Hobby League: Misdemeanours

Ladies and Gentlelost, you’ve borne with me for the entire month, and for that I thank you. This marks the last post of what has, for both myself and Runaway, been a labour of love. Or at least mild infatuation.

Crime Lords Month has been entertaining to write and participate in, I hope you enjoyed it from the other side of the keyboard just as much as I enjoyed it from this side.

To bring the proceedings to a close with a little squeak of the door, I present to you a hobby league report. See, this post goes up for people to read over their coffee on Wednesday morning, the last day of April… and as all the dedicated Lost out there know, late Tuesday night I write the Hobby League wrap-up. So sue me, it’s convenient to knock both out in one hit.

This week at Hobby League we thought we’d try out the Little Deck format that’s all the rage with the popular kids these days. Thirty card Highlander, no EomE, no Mobilize.

Naturally, I played Crime Lords. Sure, I built a deck for Manhunters, Legion of Super-Heroes and Physical Morlocks/Hellfire, but there’s no way I was playing one of those on the last day of Crime Lords Month. Besides, a Crime Lords Little Deck is just an invitation for fun decknames.

I sat down for a while and tried to figure out how to best slap together a Crime Lords deck for the format, and I came up against the usual problem with our dear Marvel Mafioso: Pretty much no offensive game whatsoever.

Defensively daunting, with plenty of spiteful tricks up their sleeves to make even the strongest attacker waiver in their assault, the Crime Lords just lack any form of serious punch or built-in win condition.

The solution? A team-up.

At first I looked to the Marvel Knights, brothers in MMK’ness with the Crime Lords and recently revitalised from MVL’s injection of MK goodness… but I just wasn’t settled on the balance, not comfortable with the characters working together sufficiently…

So when in doubt, who do you turn to? These are the Crime Lords, who else CAN you turn to but the Family… of Four, that is!

The Fantastic Four continue to reign as pretty much my favourite team, and by far the team I have the most experience with (since MOR, in fact), so I’m much happier with the characters, especially since they add to the deck what the Crime Lords were missing: Raw Beef.

No, not that sort of beef, I’m talking about solid beefy stats. The Fantastic Four have always had characters at the top of the curve, so they provide some offensive oomph while still having decent sized butts… and since we’re playing Golden Age, it also brings in my darling Sue Storm into play at the 4-slot, reinforcing everyone who just happens to have the Fantastic Four affiliation… and I’m hoping that’ll be everyone

Here’s what I ended up with in the deck. Remember, this is Highlander, so only one of each card.

• Roscoe Sweeny: Fixer
• Invisible Woman: Walking On Air
• Doctor Sun: Creator of Project: Mind
• Cobra: Klaus Vorhees
• Stilt-Man: Wilbur Day
• She-Thing: Sharon Ventura
• Mr Hyde: Calvin Zabo
• Albert Malik @ Red Skull: Axis of Evil
• Thing: Ben Grimm
• Masked Marauder: Frank Farnum
• Bullseye: Deadly Marksman
• Invisible Woman: Sue Storm
• Kingpin: Overboss
• Sub-Mariner: Uncertain Ally
• Human Torch: Flame On!
• Hulk: Joe Fixit
• Burn Rubber
• Duty Calls
• Flying Kick
• Have A Blast!
• No Man Escapes the Manhunters
• Forbidden Loyalties
• 31st Century Metropolis
• Call In A Favor
• Marked For Death
• Face the Master
• Made Men
• Boss of Bosses
• Supernova
• Torch And Thing

Ideally, I think I’d like to have evens.

At one, we have Roscoe who acts as a tutor for the Crime Lords, and Susie who acts as a 3 DEF butt.

At two, Dr Sun can be a nightmare when you don’t have the initiative, since for 2 END he can negate any attack. Cobra guarantees us a 3-drop, She-Thing’s a solid 3/3 and destroys equipment, and well, if I didn’t have Stilt-Man in the deck I’d never hear the end of it.

At three, Mr Hyde’s the counterpart to Cobra, Albert Malik tutors out a team-up if we haven’t drawn one yet, and Thing is just plain beefy at a very respectable 5/5.

At four, Masked Marauder can remove reinforcers or just stall an opponent’s board if we have the initiative. Invisible Woman’s a reinforcement goddess, and well, Bullseye’s one of the few Crime Lords that actually have brutal stats.

At five, Kingpin’s solid gold. Respectable stats, and an absolute bear for your opponent to get rid of. Namor’s there as backup, with the added touch that should we lose a vital plot twist to a discard effect, he can get it back for us.

We finish it out at six with a 13/11 Torch, who will either be a decent attacker if we have the initiative, or a very vindictive defender, and Hulk at seven with hefty 16/16 stats and another Crime Lords “You really don’t want to attack me…” effect.

In terms of support, there’s three categories: generica, Crime Lords, and Fan4. Makes sense in a team-up deck, no?

For offensive generica we have Flying Kick and No Man Escapes The Manhunters. Duty Calls straddles the fence between offensive and defensive, while Burn Rubber is pretty much purely defensive. Call In A Favor gives us a tutor, while Have A Blast! brings a little resource disruption to the deck. Forbidden Loyalties and 31st Century Metropolis provide the team-ups. One plot twist, one location, depending on what I’m fighting and what sort of row disruption they might be packing.

From the Crime Lords suite, Made Men provides a pseudo team-up (and doesn’t need a Crime Lord in play to use) and also provides global flight at the cost of an exhaust. Boss of Bosses provides a tutor for my 5-drop, while also giving some anti-hidden tech. Face The Master is an auto-include in any Crime Lords deck, and Marked For Death effectively gives me a reusable Nasty Surprise.

From the Fantastic Four side of things, only a couple of toys. Supernova gives a remarkably hefty +6/-6 to an attacker or defender, allowing for either massive up the curve swinging, or a better than usual Nasty Surprise if I’m taking the stunback anyway. I’ll likely be reinforced anyway. The downside is, of course, that -6 DEF if I’m using it offensively… but Torch And Thing provides me with either a little +2 ATK or protection from stunning while attacking - if I get both in hand, it translates to +6 ATK on turn 3 for the cost of a discard. Mmm nummy.

So that’s all well, and good, but how did it go?

Well, in the end, there’s two games on which I’ll report. One victory, one defeat.

The first was against CaptainSpud, who was playing a Secret Society based deck that endeavoured to mill the heck out of the opponent’s deck. It worked. Come the start of turn 6, I had no cards left in my KO pile to draw. Riddler, Trickster, even Madame Web attacked my deck like hungry little deck-chewing ferrets.

In a Little Deck format, where there’s only one of any card in the deck, mill like that can be devastating, especially if you’re not packing any recursion. I sat there and watched as character after character, plot twist after plot twist, cycled into my KO pile where I wouldn’t be able to use them (aside from a little recursion if I recruited Namor).

Thing is, it didn’t do Spud any good whatsoever. By the time my deck has ceased to be, I already had my curve. On two, Cobra. Three, Hyde. Four, Bullseye. Five, Kingpin. Six, Human Torch. I literally just beat him up. Even Grodd stealing Bullseye didn’t save the game for Spud.

The game ended with me on 8 END, and Spud on -6; in the end, the Crime Lords - normally as defensive as heck - just beat the snot out of the Secret Society and their pals.

The second game was against the Eponymous Pablo, who ran impressively built JLA/Underworld deck. Packing four or five different versions of Aquaman and multiple Mephisto’s, the deck combo’d Hall of Justice, Poseidonis and The Darkhold to pump all over the place and gain life while at it.

The amount of power-up recycling in this deck was just plain unpleasant.

This time around I did manage to get Susie into play for the global reinforcement on turn four, but I was missing drops or hitting sub-optimal choices for most of the game. Albert Malik on turn three when I already had my team-ups? Poopers, where’s Thing when I need him?

Despite having three means of digging out Kingpin for five, he just didn’t want to show up, and I was behind the ball for the remainder of the game accordingly.

Of course, my draw on turn six? Call In A Favor and Boss of Bosses. FIE!

Turn seven I have to say, worked out nicely for me. I had Hulk and Torch. Took a stun when Asmodeus attack Torch, leaving me on 1 END. This meant that if I had a reinforcing effect, Aquaman and Mephisto wouldn’t be able to get through Hulk, who would bounce one of the attackers to hand, and then just stomp on the other with his hefty 16 ATK.

I had neither Duty Calls nor Burn Rubber. Both, it turns out, were in the bottom three cards of my deck.

Pablo didn’t know that, and the sheer concept of Hulk bouncing Aquaman just psyched him right out, and despite his being able to win the game then and there, he passed on the attack, and we went into turn eight.

I had no eight-drop in the deck, but I did bring out Namor, grabbing a No Man from the KO pile, and She-Thing. Sharon fired up Made Men and gave Hulk flight, allowing him to get over Aquaman’s head to stomp Asmodeus into the dust, while Namor managed to get a nice 11 damage through the now-visible Lilith (Yay for No Man!).

Final score was myself on -5, Pablo on -4. Pablo also had Aquaman remaining to attack, so thanks to his power-up recycling could have stunned Hulk without a stunback, but had more class than that.

And with that, Fellow Lost, we bring Crime Lords Month to an end.

Again, thank you for riding with me, and I look forward to your continued patronage.