See below for a look at some Traitless deck shells, new teasers from the next set, and more!

1. Card of the Week

Agent Orange – Ogatoo Thief can fill two roles: a card advantage engine in a deck that forces your opponent to draw cards (usually Orange Lantern based), or as a tech card that can be included in any build that wants to exploit opposing draw power. This double-edged effect is too risky to hit the table against dedicated mill decks, but you’re unlikely to be lacking Character drops in that matchup. In other contests, his effect is usually relevant to some degree – and his huge Stats/MP are simply gravy!

2. Thanksgiving Hours

The shipping team will be out of office for the week of Thanksgiving – please make sure to submit any Tournament Kit requests before the holiday break. Tournament Kits recently rotated to new promos for November – contact OP@paniniamerica.net for more info.

3. Traitless Themes

There are several sub-archetypes scattered throughout each set, and many of them are able to inform the theme of a deck without relying on Characters from a specific Trait. Stitching together different shells across mixed lineups can lead a deck in exciting new directions – here are some packages to consider:

• Mono Strength Characters/Battle Cards: featuring boons like 5 Strength (C38-JL) and 4 Strength (R130-BM), along with Character options that include Proud Titan and Harley Quinn – Heartbreaker
• Rank 7 Intelligence: Mastermind and 6 Intelligence (U98-BM) can fill in the gaps for decks without a draw engine, while Ra’s Al Ghul – Assassin, Machinations, and Electrify all have potential applications here
• Discard Pile Affinity: this remains the only way in the game to search for anything you want – combining enablers like Mikasa – Stoic and Exhaustion with juice like Cunning Plot, Research, Joke’s On You, Mad Hatter, etc.
• Basic Battle Cards: aside from Blue Lantern and Rogues Gallery synergies, Basic Battle card kits are flexible and can productively scale from a small splash to the entire Battle Card lineup

As sub-themes are not tied to any one Trait, they all have room to expand in the future. There are countless seeds already planted too (for example, watch for “Mono Special” decks begin popping up based around Zatanna – Expert Illusionist as the card pool grows)!

4. Teen Titans Teasers 

Speaking of sub-themes, Teen Titans Go! will offer some exciting new angles of interaction with Events. Here are three powerful Event oriented effects to watch for in the next set:

• a Character with the ability to draw cards whenever you play a certain kind of Event
• an Event that reduces the cost of other Events
• a Battle Card that can potentially reduce the cost of any Event to 0