Editor: Staff. Monday 7th February 2005.
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Editor: Staff. Monday 7th February 2005.
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 "Teen Titans Review" In discussions regarding the best sixty cards in Vs today, the Teen Titans have become dominant. Simultaneously, the archetype is considered among the most challenging, even if consistently rewarding, decks in tournament Vs. To claim a comprehensive knowledge of the formation and workings of the archetype would be not only presumptuous, but arrogant. However, considering that many of the players I speak to view the Titans with a mixture of fear and awe, I would like to offer something of an explanation of their inner workings and latent power. Considering I have achieved a small level of success with the affiliation, I am going to concentrate almost exclusively on the sixty cards I find most optimal in the current metagame. I do not think I can do a fully blown history or strategy guide justice, particularly given the complicated, yet storied, and almost certainly unfinished, history of the deck. I started playing with the Teen Titans about a week before the Sydney 10K and took the deck to a fairly successful finish at that tournament. I played the affiliation at PC LA and did extremely poorly. Surprisingly to some, but not to most, I played the deck again at the recent Melbourne 10K and achieved another good result. Obviously I am a fan of the deck and believe it to be the best deck in the format. However, the builds I played at those three tournaments varied wildly in approach and tact. This may seem unusual if you can track down the decklists, as on the surface they appear very similar. The strength of the Teen Titans is that their general card quality is extremely high. If you look at the individual cards accessible to the Titans player, the only other affiliation that even comes close to matching their power, pound-for-pound, is the Brotherhood. However, unlike the Brotherhood, the Titans power is flexible, with characters that do a variety of relevant, and often broken, things. Thus the Titans player is granted much strength, if he or she can learn how to control and utilise it. With so many options, it takes very subtle skill to determine the correct configuration of a Titans deck to take to any given tournament. It is only now, after playing the deck for almost three months, that I can claim to have a version I am happy with, even if Marvel Knights is likely to change that. Before I plunge headfirst into my decklist, I must preface a disclaimer. If you are interested in playing the Teen Titans, you may want to play a different list. In deckbuilding there are certain assumptions that need to be reinforced time and time again. Number one on that list is that certain decks are always judged on their effectiveness in certain metagames. While I think the ability of TT to withstand the apparent hate and ‘good matchups’ other decks claim to have is underestimated, if your local metagame is skewed toward Common Enemy, Spider-Friends and My Beloved, you are not making the right move picking up Garth and Friends. Personally I think TNB-based Brotherhood decks are currently the best deck for the local PCQ scene, while Teen Titans are the best deck in an undefined metagame where many rounds determine the winner. TT facilitates a lot of options that, in my opinion, allow you the most consistent deck over 9-10 rounds. The PCQ circuit is a lot more forgiving on play skill, but is also less forgiving of esoteric strategies. The sheer flexibility of TT means that it can be tailored to take down any strategy, but that flexibility often requires focus, and if feel that it is much easier to predict the often conservative metagames of the Pro Circuit and 10K tournaments. Anyway, the list I would recommend:
There are a number of assumptions built into this deck. My belief is that the TT complex, starring Roy Harper, Tim Drake, Garth and TTG! trumps any curve strategy at all, and should be given the best chance of coming online. Thus the deck has been built as consistently as possible to ensure this happens. I also wanted the deck to be good in the mirror, an oversight that had cost me dearly in the list I played at PCLA. Basically, I wanted the deck to hit the same character curve every game, whilst giving me the best options in setting up the complex or accessing the silver bullets that could dominate an important matchup. Better more conclusive reasoning will become apparent when I discuss my selections: The character base: There is an overall philosophy in my character base that panders to my Philip.K.Dick-esque paranoia and also to the assumption that so long as I can hit my curve the raw power of the deck will trump any of the plans of my opponent. For the uninitiated, I will break down the character base into the characters I consider ubiquitous and untouchable in their given quantity, ad then I will discuss the additional characters I played and why. The Untouchables: 4 Roy Harper: This guy is the most obviously powerful card in the deck, comprised of an unusually unrestrained set of abilities. Now, I am not often so brief, or crude even, but if you need this card explained to you, you will have to just see it operating in action. This isn’t meant to be Titans 101. 4 Garth: The longer I play this deck, or this game for that matter, the more and more I realise how insanely stupid this card is. When this guy hits play, the deck just clicks, and recruiting him should be a priority in every matchup. 4 Tim Drake: This perhaps diminutive character is criminally underrated. I often mulligan aggressively just to make this guy, and the deck goes from competent to busted when he is in play. Between his boost, and Roy’s craziness, the TT are one of the only decks that can create a board in the late game where they can destroy their opponent without taking a point of endurance loss. Considering how unforgiving Vs is on those that fall behind in endurance, their abilities are incredible. 4 Terra: With an ability so dominant yet so rare, Terra takes out problem characters, but more importantly, she protects your board by reducing the amount of attacks an opponent can create. Vitally important vs TNB-based decks and in the mirror, she should never be included at less than full complement. The Variables: 4 Beast Boy: This is probably my most controversial selection. Maxing out on Beast Boy fulfils a lot of functions for me. Primarily it allows me to mulligan aggressively, as I don’t have to worry about not hitting my 3, as there are so many of them. Secondly, Hank/Dawn, while explosively good, are a liability in many matchups. Many decks like to rely on Flame Trap as a defence against the TT and by playing Beast Boy you invalidate this plan until the late game, where Roy makes it irrelevant. Thirdly, in a metagame where Overload is the new hotness, Beast Boy provides an effective, but not excessive pump with Titans Tower. Beast Boy is also the guy most likely on that first turn Optitron. The drawback is that the deck gives up the flexible late game that the utility characters provide. However, in my opinion, the vast majority of late-games are all about Roy anyway, and often you will want to use Roy earlier so obtaining six resources can be rough. 4 Red Star: Again consistency is the key. When this guy is your alternate, you know you have an amazing team. I really like having the option of either 4-drop, as Terra is often the best bet against a weenie-strategy, whereas Red Star is the man vs Curve. While Terra is more comprehensively game-winning, Red Star is growing in stature more and more. By playing 4, not only do I gain the greatest chance of drawing him, I am able to power-up from hand instead of relying on the often one-dimensional Tamaran. In obscure matchups, where you need to burn them out, Red Star needs to be accessed in multiples. 3 Hank/3 Dawn: I think this is the optimal configuration when you have Tamaran. Earlier, I liked 4 Hank/2 Dawn as I think hitting on 2 is really important for this deck (particularly for the Finishing Move/ADITF variants). However, Tamaran can randomly hit your Dawn sometimes, totally ruining your late game Roy shenanigans. The key to this pair is knowing when they are good and when they are bad, something I will cover more in the matchup series in the next article. At the moment, I think it will suffice to say that at the 3 this deck is spoiled for choice, but you want to make sure in the matchups that it counts that these guys hit the table on the 3. I think six copies between them is the right amount to ensure this. The Cuts: Cassie Sandsmark: Cassie is incredible vs CE. Between her and Heroic Sacrifice it is amazing how far you can actually shut down their offence. However, she is not really that good in other matchups. I believe that the CE matchup is no longer so important as to justify her inclusion, as even with her in play you still have your work cut out for you. I like the Ka-Boom/Foiled strategy against CE a little more at the moment anyway. Koriand’r: Koriand’r is the good player’s friend. The amount of time I have seen people just outright forget about her is emabarassing. As Curve Sentinels gets bigger and bigger, I can see her stocks rise, as there are many lazy Sentinel playerswho think formation is no longer a concern for their Flight and Range army. She is probably the best of the six drops. However, for the deck I wanted to run, and the fact that running one means you often have to be lucky or telegraph her, I no longer found her to be worth it. Donna Troy (2): TT has so many options that I don’t think DT (2) is even relevant anymore. If you want to play aggro, play TNB. The risk just doesn’t outweigh the reward. Playing one could be worth it, but the other options are just more flexible, and the deck doesn’t really need another +5 to attack boost. Donna Troy (6): In testing this card proved to be an absolute house, with her weakness invalidated in many respects by Titans Tower. If I could afford the space I would run her, as something of a card that seals the deal on a later turn (there is nothing like Pressing a DT to the dome!). However, the whole TT complex is so broken anyway that they don’t really need the extra help. Connor Kent: I never really understood this inclusion of this guy. The only game-threatening equipment I can think of is Utility Belt, and this guy comes down to late to stop that. He does provide a body that is difiicult to stun, but that is hard to make good, and Press has a lot better targets in the deck. As with all the alter drops/silver bullet characters, they may be useful on occasion, but that obscurity must be weighed against ruining your early draws. I have a predilection to enforce the latter, so I am biased, buit this guy doesn’t seem that relevant to me. Dick Grayson (5): I don’t think this guy is effective for what he is supposed to do. Apparently a plan against CE, he is unlikely to hit the ground until turn six (after Optitron) where CE has the initiative. On turn 7 he may be slightly relevant if you have the anti-Thing board, but I think that Cassie is probably better in that matchup, though I have to admit I am unsure. I don’t like him, and that guy in the Mos Eisley Cantina probably doesn’t either Pantha: I can really see Pantha being good, but she just isn’t my cup-o-tea. Along with Koriand’r, Pantha provides the most compelling reason to take a random slot. The Roy complex is incredibly important to the deck and having the requisite +2’s can sometimes be stymied. I like to get around it through replacing characters. Others are more stylish. Locations: 3 Optitron: Many decks prefer to run merely 2 Optitron, but like Mark Slack, I much prefer to have the third. With 30 characters a first turn Optitron can often smooth out your character draw, while an Argus in the late-game ensures that you can complete the complex, enabling you to fetch Roy or Tim Drake for that back-breaking turn. 3 Titans Tower: I like the third Tower for a few reasons. Titans Tower is such an effective safety blanket. When things go wrong, Titans Tower ensures the stun. This should not be overlooked. Importantly, in the mirror, where I believe the most important non-character card is Overload (as the mirror is a lot about Roy), Titans Tower can be used to invalidate your opponents characters. 2 Tamaran: This is also controversial but I find Tamaran quite limited. Sure it is totally busted when targeting Red Star but my move to 4 Red Stars took a lot of the pressure off finding a Tamaran. Other than powering-up Red Star it can be randomly good, and that’s all good. However, I think that 2 is enough. NB: It is insane that a location such as Liberty Island Base doesn’t even get a look in here when decks like Sentinels would kill for it. Just wanted to gloat a little. Plot Twists: 4 Teen Titans Go!: There has been a lot of conjecture online recently, after Ryan Jones played a version with only 3 TTG! To the PCLA title, and the man he vanquished in the finals, Mark Slack, writing an article at VSUniverse endorsing that view. However, after running the 3 TTG! Gambit at the Melbourne 10K I think they are wrong, even if their reasoning is quite acceptable. The second TTG! Is superfluous a lot of the time, but often it doesn’t really hurt that much, particularly in Doom matchups where you want to put one in the resource row. However, the main reason why I am going back to 4 is that TTG! Is the major reason why the Teen Titans just destroy straight curve decks. If you draw a TTG! Against a deck like Big Brother, they cannot win. However, if you don’t get one, you will almost certainly lose. Considering that Curve Sentinels have now cemented themselves in the top tier, I don’t think you can scrimp on one of the most powerful plot twists in the game. Obtaining a TTG! Is the number one priority in those sorts of matchups, and I hate having to take the first one I see in an Argus, or having to fret about mulliganning away the two TTG! Hand. 3 Press The Attack: I cannot stress enough the importance of this card to the deck. When first playing TT, many players become so overly enamoured with Team attacking they fail to realise they have to convert that insane board advantage into endurance lose somewhere. One of the functions Press has is to allow your Red Star (powered-up)/Tim Drake/x attackers to clear the board whilst the Fourth man, usually Garth, attacks to the dome and then again with Press. This is huge in allowing you to take a dominant board and turn it into an easy win, instead of prolonging the match. Press The Attack, perhaps primarily, takes the most broken character in the game, Roy Harper, and makes him that much better. The things you can do with Roy and Press are simply unfair, particularly when Garth lets you do it all over again. The one thing I would want to remind players of is that Press, and Savage Beatdown are often ignored for their threshold cost, which can really screw you if you are not careful. 3 Savage Beatdown: Seriously, +5ATK is just so busted. Apart from the fact that having three of these turns your Overloads into game-breakers nearly every match (Garth+SB+Overlaod is pure gravy), Savage Beatdown just invalidates every combat trick out there (if your Beatdown doesn’t beat their Cover Fire, you attacked wrong). Add to that the fact this card just melts endurance totals. This card also gets you out of a pinch if you get Babel’d or the like. I think you probably need 3 to get the most out of them, as even though you only really need 1, you always want it. 2 Overload: After its partner-in-crime above, I think this card has just overtaken Acrobatic Dodge to become the second most important generic plot twist in the game. With every deck packing Beatdown now, Overload has become one of the few ways of consistently dealing with huge creatures. In TT, it buys you time to set up your complex. In the mirror it absolutely shines, as cards are being pumped left right and centre, struggling futilely beneath the spectre of Roy who threatens to destroy everyone on a whim. Its narrowness consigns it to only two copies for me but 4 Argus’s means that I get it when I want. 2 Heroic Sacrifice: This card is just so criminal. Considering the cards in the Superman set are so restricted in cost, the way in which this card function is so unfair. On non-initiative turns against Curve, this card does the most ridiculous things. Ensuring that you keep your main characters alive AS WELL AS preventing all breakthrough, I still shake my head when I play this card. Add to that the fact that Garth effectively does it again and again and you realise why you only need 2 copies. 2 Ka-Boom: This card often sits there doing nothing, and then at other times it turns a game that was hanging in the balance. If CE comes back to prominence, I think Foiled could make a comeback but other than that I don’t think Foiled is worth it. Ka-Boom however, is amazing against a number of decks that can sometimes give you a run for your money, such as Going Rogue or League variants. I think TT can replay a turn even better than the Brotherhood and as such I am quite happy to keep these in the deck even when they don’t appear to be doing much. Popping this randomly can be quite advantageous at times and having what is seemingly quite random location removal is never bad if you can afford it. 2 Not So Fast: After reading Mark Slack’s article (which I really do recommend to anyone interested in the current metagame, it is the best summation of Vs right now), I can’t believe I ever left these babies out. The thing is, Overload can really restrict the ability of your cards to just won games, but more importantly, a lot of deck have no defence to your shenanigans barring Overload. It randomly counters a lot of important cards to other decks, like Bat-Signal, and more importantly, Tower of Babel, which is worth it just for the look on your opponent’s face. USS Argus allows you to get away with only playing two of these which is the right number, as you don’t really want to draw two. NB: I cut Finishing Move after being a long-time fan, and I haven’t missed it much. Although I can see a case for playing it, it really must be drawn early, and can often be a dead card later on in the game. Confusingly, I find that when I have Finishing Move I play too aggressively, trying to justify the Finishing Move, clouding my ability to make the right play, however conservative Hopefully my musings on my favourite deck in constructed right now have
been helpful. Much of the information written above will make much more
sense when I review the matchups in a follow-up article. For me, matchup
knowledge is the number one skill to have as a Vs Constructed tournament
player, and in that article will more concrete themes and strategies be
discussed. | ||||||||||
