The goal of ‘Breaking You’ is to spotlight overlooked themes in the game, and to use cards that might not otherwise see a lot of play. Also, whenever possible, we’re going to try and make these decks affordable for new players (ie: Random Punks.) This week we’ll be looking at the Arkham Inmates, who have seen almost no play whatsoever in Silver or Modern Age.
This will not be a deck for the faint of heart. Let’s do this, people!
The first thing that stands out to me is how risky discarding randomly can be. Even when playing Insanity one can find themselves discarding a missed drop, and losing the game in the proccess. Also of note is the ‘all locked up’ theme, forcing us to put our characters at a distance from one another. With some strong concealed characters at 3 and 5 this second theme is easy to pull off, although I admit there won’t be very much of a payoff.
We’ll be focusing on beats/exhaustion here. Without the luxury of overpowering beatdown cards we’ll have to rely on KO effects and control through combat. The combat here will be straightforward enough that even the newest player can thrive on it, but when you discard things become tricky.
The real key here, and one that requires a bit of finesse, is setting up your discards in such a way as to devastate your opponent. This deck runs enough low drops that hitting your short curve should be easy, so you can use Usual Suspects to set up a Mad Hatter recruit or Harley Quinn. Plus there’s Break You:
See what I mean? That’s effectively a +12 ATK bonus on either offense or defense. With Hush as your only visisble character he’s going to be able to stun/KO just about whoever he wants.
Have Card, Will Travel (Modern Random Punks)
4x Harley Quinn, Mr. J’s Girl
2x Mad Hatter, Mad as a Hatter
4x Anarchy, Lonnie Machin
3x The Penguin, Crime’s Early Bird
4x Crime Doctor, Bradford Thorn
3x KGBeast, Anatoli Kynazev
3x Great White, Warren White
4x Charaxes, Drury Walker
3x Hush, Silent and Deadly
2x Firefly, Burning Desire
1x Catwoman, Jewel Thief
1x Matt Hagen <> Clayface, Mud Pack
1x Sondra Fuller <> Clayface, Mud Pack
1x Matt Hagen <> Ultimate Clayface, Mud Pack
3x Blackgate Prison
3x Break You
3x Collateral Damage
4x Usual Suspects
4x Hush Baby
4x Nasty Susprise
3x Flattened
The rest of the deck is fairly obvious. Hush and exhausted characters are the key to success, and success means that your opponent is either completely stunned out or completely exhausted. This build should pretty much assure that.
The Brave and the Blog! 
September 5, 2008 at 2:56 am
This deck is going to run out of cards very quickly– you should put in some draw to counter that.
September 5, 2008 at 3:05 am
It can run out of cards pretty quickly, but only if you severely misplay. In my very brief testing I found that most of the discard effects should be reserved for a ‘kill turn,’ which involves Hush KO-ing the other guy’s 4 or 5 drop. Also with Clayfaces on 5 and 6 you can afford to go crazy with the discards.
I like Calendar Man, but feel that this deck needs to stay aggressive above anything else. Crime Doctor is a better spot, not only for his exhaust power but for the returning to hand trick. It suits all of the deck’s themes pretty well.
September 5, 2008 at 3:30 am
“Kill turn” and “KOing” are mutually exclusive– if you’re ending the game this turn, you don’t bother with board control.