Sample Marvels Deck #2 - More Exploration of "With Great Power..."

[Onslaught]

I thought a little bit more about what a Marvels metagame might have looked like, and I keep coming to the conclusion that there would have been an immense amount of viable decks. The last Marvels deck I wrote about (viewable here) prominently featured Spider-Man's new card. Since "With Great Power..." is such a unique effect in Overpower, it's worth talking about some more. In other CCGs (especially those with restricted/One Per Deck cards), search effects are always the most powerful cards in the game. In Overpower, card search has a lot working against it. For starters, there aren't a lot of good search effects available - mainly just a DS special from a Battlesite or the Best Laid Plans event from Fatal Attractions. The fact that you take turns back and forth can also hinder the use of search effects in OP, but burning turns can also be used to your advantage.

If "With Great Power..." had been released, it would have certainly been one of the best cards in the game. It isn't restricted to fetching any specific kind of card, so you can always grab something that is best suited for any given situation. It also lets you shuffle cards away for future use, such as a duplicate of something you have placed or a situational  card that you don't currently need. In the aforementioned Doppleganger/Thor/Cable/Callisto deck, I tried to see what would happen if you used "With Great Power..." in combination with other filtering effects in order to assemble various combos. With an overwhelming amount of search effects, you can quickly find OPDs or cards contingent on other cards being in play to set up a turn to bet for the win. Here, "With Great Power..." served as a smaller part of a bigger engine that tried to culminate into something game winning. Another great use for it would be going the opposite direction - using it as an engine in itself, solely searching at a 1:1 ratio to find the most efficient card for a given situation. Instead of using search effects to speed up specific cards you want, you can also use them to react to the current battle. Putting "With Great Power..." in a hardy, consistent deck seems the best way to pursue this tactic.

For a deck based on flexibility within combat and an emphasis on resiliency, I definitely want to use Any Heroes. "With Great Power..." can dig for DOW in appropriate matchups, while also shuffling it away against another Any Hero deck. One of the great things about Spider-Man becoming so useful with a non-OPD/highly tactical card is that he has three viable character cards to choose from. Any older character getting a good non-OPD card would have been very good for the game, because it really means 6-7-6 (23) Spider-Man original, the 7F 6S (21) Spider-Man IQ, and 6E 7S (20) Spider-Man Symbiote all become useful. This feels like having three new characters to choose from, just like Iron Man with his LO special and his 7-6-6 original, 7S 7I IQ, and 7I (19) from Classic. I'm gonna start with my focus on Spider-Man IQ, because he has always had one of the coolest looking hero cards and this is his first chance at actually being useful. Other decks I've posted in the past have been constructed in various ways to try to play with the idea of what brings a team together: top down design, subtractive design, building a deck laterally, and so on. For this deck, I already have a few tactics in place ("With Great Power..." wants to find cards that are a) flexible, so you can always find the best thing for a given situation, and b) efficient, so that you are constantly abusing the fact that you can more quickly access your better effects). These tactics mesh well with an overall strategy of resiliency and consistency, which ties in perfectly with the previous desire to use Any Heroes. With that strategy in place, some rudimentary priorities for the rest of the deck would be:

-A way to deal with level 10 followups to teamworks (either through dual pure teammate avoids, or an EE)
-Two 8 stat characters
-A Negate

All of these aren't mandatory, but you would have to have a real good reason to forego one of them. I think in a theoretical Marvels metagame that you can break away from the skeleton of needing an 8 and a negate in every deck, but for this particular "resilient/hardy/consistent" team it feels like a negate is mandatory. You have no venture winning tricks of your own, so you at least better be able to stop a Leech, a Draw 3, etc. I'm also going to be boring and say right off the bat that it should most likely use Shattered Image, again to reinforce the efficiency through a bit of redundant effects. The last deck focused on tricks, so this one is an attempt to see if the exact opposite is viable. Since it is Any Heroes and skewing more towards good 1 for 1 trades, the backup 8 stat also seems like a good idea.

• X-Man, Spider-Man, Scarlet Witch, Jean Grey: Dark Phoenix (R)

X-Man is going to be one of the most attractive options to anchor this kind of deck, because he fills up two of the mini-requirements on his own (EE and 8 stat). This leaves you room to fill the last two slots with a negate character and the backup 8 in reserve. In an Any Hero deck without any gimmicks, I'd like to back up stats to have the ability to brawl against other less redundant decks. This makes the use of Dark Phoenix somewhat attractive, as she is the only 21 point 8E character who can also back up Spidey's 6S. Scarlet Witch slides right into the last 17 point slot, and an AI is exactly the kind of efficient card that becomes augmented by search effects. It will always hit something vital to your opponent's strategy, otherwise you would choose something else and shuffle it away for later. On paper, I like this build the most out of all the suggested lineups. Spidey is going to be the biggest target here since you have no backup 7F, meaning he will have around 7 or even 8 unique cards in the deck. In that sense, he is very similar to The Starjammers - you have a huge target that loses a lot of good cards when they die, but it allows you to shift your goals for the rest of the game since you know you will have two untouched 8 stat characters left a few turns into the match.

• X-Man, Spider-Man, Holocaust, 8E reserve (21 available)

Holocaust is almost always inferior to Scarlet Witch, but his ability to backup the 6S makes him worth considering. Now this is probably one of the weirdest reserve suggestions I've ever seen, but putting Spawn in reserve is actually not horrible here. He backs up Spidey's 7F and X-Man's 8E, meaning Holocaust's 6S gives you perfect teamwork coverage. It just feels weird to be putting someone with 6 or even 7 playable special in reserve, so let's also mention Dr. Strange here. Having a backup 8 stat usually means you are sacrificing a character who can play specials from reserve, which ultimately leads to more duplicates/watered down cards due to your lower special card count. Dr. Strange is a real powerhouse in a Marvels environment, so let's try....

• X-Man, Spider-Man, Dark Beast, Dr. Strange

This is pretty cute, if a bit underwhelming. Dark Beast bringing some intellect teamworks with him means you are maximizing Dr. Strange's dual stats, and Dark Beast also partially backs up Spidey's 7F. You can count a 7I TW as a special card for Dark Beast, bringing up his total of unique cards to a respectable six if you include Stars & Garters. Dark Beast is also interchangeable with Donald Pierce, with the comparison being: 9F vs 7e, 2m vs Stars and Garters, Deathstrike vs. nothing, and 6S TW backup instead of 6F. Deathstrike being pulled off a "With Great Power..." could be very good, since you would go for it on a turn when the venture disadvantage wouldn't hurt you. Or, you could aggressively use "With Great Power..." to dig for a fast Deathstrike to remove a powerful Event, similar to how you would try to find DoW ASAP against a Battlesite team.

• X-Man, Spider-Man, Reavers, Hawkeye

No backup 8, but Hawkeye does bring offense and a venture winning trick. His Marvels card may also prolong X-Man's life to the point where it feels like you have a backup 8. X-Man would be a huge target here, but that can be a good thing if you want to maximize your mileage out of Illusory Reality. More on this deck later.

That's pretty much the limit of EE based builds. If you paired Spidey with one of the non-8 stat EE users, you'd have to sacrifice having a negate or a frontline 8. Next up will be pure teammate avoids, which provide a pseudo-Battlesite net of Leech defense, blocks against level 10 teamwork followups, etc. Since it is an Any Hero deck, the teammate avoids have to come in a pair, so the obvious tag team is Zealot/Serpent Society.

• Zealot, Serpent Society, Spider-Man, Hawkeye

I don't like this at all, because Zealot will die quickly and then the deck will crumble. "With Great Power..." filtering through to allow for perfectly timed Kheribum/Combat Medic plays would be nice, but there isn't enough defense to keep Zealot alive. Original Silver Sable is an alternative to Hawkeye, but I hate being under on points (and the lineup becomes even weaker). The teamworks are a bit underwhelming as well, with only four available. It is worth mentioning Shockwave Rocks the World whenever Zealot/Serpent Society are in the mix, but I still like Shattered Image here.

• Spider-Man: Symbiote Costume, Zealot, Serpent Society, Old Sabretooth

This is better. Seven teamworks, criss crossed teammate avoids, a negate, two 8 stats...it would seem that most of the requirements are met. Spidey sorta flies off into his own stat world here though, with only his 7S being partially backed by Serpent Society's 6. I'm not convinced that this isn't just an inferior version of the other numerous flavors of Zealot/Serpent Society, but maybe testing would prove otherwise.

In the last "With Great Power..." based deck that I posted, I tried to explore the relationship between Marvels cards with other Marvels cards to see if they became exponentially stronger. This meant using a Battlesite in order to get access to more unique card interactions. When exploring "With Great Power..." with Any Heroes, it seems that your options are fairly restricted. One of the X-Man builds with Dr. Strange is probably the best option - a consistent, redundant deck with a strong matchup against Battlesites and the kind of stats you want against another Any Hero deck. Since the Doppleganger deck was so combo oriented, and this one is so focused on resiliency, it's important to acknowledge that the strongest strategy probably is somewhere inbetween. Following a more modern deck skeleton and playing something like 8 stat, Spidey, negate, Hawkeye, tricky Battlesite/Mission interaction will yield really strong results. The X-Man, Spider-Man, Reavers, Hawkeye team floated earlier could probably do some amazing things when paired with the right Battlesite/Mission set, with a good mix of offense, defense, and tricks. If you sacrificed a negate character or 8 stat character (which is pretty easy to do if you have a Battlesite), you can open up even more slots for tricky interactions and move more towards the direction of the Doppleganger deck.

As far as actually playing one of the above decks, I think it would work out pretty well. Besides the obvious advantage against a Battlesite deck, you are set up in a way that allows you to fight long into battles without being too scared. This is always a good thing, since a lot of players are unprepared to properly play out a longer lasting hand. I wouldn't be nervous about trading characters, especially against other Any Hero decks that only had one 8 stat.

So, I guess that covers both extremes of how you might use Spider-Man's card from the Marvels. Whether it is the all out combo style of Doppleganger, the utterly straightforward style of dual 8s/negate/Spidey, or a mix of the two, you are probably going to end up with a good deck. I mentioned earlier that Spider-Man was similar to The Starjammers, and now I notice that he also fills their role in the 8/Negate/Good Character/Reserve skeleton. This just shows how improved Spidey becomes when you include Marvels cards, since he is comparable to one of the S-Tier characters like the Jammers.

For the sake of completeness, I'd like to mention the use of "With Great Power..." from a a Battlesite. It's a nice buff for Big Apple, but what you really want to be looking at is the Daily Bugle. Even though Daily Bugle only gains two cards from the Marvels (Black Cat 6i and With Great Power), it still moves into the upper echelon of strong sites. It gives you wo pure avoids, a "get off me" effect, some unique smaller attacks (1E to start a chain, 4i block or discard, 6i that gives -3 to venture if blocked), two choices of an AR, the search power of Spider-Man, and two tricky venture winning OPDs in Mac Gargan and Arachnid Gizmos. In fact, the tier list of Battlesites would shift quite a bit in a theoretical Marvels environment. I've spent the majority of my time spent thinking about the Marvels on ways to maximize With Great Power, so maybe the third thread in this series will be more about The Marvels in general and not about one specific card. A Battlesite review with Marvels cards might be worth doing actually...spoiler warning: Stark Industries got a huge power increase.

[Oscorp]

agree fully with the Stark Tower increase in usefullness.  Having been playing with the marvels for some time, I have definitely seen it used to a much greater degree.   Same goes for Concrete Jungle using the New Warriors OPD Rage as a venture winning trick.   

Looking forward to reading your breakdown on the Battlesites, and thanks for the read on your take of ways to use With Great Power...

[gameplan.exe]

This is well done, Onslaught. I have to say, your ability to disect the finer points of the game is impressive. In general, my decks are all built pretty much the same, but with a rotating roster based on theme (which is really where more of my interests are), so reading these sort of exploration-type essays are intriguing to me.

I do have a question about With Great Power... from a Battlesite. Does the Special get shuffled back into your draw pile? I think this has been asked before, but I don't remember the responses.

Lastly, can we see a scan of your professionally printed With Great Power...? 

[NickW]

The Reserves had discussed what would happen if you used it from a Battlesite.  I think the only thing we could come up with is that since the effect is to put the Special back on top of the draw pile, that you would essentially be putting an unusable card into your draw pile, even though it came from the Battlesite.  It would then be an automatic discard next hand.

[JohnL]

The Reserves had discussed what would happen if you used it from a Battlesite.  I think the only thing we could come up with is that since the effect is to put the Special back on top of the draw pile, that you would essentially be putting an unusable card into your draw pile, even though it came from the Battlesite.  It would then be an automatic discard next hand.

I actually really like this ruling because it preserves the literal wording on the card and also the intent of the card - to give Spider-Man a good card and make him more likely to be used - NOT as a card to be played from a battlesite but to make Spider-Man useable as a front line (or reserve) hero.

And I really enjoyed Onslaught's musings on this card. I need to read them again.