Mudslide

Format: Casual Golden Age, Modern recommended.

And now, finally, Justice is out! I’ve been waiting for this one for a while, and one global has been sticking out to me as I checked the spoilers: Clayface. I realized that in the right build, he could make a heck of a…

Mudslide

The Team:  Here’s Mud In Your Eye

Alright. Obviously enough, the card I built around was Clayface from the new Justice set. The character can hurt, but the real threat is this global. Bringing a die from your used pile to the reserve pool can be so powerful; it can be on double energy too, giving you two energy for one.

There’s two primary uses built in this team. The first is to use the Kree Captain global and Poxwalker. Buy Poxwalker turn 1, immediately use Clayface, use Poxwalker’s double energy to pay for Kree Captain’s global, then buy a 4-cost. Turn 2, pay a mask to bring Poxwalker back to Reserve, Kree Captain global again, buy a 5-cost for 2 energy, and you have an energy left to use Resurrection and fix your bag to almost certainly draw both on Turn 3. Being able to reliably field a 4-cost and a 5-cost on turn 3 is very fast, especially for Modern.

I just need a 4-cost and a 5-cost that are worth using as a win con with this. Enter Batman and Dreadnaught. They need no introduction. Batman kicked butt last time I used him, and Dreadnaught…yeah, enough said.

With that said, this isn’t the only dirty trick Clayface can do. Notice Acererak? Yep, I’m seriously going there. Use Clayface to bring an action from the Used Pile to the Reserve Pool, then reroll it with Acererak for a 50% chance of major shenanigans.

As for the rest of this team, Haymaker and Yellow Lantern Ring serve to take advantage of my Acererak shenanigans. Billy Club helps there too, but he’s there for the global more than anything else, to use Clayface more reliably. And the above-noted Resurrection is there for ramp and churn.

With that said, on to the games!

Game 1:

I started off the evening against Orks. I didn’t get the perfect opening, but I did get some shenanigans going early fielding Batman and charging with sidekicks. Eventually, I wore my opponent down that way and finished him off by buying Haymaker, then using the Clayface + Acererak trick to immediately use it for tons of Overcrush damage and the win. My opponent hardly got the time to set anything up.

1-0

Game 2:

I followed that up by facing the Jubilee + Plague Marine burn team, now with the new Scarecrow that hurts the opponent when they lose sidekicks. He used Thrown Brick, and he let me go first, which gave me an idea: buy Thrown Brick, use Clayface’s global on it, then spend the 2 energy on another Thrown Brick. This really threw him off and messed with his ramp all game. Also, his Plague Marine kind of backfired on him here. He kept attacking, dealing me a fair amount of damage, but it left his field so lean that it was a constant gamble. Eventually, Batman + sidekicks was too much to handle and a well-timed Yellow Lantern Ring allowed me to empty his board and swing in for the win.

2-0

Game 3:

Someone really wanted to play a funny Golden Age team tonight, with Jocasta, old-school Cyclops, Johnny Storm…all sorts of burn. She never had the time to set up though. I got my ramp going, and soon enough, I was attacking her with Batman-fueled massive sidekicks at will. I won before a Jocasta even had the time to hit the board; it was crazy fast.

3-0

Game 4: 

I finished the evening against C Hulk and Thanos. He used my Clayface against me. He bought a Dum Dum and a Shriek on turn 1, followed that up with Dreadnaught + Res on turn 2, and he then Shrieked Clayface…too late, because Batman and my own Dreadnaught were already on their way. I got some big early damage in thanks to Batman, and then his Green Devil Mask hit the field; at that point, Yellow Lantern Ring was my best way to deal with his team by removing his stuff and charging in with more characters than he could block. The Ring refused to roll at first, but eventually, by rolling two of them, I eventually was able to use one, which gave my characters Intimidate, allowing me to empty his board and attack for the win.

4-0

Post-Mortem:

-I found myself buying Kree Captain several times. It was fine, but it illustrates that this team might’ve needed a 3-cost at the core of its strategy or as a main control piece.

-I found myself very annoyed at having only 2 Yellow Lantern Ring dice. I will be looking at getting a second Mystics team pack at first opportunity.

-This is just the beginning for the Clayface global; the potential is endless. For example, in Golden Age and GLobal Escalation, you can buy Multiple Man turn 1, Clayface global, use the 2 masks on MM’s die to prep your 4 sidekick dice, roll 8 dice on turn 2. As if we needed teams to get even faster in those formats…

-For all the good stuff in this team, though, I absolutely hated my fielding costs. It didn’t hurt me as much as it could’ve, but I had to use the Clayface global just to afford fielding my characters sometimes.

Overall, this was a cool team to run for sure, and a great introduction to an absolutely game-changing card.  Expect Clayface to show up in a lot of teams.

Updated to fix a couple of typos – ccm00007