~I'm working on the tournament report for my match against Squire right now, but I thought that you all might enjoy a quick overview of how I built my Janktastic Showdown deck. Part 2 soon to come. In the meantime, enjoy!~

“After much deliberation…

The Joker, Emperor Joker! – Steve

Master Mold, Sentinel Supreme – Rian

The Infinity Gauntlet – Cliff

Good Luck Guys!”


As the implication of these words slowly sunk in, the same thought kept crossing my mind: “What have I gotten myself into?!?”

I’m guessing that most of you out there have now heard about the inaugural “Janktastic Showdown”. But for those of you not in the know, let me give you a brief summary of the event. Prior to Mega Weekend Chicago, I challenged The Ring Has Chosen broadcaster (and good friend of mine), Squire “HomerJ” Kershner, to a little deck building challenge. The basic premise of the challenge was simple: We each had to build a Golden Age deck that featured three predetermined cards; and we would have a match to determine who had best formulated a deck concept to integrate these cards.

To prevent shenanigans in deck building where one of us simply built a High Voltage deck with one copy of each card; and just played with no intention of ever using these cards, an additional rule was added: in order win the game, a player must get all three cards into play at some point in the game! This rule, along with a side rule preventing deliberate efforts by players to keep their opponent from being able to put these cards into play (the “sabotage rule”), ensured that both of us would have to focus on building a decks that could effectively use each of these three cards.

I left the selection of the three cards that were chosen for our little contest up to three of the more respected and beloved personalities in the Vs. System community: Steve “kamiza” Garrett (owner of Vs. System fansite the-kamiza.com), Rian “stubarnes” Fike (author of VsSystem.com column, Rallying Cry), and Cliff “Captain_Comet” Parmenter (Squire’s co-host on VsRealms.com podcast The Ring Has Chosen). Each of these men chose one card for the challenge. While I expected the choices to be diverse and interesting, I had no clue that their selections would be this diverse!

Nevertheless, this contest would challenge even the most brilliant of jank deck building minds. For me, it would be a chance to match wits with someone who I considered a very capable deck builder; and see if I could formulate a plan that would lead me to victory over a very worthy opponent.

The Ties That Bind… or Lack Thereof
Ordinarily, when I build a themed deck based upon one or more specific cards, I try to find common themes present among the cards. There was only one problem in this particular challenge: there ISN’T a common theme between the cards! I initially went absolutely berserk trying to find ways to link these cards. One idea I had was to team-up Manhunters and Sentinels to bring copies of Manhunter Giant into play and mill my opponent for the eventual recruit of Emperor Joker. However, aggressive mill strategies could trigger the “sabotage rule” if I put too many cards into my opponent’s KO’d pile. Besides, this strategy didn’t really have any simple method of incorporating The Infinity Gauntlet. In order to effectively bring the vaunted glove into play before turn ten, I would need aggressive equipment search as well as powerful draw and cycling options. However, aggressive search and draw effects didn’t really seem to fit into the realm of the other two cards…

… or did it?

Ignoring Master Mold temporarily, it occurred to me that there might be an Arkham-based strategy that could provide me with the deck search and cycling power that I needed to fuel The Infinity Gauntlet’s alternate recruit cost. World’s Finest gave the Arkham Inmates some of the most potent search and draw cards that our fair game has seen.

The only problem is, you have to be insane to play these cards!

Can I Play With Madness?
I’ve recently become very fond of the Insanity mechanic. While I have a very diverse Vs. System card collection, it’s become increasingly difficult for me to obtain playsets of more recently released cards – most notably, the participation and prize cards for various Vs. System events; and The Coming of Galactus exclusives cards. While the lack of these cards prevents me from building some decks, Insanity decks are perfectly suited for this situation. For starters, you only need one copy of any given card. While many players may have a difficult time finding four copies of Enemy of my Enemy, a single copy of the vaunted search card is much easier to come by.

Additionally, cards that feature the Insanity mechanic are among the most powerful in the game. Consider a card like Basil Karlo◊Ultimate Clayface, Mud Pack. Not only is he a respectable 7-drop at 16 ATK/16 DEF that can be recruited from your KO’d pile, but he gives you a free character in an Insanity deck. There are only a few cards in the game that can potentially give you upwards of 10 resource points worth of characters on turn seven! Of those, most usually require a commitment of several cards from your hand. Clayface is a single card… and it doesn’t even need to be in your hand! There can be little argument that his Insanity effect is truly amazing!

Finally, Insanity decks feature the one aspect of Vs. System play that I value above all others – fun! I have never had a bad time playing an Insanity deck, competitively or no.

One of my more recent experiments with Insanity (so to speak) came in a recent Hobby League tournament that took place over at a local card shop (Insanity Cards and Games in Richardson). The format was called 10-spot; and the rules were that all games would last for ten turns (regardless of endurance totals). All alternate win and loss condition cards were banned in the format.

When brainstorming for this format, I ran across Mr. Mxyzptlk, Felonious Fiend. While I had played him once or twice in various Insanity builds, I had never found his effect to be extraordinarily useful. By the time that he comes into play, you usually have drawn through enough cards in your deck to prevent him from revealing any potent character cards. In theory, he could be extraordinary if you could reveal some really big characters. However, there didn’t seem to be any way to control what characters you wanted to stay in your deck. This made the challenge two-fold: 1) Have a way to reliably return characters to your deck; and 2) Find a way to consistently perform this combo in an Insanity deck.

After a little trial and error, I managed to stumble across a combination of cards that allowed my idea to bloom. First, I found that Evasion cards were great in the format. While I usually took quite a bit of damage, I was able to retain critical board presence for turn nine when Mr. Mxyzptlk hit the board. Additionally, I could use Evasion to trigger Mxy’s effect. Second, The Monitor turned a single character with Evasion into a reusable trigger for the remainder of my deck. Of course, this was reliant on my being able to get The Monitor into play relatively quickly. Of course, this minor detail was addressed by my final card – Professor X, Illuminati. If I could draw the right combination of cards, then I could use Professor X’s effect to “stack” the top of my deck. It was an improbable combination that, when it worked, was more devastating that a Dr. Light, Arthur Light boost could ever dream of being.

I won’t go into detail about the results of the event (suffice to say that I was fully able to “combo out” in two games; eventually losing in the finals to – ironically – Professor X, Mental Master). However, this experiment did let me see just how game-breaking certain Insanity cards are. Jack in the Box and Pick a Card are unbelievably effective at getting specific cards from your deck. While they both are conditional, it is usually possible to use them in a way that you achieve your desired result. For example, when I wanted a specific plot twist, I would usually reveal the plot twist that I wanted for Pick a Card; and select Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival for my face-down card. Regardless of what my opponent picked, I would be getting the plot twist that I wanted.

Arkham Asylum, Team-Up is another Insanity card that goes beyond the capabilities of normal Vs. System cards. The closest equivalent would be Midnight Sons; which could team up Marvel Knights with any other team. Arkham Asylum goes one step further and crosses over two teams with the Arkham Inmates. Considering the level of access that this gives you to the resources of other teams, this solitary team-up is one of the power players of any Insanity deck.

Of course, the MVP of Insanity has to be Beside Myself. At one time in my gaming career, I made the brazen statement that no card that relied on a coin flip could ever be good. Boy, how wrong I was! This ongoing plot twist turns any draw into a 50% potential of an additional card. More importantly, this effect triggers again every time you flip successfully for Beside Myself.

Consider the implications of this card in a typical Insanity deck. Let’s assume that Beside Myself is in play from the draw phase of turn four through the end of turn seven. Including the two cards drawn during the draw phase, we’ll conservatively assume that a player draws a card four times each turn. This means that, from turn four through turn seven, Beside Myself will initially trigger 16 times. Assuming that half of those flips are successful (50% chance on a coin flip, obviously), you will draw an additional 8 cards from the first triggers. You will draw half again as much on the second triggers of these 8 draws (i.e. 4 more cards); and another 2 cards on the third triggers; and finally an additional 1 card from the fourth triggers. All total, that’s 15 additional cards… from one copy of Beside Myself. Insane!!!

With these cards serving as the base for my Janktastic Showdown deck, I formulated a basic strategy. First, I would use the accelerated search and draw effects available to the Insanity deck to accumulate the Infinity Gems (one copy of each gem and The Infinity Gauntlet itself… perfect for Insanity!) Once I had established board control with The Infinity Gauntlet, I would use Arkham Asylum to crossover Arkham Inmates and Sentinels - along with as yet undetermined another team that has access to a global crossover card (Clone Saga, Sinister Six, The Insiders, or World’s Worstest). With the global crossover giving all characters the Sentinel affiliation, I would use Master Mold to start dropping various 5-cost Army characters into play. Finally, on turn eight, I would recruit Emperor Joker, then use Master Mold to bring Manhunter Giant into play. With Manhunter Giant’s effect, I would mill the remaining cards from my opponent’s deck and win via Emperor Joker’s alternate win condition. Piece of cake!

Apoplectic Deck Construction
My first rule of Insanity deck construction: always play 61 cards… always. I’ve always thought that I would have to be insane to play more than 60 cards in a deck. So, this is the one deck where I can get away with such shenanigans.

My deck construction took place in phases. The first phase was the assessment of the non-character cards. My initial assessment was that I would need to play about 32 character cards, so that left me with 29 slots for non-character cards. 8 of these slots would be taken by The Infinity Gauntlet and accompanying Infinity Gems. Additionally, three additional equipment related plot twists were added to the mix. Tech Upgrade and Cannibal Tech both gave me extra equipment search that I would need to get The Infinity Gauntlet into play by turn four or five. After that, Salvage would give me a reusable source of equipment recursion so I could make use of the Infinity Gems after they had been discarded to pay The Infinity Gauntlet’s cost.

Next, I had to seriously evaluate my character search options. With one of the rules being that Enemy of my Enemy was banned in this format, I couldn’t include the ultimate jank enabler in my build. Still, it was somewhat reassuring that I really only lost one copy of the card; where others would have to make due without four copies. Instead, I played a copy each of Mobilize, Straight to the Grave, and Call in a Favor. Each of these searchers had restrictions that made them less effective than Enemy in my build. However, they are still all powerful search cards in their own right. For my final search card, I tested Usual Suspects. While this Arkham Inmate stamped searcher enabled me to hit an Arkham Inmates character as early as turn two, it came with a potentially devastating drawback. While I planned on playing recursion cards in my deck, I did not want to have to overly rely on these cards to fetch critical cards from my KO’d pile. So, Usual Suspects was removed in favor of Vicarious Living. While this searcher would be less than helpful at finding my late game drops, it could search out my early game with no trouble whatsoever. And, considering that I planned to under drop in the early turns to set up my boards, this was no small feat.

With regard to the team-ups, I had a few tough choices to make. I had originally gone with five spaces for team-ups. However, my initial analysis determined that, other than Arkham Asylum and a global crossover card, I really didn’t need any other team-ups. I decided to cut back to three team-up cards – Arkham Asylum and my global crossovers – and a team-up searcher/protector in Teamwork. The primary task, then, was to determine which global crossover card I should use. My first inclination was to play Clone Saga. Spider-Friends would be a very strong team to include in the deck; as they can use ESU Science Lab (which would be a great source of draw power for my deck). However, as I tested Clone Saga, I found that the lack of a Team-Up version really hurt it. Not only was it not afforded the protection of Teamwork, but it couldn’t be searched by any effects that looked for cards with the version “Team-Up”. Given how critical the global crossover is to the deck, I felt that this was too important to ignore. So, I switched over to The Insiders and World’s Worstest. Just like Clone Saga, The Insiders and World’s Worstest give all of my character cards a common affiliation. Additionally, when I used Arkham Asylum to crossover Arkham Inmates and Sentinels with the Outsiders/Revenge Squad, all of my character cards would gain all three affiliations. This allowed for some tricky team-stamped effects that I wouldn’t have otherwise been able to pull off.

With 19 of my 29 non-character cards chosen, I next went to the task of selecting my remaining locations. While I knew that my location choices would be key to the deck, I really felt that I would only be able to devote 6-7 slots total to these locations. Three of these slots went to the “Big 3” character recursion locations – Avalon Space Station, Slaughter Swamp, and Soul World. Outside of Straight to the Grave, I didn’t plan on putting too many cards into the KO’d pile. However, I was also realistic enough to realize that, in the early game, I would usually be forced to pitch some of my late game characters to the KO’d pile for various draw and search effects. Thus, I needed a way to return these late game characters to my hand once I had established my early game. Avalon Space Station and Slaughter Swamp were no-brainers in this regard. Soul World was not as easy a choice, since the endurance cost could often be difficult to deal with in a deck designed to play to the late game. However, Soul World is definitely easier on your hand in the early turns; and its Terraform effect can help fix a wayward resource row.

My remaining locations were selected to help me accelerate my draw. Considering that I planned on under dropping in the early turns of the game; and that I would (hopefully) be getting free characters into play during the late turns thanks to Master Mold, Birthing Chamber seemed like a solid choice. Of course, with all of the 0-cost equipment in the deck, New Baxter Building seemed like a sensible play as well. With cards like Ego Gem and Mind Gem being played on characters with Evasion, you could realistically expect to be able to use New Baxter Building every turn. Between these equipment cards and locations, I would have plenty of ways to draw the cards I needed to get The Infinity Gauntlet into play.

My final non-character cards were all plot twists boasting (or, at least, inspired by) the Insanity keyword. I’ve already mentioned how great I think Beside Myself, Jack in the Box, and Pick a Card are. Along a different line, Money Talks is another powerful Insanity card. This plot twist, reminiscent of Kidnapping, can both disrupt your opponent’s board and their following draw. Of course, since Money Talks is reminiscent of Kidnapping, we might as well play Kidnapping. While there is an additional cost associated with Kidnapping, it also gives you the additional bonus of being able to draw a card. Another draw effect… WHEEEEE!!!

On the character side, I have 32 spots for the 32 best characters to fit my deck’s theme. Starting at the top of the curve, I have Emperor Joker as the finisher. With the strategy I have set, the Clown Prince of Crime should be enough to ensure that my opponent’s best laid plans all rest peacefully in the KO’d pile. Dropping down two spots, we have Master Mold for some 5-drop Army abuse. That’s right – no 7-drop. The reason why will be apparent shortly.

At five, I have four amazing Army 5-drops that can thoroughly thwart my opponent’s schemes. The aforementioned Manhunter Giant is one of the deck’s MVPs. However, he’s best as the finisher for turn eight. For the turns before that, we have Annihilation Protocol◊OMAC Robot, Kree Public Accusers, and Ultron◊Ultron 11. Annihilation Protocol is just plain nutty in unison with The Infinity Gauntlet; turning stuns of my opponent’s largest drop into KOs. Kree Public Accusers is a tricky drop with a built in Null Time Zone. If there are any plot twists that I am particularly concerned about, this 5-drop will give me a single turn reprieve. Finally, Ultron is unbreakable – he’s the one character in my deck that my opponent simply won’t be able to get rid of. In a Doomed Earth/Moloids deck, he’s an MVP. He’s not quite as ridiculous in my deck, but he’s still really darn good.

My lone 4-drop relates to my decision to abandon the 7-drop slot. You see, one of my reasons for keeping seven open is just to have some insurance in case I was forced to play Master Mold later than I would like. However, the main reason is an initiative issue. With Emperor Joker being my win condition, having the initiative on eight is critical. Unfortunately, if I know Squire, he’s also going to be angling for that even initiative. So, I figured that I needed to have a trick that would ensure that I get initiative on turn eight. This answer came in the form of David Clinton◊Chronos, Timetwister. While there are several initiative-swapping cards in Vs. System, most of them aren’t practical for my purposes. In the end, my choices came down to King Takes Knight; Carnage, Symbiote Surfer; and Chronos. King Takes Knight would necessitate playing Crime Lords; which I wasn’t willing to do. Carnage certainly has a lot of potential. However, I would have to keep his Cosmic counter intact to maintain the initiative on eight. Overall, that seemed like too risky of a proposition to me. So, Chronos was the play. While his effect does require a discard of an Injustice Gang character card, there are several Injustice Gang characters dual-affiliated with the Arkham Inmates. As you will shortly see, I’ll be playing a few of those.

Three of my four 3-drop choices are tailored towards the goal of getting Beside Myself into play: Dr. Doom, Richard’s Rival; Ilsa Haupstein, and Professor Emil Hamilton◊Ruin. If played early enough, each of these 3-drops can insure that my card drawing engine will be active early enough in the game to make a difference. My fourth 3-drop is another aspect of the card-drawing engine: Barbara Gordon◊Oracle, Hacker Elite. Oracle is already pretty amazing on her own. However, if you take into consideration that she also counts as an additional trigger for Beside Myself every turn, she becomes very nearly broken (or perhaps… insane?!?)

My 1- and 2-drops will be doing a majority of the setup work for the deck. Obviously, I’ll need a good compliment of Arkham Inmates characters to ensure that I can get my team-up active. Fortunately, there are some extremely good Arkham Inmates low drops:

- Anarky; Catwoman, Cat o’ Nine Tails; and The Penguin, Gentleman of Crime: These 1-drops are primarily useful because they can help maintain board presence by staying out of harm’s way in the hidden area. Penguin’s effect is occasionally useful to help draw cards; and both Penguin and Catwoman are good discards for Chronos.
- Harley Quinn, Dr. Harleen Quinzel; Mad Hatter, Mad as a Hatter; Charaxes, Moth Monster; Tally Man; The Penguin, Crime’s Early Bird: In addition to being good choices to recruit in the early turns to provide Arkham Inmate presence on the board, these characters all boast utility beyond their recruit value. Harley Quinn, Tally Man, and The Penguin have potent discard utility; while Mad Hatter and Charaxes can aide your board presence as free characters in later turns.
- Calendar Man; Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose: These 2-drops are just plain amazing in every game that you play them. Calendar Man will usually net you at least a couple of extra cards every game (possibly more if you can get him in play with Beside Myself). Poison Ivy has been a key component in many powerful decks since she was first released. Having her in play means that you are assured of getting Arkham Asylum.

The remaining low drops are all included to provide functions to support the deck’s engine:
- Beetle, Armorsmith can find any 1- or 2-drop in the deck; while Yellowjacket can find Beetle.
- Ape X; Ted Kord◊Blue Beetle; and Sydney Leach are all very effective equipment searchers.
- Dallas Riordan and Black Cat; Nine Lives add to the draw engine; while Spoiler, Stephanie Brown can help to abuse that draw engine by (hopefully) gaining oodles of endurance.
- Winslow Schott◊Toyman, Child's Play and Namorita are both very powerful recursion tools for fairly small investments.
- Finally, Night Thrasher has a Boost effect that can be useful for finding either the much needed Arkham Asylum or either of the global team-ups.

And with that, I have my Janktastic Showdown deck:

Janktastic Voyage (61 cards)

Characters (32)
1 Anarky, Lonnie Machin
1 Ape X, Xina
1 Catwoman, Cat o' Nine Tails
1 Dallas Riordan, Mayoral Aide
1 Harley Quinn, Dr. Harleen Quinzel
1 Mad Hatter, Mad as a Hatter
1 Spoiler, Stephanie Brown
1 Ted Kord◊Blue Beetle, Heir of the Scarab
1 The Penguin, Gentleman of Crime
1 Winslow Schott◊Toyman, Child's Play
1 Yellowjacket, Rita DeMara
1 Beetle, Armorsmith
1 Black Cat, Nine Lives
1 Calendar Man, Julian Gregory Day
1 Charaxes, Moth Monster
1 Namorita, Atlantean Warrior Princess
1 Night Thrasher, Dwayne Michael Taylor
1 Poison Ivy, Deadly Rose
1 Sidney Leach, Human Metal Detector
1 Tally Man, Tax Time
1 The Penguin, Crime's Early Bird
1 Barbara Gordon◊Oracle, Hacker Elite
1 Dr. Doom, Richard's Rival
1 Ilsa Haupstein, Great Heart
1 Professor Emil Hamilton◊Ruin
1 David Clinton◊Chronos, Timetwister
1 Annihilation Protocol◊OMAC Robot, Army
1 Manhunter Giant, Army
1 Kree Public Accusers, Army
1 Ultron◊Ultron 11, Army
1 Master Mold, Sentinel Supreme*
1 The Joker, Emperor Joker*

Plot Twists (15)
1 Beside Myself
1 Call in a Favor
1 Cannibal Tech
1 Jack in the Box
1 Kidnapping
1 Mobilize
1 Money Talks
1 Pick a Card
1 Salvage
1 Straight to the Grave
1 Teamwork
1 Tech Upgrade
1 The Insiders, Team-Up
1 Vicarious Living
1 World’s Worstest, Team-Up

Locations (6)
1 Arkham Asylum, Team-Up
1 Avalon Space Station
1 Birthing Chamber
1 New Baxter Building
1 Slaughter Swamp
1 Soul World

Equipment (8)
1 Ego Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Mind Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Power Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Reality Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Soul Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Space Gem, Infinity Gem
1 Time Gem, Infinity Gem
1 The Infinity Gauntlet*


Despite my earlier reservations, I was pretty pleased with how the deck panned out. Given the complexity of the task at hand, I felt that I had managed to parlay all of the themes of the three challenge cards into a cohesive deck.

Of course, the real test would be taking on Squire’s deck to see who the true jankmaster really was. Stay tuned for part two; as my deck goes head-to-head with Squire’s to determine who the winner of the Janktastic Showdown will be!

Wow....

You must spread some Reputation around before giving it to BigSpooky again.

I am in awe. How can mere words be so entertaining?

Standing ovation.

Very nice. You should write a column or something. :cool:

Awe - Some. For some reason I did not realize that Beside Myself triggered itself. I guess I was playing my insanity deck all wrong! I are dumb

I lost myself reading this and didn't even noticed it took you 2 posts to put it all in here, amazing read. What I liked the most was the brainstorming and process involved for building the deck. Rarely if ever do you see the whole process of thinking, mixing and matching that went into a build.

I applaud to thee.

Fall of Oa.

When you deck your opponent, you are able to put your deck into your hand, which should hopefully give you all the gems and the Gauntlet.

Now, depending on initative, you have to worry about an opposing Emperor Joker.

It's not the only way, but I know that was the first idea that popped into my head.