Once upon a time there was a little boy named Franklin Richards. Now Franklin, being the child of two scientists ( one a craddle robbing pedophile psychophant and the other a self-deprecating pacifist with a secret love for naughty naughty things) is a little different than most other children. Franklin just happens to have super powers developing. You see, his mommy and daddy are two of the most powerful heroes the world has ever known.

So, it should come as no surprise that when Franklin needs help, he calls for his mommy and daddy. Usually there is no one faster at responding to the cries of a child in danger. Usually. But things have changed in the land of make believe. Now, substitutes roam the land.

Many players have asked and pondered just what to do with them and how best to do it. Well, I've tinkered with decks for some time focusing on the neat tricks to apply game mechanics and see just where they go.

But this takes the cake my friends.

Turbo decks, also called ramp decks some time ago revolved around using Franklin Richards and or Alicia masters repeatedly to reduce the costs of their corresponding Fantastic Four members to play much higher cost characters far earlier than intended.

This has proven tough to do for most players leaving the decks to rot on the side most of the time. But the introduction of Substitute has opened up a few more dirty tricks for this deck type.

Suppose the story was about a blind sculptress who loved a living statue and a living match book?

Multiple 4 cost characters on turn..well any turn before turn 4 is just plain mean I think.

Torch has 2 four drops and Thing has 1. By reducing their costs to 0, a player could easily use longshot to fill their hand and then replace away as early as turn 3. ( if she started the turn ready, and you had an xavier's school and just one cosmic radiation, you could reduce the cost for each by 3, allowing you to play 3 4 cost characters on turn 3).

Isn't that just a little strong?

Sure, nearly impossible, but can you imagine the applications for such a silly thing?

I already tried this deck.. it happened once after playing it like 50 times... (even then it was lucky)

but yes... had had a changling out Chomin and one Alicia Masters... Stunning changling... I braught out another Alicia Masters... used cosmic radiation... and redused Thing's cost by 3.. this was turn four by the way... and yes... I braught out a mean... and I mean... MEAN 7 drop thing on turn 4, bouncing back um... 3 or less on turn 4 was pretty devistating.. and a 16/16 at that.

I've run Turbo Thing for a while, and I have very little trouble working by turn 4, likely about 75+ percent of the time. Turn 4 thing with a couple of presses and the game is done typically. I don't use Chomin though as his effect just doesn't help enough for me.

I prefer to simply wait until turn 4 and use Longshot, and Thinking outside the box to control my draws. For this, I'm planning to remove a few of my higher cost characters in favor of Substitute characters.

maybe... I just don't see it winning a lot... but it definately is a fun deck.. don't get me wrong.

It wins a lot more than it should ;)

But if doom gets going on 3 now adays, it is an auto loss really.

Few decks can handle bouncing their entire field back to hand on their own initiative and having to face off against a 5 drop and a 7 drop, after taking nearly 40+ in burn loss. ( resource row is likely some combination of xavier's school and heroes united and thinking outside the box, so the 3 drop torch can burn for at least 3, and radiation him a bit, then replace with higher costs).