Help refining (and defining) my deck!

[gameplan.exe]

I've made a new deck. It's a max-7, but it has such crazy damage potential, that I'm not sure I really care if they can't block a level 8 power card. Here are the deets (including THE MARVELS, by the way):

Bishop - 9E, 8M, OG, HD
Starjammers - 11A, 8A, 8A, CH, HQ, LS
Sabra - 9EF, EK, MH, MH
Deadpool - 10F
X-MANSION Battlesite
Cable -        9S, AD
Cyclops -     9E               (notice: Special attack average is 9.0!)
Domino -      AM
Jean Grey -   AG
Professor X - AH, EQ
TEAMWORK CARDS: 6E, 6E, 7F, 7F, 6F, 6S, 6S
ALLY CARDS: 5E, 5S, 5I
POWER CARDS: 7 FFF, 6FFF, 5FFA, 4SSM, 3SSM, 2SSM, 1SSM
EVENTS Assault Onslaught:
- All Special cards in your hand may be played by any Hero, for remainder of battle.
- Draw two cards after the Discard Phase. Do not discard if duplicates.
- No Intellect Power cards may be played this battle. Affected Power cards are not discarded.

I built it with a couple things in mind.
1st, only Special card attacks of 8+
2nd, balance so I don't care too much who dies. Every FL Hero has 6 exclusive cards, between Specials and Teamwork cards. They all have great damage potential.
3rd, minimize the effect of casualties. Using the Bishop's HD and the EVENT that allows Special use by any Hero, losing a character early might not hurt as much later. Also, if I can manage to play Sabra's EK on Starjammers...!
4th, choose Battlesite Defense that will also further my Offense (hence EQ & AM).

So, now that I've laid it out,
I need a name for this deck! Any ideas? Simply calling it "My Fighting Deck" seems really lame, compared to its potential potency.

Also, what are your thoughts to improve the deck?
(and I realize that there are LOTS of ways to counter this deck, but what could I do to make this more effective, without trying to counter hypothetical problems?)

[BigBadHarve]

The most obvious thing that sticks out to me is that you need a negate. That's your biggest weakness, you will be screwed against anyone using leeching effects.

Your assault is incredible, though, and that issue might not come up.

You're also very low on Defense. You'll be trading blows like mad, which could work against you if you don't go first.

Let me know how playtesting goes.

-BBH

[gameplan.exe]

I don't see negates as a true necessity anymore. In fact, I often play without a negate of some kind and, while that can certainly be a weakness, I definitely haven't found it crippling.

Anyway, I can playtest and if I'm really missing the Negate, I can switch my battlesite for "SHIP" and still get the 2 level 9 attacks, and get the AO from Beast. I decided on X-MANSION because of the EQ and AM.

As for the low defense in general, certainly it's a little light. In terms of trading blows, though, they can bring it! I will trade my 11, 10, 9, 9, 9, 9, 8, 8, 8 for any nine attacks they have in their "arsenal"! lol, that was kind of my goal. Also, I typically run 10 defensive cards in my decks, and this still has 7, so i'm not completely naked, either.
Post Merge: July 08, 2011, 04:06:51 PM
also, that helps for refining, but what about defining? 

[BigBadHarve]

also, that helps for refining, but what about defining? 

How about:

Hammer and Nail!

Primarily because the deck is designed to hammer and nail your opponent into submission.

-BBH

[Hot Rod]

This will be a tough deck to play against Any Heroes.  With only 1 pure avoid on a single activator + the Prof X AH, leech will be a virtual auto hit.  An early Devourer will be game ending I suspect, considerng you only have 2 defensive cards outside of your battlesite (I speak from eperience!).

I know straight up I woud swap out Deadpool for Silver Sable.  While Deadpools 10 fighting looks cool, that's about all it will be doing if you draw it first turn.  However, a Silver Sable 1-9 first turn might be your only hope at Starjammers not dying to a 6E teamwork off Invisible Women followed by 2 9's from Mr Fantastic and Thing.

I would also look at swapping out Sabra for Spider Girl.  The Spider Girl BJ code special would be incredibly helpful in keeping Starjammers up.

Another thing you could do is Swap out Sabra and Deadpool for The Reavers, and Spider Woman 3 stat.  With this you get a negate, and Deathstrike to help with Any Heroes.

The main thing here is getting more defense out of your team and not relying entirely on your battle site for it.  Devourer + the no activator event will be auto concedes, due to not having any defense to keep Starjammers alive.

And I'll echo BBH here about not going first, due to the lack of defensive actions in this deck, it will play extremely slow if you don't get to go first.  All of your power cards will be going to defense, which means you'll be sitting on a lot of dead teamworks.  I would cut down to 4 teamworks with this deck.  Keep the 6S, 6F, 6E and 7F, ditch the rest.

I can see wanting more power cards for using your stat boosting specials, and to use for teamworks, but I would pull 2 of the level 1 power cards and 1 of the level 2.  Duping a level 1 power is simply one of the worst things you can do in Overpower besides drawing an event out of sequence.  Though this will force you to run more activators to make up 56 cards, so playing against Any Heroes will be arduous without Deathstrike.

Anyway, good luck!

[Ranerdar]

I like the "Hammer and Nail" name.

Also, as one of the "regulars" at NCannelora's OP games. I can say we hardly use leech. So, he doesn't really need to worry too much about.

[gameplan.exe]

I like the "Hammer and Nail" name.

Also, as one of the "regulars" at NCannelora's OP games. I can say we hardly use leech. So, he doesn't really need to worry too much about.

And for that matter, we never use DoW.

This will be a tough deck to play against Any Heroes.  With only 1 pure avoid on a single activator + the Prof X AH, leech will be a virtual auto hit.  An early Devourer will be game ending I suspect, considerng you only have 2 defensive cards outside of your battlesite (I speak from eperience!).

I know straight up I woud swap out Deadpool for Silver Sable.  While Deadpools 10 fighting looks cool, that's about all it will be doing if you draw it first turn.  However, a Silver Sable 1-9 first turn might be your only hope at Starjammers not dying to a 6E teamwork off Invisible Women followed by 2 9's from Mr Fantastic and Thing.

I would also look at swapping out Sabra for Spider Girl.  The Spider Girl BJ code special would be incredibly helpful in keeping Starjammers up.

Another thing you could do is Swap out Sabra and Deadpool for The Reavers, and Spider Woman 3 stat.  With this you get a negate, and Deathstrike to help with Any Heroes.

The main thing here is getting more defense out of your team and not relying entirely on your battle site for it.  Devourer + the no activator event will be auto concedes, due to not having any defense to keep Starjammers alive.

And I'll echo BBH here about not going first, due to the lack of defensive actions in this deck, it will play extremely slow if you don't get to go first.  All of your power cards will be going to defense, which means you'll be sitting on a lot of dead teamworks.  I would cut down to 4 teamworks with this deck.  Keep the 6S, 6F, 6E and 7F, ditch the rest.

I can see wanting more power cards for using your stat boosting specials, and to use for teamworks, but I would pull 2 of the level 1 power cards and 1 of the level 2.  Duping a level 1 power is simply one of the worst things you can do in Overpower besides drawing an event out of sequence.  Though this will force you to run more activators to make up 56 cards, so playing against Any Heroes will be arduous without Deathstrike.

Anyway, good luck!

Keep in mind a few things
1. my first priority when I built this deck was keeping my attack specials at 8+, so swapping in Spider-Woman, Spider-Girl, Silver Sable, or the Reavers are no-go.
2. I'm not concerned with defense. I realize that death is a very real possibility, but that's a risk I'm going to take. If I trade hits, but I can win venture because the value of my landed hits is bigger than the value of his, that's fine (hence the 8+).

You do bring up a good point with the Power/Teamwork cards. I might have to consider paring it down a bit with the TW and adjusting the ratio of the PC.

[drdeath25]

Well, If your opponent never plays DoW or Leech or any other "good game" specials, having a negate would'nt be too important. However, by IQ, having a negate was almost mandatory, and to a higher degree as each set went on. Why do you think they made the Bastion Any Hero... So you could place it and not auto-lose the battle that your opponent has leech. So i definetly agree that the lack of a negate is a major weakness to this deck.

I do like this deck's style though, assault decks can be very effective against certain teams, though inconsistent during a matchup against a team with those game alterting special cards. I also like that you tried to go with the ability of not having to lose many cards in your deck when someone dies, because in an assault deck you let people die on purpose, to "trade hits" with your opponents main character, with the belief he loses future card advantage with his guy dead instead of yours. With this theory... im not so sure the "may play any special event" will benefit you more than your opponent most times you draw it.

I have an assault deck that I think you should take a look at, it certaintly isn't the best deck in overpower and does have a huge weakness, but when the draw's go right, you will be winning by KO before the power pack. And if it does go to the powerpack, you will definitely have some 8's!

H4H, Spawn, X-Man, Silver Sable. Any Heros, Team Overpower, and Shattered Image. This deck has the potential for massive teamwork KO's with any teamwork in the deck potentially followed with a 10 and 10. It also has the ability for massive chain attacks. Death from Above (or A-next... or an aspect) followed by hulk (yes, i play one in this deck), followed by black knight, followed by an 8S. Or followed by an X-Man or Spawn 4M + 1 attack. What i like about this deck is its potential for big offense (2 11 specials also), but it also has a certain defense to it. X-Man will be blocking big power card attacks for your team, and Spawn and Silver Sable will both give you 9 or less avoids (SS's from reserve!). Pre-Marvels I use Deathbird in reserve to help defend X-man. The problem though, as stated, lack of a negate. I do have Bastion, but that is 1 negate out of 7 hands. And with only 2 cards in the deck with the potential to block a Leech or other "target character" game changers (bastion/angel), you will notice that lack of negate rather quickly in any single-elimination tournament format. It does very well against certain defensive "9 or less wall" decks, which i think your assault deck would do poorly against.

Just something to think about. And Yes, I do play the no negate event, and Yes i have had to discard my DoW because of it... doh!

PS: I would add a JW to your battlesite, and you really need the re-think your battlesite OPD, brah!

[gameplan.exe]

I played the first test game. It went down to Phoenix vs. Sabra. Phoenix won because Askani' Founder was placed, allowing a 4 FTW venture.

DoW never came up. Not once.

Power Leech was a venture 4 hand, and it landed, but my Assault team recovered the next hand, mightily.

I know Negates are handy, I've been using them since 1st ed. with Beast (he's one of my X-men Blue Team homie  ), but I really don't think there's a true necessity. Maybe that's just semantics.

I think the biggest think the biggest point missed is this: I'm not trying to make the best possible assault deck. I seldom am trying to make the best possible deck to enter into a tournament of any kind. Of course I realize that even a single Negate gives you an advantage. Yes, I realize that there are better ways to penetrate defensive walls. But, is there a better way to make a deck with no Special card attacks less than 8? I don't think so  

[drdeath25]

I think the biggest think the biggest point missed is this: I'm not trying to make the best possible assault deck. I seldom am trying to make the best possible deck to enter into a tournament of any kind.

Sorry, I was under the impression you were asking for advice on making your deck better.

Congrats on the win!

[Onslaught]

Yes, I realize that there are better ways to penetrate defensive walls. But, is there a better way to make a deck with no Special card attacks less than 8? I don't think so

Sure there is. Why is Bishop in a deck based around big attacks? I love Bishop, but there are lots of other characters who have better offense than just an 8 and 9 OPD. You mentioned that you use his OPD to shuffle back the event that lets all specials in hand be playable by any character. This seems counterintuitive - you wan't to play a fast attacking deck to quickly KO their characters...and then play an event (twice) that lets them use all of their KO'ed character's cards?

Any reasoning for choosing 8 as your magic cutoff for attack size? Traditionally the key number is 10, to get around 9 or less decks (which are more likely to be running Any Heroes since they don't necessarily need battlesite defense). Getting to 10 is most efficiently done with teamworks, but I guess if you wanted to make a theme deck of big attacking specials you could try that too.

Also the battlesite choice is really weird, even when you count the Marvels Cyclops 9. No JW? A 9 as an OPD?

This thread was hilarious though, HotRod's suggestion of "make a new Starjammers deck" had me in stitches. Also, I know you're just being enthusiastic about your deck (which is cool!), but I was also laughing quite a bit at "Leech wasn't a big deal, just 4 free missions for my opponent" and "DOW isn't a problem (when my opponent doesn't draw it against me)."

Edit: If you want to try something similar to the skeleton you have now (no negate, offensive focus, nice utilization of Marvels cards) how about Sabra, H4H, Starjammers, 3 stat Silver Sable?

[Overtime]

Yes, I realize that there are better ways to penetrate defensive walls. But, is there a better way to make a deck with no Special card attacks less than 8? I don't think so

Sure there is. Why is Bishop in a deck based around big attacks? I love Bishop, but there are lots of other characters who have better offense than just an 8 and 9 OPD. You mentioned that you use his OPD to shuffle back the event that lets all specials in hand be playable by any character. This seems counterintuitive - you wan't to play a fast attacking deck to quickly KO their characters...and then play an event (twice) that lets them use all of their KO'ed character's cards?

Any reasoning for choosing 8 as your magic cutoff for attack size? Traditionally the key number is 10, to get around 9 or less decks (which are more likely to be running Any Heroes since they don't necessarily need battlesite defense). Getting to 10 is most efficiently done with teamworks, but I guess if you wanted to make a theme deck of big attacking specials you could try that too.

Also the battlesite choice is really weird, even when you count the Marvels Cyclops 9. No JW? A 9 as an OPD?

This thread was hilarious though, HotRod's suggestion of "make a new Starjammers deck" had me in stitches. Also, I know you're just being enthusiastic about your deck (which is cool!), but I was also laughing quite a bit at "Leech wasn't a big deal, just 4 free missions for my opponent" and "DOW isn't a problem (when my opponent doesn't draw it against me)."

Edit: If you want to try something similar to the skeleton you have now (no negate, offensive focus, nice utilization of Marvels cards) how about Sabra, H4H, Starjammers, 3 stat Silver Sable?

Stand on your tiptoes, then bring your foot down. Move into it. Now you're moonwalkin'!

-OTime

[gameplan.exe]

I think the biggest think the biggest point missed is this: I'm not trying to make the best possible assault deck. I seldom am trying to make the best possible deck to enter into a tournament of any kind.

Sorry, I was under the impression you were asking for advice on making your deck better.

Congrats on the win!

yes, advice to make my deck better, not change my deck's roster, though. you mentioned using a different OPD, suggestion?  i also asked for name ideas, suggestions?

[drdeath25]

I think the biggest think the biggest point missed is this: I'm not trying to make the best possible assault deck. I seldom am trying to make the best possible deck to enter into a tournament of any kind.

Sorry, I was under the impression you were asking for advice on making your deck better.

Congrats on the win!

yes, advice to make my deck better, not change my deck's roster, though. you mentioned using a different OPD, suggestion?  i also asked for name ideas, suggestions?

New Deck Name: Bad Deck Roster  

As for the new battlesite OPD, how about a roster change? Avengers Mansion! a 12 (!), 2 avoids, and from hulk we have a card your deck desperately needs: "no special cards can be played for remainder of turn unless they are attacks". My theory is if you are going to waste your battlesite OPD on a big attack, at least make it one big enough to get around the most commonly played defensive card in the game.

Also, you know how you only want to play attacks that are 8 or higher? I have an amazing suggestion that might break this archetype WIDE open...what if i told you there was a non-OPD level 8 attack that could also be used for defense...and get this, its usable by more than one character! My secret tech for this deck: level 8 powercards. Why is this Max-7?

[rucker73]

Don't listen to these guys.  You make and play the decks that you enjoy.  One of the main reason I got out of the tournament game back in the day was because everyone was building the same decks with the same 20-30 characters, it just sucked the joy out of playing for me.

I love building teams around different themes and that do different tricks and using a character that may not be quite as good just because I like the character.

Keep building my friend