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As you scroll through the decklists from the Gen Con 2011 Mega-Weekend you’ll notice a lot of old favorites; that is until you see this decklist by Eric Madden:
11x Currs, Army
4x Dr. Strange, Secret Avenger
4x Red Skull, Aleksander Lukin * Raid
1x Black Bolt, Protector of the Space Gem
4x The Captain, Can’t Remember His Real Name
1x Iron Man, Protector of the Reality Gem
1x Death, The Second Force of the Universe
4x Superhuman Registration Act
4x Essence of zom
4x Acts of Vengeance
4x I Am Doom
4x Sleeper Cells
4x Trouble With Dinosaurs
2x Hulk Smash!
2x The Elektra Situation
2x Secret Government
4x Cosmic Cube
The deck is cleverly named “Captain Curr-unch” thanks to it’s two most pivotal characters: The Currs and The Captain, Can’t Remember his Real Name. When first looking at the deck it’s almost impossible to tell what in the heck it’s supposed to do; but that’s because it doesn’t need to do the same thing every game. In fact, two games are rarely alike. But I can certainely TRY (operative word) to give you a rundown of what the deck wants to do!
First, the deck wants to drop any combination of Currs, Dr. Strange, and Red Skull on 1, 2, and 3. You do not need to curve out. In fact, it might be best to save your Dr. Strange’s until you have Superhuman Registration Act (SRA) and/or Essence of Zom.
On turn 4 you drop The Captain (you and The Captain WILL make it happen). He grabs the name Annihilus so that he can start spamming Currs from your KO’d pile into play. The cost of the discard is negated by the Captain’s draw, SRA’s ability to extend your hand by a card, Dr. Strange, Essence of Zom, and Cosmic Cube which all net you cards.
Turn 5 you drop another Captain, who can allow you more card draw - and more access to illuminati names! One of your Captains can net the name Doom to start popping Currs with I am Doom! while your “Annihilus”-Captain brings them back for more popping!
Iron Man and Black Bolt are you two Illuminati characters that can be searched out by Secret Government (which Essence of Zom can grab) so that you can use Elektra Situation if you didn’t get a Captain yet - but absolutely need to shut someone down! Also, Secret Government stacks the character on top of the deck; which means that you can recruit it with SRA!
SRA is absolutely HUGE in this deck. It maximizes Dr. Strange’s Ally ability (which gets used a lot because you want to “Zom” often). It also allows you to recruit off the top of the deck, which can often get you that extra Curr you need to use all your resource points; or that Captain you almost missed on 4. It also teams-up your disparate board!
Sleeper Cells is something you can grab with the Cube or with Zom. It either readies your Captain after your opponent tried to tap him down, readies him for a second attack (remember he’s loaded up with counters), or taps an opposing brute on the defense. Clutch.
Cosmic Cube gets you anything if you control Red Skull. Luckily, the deck runs Red Skull, and The Captain (who can become Red Skull). But Cosmic Cube isn’t the only Red Skull legend card in this deck. Acts of Vengeance also plays a key role. Have you ever read this card?! It lasts FOR THE WHOLE TURN! Make your Captain into Red Skull and every attack they make into him can be redirected into a Curr. Then once all your Currs are stunned, pop them with I Am Doom! to make your Captain big for a counter-attack.
The deck ended up going 3-2 in the tournament, getting 5th (we only cut to top 4). It had really good tie-breakers. One of the losses went to the tournament winner: Patrick Yapjoco. The only other loss was a game in which the Captain did not show up until turn 6 (which was unimaginable after playtesting!).
It’s awesome to see that there’s still some ingenuity out there long after cards stopped being produced. Eric Madden (the deck’s originator) has already said that he hopes next year’s tournament is BYOS so he can try again with an alternate version of Captain Curr-unch that he’s been working on. I don’t know what you would call the sequel to Captain Cruch though… Maybe Crunch Berries?
great write up !! That sounds like a fun deck to mess around with. I love how new deck ideas are still possible
I miss VS system. Good to see that there’s still activity out there.
I salute the creativity of the deck. However, I hate the way UDE interpreted the rules to allow the Captain to break uniqueness just because he has a long “name”. One Captain is really good, more than one Captain at a time is broken (and has no flavor, if you care about comics).
you and the Captain make it happen! so fucxjksning awesome