March Madness Deckcheck: Crime Lords

by Gdaybloke

Since the days of MMK the Crime Lords have been a favourite team of mine, because the take one of the basic tenets of VS and turn it on it’s head. They DON’T want the initiative. They DON’T want to attack. They just want to sit back and let the opponent come to them, kicking said opponent in the teeth with a brutal stunback.

That said, the Crime Lords don’t have a nice alternate win condition, so they’re going to have to attack at some point – something they’re just not that good at in comparison to many of the other teams out there.  Despite having a good defensive game, the lack of pretty much any offensive game whatsoever hurts. Hopefully we’ll see some love in MUN, but for now it’s time for March Madness!

One of the challenges in building “starter” style decks is giving the players exposure to teams they may never have otherwise considered. There will be comparatively new players steering some of the decks in this tournament, players who may have only been part of the game for the last few months.

These players have never even seen a Manhunter deck. They have no idea what GLOCK and GLEE are. Dear Lord, don’t even ask them to identify key elements of an Avengers deck, or why they should be concerned about Kang… 

So in choosing what cards to slot into the decks, it’s not a bad idea to include a variety of characters to maximize the player’s exposure to new toys. The downside, of course, is a loss of consistency – if you’re only including one copy of a character, there’s no guarantee you’ll draw it each game.

Nonetheless, it’s all down to making something that you hope works well enough to carry it through at least a couple of rounds, if not all the way to the end. The Crime Lords have some tough opponents in their bracket, but they also have a new Kingpin running the show…

• 2x Vanessa Fisk
• 3x Roscoe Sweeney
• 1x Sniper
• 1x The Rose
• 3x Cobra
• 2x Mr Hyde
• 2x Kingpin: Wilson Fisk
• 2 Masked Marauder
• 2 Saracen
• 1x Hitman
• 1x The Russian
• 1x Kingpin: Overboss
• 1x Nuke
• 1x Taskmaster
• 1x Hulk: Joe Fixit
• 3x Face the Master
• 3x Duty Calls
• 3x Boss of Bosses
• 2x Made Men
• 2x Team Tactics
• 2x Marked for Death
• 1x The Family

One advantage that the Crime Lords have over many of the decks in this format is a non-rare tutor effect. A few, actually. Roscoe Sweeney opens the gate; give him a little blood and sweat (1 END) and he’ll dig out your drop for you. As an alternative, Vanessa Fisk will provide a nice hidden character to exhaust to fuel some of the plot twists hiding in the deck.

At two, Cobra is pretty bland but guarantees a three-drop. As alternates, Sniper gifts everyone with Range so you can actually afford to hide people in the support row to reinforce each other, while The Rose can dig out a copy of Made Men for you.

“Made Men?” you say? “Why would we want something that gives off-team characters the Crime Lords affiliation, when it’s a mono-team deck?”

Because Made Men also gives Flight.

When you’re talking about a team that has very little in terms of offensive game, anything that lets you get over your opponent’s defenses is a good thing.

Back to the curve – Mr Hyde at 3 is reasonable, but his making Cobra on par with some of the lower 3-drops is the reason to include him. I’d rather two average 3-drops than a good 2-drop and an average 3-drop. Slight numbers advantage and all that. Lowbie Kingpin plays backup, boosting reinforced defenders, and also being boostable as an alternate 4-drop.

Speaking of the fours, Masked Marauder says “We’re stalling for a few turns”, while Saracen says “We’re causing stunbacks”. Preference depends on initiative, but Masked Marauder’s a decent pick – even one timely use of his ability can mean the difference between victory and defeat.

At five we have the man, the mountain, Kingpin: Overboss. The preferred choice for the discerning connoisseur; your opponent will have to work hard to get a stun on him, thanks to his ability to absorb 10 pts of ATK, get a stunback, and then shuffle the stun off onto a neighbouring lowbie.

 The fact that we can dig him out with Boss of Bosses (see? I told you Vanessa would come in handy!) is just gravy.

Since the deck’s limited to one rare character, the Russian gives you a 12/9 beatstick if your opponent’s lacking flight/range, and Hitman gives you the chance for vengeful stuns on non-attackers. Hopefully you’ll get Kingpin, but if you don’t you have options.

Six brings Nuke if you have a decent board to feed him (Hello again, Vanessa!), or the equalizer, Taskmaster. Against more tricksy decks and swarm mobs he won’t be as handy, but if your opponent’s playing stall and beats, then he’ll keep pace with their biggest lad.

Finally, should the game end up going all the way to 7, Hulk’s got decently beefy stats on the offense, and a nasty defensive ability that can do wonders to funnel your opponent’s attack.

Support wise, we’ve got a handful of Crime Lords staples, and some new toys tossed in to make it all pretty and stuff. .

Face The Master = Nasty surprise OR an Acro Dodge with no –ATK, depending on your need. Boss of Bosses searches out Kingpins, while also giving anti-hidden tech.  Made men provides flight to our otherwise ground-bound board. The Family is a late game staple since it stops the bleeding nicely and across the board.

Marked for Death just makes me smile, so long as I have the END to make it reusable…

Team Tactics may seem like an odd choice for a pump, but when it means you can put Vanessa (hello lady!) through an opposing brute without risking losing someone like Masked Marauder on the stunback, it’s worth it.

Duty Calls is our new favourite toy. Reinforcement enables fun toys like Face the Master, while the Flight and Range gives us offensive options. Thank you, UDE, for giving the Crime Lords this wonderful toy… even if the art does depict some goody-two-shoes heroes….

Can Wilson Fisk be dethroned early in the tournament? Or will Organized Crime reign triumphant?

Stay tuned, fellow Lost.