The problem I have with DC Modern is that you can’t play any X-men in the format. Or so one would believe. Before I got down to building decks for Indy, I took one last long look at every card to make sure the above statement was true. Much to my surprise, I stumbled upon perhaps the most popular X-men of all, Wolverine, hidden deep within the Anti-Matter team. Wolverine is such a force that now he has invaded the DC Universe and soon will have appeared in every comic on the planet. So mutants and not only metas are alive in the DC world too! Crazy talk? Let’s find out….

Ahh, Wolverine, such an attention #####. Lucky he has the abilities to back up all his fame. But people do get a bit tired of seeing him all over the place, so sometimes he takes on aliases. He’s been Patch, or just Logan, and currently he can be found in what looks like the lead position of SHIELD. So what alias did he take to infiltrate the world of Supes and company? Our favorite little Anti-Matter killing machine, Dead-Eye. Make no mistake about it. That’s Wolverine kiddies. An efficient killing machine able to attack from a sneaky place or from right out in the open. Talk about nailing the character down.

So now that we have Logan in the DC Universe, what are we going to do with him? Pair him up with Golden Age’s newest super star, a guy who’s sudden rise to fame made him the target of the haters at UDE*, Dr. “Don’t Make Me Go Infi On That Ass” Light. Where one Logan is good, multiples of him coming back for more killing is just out of this world. In a land filled with Lanterns loving each other and Guardians that just will not stay dead, Dead-Eye and Light make sure to keep all that silliness in check. Are you confused because I keep jumping from name to name? Logan, Wolvy, Patch, Dead-Eye…not matter what you call him, he still kills with brutal efficiency.

When coming up with any deck, you must first decide what environment it is going to be competing in. Trying to define a new metagame is perhaps the hardest aspect of deck building. Trying to stay out of the bubble, I asked a few other teams what they thought the meta was going to look like. One of the FTN guys summed up Indy with one very profound statement.

“This meta has all our control players crying.”

Yes, the word on the street is off curve, balls to the wall, pure aggression. Embracing some of the best weenie drops to date, decks like Gleeee!, GleiKO, Robots in Disguise, and Eekkkk!** are running rampant through playtester’s gauntlets. There are other decks of course. There is any deck that abuses Kent Farms. Blue Abuse with the almost broken Star Labs. Hell, there might even be decks that include teams other than Team Superman from the Superman set. But don’t hold your breath. And there might even be other options for Yip’s favorite team, AntiMatter. But for the most part, off curve, beat your face, “is the game really over at five, wtf are we playing golden” is what defines the meta right now.

So where does Wolverine figure into all of this? Let’s take a look at the deck.

“Yet Another Team That Wolverine is On”

3- Qwardian Council Hall
3- Book Of OA
3- Thunderous Onslaught
4- Locked In Combat
3- Sweeping Up
2- From Qward With Hate
4- No Man Escapes the Manhunters
4- Emerald Dawn
2- Breaking Ground
2- The Ring Has Chosen

2- St'nlli
2- Power Ring
1- Remoni-Notra
2- Element Man
4- Dr. Ub'x
4- Dr. Light
3- Xallarap
4- Dead-Eye aka Wolverine
8- Anti-Green Lantern

Sort of looks like a pile I know. Maybe I am the only person on the planet that can play it properly. You have to cheat and set your deck and not let your opponent shuffle it to ensure a proper draw. No, not really, but you do have to catch a lot of breaks. The Emeralds help a lot to fix the curve, but only if you have AGLs in play. And Dr Light is only really super if you get Dead-Eye unless you are wrecking with AGLs against weenies. And those are only slightly better than Dr Light simply attacking in himself. But if you get the nut draw, the AGL, Dead-Eye, Dr Light, Dr Ub’x madness, you just can’t lose. Let’s break down the card choices and wrap this up.

Why they are there:

Qwardian Council Hall
Nice little combat ability and great to get an Anti-Green Lantern guy in the KO pile if you need something for Dr. Light to fetch. This is Bastion’s little brother later on in the game, turning all of your Willpower guys into power-ups.

Book Of OA
Only three because you can only start using this as early as turn four. The card is low on characters so this is just a way to filter through your deck and of course the interaction with Dr. Light is obvious.

Thunderous Onslaught
Meh combat pump but the no stun is key sometimes.

Locked In Combat
Sometimes you just have to get your “go away at the start of recovery” guys stunned and it’s much easier to have then stun if they are 4/2 or 11/7. This card actually might need to be four of, but only further testing will tell. Don’t forget that it isn’t attacker/defender stamped.

Sweeping Up
A playable Kidnapping!!!! Sweet with Dr. Ub'x for some double board control action early.

From Qward With Hate
The trickiest card in the deck but probably one of the most important. The game starts looking bad if you are faced with a situation where your opponent is dropping eight and nine drops. Along with the board control of the deck, this will almost always end of Koing a resource of your opponents. The beauty of the card is that is combat stamped so you can play it after sending a couple of guys in to either clear the way for your remaining team or ensure that they are going to KO a few resources.

No Man Escapes the Manhunters
Possibly the best combat pump for DC Modern coupled with the ability to handle troublesome hidden dudes.

Emerald Dawn
So why is this here? It's great with the Anti-Green Lantern dudes. Sometimes you are forced to under drop and against weenie decks, under dropping is often the way to go. This card allows you to fetch drops and is a great Dr. Light enabler if you have AGL out.

Breaking Ground
I am not sold on this card actually. I go back and forth on whether to include it in any deck I build. Yes, it will most likely be solid against a lot of decks. But then again, it can be a totally dead card and those cards suck.

The Ring Has Chosen
Not sold on this card in this deck yet, but it works with Dr. Light and is another character search. The lack of any permanent 1s and 2s with willpower might hurt it too much to include. But if you hit three, four, five you are locked for anything above that.

St'nlli
I like his ability, he hits hard for a six drop and he combos with several cards in the deck. I like being able to Dr. Strange almost everyone out of the way if I don't have initiative and then use Element Man to selectively bring guys back if needed for defense.

Power Ring
Five and seven drop, solid at either resource level. The beauty of his boost ability is that you can easily search for him with minimum dudes out via Ring Has Chosen and still have a great seven drop. Isn’t boost just grand?

Remoni-Notra
Another questionable pick but the KO effect she gives your guys is amazing against weenie decks and sometimes useful against curve decks. She is a “utility box” character that handles weenies quite nicely.

Element Man
I want man babies with this guy. Card drawing, solid body, protection, tricksy combat stuff, he does it all!!!

Dr. Ub'x
Ridiculous dude that you must deal with or your board position becomes poopy!!!

Dr. Light
So many interactions with AGL and Dead-Eye....the Dead-Eye lock is actually stupid all the way through five.

Xallarap
Acts as a three through five drop, is wonderful with locked in combat, is ridiculous if you drop him and AGL at four or five, combos with Emerald, and just looks damn cool on that From Qward With Hate card.

Dead-Eye aka Wolverine
This guys is silly even if you don't get the Dr. Light combo with him. With pumps and the council hall, you can realistically KO up to a five drop. Dr Light in play suddenly makes it possible to keep dudes off the board almost the entire game. Couple it with Ub'x for real fun times. Great against any deck that wants to use recovery effects!

Anti-Green Lantern
Empowers all of the following:

Council Hall
Emerald Dawn
The Ring Has Chosen
Dr. Light
Breaking Ground

And it's beats against weenies.

Try the deck out. I am not sure it’s entirely viable for Indy yet. It still has a lot of ifs, but it certainly will put you on the right track when trying to come up with something not so ordinary. The safe bet will be to play rush. It always is in a new environment. But who wants safe? Take chances and go 10-2 or 11-1 instead of boring old 7-5!

I’ll be in Charlotte this weekend playing Curve again. I am going to play Tim’s deck from across the pond or something quite similar. Take a moment to stop by and say hi to me especially if I have offended you here on the boards so I can do it in person instead.

See you next week.


*Just kidding Dave and company. You guys did big with the errata. You have my love.

** WTF is all of that? I just made clever little names for all the weenie decks:
Gleeee! - GL/EE off curve
GLeiKO – Green Lantern (ok I don’t have anything cool for the ei, help me out here) KO.
Robots in Disguise – Manhunters of course.
Eekkkk! – Emerald Enemies KO. Scary how that deck kills all of your dudes. Get it?

There are control players on FTN? Where? I think you have us confused w/ some midwesterners.

16 Soldiers
4 Lois Lane
4 Red Supes
4 Blue Supes
4 Bronze Tiger (2 drop)
4 Whisper (1 Drop)


2 Star Labs
1 Kent Farm
4 Millenium
3 Royal Decree
4 Demon's Head
4 Birthing Chamber
1 Cadmus Labs
3 Man of Tommorrow
1 Phantom Zone
1 The Source

Try running your deck into that one Dave. (mulligan for LoA guys usually) This deck is one of the better ones we've come up with.

I think this is a better version:

5 Anti-green lantern
4 dead eye
4 scarab
4 dr. light
4 slipstream
4 kimon
3 xallarap
4 johnny quick
1 power ring
2 st'nilli

4 thunderous assault
4 cosmic conflict
4 emerald dawn
4 path of destruction
3 swing line
4 banished to the anti-matter universe
2 locked in combat
-----------------------
Any anti-matter deck withouy slipstream and johnny quick is just wrong imo. Kiman is surprisingly annoying. I don't know why anyone wouldn't play 4 thunderous assaults and 4 cosmic conflicts. swing line is awesome with slipstream and johnny quick, and path of destruction can be insane, but is never bad.

Yeah, I think FTN just wants to control those first 12 cards they see, I mean they did have that turn 3 win ready to go for amsterdam, just needed 11 cards for it ;)

That's an awesome deck DarkestMage. I've been toying with superman blue/soldiers decks for a while but I never thought of adding league of assassins. I'd try to fit one Kandor in somehow....

You have 4 demons heads

Go with the extra 1-2 Kent farm just in case

CP-

The funny thing about Supes Blue abuse is we've yet to determine whether it really is better with League or not. Well, I've yet to change my version of it. The League version lacks the explosive power of doing 15 of Turn 2 against an empty board, but saves on deck space with its Tutors. Bronze Tiger can get monstrously large as well. I see a lack of a Metropolis in that list though, which seems a bit strange.

Kent Farm is highly situational, and doesn't help much with your poorer matchups. 1 is almost certainly the right number.

I've been personally toying around with using Takion Highfather to skip turn 7 and go straight to Kyle Rayner Ion to Parallax/Imperiex. Getting him to survive until recovery is quite an issue though. And even if you get Parallax, you might not be able to do enough damage to win. Sturmer is asking to be used in some sort of deck though. There's so much character search in these sets that some sort of toolbox control should be viable. With Helping hand and Guradians Reborn, there are some decent stall plot twists as well, and Kyle Rayner can grab a lot of them. There just doesn't seem to be enough room in the deck for everything needed to win as well as making sure you don't lose. You might try playing Last Son of Krypton on turn 8 to power out Imperiex turn 9, but that's even more cards that are dead before the end game, and you can't search for them.

I've got a much less techy, on-curve "Dear in the Dead-Lights" deck I won a small tourney with two weeks ago:

4 DGL-023 Salakk-Green Lantern of Slyggia
4 DGL-076 Dead-Eye-Qwardian Conglomerate
3 DGL-048 Hector Hammond-Super-Futuristic Mind
4 DGL-040 Dr. Light-Master of Holograms
3 DGL-018 Kyle Rayner-Green Lantern of the Universe
2 DGL-079 Fiero-Qwardian Conglomerate
2 DGL-008 Guy Gardner-Strong Arm of the Corps
2 DGL-015 Katma Tui-Green Lantern of Korugar
2 DGL-004 Boodikka-Green Lantern of Bellatrix
2 DGL-016 Kilowog-Green Lantern of Bolovax Vik
2 DGL-058 Sinestro-Enemy of the Corps

Plot Twists:
3 DGL-215 The Ring Has Chosen
4 DGL-191 Hard-Traveling Heroes
3 DGL-190 Emerald Dawn
2 DGL-197 Lanterns in Love-Construct
4 DGL-188 Cosmic Conflict
4 DSM-154 I Hate Magic!
4 DGL-204 No Man Escapes the Manhunters

Locations:
3 DGL-187 Coast City

Equipment:
3 DGL-198 Light Armor-Construct

The goal is to own the board through turn 6, then just make sure they can't take out Sinestro on 7 and alt win. It is 100% true that one Dead-Eye and one Dr. Light can KO drops 2-5 with minimal fuss (and lots--15 in this case--of combat pumps).

I love Blue Abuse. I was even stupid enough to take to the Sydeny 10K and go 2-7 with it. Works a treat against Dr Light though because they have no answers for 4 copies of the Source teehee.

But your version adds a new twist ... with no Commander or Mother Boxes your not looking to do much abuse are you?

hmmm.

And Dave, Thanks for another interesting pile. I'll be sure to give it a try. And I dont think we've seen the last of Doc Lightbeer (To infinity and beyond!) yet!
:laugh:

I think there is something big creeping with the New Gods. Yaheard! So sayeth the Source. See you in Indy boys.

i like the deck list david. Its ok, and you are right the better you grift the better it plays. I mean all the pros grift right? Thats the only way to win! anywho, on to seriousness i do like the deck and i love the supes deck posted below it. Look foward to hearing how you did with curve in the last tourney with overload.
lbx!

Um, Dave, you don't seem to have pissed a single person off with this article. Everything ok?

G

I am trying to be a different man this month. But don't worry, I am headed to Charlotte this weekend and based on whether or not I make top eight, I am sure I will be very pissy and there will someone there to make fun of.

Gonna be there working for the man?