Dr Strange Love?

Or, How I learned to stop being targetted and love the Eye of Agamotto

Okay, so the subheading has nothing to do with what I’m rambling about. Sue me, I dares ya.

I’m hooked on the Legend concept. I love it. While I’ve been an avid proponent of mono-affiliation decks since day one, I love the concept of building decks around a central character even more than I love key lime pie.

… and I do love pie.

So, there’s a handful of characters from sets pre-MVL/DCL that can qualify for Legend Status. Dr Doom was the first, but over time others have joined the ranks such as Spider-Man, Batman, Superman, Ra’s Al Ghul, Hellboy, Thor (almost!) and the Master of the Mystic Arts himself, Dr Strange.

Dr Strange binds the Vishanti to look behind the split… click to read on! 

For most legends there’s a minimum of five cards to choose from - usually a couple of drops and three support cards, be they plot twists, locations or equipment. They key here is the support cards, since you don’t want to stack your deck with too many characters in drops too close to each other, lest you end up costing yourself significant board presence in an effort to just make use of your Legend.

The good doctor isn’t that lucky enough to have a full suite of support cards. Yet.

What we have available to us in Silver Age is five characters, a plot twist, and a piece of equipment. There’s an older Dr Strange lurking in MMK, but as much as I love Golden for casual gaming, let’s face it, we’re not going to see golden marquee events from UDE any time soon - there’s just too much potential for pure brokenness.

Back on track, the five doctors.

 MTU048 Dr Strange: Founding Father.

Our earliest doctor, he only hits the board at turn five. The first thing this tells us is that we’re not making a rush deck.

His text is pretty directly geared towards his affiliation -

When Dr Strange enters play, you may ready a Marvel Defenders character you control.

So this card right off the bat tells us two things about any sort of Legend deck we’re going to build around Dr Strange. One, no rush. Two, Marvel Defendcers better be the predominant affiliation, or we’ve just wasted our time. Specifically, Marvel Defenders who can take advantage of his ability, so we’re talking a Backup deck.

Thankfully, I like backup decks. Fnar Fnar!

MVL153 Dr Strange: Ally of the Four

I’m thinking we won’t be using this one.

First reason? He’s a six-drop, and we just recruited Founding Father on turn five.

Second reason? His ability is stamped for the Fantastic Four.

While the ability’s significantly superior to Founding Father’s, it’ll require a team-up if we’re going to use it in our Marvel Defenders deck, and waiting til turn six before we can make the most of our Legend support cards is just too long.

That said, Ally of the Four has a home waiting for him in pretty much any Fan4 burn deck, so I’ve certainly got use for the good doctor… just not in this deck.

MHG213 Dr Strange: Illuminati

Another six drop, so he’s automatically out of the running for being too close to our precious Founding Father.

Add that he’s not concealed-optional and you end up with a real problem if you don’t have evens initiative and he’s our primary six.

The card draw’s neat, but when it barrels down to it I don’t see this version of Dr Strange getting much use outside of decks strictly themed around the Illuminati version.

Shame, really, the art’s kinda neat.

 MVL111 Dr Strange: Master of the Mystic Arts

I both love and hate this card at the same time.

One of my favourite cards in MOR was Cover Fire, and I was chuffed that the Marvel Knights received the functional reprint in MVL - I do so love stumping attacks…

So you’d think I’d be thrilled to see this one, right? Pay a little END, nicely in line with the MK END payment theme, get an open ended DEF pump?

But he’s a 7-drop. I don’t know about most of you, but usually once it gets to turn seven, END is getting to be a premium - I just don’t have enough to safely drop 10 END to save my lower drops from being trampled by my opponents 7-drops!

It’s a great ability, but damn, couldn’t it have come at a lower drop? Mutter grumble…

MTU049 Dr Strange: Sorcerer Supreme

Now HERE we go! At 8, Sorceror Supreme is far enough from Founding Father for me to be more comfortable with replacing the lower drop.

Of course, he’s at turn 8, which means he’s not going to see play unless someone’s stalling, but you know what? He still helps us meet our Legends quota of 12 cards, and dammit, if we DO get to turn 8 with a board full of backup characters, how handy is THAT power going to be?

Especially if you chain the backup effects to the readying, meaning you could activate every backup character you have TWICE on the good doctor, some some freakin’ insane pumpage. Heck, Hellcat alone will make him 21/21 at that rate, making him the Stomperer Supreme.

Astral Projection is the first of the two support cards for Dr Strange that lets us claim that he’s legendary.

It doesn’t hurt that it’s…. freakin’ awesome!

Think about it, how much utility does Franklin Richards get in toolbox decks? How much for Dewoz?

Being able to hide your characters is a very powerful tool, especially if they have low stats or, say, they’re constantly exhausting for backup effects and you’d love to have some way to ensure they stick around for the late game so that they can turn your Dr Strange into a stompifying monster?

Astral Projection is very useful in pretty much any Defenders deck, and the little extra card draw for controlling Stephen Strange is just gravy. Mmmm gravy.

And here we have the last piece of our puzzle. It’s not as useful as Astral Projection, but we need to work our way up to 12 cards referencing Dr Strange, so we’re going to have to pack a few of these babies.

And you know what? That’s not necesarilly a bad thing.

For a start, free equipment is never a bad thing. It means your opponent won’t be getting as much use out of that Katana if nothing else.

Follow that up with near immunity to most burn decks and a nice big “Sod off, ya wally!” to Galactus: Devourer of Worlds, and you end up with a card that’ll be pretty situational, won’t be useful in a lot of games, but when it is it’ll cause your opponent all sorts of headaches.

So, after that nice long ramble through the assorted Stranges, we’re looking at including in our deck:

• 4x Dr Strange: Founding Father
• 1x Dr Strange: Sorcerer Supreme
• 4x Astral Projection
• 3x Eye of Agamotto

That gives us out minimum 12 cards to classify the deck as Legend legal.

Based on earlier notes we’ll also be looking strongly at the Marvel Defenders backup theme…

… and whaddaya know, tomorrow night’s Hobby League… what say I toss something together and then let you know how it panned out??

Before I sign out for the night though, a reminder - the Composite Superheroine contest only has a few more days left in it!

Get your entries to me before Thursday if you want to win a Parallax! Right now I only have one entry in my inbox, and it only identifies a handful of components… but a partial entry’s better than no entry at all!