High Roll Patriot Surfer Deck Guide – Infinite Rank – Savage Land Season

This deck took me most of the way to Infinite from Vibranium, and eventually up through 98 to 100 – I firmly believe that against most decks you always have the opportunity to high roll them out of the way as long as you don’t get Leeched, Galactus’d, or Cosmo’d on what your eventual combo lane is, this deck can beat a lot of different decks in different ways.

This is in the vein of a lot of Patriot and Surfer list but a lot of the deck is tooled around maximum potential power output so that your last turn is as explosive as possible. You’re looking to Surfer twice at least, but you have options that can allow you to surf up to a full compliment of five times and just absolutely decimate even the most ridiculous decks, which is why I call this deck High Roll Surfer. 

There’s been a lot of 8 cube games where I can tell my opponent is thinking “There’s no way he can beat this stack with just 2 3-cost cards right?” and then I full combo and absolutely blow their single Surfer-buffed pile out of the water or stick a Brood in front of them and surf twice. Even with the massive combo potential, the stars don’t always align and you can still output a lot of power with a standard Patriot assault complimented with a single surf.

Let’s walk through the cards one by one and then I’ll walk you through some of the combos:

1-Cost:

We don’t have any one cost cards which means we don’t give a single damn about Killmonger outside of Debrii. If you’ve played a lot of Patriot that is a great feeling because that bastard will blow you out.

2-Cost:

Shocker – This is your one early tempo play if you’re feeling like you need to make a play turn 2. He’ll get big with some Patriot support but overall he’s a vanilla easy to deploy frontline sort of guy. You’re never unhappy to see him early and even late he can show up for 1 Energy a lot and give you 5 Power to an area.

3-Cost: I’ll take a minute to mention that this is potentially the most important slot in the deck and these represent a lot of power on the board when factored in post-combo getting buffed by Surfer. These are the cards you want to use to threaten areas even when they have 0 or 1 power because they can have 9 to 12 power in an instant.

Cyclops – Maybe one of the cards outside of the main combo lines that I am most happy to see other than maybe Brood. 4 power for 3 Energy is a decent enough statline to take some areas and he represents a massive threat post combo because he has the highest starting power of any of the 3-costs.

Zabu – Zabu is the reason a deck like this can exist at all. You’re never unhappy to see Zabu except maybe on turn 6. This card breaks open a ton of different lines to help you win games as he enables what I think is this deck’s biggest strength in Wong flexibility. He takes what would normally be a very telegraphed and easy to disrupt combo line and, combined with Sera or not, causes you to have a ton of options as to where you want to stick your combination and go off lane-wise.

 Not only that, but in this deck he is a reasonably threatening source of post-combo points. Sticking Zabu with Cyclops in a lane with a successful combo coming is a lane often wrapped up.

Patriot – Patriot is a boss of a card, and has been for a long time. His biggest weakness besides Enchantress/Rogue (as usual) is that even if his ability doesn’t get shut off he only represents one power in the lane he’s sitting in. Not so in this deck where Patriot can roll up his sleeves and get dirty right along side the usual compliment of Broodling and Rocks. 

Other than that, he’s in here to buff vanilla things of which you have quite a few. He also lets you beat Leech if you don’t have him in hand when you get Leeched or if he’s already on board as everything becomes +2 Power beaters and you can just punch the Leech player’s face in to victory with raw unga bunga points.

Mystique – Mystique has always been an incredibly useful card in Patriot decks since the beginning through her copying of Patriot’s ability, and here is no exception. You’ll have plenty of times where Patriot into Mystique on Turn 6 or 3 into 4 is the right line still. However, it is incredibly short-sighted to look to hit that every game as when you’re trending towards the higher-end combos the deck can put out you’re looking to copy a Wong on the same lane. This will produce x4 On-Reveals and lay a devastating blast of points across the board on the last turn. In addition, copying Zabu to make all your 4-cost cards cost 1 in Sera’s absence can also open up some lines of play with the right hands.

Finally, Mystique as a 3-cost represents the least of the group in terms of total points but a 9 power Mystique should not be underestimated so keep it in mind when doing your math at the end of game. There will be awkward games where you wish she was almost any other card, but her versatility and raw power all of the rest of the time should not be underestimated.

Silver Surfer – This is the most important card in the deck, bar none. There will be games where you are begging to every deity above to be able to draw your Surfer even on turn 5 and turn 6 where the board state looks unwinnable in your opponent’s eyes. This card does it all – it can beat Leader if they aren’t copying your 3 costs last turn, it can produce massive gains across all 3 lanes, and it can turn the entire momentum of the game around in your favor at the last second. Just watch out for where that Cosmo is going to get stuck.

Also it never usually matters that Surfer is a 3-cost but in this deck it very much does. He can represent 3 extra points in a lane post Absorbing Man and that’s important to remember.

Brood – This card is the ‘beater’ of the deck, representing the most points coming from one straight card in combination with both Surfer and/or Patriot. There’s not a ton of nuance to using this card, stick it wherever you need points that’s not covered by your opponent’s Cosmo. The fact that with Sera this will often be a 2-cost can be relevant to barf a bunch of points in a lane where your opponent might not expect it on turn 6.

Debrii – I think this card is a little bit of an underrated one. She can be really useful when you have situations where you need to sneak in Patriot-buffed rocks to win locations that are locked out. She eats up the enemy board space which is always good when you’re using your spaces more efficiently than your opponent. And in this deck she’s a 3-cost with 3 starting power so she can represent again a ton of points post-combo. 

You do have to be careful using her so you don’t cut off all your available area, but in addition to all of the above she also shuts down Galactus pretty hardcore which can be really funny seeing as we don’t run Cosmo. She can be a problem for you in certain matchups as well. Other Patriot decks love to see her, and Destroy decks just eat up her rocks for extra points. Outside of those couple of things, there’s times where I’ve used her with Wong to crush your opponent’s available space or to toss a rock into their Black Panther or Wong + Mystique combo – the sky is the limit really in terms of where she can be handy.

4-Cost: This section is filled with a lot of the combo enablers and/or extenders. Zabu’s very presence lets these in combination with Sera go all the way down to 1 Energy. Like I mentioned in Zabu’s section the ability to flexibly move where you want to perform combos to juke Cosmo or to just all of the sudden go of on the last turn is what makes this deck deadly.

Absorbing Man – He’s a Pool 4 card for the moment and while he’s not completely necessary to play a deck like this, he sure is fun and a nice little cherry on top of the top end of a lot of the combos within the deck, in addition to making it a lot harder to completely disrupt by letting you Surf in one lane and even if they Cosmo correctly you can still get one surf off Absorbing man in another lane.

90% of the time he’s going to be Surfer #2 – 5 and just double or triple up on what Silver Surfer already buffed, in addition to buffing the Surfer itself AND representing 3 more points in a lane with its own body. Just remember he doesn’t double up even if you put him on Wong. 

9% of the rest of the time you play him as Brood #2 to take a lane with some 3 Power instead of 2 Power Broodlings usually when you don’t have Surfer or suspect you won’t be able to combo with him in the mix. (Also very useful in TVA games.). And then there’s the 1% chance you need him to absolutely ruin an opponent’s available space as a Debrii number two. 

Wong – Wong functions the way he does in a lot of other decks. He is purely here to take your combos from about a 2 or 3 straight to an 11. With Sera or Zabu you can play him last turn with a Surfer. With both you can execute any of the higher end combos involving Mystique or Absorbing Man. He also can be a great bait for a Cosmo by playing him in a lane early thanks to Zabu and then pivoting and Mystique-ing another open lane to get double Surfing there instead. You need some room for Wong to function, so keep that in mind when developing your early board and try and play him as suddenly and last-second as possible to maximize cube gains.

Thing – I’ve got a love/hate relationship with Thing in here. In some games he’s a big grungo fist of justice that smashes your opponents in the face with a bunch of Patriot buffs and just comes in and wins for 1 Energy. In some games you will hate to see his orange mug coming up off the top of your deck when you need that combo piece or enabler because he’s not going to do a single thing. He synergizes with Patriot and Zabu, but if there was a better option at the 4-cost or 3-cost slot I think Thing would be the first cut.

5-Cost:

Sera – In the same vein as Zabu, Sera fulfills her responsibility as a turn 6 combo-enabler. Next to Surfer, Sera might be the second most important card in the deck with Zabu being a near third. Unlike Zabu Sera helps ALL of your cards so the array of combos she enables is slightly wider than our saber-toothed friend. Dream Dimension is one of this deck’s least favorite locations due to this. It’s not unbeatable but not having Sera on turn 6 makes things a lot shakier and certainly less devastating.

Combo Lines:

Almost all of the games you’re looking to win on turn 6, which is why Leech can be very devastating to this deck. if you get Leech’ed and haven’t drawn Patriot or Surfer yet, sometimes you can wager that one extra cube to hang in there. Even better if they snap pre-Leech and you had no idea it was coming (because then you can feel guilt free about it, haha.) 

The Grand Mac-Daddy Supreme Combo:

You need Sera and Zabu on the field for this combo to work, and you need 3 open slots in any one lane, along with 1 open spot either in the same lane or another.

In the lane with open slots you go: Wong (1 Energy) + Mystique (2 Energy) + Surfer (2 Energy). This will give you 4 surfs across your board and 12 power to the Mystique in your lane. You’ve also got one energy to play with and the most common way I’ve finished this combo for the full high roll is Absorbing Man (1 Energy) and one final Surf to Mystique and buffing Surfer to 3 power. This combo is absolutely brutal across the rest of the board and will dunk your opponent into the trash can with +15 power to all your 3-costs. 

You can also play Shocker or Thing if you don’t have Absorbing Man and they can represent a decent bit of points with Patriot or even just some bonus points on their own. It may seem like this combo is telegraphed but the amount of times a no-Cosmo opponent has been absolutely blendered by this because they underestimate the raw amount of points it represents. 

The Pretty Cool:

You need Zabu or Sera on the field for these to work:

with Zabu:

Wong (2-Energy) + Surfer (3-Energy) – 2x Surfing, has to be played in the same lane. Sometimes weak to Aero or something dumb like that.

Surfer (3-Energy) + Absorbing Man (2-Energy) – Same deal as before 2x Surfing but can be in two separate lanes. You also get 2 3-power bodies as opposed to the Wong version that only gets Wong’s sad 2-power in one lane.

with Sera:

Wong (3-Energy) + Surfer (2-Energy) – Same combo as before, but you can sneak Shocker in because he’ll be one-cost too.

Surfer (2-Energy) + Absorbing Man (3-Energy) – Same deal as the other combo here with a Shocker chaser.

There is one other common combination that isn’t really a Surfer combo but you’ll play on occasion to win the game.

The Patriot:

These are Sera-only combo lines – you’ll play something on your last turn like:

Patriot (2 Energy) + Mystique (2 Energy) + Surfer (2 Energy) 

or

Patriot (2 Energy) + Mystique (2 Energy) + Brood (2 Energy)

These can represent a ton of points into already-deployed cards or spew into an area last-second with Brood.

There are a lot more combinations and situations and while you’re looking for each of these combos when you can hit them, the overall plan is to adapt to the flow of the gamestate rather than trying to force through certain combos. You’d be surprised at how often you’ll find yourself naturally able to pull off even the biggest combo, or you’re just praying to Ben Brode to just give you Silver Surfer please god please just I need it on this draw or I lose…

Thanks for reading!