prove a clincher on the game. Your opponent will really want to keep a large board presence. It’s their biggest advantage over you, but it really is going to cost them to do it.
[card]MSM-076[/card] : Hobgoblin – Now this is interesting. His effect is very easily accessible. You could bust up your opponent’s weenie in back and then HQ him to kick in the effect. This really provides us with an interesting choice. Hobgoblin could really be the focus of a total strategy, but it would require building the deck around him. For now, I prefer to carry on with our curve.

For this drop I think I will use three Zeitgeist and one Eddie Brock. Sandman is huge, but considering the decks biggest weakness is against overwhelming board presence, we could do with ways to counter that.

Turn Seven. Here again we are faced with another certain pick for Loner. Seven-drop Anarchist is your man on the X-Statix side of things, but Ss have something to contribute here as well.

[card]MSM-074[/card] : Green Goblin – Altered Ego. Ok, so he has appalling defense for a seven drop (not good for a six drop either), but café could help to compensate slightly. His ability is what we are interested in. Playing X-Statix generally means you have plenty of endurance to spare through judicious use of the HQ. This makes paying for his effect very easy. In testing I used him once on turn seven, then again during build on turn 8, before replacing him and playing the effect again. All this and I still had a comfortable endurance total.
[card]MSM-014[/card] : Dr. Octopus – Doc Ock. Ok, multiple stuns are good. Very Good. Especially when you are light on characters yourself. His reinforcement helps as well. Crap – I hate hard decisions!

Here I can’t decide, so I will go with one of each - Goblin, doc, and Anarchist.

Turn 8/9. There was a lot of excitement amount the big bean – Doop. 25 attack on turn 8 is undeniably impressive. His defense of 1 was not really a problem due to his invulnerability. But it seems that many people have strayed away from the path of green. Personally, I love him and I won’t hesitate to put two in my deck. But it doesn’t stop there. X-Statix can very conceivably go long – very long. So you want some more options. For me, you look no further than Professor X – Mental Master. His boosted ability is absolutely incredible. A real win condition. If you get it to kick off, just remember to give your opponents card back. In a recent game with my local storeowner, turn 8 he had me down to –1 endurance thanks to 8 drop Darkseid. My attack step – no spin doctoring, but I have meltdown. I play it, gaining 2 – taking me to plus 1. Turn 9, Boosted Prof. X, Darkseid is mine, and so is the game. To rub salt in the wound, I accidentally walked off with his Darkseid. I gave it back next week though (sorry ‘bout that Jason ;) )


So, our character selection looks like this:

4 x Mendel Stromm
4 x Orphan - Guy Smith
4 x Venom – Alien Symbiote
2 x U-Go-Girl
3 x Battering Ram
2 x Green Goblin – Norman Osborn
3 x Zeitgeist
1 x Venom – Eddie Brock
1 x Anarchist – Man of the People
1 x Green Goblin – Altered Ego
1 x Dr. Octopus – Doc Ock
2 x Doop – Ultimate Weapon
2 x Professor X – Mental Master

For our support card, we have several certainties.

4 x X-Statix Café
4 x Spin Doctoring
4 x Dead Weight
4 x Marvel Team-Up
3 x X-Statix HQ


You will notice that the HQ has dropped down to a “three of”. This is purely down to a lack of space and shows up the inherent problem with the deck. There are so many essential support cards. You will also notice the abscence of star of the show. Many consider this an essential card. I would agree if we were building a Golden deck, but this is Marvel Modern and the targeted effect we need to worry about are somewhat limited. The rest of the deck is made up thusly:

3 x Mind over Matter.
For many, crime and Punishment is a better choice for the X-Statix offensive pump, but given that we have cut down on our HQ’s, I would rather have the addition removal option of M.o.M.

2 x Star of the Show
I have cut this down to two. If you are feeling brave, remove it entirely, but don’t come crying to me if you get run over by a war wagon.

2 x Overexposed
Essential anti Dr. Strange tech. You really don’t want to let him shunt what guys you do have into the hidden area.

2 x Meltdown
Hugely underrated. This is a utility card. To quote Tim Willoughby – “It does a lot of things, but none of them really well”. When Tim speaks, I recommend people listen, because he has a keen mind. This time though, I turned the volume up on my Salt n’ Pepa CD and drowned him out. The main reason for its inclusion is the equipment tech. There are lots of jetpacks, wagons and gliders buzzing around in the Marvel Modern environment. There are few things in life more satisfying than see Vulture swooping down on a glider, only to have it yanked from under his feet. Splat – he gets squished against the now insurmountable wall that is your beefy character. Stupid bird! The endurance is nothing to be sniffed at. I know it’s only two, but if you didn’t skip over my Prof. X summary, you will see why 2 really is the magic number, and not three as De La soul would have you believe.

2 x Fight to the Finish
Great combo with Zeitgeist. This is your premium choice for leveling the playing field.

So, here is the final deck list:

4 x Mendel Stromm
4 x Orphan - Guy Smith
4 x Venom – Alien Symbiote
2 x U-Go-Girl
3 x Battering Ram
2 x Green Goblin – Norman Osborn
3 x Zeitgeist
1 x Venom – Eddie Brock
1 x Anarchist – Man of the People
1 x Green Goblin – Altered Ego
1 x Dr. Octopus – Doc Ock
2 x Doop – Ultimate Weapon
2 x Professor X – Mental Master

4 x X-Statix Café
4 x Spin Doctoring
4 x Dead Weight
4 x Marvel Team-Up
3 x X-Statix HQ
3 x Mind over Matter.
2 x Star of the Show
2 x Overexposed
2 x Meltdown
2 x Fight to the Finish

Remember, it is not the most consistent deck around, but if it does click, it’s great fun.

Something to add, which was touched on but should be expanded: Take even intiatives (the SS deck really wants odds, but it may be worth it just for this), Recruit Hobgoblin. KO him to HQ immediately. Your opponent is now down one resource before they can recruit. Your opponent will be limited to dropping a 5 drop at best for your (still) huge character.

Is it worth it to pull out 1 orphan and 1 u go girl and replace them with 2 Lacuna 2 drops that will let you search for your team up?

Sir, I was sitting back thinking to myself. I said self, 'What are you going to do with all those X-Statix cards in your legendary shoebox(don't ask why it's legendary, it just became that way over time. And the fact that almost every useful card happened to be in there, but I digress.) I decided to make a deck for laughs and I find that I wanna team up the American Idol-like team and I don't know what to do. Now, thanks to this article, I'm gonna go big. I'm gonna team up X-statix, Marvel Knights and SS.

Actually, I just made Marvel Knights/X-Statix and I'm content.

love the concept. list is a lil sketchy, but im defiently going to take the team up in consideration, vemon 4 drop is beast in the deck:p

good article enjoyed it a lot.

Ry

I like this article a lot. Mainly because you agree with my choice of X-Statix drops. Ever since MMK came out I've been trying to perfect my X-Statix Solo Show deck. It has consistency issues a lot and isn't really viable in any sort of tournament. Plus my luck with the deck is terrible. One game I played X-Statix against my friend who was playing Underworld Curve. It took me around 40 cards to get either of the locations. I wasn't too happy about that.

Nice ideas in this make though. I fear consistency will also be an issue for you though.

What no boomerang? He just screams to be put in the deck, so much ss hate he is...I have a similar build, I call it SSX-Tricky

Nicely done Kam. Lokks like a fun idea.

Wow, when I read the title of the article, I was like "You got to be freaking kidding me!" Then after reading through it... just wow. Not sure it's competitive, but at least it's really really cool :)

You don't need to actually team up by turn three, since you can play venom and flip a team up before his come-into-play trigger resolves.

Darn it! I wanted this to be my little secret deck! I've been messing around with this concept for a couple of weeks now, mainly because I've wanted a deck that could use 4 drop venom to full effect. Some other things to consider...

Obviously Orphan is the drop of choice at 3, but when I was tooling around with it I thought maybe Rhino (and Boomerang mentioned above) had potential as well. Rhino just being the beast that he is with a self KO built in, and Boomerang for a decent little effect.

Also, something I was thinking about with Spin Doctoring is the evasion on Venom 4 drop would allow you to self stun if you needed a way to ready the exhausted venom in a pinch.

Anyway, love the deck idea! I'm going to have to finally throw it together and try it out.

cool article. actually, im just posting because i am so freaking jealous of his avatar. Not only is that my fav villian, but the way the colors wax and wane make it look uber cool, congrats.::Cough::Someone should make GLC Avatars::Cough::;)