VampZilla!

Marvel Knights was the first set that really made me go – “WOW!” MMK crammed in some really interesting developments. Hidden characters, Loner strategies and throwing cards into you KO pile like there was no tomorrow. All these grabbed my attention and started those creative juices sloshing around inside my head. If you’ve ever played against me, or read any of my previous articles, you’ll know that I tend to shy away from the tried and tested. I like to venture forth into the unknown. My friends, Jank is the true final frontier.

When I started pondering this deck, I have to admit that I thought - this is something that could actually be developed into a viable tournament deck. Does that betray the essence of Jank? I don’t think so. Every deck starts of with a little bit of Jank in it. There was a time when swarm or vomit were the only conceivable way to play Sentinels. The idea of playing them to curve was ridiculous. Janky – if you will. Ok, so getting back on track. The idea for this deck was based around one of my favorite common characters to come out of MMK.

[card]MMK-142[/card] : Dracula – Lord of the Dammed.

My first experience with this guy was at our local sneak peak. Tim (Willoughby) had been vamping out with this guy all day (although I seem to remember Tim beating me before he had a chance to get him in play :P). I looked at him and thought – “Cool”. Actually, no. Scratch that. I though “Coooooool”. This guy is awesome. Unfortunately though, he breaks my cardinal rule of no 6+ cost hidden characters. I generally think playing anything hidden from turn 6 upwards is going to be too risky. But then – this is Jank and the rulebook gets thrown out the window.

So, I started to think about getting the best out of this suckhead. The ability is great – no diggidy, no doubt. But if a game ends on turn 7 or 8, you’ve not had chance to squeeze as much as possible out of Drac. Assuming he stuns on turn 6, he starts turn 7 as a slightly above average 6-drop. Assuming successful turn 7, he goes into turn 8 as 15/14 – which is great for a 6-drop – but it leaves me wanting. This guy could be huge. His school report would go something like –

“Dracula achieves his grades and is well behaved (apart from a little vampirism here and there), but he could be so much more. I suggest involving him in some stimulating extra curricular activities to bring out the best in him”

So, how do we do this? Do we stall and go for the long game? I don’t think so. There is no real support within the underworld for stalling. So another approach – we need to achieve multiple stuns with the guy.

As I went through my options, I looked to team-ups and of course came up with one team who I had avoided like the plague. Teen Titans. I had played a handful of games with these guys, but I was put off by their sheer dominance of the competitive scene. I have tried to conform – honestly. At London 10K I was all set to play Curve Sentinels. I had tested with them for weeks, I was prepared. But in the end, I listened to the little voice in my head and ditched them on the eve of the tournament in favour of X-Statix Loner.

As I began to piece the deck together I picked out the key cards as:

[card]MMK-142[/card] : Dracula – Lord of the Dammed.
[card]DOR_060[/card] : Teen Titans Go!

Well Duh, these are obviously essential to the main play of the deck. Looking into the character selection, I decided that I would try to follow curve as much as possible. Having a hidden 6 drop, I did not want to be leaving a vulnerable selection of characters for my opponent to plow through. Also, as the main focus will be on using TTGO! on Dracula we have to be teamed-up obviously. The next question I asked was do we need to team up earlier than that? Looking at the cast of underworld characters, I saw no essential inclusion before Dracula. As we are not restricted by loyalty, I decided to play it as a game of two halves (a football cliché from our part of the world). The curve would be strictly Teen Titans up until turn 6, when things would take on a decidedly undead flavor. Teen Titans have been dissected time and time again, so I wont go over old ground with details behind each pick I made.

4 x Dove
4 x Tim Drake <> Robin
4 x Hawk
1 x Phantasm (keeping it Jank :P)
1 x Terra
4 x Red Star
4 x Garth
4 x Dracula – Lord of the Dammed
3 x Varnae
1 x Nightmare

Notable exclusions :
Mirage - Miriam Delgado. I thought long and hard about including her. Many think her essential to a team up, but in this build, I thought I could make better use of those spaces

Roy Harper - Arsenal: Keystone to much of Titan’s success, but he contributes nothing to the VampZilla strategy.

Morbius – I tested long and hard with Morbius (MMK). His effect made the team-up a fairly routine thing, but the Hawk/Dove angle was just too good to pass up.

Lacuna – There seems to be a school of thought that any team-up deck should run this girl. Personally, Tim Drake was too important to exclude. With Gravesite included in the build, and no actual team-up required until turn 6, I felt in unnecessary to compromise in order to pick up the team-up.

WTF!? Inclusions
Phantasm – Sorry, I just couldn’t resist. He isn’t really anything more than a thematic inclusion. That’s the beauty of a Jank deck.

Nightmare – Hopefully we will have achieved multiple stuns on turn 6 through judicious use of TTGO! This should give us a good amount of board advantage. If the game does go into an eighth turn, I would bring Nightmare out just to get our hands on TTGO! again. If things have gone very badly, and you find your KO pile has been greedy and gobbled up all your tem-up cards, you could bring Nightmare out on 7 to retrieve one, but I see that as a very desperate play.

The character selection is based around team attacks, hence the preference of Redstar over Terra. The rest of the team is really a no-brainer.

Looking at the support cards, Teen Titan’s have quite a few ways to fill our KO pile, which could prove useful later in the game.

4 x Teen Titans Go
4 x Tamaran
4 x Marvel Team Up
4 x Heroic Sacrifice
2 x Titans Tower
3 x Grave Site
3 x Black Magic
3 x Mist Form
3 x Flying Kick


Tamaran and Titans Tower offer some decent offensive options for the early part of the game whilst simultaneously filling our KO pile with cards to fuel our Underworld tricks later in the game. Gravesite will help to get the essential team-up, TTGO! and Drac – again, filling our KO pile. Black Magic is an awesome offensive play, and Mist Form ensures the safe stun. I found that Flying Kick was incredibly handy in the deck. With Dracula, I want to go for the low risk stun first. This ensures that the man is large and in charge and ready to for action after TTGO! This often means picking on the little guys in back. Flight is not something the characters in the deck are overly blessed with, so the FK’s have become quite essential. Once we have got the first stun, Drac is bigger, badder and quite happy to munch on the more threatening characters on my opponent’s side of the board.

Final Build:

4 x Dove
4 x Tim Drake <> Robin
4 x Hawk
1 x Phantasm (keeping it Jank :P)
1 x Terra
4 x Red Star
4 x Garth
4 x Dracula – Lord of the Dammed
3 x Varnae
1 x Nightmare

4 x Teen Titans Go
4 x Tamaran
4 x Marvel Team Up
4 x Heroic Sacrifice
2 x Titans Tower
3 x Grave Site
3 x Black Magic
3 x Mist Form
3 x Flying Kick


Overall, I recommend leaving all your TTGO!’s for turn 6. Don’t be tempted into getting tricky early on. One of the things I like most about the deck is the “WTF!” factor. Your opponent is assuming that you’re running straight Titans, expecting to see Roy bust a move sooner or later. Pulling out Drac on turn 6 is worth it just for the reactions it gets. If all goes well, finishing the game on turn 6 should not be too difficult. Failing that, Varnae makes for a very demoralizing turn 7 for your opponent.

If you want to build the deck on a budget and don’t have the likes of Garth, Varnae and Heroic Sacrifice hanging around gathering dust, here are some suggested modifications for building the deck very cheaply without any rares at all:

Budget – No Rare Version

4 x Dove
4 x Tim Drake <> Robin
4 x Hawk
2 x Morbius – The Living Vampire
4 x Red Star
4 x Cassie Sandsmark <> Wonder Girl
1 x Zarathos
4 x Dracula – Lord of the Dammed
3 x Nightmare

4 x Teen Titans Go
4 x Tamaran
4 x Marvel Team Up
4 x Circle Defense
2 x Titans Tower
2 x Grave Site
1 x Hypnotic Charms
3 x Black Magic
3 x Mist Form
3 x Flying Kick

This build opts to bring in Morbius as a backup 3 drop. The five-drop slot misses Garth a hell of a lot as it hurts our TTGO! recursion. In his place, we bring in Cassie and Zarathos. These guys prove to be a substantial wall, which allows us to play Nightmare on turn seven with slightly less anxiety over our opponent hitting us for major damage.

Well, there you have it. If you manage to use all your TTGO!’s on turn 6, and your opponent survives, you should be strolling into turn 7 with Dracula at true Vampzilla proportions. Throw a Varnae into the equation and your opponent may as well give in to your hypnotic charms, expose his (or preferably – her) jugular and brace themselves for a good old fashioned blood-letting.

Great article Kamiza!

When MMK came out, three Titan/UW decks came out. One with TTG!/5-Drop Drac. One with TTG!/6-Drop Drac, and one really lame TTG!/Asmodeus. I think I like this version the best.
-Farchyld

Loner strategies?

i would say beast boy over phantasm even though its jank beast boy is still the betta and ur using black magic so if u did get phantasm effect off u would be taking away from him

And try doing the same thing with the 5 drop dracula. You can steal their field or they lose double damage. When it goes off, it is disgusting.

wasup kamiza mu old bloodly chum hey thanks ive been telling people about this deck for a while but never no one believed me that its decent but they will see thanks again

dorian

very nice article. well done.

Like the article alot. I also thank you for the Budget version, its great to see sombody post a deck that even poor people can build :)

Very Sweet Article! I woudn't suggest including turn 5 Drac because Garth is just soo good, and you do not want to replace on turn 6.

Very Sweet Article! I woudn't suggest including turn 5 Drac because Garth is just soo good, and you do not want to replace on turn 6.

Concise, thought-out, thorough, intuitive, creative and off the radar.

F'ing nice article.

Plz write another.

btw, Cam's idea w/ the 5dDracula may be able to sneak in a Connor ( Make the FantasticFun players say "FantasicF***!") or Star (granted she steals a little thunder from Drac) or Troy @6,and perhaps that build would utilize Gateway to decentralize your KO pile recursion from the reduced Garth. I'd have 5dDrac as backup for Garth in the occasion that you draw gas and can end the game\steal their board on 5. Then Connor\Star\Troy behind 6dDrac for matchup-intensive purposes. Could you be convinced that 1 copy of Speedy is jenkins enough to use? Great execution of the concept.

Hahaha, jank = fun stuff eh? i like jank, but this is pretty janky. heh

GreaT ArTiCLe.

Blessed is the jank, for your opponents will go "You what? Let me read that."

How about adding in Starfire as a backup 6 with her ability? I had been saying a uw/tt teamup would be fun with finally making use of phantasm and making use of the 1 drop Garth we just got in GL.