With the advent of Revolution, as a Raw Deal player, I have a few choices – quit, buy a ton of Revolution to get all the new cards, or buy little-to-no Revolution and adapt with what I already have. As a deck builder, I also have options. The cry has gone out that all decks will have an astronomical increase in the number of reversals packed. In some cases, I am sure that this will be true. However, it doesn’t have to be. Throughout the history of Raw Deal, there have been a large variety of reversals printed. While in other environments, these reversals have in some cases been marginal, the Revolution environment may make these reversals stellar. Note that one obvious solution to the Revolution problem is playing BASH, so that you can pack The Return BASH for Scotty’s Worm (which is, by the way, the dumbest title. EVER. Seriously. Worse than Forcible Entry).
As I sat down to consider what options were available, in terms of superstar choices, I had many considerations. I wanted a superstar who could draw a decent number of cards to begin the game, either on his own or wit the help of aids (No Show, Underrated Superstar, etc.). I wanted a superstar who could pack a decent number of omni-reversals, so that I did not have to pack 55 reversals and 5 maneuvers. And I wanted to avoid digging to deeply into the Revolution card pool – more specifically, I wanted to avoid digging into it at all. With enough omni-reversals for maneuvers, you are just leaving yourself open to Antics and Momentum. Eventually packing some Antic and Momentum reversals will, of course, be a good idea. But for now, I wanted to point out the selections I made.
The Superstar that I selected was Gene Snitsky. There is an untapped bit of power with this cad (that is, bad guy). His ability to ignore the bad part about the Heat trait can come into good use in a game of Raw Deal. But even if you never use that ability, Snitsky is still a good choice for the new environment. He can pack a ton of maneuver omni-reversals, allowing one to avoid Revolution-reliance. Combining No Show with Underrated Superstar allows you to start with a 12 card hand. With Spontaneous Combustions, he can start with a sweet omni-reversal in his Heat pile (Ground and Pound).
I just mentioned Snitsky’s newest omni-reversal, Ground and Pound. With this bad boy, once he has Heat enabled, he can reverse any non-unique maneuver and gain 3F. That is a pretty strong card coming out of the gate. That 3F also bridges into a lot of the other options you have for omni-reversals.
Snitsky is in almost every case going to be a Heat build. This opens you up to the 3 Heat reversals. Most importantly, you have Headstrong. From 3F, you are able to reverse any maneuver of 10D or less. With the help of Daivari, that 10D restriction disappears. Packing 3 of these gives you a set of omni-reversals that also help you build fortitude, 2F at a time.
You also have access to I Already Warned You. This card, which functions from your Heat pile as a Just Bring It/You’re as Graceful as a Cow On Ice hybrid will, if nothing else, stop you from getting steam-rolled. The third Heat reversal, Leave Me Alone, protects you from Actions as well as providing some card advantage.
Snitsky also has access to one of the most important reversals of this new environment – No Sell Maneuver. Living in the shadow of its more popular brother, Over Sell Maneuver, this underappreciated reversal actually will reverse any maneuver. It has some drawbacks, though. Discarding 2 card is never fun – unless you are a Heat build. No Sell actually provides you an outlet with which to bin some Heat from your hand. The other drawback is not something you can use to your advantage though. No Sell must be played from hand. You are not going to get around that. However, that is the point of getting such a big hand size.
Another omni-reversal you can play from that key 3F position is Anything and Hate It. With the power of everyone’s new friend, A No Show, you can begin the game clutching a copy of Anything and Hate It, along with some other Heel card. Anything will be of great benefit, as it can get any non-unique. The drawback is that your opponent draws cards equal to the reversed card’s fortitude cost. If it is a 0F maneuver, though, that becomes no problem.
Ever since the first time this game began (you know, Premiere), one of its most powerful reversals has been Manager Interferes. As the cad that he is, a Snitsky deck needs to be packing Manager Interferes. Reversing any maneuver once you get to 10F is quite a deal – especially when combined with Manager Interferes built-in card advantage. Let’s see one of those Revolution maneuvers get past this!
With the advent of new maneuver types, the most played maneuvers of the old types will be those which are most powerful. These maneuvers tend to have more text. As a result, they are vulnerable to Raw Deal Revolution. It seems that this unique card will be a good card to pack to protect against those maneuvers, as well as Actions and potentially even some new Antics.
There are 2 other unique cards that Snitsky can pack that will provide some protection against all the possible new maneuvers that could come his way. First, Divine Intervention will serve to protect him against whatever maneuvers do get through his wall of defense. His shared Unforgiven specific, Never Forgive – Never Forget will reverse any non-unique maneuver, along with doubling as a great card to use to shuffle back all those non-Heat overturned cards.
If you want to completely lock down a Revolution maneuver playing opponent, your best bet is to stop all their cores. For that purpose, I suggest 2 key choices. First, another reversal that has been prevalent since day 1 – Elbow to the Face. This bad boy says “no way†to anything 7D or less. That means it reverses all the new cores. Another great option in this regard is Hold the Phone. Hold the Phone will do much more for you than reverse cores (like reverse any other hybrid). However, with all the 0F cores being hybrids, getting 2F will allow Hold the Phone to serve as a great lock down choice.
With Snitsky, you even have access to one of the most important reversals in recent years, one that is normally not allowed to Heat decks – Volley This. You can shut down Actions and build fortitude from 0F, without having to worry about flushing all your Heat down the toilet.
The general Prematch strategy is to drop 2x Spontaneous, Underrated, A No Show, and Baby Carriage. When A No Show resolves, you can throw It’s Showtime, It’s Getting Hot in Here, or another Spontaneous into play, depending upon circumstance. This allows you to begin the game with Ground and Pound and Headstrong (or Slam, or Sizzling Clothesline) in the bin. It’s Showtime should provide some more Heat cards, hopefully. With the 2 cards you got from A No Show (Anything and Hate It and Manager Interferes, Strangle Hold (TB), or Brass ‘Nuks’ Shot) and the 3 you draw from Underrated Superstar, you have a 12 card hand with which to attack the game. Hopefully you can enable Heat as soon as possible. If you manage to get some non-Heat cards from your Showtime flips, you may consider hiding Fifth Aniversary to get more Heat into your bin. This Prematch configuration is just one of many (All Together Now has quite a bit of promise).
No Deck list to see here. No one likes them, except for the people who do. No one else does, though. Truthfully, I haven’t gone ahead and whittled this down to a workable build yet. But, to a great extent, Heat Snitsky builds itself.
As you can see, Snitsky is just one of the many options available to combat the Revolution invasion. Many of the ideas expressed in the above article can be ported to any other superstar. Snitsky just happens to be an inviting mix of Superstar Ability (protects Heat), Superstar Specifics (Ground and Pound), allowed non-specifics (No Sell Maneuver), and decent hand size (with Underrated Superstar and No Show). Good luck finding others. Feel free to post any of your Snitsky deck ideas in the feedback thread!