In case you missed the announcement, there’s a new format for Hobby League, and it’s got everyone’s attention. Bring Your Own Team is a Golden Age Constructed format in which you nominate a team and all the cards in your deck must refer to either that team or no team at all. This format opens ups many possibilities that that are wide reaching. While there will no doubt be a lot of representation from the standard favorites, this type of format will challenge the more creative deckbuilders to come up with something a little more off the beaten track.
In my mind, Mobilize is one of the greatest things to have happened to this game. It instantly raises the effectiveness of any given team and makes affiliations that would normally be overlooked quite a bit more viable. When you combine it with this latest format, you have a veritable cornucopia of possibilities. I know people who are desperate to play Manhunters in a tournament—now they can.
Many comic “purists” have often decried the mishmash capabilities of this game. Unions between Unlikely Allies have been a bone of contention since Magneto decided to align with the mechanical mutant menace Sentinels. This format forces players to follow thematic reasoning when building their decks. The fact that players have a Golden Age resource library from which to choose opens the door even more.
My local store is running a Bring Your Own Team event on August 2 (http://the-kamiza.com/vs/?p=135), and I’ve currently got a “short list” of decks that I’m considering playing. My options are wide open: I can’t pin anything down, though I’ve categorized them into tiers.
My tier one options are as follows:
Darkseid—Resource Control
The main reason I want to play this deck is the opportunity to abuse Kanto, Darkseid’s Assassin. KO’ing a character for a measly 3 endurance is amazing. You can potentially KO an opposing 6-drop and then attack down the curve with every character you have for the win on turn 6.
MKKO
Put simply, it’s a really consistent, powerful deck that likes to KO characters—and I really like to KO characters. Wild Ride and Mobilize make it one of the most reliable decks out there at the moment. Recent additions like Blade, Independent Contractor and Punisher ◊ Captain America improve an already strong deck.
Avengers Reservist
Without a doubt, this old favorite has received a huge makeover, improving the deck with the Marvel Universe cards. The old MAV version was pretty spectacular in it’s own right—taking consecutive $10K titles back in the day—but when you combine it with the new cards, you’ve got something even more powerful. My current list is as follows:
Characters
4 Rick Jones, A Hero’s Best Friend
4 Iron Fist, Secret Avenger
4 Captain America, The Patriot ◊ Secret Avenger
2 Dr. Strange, Secret Avenger
2 Echo ◊ Ronin, Secret Avenger
4 Black Panther, T’challa
4 Punisher, Secret Avenger
4 Human Torch, Secret Avenger
1 Storm, Secret Avenger
1 Carol Danvers ◊ Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
2 Spider-Man, Secret Avenger
1 Wolverine, Secret Avenger
1 She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
2 Wonder Man, Simon Williams
1 Ares, Mighty Avenger
1 Hercules, Son of Zeus
Plot Twists
3 Mobilize
1 Avengers Reassembled
4 Call Down the Lightning
4 Heroes in Reserve
4 Atlantis Attacks!
3 The Big Three
3 Switching Sides
My list is not quite optimal, as I’m missing one or two things like additional copies of Avengers Reassembled, but some would argue that with all the replacement and Rally effects available to this deck, I don’t really need to worry too much about search. One of my favorite things about this deck is the Human Torch / Atlantis Attacks! mini-combo. Burning for 7 and then giving your hidden Cap or Panther +7 ATK to take down an opponent’s 5- or 6-drop seems nice.
The next tier includes personal favorites like X-Statix and Warbound. Planet Hulk and World War Hulk are some of the few comic stories I’ve read, so I feel a definite affinity to the Warbound. I’ve been enjoying the deck recently, but I play it differently to some of the builds I’ve seen. I basically go with support characters one through five until I can drop Hulk, The Green King and use his superenhanced frame to smash. By waiting until turn six I also get to protect him with Omnipotence and watch him go crazy.
Enough about me, though, let’s take a look at what the community thinks about this format.
Our first stop today takes us to our good friend Miguel “Carlos the Dwarf” Rodriguez and Vs-Blog.com. Miguel always manages to come up with some gems in his builds, and for this format, he’s back at work.
Miguel writes:
B.Y.O.T. - Crime Lords v1
“Rather than taking a strategic “what’s gonna clobber the BYOT metagame?” approach to building my Golden Age Crime Lords deck, my first pass revolved around picking my favorite cards from MMK, MTU and MUN. Since the reinforcement theme ran throughout all sets, it wasn’t hard to find the synergy.”
Check out the post on Vs-Blog.com for the decklist: http://malone.blogs.com/vs/2008/07/byot---crime-lords-v1.html
“Goal: Consistent reinforcement = bad stuff will happen to my opponent off and on his initiative.
What Worked: Between Sin, Duty Calls, and A.I.M. Agents, this deck has the perfect amount of reinforcement. I was never lacking, nor did I have too much at one time. Sin is my mull condition unless, of course, I get Roscoe (who will fetch her for me). Face the Master/Marked For Death were both perfect with Kingpin’s power. Sure, opponents with flight swing at Kingpin first. But that’s what Code White is for.
What Didn’t: Did I really need those Death Warrants? No. I might not even need the Armed Escorts (though it is cool to put one on Kingpin’s adjacent characters). Also, I think in this deck, my turn 3 play should be Samurai. Barnes can be a nice under-drop later in the game, but Samurai’s 6 ATK makes him a great character to stick in front of Kingpin. So I’d bump Sam to x4, and Barnes down to x2. NOTE: If I were smart, I’d probably make my alt-3 drop visible, to protect/work with Kingpin.”
Like any good deckbuilder, though, Mr. The Dwarf wouldn’t leave it at that. He followed it up a few days later with revisions to the deck based on testing experience.
Miguel writes:
“Step 3: Profit” (v2)
4 A.I.M. Agents, Army A.I.M.
4 The Hand, Army
4 Sin, Synthia Schmidt RAID
6 MODOC Squad, Army A.I.M
4 Kingpin, War Profiteer HYDRA
4 Red Skull, Johann Shmidt HYDRA
3 Baron Strucker, Baron Wolfgang von Strucker HYDRA
2 Hulk, Joe Fixit
1 The Sleeper, Doomsday Device RAID
4 Face the Master
4 Marked for Death
4 Duty Calls
4 Home Surgery
4 Call in a Favor
4 Code White
4 Mobilize
What I Changed: First off, I had to get rid of Roscoe. If I hit him on 1, I had a definite leg up. But if I missed, which I often did, I was a sad Manda. Pulling him from the roster meant I’d better have some back-up search. 4 x Call in a Favor. I don’t like using it, but I have got to hit my 3 and 4 for this deck to sing. I also had to be ready with a back-up 2-drop. That’s where 4x The Hand came in.
My 3-drop changed to 6 x MODOC Squad, thanks to a suggestion by Mavman. And that put the Home Surgery idea in my head. Let them stun (and get stunned back by) MODOC Squad, and then when they declare into Kingpin . . . recover MODOC Squad!
I had a hard time deciding between 4 x Marked for Death or 4 x Nasty Surprise. Ultimately, I went with Marked because, while I lose the element of surprise, it’s a guaranteed stunned if they are foolish enough to attack with their highest drop. And if they choose not to attack and the game ends up going to turn 8? I’ve got almost 60 to their face waiting for them with Sleeper and my 5 through 7 drops.”
Miguel has also got some great insights into his deckbuilding style and you can catch up on the rest of his thoughts at www.vs-blog.com..
Next up, we head over to TCGPlayer.com to take a peak at KardKrazy’s personal blog.
http://my.tcgplayer.com/user/KardKrazy/blogs
KardKrazy writes:
“I will introduce my deck, which I like to call Hulk Stall. It’s very simple and to the point but it is what it does and it does it well. Every deck I have come across has had a hard time dealing with the amount of defensive tricks this deck can pump out. Avengers Reservist, MKKO, Thunderbolts, Brotherhood, Checkmate, etc. . . . just can’t deal with it. I have almost all the answers for any deck that comes along that I can think of that I will see in this format. Of course, there will be the surprise decks, and I could lose to them, but for the most part I believe the deck will be able to handle itself without much problem.
Here is the build that I will be using:
Characters:
4 Elloe Kaifi, Slave of the Empire
4 Rick Jones, Monster’s Best Friend
4 Hiroim, The Shamed
4 Hulk, Green Scar
4 Hulk, Gladiator
4 Hulk, The Green King
1 Hulk, Sakaar’son
1 Hulk, Worldbreaker
Plot Twist:
4 Bloodsport
4 Hulk Red
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Against All Odds
4 Warbound to the End
4 Pathetic Attempt
2 Omnipotence
2 Righteous Anger
Locations:
4 Imperial Dreadnaught
2 The Great Arena
Let us go ahead and break the deck down and explain why certain cards are in the deck:
Locations:
4x Imperial Dreadnaught—The reason there are four of this card is because it is a key addition to the deck. I have had times where I actually drew two Elloe Kaifi and one Imperial Dreadnaught by turn two. I stun her and remove her from the game with Imperial Dreadnaught at the end of combat. Turn two, I recruit the other Elloe I had in hand and if my opponent has no characters that were able to stun her, I repeat the process. Now for the rest of the game my opponents will have to deal with the fact that my Hulks are +2/+2. Imperial Dreadnaught also gives me the ability to gain endurance each turn if I hit Hiroim on turn 3.
2x The Great Arena—There isn’t much to say about this card other than it is great for a Hulk stall deck. While it is a great card, I found it not to be a necessity to hit, which is why I run only two, as I feel the rest of the deck spaces were needed for more important cards.”
To read the rest of this excellent deck deconstruction, pop along and read the rest of his post here.
Our final stop this week takes us to two of my favorite guys on the net—Clifford Parmeter Esq. and Squire “Homer J” Kershner. Together they are WYLD STALLIONS! I mean, The Ring Has Chosen. Yes, our favorite Vs. System podcasters have been hard at work dissecting the Bring Your Own Team format. The latest show—Episode 56—has the guys covering their top five favorite teams for the BYOT format. What did Cliff and Squire pick? There’s one way to find out—pop along to VSRealms.com and listen to the show. (The Top Five discussion takes place at about the1 hour 10 minute mark.)
http://www.vsrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=60659
Well, that’s it from me this week. Make sure you all get along to your local Hobby League to take part in this exciting new format. If you do, please write up your tournament experiences and let me know (kamiza(at)the-kamiza.com), so I can feature your story in a follow-up article. Have a great time.
—Steve