Kergy’s Korner #61: Jank City, Here We Come!

Ah, New York. How jankarific! And what did we learn in New York? We learnt that Curve Sentinels is still dominating the metagame. We learnt that Curve Sentinels can win a PC. And we learnt that cheezy decks that are built with the curve Machine in mind can demolish the field and Top 8.

Of course I’m talking about our two favourite new decks: Number One Dream and New School. Now, I’m not knocking the decks, nor am I knocking the brilliance of those who came up with the decks. And I’m sure that both of these decks – especially New School – will be dominant for a while – but I’d also like to explore something else that comes as a result of these two decks, and something that is wholly significant with regard to the Pro Circuit in general: casual play on the Major League Level.

First off, let’s take a peek at the decks and just what they mean in terms of the metagame.

Jason Hager’s New School Deck

Characters
4 Boris
4 Alfred Pennyworth
4 Micro-Chip
4 Dagger, Child of Light
1 Lacuna
1 Commissioner Gordon, James Gordon
1 Shimmer
2 Robot Sentry
4 Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius
1 Glorious Godfrey
2 Dr. Light, Arthur Light
1 Spider-Man, The Spectacular Spider-Man
1 Psimon
1 Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria

Plot Twists
4 Wild Ride
4 Bat-Signal
4 Midnight Sons
3 Marvel Team-Up
4 Mystical Paralysis
4 Reign of Terror
2 Press the Attack
2 Fizzle
1 Entangle

Equipment
1 Power Compressor

This deck is a vastly improved version of Hager’s earlier Evil Medical School deck – although, ironically, EMS is its worst match-up. It’s a veritable search machine, using Dagger or Lacuna to fetch team-ups, using Wild Ride to fetch the Daggers – or whatever drops you may need (like Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius), using Boris or Alfred to fetch the necessary plot twists (or the Power compressor), using Bat Signal to fetch whatever character you need once you have Gotham team up, and using either Doom and/or Micro-Chip to flip down plot twists. It would take the worst draw in history to choke on the engine, and Hager showed up why the deck works so well, and how to blow away nearly all of your opponents with it.

Stall, stall, stall with the Mysticals and Reigns – and Glorious Godfrey, who is the coup de grace, not only exhausting your opponent (and, often, their pesky and oft-boosted Mark Vs) but forcing some nasty endurance loss on top of it. The goal is to get to 9, when, like in EMS, you drop the Dr. Light boosted bomb and fill your board to overwhelm your opponent and smash them into smithereens. Since the deck curves rather than using weenies, you can sometimes win earlier if you get the right draws and combinations. It’s a headache to use properly, but when seen in action, it’s been known to blow people’s minds into little bitty pieces…

Michael Barnes’ Number One Dream Deck

Characters
4 Alfred Pennyworth
12 GCPD Officer
4 Dazzler
4 Longshot
4 Beast
1 Lacuna, Media Darling

Plot Twists
4 Xavier's Dream
4 Bat-Signal
4 Fizzle
4 Total Anarchy
4 Pleasant Distraction
3 Marvel Team-Up
3 A Death In The Family
1 Flame Trap

Locations
4 Avalon Space Station

Another deck that loves the search, using Longshot to score who you need, Alfred to fetch your twists, Bat-Signal if Longshot doesn’t get you your target drops. You then proceed to get the dream out as early as possible (Beast helps), stall as much as possible (love those GCPD Officers and their all-natural reinforcement!), and do everything you can to prevent the stun. Total Anarchy takes care of the mini drops, Death in the Family helps with the bigger ones. Pleasant Distraction stops the attacks, and Flame Trap (used in conjunction with Total Anarchy) is a last gasp desperation move – that works beautifully against certain decks, like EMS. Fizzle is the final catch, preventing any plot twists that would force the stun on your side.

The only down side to this deck, as opposed to New School, is that it has no backup plan. New School curves out with enough tricks to not only minimize your opponent’s attack power and your own endurance loss, but it deals endurance to your opponent as well, and you can often win without the final throwdown. This deck is a one-trick pony – you win by the Dream or nothing at all, which is why all fur New School decks made Day 2, and Barnes led the charge into Day 2 with the Dream, while Batow’s ship sank, with a close-but-no-cigar 6-6 record.


Now the point of all of this is two-fold. For one, these decks give hope to the masses because they provide more anti-Sentinel options in Golden Age – and, in the case of New School, manage to do so with multitudes of cards from the newer sets. For two, they provide casual players who make fun and kooky decks a high level of excitement, because if these decks can perform so well, then how many other off-the-wall and zany non-conformist decks can do the same?

Now, before you get your panties in a bunch and rush to your boxes to dig out those ridiculously janky decks you’ve put on the backburner for a month or two, let’s not belittle the sheer genius of these two decks. I suppose I oversimplified the difficulties involved in creating and testing a deck like these; Jason Hager mentioned that they scoured every character, drop by drop, until the found the ones that they felt were strongest. They then tested for two months to make sure the build worked to its maximum potential. So don’t expect that you can take your build, which you’ve played in Hobby League a couple of times, to Wizard World East in Philly next weekend and Top 8 the $10K. Not gonna happen. BUT, don’t give up hope – start breaking out the decks and playing them, and look for off-the-cuff additions that would not only surprise your opponent (because surprise is a major factor) but gel well with the decks. Test, test, test, and after making sure that it works, and works well, against the majority of the major decks out there, you may be surprised at how successful it is at the next PCQ – or even $10K – that you break it out at.

Much like the decks themselves, this article (and it's tone) are a breath of fresh air. Thanks Kergy.

I think there's something to be learned from these decks that a lot of people have thus far missed. Betrayal's a reason to want to play with a single team; it's not the reason to not go with team-ups. There are a lot of deck strategies that haven't been explored nearly as fully as they might have been. New Darkseid's Elite tech is going to likely make cards like Hidden Surveillance and Night Vision important cards, for example.

Really, the only difference between random jank and a competitive rogue deck comes down to refinement and practice. An example of my local metagame is the old GK/X-Men deck that revolved around Longshot for GCPD Officers to put in front of Storm and Cyclops has evolved into two decks that are top of the heap in the local metagame. The new GL set makes Protection, Resource Cycling, and END Gain themes a lot more practical then they once were, and I suspect the first people to wield the funky deck with GCPD Officers, Kyle Rayner, and Sinestro to stop attacks that wins a big tournament will make that theme a practical metagame choice rather than a rogue deck or even a 'jank' deck.

The way I see it is that something Modern Age seasons will do for the game is to make some overlooked themes far more viable, and their refinement will hopefully bring more shifts and options to the game, and that's never a bad thing.

Something else that interests me is that the newer technical decks begin to make other options look good as well. The Source would literally devour both of the speced decks' chances for victory, and that means if you can come up with a deck using the New Gods that can beat the Sentinels at least 55% of the time, you can push yourself ahead of the metagame with that new deck. GK/LoA/NG, anyone?

So, there's a ton of room to play around with new deck types, and lots of room to be the next big innovator. As I've learned with my friend who's played and refined his BBH deck for months, any deck can be very good with sufficient effort put into it.

The dawn of jank, i think that would be a fun time. Always wanted to give a New Gods/Sinister Syndicate build a try.

Burn early on with Moonrider, Salvo and Venom and finish up with 7 drop Gobby and Prophecy Fullfilled.

Yeah right...

My New Gods/Brotherhood burn deck is really quite effective - and you want to finish with Lightray, as he doesn't cost you anything;)

That aside, it does need some speed, and I think that I'm going to be looking for ways to speed it up - I'm thinking that perhaps an off-curve deck with burn equipment and Cryonic Grenades in addition to Focused Blast - but NOT going thee Fantastic Burn way.

Anyhow, I think canamrock hit it right on the nail - practice and refinement are exacty what it takes to turn jank into gold...

i dont know if well truly going in to a "dawn of Jank" haha, but i do think PCNY interduced jank in a whole new way in which no other metagame could have. with the dominance of CS, i good jank deck that was build against CS would obviously do well. this event will def. make more deck builders go rougue to beat the meta.

king of jank-!~Billy Zones~!

Ry

One thing to note.

If you're going to build a jank deck that teams up to get combos off, Alfred and the rest of his Gotham ilk is a really good place to start. When in doubt, splash the butler :P

HEY if jank is what you want, Team Online is where to look!

Top Janksters in the game!

that was before brandon came to town

king of jank: brandon ruiz

agreed, though my super-secret tech is going to break the game. Really, it is...one day...maybe...sometime...in the distant future...when I'm 80...maybe...

The new Dr. Light is broken


watch.


i bet 4 of the top 8 decks at philly utalize him in some rediculis broken combo sort of way


like whoa:
strider119

Kergy and Jank. Two great tastes that taste great together. Good times.

Strider, I agree with you fully. I'm not entirely sure, though, if it's he or Rama-Tut who's truly the broken character of the Ultimate Combo. ^_^

it's not just that ... there are other combos with him

JUST SO MANY COMBOS WITH HIM!!!


it makes my stomach turn


I can tell you one thing, I am running 4 "have a blasts" and lots of counter activate stuff becuase I have a feeling I'm gonna run into a lot of gimicky mechanical wacky decks like the new school and the dr. light broken-ness




unforgetable:
strider119