This has been a series I (Jourdo) have been wanting to get out for a while now, and this seemed to be as good of a time as any. I have been wanted to make a series where we focus on the red stripes… the super-rares. The good, the bad, and the ugly. With the upcoming release of the Avengers Infinity Gauntlet set less than a week away, and an unprecedented number of red striped cards in that set… why not start here?
I decided to put this challenge out to the entire DM North Crew and randomly assigned everyone 2 super-rares to build with. One of these were to be used in a Modern build, and the other was to be a Golden build. The choice was open as to which card fell into which category. Over the next couple of articles, we will share what we came up with.
In this installment, I decided to take the Western Canadian perspective and will share the results of my own build along with my fellow Calgarian Son of L.
The wheel of fate assigned me Thanos: Preparing the Way and Black Widow: Intelligence Assets. This was an easy call for me as to which one was going to be Modern and which one was going to be Golden. Thanos introduces a new Affiliation, The Black Order, so he would for sure go on the Modern Team. Let’s see where this goes.
What Did You Build? The Modern Take
The Team: The Black Order
With Thanos meant to be the centerpiece, I decided to focus on his Affiliation and bring out The Black Order. I wanted to go all in on Thanos and use his minions to buy him as cheaply as possible. Nothing special here. Get a big guy and hit with him over and over again.
Obviously, with Thanos being a 7-cost, he is a little tough to get. Thanks to his built in ability I can reduce his cost by two by KO’ing another Black Order character. Let’s look at some choice to help make that a possibility.
Proxima Midnight was the first choice here because she also has a built in cost reduction ability. I can KO something to stack the discount on Thanos. I could then KO her with Thanos’s ability to drop his cost. Her stats are not terrible either for a 3 cost.
Next, I decided to buff up Thanos (or anyone else) using Black Dwarf. Black Dwarf has the ability to double the printed A of a character when he is fielded. Targeting Thanos is the obvious choice here to turn him into anything from a 10A to a 18A… with Overcrush.
Sticking with The Black Order theme, I then looked to Ebony Maw for a couple of reasons. First, his ability allows for some possible removal. Second, the Global should help me in dealing with something like Poison Ivy who takes no damage from non-Villains.
The Rare Supergiant was the next member of The Black Order to join the game. Her ability basically allows me to duplicate any of my “When Fielded” abilities of my active characters… or my Opponent’s. Some neat flexibility to play around with here.
Looking at the bulk of my characters, I am depending on “When Fielded” abilities… and there is a card coming out that basically kills that in Angela. With her being the main threat, and the fact that I wanted to attack most of the time, I decided to include Scott Hall for the force attack Global. I can take out Angela before she becomes an issue for my characters. Next, I wanted to protect my marauding hordes from Static Field. Good old Eddie Guerrero: I Steal joins The Black Order to remove that threat.
Since purchase costs are my biggest issue on this Team, I decided to visit the Yawning Portal in order to get things cheaper… and maybe save on Fielding costs. Would the Prep one be better? Maybe… but I would like to give this one a try.
For the BAC choices, I went for the limited Ramp of Walk With Elias and The Kevin Owens Show. Kevin Owens seemed like something interesting to play around with to maybe get Thanos out a little faster? Would Jerry Lawler have been a better choice? Probably. It just seemed like overkill with Black Dwarf already doubling the attack.
So there is the build. Try to use The Black Order to get Thanos on the cheap. Pump him with Black Dwarf and swing.
How did it work?
No idea. The product is not out yet, so this is all theory crafting. I do intend to try this out as soon as I get a chance to. I really like how The Black Order Affiliation looks well set up to work together. Hopefully that translates well into the real world once the set is released.
Scroll down to the next page to check out my Golden Team Build
Awesome article!!! Great job on this build