Palatinus' OverPower Forum

Here's something that just occured to me.  Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't it widely agreed that a deck should (or even must) contain a negate (the number, however, fluctuates)?

Some decks just run one negate, but does that really make the difference, especially if it's from an activator?

It has been a staple in my deck building, but I'm toyed with the idea of a deck that has NO negates. 

I understand how useful they can be, but are they game breaking?

I say that unless your deck has some new tech that is difficult to counter even with negates then you NEED to have them in your deck.

I think Hotrod's Draw Three Deck (The Ray, Ghost Rider, Starjammers and Dr. Strange in Reserve) can get away with not having negates.  I've seen other builds that use event cards to really hurt the opponent (No OPDs, No Specials, KO a character) that don't rely on negates.  Having a crazy good offense will allow you to run without a negate.

yep.  negates are a good idea, but not a must

an example of a good deck that doesn't use them is any four freedoms lineup.  to a lesser extent, you have cape citadel

My deck of spawn, x-man, crystal and Inhumans only has bastion . But it has fared well in scrimmages

Quote from: breadmaster on September 15, 2014, 06:17:56 PM
yep.  negates are a good idea, but not a must

an example of a good deck that doesn't use them is any four freedoms lineup.  to a lesser extent, you have cape citadel

youve gotta get a battle site negate.

Quote from: chuu on September 15, 2014, 04:41:33 PM
I say that unless your deck has some new tech that is difficult to counter even with negates then you NEED to have them in your deck.

I think Hotrod's Draw Three Deck (The Ray, Ghost Rider, Starjammers and Dr. Strange in Reserve) can get away with not having negates.  I've seen other builds that use event cards to really hurt the opponent (No OPDs, No Specials, KO a character) that don't rely on negates.  Having a crazy good offense will allow you to run without a negate.

I'm certain Garion's deck was running Bastion along with the rest of the Any Heroes.

The deck I'm considering is very similar to his, but it has more card draw, a lot of control, and the "No Negates" event from Shattered Image.  I'm interested to see how it fares against a conventional deck that contains negates.

i think it should do very well Kyoujin given the deck mix that is usually seen at tournaments. 

More card draw than Hotrod's?! WoW!

That's one of those venture big 5+ and win decks I look forward to playing it.

Haha, obviously it's not BETTER than his, and I didn't build it to be competative, but it kind of just clicked.  It's Ghost Rider, The Ray, Mr. Fantastic, and Dr. Strange in reserve with Muir Island as the Battlesite. 

I could have picked Concrete jungle or Age of Apocalypse for the battlesite, but I like the control, meta (artifact hate, inherent hate) and defense Muir Island has.  It also has a fourth HQ for the deck and another DS (for fetch).  Colossus' LO lets me draw another card, as well. 

i like the way you think

Thanks

I hope the deck doesn't suffer from the "good on paper" curse.

I also realized Colossus has a "discard Target Universe card" which can be very helpful.

i currently have a deck that pairs Mr. Fantastic and Dr. Strange...have yet to test it out though..

It's fine to have a team without a negate, but you'd be unwise to not have a supplemental negate in your site, or with Bastion.

Just one negate in your deck can make all the difference. Without one, anyone running tricks has carte blanche to perform whatever nastiness they want, and what's more they know this at the Venture stage which could lead to some short games. Even the knowledge that you might have a negate can temper your opponent's play.

Thanks BBH, that's the kind of insight I was looking for.  The fact that even ONE negate can make that much of a difference.

of course theres no requirement to have a negate
my new ashes of the blue area of the moon team(bishop[replacing the kree] crystal quicksilver the inhumans) has no negates or event.......took the first fall of my 2 out of 3 falls no events match against dept h

Archetypes that are most capable of eschewing negates:

-Triple 8 stat/Any Heroes

Any time you have excessive redundancy, you create virtual card advantage. You're able to trade characters more effectively than they are, so your constant stream of pressure gives you a way to mitigate the turns where they punish you for not having a negate with an HQ or something. Also, this style of deck makes it more likely that you KO a character with venture winning specials before they get a chance to use them. Decks in this vein would be something like Cap/Zealot/Wonder Woman/3 stat Spider-Woman w/Any Heroes.

-Bonkers homebase ability or aspect

This one is pretty obvious - if you are using a homebase and it doesn't have a negate character, there isn't much you can do. However, it drives home the fact that only a handful of homebases/aspects are worth the tradeoff of losing a negate. Landau, Luckman, and Lake is a good example of this.

-Rushdown offense

This is similar to the Zealot deck listed above, but it uses tempo instead of redundancy in order to make favorable trades. The majority of decks in modern OP are not built to lose a character, so punching through KOs can let you gain an insurmountable advantage before your lack of a negate is exploited. H4H is good at anchoring decks like this, but they are generally inferior to a slightly less offensive/more flexible build. Fun to play though!

-Combo

If you're doing shifting tricks or gimmicks that require multiple inherents/specials to pull off, you often don't have the space to fit a negate in. Some of the recently posted Phoenix decks are good examples.

-KO Event

Ironically, two of the best clone chars for KO decks have a negate.

Generally, I think the importance placed on a negate is overstated - especially if you are running a battlesite. Running x3 of an AO activator + Beyonder gives you roughly a >50% chance of having your negate available in any given hand. If you are venturing aggressively, this can be enough to stop something vital that would otherwise have lost you venture, and one extra hand means the world in OP. The only matchups that put you at a nearly unwinnable disadvantage when running a 0 negate deck are Mega Draw (niche and has its own problems) or anything with Onslaught's Citadel. Since tournaments are smaller in scale now, the raw number of Citadel decks is decreased and you can probably get away without running an AO user, it just comes down to what style of deck you are comfortable with and what you expect to play against in a given metagame.