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Michael Barnes says, the moment the words came out of his mouth, my brain started percolating with thoughts of how to make a League of Assassins / Hellfire Club deck work. Skittles and I started exchanging ideas, and over the course of the three hour trip back to Dallas, we worked out exactly what cards we’d fit into the deck.

You wanted the limelight, Skittles, and now you have it. Skyler Thomas has a way with the ladies, and he and I are going to show you just how to make Lady Shiva, Master Assassin do your bidding . . . with a little assistance from the Hellfire Club.

Our obvious starting point is Lady Shiva. Since we will have several deck cycling and search cards at our disposal, we will probably only need two copies. From here, we’ll take the route that Skittles and I did and work backwards through the drops to decide who we want at each turn.

On turn 6, we’re going to need a copy of Ra’s al Ghul, Master Swordsman. To be fair, he is not a preferred drop on this turn in any shape or fashion. However, Lady Shiva’s recruit condition requires that we control Ra’s al Ghul. Since UDE has not yet seen fit to give us a card like Doomstadt for the leader of the League of Assassins, we must rely on having a character with his name in play.** Our best opportunity for this will be at the 4-slot, where we have multiple versions of Ra’s al Ghul at our disposal. However, we will not always be able to rely on drawing the 4-drop or on still having him in play on turn 7, so we must play one copy of the 6-drop version to ensure compliance with Lady Shiva’s cost. Our primary 6-drop is going to be Magneto, Black Lord. The way Skittles described the combo was impressive to say the least: ship Lady Shiva to the hidden area (using Deadly Game or the like), use her effect to KO our opponent’s 7-drop, and then stun Lady Shiva with Magneto’s effect to stun our opponent’s 6-drop. Magneto and our remaining characters will be free to ravage our opponent’s significantly weakened board. Out of the mouths of babes and all! Read more.

Antonino De Rosa says, when lead designer Justin Gary submitted the Infinite Crisis file to the development team, Ahmed Samsarra was 5 ATK / 5 DEF and didn’t have loyalty—reveal or concealed—optional yet. He searched for a location but put it into your hand. He had the chess mechanic (as we call it in R&D) from the get-go.

Being new to the process and only having experienced Vs. as a serious professional gamer, the first thing I did with this character was try to break it. I put him in combo decks that required locations (like Fantastic Fun) and in decks like League of Assassins so that my Merlin and other effects were always at full force. The card was great. I was able to do things I was never able to do as a player with this card.

We created more tension between the card’s stats and his effect by making him 6 ATK / 6 DEF in development. Now we had a very powerful character with a very powerful ability that would present an interesting decision point. Do you give up 6 ATK and maybe character advantage for a location? Do you go get a location for your location-themed or combo deck at the cost of giving up a stun? We had created tension, hence making the card more interesting.

Another way we increased tension was by giving the card concealed—optional. A 6 ATK / 6 DEF for 3 usually wants to be in the visible area. You can dominate the board for two turns with it. But in this case, Samsarra’s King mechanic really wants him in the hidden area so he doesn’t risk being KO’d.

We also gave Samsarra loyalty—reveal, a new keyword defined as: “If you don’t control a character that shares an affiliation with this card, then as an additional cost to recruit this card, reveal a character card from your hand or resource row that shares an affiliation with this card.”

Example: Ahmed Samsarra has loyalty—reveal and the Checkmate affiliation. You may recruit Ahmed Samsarra if you control a Checkmate character. If you don’t control a Checkmate character, you must reveal a Checkmate character card from your hand or resource row as an additional cost to recruit Ahmed Samsarra. Read more.

DOR-095 says,
Exhaust an Arkham Inmates character you control » Put a ballot counter on Rigged Elections. If there are 25 or more ballot counters on Rigged Elections, you win the game.

“I would like to thank the voters who have made their choice clear.”

Characters (32)
4x Alfred Pennyworth, Faithful Friend
4x Dagger, Child of Light
4x Invisible Woman, The Invisible Girl
4x Mr. Fantastic, Reed Richards
3x Mikado and Mosha, Angels of Destruction
3x Micro-Chip, Linus Lieberman
1x Black Panther, King of Wakanda
1x Shimmer, Selinda Flinders
1x Commissioner Gordon, James Gordon
1x Spoiler, Stephanie Brown
1x Harvey Bullock, GCPD Detective
1x GCPD Officer, Army
1x Query and Echo, Double Trouble
1x Ratcatcher, Otis Flannegan
1x Harley Quinn, Dr. Harleen Quinzel
1x Ventriloquist ◊ Scarface, Arnold Wesker

1x Catchers Mitt
1x Utility Belt

4x A Child Named Valeria
4x Cosmic Radiation
4x Wild Ride
4x Bat-signal
4x Midnight Sons
4x Marvel-Team Up
1x Rise From The Grave
1x Rigged Elections

This build is based on the decks constructed by Craig Edwards and Tim Batow.