MTG Salvation

In 2013, I saw some card sleeves for Game of Thrones, HBO's adaptation of George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series. Although I'd no prior plans to do so, I immediately built a deck each for House Stark and House Lannister.

The BATMAN vs duel multiplayer decks presented here have a similar genesis. My friendly local game store was selling card sleeves with a creative representation of the Joker on them (with the Joker's face made up by a colony of bats in flight) and I thought, "Huh, maybe I'll make a Joker deck."

After a few days idly thinking about the right commander to represent the Joker, I decided to go by the colors of the Joker's color palette, G and v. Um... Oh, that's right, there's no violet in Magic. Quickly, I thought back to preschool: What colors mixed together create violet? And with that, I'd found my second and third colors, R and U. That left one choice for a commander, really, Riku of Two Reflections.

I do a fair amount of research for all of my theme decks. Delving deeper into the Batman mythos, there were plenty of references to the yin and yang relationship between the Joker and Batman. That got me thinking even more. Why don't I create a deck for Batman, too? Riku's colors, my own penchant for puns, and the codependent hero-villain relationship between Batman and the Joker made Vish Kal, Blood Arbiter a shoo-in to represent the Dark Knight. W and B complete the Magic color pie and nothing says, "Batman" like a brooding vampire.

I heavily referenced Nolan's The Dark Knight for the Joker deck. So, I figured I'd make a deck for Two-Face as well, given that the character has enmity toward both Batman and the Joker. Given Two-Face's noble origins, I elected to have the character's Magic analogue share the color W with Batman. Between Harvey Dent's legal expertise and training from Batman, U was an easy choice to reflect (heh) the character's sharp mind. Of course, R was an absolute must with all the coin flipping. There's currently only one commander that embodies how Two-Face makes their decisions: Ruhan of the Fomori.

With the release of BATMAN v SUPERMAN: Dawn of Justice still pending at the time, I designed a Superman deck to go head-to-head with the original Batman deck. When it was announced that Wonder Woman would be in the film as well, I chose to include her in the Superman deck, too, as an alternate commander. With the two's mutual focus on community, was an obvious choice. Seeing as how Superman's power comes from our yellow sun, Krond the Dawn-Clad was a no-brainer. It didn't take much to decide upon Sigarda, Host of Herons to represent Wonder Woman given the angel's popularity as a Voltron commander.

Now that I had my commanders, I had to think of the mechanics to go with the flavor of each deck. Ironically, although I first thought to do a Joker deck, I started and completed the Batman deck first. Batman's utility belt and all of Batman's other gadgets are iconic emblems of the franchise. Gadgets, gadgets, hmmm. Equipment! Yup, the Batman deck would be straight up VOLTRON. I only chose equipment that matched up with actual tools used by Batman in the comics, television series and cartoons, and films, such as the Batmobile, their grappling hook, and the Batwing. (Why give Vish Kal flying? 'Cos their armor's really heavy.)

Again, thinking about Batman and the Joker as both reflections (heh) and opposites of one another, I concluded that the Joker deck would also be commander-centric, but focused on nonpermanent spells. Can we say, "SPELLSLINGER!"? But, which spells to sling? Since there are no violet spells in the game, I elected to go with as many cards as possible. That got me thinking about going all in on a multicolor mechanical subtheme. So I did, with spells like Cloven Casting, Pyroconvergence, and Urza's Filter (a great card to reduce commander tax). The Joker deck multiplies the mayhem, with many Fork effects.

Whereas the Joker deck is all about copying spells, I built the Two-Face deck to be all about doubling the damage and card advantage, with many rebound and double strike effects. Like the Batman deck, it too would be VOLTRON, but reliant on instant and sorcery spells instead of equipment. I also played up the duality theme, with several cards requiring coin flips. Even the number of spells in each nonland category mattered, with 11 artifact, 11 enchantment, 11 instant, 22 sorcery, 2 (noncommander) creature, and 2 planeswalker spells in the deck.

Once I'd decided that the Superman/Wonder Woman deck would also be VOLTRON, I had to think about how to do it mechanically. The Batman deck uses equipment and the Two-Face deck employs instants and sorceries. In colors, an enchantress build made sense. I reserved the deck's equipment for Wonder Woman's gear.

Other flavorful details taken into consideration for the decks include the following. Each deck has the ability to shuffle its graveyard into the library (or recycle cast spells) to symbolize the never ending stories. Since most of our heroes and villains are not invulnerable, with the exception of the Superman/Wonder Woman deck, there are no cards to grant them hexproof, indestructible, protection, or anything of the like. Likewise, no vigilance. Crimefighting and wanton destruction are exhausting! Also, with the heroes wanting to avoid destruction, their decks get Ghost Quarter, whereas the Two-Face and Joker decks get Strip Mine.

Although the decks were designed to play against each other, the Superman/Wonder Woman deck does have the edge against the other Voltron decks. One way to address this is a house rule barring using Krond's ability to exile commanders.

The Superman/Wonder Woman deck is enchantress Voltron.

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