Lord of the Negative Zone
Junk players, rejoice! The card release this week, Annihilus, is positioned to bring the Junk/Clog Archetype out of niche status to be a meta contender. One of my personal most anticipated cards in recent memory, Annihilus is in the spotlight cache this week with Daken and X-23. If you do not have any of these cards, this is a solid week to open. If you are clog junky like me, but aren’t interested in the spotlight variants, keep in mind Annihilus is Series 5, and thus 6000 collectors tokens.
The Card
Annihilus is a 5 energy, 7 power card with the ability: “On Reveal, Your cards with 0 or less power switch sides. Destroy those that can’t.” This card’s effect is board wide; it will transfer or destroy applicable cards in every lane, no matter where he is played (assuming there is no Cosmo or Knowhere). It will take into account the board state, so affliction cards and locations may bring cards that are otherwise not 0 or less power below that threshold.
Send ‘em over!
Let’s look at what Annihilus would actually be sending over. In terms of cards that Annihilus can naturally affect, the field isn’t massive–which is probably a good thing. There are (technically) a total of 25 cards that are 0 or less power naturally in the game to date. Of these 25, only 10 are realistic targets you would want to send (you don’t want to give them an Iron Man, Arnim Zola is very difficult to pull off, Dark Hawk and Knull are not going to be 0 by turn 5, etc). The 10 cards and their generators are below.
You will notice that of these 10 cards, 6 are in your control and stay on your side. The goblins naturally go to the opponent’s side, Ninja is location generated, and Widow’s Bite is dependent on your opponent playing Black Widow. So this leaves The Hood, The Void (generated in the right lane by The Sentry), Mr. Negative, Rock (generated by Debrii), Mysterio and his Illusion!, and Ironheart as natural targets to send over. Remember for Mysterio that the real Mysterio does not (from what we know) stay on your side; you would be sending all of them, including the one with 4 power.
That being said, the field of targets expands if you afflict cards with negative power. There are three cards you can play to achieve this on your side of the board: Hazmat, Typhoid Mary, Yellowjacket, and Man-Thing.
Suddenly, 1-power cards seem feasible to include in this list of potential targets; 5 out of 6 Infinity Stones, Black Widow herself, Squirrels (generated by Squirrel Girl or Central Park), Spider-Ham and Wasp would all be affected by Annihilus with Typhoid Mary on the board, or a well timed Hazmat. My point is that Annihilus is not as limiting as he appears, and will have more potential targets as cards release, such as Selene coming out at the end of the year.
The bottom line is that The Sentry, The Hood, and Debrii will be Annihilus’s best friends for obvious reasons, but playtesting may find interesting decks, combos, and alternatives.
No matter the strategy, Annihilus mirrors will certainly be interesting, and may come down to a game of chicken between players as to who will play him to get the advantage. Ghost may be appearing for the first few days for this reason, but we will see Annihilus’s actual potential as a mainstay once his use rate stabilizes.
With that all out of the way, here are some decks I will be trying the day the King of Junk decks is released.
Jimmy’s Day 1 Decks
Versions of this deck will likely be everywhere day 1, as it is where Annihilus fits most naturally. As mentioned previously, the shell Annihilus will be run most commonly in is with Debrii, The Sentry, and The Hood, which are nearly vital in all true junk decks. The difference here is that you no longer have to rely on Carnage or Viper to clear your junked lanes and risk sending over or destroying cards you want to keep. You can even fill 2 lanes completely, then clear those lanes with Annihilus. The ideal is, of course, to play The Hood, Debrii, The Sentry, then Annihilus on 5. If the Void is sent over, that’s wonderful. If not, at least the Void is gone, and you didn’t have to leave the third lane empty the entire game. Nebula is great to have your opponent focus on playing cards away from the right lane, so they don’t spend resources filling the intended Void or Hood lane. Carnage is here in case Annihilus isn’t drawn and you need the space. Werewolf by Night works really well in clog decks, and will fit right at home here.
For this deck, we are going for total clog to fill the opponent’s entire board on turn 5. Squirrel Girl, Spider Ham, Forge, and Black Widow all become sendable with Annhilus with a single Hazmat or Typhoid Mary, and their utility is mostly in their on reveal anyway. Typhoid, Man-thing and Gladiator are the big stat sticks to win lanes, clogged or not. This deck needs refinement, but is certainly an idea that may be fun (if toxic) to try.
This deck gets even more bold with what you try to send your opponent. This time, you are trying to lock your opponent out of one single lane with Man-Thing. You want to play a bunch of 2 power, disruptive cards (Iceman, Scorpion, Korg), slap Man-thing on top of a lane that would win it, and send them all over to your opponent to guarantee you that lane. You can then figure out the one other lane to win from there, ideally with Alioth. Mirage has the dual purpose of being sendable and getting you a low cost card with some power to play to help the non-clog lane.
This deck looks to add big stat cards in the last half of the game, and sometimes in the sneakiest ways. You have 3 premium stat cards with negative effects–Destroyer, Attuma, and The Sentry. This deck looks to mitigate those at every turn. The best activator is Invisible Woman. You can play Attuma behind her safely. You can play Sentry/Annihilus behind her for a Void surprise at the end of the game. You can play whatever you want behind her and play Destroyer later–sacrificing your Invisible Woman to keep the other cards safe. Without her, you have other means that can act as enablers for the big boys or tech cards in Armor and Cosmo. I think this deck has serious potential, and looks to play Annihilus not as a pure clog card but as an enabler for The Sentry and The Hood. You may notice Negasonic Teenage Warhead too–she can help ensure the right lane has one open spot by the end of the game if played on turn 5.
Variants
I hope this article spurns some ideas for a very fun (and honestly, potentially annoying) card. What decks and combos have you cooked up to try? Let us know below!