VS News

Well, it's official.

It comes as no surprise to any of us, I suppose - VS is gone. That said, I don't believe that I was the only one holding out and hoping that we'd catch a break. I don't pretend to know what it was exactly that tipped the scale, but I am nonetheless rather remarkably sad at the passing of what turned out to be one of my favorite pastimes of... well, of this particular decade.

To those fans of the game, I hope you don't regret the money and passion you poured into the game. I don't. I fully intend to keep my cards - and I fully intend to keep playing the game, whenever possible. I'll teach friends the game, and if I ever have kids, chances are pretty good that I'll teach them, too.

For now, however, we have become an entirely online community. With no more hobby leagues and no more official sets, where we go from here is entirely up in the air - will we fade away, forgotten? I hope not.

To that end, I'd remind everyone to try and stay active in the blogs and forums, and to be on the lookout for fanmade sets to be released for Magic Workstation, a platform that allows free online play of VS. At least one fanmade set it coming up in the near future, based on DC's recent Final Crisis, and with hope, there will be more to come.

Thanks to Ben Seck, Billy Zonos and others, who kept giving us quality cards and probably kept the game alive long past when anyone else would've expected it.

VS is Dead - long live VS?

VS: Bring Your Own Two Teams - Spider-Friends/X-Factor Edition

So, let me first say, MEV is a really cool, VASTLY powerful set. Over on VSrealms, at least one infinite combo has already been discovered, and I highly doubt that it will be the first. Now, I'm not nearly clever to truck with that sort of shenanigans. I'm not a good enough deck-builder, after all, and I'm not quite mean enough. I like being annoying as much as the next gamer, but there are limits.

Still, I like being annoying more than enough for this deck right here. As you've all seen, I'm a big fan of the Bring Your Own Two Team format, as I love team-up decks and I love not having to worry about hitting team-ups. Of course, there are downsides, and these two teams certainly highlight those downsides. The Spider-Friends have been a powerful team for a couple years now, but that's far more thanks to the suite of Spider-Man support cards, most notably Gift Wrapped, and their normal, team-stamped effects are generally fairly dull. Meanwhile, X-Factor, a team I had high hopes for in MEV is virtually unplayable on a budget, having only 3 non-rare support cards (1 of which is a team-up) and, in their rare support cards, 6 of them are legend stamped.

This brings up a fair question: why on Earth build Spider-Friends with X-Factor if their support suite is so lacking? Well, I'm just gonna print out a few card effects really quickly, and I'll let you take it from there...

Rictor, Depowered
2
Team: X-Factor, Purifiers
ATK: 2
DEF: 3
[Activate] -> Gain 1 endurance for each character in play with an activated ([activate]) power.

Siryn, Sonic Scream
4
Team: X-Factor, X-Men
Flight
Ranged
ATK: 7
DEF: 8
Whenever a character's activated ([activate]) power is used, target opponent loses 1 endurance.

Madame Web, Cassandra Webb
3
Team: Spider-Friends
ATK: 3
DEF: 1
Whenever an activated power of a Spider-Friends character you control is used, gain 2 endurance.
Activate -> Look at the top two cards of target player's deck. You may put those cards into that player's KO'd pile or on the top of his deck in any order.

Fun and Games
To play, discard a Spider-Friends character card.
Ongoing: Characters have "Activate -> Negate target activated effect an opponent controls."

(taken from docx's excellent search engine)

*

Do you see how things might play out in an interesting manner?

*

8x Multiple Man, Army * HYDRA
2x Layla Miller, Butterfly
3x Rictor, Depowered
7x Jamie Madrox <> Multiple Man, Army * Agent of SHIELD
3x Beast, Wild and Wooly
4x Madame Web, Cassandra Web
3x Siryn, Sonic Scream
1x Strong Guy, Guido Carosella

4x Empire State University
4x Falls Edge
3x ESU Science Lab

4x Spider-Sense Tingling
3x Tragic Loss
3x Nice Try!
4x Fun and Games
4x First Class

Yes, every single character in your deck either has a worthwhile activated power or interacts with activated effects, and more than that, for those that don't already have one, Fun and Games grants an Activate power to all characters in play, yours and those of your opponents. Thankfully, with the swarm abilities of Multiple Man, you'll likely win any Activation war you get into, and Siryn will make an opponent think twice about even trying to get into such a battle.

Just in case you can't burn your opponent to death, though, you have that single copy of Strong Guy available, and when your whole board can Activate, Strong Guy can get big, fast.

The remainder of the effects you have are geared towards keeping yourself alive. Spider-Sense Tingling can keep some extra characters around - Multiple Men can be made invulnerable already, so making them evadable means your board can keep fair size, especially with Falls Edge helping you out every turn and an occasional First Class. The loss of Birthing Chamber hurts, but Empire State University and ESU Science Lab step up admirably - and ESU Science Lab really, REALLY likes Energize.

So, there you have it. Untested and unpolished, as all my decks are, but I hope you've enjoyed. The interactions between the two teams mean that you'll be gaining a not-insignificant amount of life while your opponent loses it slowly, and with a little fine-tuning, this could be a pretty potent deck. Not for tier 1 play, I suspect... but for annoying your friends? Hell yes.

MEV Preview: Kid Omega

Have any of you ever felt the bracing sting of rejection? I’m sure you have – most people do, at some point in their lives. It can be a pretty powerful feeling.

Kid Omega, the name chosen by mutant Quentin Quire, is a telepath who thinks thousands of brilliant thoughts ever second of every day. Naturally, he went insane. But while he was insane, he was still motivated by emotions that we can all understand – and I think that, for Quire, the defining feeling is one of rejection.



Rejected by the world at large for being born different, Quire lashed out. Rejected by the ‘cool’ kids at school, Quire proved that he was better. But, in the way of young men, he just couldn’t defeat rejection at the hands of the girl(s) of his dreams, and it was their disapproval that ultimately destroyed him, literally and metaphorically.

Quire is one of the few Omega level mutants, and it’s probably best for the world that he can no longer influence us, having moved somehow beyond our plane of existence – though, of course, in comics, who knows how long such a person will stay dead? – but we aren’t half so lucky in VS as Quire makes his debut as an unaffiliated common 7-drop.

Now, hold on, hold on, I know what you’re saying. “Oh… so you mean, ‘Quire makes his debut as a card that will never see play’?”

No, that’s not at all what I mean.

Here. I’ll prove it to you.



How do you like them apples.

Much like in the comics, Quire is on his own team – it’s not a matter of Magneto or Xavier being right so much as it is a matter of Quire knowing best. He neither wants nor needs your support. And if he’s powerful while in play, a 16/16 7-drop with range, he’s best when influencing the game from behind the scenes.

Once you get 5 Shift counters on young Kid Omega, your opponent starts to feel the hurt, drawing one fewer card each turn - and while that may not seem like a lot, in decks like the Future Foes, already making opponents discard, Quire could navigate opponents into a situation where they have to choose between laying a resource and playing a character. So, against decks that lack card draw, that would definitely qualify as a kiss of death. Good thing his power comes with the hefty cost of 5 resource points, huh?

Quire is an excellent tool in a variety of decks, offering a powerful boardwide effect that can’t be hit by today’s most popular effects – like Pathetic Attempt, to immediately call out the first thing out of some people's mouths on every single preview. And while unaffiliated characters have traditionally been able to have significantly more power thanks to the lack of search effects for them, the introduction of cards like Super Hero Registration Act allows you to search Quire out starting as early as turn 3 to get him online. Still, for an effect as powerful as the one offered here, I think that there are definitely some decks that would consider using Kid Omega as their mulligan condition, even considering his variety of limitations.

If you're at all interested in this twisted teen genius, Grant Morrison's New X-Men is the definitive X-Men run of all time, for my money, and well worth a read.

If you're just interested in reading a quick history of Quentin Quire, though, I kindly provide.

Part 1
Part 2

Hope you've enjoyed the previews - I know I have!

MEV Preview: Karolina Dean

By now, of course, you’ve all seen the fantastic Runaways previews over at the VS System facebook page. From those two powerful cards, Old Lace and Victor Mancha, you can clearly see what the Runaways are all about.

Decking.

When was the last time VS had a good decking team? The Secret Society of DJL had a fair bit of it, but were generally more powerful when they tore their own deck apart. Michael Barnes made a dedicated discard deck way back when, teaming up Secret Society, Injustice Gang, and Underworld, as well as a number of others, but despite how hard some players might have tried to pull off an Emperor Joker win, it’s always remained relatively elusive.

Blessedly, no more. The Runaways seem to have a powerful core- Victor can tear through an opponent’s deck with alarming rapidity all the way until we arrive at Old Lace, a classy alternate win condition.

Today, I’m going to introduce you to another Runaways standby, Karolina Dean, also known as…Lucy in the Sky.



Karolina Dean offers a solid alternative to Victor (especially for those who build on a budget...like me) while also definitely complementing him. She’s a respectable under-drop, thanks to her ability. Your opponent knows that, if they swing down-curve into her, there’s a fair chance that they’re getting stunned back, thanks to her persistent DEF-lowering ability, and she makes DEF pumps on your opponent’s behalf a risky proposition, as her ability makes her a permanent attack pump just waiting for an opponent to try you.

The logical problem is, of course, the fact that Karolina Dean is a 4/5 3-drop – all your opponent needs to do is swing their 3 into her, and leave their 4 free to wreck your board, a problem compounded by a need to underdrop if you want her and Victor out at the same time. Thanks to flight and range, however, that’s less of a worry – she can be shoved into the back row so that you can guarantee to make the best of each turn, whether that involves attacking with her or letting her ability fire.



Of course, if you don’t want to underdrop, Victor is obviously your best bet on 3 in a dedicated deck destruction theme, and Karolina adds the always risky prospect of introducing a little too much luck into your game. After all, you could hit a low-drop they no longer need, giving you a minimal pump and filtering their deck of chaff. Karolina, however, has one specific area in which she shines.

Sealed play.

Karolina Dean is a 4/5 3-drop with flight and range – already a decent body, she adds a persistent attack pump to your sealed deck. And while you might not see Victor and Old Lace in your packs, chances are fair that Karolina will pop up. Milling a single card of a sixty card deck is notably less impressive than milling a single card of a thirty card deck, and when you add on to that the fact that she can lower the DEF of an opposing character every turn, she becomes a solid play, on or off team.

VS: Bring Your Own Two Teams - Avengers/Squadron Supreme Edition

Most of you know by now my fascination with the Avengers team-attack theme, and my desperate wish that they had gotten an effect reminiscent of Legendary Battles and of Playroom in MUN, especially now that my favorite theme is trapped in the hellish limbo known as Golden Age play. You also know that, after BYOTT was announced, they were the first deck I built and presented to you all.

Now, I was planning on doing a segment today trying to utilize Warworld for the BYOTT format, but the deck I had built just wasn't doing it for me. That isn't to say that it wasn't good - most of the decks I present to you are average, more theory than gameplay. It just wasn't satisfying enough, I suppose.

However, while combing through the cards that I thought I would enjoy using Warworld with, I began to look at Squadron Supreme. Squad was the first 'competitive' deck I ever built, and by that, I mean it was the first deck that my friends essentially gave me, with the sage advice to "Stop playing that frankly embarrassing Kang Lords X concoction and try and win a freaking game." They quickly came to regret this act of charity.

But we all know that the Squad No-Hand theme could be explosive. And I'm sure that most of you were aware that Squad had another theme. "Yes," I hear you say. "They had the No-Hand theme, and they had a theme that involved getting rid of the cards in their hand, right?"

"No," I say to you, "but verily didst they have a theme in which they did absolutely no breakthrough for any reason. And I do not know why."

One of the most potent cards this theme brought us was called Project Utopia, and it reads as follows....

Project Utopia
3
Choose a Squadron Supreme character you control.
Ongoing: Whenever the chosen character stuns a defender, that defender's controller loses 4 endurance.

Whenever the chosen character causes breakthrough, KO it.

Well, when I saw this card during the building of my Warworld deck, I certainly went, "...Quicksilver!" and thus was this deck born.

PROJECT UTOPIA
4x Jarvis, Honorary Avenger
2x Rick Jones, Hero’s Best Friend
2x Speed, Thomas Shepard * Young Avenger
2x Doctor Decibel, Anton Decibel

4x Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
2x Wasp, Janet Van Dyne-Pym
2x Captain America, The Patior * Secret Avenger

4x Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
2x Patriot, Elijah Bradley * Young Avenger
2x Lady Lark, Skylark
1x Black Panther, T’challa

2x Amphibian, Kingsley Rice

1x Wolverine, Secret Avenger

4x Playroom
4x Utopia Isle

4x Project Utopia
4x Legendary Battles
4x Reckless Youth
4x Switching Sides
4x Liberating Number 42

Do you remember when I extolled with great verbosity the virtues of Playroom, one of the key cards of the Avengers team attack strategy? It was a few weeks back, and I told you it totally rocked. It wasn't a subtle card, but that 4 damage could add up right quick with Quicksilver.

Well, with further thought, Project Utopia means that it can REALLY add up something fierce. A single Project Utopia, naming Quicksilver, means that every team attack stun he gets nets you over 8 points of endurance stun loss. Assuming they have a 2, a 3, and a 4 on turn four, and you have a Playroom and a Project Utopia, that's 34 damage. Imagine if you were playing against an off-curve deck? And, of course, you can have multiple Project Utopia's out at the same time....

There is, though, a drawback to Project Utopia. One of the best things about Quicksilver is that, after the board is clear, he can attack directly. Yes, you're gaining a significant amount of damage, but is it worth losing that pumpable direct attack? I think it definitely is...but just in case, I threw in Switching Sides. After Quicksilver demolishes your opponent's board, he can make nice with their highest drop and invite them over for tea. If you played a Legendary Battles that turn, that leaves you with 0 stunned characters, a massive endurance swing, and your opponent's highest drop.

Just to play it safe, however, I added a card called Utopia Isle, which reads as such...

Utopia Isle
2
To flip, exhaust two Squadron Supreme characters you control.
Whenever an attacker causes breakthrough while attacking a character, that attacker's controller loses 3 endurance.

You won't be causing my breakthrough on your attacks, but your opponents very well could be, and a fast-enough deck could outrush you. With this, though, even when they're hitting you as hard as they can, you're hitting back.

As always, I'm not entirely satisfied with the character selection - Quicksilver and Natasha are perfect, and it's my personal belief that Wolverine is the perfect finisher for the deck. He and Quicksilver can team into their last remaining character with a Legendary Battles, causing 13 damage and then letting Wolverine ready for a direct swing. Jarvis is nice, thanks to the lack of search (and no, I can't afford Avengers Reassembled), and Amphibian offers you a nice option just in case you don't want to underdrop on 4, as he can bring you back a plot twist you really need.

I would also seriously think about making room for AIDA, to prevent an opponent from exhaust Quicksilver before he can attack. You need Quicksilver to be free to attack, and AIDA helps guarantee that.

Still, the deck looks to be pretty fun, a slightly riskier but notably faster version of my X-Men/Avengers team attack deck. Hope you all enjoyed, and I'll see you all again soon!

VS: Bring Your Own Two Teams - Revenge Squad/League of Assassins Edition

When I first got into VS, I rarely, if ever, built competent decks. It’s nice to see that some things never change, huh? Yeah, you know!

*ahem*

Anyways, I wasn’t a good enough player or a good enough deck-builder to delve too deeply into strategy, but I thoroughly enjoyed one particular set of articles on Metagame.com – Breaking Ground. And one of my favorite articles over there introduced me to Plague Counters, a little-used League of Assassins theme that encompasses all of three cards in the entirety of the game.

Of course, that deck’s creation was back before the Revenge Squad was refeatured, giving them a single, massive bonus to the deck: Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin, Power Suit.

For those unfamiliar with Clench Virus, it’s a 3-cost plot twist that reads thus:

Play only if you control a League of Assassins character.
Ongoing: At the start of your attack step, put a plague counter on target character.
Whenever a character receives a plague counter, if that character has a number of plague counters greater than its cost, KO that character.

Not too shabby, huh? Of course, there’s a simple problem – just one of these isn’t going to do much. Two will obviously do more, but what you really want is 3-4 of them in your row. Three-four of them in a row can start knocking off characters every 1-2 turns, especially when combined with Poisoned!, a minor pump that’ll also give a plague counter.

So, here goes a modern take…

Plague Rats

4x Winslow Schott <> Toyman, Child’s Play

4x Terra-Man, Toby Manning
4x Atomic Skull, Joe Martin

4x Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin, Power Suit
3x The Mad Dog, Rabid Killer

4x Maxima, Empress of Almerac
2x Metallo, Kryptonite Heart

2x Talia, Daughter of Madness

2x Satanus, Evil Incarnate

4x Mountain Stronghold, Non-Unique

4x Tower of Babel
4x Poisoned!
4x Clench Virus
4x Executive Privilege
4x Never-Ending Battle
2x Hostage Situation
1x State of the Union
3x Death of Superman

So, there’s the game. The obvious stuff first – you want as many Clench Viruses in your row as you can get. Hostage Situation isn’t bad, and Executive Privilege is great, but you want some Clench Virus action going as soon as possible. Your mulligan is a Mountain Stronghold or Emil Hamilton, though obviously Clench Virus or Executive Privilege can be tough to pass up.

The deck plays exactly as you’d think it would. You keep their board clear using plague counters, refresh Poisoned when you need to with Winslow Schott. Terra Man, Atomic Skull, and Winslow Schott can all be played for free thanks to Talia, while Executive Privilege and Mountain Stronghold will both beef up your search and offer discards to her ability. Hostage Situation gives those low-drops something to do just in case, while Never-Ending Battle lets you push through the damage you need to on their diminishing board (with help from Death of Superman) to try and end things. Only bring out Satanus if you have initiative on 6 and you know you can't kill - a team attack into their 6 will net you a vastly superior position on 7, and your board will only keep improving.

Meanwhile, if you’re playing against Darkseid’s Elite or some other team that will fool around with your resource row, a single stun on Emil can send him scurrying for a copy of State of the Union, which will prevent opponents from targeting your row. And, finally, Tower of Babel proves to be one of the ultimate utility cards in the Bring Your Own Two-Team format, preventing a vast variety of support abilities – no legend support and no generic cards make Tower of Babel particularly nasty.

That’s all for tonight, but I’ll be back in a day or two with more fun stuff. Hope you had a good weekend!

VS: Bring Your Own Two Teams - Crime Lords/JLI Edition

The Family. A criminal organization. If it gets big enough, if you get deep enough, it could be like a family. Really, anything can be like a family. A small super-team, no matter how ineffectual and goofy, could be like a family. It was, for the JLI. And the Crime Lords, like any good fictional criminal gang, places a lot of emphasis on family, on loyalty.

If you read the VS segments of my blog, you know that one of the teams that, for some inexplicable reason, I've always been quite fond of is Marvel's Crime Lords. For a long time considered one of the worst teams in the game, I loved them nonetheless, and it's always a pleasure to be able to build a Crime Lords deck utilizing old, and with MUN, new cards together.

Another team I've been fond of, though I neither discuss nor make use of them often, is the JLI. A team of goof-off super-heroes having bizarre adventures more suited to sit-com than spandex, the JLI offered an intriguing mix of comedy and drama in the comics, and so they are one of many teams that I'm desperately glad to see in VS.

In the newest Bring Your Own Two Teams format, you get to pick two teams, Golden Age, and you don't have to run a team-up. On the other hand, though, you flat-out can't run any generic cards. Almost every single type of deck in existence loses a lot from this. Savage Beatdown, Mobilize, Birthing Chambers - these are important, powerful cards, and we can't use them. So, you build around it.

The JLI offer two things to the Crime Lords in the way of characters - Martian Manhunter, a board-reinforcement guy on a team that enjoys reinforcement, and Animal Man, a character who gets bigger whenever he enters combat. They also offer effects that will allow Animal Man multiple safe attacks in a turn in Safety in Numbers, and full-on attack negation in Running Interference.

Meanwhile, the Crime Lords offer you Underground Laboratory, a brutally efficient card-draw engine (I wonder if Checkmate could do anything with that...?), a way to make Animal Man your defender whenever you want in Armed Escort, and one of the best defense pumps available in Drive-By Shooting. They also offer a low-cost army character that recovers characters and has range. These things, they are very nice.

So, once again, I present to you - a deck using pet teams and themes that are vastly enhanced by the lack of a team-up needed! Woohoo! I can literally smell your thrill from over here.

6x The Hand, Army * HYDRA
8x AIM Agents, Army * AIM
4x Sue Dibny, Charismatic Coordinator


4x Sin, Synthia Schmidt * RAID
2x Arnim Zola, The Bio-Fanatic * RAID

4x Animal Man, Buddy Baker

3x Martian Manhunter, Founding Member

1x The Sleeper, Doomsday Device * RAID

4x Armed Escort

4x Underground Laboratory

4x Drive-By Shooting
4x UN General Assembly
4x Good Night, Sweet Prince
4x Running Interference
4x Safety in Numbers

And that's that. Obviously, you want Animal Man out on 4 or 5. On or off initiative doesn't matter - he's an extremely efficient 4-drop, nothing more, and one that allows you to under-drop in later turns without penalizing yourself in available ATK/DEF. Martian Manhunter means each and every single one of those army guys are going to be reinforced and a simple exhaust will equal crazy card-draw, while the recovery ability of The Hand, and the ability of Sin, will allow you to negate attacks on Animal Man with Running Interference. Arnim Zola can turn otherwise dead army-characters into a 4-point swing each turn, and when The Sleeper comes down, that should be all she wrote.

I hope you've enjoyed yourself. It could definitely use some tweaking from a more experienced deck-builder, but the deck is certainly fun. I've got a few more decks I'm playing with in my head right now, for future use, and coming up pretty soon we'll see the blog expand into discussion of a few fiction authors some of you might just get a kick out of, as well as the usual rigamarole of my own personal blatherings.

Hope the weekend was great, and enjoy the semi-holiday tomorrow!

VS: Bring Your Own Two Teams - Avengers/X-Men Edition

Whenever a new format comes out, I end up hoping and praying that it’ll let me play with my single favorite sub-theme of all time – Avengers team-attack. I know that the Avengers part isn’t part of the theme, but I still find that the Avengers in MAV are the most fun, competitive team-attackers ever made. Much as I love the Young Avengers content in MUN, the lack of effects like Legendary Battles, Playroom, Quicksilver, and Natasha make it so that they can’t quite hold a candle.
They are, however, an excellent addition, because aside from those four cards, the old Avengers lacked strong team-attack based characters like Patriot, Speed, and Vision, and effects like Liberating Number 42 provide a frankly brutal amount of potential card draw.

Of course, the most recent announced format is Bring Your Own Two Team, a golden age format that automatically teams up two teams of your choice, but bans generic cards of any sort, like most of the most popular, powerful cards: Mobilize, Savage Beatdown, Blinding Rage, etc…. It also, I believe, bans Legendary cards, unless they also reference one of your two team affiliations.

Since the format’s Golden Age, a format that I often find less than appealing, it allows me access to my old Avengers team-attack core. And since it automatically teams up, I don’t have to worry nearly as much about getting a team-up online, opening up roughly 8 slots in the deck.

The X-Men don’t offer a bunch of powerful effects, but they don’t have to – the Avengers pack a powerful punch – but between their three features, they definitely have the tools to fill the holes in the Avengers roster, with powerful team attack centric characters like Cyclops, Slim, and the slightly toned-down functional reprint of Quicksilver in Nightcrawler, Man of the Cloth, not to mention potent plot twists like Time Breach, Bamf!, and Turnabout.

While many of the hardest hitting decks are slowed down slightly in this format thanks to a lack of generics, this deck is vastly enhanced by the format, not needing to worry about getting a team-up online ASAP, and most of the best team-attack support cards have been hard-stamped to a team. Still, I should stop talking up the deck, as I’m sure a more gifted deck-builder could do something far more impressive with the basics, and just give you my amateurish first draft of the deck.

So, without further ado, I present to you…

GABYOTTAXMTA!

4x Jubilee, Jubilation Lee
4x Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
3x Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
3x Captain America, The Patriot * Secret Avenger
1x Falcon, Secret Avenger
1x Hawkeye <> Ronin, Secret Avenger
1x Patriot, Elijah Bradley * Young Avenger
1x Kate Bishop <> Hawkeye, Young Avenger
3x Speed, Thomas Shepard * Young Avenger
3x Cyclops, Slim
3x Nightcrawler, Man of the Cloth
2x Professor X, Idealistic Dreamer
1x Monica Rambeau <> Captain Marvel, Lady of Light

4x Playroom
3x Muir Island

4x Legendary Battles
4x Liberating Number 42
3x Switching Sides
4x Time Breach
4x Bamf!
4x Turnabout

The deck is immensely flexible – Natasha or Slim on 2, Nightcrawler or Quicksilver on 3, or underdrop them later. You want access to Legendary Battles and Bamf! as soon as possible, and Playroom is the most brutal, and necessary, card of them all. Without a ‘once per turn’ trigger, Playroom will kill a weenie deck as early as turn 4 – if they have 5 1-drops and you have Nightcrawler and Quicksilver with a single Legendary Battles, you just dealt 36 damage and lost none...and if you have a Liberating Number 42, you just rallied for 10 character cards as well. Even against a curve deck, the damage adds up quickly, and the sheer number of ways you can hit the opponent can make it difficult to lock down.

So, there’s my first BYOTT.ga deck. I hope you enjoyed, and I’ll be back in a day or two with a new update.

Coming Soon to a Blog Near You

Recent troubles with Verizon have forced me to cut back a tad on my Internet use, but I'm working through that right now as best I can, and thought I'd keep you all apprised of the situation. Meanwhile, not a huge update today, as I'll largely be job hunting, homework doing, working on a new story, scripting a comic, and reading - a fairly busy day. Still, I thought I'd give a list of what's to come on the Seventh Soldier of Apathy this month, beginning, in all likelihood, tomorrow, and in no particular order whatsoever.

On top of the occasional Clone Wars deck list, I'll be branching out and embracing the current Bring Your Own Two Teams format with a few strange deck lists.

Another 'The Best Books You Aren't Reading' or two, and a few extra comics related posts. On top of that, I figure I'll branch out even more and continue to flaunt my excellent taste by suggesting some fairly excellent novels in a variety of genres.

Reactions to the beginnings of the MEV previews, since we've now seen a grand total of 5 shockingly solid cards in a set that looks like it'll be a blast.

And finally, at the end of the month, updates on where my stories are submitted, and whether they've been rejected or accepted.

So, that's that. Another month on my blog as we come up on my one year anniversary. To my loyal reader in New York City, the one I think I have in Chicago, and another one I'm kind of confident about in mid-Ohio - I hope you have an excellent month, I hope you stick around, and if you have any sort of feedback on the kind of things you'd like to see more - or less! - of, feel free to let me know.

A Brief Moment of Fanboyishness: MEV

'The' Ben Seck recently made a huge announcement on VSrealms earlier today. While there's a lot of goodies in there, there are three things that I wanted to focus on in this, my moment of fanboyishness.

1) I get a preview.
This is particularly exciting to me, as you might imagine. Seeing one or two cards ahead of time, writing up something, keeping mum on the Realms, it's all very exciting. Especially when I have such goodies to pick from...

2) Multiple Man Legends!
First off, let me just say that if you haven't read any of Peter David's current 'X-Factor' or his 'Madrox' mini, you're doing yourself a disservice. X-Factor has great art, interesting characters, bizarre plots - it has a whole lot going for it, thanks to Peter David.

It is, in fact, because of the current run on X-Factor that I'm such a fan of Jamie Madrox, the Multiple Man. While he had once been a D-lister (at best), David revamped the character slightly, with a few more noir stylings and a interesting spin on his powers. Previously, he had just used his 'dupes' - multiples of himself, hence the name - as cannon fodder to toss at baddies, and, of course, as a get out of death free card from the writers.

PAD changed that, remembering that when he reabsorbed his dupes, he reabsorbed their memories, too. Madrox began to send dupes all over the world to learn things, and then reabsorbed them later, acquiring a considerable amount of knowledge. Of course, this wasn't without a price - when someone can make every choice, take every path, what's there to be excited of? Dupes began to pop up who were aspects of his repressed emotions - some were suicidal, some were sweet, some were mean, some wanted to sleep with any and every teammate. Dealing with these problems breathed new life into the character, and it's exciting to see him (and hopefully his current team, Layla Miller included) get some more content in the game.

3) Runaways!
Every Marvel set, I've hopes and wished that the Runaways would finally get some content. After all, they're one of the few successful 'new' properties in mainstream comics. They're onto their second volume, have gone through a number of line-ups, have been a part of every major event in the last three or so years at Marvel. And yet, no Runaways...until now.

As I did for the Young Avengers, I'll try and provide some brief character profiles, maybe a few images, in preparation for their arrival onto the sweet shores of VS. Be excited. Not for my rundowns, I mean, but for their inclusion. That's the awesome bit.

4) I GET TO DO A PREVIEW.
Thanks.

Alright. It's time to get some work done, but this was definitely some exciting news to end the night on.

Preview Season Begins!

-the facebook group

After months of silence, we apparently have our first MEV Preview, courtesy of the VS System facebook group, and given with the additional note that previews will begin in two short weeks. The preview's definitely a solid, insanely versatile card for the Skrulls - it was almost certain they'd get some legacy, and I suppose we'll soon find out if they get a full refeature in the set, given Secret Invasion. Whatever - I'm definitely looking forward to the beginnings of preview season!

Head on over to VSRealms to join the discussion!

Pre-MEV Hint Review

With previews coming up, we already know a number of teams that are likely to appear, but what do you really want to see from the set? Are you dying for Madrox, Layla, and the good folks at X-Factor Investigations - or do your tastes run a little more old-school? Runaways or Power Pack for the 'teen guest stars' that have been mentioned? And teams aren't they telling us about...?

In fact, you know, let's go do a quick rundown of some rumors dropped by UDE in the past months on MEV. They've been pretty tight-lipped, first discussing the MUN release, and then going completely under the radar for about 4 months. Still, they do love to drop hints, and so we do have something to work with.

First off...

"Just to let you guys know, X-Men will not be a major refeature of this set, nor will Brotherhood. Each of these teams will appear as part of Dual Affiliation and such, but the main teams will be new."
-TBS

Well, unless this has changed, this is kind of interesting. Only a year or two ago, they seemed to be going in the complete other direction, getting rid of the 'infinite color wheel'. And, let's face it, teams like X-Force, X-Factor, the Marauders, etc... aren't exactly big draws. The storylines the set is based on are, though, and it'll be nice to see if they can repeat the magic from Infinite Crisis - a respectable set that doesn't focus on the same four teams and get some of the lesser-knowns into the game.

"YAUS!!! vindicated!!!
i knew there was at least one dude out there who'd like some Liefeld art in Versus!"
-TBZ

...it looks like we could only go so long before we, too, were tainted by Rob Liefeld.

In response to my guess that the Sentinels may get a small refeature...

"didn't Bastion just pop up in X-Force? hmmm..."
-TBZ

While a confirmation of absolutely nothing, this seems to lend to the guess that we'll definitely be seeing some Sentinels in the set - if not a full refeature, then at least enough of one to use the frequent Sentinels characters that have popped up in the last few years. Or, this could just be his way of saying that we'll get one or two Sentinels in this set, too, and Bastion'll be one of 'em.

"contrary to what has been put out in the marketing packet, which was based on extremely early plans, House of M will not play a major role in Marvel Evolution"
-TBZ

Sadly, this makes it less likely that I'll see Layla as a major presence on X-Factor, and this makes me sad. Though, other than Peter David stealing Layla, HoM was really pretty bad, so this decision makes me pretty happy.

In reference to a question about Weapon Plus...

"all i can say is "be patient" and "all good things come to those who wait." right now, we've only announced 3 of the 5 main teams in the set. there's also the mini teams and the--"
-TBZ

Oh, TBZ, you tease. So, X-Factor, the Marauders, and X-Force are only three of the 5 main teams - who might the others be? Sentinels? Shi'ar? The Runaways have been strongly hinted at as the 'teen guest stars' and one of the mini-teams of the set, and what else could he have meant after the 'the--'? Or maybe the teen guest stars will be the New X-Men (not Morrison's awesome ones, the other ones)? The Acolytes, Purifiers, and Reavers are possibilities, I suppose, given their import to the story - the Purifiers especially. Perhaps the Purifiers and the Sentinels will be mashed into a single team? And Weapon X via Predator X? They seem likely, given that they already received a mini-team treatment recently, and TBZ appears to be a fan of the whole Weapon Plus idea. And the Exiles have been hinted at...

So, we know there are 5 main teams. We know that Gambit, Cyclops, Deadpool, and Cable are all getting some Legend treatment. We know X-Factor, X-Force, and Sinister's Marauders are three of the five main teams, and while Gambit and Cyclops fit neatly on there, Cable and Deadpool don't. Cable could be on his own, but Deadpool hints at an extended Weapon X roster. Sentinels are almost guaranteed to see some content, and the Runaways and Exiles both seem quite likely as mini-teams. House of M will play a minor role, and X-Men and Brotherhood won't be core teams here.

If I had to guess...and I do, because I'm bored...

X-Factor
X-Force
Marauders
Weapon X
Sentinels

will be the main teams, followed by

Exiles
Runaways
Shi'ar

as the mini-teams. Not the most intriguing line-up to me, but UDE has a track-record of making exciting sets regardless of how little I care about the teams involved. I'm really hoping they don't follow the trend of picking the versions of each team I care least about and give me some serious Madrox/Layla-era X-Factor content, and we see characters who are long overdue, like Fantomex and the Stepford Cuckoos. I hope the Liefeld art is kept to a minimum, while we get at least a few Quitely pieces. I hope that the Runaways will be playable by themselves. Mostly, I hope previews start soon!

What are you guys hoping to see fill those empty slots?

VS: The Clone Wars - Zazzala Edition

The more often I think about the Clone Saga format that is probably over right now, the more I like it. As always, there will definitely be people who just spam a Legend or two, and that's fine - they'll beat the ever living piss out of me, seven or eight times out of ten. Then there are the people who are genuinely skilled deckbuilders and VS players, and they'll tear me apart ten times out of ten. But, when there's no one to play with in your area, you begin to build bizarre, fun decks that may never see the light of day, but which are still insanely fun.

So, the Clone Saga format may be done and over with for you 'real players' out there, who 'know the rules' and 'build real decks'. But for the rest of me, it's still a magnificently fun format with a lot of promise. For example...

The Clone Queens
4x Maria Hill, Deputy Commander of SHIELD
3x Cheetah, Feral Feline
4x Zazzala <> Queen Bee, Mistress of the Hive
4x The Calculator, Noah Cutler
15x SHIELD Agents, Army

3x Birthing Chamber

4x Origin Story
4x Baddest of the Bad
4x Coercion, Team-Up
3x Secret War, Team-Up
4x STAR Squad
4x You're Under Arrest
4x Death Trap

The deck is pretty simple. If one Zazzala can brutalize an opponent, how about 2? Or 3? And what happens when you combine them with the SHIELD Agents, who burn on entering play? In a single turn, say...turn 4, with two Zazzala's and a single SHIELD Agent, you can burn for 2 when the Agent comes in, then during the combat phase, play STAR Squad, burn for 4 when he leaves...and put another into play for free. At the cost of no board presence at all and a single card, you've dealt 8 damage. Origin Story and Baddest of the Bad, even Secret War become painful burn effects that also help you out.

Simple, but it seems pretty efficient, and also VERY cost-effective. I'll try and do some test draws with it, let you know how it plays out, but if any of you ever get to play VU/SHIELD and it's similar to this, let me know how it plays. The idea's probably been done a hundred times before, but...uhh...this time, it was done by me, so it was done in a more slapdash, sloppy manner.

And that's a good thing?

Sharing the Good News: MEV Announcement

For any of the VS player that reads my blog and no other, that one guy from somewhere in the middle of Ohio, or past VS player who is uncertain about the future of the game, I have a public service announcement

Two announcements, actually, from Lost Hemisphere, the crazy blog that's actually posting you know...updates. About things...

http://losthemisphere.wordpress.com/2008/09/17/special-bulletin/

http://losthemisphere.wordpress.com/2008/09/18/calling-all-vs-bloggers/

If you don't want to read the blog, then, I can break it down for you. We're only a few weeks away from beginning a new Preview season, this time for MEV, so everyone curious about that, uhh...stop...being curious...? Also of note, shortly after the beginning of preview season, we'll be given an announcement on VS. I don't know what on, exactly. I am not from the future.

I think that needs some clarification. There has been some concern, I suppose, that perhaps I was from the future. That I know things about you that I have no earthly reason to know. That I make unholy predictions.

Let the records ring true - I am from...now, I guess? Now? I wasn't born now. I'm from 1985, I suppose, but I don't want anyone to think that I, y'know, support the '80's. I endorse the '80's in no way.

I'm glad I've cleared that up.

So, to review...

1) Preview season! It's like Christmas, but over a span of a month or more!
2) MAJOR ANNOUNCEMENT!
3) NOT from the future.

VS: The Clone Wars - Silver Sable Edition

Again with this non-unique thing - I love it! Yeah, there'll be plenty of players who use it to do the obvious and just use it to play 17 copies of Wolverine, and that's kind of boring, if massively effective. However, I like looking at the minor characters that are good on their own and asking, "How would they be if you could have two out? Three? Four?" With some, like Barbara Gordon, the answer is - 'eh'. They'd be decent, but not great.

I think this time, though, I've found a character who could potentially rock this format something fierce. So, here's the Silver Sable edition of the Clone Saga format...

CHARACTERS
4x Powell, Southern Charm
3x Speed, Thomas Shephard * Young Avenger
3x Iron Fist, Secret Avenger

4x Captain America, The Patriot * Secret Avenger
3x Iron Fist <> Daredevil, Imposter * Secret Avenger
3x Hawkeye <> Ronin, Secret Avenger

4x Battlestar, Lamar Hoskins
3x Man-Eater, Intruders

4x Silver Sable, World’s Deadliest Mercenary

PLOT TWISTS
3x Bounty Hunt
3x Stealthcraft, Team-Up
3x Shield Slash
4x What Are Friends For?
4x Secret Avengers, Team-Up
4x Mobilize
1x Omnipotence
4x Pathetic Attempt

EQUIPMENT
3x Capture Net

With Secret Avengers, you can cheat Silver Sable's recruit cost, negating the need to hit your Wild Pack 3-drops with Stealthcraft - it helps out with Mobilize, too. Powell can fetch you Bounty Hunt, Stealthcraft, Secret Avengers, or Omnipotence, as needed. Omnipotence is there for the format - you'll be running into a lot of Legends, and Omnipotence can help shut them down, same as Pathetic Attempt.

Shield Slash, I've found, is a great card when you're dropping out multiple hidden two-drop Captain Americas - a single copy can generally net you somewhere between -6 and -12 attack in a given turn, which is more than enough to make up for not having any drop higher than 4. Meanwhile, What Are Friends For? makes attacking Silver Sable a risky proposition at best.

Using Sable's bounce effect and Capture Net, you should be able to clear your opponent's board every single turn, keeping their legend count low and negating many of the benefits of the format, and adding Bounty Hunt to that can give you some brutal card draw - especially if you get multiple copies of it going at once. Adding that to the fact that Capture Net can be used to save a Silver Sable if you absolutely have to.

The deck could use some fine-tuning, but overall it's a fairly effective trick. It's not hard to ensure that you hit Silver Sable, and once you do, it's not difficult to keep things going. I have to help the good people at VSrealms for the suggestions they gave me. Let me know if you ever get to try the deck out, and have a great weekend!

VS: The Clone Wars

So, we finally hear what the next hobby league format is, and it's an interesting one, especially with the popularity of legends in today's environment - the official rules of which read...

This marquee event is the first ever VS System Silver Age Clone Saga event. For this event, players may build any deck legal in Silver age. During the game, the uniqueness rule does not apply to characters when recruiting or substituting.

So, Silver-age legal, no deck restrictions, same ban list as always applies. Still, the lack of uniqueness provides for some interesting deck-building options. Yeah, there are plenty of people who are going to play Darkseid's Elite, Spider-Friends Stall, Wolverine Legends, World's Finest - expect to see ALL the old stand-bys.

That said, in the very first BUILD A LEGEND event, my deck of choice was a golden-age Barbara Gordon legends deck. Batman, Superman, and the MVL legends were too expensive to build. A friend already had Darkseid built. Also, I'm a big fan of Barbara Gordon.

So, let's build a Barbara Gordon deck for the Clone Saga!

Characters
2x Shadowcat, Phase Shifter
2x Vixen, Tantu Totem
2x Ray Palmer <> The Atom, Tiny Titan
1x Catwoman, Cat 'O Nine Tails
2x The Shade, Ageless Enigma
2x Shadow-Thief, Umbral Burglar
5x Surveillance Pawn, Army
4x Tattooed Man, Art Imitates Life
1x Lady Blackhawk, Zinda Blake

1x Deadpool, Interminable Terminator
1x Captain Boomerang, George Harkness
1x Lieutenant Kona Lor, Lunatic Legion
1x Superwoman, Earth 3
2x Huntress, Vicious Vigilante
1x Krypto, Guard Dog of El
1x Bart Allen <> Kid Flash, Heir to the Mantle

1x Jason Todd <> Red Hood, Revived
1x Owlman, Earth 3
1x Black Manta, Deepwater Denizen
4x Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin,
4x Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite

Plot Twists
4x Secret Files
4x Superhuman Registration Act, Team-Up
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Blinding Rage
4x Big Leagues

Okay...

Now, this was just tossed off right here. It could use some refinement - a LOT of refinement - still, it's an insane concept that generally works out to being pretty fun. You want to hit Emil Hamilton by turn 3, to throw a Superhuman Registration Act in your row. After that, you want to get rid of him in favor of Barbara. You can keep dropping characters like Owlman, Black Manta, or Jason Todd on turns when they'd be helpful, then subbing them out for Barbara.

Registration Act is great for flooding the field, but you also need card draw. You need to hit your attack pumps if you want to kill - and when Barbara Gordon isn't unique...well, you could be drawing a lot of cards. With Tattooed Man non-unique, you could be playing a lot of those extra 1-drops. Surveillance Pawn, with this much flood, could end up being a pretty huge bump.

It's a simple deck, and I plan on playing around with it a little bit, but even if it was absolutely terrible (okay, it might be bad, but even if it was absolutely unfun, I meant) - it fulfills my goals to make sure that Barbara Gordon is awesome in every format of every game of VS played. Dammit.

Under the Sea

Theme decks. I love theme decks. I like the idea of the World's Finest deck. I like watching Magneto blow up his own resources in his insane quest to destroy us all. I enjoy the thematic aspects of VS almost as much as I enjoy the system of rules, the ideas behind the game. Hence...UNDER THE SEA, the fearsome team-up of two old-school comic characters: Aquaman and Namor, the Sub-Mariner.

10 Atlantean Warriors, Army
10 Sea Creatures, Army
4 Aquaman, Founding Member
2 Aquaman, Lord of Atlantis
4 Sub-Mariner, Protector of the Time Gem
2 Sub-Mariner, The Avenging Son

3x Poseidonis
3x Atlantis
3x Birthing Chamber
3x Alias Investigations

4x Super-Hero Registration Act, Team-Up
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Origin Story
4x Carrying the Torch
4x Mobilize

Thanks to the good people on VSRealms for helping me clean the deck up a bit - army decks aren't normally my thing. Still, I enjoy this deck. The Marvel and DC kings of the seas, their armies in tow, swarm the field to take the game.

The way it works. Well, Carrying the Torch means that you only have to hit one of the two characters in order to get access to BOTH their legend suites. Sea Creatures can be swarmed out on turn 4, rather than 5, and you can keep Sub-Mariner hidden with the Aquaman name. Origin Story might be the best search card of all time for an army deck, letting you return a stunned character to search for another army character for the next turn. SHRA helps with the swarm, and the team-up, and is an all-around great card. If you can, you want to pitch an Aquaman to Mobilize on 3 to find you a Sub-Mariner if you have Atlantean Soldiers out, or just to find more Atlantean Soldiers if you already have Sub-Mariner, just to get Aquaman in your KO'd pile for CtT.

The deck isn't particularly brutal, especially for a Modern Age army deck, but it is fun, and it is reliable. Play around with it on MWS.

Secret Six Victorious!

I love alternate win conditions. I love them - but I'm bad at them. It's exceedingly rare for me to successfully win by anything other than beating the crap out of my noble opponent, but I will never stop trying. And while alternate wins have become less popular (the last two I remember are Darkside (8) and Captain Marvel (8)), one of the coolest alternate wins of all time is still, for a very short time, silver age legal: Secret Six Victorious.

Now, I've been thoroughly enjoying playing around with the MUN cards that I have. Unfortunately, having a Mac makes it difficult to play a deck if I don't own all the pieces of it, since neither MWS or OCTGN are Mac-compatible, and so there are decks I might want to build (Any MUN Legend deck?) that are sadly beyond my ability.

That said, it's never stopped me from goofing around with decks. So here's my attempt to win a Secret Six Victorious victory, on turn 6. My ridiculous jank attempt.

Characters
1
4x Mad Hatter

2
4x Deadshot, Dead Aim
4x Professor X, Idealistic Dreamer
4x Namorita, Atlantean Princess

3
3x Catman, Thomas Blake
4x Parademon, Apokaliptian Ally
4x Hal Jordan, Founding Member

4
4x Ragdoll, Resilient Rogue

7
3x Lex Luthor <> Mockingbird

Plot Twists
4x Enemy of my Enemy
4x Recharge!
4x Realm of the Mind
4x My Name Is Peter Parker...
2x Secret Six Victorious
4x Carrying the Torch
4x Origin Story

Okay. You may notice one or two...oddities. Hal Jordan? Namorita? Professor X? What're all y'all doin' here? Well, Hal is actually your 3-drop of choice if you have any Recharges in your row. Chances are, as you play this deck, that you will never attack. Hal only attacks if it's turn 3 AND you have no Recharges.

Ideal game?

Turn 1
Nothing

Turn 2
Professor X

Turn 3
Hal Jordan, exhaust to Recharge. If you have a Realm of the Mind, exhaust Prof X to that. Chances are, you're keeping both characters due to large DEF values. If you absolutely can't keep Prof X, don't be afraid to KO him or return him to hand with Origin Story to thin your deck and get some discard bait.

Turn 4
Ragdoll. You should be drawing 3-cards a turn at this point. If you have another Recharge, feel free to lay it, but you can also lay a My Name Is Peter Parker.... When Ragdoll becomes stunned, you probably want to pitch a Deadshot to recover him, and play the Parademon for free. Then, exhaust Parademon to bring Deadshot in. You went from 1 S6 character to 3 - like magic! With Parademon now on the field, Ragdoll recovering, chances are good that you're going into next turn with some good board position - and they HAVE to stun Professor X if they want to be able to hurt you at all. Thankfully, by now, you should have some My Name Is down. Save who you need to.

Turn 5
Catman + Namorita. Use Hal to fetch Secret Six Victorious and lay it as your resource. If you have a Realm of the Mind, use it. When Ragdoll becomes stunned, pitch Mad Hatter to recover him, putting Hatter in play, then, at the end of the turn, Mockingbird your last character into play and flip SSV for the Turn 6 win. If you're worried about Parademon, put him in front of Ragdoll, so they stun him first, Origin Story him back to hand to search for another one of him, then, when Ragdoll becomes stunned, you can put Parademon back into play, unstunned and with an extra Parademon for discard bait to My Name Is Peter Parker. You should be able to keep all your characters around unless you're playing MKKO or Secret Society, but this was never meant to be a competitive deck, just a fun one.

Carrying the Torch is in there for when you really want to be able to use Realm of the Mind or Recharge, but they've gotten rid of your Hal/Prof X. Remember, Realm can be recurred thanks to Namorita, so you can get some decent mileage out of it.

I hope you've enjoyed. I know there are a lot of interesting ways to pull a Secret Six Victorious win now, though they can't really catch up to the extreme rush that's become so common. Still, if you're looking for a kitchen table deck, give this one a shot and let me know how quickly it falls apart.

Edit #1: Man, is it just me, or does Clash of Worlds make Secret Six Victorious REALLY easy to pull off?
Edit #2: There IS another alternate win available - Xorn's Takeover - , and I'll give it a shot, too, because I love me some alternate win conditions.

Carrying the Torch

These are more brief thoughts that precede an avalanche of bizarre ideas. Just sayin'.

The Legend concept in VS is one we've been familiar with since the beginning of the game, when Dr. Doom subjected his first victims to his Reign of Terror. It wasn't until Marvel Legends, however, that the mechanic became commonplace, as we began to see anyone who'd ever been in a movie achieve legendary status (Ghost Rider? Really?) and get the support suite of kings.

It was a great idea for making some interesting decks to be built, but it was still an extraordinarily limited idea. In general, if you wanted to pull off the effect, you had to have the proper character in play. If you wanted to use Full Throttle, you needed a Flash. If you wanted to make your defender Indestructible, you'd better hope they were attacking Superman. While it's a fascinating mechanic, it's a limited one.

Or, it was. In Marvel Universe, we saw Carrying the Torch, a card that could give the name of any character in the game to another character. At first, it was being sold cheap - until people realized what they had. What if you could give Barry Allen some Adamantium Claws? What would happen if Captain America Smashed, instead of Hulk - and what it Cap just kept on smashing thanks to help from the residents of Poseidonis? Deck-building opened up.

Of course, there's the downside. Legend cards are so much easier to break, now. But let's ignore that and focus on the bizarre ideas that are available to us now, because CtT has my juices moving like few recent cards have.

What if you took Natasha Irons <> Steel, Unlikely Alloy, gave her the name Captain America on top of it, and plopped her as your only visible character? Then you flipped Stars and Stripes? A single Burn Rubber means you're taking three damage with each attack and nothing else, and all you need is Poseidonis or Atlantis to recur it. Meanwhile, you could ship Punisher, Captain America to your hidden area and, at then your opponent can't even make that simple attack into Natasha, knowing that Punisher's a single activation away from stunning everyone who tried. That's a Modern-Age legal, half-assed stall deck, right there. Every other card in your deck could be dedicated to gaining life, whatever you want.

What if you gave the name Punisher to two hidden 3-drops, and had Punisher, Suicide Run out already? You could Sniper Shot every turn, essentially destroying your opponent's curve. What if one of those hidden Punisher's was James Barnes <> Winter Soldier, Out in the Cold - that's even more character-destruction your opponent has to work around. That's absolutely brutal.

What if Wolverine, Secret Avenger had access to Final Justice, making him unstunnable? He already has a plot twist that he can use to ready himself - he could wipe your board AND attack you directly for 2 cards! And don't get me started on Wolverine, Agent of SHIELD once you start throwing Hulk Smash into the mix, with the Atlantis to free-recur it that turn.

These are just a few ideas, but I'd love to hear some of yours. How would you use Carrying the Torch to make a Secret Six Victorious deck work? Would you add in Force Field Projection, Atlantis, and Poseidonis, giving you the means to blow out all the attacks you want?

So, question, if any VS players actually read the blog: what's your favorite Carrying the Torch deck, and why?

MUN: General Thoughts

I know, I know. Boring. You've seen everyone post their thoughts on MUN. You're sick to death of it, I'm sure. You've already seen that I enjoyed MUN draft quite a bit. You hate me. Well, I love you, so I'm going to talk in brief on my MUN impressions anyway.

First off, I have to say: Crime Lords. Hell yes, Crime Lords. I think that they did a really good job making a truly defensive team, and what few (read: one) deck I've been able to build from what MUN I could afford has been a severely bastardized Crime Lords/SHIELD army deck. UDE did a great job making army decks feel fresh in this set, by the way - I've never enjoyed playing them until now, but with cards like Maria Hill, Dum Dum Dugan, and Squirrel Girl feeding the fire, I think there are some cool things to be done.

Anyway. Crime Lords is now a fun, defensive team. They do curve and they do army - strangely, at least in my cheap-as-possible deck, army/stall - and they introduce some fun ideas. The sheer power of their reinforcement tricks now makes them formidable, and their army is fed by insane, cool cards like Underground Laboratory, potentially one of the most powerful draw effects in the entire game.

SHIELD seems to be, at least the core team, is almost entirely army based. Yeah, between the potent rush of DCL and the insane armies of MUN, things are getting fast. The cards I mention above are a few commons that feed their army theme beautifully, and cards like Nick Fury certainly don't hurt. They're fast, they're reliable, and they're brutal. Watch out for SHIELD.

Nextwave is like Shakespeare, but with lots more punching.

The Warbound are interesting. I enjoy a good 'I Stand Alone' team, but I haven't enjoyed the feel of the Warbound. Part of it stems from a long-held complete apathy towards the Hulk. Part of it stems from the sheer amount of rares necessary to play a decent build of it all. It takes a lot for me to swallow a such a rare intensive build, and they don't have it.

Negative Zone is fun. I know there were a lot of complaints about the lack of content, but the team does well with what they've got. The multiple non-unique Negative Zones were a great idea, and while some of the Legend content is lacking - Thanos' sole legend card seems to be something of a joke - they are still a fun, coherent team.

Illuminati: waaaaaaaaaaay too rare intensive. Not a chance. Awesome idea, not NEARLY enough content available for the average player to give it a shot.

Thunderbolts are great. First off, how awesome is Thunderbolts Mountain? Soooo awesome. And the preview article for it was a masterpiece of modern english literature. Otherwise, though, they're still an interesting team. Radioactive Man is brutal, and the team's resource acceleration trick, all preview-pride aside, is a great trick that I suspect we'll be seeing quite a lot of.

Avengers is amazing. They're one of the sets best success stories. The team is versatile and hard-hitting, with great legend support and a variety of tricks that can be used to beat-face, as well as the return of their team-attack theme. That has me really excited, as I loved Avengers Team-attack before - and while they've sadly been severely depowered, the theme has also been paired with the best Avengers in the last...well, ever: the Young Avengers.

Alpha Flight is actually Omega Flight, and they're strategy of playing a huge number of plot twists is straight-forward and fun. But it's nothing special, and like many mini-teams, feels like a little bit of a waste, since you can't really play a mono-team deck with them - you're forced to team-up. I love the fan-teams, but I hate that they're all mini-teams that are almost unplayable.

The set is fun, but is hampered by a miniscule print-run with far too many cards, the best of which are all but impossible to find for anything resembling a reasonable price. Still, it's a vast step up from Marvel Legends, and the Legends they picked here - Captain America, Iron Man, and Hulk - are far more worthy than those of MVL (though there were the occasional bizarre choice - Baron Strucker, anyone?).

More on MUN soon, as I try and build an Avengers team-attack deck - and fail miserably. Though, a BYOT golden age one would be a LOT of fun...