Grodd Control pt1

Control: to curb, restrain: to regulate; to guide, superintend: to direct, supervise.

Over the last few weeks I’ve been running a Secret Society Grodd Control deck with a fair degree of success, posting winning records, without securing any tournament wins. The biggest problem I’ve found with the deck is it not living up to its name, Grodd Control. In a number of the matchups I’ve found my opponent dictating the way the match panned out rather than myself. So I took the deck apart last night, whilst at the same time thinking, ‘What worked’?

The answers were a little disappointing. Stealing characters on turns 4 or 5 depending on initiative was great if you’d kept there low cost characters off the board by means of unnatural selection of total anarchy. If the deck hadn’t managed this then basically it had a tendency to roll over. It had been handed a defeat against a future foes deck solely on the basis it couldn’t deal with the raw stats of the low drop characters. It had been dealt a loss at the hands of Jacks’ Marvel Defenders deck because it couldn’t handle the multiple stuns created by Nova, The Order and recruiting the 5-drop Dr.Strange, whilst Nova’s DEF was boosted by Backup effects.

The possible solutions to this were
a) beef up the decks lower order, drops 1-3.
b) get more controlling and shut the opponent down.
So I got to thinking of team ups that could facilitate the requirements of a or b.

I’m going to start with b, just because I enjoy control decks more than beats. The obvious choices for any control decks are Doom and Gotham Knights so I’m going to make a build for both. There were elements of the original deck that I didn’t want to play around with so we all ready had a bare bones of the decks curve.

Doom:
This deck is going to be Silver Legal, unlike the one in the ‘All Monkeys are French’ blog entry so my favourite Doomy tricks are unavailable (cheating the you must control Dr.Doom requirement with Doomstadt, Reign of Terror).
1 drops -
When you talk about 1-drops and Doom you immediately think of Boris. Now this guy is awesome, go get whatever tech you need for the particular matchup, missing a drop-fetch that tutor. The only problem is, with no specific way to cheat on the ‘If you control Dr.Doom’ aspect (we used to have Doomstadt) Boris isn’t quite the powerhouse he used to be. That is unless we completely change the focus of the deck. Which as I don’t want to run Doom at 4 over Grodd at 4 that aint going to happen. However I might thimk about that route for a different SS/Doom build. The deck will also feature less of a fill the Ko’d theme so Riddler isn’t that high a priority either. The final decision was to nigh on drop the 1-slot going with just 1 copy of Cheetah.
2-drops
I wanted to run the MHG Dr.Doom at three so primary choices for facilitating a team up were SS at the two slot. Deadshot is solid, particularly useful against off curve, although my Ko Pile filling options were not so strong as in the original build. In the end I settled for a couple of Deadshots, a couple of Lancers and a Charaxes.
3-drops
Dr.Doom was the 3-drop of choice, with his PT fetching to increase the consistency of hitting MSMD (I only own 2 copies at present), however the ability could also be for  a team up or an unatural selection. I also packed a Dr.Psycho (for the off-curve matchup), Poison Ivy (though with a lack of 1-drops, in hindsight I’m not sure why) and a Technarx for possible Ko’d pile abuse.
4-drops
Grodds still the man, although 1 Sinestro and 1 Dr.Doom Diabolic Genius were there as backups.
5-drops
Black Manta still made it in there, although Ultron 11 was probably the 5 of choice off initiative.
6-drops
Deathstroke the Terminator (god I love this card), Dr.Doom Sorcerous Savant
7-drops
Just Mark Desmond for brute strength. I hoped that I’d have the initiative on 7 or could steal it for the combat section with The power cosmic.
8-drops
Dr.Doom, Latverian Monarch

In hindsight I wouldn’t have bothered with Ivy or Dr.Doom and would have bolstered the two drops as I missed 2 in EVERY game.
With regards PT’s and locations it was similar fare to the straight SS build, minus the Total Anarchys but adding Sacrificial Pawns and a pair of MP’s. For the Glory of Doom was the chosen team up.

So the deck got a run out in a 4-man event. Posted a 2-1 record but to be honest it was awful.

Game 1 was against a Underworld/Doom deck that only managed 1 visible character who I Ko’d with an Unnatural selection. Although it hit drops 2-6 it never challenged, especially when Manta is swinging with a Savage, then Gorilla City, then pay 3 fetch the Savage. Repeat this on 6 with Deathstroke, you can probably guess the scene. I had missed 1, 2 and underdropped on 3, but still was able to apply enough beats.
Game 2 was painful. No drops on 1 and 2, relying on drawing any character to be able to Enemy on 3 for the appropriate drop. I succeeded in getting out a Dr.Doom to fetch another enemy. On 4 I drew 2 PT’s. The matchup was against Titans/Outsiders and things were by this stage pretty ugly. I conceded on 5.
Game 3 both my deck and my opponents deck sucked. By turn 4 I had recruited just Grodd, had a handful of PT’s and locations but no MSMD, whilst my opponent had managed two 1’s and a 2. Laughable. The game however proved to be the most enjoyable of the night and was close, running on to turn 7 with my dudes able to cause a hatful of breakthrough in the final turn, despite brave resistance from Amy’s future foes.

So what did I learn. The build is not without merits but at present is inconsistent where the straight SS build is not. The character base needs some serious work so ….

SEE YOU ON MWS