Answering the Call: That’s Hawt

Aaron does it again! This time, with a little Strange love… – Gdaybloke

Looking at this challenge, as usual, my first instinct was horrible. After many flop builds with a teen titans crossover, angling to abuse TTG for some killer burninator tactics, I eventually threw in the towel.

Seriously.

I gave up. Sure i could make a torch-centric deck, but with a turn 5 deadline? It felt too elusive. So i walked away and played wow for almost a solid week.

ALMOST.

Then I got the itch. The fever if you will. That urge a card player gets when he knows he absolutely, positively NEEDS to play something…DIFFERENT.

In retrospect, I suppose the fates have an interesting way of ramming your own foot in your mouth as I lurked through my deck collection and stumbled across an old favorite of mine. A Venom Burn variant designed solely for the BYOS marquis sometime last year. Utilising consulting the orb, the order and the interaction of johnny blaze and the 5 drop venom, it consistently busted out 40-60 points of enurance loss on turn 5.

It was like getting slapped in the face by a schoolgirl. The premise of this challenge was, in spirit, the same. Sure, i couldn’t use The Order on the Torch like i had with Johnny, But we still had One-Man Rampage. And there was an interesting interaction around human torch, ego gem, Dr. strange, Soul World and of all things… The reckoning.

Do you see it?

DEFEND THIS!

CHARACTERS (27)
4x Wong, Mystical Manservant
3x Tania Belinskya
3x Luke Cage, Steel Hard Skin
2x Hellcat, Patsy Walker
4x Human Torch, Sparky
4x Human Torch, Secret Avenger
1x Samantha Parrington <> Valkyrie
4x Dr. Strange, Founding Father
2x Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd

PLOT TWISTS (23)
3x Truth and Justice
3x Secret Defenders
2x The “B” Team
4x Signal Flare
3x One Man rampage
4x COnsulting the Orb
4x The Reckoning

LOCATIONS (6)
4x New Baxter Building
2x Soul World

EQUIPMENT (4)
4x Ego Gem

The early game should see some optimal chances for draw and potentially some bricking with Hellcat. Oh an odd init turn 5, the game can potentially be over before your opponents 5th resource drops. thanks to the readying power of doc strange.

Ideally, you want to see the deck, activate torch, using surfer, activate new baxter (since optimally you played ego gem) recruit doc strange, ready torch, burn again, then exhaust a weenie for the reckoning to burn for another 8. Of course this assumes you didnt score a second reckoning or a second surfer. And also assumes you’ve managed to stay on top of stunbacks and burn using the 3 drop torch as well. (most often getting the stun AND the burn thanks to One man Rampage on turn 3 and/or 4.)

it very consistently ends on 6, but with some foresight can easily handle a negative shot to endurance before the opposing build on 5.

Enjoy.

- Aaron “Onyxweapon” Mead