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| Starlings... Anyone tried them? | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Mar 12 2010, 02:40 AM (524 Views) | |
| scottkthompson | Mar 12 2010, 02:40 AM Post #1 |
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That other moderator guy
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They have 3 big drawbacks... 1 - The discard. Mr. Mxy can help with this. 2 - They KO when stunned. Cards like Devil's Due can make up for this. 3 - They enter play exhausted. Not sure. Who's got a list? |
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| Number6 | Mar 12 2010, 03:26 AM Post #2 |
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I've not tried them, but the closest I figure would have to be a combo with IG's cost-1-Army theme from DJL (and thankfully not all of that material is team-specific to the IG). At a guess, I'd think that an IG curve could be played, with all those guys that help you spawn extra Army-1's; that way, your opponent focuses more on the curve characters and leaves the Starlings mostly alone until you've got a reasonably large force of them. The suggestion would be to go with Zazzala-2, Shadow-Thief-3, Circe-4, and Tattooed Man-5 (who fortunately bridges IG and EE). Then possibly Evil Star on 6, and on 7 you could use the various spawn/recursion tools to get out a bunch more Starlings and maybe finish off with Starro. Other advantages to the IG pairing are that you have some draw elements to keep supplied with them (as well as countering their discard effect), and the World War III plot twist. In between all that, another option exists by teaming up EE and Secret Society and using Attend Or Die to let you recruit the Starlings directly from the KO Pile (in addition to DCL-Poison Ivy spawning some extras), which might take some of the strain off of your hand. So my thinking is that Starlings are pretty lame unless combo'd with one of those other themes/teams from DJL, though even then I still don't have a lot of confidence in their usefulness. |
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| scottkthompson | Mar 12 2010, 03:41 AM Post #3 |
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That other moderator guy
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LOL, I don't either. But I like your Secret Society suggestion. They've got Ivy, Attend or Die, and like I already mentioned, Mr. Mxy to negate the discard. Injustice Gang was also my first thought, but they already have on-team army options that seem better, so I didn't go that route. |
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| EvilDave | Mar 12 2010, 04:45 AM Post #4 |
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Elite Member
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It's a little like asking if people have a deck base on Dr. Tzin-Tzin; they were as bad a card as could be made. Random Punks.dec is a better idea :). |
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| scottkthompson | Mar 12 2010, 05:27 AM Post #5 |
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That other moderator guy
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Alright, I'll forget about them! But don't knock the Random Punks. The Mojo deck would have rocked the tourney had we not made a simple deck construction error! I'll take the blame for that one. :) |
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| Grumqa | Mar 12 2010, 05:53 AM Post #6 |
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You could team them up with JSA, use Heroic Rescue to limit damage, both Terrifics for a global +3/+3, and Alan Scott if you somehow survive to 7. Or Superman and Earth-2. And the Rock of Eternity! And a teamup with Gotham for another +1 ATK from Gotham Central, and the KO effects of GCPD HQ. ...or not. |
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| Number6 | Mar 12 2010, 10:08 AM Post #7 |
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Heroic Rescue only applies to non-Army guys. Thing is, the activated power of Starlings could be pretty good since it means a single Starling can spawn 2 more for the price of a resource point and a discard. Coming into play exhausted slows them down but isn't too bad; it's the auto-KO that really nerfs them, because then they just show up, get slapped around, and go away without making any contributions. Only suggestion I've got left is to maybe go for a pairing of Starlings with the Defenders' cost-6 Sub-Mariner. He can get ridiculously huge if you teamup and manage to recruit/spawn a bunch of them, plus you can use Press the Attack rather than One Man Rampage in that scenario (no discard, and you can do breakthrough with the readied character). Also notable is that the Defenders have Astral Projection to move any number of Defenders to the hidden area; once there, the Starlings could finally have the chance to abuse the heck out of their spawning abilities. There's also Invisible Woman's Invisibility for hiding mass groups of guys, but I think the Defenders/Sub-Mariner combo has a more tangible payoff if you're still determined to find the niche for Starlings. |
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| CptPugwash | Mar 12 2010, 01:44 PM Post #8 |
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i don't know if this is a good idea or not. How about basing it round Conscription To play, discard a Manhunter character card. Search your deck for an Army character card with cost 1 and put it into your front row. This of course allows you to play the starlings at a more convenient time for you, and with a crossed fingers & a short prayer you might get a whole flood of them into play on turn 3. maybe using Armies of Qward You may return an Army character card from your KO'd pile to your hand. Ongoing: Army characters you control gain the affiliations of each other Army character you control. As the team-up, this will allow you to pick and choose other team-stamped army effects at will(ish) & as a bonus getting just about any character in the deck back from K.O. |
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| CptPugwash | Mar 14 2010, 10:06 PM Post #9 |
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The more i look at this the more i think manhunters. The best 2 cards for starlings are team stamped Manhunters Conscription & War without end. The next thing i looked for is giving army characters an attack boost. Combat Protocols & Sentinel Mark III jumped out. Anyway building a deck round starlings/manhunters/sentinels. Characters(30) 1pt Bolivar Trask x1 Starlings,army x10 Manhunter Sniper, army x6 2pt Sentinel Mark III,army x6 3pt Manhunter Engineer, Army x4 4pt Sleeper Agent, Manhunter Sleeper x1 Manhunter Excavator, Army x1 5pt Rocket Red, Manhunter Sleeper x1 Plot Twists(27) Armies of Qward x4 Conscription x4 Reconstruction Program x4 Search and Destroy x4 War Without End x4 Enemy of my Enemy x4 Battered & Broken x1 There is no Escape x1 Mekanix x1 Location(1) Prison Planet x1 Equipment(2) Ego Gem x1 Mind Gem x1 The deck need armies of qward out to hang together so i'm sure it can be improved on. But it sure as hell should have a bucket load of characters out on Turn 5. |
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| Guglio | Mar 15 2010, 03:09 AM Post #10 |
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Don't You Know Who I Am?
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The best card for Starlings is the manhunters card Orinda, which lets them enters into play hidden. Follow that with Marvel Defenders Sub-Mariner on 6...but how to build Manhunters / EE / MD is the biggest question of all. |
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| scottkthompson | Mar 15 2010, 04:08 AM Post #11 |
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That other moderator guy
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Orinda... I like it! |
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| CptPugwash | Mar 19 2010, 11:47 PM Post #12 |
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I have been testing & tweaking this deck in solo mode on MWS. Firstly- i fairly sure Orinda doesn't help. The starlings that need help are those recruited on the first 2 turns. If things are going well there's no point on protecting those recruited on turn 3 cos the earlier recruits will get slapped instead. You shouldn't normally be recruiting anymore Starlings after turn 3. On Top of that hidden starlings don't benefit from Prison Planet There's 2 versions of the deck. The first version struggles badly(that's a euphemism) against decks that expect to play a ready 1pt recruit on the 1st turn. In all my playtesting i've had 9 1pt characters (often 10 & occasionaly 11 out) by the end of turn 3. Here's how it plays. Turn 1 recruit a starling. Turn 2 starling fetch 2xstarling + starling/wild sentinel/manhunter sniper Turn 3 2x starling fetch 4xstarling + starling/wild sentinel/manhunter sniper Thats the base 9 conscription can get you 1 or 2 more. (its also very handy if you pull a search & destroy by now) Turn 4 has options depending on the situation Sentinel Mk IV should be pretty big or Manhunter Engineer - setting up the turn 5 kill + 2more starlings/wild sentinel /manhunter sniper or Sentinel Mk III x2 (with prison planet & combat protacols or 2x protocols) makes all the starlings 7ATK. - If your on even, and drawn well, theres a chance to pull off the win here. Turn 5 is designed to wipe out the resource row. With a lot of luck Sentinel Mk IV, Manhunter Engineer & Manhunter Sleeper all come into play for free. Changes to the Build -1 Bolivar(don't need the draw, & he doesn't help the team-up) +4 Wild Sentinel -2 Manhunter Sniper -3 Sentinel Mk III (no interest in playing anything but 1pt characters B4 turn 4) -1 Manhunter Excavator (Sent Mk IV is a far better choice) +3 Sentinel Mk IV -4 War without end (my initial misread, read it as ready rather than recover) +4 Combat Protocols( a rather obv miss on the 1st list) -1 There is no escape(plan is nothing left in resource row anyway) +2 Invasion Plans +1 Prison Planet(situational card - but in the right situation its huge so ive upped to 2) -1 Ego Gem(daft inclusion for starlings in retrospect) -1 Mind Gem(better than Ego Gem , but i'm not sure if it gets much use) O.K. it's never going to be top tier as good swarm decks will slap the starlings up & down(you would probably have to draw 2 conscriptions in the first 2 turns to have a chance), but i do fancy it's chances against curve 2up decks. Also it does need to pull The Armies (mulligan) but i have drawn enough of the deck to hit it by 4 reasonably consistently The Alternate version has 1pt defensive plot twists in primarily to protect the first starling. EDIT - Just read the original post - i really should find room for at least 1 Mr Mxy, even tho the deck has 8 PT's to recover from the K.O. pile. Edited by CptPugwash, Mar 19 2010, 11:54 PM.
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| EvilDave | Mar 20 2010, 12:08 AM Post #13 |
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Elite Member
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I'd figure the natural tech would be TNB style; after all, you can actually search out 2 mystiques with a starling and put them into play, then Planet X to team up |
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| Guglio | Mar 20 2010, 12:09 AM Post #14 |
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Don't You Know Who I Am?
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The deck should be built to play nothing but Starlings for the first few turns, and then drop something that can you can use for the body count. For this, Orinda is invaluable, but needs to have the Manhunter team to work. Evil Star is the basic guy, since he eats people. I like Sub-Mariner more, cause he can hit hard with MD support. |
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