Quintessentially Quirky – ‘Hey Teacher!!!!’

The latest deck to appear in Gary’s series of Quintessentially Quirky articles actually saw play at last weekends London City Champs. So here it is – Another Brick in the Wall.

Just Another Brick in the Wall

At the weekend I took part in a silver age city championship in London. A lot of time went in to deciding which deck to take, and in the end I decided I wanted to try out an idea that came to me while helping someone else build a deck on the Grinning Demon forums.

The deck I was helping on was a JLA power-up deck, and was looking at combing the 3 drop John Henry Irons with Katar Hol from DCR, as I reasoned that you would potentially brick wall attacks. Making each power up worth +2/+3 on the first defence is brutal. I then realised that John Henry Irons was Dual Affiliated Team Superman and there are few decks better able to ruin attack steps than these guys.

However, I was unable to actually play test this deck prior to the tournament. This lack of actual testing prior to the event had an impact, as there were some key changes that should be made to the deck to improve it. It is this process I want to cover off in this article.

This was the initial incarnation of the deck:

JLA/Team Superman

Characters: 27

4x Hiro Okamura <> Toymaster

Card draw is always good

2x Zatana (sucoh sucop)
If you can’t draw, then filtering is also good.

4x John Henry Irons <> Steel (Steel Works)
+2/+2 is better than +1/+1 and one attack is usually enough

2x Katar Hol <> Hawkman (Death from Above)
Free power-ups on defence are nice. Natural power-ups for main 4 drop are also pretty good.

 4x Kater Hol <> Hawkman (Eternal Hero)
+1/+2 is better than +1/+1.  

2x Power Girl <> Nightwing (Kandorian Vigilante)

+2 Def on the first attack/defence is pretty brutal

1x Kara Zor-El <> Flamebird (Kandorian Vigilante)
+2 ATK on the first attack/defence can make a huge difference.

1x Wally West <> The Flash (Keystone Cop)
Nobody likes hidden characters. He makes getting to them easy.

1x Batman  (Justice’s Shadow)
If you are attacking, free power-ups are good.

1x Pyrogen (Supermen of America)
This guy makes deciding on order of attack really hard for your opponent.

1x Martian Manhunter (Founding Member)
Free Reinforcement is also very nice.

1x Superman (Deterrent Force)
More attack stomping madness.

1x Hal Jordan (Fearless)
He is a strong 7 drop for offence and defence.

1x Kara Zor-El <> Supergirl (Claire Connors)
8 Drop who makes team attacking in to her extremely unpleasant has to be a strong play.

1x Superman (Bullet Proof)
He can’t be stunned. Ever. Now that’s cool.

Equipment: 4
4x Nth Metal
Power-ups in a deck with Ally powers are very good.

Locations: 12

4x City of Tomorrow

Team-Up and defence pump.

2x Smallville
Make your protected characters that bit meaner.

3x Kandor
Making protected characters difficult to attack is good. Moving characters around is also nice.

3x Hall of Justice
More free Power-ups.

Plot Twists: 17

4x Mightiest Heroes

Character search is good, even if it costs you a draw.

3x Enemy of my Enemy
More character search.

3x Flying High
This card is ridiculous against so many decks. An extremely powerful card that most people underestimate until it is used to wreck their attacks.

3x Impervious
+3 Def is a useful fall back on the first attack.

4x Magnificent Seven
More power-up goodness, with possible card draw for extra fun.

Now the deck performed pretty well. Except for a total brain shut down in one game, I was happy with the way it worked. You get John Henry Irons and Katar Hol out with an Nth Metal and things are looking rosy for you. You take odds, as attacking up the curve with Katar Hol is easily the best play. You look to stonewall on turns 4 and 6, and finish the game on 7.

The mulligan was for John Henry Irons or a way to get him.

Things are generally well set up for a devastating turn 5 attack were your 4 drop nails their 5 with out stunning back, your 5 beats up their 4 and then the 3 drops trade. With Pyrogen making turn 6 extremely unpleasant for your opponent, this should be all the advantage you need.

But as stated above, while it was effective (I went 3-2), there were some glaring issues with the deck.

1) Incorrect split on the 4 drops. Katar Hol is powerful, but if you miss power-up opportunities he is a 6 defence 4 drop. Not good if you are looking to brick-wall attacks on turn 4.

2) No tech. I knew there would be Secret Society decks aplenty at the tournament, but I did nothing to combat them. I had decided that location and equipment hate would be too difficult to fit in.

3) Wrong 2 drop. This is the most annoying error. I picked a two-drop to draw me cards, but the choice was incorrect. He is visible and situational. So is only likely to draw 1 or 2 cards maximum in a game before he becomes a liability. There was a much better option. In addition Zatana was often effectively blank due to opponent decks being short of cards, and made life difficult on turn 4 during formation. Creating a weak spot that even the moving tricks couldn’t really compensate for.

4) Too many multiples of non-unique locations and no consistency when hitting the key ones.

So I needed to look at what had to change things to make it better.

Issues 2 & 4 are fixed using the same trick. The JLA have a location search effect that clears surplus locations as well as tutoring up the required ones. New Era is a card I have underestimated on a couple of occasions. It would allow me to run 1 of copies of Phantom Zone. Having a location tutor presence of a location tutor also allows me to cut existing copies to make space.

So change 1.

-2 Hall of Justice

-1 Smallville

-1 Kandor

+3 New Era

+1 Phantom Zone

Issue 1 was a numbers issue. Katar Hol’s defence was too low for a defensive approach off initiative, and his power too reliant on power-ups to be effective. However, I had under-estimated the benefit of Power Girl’s +2 Def. Katar Hol with an Nth Metal is 10/9 on defence first combat. Power-Girl is 9/10. If you are on evens initiative it is even worse as Katar Hol has to work very hard to brick-wall a 5 drop and does nothing to help other characters. Where as Power Girl makes the first character hard to stun whatever the turn. Katar Hol’s ability only becomes more powerful than Power Girl’s once you hit 3 power-ups. He does affect all power-ups, but the first attack is often the most important one.

So change 2.

-2 Katar Hol

+2 Power Girl

Issue 3 was simply an over-sight regarding available cards. I completely missed the existence of the 2 Drop Barbara Gordon from DCR that allowed you to exhaust to draw a card as an Ally ability. It was also clear that hitting Zatana was never really a good thing. The card filter is at best 1 card, and often none.  So I cut her to increase numbers of search and later drops.This is much better than the Hiro Okamura for several reasons:

1) She is JLA affiliated to can be tutored for with Mightiest Heroes if you have your later curve.

2) Concealed is better than visible on a 2 drop. She also allows a far better formation on turn 4.

3) With the later curve being predominantly Team Superman, having more JLA characters improves the effectiveness of Enemy of my Enemy.

So change 3.

-4 Hiro Okamura

-2 Zatana (sucoh sucop)

+4 Barbara Gordon <> Oracle (Data Broker)

+1 Enemy of My Enemy

+1 Katar Hol <> Hawkman  (Eternal Hero)

The purpose of this was to show how taking an existing deck idea that is based around a non-teir 1 concept can still be reviewed and fine-tuned to make it as effective as possible.

The list to date:

Characters: 26
4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle (Data Broker)
4x John Henry Irons <> Steel (Steel Works)
2x Katar Hol <> Hawkman (Death from Above)
3x Kater Hol <> Hawkman (Eternal Hero)
4x Power Girl <> Nightwing (Kandorian Vigilante)
1x Kara Zor-El <> Flamebird (Kandorian Vigilante)
1x Wally West <> The Flash (Keystone Cop)
1x Batman  (Justice’s Shadow)
1x Pyrogen (Supermen of America)
1x Martian Manhunter (Founding Member)
1x Superman (Deterrent Force)
1x Hal Jordan (Fearless)
1x Kara Zor-El <> Supergirl (Claire Connors)
1x Superman (Bullet Proof)

Equipment: 4
4x Nth Metal

Locations: 9
4x City of Tomorrow
1x Smallville
2x Kandor
1x Hall of Justice
1x Phantom Zone

 Plot Twists: 21
4x Mightiest Heroes
4x Enemy of my Enemy
3x Flying High
3x Impervious
4x Magnificent Seven
3x New Era

Most of the decks you will see in Quintessentially Quirky will have some tweaks that could take them from entertaining jank to competitive deck. Whether you take the core engine and add a new finisher or simply tweak the numbers on certain cards to smooth out the draws, either way I hope these decks inspire you try something a bit different.