Recently I have been playing with a fun little combo and while I thought it would just be for shits and giggles, the team actually has been semi-competitive. The current team build I have made is far from Meta, as it would get annihilated by Becky, or the Godcatcher, and in playing it competitively, it gets severely harmed by control teams. However in the right competition, or control options, this is a very fun and unique combo as recently shown on a video by DMARMADA.
The Life Cycle of a Pizza Slice
The Team: For Shits and Giggles
Format: Modern
This team really has an easy flow to it when you play it. This build has lots of options when you are purchasing each turn depending on what you roll. If you don’t get what you need in energy, you can ramp, and prepare for the next turn. The Main card for this team is the Rare Corvus Glaive.
Corvus Glaive is a Member of the Black Order, and his card text states: When fielded, you may move a non-sidekick die from your used pile to its card. If you do, deal 2 damage to target character die or player.
I know when the cards were spoiled, nobody really mentioned this card thinking why on Earth. would I want to put something back to the card… The Rare version of Corvus had eluded me in the one box I opened (Which by the way the video is here..) In attempting to make some trades with the community, the User Dascotman33 offered to include a Rare Corvus, and I almost passed asking for him in a deal. It was pointed out to me a hilarious idea that building a win-con around him and returning dice was i had to attempt.
The other main piece to this team is of course the cheapest Basic action in the game and one of the sweetest art as well, in a 1 – cost PIZZA! The card has text, but not very useful which makes it even better as your opponent will most likely not buy all of them in a match. (Its okay if they do, we have backups just in case) The theory on Pizza is the turn that you roll Corvus on a character face, you just need to purchase a single slice of pizza. when you field Corvus, he eats the pizza and returns it to the card dealing your opponent 2 damage.. The good part about Corvus is his very low Defence (1 on all faces) This means he will be auto-Ko’d on a block, or the opponent will take more damage if they allow him to be unblocked.
Because these 2 cards are the main win-con, we have a lot of remaining spaces, so I though to include an alternate Win-con. The most obvious choice that goes with this build, and I was very lucky to pull is the Super-Rare Thor – (Jormungand’s Fear). Thor, while being a 6 cost, isn’t that far to reach if you miss a Corvus roll early, and definitely will pair well on this build. Thor’s card reads While Thor is active, when you field a character die, deal 2 damage to target character die or player.
Pretty straight forward alternate win con, and with both in the field can be deadly very fast.
Now that we have a solid 1,2 punch for the Win-con the rest, I would suggest are support and control pieces.
Just in case you opponent swipes all the Pizza from under you in turn 1, you need a fall back 1 cost card. While I will give options for alternate cards on this build at the end, its a simple 1 cost Blank Poxwalker. I added the pox today as he is cheap, I don’t mind sending him back to the card, and I can Convert him easily onto his 2 fist side with a card coming up in the next paragraph.
I always found giving a card just for the global should only be on your team only if you really think you will use it every turn. On this build, Clayface (Restless) will be that said card. As long as I roll a mask, Clayface global will be used as much as I can. Turn 1, if you roll a Fist and a Mask, you will be able to purchase the Poxwalker, and a Corvus. That extra energy will go a long way each turn, and in testing has been very valuable.
Part of this team to work as good as it can, also requires good bag management, so any card that will help to ramp, or get sidekicks from the used pile means the better chance you will pull Corvus’s from the bag. I added a card that will actually benefit both win-cons in The Collector (Stolen Cosmic Cube). He’s a sidekick maker and bag thinner all in one. I loved the Professor X – Magnus, so I will welcome SKG to a lot of my teams. (Yes, I am calling it SKG for Sidekick Global, and that replaces the New-PXG moniker)
If I am putting a sidekick into play, some turns I will roll Corvus on his 1 fielding side, I wont have the mask I am looking for, or will be one energy short so Another great card for this build is Intellect Devourer – (Brain Eating Monster). I can spin down to use a global to prep when my bag needs to be set again, and there are lots of use from this card.
I figured I would require a little control on this team. However there isn’t a ton of spots. I know this team is very un-meta to the Godcatcher, or Becky builds and would get destroyed by either of those if seen on your opponents play-mat. I didn’t want to put Static Field on the team (Although it could be a good option, if you include a way to auto-knock out the Corvus…(Nihiloor).
The best card I could think of is to slow down my opponent if they brought a beefy card in Drax – (The Pacifist). Drax is a fantastic card that will get tons of Meta usage, he is very similar to the old XFC Blob card, that is stops an opponent from buying and fielding a target character. He is a 3 cost, but he cannot stop the Godcatcher like Blob could… I am okay with getting destroyed by a turn 5 Godcatcher team, and if I come against it, I would have a quick break to grab a drink or bite to eat anyways.
The other control piece I brought was to tech against the other current Meta damage. Drax was against Combat characters, and I wanted something to stop against the non-combat damage pieces. Stuff like Iceman and SR Thor was what I was expecting in the One-shot, so I brought Black Widow – (Agent) promotional card. She will reduce damage from characters abilities by 1. Huge against Turk, Iceman, Jubilee’s etc..
I had one BAC spot left, and I always am thinking about bag management, Counterstrike is perfect choice as normally on Turn 2, I will have a spare energy, and why not ramp with it every other turn if the bag is in order.
I had tweaked the team from the Golden Version I ran in Tuesday’s WDA and the CRGR one-shot tournament was currently at odd numbers, so I thought I would see how it would run in a competitive tournament… So with that… Lets get to the games…
Game 1:
My First Opponent I was happy to see a match against a solid player in Matt Brewer. We had played many times and always a fun game was in store. In looking at the team builds for the tournament, Matt had what I thought was the best team. It was at this time that I also realized that control against my team would be a very big thing. Everyone was running Drax, and I knew I was in trouble. I was happy I brought a second win con in Thor, and most matches would most likely need him to be in the field to help my odds.
First 2 turns, Matt reached for a Drax and a Blob. I knew he was going to pin that on Corvus, and I had no removal pieces, so I would be in trouble. The Blob that Matt was running was the one that would swallow my sidekicks to pump and he had the Bizarro global to flip him to hit me hard. I could have gone for my own Drax to Drax his Drax, but decided to take a chance, I bought the first Corvus, and figured if his Drax rolled, I would be going for the Thor route. Matt was able to field Blob on Level 3, and hit me early for a massive 8 damage, but he left an open field (Due to the fielding costs and flipping with Blob he had no energy for a sidekick), and I was able to start the Pizza Digestive process through Corvus Glaive’s card a few times, but i was also able to counter swing with the Corvus Glaive’s bringing life totals to 12-11 very early in the match. Matt missed his Drax roll when he came around, and I cycled Corvus again to do the final damage for the victory in a very quick match that was streamed at:
1-0
Game 2:
Next match was kinda a mirror match. My opponent Rob brought Super Rare Thor, and I had the counter to that in Black Widow Promo. Rob also was running Typhoid Mary though. I had no way to clear Typhoid Mary with anything I brought. Then I saw the global’s that were presented to me and I had an out. Scott Hall Global would be very useful, as well the ramp provided in ( ). I started with the same game-play of Corvus, but I really wanted to ramp this game to Thor. Whenever Typhoid Mary hit, I forced her to attack and continue to wear down the life totals with Corvus early. Once Thor entered, I was doing tons of damage fielding sidekicks, buying pizzas and just attacking at every moment. This was one of those games where I used the opposing global’s more than my opponent did and was the reason I came out on top.
2-0
Game 3:
I kinda did the math on the standings, and realize whatever the outcome was in the final match, I think I had the tiebreakers against the others but I wanted to go 3-0. However, I think all the control was with my opponent game 3. He had Drax, Typhoid, and no way to get rid of them. IF they hit the field I was in trouble. I went the same Corvus starting strategy, and he got quickly shut down by Drax. Typhoid took out Black Widow, and I was a sitting duck waiting to be taken down. I was lucky to build up a field and actually tried to get Clayface into the match, but I knew I could avoid the opposing field he was growing for a one turn kill. When I finally got Thor involved it was too late and was beaten with 4 life left.
2-1
Post-Mortem:
So, I ended up taking top spot in the tournament, but again there were no Godcatchers, or Becky’s.
If you ever try to run a Corvus in a future match, and you see your opponent with Drax, pivot over to Thor very fast… Control can hammer this team as it did in round 3. Especially if Typhoid Mary also comes to the party.
I was extremely happy playing this team. It reminds me of Fish Slap that is a crazy fun build that just might surprise a few teams in the right setting. Super Rare Thor is a win-con on his own, and I would like to tinker with a few cards to see if it can be even more fun/flexible.
One card I would like to play with is Big Entrance. How many times do you buy Big Entrance, purchase what you want, and then on turn 4-5 Big Entrance comes up again and you wish it doesn’t roll action face? Poop it back to the card is brilliant if it works on this team!!! 2 Corvus is really all you need and you just can pull that off turn 2 with the Clayface global…
Black Widow Agent was helpful in my SR Thor mirror match, but usually is there for Iceman.
I would want to also want to try a build and swap in the other Black Widow – Widow’s Bite card to buff when Corvus goes through, and really she is a 2 cost fist that can replace the 1 cost Poxwalker. Plus Black Widow would give you the Force Attack Global. Scott Hall was on one version of the team and playing the slug fest game is dangerous but you can deal damage fast here…
Losing Poxwalker would allow me to put Typhoid Mary on the team, she would have been able to blank my opponents win-con and that would be good if you only see your opponent running one win-con.
I would also suggest to try to play with the Intimidaters, As they can deal with pesky control cards, and while we are at options another attempt could be with actually adding Static Field for control, and just add Nihiloor to KO your Corvus Glaives when you need to. Trying to do a Golden build with Absorbing man to double when fielding would also be very crazy…
There are so many cards that can make this team flexible and fun to what you want to play…
I would suggest all to try this build, you might get hammered by a Godcatcher or Becky, but its definitely a very fun and different build from what we see currently in the meta…
What would you have run in place of what I did? Let me know if you enjoyed this build…
Reg
In March 2022 the team from this post became a subject of discussion on the DM-North Discord.
I have some thoughts to share on the “What kind of R Corvus Glaive team would you build?” subject. I’m sharing the here because I want to go into more detail than makes sense for the Discord.
I missed both Reg’s article and DMArmada’s youtube video when they originally came out, but I had been fiddling with a team centered around the Rare Corvus Glaive. It has some similarities to and some differences from Reg’s build.
I haven’t been playing very much during the pandemic, but I still build teams for fun, even if I have no expectation of playing them any time soon. One of those was a Corvus Glaive team, which I’d built before I learned (earlier today as I write this) that Reg had built a Corvus Glaive team that had earned something of a reputation. I’m not sure how I managed to miss any appearance or mention of the team in question for over a year and a half, but somehow I did.
First off, I wasn’t building with a cutthroat tournament in mind, so my version is probably even more susceptible to opposing control pieces than Reg’s is/was.
My build has only two cards in common with Reg’s version – Corvus Glaive himself and the Pizza BAC. If your plan involves a buy -> return to card for damage -> rebuy cycle cheap dice are the way to go.
I went with Big Entrance for the other BAC, for reasons similar to the ones Reg mentioned in his post-mortem section. Big Entrance generally becomes less and less useful as the game goes on, so having a means of thinning it from my bag isn’t unwelcome.
In my build I chose to focus on characters with Impulse and Crosspulse abilities. Normally the number of times such an ability can trigger is limited to the number of dice included on the card – once you’ve bought all the dice, it’s effectively a blank card. But something with a return a die to its card mechanic, such as Corvus Glaive, allows me to ‘reload the gun’, and get some extra mileage out of the ability.
Of course, the cheaper the dice in question, the better the plan should work, and Crosspulse dice don’t generally come all that cheap. There’s a workaround for that, in the form of Asuka.
Asuka: Empress of Tomorrow discounts all mask character dice, including those which have a second (or even all four) energy type (making them a crossover character).
There are four mask crossover characters with Crosspulse in Modern, all from the WWE Team Packs. I opted to include three of them on my team:
Big E: Talking Smack 4 cost Mask-Shield 014 125 127
Crosspulse – Draw a die and Prep it.
Kofi Kingston: Fueled by Booty-Os 3 cost Fist-Mask 024 134 144
Crosspulse – Prep a die from your Used Pile.
Xavier Woods: Pancake Power 4 cost Bolt-Mask 122 133 234
Crosspulse – Prep this die.
I didn’t consider Sting’s ability (Field this die at level 1) impressive enough to be worth taking up one of the three remaining character slots.
With Asuka active any of the three can be bough for a mask and one other specific energy. Which specific energy varying with the character. As long as I have one mask and a second non-mask non-generic point of energy I will be able to buy one of the three.
The cost is low enough that cycling them with Corvus Glaive and rebuying them should be a viable option.
(If anyone actually tries to play this team bear in mind that Big E and Kofi Kingston dice have wild energy on their single energy face. That could potentially prove useful in finding the right energy types to buy multiple dice in one turn.)
Yes, their abilities all relate to Prep in some fashion. Not so much a deliberate choice on my part as an acceptance that those are the Crosspulse abilities that are reachable.
Kofi Kingston offers the greatest flexibility, since it allows me to Prep a die (of my choice) from my Used Pile. So if I have a Corvus Glaive in my Used Pile, buying Kofi would allow me to send the Corvus Glaive die to Prep, so I could be certain of rolling it next turn.
For the next card on the team I went with Kevin Nash: nWo – Wolfpac. He’s a 4-cost Bolt-Fist with stats of 133 244 356 and an ability of ‘Crosspulse – Remove target opposing character die from the Field Zone until end of turn.)
If I can buy him without spending any masks, shields or generic energy to do so, he gives me some temporary removal I can use on potential nuisances like Drax, Typhoid Mary or Black Widow: Agent if my opponent has any of them active.
The above six character cards I am comfortable with. I have cards in the final two slots, but I could be persuaded to change them out fairly easily.
They are Ronda Rousey: The Baddest Woman on the Planet, and the Uncommon Supreme Intelligence (Psionic Collective) from Dark Phoenix Saga.
The former is a 4-cost fist with an Impulse ability that allows me to Pay 1 energy to Prep her die when I buy it. Honestly, she was put on a very early draft of the team because she has a *pulse ability, and I’ve just never figured out exactly what I want to replace her with.
Supreme Intelligence is a 7-cost Mask with stats of 144 256 267 and the keywords Intimidate and Overcrush. With Asuka active I can purchase his dice for 5, and he gives me both removal (albeit temporary) and an alternate win con.
The plan for the early part of a game would be to buy Big Entrance on Turn 1, use Big Entrance to buy Asuka on Turn 2, then draw and field Asuka on Turn 3. Then I start buying Corvus Glaives and Crosspulse Wrestlers.
I have no plans to actually play this team anywhere at the moment, but if someone else wants to take it out for a spin, be my guest.
A few further comments:
I was restricting my self to Modern, but I wanted to mention there is one Silver/Golden Age Crosspulse card I wouldn’t have hesitated to include if it were Modern Legal – Zatanna: Hex Appeal. 4 cost Fist-Mask, 011 022 133, ‘Crosspulse – When you purchase this die, add up to two Sidekick dice from your Used Pile to your Prep Area.’
Man, even in Golden all the reachable Crosspulse abilities skew to Prepping dice.
There is a part of me that really wants to see Corvus Glaive on a team with Roman Reigns: It’s My Yard just for the laughs of being able to hit an opponent coming and going. This Roman Reigns card is a 6 cost Fist-Shield (153 164 277) with the ability ‘Crosspulse – Deal 2 damage to target opponent’.
With those stats and that ability I understand why he’s a 6-cost. I just haven’t figured out a reliable and consistent way of discounting him, so that he would buy viable to use in a buy-return to card-rebuy cycle.
Son of L’s Corvus Glaive team
So there’s my goofball R Corvus Glaive team. Probably not as good as Reg’s but mine was never intended as a serious tournament team, just something I might be able to have a bit of fun running at a friendly local gaming night.
Anybody who has any comments to make about it, feel free. If not, thanks for reading