New Deck: Doom Needs Only Grodd

After hearing about the interaction between Coup d’Etat and Ultron on The Ring Has Chosen, both Brian and I decided to take a crack at building the deck. Most of this was Brian, with me adding in a couple of character ideas and interactions. Here’s the deck list.

Characters:

4x Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom

1x Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster

1x Roy Harper <> Speedy, Mercurial Marksman

2x Charaxes, Moth Monster

2x Lancer, Samantha Dunbar

1x Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways

4x Dr. Doom, Richards’s Rival

4x Gorilla Grodd, Grodd Awful

4x Ultron <> Ultron 11, Army

1x Darkseid, Destroyer of Life

1x Black Manta, Underwater Marauder

2x Deathstroke the Terminator, Killing Machine

1x Holocaust, Nemesis

1x Molecule Man, Owen Reece

1x Doomsday, Engine of Destruction

1x Mark Desmond <> Blockbuster, Mindless Brute

Plot Twists:

4x Enemy of My Enemy

4x Monkey See, Monkey Do

4x Savage Beatdown

4x Flying Kick

3x Mystical Paralysis

3x Straight to the Grave

2x Master Plan

2x Have a Blast!

1x A Proud Zinco Product

1x Coup d’Etat

Locations:

1x Soul World

In the standard Brian tradition, this deck features quite a lot of one-ofs. Too many, in my opinion. I’m going to build my own version of the deck as well, which you’ll see some time soon in order to give you our own sort of improvisational Battle of Wills. I haven’t piloted the deck myself, but as I did mention in my last post, it did manage to beat the Alan Scott deck four in a row. It’s a very strong controlling build. Monkey See, Monkey Do and access to Mystical Paralysis go a long way to foil your opponent both on and off initiative. Of course, the Coup d’Etat/Ultron and Monkey See, Monkey Do/Molecule Man combos are in the deck, but they aren’t the overall focus, as both interactions are turned off if you lose the die roll and end up going evens. This deck really wants odd initiative, where everything comes together quite beautifully.

There are some issues, however. I’m not a huge fan of some of the one-of’s. It didn’t seem to be a problem for Brian, however. I can see why Coup d’Etat is a one-of, as you just search it out with Doom or Boris. But is there really any worth in wasting one slot on a random Soul World with no way to search it out? Or only one APZP when Black Manta is an alternate drop? The deck only has so much search, and while seven search cards should be enough, but in a stalling and controlling build that will nearly always hit turn seven, it’s a bit risky only running three sixes and three sevens without using the built in mill strategy that exists in Society. The lack of running something like a Riddler or Dr. Sivana or Forced Conscription also doesn’t guarantee being able to pull off the Ultron combo, which was the interaction around which the entire deck is built. There is a more serious problem, though, which I’m not so sure I would know how to fix. Mystical Paralysis doesn’t come online until four. Grodd and his tricks (Coup d’Etat and Monkey See) also doesn’t come online until four. The deck doesn’t really do much before then. Because of this, the deck seems to get absolutely wrecked by rush decks, especially the speed decks like anything Quicksilver involved, Skrulls or the IG Hidden deck that push most of their damage through before turn four. And in the case of IG and Skrulls, they work the hidden area and thus are faced with not losing much more than a Lockjaw or Catwoman to Monkey See, Monkey Do. It’s a very good deck, but I don’t think it can compare to the Tier 1 decks in the Silver Age in its current incarnation. If we were dealing with a metagame dominated by curve decks, this would really get a chance to shine. It’s a fun idea, but it’s not quite there.