Tazz (Face, Smackdown, Fan Favorite)
All Axxess
by Jonno Khoo

BACKSTAGE (1)

WWE Signing Appearance X 1

This is the only backstage card I have, and it works well with the Spinner Belt. I’d add Fifth Anniversary to shuffle back suplexes if I had it!

BACKLASH (20)

Pre-match (10)

<Revolution> WWE Intercontinental Title Belt X 1
<Revolution> WWE Championship Belt X 1
Backstage Shenanigans X 1
ECW Championship Belt X 1
First of All X 1
Red Hook’s Premiere Announcer X 1
Singapore City, Singapore X 1
White Wedding X 1
WWE Championship Belt X 1
WWE Spinner Belt X 1

As mentioned, the key to this deck is First of All: in almost all cases you will drop it. The belts you drop depend on your opponent. The <Revolution> belts and WWE championship belt build your hand, the ECW belt take your <Revolution> Belly-to-Back Suplexes out of Elbow range and the Spinner belt introduces some randomness into a pre-match search affected starting hand. Other belts you could consider are WWE championship belt (search for Ap-Chaki Kick, but this can be done with <Revolution> WWE Championship belt without discarding) or the United States title belt.

The other cards are purely situational. Singapore City is nice to play, bridging into <Revolution> Fall-Away Suplex and Precision Suplex with no fortitude on the table. Red Hook, Backstage Shenanigans and White Wedding are there if you don’t play first of all (can anyone say Andre?).

Mid-match (10)

<Revolution> Fall-Away Suplex X 3
A Phoenix Rising X 2
Break It Out, Break You Down, Breakin' Rules, Breakin' Ground X 2
Can U Believe the Witte Retort? X 1
Fan Appreciation Day! X 1
Victory Roll X 1

With no backlash deck reversals to worry about, this backlash deck becomes an important tool which does not need to worry about The Road to Victory. Key elements are:
<Revolution> Fall-Away Suplex is a great maneuver which bridges nicely into your German Suplexes (thanks to Tazz’s ability),
Break It Out… there for ring removal and hand stripping,
Fan Appreciation Day allows a little recursion, but also plunges a little, which helps for some bridging

Everything else is more situational. A Phoenix Rising is great against Legends or if you get behind and Victory Roll might allow you to get a quick win. Witte Retort is there purely to make White Wedding permanent (again, can anyone say Andre?). Backstage Shenanigans, which is packed as a Pre-match, can be played as an action if you’re desperate to draw.

ARSENAL (60)

Actions (18)

…And the Crowd Roars X 3
Brave H X 1
Get Crowd Support X 3
Just Another Victim! X 1
Pulp Mania X 1
Puppies! Puppies! (TB) X 2
Suplex into the Ring (TB) X 2
That's Balanced X 3
The Mood Is About to Change X 1
Thug It – Dead X 1

There are lots of actions in this deck given that Tazz can search for his suplexes. The actions serve one main purpose: making your maneuvers hard to reverse. There are also others that draw or search for cards (important due to Tazz’s low hand size) and allow some recursion (like Puppies).

Antics (0)

I chose not to put any Antics in this deck because I didn’t think they really fit. You could easily swap some of the actions for antics: Look Under the Ring would be an obvious choice, for example.

Maneuvers (10)

<Revolution> Belly to Back Suplex (TB) X 3
German Suplex (TB) X 3
Precision Suplex X 3
T-Bone Tazzplex X 1

Although there are few maneuvers, 9 of the 10 can be found using Tazz’s search ability. Fall-away Suplex (TB) could be used instead of the <Revolution> Belly to Back Suplex: however, the fact belly to belly is a throw (harder to reverse) and allows you to pick up any non unique card from your ringside (rather than search for a throwback) gives it the edge. Tazz’s ability makes German Suplex (tb) becomes a 0 for 8 maneuver and Precision suplex (effectively) 6 for 20. T-Bone Tazzplex is good as it has a reversal restriction.

Reversals (32)

<Revolution> Inertia X 1
<Revolution> Why Don’t You Kiss My A%$? X 1
A Revolution of the Mind X 3
Ap Chaki Kick X 1
Don't Try This at Home X 1
Enough With the Trash Talk (TB) X 2
Elbow to the Face X 2
Get Back in the Ring X 2
Get the "F" Out! X 2
Hold the Phone! X 2
I'm Gonna Teach You a Lesson in Thuganomics X 1
It's Great To Be Back Here In… X 1
Once Is Enough X 2
Sidewalk Slam (TB) X 2
Sloppy … Very Sloppy X 3
Tazzmission X 1
The Coach Says, "Today's the Day!" X 1
The Raw Deal Revolution X 1
Too Many Rules and Too Many Refs X 1
Volley This! X 2

This is a fairly standard reversal base, with a little more protection for old school maneuvers (which is consistent with my metagame). Packing cards like Me Llamo…Armando Alejandro Estrada, <Revolution> Only One Solution: Revolution or <Revolution> Overexposure would provide more revolution protection. If I was concerned using this deck I would search for Sloppy…Very Sloppy using That’s balanced. At the end of the day, reversals you pack should depend on your local meta.

General Strategy:

First of All and Tazz’s ability makes this a very aggressive deck – it is quite easy to get maneuvers to play and there are actions to help make them stick. I think the key to playing it is versatility. The deck is designed with a flexible fortitude curve. Some ways you could get off the ground include:
<Revolution> Belly to Back Suplex -> …And the Crowd Roars -> Precision Suplex
German Suplex -> A Phoenix Rising -> <Revolution> Fall-Away Suplex
German Suplex -> Fan Appreciation Day! -> Break it Out…
The possibilities are almost endless. Of course, as with all decks there will be some bad matchups (something’s springing to mind: Kennedy…KEN-NE-DY!). As we know, that’s part of the game.

Finally, you can also see that there are few Revolution 2 cards in this deck. The ones in the deck have been carefully chosen and are clear improvements over older cards.