Bizarro Week: Thurs ~ Arsenal of… Bizarro!? Part 3

Well, I’ve just finished correcting a piece of physics coursework, so it’s that time of day again…. the time of day where I spew some VS related words onto a page, and by some miracle they form something that vaguely resembles a mildly informative article. Anyway, my creative spew is in full flow, so lets drip on down to…

MVL

Marvel Legends. The set of kings. The first set to truly introduce the concept of Legendary characters. What gems does it contain for Bizarro? Well obviously the Wolverine support set which is a very popular suite for Bizarro decks to run, but what else lurks within it’s very-limited numbers? I’m not too sure, so just let me get the list of cards I typed up in my lunch break…. Ah, there we are…. Oooo, there’s some nice ‘uns there…. But there’s quite a few of them… Looks like this will going on to four parts…. or even five, lol ¬_¬ Hold onto your hats, as here we go, for our third delve into the wonderful, wild, Bizarro World!

The first two cards on my list aren’t particularly low profile, they’re Adamantium Claws and Berserker Rage, both excellent cards taken from Wolverine’s support suite. Adamantium Claws is a straight +4 ATK pump on Bizarro, no questions asked, which is always good, but remember to look at the other character-stamped pumps before slapping it straight into your pile. However, the fact that it can interact with the six-drop Wolverine from MTU makes it a solid choice regardless. Berserker Rage is a bit of a no-brainer to be honest. Bizarro comes into with 11 ATK to begin with, so stunning opposing characters shouldn’t be a problem, and the various DEF pumps available for during combat (Fury of the Amazons, Fearless etc.) can allow the big B to survive to swing again. One big advantage Berserker Rage has over many other readying effects is that the Bizarro you target is free to swing and more importantly cause breakthrough for a second time.

Next up is Bodyslide, which can serve as an unorthodox way to save Ahmed Samsarra if you’re under threat of being kinged; or to allow you to squeeze an extra activation out of Black Thorn. However, to make it worth including for either of these purposes you would have to be runnning nearly a playset, as you will be searching out the more important utility cards with Four Freedoms Plazas. It looks exciting on paper, but in a straight Bizarro deck, its number of purposes, and thus its levels of usefulness, are strictly limited.

Cleansing Flame would be counterproductive to a deck as reliant on its support row as this…. if it actually worked. When you recruit Bizarro he’s still just Bizarro; not Bizarro Jean Grey Batman as he would be as soon as he hits the field; which leaves Cleansing Flame high and dry.

The merits of Healing Factor have been discussed in previous parts of the article, but I’ll recap it here for those of you too lazy to find the comments dispersed throughout the previous 2500+ words. It’s amazing. Put simply, a straight recover effect with no strings attached, and some bonus endurance as a thankyou is quite frankly insane in this deck. They can force their way through Bizarro the first time, but he’ll just flip back up to take some more punishment and increase you endurance total while he’s at it. Intense stuff.

Next up are a pair of support cards for the lovely Jean Grey that DO work alongside Bizarro. Splintering Consciousness is a good card drawing choice for those of you loathe to blow up your valuable resource row with Genosha. However, you have to ask yourself, do you value two random cards over a card like Healing Factor that you could be running its place? In most Bizarro builds the answer is no: a slot spent on Splintering Consciousness would be better spent on a single copy of a Silver Bullet for searching with 4FP, or a fourth copy of a must-have plot twist or character. The second card that works off our red-headed mutant Bizarro is Telepathic Suppression. It acts as another form of negation, preventing a character you control from being targetted for the duration of an attack. To be fair, despite its lower cost, you won’t be playing it until turn four when Bizarro enters play; and in most circumstances I would rather have a From the Darkness or Pathetic Attempt. However, a single copy to fetch with 4FP can’t hurt, as you can always target opposing characters with it to stop key plot twists, such as combat pumps, resolving.

Sentinel Mark VII looks good on paper with its character stunning effect, but often the smallest character will have been stunned by Bizarro already, allowing him to pinball into another character courtesy of Berseker Rage. I’d much rather have a Wolverine, Canucklehead; DWF Bizarro 6; or Dreadnought Tank on turn 6 than this purple hunk of metal.

Up next is Juggernaut’s Helmet. It’s a free Savage Beatdown on every attack he makes, with untargetability tacked onto it. It’s quite frankly one of the best pieces of equipment you could be slapping down onto Bizarro, the only problem being that it leaves him open to targetting while he’s face-down; which being equipped with a B.P.R.D Singal Device would prevent… However, with negation available on demand, it shouldn’t be much of a problem, and… well… +5 ATK!?

Genosha’s up next. Four cards is an awful lot, but again it’s the quality over quantity debate. Would you rather have a better card that you’ve hand picked, or a location that costs you a resource? I suppose any characters you control can be turned into +1/+1 pumps, as they can be used to power-up Bizarro (+2/+2 with Abe Sapien) but wouldn’t you just rather have an Indestructible or Fury of the Amazons to fix the attack in your favour outright?

A Human Juggernaut doesn’t strike me as too exciting, as I’m pretty sure we just worked out that keeping your resources intact until at least turn 5 is a good thing… A wasted slot, as it doesn’t provide much of an advantage for the deck, as KOing your own resources simply locks out portions of your Plot Twist and Location suite, which can effectively be cutting your own throat.

Iron Extraction is a great, straight KO effect; however it suffers from having to target. You could always run a few to draw out negation (KOing a character if it doesn’t) but to be honest, once Bizarro starts delivering the beats their field should be in enough of a mess already to make further damage superfluous. Metallic Assault however is interesting, but again can be a double-edged sword in a deck featuring Ahmed Samsarra; especially if your opponent can take out Black Thorn on the chain. That’s a game loss right there, unless you KO Bizarro who the deck kinda needs to function.

Unstoppable lets Bizarro multi-stun, and is definately a great card to use against decks who will be trying to hide characters from the big B. More stuns for your buck is definately a good thing, and it’s cheaper than equipping him with a Scattergun (and leaves room from Juggernaut’s helmet). Threshold of 4 means it comes online the same turn as Bizarro hits play, so there shouldn’t be any problems with it sitting in hand as a dead hand.

Finally for today, Luke Cage, Hired Hero and Iron Fist, Hired Hero pump not only each other, but Bizarro. I haven’t personally had chance to test them, but I really can’t see them being any more beneficial than the curve of Abe Sapien into a more solid 6-drop. If your a fan of Iron Fist you could always run a copy just to see him being useful for once, but apart from that the Heroes for Hire aren’t too hot in a deck with the Bizmesiter.

 …….

I’ve just hit halfway through MVL and I can see that my word count has already hit 1300…. As a package arrived for me today containing the rest of the stuff I needed to build BS Rush (Brother/Sinister Syndicate) I’m intending to take the rest of the evening off to build and have a few games with that. I hope you’ll forgive me…

I won’t be back tomorrow night, but come Saturday and Sunday evening I promise parts 4 and 5 will be bigger, badder and better…. I’m predicting that each will run to at least 2000 words for those of you who like a bit of meat in your articles, as I still have the remainder of MVL to cover, as well as DCL and MAA. Thankfully, there’s still quite a bit of time before the Mega-Weekend so my rantings will remain relevant.

Stay safe,
Have a great Friday,
~ TXC

~ by txc08 on January 31, 2008.