I am...the World's Finest

Well maybe that's a rather extreme statement, but I sure felt like it on Friday night! We had our Bring-Your-Own-Two-Teams tournament, and I ran my first-ever build of a Team Superman / Gotham Knights team-up deck. It was a lot smaller tournament than most that we've had in the past two months, but we had some great decks brought in. With only 5 of us playing we had time for every player to play against everyone else, which I really liked.

BYOTT World's Finest (65 cards)

Characters:
2x DCX-023 Superman/Batman Robot (0)
2x DCR-212 Lois Lane (1)
4x DBM-006 Commissioner Gordon (1)
2x DJL-209 Kelex (1)
3x DWF-010 Krypto (2)
3x DWF-042 Batman (3)
4x DOR-007 Cassandra Cain <> Batgirl (4)
1x DWF-127 Catwoman (5)
1x DWF-025 Wonder Woman (5)
2x DCL-028 Superman (5)4x
4x DCL-070 Dick Grayson <> Nightwing (6)
4x DGL-159 Azrael <> Batman (7)
1x DWF-008 Kara Zor-El <> Supergirl (8)
1x DOR-020 Superman (8)
1x DWF-022 Superman (9)
Total = 35

Plot Twists:
1x DCX-005 Flying High
2x DSM-032 Man of Tomorrow
2x DOR-029 Fizzle
3x DWF-037 Iron Will
2x DGL-161 Blood in the Dark
3x DWF-036 Impervious
4x DWF-038 Soaring to New Heights
3x DWF-035 Home Sweet Home
4x DWF-060 Good Cop, Good Cop
4x DWF-059 Bat-Signal

Locations:
2x DBM-012 Gotham City

The idea for this deck is a combination of plot twist negation, character recovery, and smashing my opponent on odd initiatives. As has seemed the case lately, it's a little card-heavy, but there are a few items that could be removed, namely single copies of Wonder Woman and Catwoman on 5, 1 Lois the 8-drop Kara and 9-drop Superman. That would put it down at an even 60 and should still likely run just fine, as I never needed any of those characters in my games.

My mulligan condition for each game was either a Batman in hand, or a way to get Batman. If I'm lucky enough to get Gotham City on the board I use it on my defending turns to draw cards, which can be used as discard for Batman's ability or my Fizzles. When Superman comes out on turn 5 he's never been smaller than 10/10 for me. With some Soaring to New Heights and Iron Wills to play, my entire board (always at least three characters on turn 5) can start to pummel my opponent. Dick Grayson is one of the beefier 6-drops I could find that was thematic, and I liked the Azrael <> Batman text for the times I might get stuck with even initiatives. With the amount of search, it hits very consistently and plays very well.

Round 1: Marvel Defenders / Warbound

Scott was able to get his Hulk set up on turn 5 and it was looking scary for me with all the readying and counter effects. Luckily I had a solid board with my Batman 3-drop, Superman/Batman Robot (boosted in for 4 resource points), Superman, and Krypto. With me on even initiatives...Hulk was swinging first. I was able to slow the pain with a timely flipped Flying High and Home Sweet Home from my resource row and survive the turn with three characters on the board. On turn six, four attacking characters and a couple of Soaring to New Heights shifted the game in my favor. On turn seven Scott had to under-drop and just couldn't survive my counter-attack.

Round 2: Teen Titans / Legionnaires

Harry's deck was a weenie build based on team attacking and cosmic effects like Legion of Super-Pets. I started off poorly and missed my first two drops, but from there I hit my preferred character every turn. Batman and my Fizzles proved to be extremely valuable in this round! With Superman getting +5/+5 or better for two turns in a row, it was all over for Harry on turn 6.

Round 3: BPRD / Hellfire Club

Fast forward to turn 8. I have Supes/Bats Robot, Nigthwing, Azrael and Superman out as my 5, 6, 7, and 8 cost characters. Jon has the initiative with three hidden characters and a massive Hellboy sitting in his visible area. He was able to stun Azrael and Nightwing but not being able to attack around Superman to get my Robot, had to pass the attack to me. However, at this point Hellboy is even more intimidating, sitting at 21/20. So I'm faced with a choice, I could gamble and throw my 20/20 Superman into Hellboy and risk a power up or something, or I can team attack and ensure the stun. I opt for the team attack, resulting in a stunback on my Superman. But when the dust settled and the smoke cleared I had risen victorious with 0 endurance to Jon's -8. An awesome battle and a great game!

Round 4: Gotham Knights / Birds of Prey

My final round was up against Vern, who was a first time player at our group, but not a new player to the game. Unfortunately for Vern I was able to hit Krypto on 2, Bat-Signal for my Batman in preparation for 3, and draw into my 4, 5, and 6s. I had a character and endurance advantage by turn 6 with the all-Gotham crew only being able to stun my two smaller characters. Superman finished off Vern's last standing visible attacker, and with no one to protect him, Nightwing swung in for the coup-de-grace. To cement the beating, I flipped up two copies of Soaring to New Heights, a copy of Iron Will (matched by a one in my KO pile) for an additional 8/8. That was 20 straight to Vern's already-bloody mouth, but he took it with a smile, scooped his cards and shook my hand in defeat.

As for me...this was the first time I ever won a tournament in the year we've been holding them at Trilogy. I took home some of the Ultimates cards and two packs of World's Finest (hello foil Last Son of Krypton) as winner prizes. I also bought a few packs of Legion, and ended up with two cards I was still searching for, in Ion and Dark Superboy...and finally cracked a Mobilize!

To sum up: I'm really happy with my deck, absolutely floored by the consistent turn out of new and older players we've had recently, and grateful that we have such a supportive store to play at. I truly couldn't ask for a better gaming experience.