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Michael Pittman
Anti-Matter Matters
Michael Pittman
January 23, 2006
Email Author Discuss Topic Staff

From the very first moment I laid eyes on Anti-Green Lantern I was in lust. I was literally giddy over the perceived potential of these little beaters. Drawback be damned! These guys smash the curve in a way that no other character can boast.

We all know that Vs features an escalating power curve in terms of character ATK values … meaning six-drops generally have higher ATK than two three-drops combined, and this escalation increases with the recruitment cost. But AGLs don’t fit into the normal pattern at all.

General average ATK values for each recruitment level –
1RC – 1
2RC – 2
3RC – 4
4RC – 7
5RC – 9
6RC – 12
7RC – 15
8RC – 18

If you recruit AGLs with every resource point available for each turn you would have the following combined ATK –
Turn 1 – 4
Turn 2 – 8
Turn 3 – 12
Turn 4 – 16
Turn 5 – 20
Turn 6 – 24
Turn 7 – 28
Turn 8 – 32

Of course anything beyond recruiting three AGLs in one turn is more than a little fanciful. You’ve either won or lost by this stage or your hand ran out of gas long ago … and then you lose.

Stating the obvious, though, from the figures above we can see that AGLs are fat and Xallarap, a 9/9 three-drop, is similarly huge.

Once the little gears in my head really got cranking I was thoroughly intoxicated with dreams of turn four wins. For the two months after the Green Lantern Sneak Preview I literally made a dozen decks with these two characters as main features. I was trying to force them into every other team in the Vs universe. I tried them with Longshot. I teamed them with Underworld for recursion and a big, fat Mephisto on turn five. I mixed them with Marvel Knights. I even tossed them in with Brotherhood specifically to try to use Xallarap in conjunction with Savage Land (crazy deck lists available upon request). More recently it was Injustice Gang that seemed like a perfect partner for my pet AGLs. Anyway, it seemed to me like any good deck could only be better with AGLs in it.

Of course that wasn’t exactly true.

In the end I tweaked my AGL deck as far as it could go. This was before the release of Avengers and looked something like this …

 

Michael Pittman
Anti Matter
Characters Plot Twists

14 x Anti-Green Lantern
4 x Micro-Chip
4 x Slipstream
4 x Xallarap
4 x Johnny Quick



4 x Cosmic Conflict
4 x Emerald Dawn
4 x Flying Kick
4 x Mega-Blast
4 x Thunderous Onslaught
4 x Total Anarchy
3 x Banished to the Anti-Matter Universe
3 x Foiled!
Locations



Equipment
...

Total Anarchy became a strong focus of the deck, as I figured “if I have to KO all of my little guys, so should my opponent”. I mulliganed for TA, as the sheer number of AGLs and Xallarap + Emerald Dawn meant that I rarely missed those on the desired turns.

The deck aimed to apply tonnes of pressure early and finish the opponent off with a speedster on turn four or five.

Sometimes it worked, sometimes it spluttered out … but not before giving your opponent a good scare first. Usually opponents had less than 10 endurance at the end of the match. I had a pretty good record with the deck in Hobby League, but I was the only person who could win with the deck. I don’t know why.

I kept that deck together with no changes for a long time and even pulled it out to give Ross (Raider) Schaffer and his Faces deck a scare before heading off to PC LA.


Play Testing for Sydney $10K

Finally we get to the period leading up to the recent Sydney $10K.

Anti-Matter wasn’t really on my radar. I knew that some European guy had used them in the Bremen $10K in combination with Injustice Gang (I knew it!) and specifically Felix Faust. I looked over his list and didn’t get too excited about it. I hadn’t even seen Chomin and didn’t know what he did!

I only really had two real play testing sessions ahead of the $10K. The first, with Ross, was a preliminary kind of thing. We had a lot of the most popular decks put together and were just trying to feel our way along to try to decide what we should play.

We figured Avengers, Squadron, Faces and Doom-based decks would make up the lion share of the field at Sydney.

We also figured Teen Titans, Child Lock and GLock’ed might be decent metagame choices.

Other crazy ideas, like Big Brotherhood, Team Tactics, Injustice Gang (we just couldn’t decide on the best way to use IG) and Spider-Friends were also bandied around early.

Then there was the natural inclination to just play our favourites – Arkham for me and Common Enemy for Ross.

Our testing session showed that the Bremen build of Squadron Supreme was very good ... but I found it boring to play. Avengers was flexible, but had no way to really deal with combo. We initially wanted a deck that beat these two decks … if we couldn’t find one, we were planning to either just play one or go with the favourites.

We never got around to doing anything more than talking about IG or GLock’ed, but Hager’s Child Lock deck didn’t go too well against Squadron so it was more or less abandoned.

At this stage Ross was straddling multiple fences, favouring Common Enemy, Avengers or Titans. Meanwhile, I was a bit disillusioned by the play testing. I didn’t like playing Squadron. I’m not very good with Titans, as my play simply isn’t tight enough. This left me leaning towards Avengers or my Inmates.

After a small amount of solo testing I became more invested in my mad plan to play Arkham. I began testing it at the expense of other decks, but shortly found that my deck usually lost to Squadron and Avengers pounded me because of Wonderman (more than anything else).

Although Avengers seemed to disappear from $10K top eight lists around the world Ross was still keen on them, but I really didn’t know which way to go. To make matters worse, I was going to be buying a house and moving into it just before the event, so I knew I wouldn’t have much time to conjure up something completely different and original.


Opting for Anti-Matter

In the week before Christmas, I stumbled over a thread on VS Realms about the Anti-Matter deck, which was getting a lot of heat. At the heart of all debate on the thread was whether or not to play a speedsters version with no Injustice Gang or something resembling the Bremen deck. I found out what Chomin did and that was just about enough to convince me.

I opted for the speedsters version, as some Scottish players in the Realms thread were making very confident statements and, from a practical point of view, I only owned one Felix Faust.

I built the deck something like this …

Michael Pittman
Anti Matter
Characters Plot Twists

12 x Anti-Green Lantern
4 x Chomin
4 x Slipstream
4 x Xallarap
2 x Fiero
4 x Johnny Quick



4 x Bad Press
4 x Banished to the Anti-Matter Universe
4 x Cosmic Conflict
4 x The Ring Has Chosen
4 x Thunderous Onslaught
4 x Flying Kick
3 x Emerald Dawn
3 x Matter Convergence
Locations



Equipment
...

Solo testing was okay and then, just before Christmas, I had a fairly intensive play testing day with Pez (paslaria) Laria at House of Heroes (Canberra’s Hobby League venue). It did pretty well in those games and I was more or less set on the deck for the $10K.

The most important thing was that the deck required a lot less thought than most decks. You pretty much ignored formation and reinforcement and initiative wasn’t even that big of an issue. That appealed to me for a number of reasons, chief among them – the fewer decisions I had to make, the fewer opportunities for me to make mistakes.

Solo testing after Christmas threw a bit of a wrench into my preparation, though, as the consistency I was able to get from the deck playing against Pez went out the window. It seemed like I could never draw a speedster with a Thunderous Onslaught and a Flying Kick/Matter Convergence when I needed them all. I was struggling to finish the other decks off with regularity. Pez pointed out in a PM that this is because of “The Curse”, a phenomena in which my decks always work against him while his plans always fall to pieces.

Pez was also good enough to forward me a link to an article written by Tommy Ashton promoting the Felix Faust version of the deck. He had a lot more ATK pumps (including Trial by Fire, which I hadn’t thought of) and Willworld.

When another friend, Scott Boyle, decided to attend the tournament just one week before the event, I gave him that deck list to play, telling him that I might blend it with my current list.

After a little bit of testing, I found Ashton’s version more suitable to my needs and settled on a slightly tweaked version of that.

Here’s the list …

 

Michael Pittman
Anti Matter
Characters Plot Twists

13 x Anti-Green Lantern
4 x Chomin
4 x Xallarap
3 x Shadow-Thief
4 x Felix Faust
1 x Fiero

4 x Bad Press
4 x Banished to the Anti-Matter Universe
4 x Cosmic Conflict
4 x Mega-Blast
4 x The Ring has Chosen
4 x Trial by Fire
2 x Emerald Dawn
2 x Savage Beatdown
Locations
3 x Willworld
Equipment
...

The only real changes to Ashton’s list that I made were adding two Emerald Dawn for a Willworld and a Beatdown, and an additional Shadow-Thief for an AGL.

In the end I was relatively happy with Emerald Dawn, although the third Shadow-Thief was a bit paranoid. I think it would have been good to have at least one five or six drop in the deck to go and get when things didn’t go quite to plan, as when you go to turn six you almost always lose.


Sydney $10K – the Matches

To cut to the finish I ended up 5-5 for the tournament. I was personally happy with that given my preparation and my overall competitive Vs experience. Almost all of my losses were close and I felt as though I only lost one match due to play mistakes.

Round 1 – Adrian Capilitan ripping off the top of his Common Enemy deck.
It was a fine start to the day as I hit Chomin on one, two AGLs on two, Xallarap on three and a couple of pumps. Adrian played a couple of guys, including a She-Hulk I Bansihed. He was on 19 at the end of turn three. I could have recruited Felix Faust on turn four, but opted for the Fiero I had searched out instead. Adrian missed Dr Doom, but it wouldn’t have really mattered as I had the Banished in my row which would allow me to bash with Xallarap and Chomin and then burn for 10 for the win. He conceded when I revealed the Banished. Adrian finished the tournament in 17th place (7-3).
1-0

Scott won his first round too and we generally felt pretty good about ourselves.

Round 2 – Shaun “Brisbane $10K Winner” Hayward with the NZ “Good Guys” deck (JLI/JLA Equips).
This was a hard game from start to finish and the one game of the day that I think I had little chance of winning (not accounting for bad luck). No Man Escapes the Manhunters on three was bad for Chomin, but Oliver Queen <> Green Arrow, Emerald Archer on turn four was worse for my whole team. The game went to turn six, in which I couldn’t even make a decent attack due to power-craziness. Shaun finished on 19 endurance – the highest endurance any of my opponents finished on. He finished the tournament in 19th place (6-4).
1-1

Scott also lost, but I wasn’t sweating yet.

Round 3 – Pascal “YGO Sucks” Huet with Avengers Reservists.
I took Pascal a minute to work out what the hell my deck did … that said, I wasn’t giving him too many clues due to a bizarrely bad draw. I got Chomin and AGLs, but didn’t draw any character bigger than a one-drop. Pascal hit his curve, including the dreaded Hawkeye on turn four. I think I recruited just one AGL on turn five, with my endurance on 34. Pascal had 22 ATK on the board, so the question was whether or not he had 12 points in ATK pumps. He didn’t … he only had seven, including a Call Down the Lightning. Of course he replaced a character with a Savage Beatdown in his second to last attack, which then brought me to 0. I attacked back, getting him down to 3, but I just didn’t have enough juice with that kind of sucky draw. It gave me heart that it was that close though. Pascal finished in 14th place (7-3).
1-2

Scott lost again and I started to wonder if I hadn’t led him up the garden path.

Round 4 – Chris Young with Squadron Supreme.
I don’t know Chris, but he was a cool opponent. I missed Chomin (for the first time of the day) and, with three Mega-Blasts and a Surprise Attack on turn three, he just had enough juice to edge me out on turn five. I got him down to 15 endurance. Chris finished in 28th place (6-4).
1-3

Scott lost as well and I was starting to feel crappy.

Round 5 – Farzad Rahman from Melbourne with Squadron Supreme.
Farzad was the opponent Scott beat in round one. He seemed like a good, up and coming player and part of me felt bad for winning this one. Everything went to plan and I won on turn four. Farzad finished the tournament with 5-5 as well, in 58th place.
2-3

Scott lost to the last Sydney $10K winner, Chris Kwan, so I only half felt better. Most of my Canberran teammates weren’t going too well, with the exception of Pete McCook and his son Jake (Jake went off the boil later at about this point, finishing 4-6, but Pete finished 13th with seven wins and took out the top placed amateur).

Round 6 – Tyng-Yann Yen with “tricked out” Common Enemy.
I was going to make a good-hearted joke about Betrayal, but I didn’t want it to come out the wrong way. I really like Tyng, but I hate playing against him. I don’t know if it’s subliminal messages in all of those SPAM posts or some form of the Jedi Mind Trick, but I make infy stupid mistakes when I play against him (as I did at the first Sydney $10K). For a while I thought Tyng was just playing Fantastic Four, because I didn’t see any Doom, including Dr Doom himself. This should have made the game relatively easy. I think I hit Chomin and missed Xallarap or vice versa … I can’t remember. I do remember wrongly Banishing Wolverine (FF), which I could have attacked through and got a return stun to keep an AGL. I also discarded the wrong cards to Willworld including a second Felix Faust, which would have allowed me to pull that trick twice. He beat me down hard on turn six (down to -23 abouts) and I didn’t have enough juice to beat him equally as hard. We played two fun games afterwards and my deck worked fine and won both (including a game with a triple Reign) … but those sadly never count. Tyng finished 24th (6-4).
2-4

Scott won again and was a lot happier for it. He wanted to finish with a higher win percentage than his single previous Vs tournament (the Canberra PCQ), where he got just one win. Two wins were a big step in the right direction.

Round 7 – Scott (bignuts) Ward with his hastily compiled the night before Green Lantern Stall deck.
It was bittersweet playing against one my Canberran friends. One of us had to lose, but it was a hell funny game. By way of background, the big win here was that we, as group, managed to talk Scotty out of playing his X-Statix/Gotham deck just prior to the event. Scott’s deck wasn’t GLock’ed … more a creation of his own making. Scott dances to his own tune and so did his deck. He managed to draw me and my AGLs out to time – an impressive feat in itself. This was done with his most secret tech … From the Shadows! Anyone who thinks he included this DOR gem just in case he played me or the other Scott would be wrong, but this is the match where it got the most use. He managed to use FtS twice on Felix Faust to stop him from stunning (I missed Chomin), which was funny but frustrating as hell. I think he should have beaten me in this game, with either an aggressive attack on turn six or if he had included a much-needed Rain of Acorns in his deck (I assume he didn’t have one, as he didn’t search it out with Kyle). Cover Fires, Helping Hands and a Catcher’s Mitt made me spend all my pumps on attacks that didn’t do a lot of endurance loss, but I eventually got him down to -3 compared to my -1 on turn seven. This was the only game to go past turn five that I won. Scotty finished with a 5-5 record too in 59th place.
3-4

The other Scott won his game too and was over the moon. I was feeling a bit better about the day, but still wanted to finish 5-5 at worst to better my $10K PB.

Round 8 – Jose Mauro Vasquez with Squadron Supreme.
I hit Chomin, but had no recruit at all on turn three … not even a random AGL. This allowed him to win the race on turn five even though I got him down to -19. Jose finished 50th (5-5).
3-5

Scott pulled ahead of me with a win, taking him to 4-4 for the day.

Round 9 – Blake (bseven) Davis with Robot Chicken Vomit Supreme … or whatever the hell he calls it.
Paired against another Canberran, this was the second most fun match of the day (I could just stay in Canberra and have all these fun game, I guess). Blake was playing Squadies before it was realised that they were a metagame powerhouse and loves his deck. He was going to play AGLs as well, but I beat him to the cards he needed to build it (namely Chomins) and I ended up borrowing my Felix Fausts and Bad Presses from him. We decided that I wanted evens and he wanted odds so there was no need to roll. I got the goods on the draw and won on turn four with only 8 endurance to spare. Fast game is a good game. I won’t embarrass Blake by writing his win-loss record for the day (snicker).
4-5

Scott stayed ahead of me with another win.

Round 10 – Jon Stuart-Jones from Melbourne with Kang City.
This was a crap match up for young Jon, but to his credit he was pleasant, friendly and sporting about the game from start to finish. I admired that about him a lot. I won on turn four, as his hidden Kangs were no match in size for my Anti-Matter monsters. I couldn’t find him in the final standings, but I think he finished 4-6, having won the first four rounds of the day. Jon will definitely improve with experience.
5-5

Scott lost his final match to put us both on 5-5 … two halves of a perfect day.

Thank you everyone I played against and everyone I spoke to on the day for making it a great experience.

BAMF

Michael (Ike E Bear) Pittman

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