Beloved Evolution pt.1

Wow! It seems like a lifetime has passed since last time I was here talking my deck mumbo-jumbo, but I’m back. Lots of personal issues like starting my own business have tied my time in ways that I have never thought possible. For the most part I have been here and there. Having internet access on the future work place to be has kept me at least posting on the threads. I have also been very dedicated to the DSM makeover I am involved with, but more on DSM-2 at another time. Sadly I haven’t been able to do much writing but managed to get a little work here and there until I finished this piece.

So, what are we going to talk about here today? Well the last set to have been released for Vs. was Evolutions and well that’s exactly what I want to talk about. Not evolution in the scientific aspect of it, but the evolution of a deck. A few weeks ago I was looking at my neatly organized stack of boxes, which contain my Vs. cards and I was just amazed at how many cards I have that aren’t in decks. I opened one of the boxes and started looking through the generic plot twists of DC Origins. It was there that I found my four copies of My Beloved, and the idea for this article.

Back when Vs. was only 4 sets old My Beloved decks were very commonly played. It was very interesting for me to see how a deck based of the combination of good guys and evildoers could work so well together. I was used to seeing it in Common Enemy decks but not being that big of a DC fan well it caught me in it’s magic. Now days this is such a common sight and occurrence that it can only dazzle newer players, but back then I was hooked. Obviously I built a My Beloved deck and after bashing and getting bashed with it I took it apart to create newer decks mostly because I only own four copies of Fizzle. I recall having such fun with the deck that I thought I would give it another go.


If you still can’t guess what we are going to do today I will tell you. Basically we are going to get a MY Beloved deck list from back in the day and inject some newer cards into it to give it a boost. What I want to do with the deck is not a complete overhaul, which represents nothing of the deck of old but the two affiliations it shares, but an upgrade that still has the feel of the older version while hopefully giving you some pointers here and there on how to beef up one of your old favorites.

For this task I will be using a deck that managed a 3-4th place finish at a 10K event as the blueprint. I like this version of the deck because it utilizes a lot of different drops all through the curve. My Beloved decks were famous for that because they were among the elite few decks that back in the day actually teamed-up two affiliations that had real search cards. I usually like to be more solid when I build decks, which I guess this why I like the deck so much. It deviates so much from what I am used to play with that it is just refreshing. There were also two very distinct versions of My Beloved decks. One of them was location heavy running ten to fourteen of them, while the other played between zero to four of them almost all the time Mountain Stronghold being the number one choice. Both of them used to be control decks that ran several options throughout the curve to further improve upon their position depending on what type of opposition they faced. They were sort of toolbox decks that stayed between the two chosen affiliations to get the job done. We must remember that these decks were built and played before the introduction of the greatest toolbox enabler Enemy of my Enemy, so it wasn’t a conscious choice but rather a lack of tools to go after bigger and better things. Still I want to keep the purity of the two teams so I will not go outside the teams to get what I need. So yes, what I want to do is keep the deck as originally intended; a control deck, lots of options, and only two affiliations. I think that if I manage to do that the deck will retain the feel of the original.


Now here is the deck list we will be updating today:

Characters
4 Alfred Pennyworth, Faithful Friend
3 Bane, Ubu
1 Batman, Caped Crusader
1 Batman, The Dark Knight
4 Bronze Tiger, Benjamin Turner
1 Cassandra Cain <> Batgirl, Martial Artist
2 D!ck Grayson <> Nightwing, High-Flying Acrobat
1 D!ck Grayson <> Nightwing, Defender of Bludhaven
2 Huntress, Helena Rosa Bertinelli
1 Kyle Abbot, Wolf in Man's Clothing
1 Lady Shiva, Master Assassin
1 Merlyn, Deadly Archer
3 Ra's al Ghul, Master Swordsman
1 Ra's al Ghul, The Demon's Head
1 Superman, Big Blue Boy Scout
1 Ubu, Ra's al Ghul's Bodyguard

Plot Twists
3 Bat-Signal
4 Fizzle
2 I Hate Magic!
4 My Beloved
1 Narrow Escape
2 Tag Team
2 The Demon's Head
4 Tower of Babel

Locations
2 Flying Fortress
1 GCPD Headquarters
1 Lazarus Pit
1 Metropolis
4 Mountain Stronghold
1 Pit of Madness

The first thing I want to do here is analyze the character choices this deck plays and why the choices were made. For this we must understand a little about what the meta back then was. I won’t lie there weren’t that many different decks that were considered competitive but among them the top dogs were: Teen Titans, Brave and the Bold, Common Enemy, Wild Vomit, The New Brotherhood, and Big Brotherhood. Most of the choices you will see here are influenced greatly by those decks, so keep it in mind.

The first thing to notice is that the deck runs no other 1 drop but our dear old friend Alfred. I’m a sucker for search cards so he will stay in the deck.

When we get to the two drops is where I get a little bit worried. The deck only runs 4 copies of Bronze Tiger, or 8 copies of him if you count Mountain Stronghold. This is something that will need to be fixed. You see on the second turn if you have the initiative and your opponent didn’t play a 1 drop your still playing blind because you lack the knowledge of what your opponent is playing. What this means is that even though you can search for Bronze Tiger easily it might be at the risk of discarding one of the 1 off characters you have in the deck that could seriously help against the current match. I also don’t like having to use my search cards as early as the second turn, as I might have more need of them later on the game.

Once the third turn comes around we see the tool boxing starting to develop. We have 3 choices here with the main drop being Huntress, this in part to allow for an early team up with Bronze Tiger if you didn’t team-up on two with him and Alfred. When we look at Huntress she has small 4/4 stats but her aspect is that of control rather than as a beat stick, as she certainly limits the plot twist count that can be played. This means that you can attack without care of an opponent using a DEF plot twist to avoid the stunback, but also that opponents must attack wisely if they wish to get a stun from her. Seeing as Curve Sentinels was one of the most played decks out there that means that you could easily go after Sentinel Mark II without the fear of running into a brickwall created by Cover Fire. One of the other choices at three is Kyle Abbot. Which is certainly a good character to under drop on the 5th turn if you have the initiative. Why would you do this? Well underdropping Kyle on the 5th means that you can pay his boost while having enough resources to give him an extra +3/+3. Basically you will have a 12 ATK/ 6 DEF character on the 5th turn, which is way beyond the curve, while also having a resource left to replay Alfred and getting something you might need later on. Basically not only are you getting a bigger than average character, but also getting 3 loss of endurance to your opponents 5 when and if you went after his higher drops.


At the four drop slot we have yet a few other options: Cassandra Cain for her beatstick attitude and Mr. D. Grayson for his control aspect. Now D!ck is a multi purpose character by himself. He can be boosted by one the 5th turn to get rid of a Sentinel Mark V, which gets even better if that Mark V was boosted into play on the 5th. He was also a great choice against Teen Titan decks that liked so much to underdrop to improve upon their numbers. Stun a two drop get a two drop or free. You can’t argue the high versatility and playability of Mr. Grayson.

When we go to the fifth turn we have Batman, Caped Crusader and Bane, Ubu. Now Batman is here for his double endurance stun loss damage. While the main aspect of the deck is control you must remember that we also want options, and this double endurance loss can be the edge against some matches. Bane however is all about the board control. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone use his boost effectively and I don’t think I’ll ever will, it just takes to much to set it up and make it work. Perhaps in a Checkmate deck, but that’s another topic and deck anyways. Back on topic, the advantage that Bane brings is that without recovery effects we can easily go up the chain with one of our attacks, then send him in for a lower drop and then on the recovery phase hopefully take out the bigger threat. His Loyalty really shouldn’t be a problem on the 5th turn but just to be on the safe side Batman can come over and help.

Once the sixth turn comes around we have two characters, which translate into four copies of a six drop character. That’s something that will need to be fixed. I don’t think four six drops is a proper amount of character for a drop as high as the 6th turn. With enough draw and search this number can be easily lowered to three and perhaps even to two. In any case we have yet another Grayson here on the 6th turn. His stats are the basic 12/12 of a six drop character but he ensures extra draw whenever he stuns a character. Not bad considering his effect triggers on and off initiative. Not only that but he offers reinforcement at the cost of a discard, which can be helpful if a boosted Kyle was used earlier on and we are about to take massive breakthrough. Then we get Ra’s. I don’t like to talk badly about the Leader of the League but his main objective is to simply enable Lady Shiva on the 7th turn, who is just a beast if you have initiative. Ra’s ability is good as it can replace used plot twists or locations in the row for new ones, but his effect contradicts Bane a bit as you can’t really control the outcome.


Then after Lady Shiva we have the two eight drops. Something I don’t like with the deck is that we have Lady Shiva dependant on Ra’s and then on the 8th we have Superman dependant on Batman. This is something that I don’t enjoy too much as it makes my 7th turn recruit dependant on my 6th turn recruit, and then my 8th turn dependant on my 7th turn recruit. If we look at the list we also have Loyalty for characters throughout the curve. This is something that must also be fixed in order to make the deck easier to play with.

The control elements of the deck are found all throughout the character curve. Further evidence of control can be seen in the plot twist selection. Tower of Babel and Fizzle can’t be seen as anything else than that.

Tower of Babel was just an amazing card against almost every deck out there. With no affiliations you were free from Dr. Doom’s grasp and able to play plot twists from hand at lest during your opponents attack step. It also rendered It’s Clobberin’ Time useless, and that was the pump of choice for Common Enemy. Against Teen Titans and Brave and the Bold decks it meant that multiple tricks and attacks due to Teen Titans Go! would be held back. The New Brotherhood was unable to get the extra +2ATK from their prized plot twist, and well for Big Brotherhood that meant no +3/+3 conversion from a power up thanks to Lost City. Perhaps today in a more Legend oriented environment Tower of Babel might not be as useful as it was back then but that doesn’t mean that it won’t still serve a purpose.

The locations are pretty straightforward. Search and boost with a little bit of tech. Hopefully we can add even more tech to the location selection.

Well that’s it for part one of this journey into evolving a My Beloved deck. Now that we have analyzed the card choices that were chosen for the deck we have a very clear picture of what the deck wanted to do and actually did. By knowing this info we are better prepared to make choices that will keep the feel of the original when we improve upon it. Next week I will finish this up with a new deck and card selection.

As always thanks for reading.