Hobby League: Burnt Follicles*

Alright, the BYOS tourney is almost upon us. I considered looking at MTU, but the Eponymous Pablo needs to pilfer some of my Marvel Defenders and Spider-Friends stuff so he can polish up his Moon Knight deck. I have other options, so being the benevolent soul that I am I’m turning instead to MVL.

I’m working on getting together playsets of the X-Men stuff, and of course there’s our old tried-and-true stomping grounds of the Marvel Knights and the Fantastic Four.

What’s that? You don’t think I’ve rambled on about MK and Fan4 enough in this blog? You’re always glad to hear more inane mumblings about cards that everyone’s had for almost a year now? Why, that’s just wonderful. I knew we had something in common!

So, if we delve into the world of netdecks, we see the likes of Both Guns Blazing and Family of Four (though truth be told, Family of Four kinda builds itself, so it can’t really be called a netdeck). We can maybe see variants on the Nova Blast deck, and I’m sure we could build something around Elektra if we really tried…

… but you may recall we put some work in to dealing with dandruff a few weeks back. It’d be a shame to waste all of that and just slap together a deck somebody else has perfected.

Instead, why don’t we look at cleaning up the deck for BYOS.

First thing out the door: The Ultimate Nullifier. It’s MEX, not MVL, so we can’t use it.

Second thing out the door: Anguish of the Innocent. Sorry, but I’ve drawn it four or five times in testing the Ghost Rider legend deck, and each time it’s done pretty much bupkiss. We can use the room for something we’ll actually get some use out of.

With the obligatories tossed out the window, the next step is to decide direction.

How radical a change are we looking at here? Do I just make a few minor changes to the deck as it is? Do I take Family of Four and just sub in Ghost Rider at 5, and then make some room for Chain of Vengeance and Wheels of Vengeance? Do I toss the whole thing out the window and go for a fresh Heroes of the City build?

A big deciding factor here is Moon Knight. Yes, I know, only one person’s going to be playing him, but you know what? It’s the one and only deck I KNOW is going to be in attendance, and I know the deck as it exists has no real answer to the massive turn five smashing of Khonshu.

I didn’t have much time before Hobby League tonight, but I did some quick switching to try out some other stuff while still running with the equipment theme. Here’s how it ended up:

• 4x HERBIE: Robot Nanny
• 4x Luke Cage: Steelhard Skin
• 2x Mr Fantastic: Stringbean
• 4x Thing: Idol o’Millions
• 4x Mr Fantastic: Critical Thinker
• 3x Ghost Rider: Rider on the Storm
• 1x Human Torch: Flame On!
• 1x Invisible Woman: Shield of the Four
• 1x Silver Surfer: Norrin Radd
• 3x Pier 4
• 1x Fantasticar 2.0
• 1x Steel Girder
• 2x Katana
• 2x Unstable Molecular Stui
• 2x Wheels of Vengeance
• 4x Signal Flare
• 4x Mobilize
• 4x It’s Clobberin’ Time
• 3x Savage Beatdown
• 3x Eureka!
• 3x Chain of Vengeance
• 3x Only Human

The plan is still to hit Ghost Rider on 5 with the Wheels (searched out by Reed either through Eureka! or filtering), and HERBIE’s still in there to provide a free Steel Girder if possible, but we’ve now got Luke as the primary 2, Thing at 3, Franklin as a defensive alternative at 5, Johnny at 6, Sue at 7, Norrin at 8.

For the 7-drop, I basically had to choose between TELBET and Susie; I’m not expecting a lot of swarm, so in the end it comes down to a 16/16, or a 16/16 with flight and range. Sue’s just that little bit more versatile.

I think I’ll ditch the Fantasticar though, maybe for a second Girder. Yes, I can search them out with Eureka!, but it’ll provide that little bit more consistency. And for the record, even having to underdrop Ghostie with the Girder on turn 6 isn’t a bad thing. He’s still unstunnable, and there’s a good chance I’ll have a pump that can put me over their 6.

* Alright, I suppose I could have called this entry “Itchy Scalp Pt 3″, but where’s the fun in that?