Still Here, Just Re-Evaluating What To Do With This

Every time I try and work on updating that B&B list I just... Can't seem to care. I think that's the wrong track for me with this. I'm back to the prospect of always being broke and still trying to play VS, so not having cards to actually play the deck in real life kinda cramps my progress. That's the only way I'd really get to play test it anyway, I think.

Maybe I'll do weekly fantasy cards. That's fun. Easy. Hell, I have a whole Essential Collection I designed. It needs a lot of work, but I could post the cards, maybe you guys could help me fix'em over on the Realms? Any interest? Marvel Zombies? Before they had the Zombie cards in the point store, or a point store even, so my version is kinda different.

Of course. I lost the files in a computer change over that would make it simple. As it stands I'd have to type everything out from the proxies. Oh well, how does the old saying go? It's the simple things in life that make it worth living? Dammit, whoever said that is a jerk.

-Mike Continue reading...

Can't Blog Today

Too busy converting a Magic player to VS System! MUAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

-Mike Continue reading...

Nearly Done Reorganizing My VS Cards!

I used to have it by set, team, alphabetically with equipment, locations and plot twists all together, now I'm putting all of it in set number order. I did it the old way with deck building in mind, but I think in the future my deck building will all be online. It's much easier than dragging everything out and I don't have to hunt down cards only to find out they don't do exactly what I remembered. I can just search for them on (plug!) DocX's incredible VS System search engine.

http://www.io.com/~docx/vs/search.php

It's probably one of the best online tools for VS, I think. I miss VSed, but even that wasn't quite as good as being able to search game test for things like "stun target character" or "remove target attacker" and my favorite "while attacking."

What has become apparent though is that my next purchase should really be a 3 row card box. What I have isn't cutting it anymore. Some of them are even falling apart! Here's to duct tape for the time being. :)

Oh, and though it's passed now and I'm not a drinker... Merry Drunks' Christmas everybody!

-Mike Continue reading...

Busy Busy Bee

So, I've been kinda busy with various writing projects most of the week and haven't finished the next part of my article like I wanted too, but that's okay because I'd rather take my time and do it right rather than rush it out.

Sadly I won't make it to Hobby League tomorrow. Couldn't get the BART fare together and probably didn't have a ride home anyway. I don't fancy a 9 mile walk home after 10PM, not that I live in a bad part of town or would even have to walk through a bad part of town... More because I don't want to walk 9 miles anywhere ever! lol

C'est la vie. I did e-bay up some cards though. I guess I could have paid for BART with that money. :( Whoops! Guess I got ahead of myself.

-Mike Continue reading...

Math FTW!

So, I'm in bed, trying to go to sleep and my mind is wandering because I can never just "go to sleep." And I'm thinking about VS, pondering the idea Paul "The Deranged Bear" Sung brought to the realms of an all 1-drop Insanity rush deck.

http://www.vsrealms.com/forum/showthread.php?t=57457 - VS Realms plug! Oh, I can't mention that and not mention the bad ass name he gave it either. One Inch Punch is the best deck name since... I don't know. Ivy League was pretty awesome and perfectly fitting.

Anyway, I'm trying to list all the pumps to use in the list because it's the kind of weird mental exercise that helps me get my brain to shut down. I think Flying Kick, Combat Reflexes, Crackshot, Blinding Rage, Beatdown-

It hits me. I'm a moron.

How much attack does Savage Beatdown give you? +5.

How much does Rabbit Fire give you? +2.

2+2 is still less than 5.

Why does this make me leap out of bed? Well, in the Elektra, Masterless Assassin decklist below I've got 4x Rabbit Fire because... "It's for the turn!" Never did I stop and think about the fact that even though I attack twice with Elektra on 5, Savage Beatdown is STILL better than Rabbit Fire. Ugh. At least I realized it on my own and didn't have someone point it out to me. :)

So, now I feel better having pointed this out to the world and I can go back to bed.

G'night world.

-Mike Continue reading...

If You Don't Beat It, Play It

Hopefully going to make it out o Hobby League on Monday over in Berkley. I'd get back too late for a bus ride home so my only hope is to convince a friend of mine to become a new player and go with me. And get him a deck to play. Fun! Commence Operation: New Player!

If I do go, here's what I'm intending to play. In gold fishing it's hitting for over 44 every time on turn 5, 9 out of 10 times. Even hit 74 once. The idea came about after getting stabbed by Elektra, Masterless Assassin at the City Champs, as you can read about below, and really wanting to play something with Dr. Doom in it.

4x Frank Drake, Nightstalker

4x Tania Belinskya <> Red Guardian, Cold Warrior

2x Black Panther, King of Wakanda
4x Dr. Doom, Richard's Rival

4x Elektra, Masterless Assassin
4x Samantha Parrington <> Valkyrie, Chooser of the Slain

1x Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth

2x Mindtap Mechanism

4x Combat Reflexes
4x Flying Kick
4x Mob Mentality
4x Crackshot
4x Rabbit Fire (EDIT: I would later realize even double swinging I should just use 4x Beatdown.)
4x Lust For Power
4x Enemy of My Enemy
3x Wild Ride
4x Pathetic Attempt

-Mike Continue reading...

I Miss Slaughter Swamp

So Paul "TheDerangedBear" Sung replies to my first blog post telling me I need to get to tournaments and do tournie reports. I told him, it's not for lack of trying, but I ain't got cards for Silver Age for the most part. He tells me if I want to play City Champs I just need to get get him a decklist and onto Bart. So I see if I can get 20 bucks, I can. I send him a deck list and on Friday night it's all 100% confirmed.

(I'd like to pause for a second here and give a huge thanks to Paul and Jason "Doesn't Post On Realms" To, who got the cards I needed for me and put them in sleeves and everything. THANK YOU!)

Picking a deck was pretty easy for me. I wanted to play a card I've been waiting to play since I stopped. The last VS purchase I made was 4x Deadshot, Floyd Lawton. Mr. Lawton, if I do say so myself, is a bad ass 3-drop killah. Cold blooded.

Ahmed Samsarra... He's a 3-drop. That's a game winner. So, what's the best Deadshot deck? I don't know, but I liked this list.

Care of Tim Rivera - Mega Weekend SoCal Top 8

(You can read his very well written report right here!)

Characters
4 Jaime Reyes ◊ Blue Beetle, High-Tech Hero
4 Lockjaw, Inhuman's Best Friend
4 Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
4 Deadshot, Floyd Lawton
1 San, The Alienated One
1 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage
1 Samantha Parrington
1 Punisher, Guns Blazing
1 Talia, Daughter of Madness
1 Annihilation Protocol
1 Quicksilver, Terrigenesis Rebirth
1 Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin
1 Basil Karlo ◊ Ultimate Clayface

Plot Twists
4 Enemy of My Enemy
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Cannibal Tech
4 A Proud Zinco Product

Locations
4 Dr. Fate’s Tower
1 Rann
4 Soul World
2 The Great Refuge

I coulda tweaked it or something, but fact is that I haven't played in so long I have no idea what would be smart changes and what would be me newbing it up. I had to play 3x Level 12 Intelligence instead of all Zinco's and 1x The Phantom Stranger instead of the fourth Mxy. Not by design. Well, the TPS because removing a bunch of Mxy's would suck. I never saw TPS anyway so it never mattered. Besides I had no idea what to expect except that Ahmed would most certainly, definitely, for sure, 100% be there...

...Yeah, about that...

Among the 12 players, there wasn't a single Ahmed on site. Not that I saw or heard anyway. I think I would have heard about it too. Oh well, killing 3's and 4's should be enough to win most games anyway. Let's get down the nitty gritty of it.

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Game 1 - Glen - Poison Ivy/Riddler/Chemo Control

I love me some Poison Ivy in general, the new 3 drop is hella nice. Especially with Riddler and Chemo out there. I was doing pretty good early on, Deadshot was ready on 3, but he all ready had Ivy fated out. What really hurt me was on 4 we both had Fate Suits, his on Wondy Woman mine on big Pun, the murdering murder of all things smaller than him. So, with Wonder Woman out Ivy was still safe from Deadshot unless she stunned. Sadly that wasn't all there was to be said on that. I sent Punisher into Wonder Woman. He had the Level 12 and nuked my amulet mid attack. I shoulda traveled over the top and just killed Ivy with Punisher. But I got greedy, which is never the right play, and it probably sealed my deal.

On five I think I had Annihilation Protocal, but it didn't matter. Between Ivy and Wonder Woman I wasn't getting anything done. Black Manta just made it worse by recurring Level 12 so even though I had a new Amulet, he just sent it on a trip to the KO'd pile again.

Game 2 - Jason - Substibuse

I threw this one away. If I had like,... practiced or maybe even played the game in the last 5 months I probably woulda won this one.

I played out Mxy on turn one to some confusion, he swung, he stuck around a couple turns, then he went to do his thing in the KO'd pile. It was fun.

Basically the crux of the game was forgetting Ancient Throne was around as a I attacked Fated out Punisher into Darkseid 4 I played A Proud Zinco product on Darkseid's BRPD Cloak. He had the Lord of Apokolips face up. Which, while stupid enough to make me deserve to lose, was compounded by the fact that he top decked a second off the Hook-Up. He had Batman on 6, Cape and Cowl, and on 7 he had to play 5 drop Darkseid, 8th century. I had Basil Karlo who got smacked by the 5/4 drop Darkseids and Batman smacked around my still Fated out Punisher.

He did a good job of punishing my row through out the game, but that was never what really hurt me. In a couple cases he actually replaced something I didn't need with something nice. I think I could have moved the gear to Basil, but he just would have team attacked with Batman and Darkseid-4 into him instead of the double Darkseids. Either way it was enough to kill me when Punisher got taken down afterwards.

Game 3 - Miguel "CarlosTheDwarf" - JSA Shenannigans

Deadshot kills a 3 drop on 3? Finally! Gees, the only time it happened too. I shoulda fishbowled a couple extra times in the car. Got those suck draws out of the way. I coulda gone 3-2 or something maybe. lol

He had Little Mr. Terrific turn one, I played Mxy on turn 1. lol Yeah. Mxy. Again. I gotta figure out a deck that WANTS Mxy on the field, cause it was great to watch people react to him coming out like that. So on 2 he played down Jack Knight <> Starman, who's really pretty cool. I had San and some fate stuffs. I made what I think was a good play, but it cost me in the end. Off the helm I drew Zinco, Helm and Soul World (I think) and I have Enemy and Level 12 in hand. I need to Deadshot next turn, and I know Mxy isn't gonna be around come my next build phase so I keep the Enemy and Helm. Mxy went away, San swungy swung, not a bad turn. But...

I draw enemy. He played Michael Holt the big Mr. Terrific and it was Terrific how I killed him. Hehe. It was no turn 3 Ahmed kill (God, is it mean of me to want to experience that or just kinda lame?), but I was happy to take what I could get. Punisher drops, Fate Gear moves on up and on his side Katar Hol <> Hawkman, Eternal Hero has Nth Metal. Uh oh. I really coulda used the equip hate here. Cause he pumps out of a Punisher kill.

He misses 5, instead playing Prince Khufu <> Hawkpeoples and Michael Holt. Jack Knight + T-Spheres stuns my 5 with no pumps by the way. Wonderful. If I coulda Talia'd in a Deadshot it woulda been nice, but I just couldn't make him my first discard of the turn. Anyway, the game ended next turn when Superman, Earth 2 smacked me about. If I had killed Hawkman on 4... Different game I think. Oh well. I'd rather lose for playing well. Hopefully I was. lol

It wasn't exactly helping to use Soul World 4 times. Man, that hurt.

Game 4 - I'm sorry, I forgot to write down your name and I suck at remembering names - Elektra, Straight Up

This was the best game of the day. I lost. But it was a blast, man. My opponent was a real laid back dude just having fun and that's always a nice enviroment to play in. Lockjaw on 1, Quicksilver semi-fated on two, but he ran into a masturbating Tania Belinskya and was stunned. You know, she got exhausted for herself?

Deadshot was there for turn three, but he didn't get to do his thing. Punisher was there on four and he killed Tania, since Elektra, Masterless Assassin is a hidey hole skank! Next turn, she smashed my face for 45. It was pretty cool actually.

I was gonna say Soul World really hurt this game too, but looking at the score sheet I only activated it once. Still, I coulda used it more if I hadn't had to burn myself for 4. For 4 sucks. I really do miss Slaughter Swamp.

Game 5 - Brandon - Brotherhood Reservist (Sorry for the mistake!)

This is the one match where everything came together and worked exactly right for me. Deadshot and Punisher both murdered stuff on 4, Talia came out and threatened to let me Deadshot again at any moment while Punisher added Scanner to the Casket Club. It was just insult to injury when Terrax took up the mantle of Fate and told Harry Delgado to bite it. But only after San stunned Kleinstock Brothers and Terrax replaced an extra Fate Tower to stun Amelia Voght. Punisher, Talia and Lockjaw all faced him for the scoop.

I honestly felt kinda bad about this match. When direct KO goes off, you really just smash cats left and right the second they're on the field. I'd really like to know more about the BHR deck, as it obviously wasn't running TNBs and it didn't get to do it's thing with all the capping of asses going on. I like BH and reservist is one of my favorite keywords.

------------------------------------------

So, 1-4, my big "comeback" turns up snake eyes, but I had a great time. VS is so much fun. Everyone was real cool. I got handed a stack of EAs/Shinies, which I never argue with. (New Baxter Building, Bastion, Agility x2, Royal Flush Gang x2) Also bought my first Legends packs, 2 packs of DC Legends, only 3 bucks each. Which rocked. 3 reprints in each pack was kind of a disappointment as it was stuff I always had and I really wanted new cards. lol But, ah well, I knew there was reprints. I just didn't expect three in each pack. Is that, like, standard?

(I pulled Injustice For All and Doomsday-7, in case you were wondering.)

Anyway, the car ride back to Bart was pretty fun. Paul and Jason were entertaining. We talked a bit about VS. We got going the wrong way. Again. Hit Bart. Missed the bus. Got a ride. Ate. Sat in front of my computer doing nothing for a couple hours. Then started this. Still pretty exhausted.

When I got home I realized how drained I was and remembered how tough VS is mentally. It's like getting your brain punched all day. That's kind of what I like about it though. It's a serious challenge. You have to keep all these numbers and the math to go with them and the probable variables and proper sequences of events in your head the entire game.

I'm all about smashy-smashy decks, but even those aren't usually just turn guys sideways and auto-pilot. Do I use the pump here? Do I use the pump before formation? Do I row the pump or play it from hand? You're gonna lose a character this turn, but which attacks make it the most likely that you'll lose only one and it'll be the one you want to lose? Which one do you want to lose?

It's a tough game.

God damn it's good to be back.

-Mike
Continue reading...

Nervous, excited. City Championships in 12 hours or so.

So I'm gonna be playing for the first time in months and I'm hella nervous. Hope I can get some sleep. I'm never asleep before 3AM, but I'm all ready kinda tired. I think my body is co-operating with my brain to get me up and out the door by 8:50. Which is nice, cause usually my body fights me on stuff like this.

::Bows down to Paul "DerangedBear" Sung and his connection the To family for letting me borrow enough cards to run a deck that looks like something besides two sealed (NOT draft) pools thrown together.::

I seriously don't know how to thank you guys enough, so here's a start. THANK YOU!

-Mike Continue reading...

Something Old, Something New

So, to get back into VS I've been organizing my cards and while doing so, I decided to get all the proxies out of my old decks. I'm not testing for highly competetive tournaments again (yet) and even if I was these would all be terribly out of date anyway. Going through my box of decks I found a deck I had totally forgotten about.

It was a varient on the Brave & the Bold using Barbara Gordon <> Batgirl, Guardian of Gotham to draw a lot of cards. I had always wanted to make more room in B&B for Utility Belt and once the Man of Steel set came out I had a good reason too. Plus I had always liked Twin Firearms as a one of in Titans on Roy up front. Made stunning 5 drops so much easier.

So, I got the idea of playing B&B Equips and set about making the list you see below. Remember, this is old. Very old. lol

Characters
3x Alfred Pennyworth, Faithful Friend
2x Dawn Granger <> Dove, Agent of Order
2x Mirage, Miriam Delgado
1x Spoiler, Stephanie Brown
1x Hank Hall <> Hawk, Agent of Chaos
4x Barbara Gordon <> Batgirl, Guardian of Gotham
1x Roy Harper <> Arsenal, Sharpshooter
1x Red Star, Leonid Kovar
1x Terra, Tara Markov
4x Vic Stone <> Cyborg, Human Machine
1x Batman, Caped Crusader
4x Garth <> Tempest, Atlantean Sorcerer
1x Dick Grayson <> Nightwing, Defender of Bludhaven
1x Koriand'r <> Starfire, Alien Princess
1x Batman, The Dark Knight
1x Raven, Daughter of Trigon

Equipment
2x Jetpack
3x Utility Belt
1x Twin Firearms

Locations
2x GCPD Headquarters
2x Optitron
2x USS Argus

Plot Twists
2x Bat-Signal
1x Betrayal
3x Dynamic Duo
3x Fizzle
1x Heroic Sacrifice
4x Teen Titans Go!
4x The Brave And The Bold

1x World's Finest

In my evaluation I thought Vic Stone was better on 4 because he auto searched out Utility Belt or Jetpack, either of which made his 6/6 stats relatively decent. Terra was a 1 of because... I had one of her. Not that I had 4 Garth, but that's beyond the point.

It was about as consistent as any Brave and the Bold deck was, back then. I.E. not terribly so. I could usually pull off a good draw with or without the team up, but without the team up it wasn't strong enough to compete with other decks. Still, a Batgirl with a Jetpack on turn 3 was never a disappointment. Stun backs and card draw are always good.

Ideally I always wanted to play Alfred, Mirage/Alfred, Barbara, Cyborg, Garth, Nightwing or Starfire and then a big Batman, but like any Titans deck sometimes it payed to play Roy and boost Hawk/Dove out on 6 and use TTG! to board wipe people. Which works even better with Dynamic Duo and GCPD Headquarters.

The fun thing about the deck was that it had a lot of surprises. People did run Utility Belt in B&B, but usually not 3 of them. So dropping a Utility Belt on Mirage turn 2 wasn't even uncommon for me. Nobody expected Vic Stone and plenty of people forgot about Starfire on 6. And finishing with a Fat Bat was usually met with blank stares and then realization.

I'm not saying the deck was "1337 Tech" or even Tier 1 greatness, but it was very fun and certainly serviceable. I think I could have eventually tweaked it into a very strong contender, but I played it at the last PCQ in CA run by Innovation Gaming, got a lot of terrible draws and then didn't have any tournaments for like eight or ten months.

Thus, it went away as a dust collector in my deck box, only played across a dinner table. Or if you want to get technical a table at Crispy Crust Pizza where my friends and I used to meet every Tuesday to play.

I remember very specifically one of them asked after the PCQ if I would play the deck again at a tournament and I thought about it before saying I definitely felt it had the potential to win, I just probably needed to work on it a bit.

The funniest thing was that in round one of that PCQ I faced something of a mirror match as I remember it. Barbara Gordon, equipments and to my dismay... Flame Trap to compliment HIS Dynamic Duo. I think I posted a tournament report for that event on VS Realms. I know I used to have it on my LiveJournal, but considering I never kept up with the LJ I wiped it about a year ago. Except for one really emo post I made, because if LiveJournal isn't about being emo, I don't know what it's for.

Golden Age may not be the most supported format, but if I'm going to continue playing VS I have to play at home too. So in that spirit, I intend to rebuild the deck using all the new juicy equipment, Titans and Gotham Knights hanging around. And maybe even a more techy multi-team version. However, that'll be next time. Here's one preview though...

Until next time.

-Mike

P.S. What did you expect? Smoke Screen? If we're talking an equipment deck, you have to include Fate Gear!

Continue reading...

Should have the first part up tomorrow of what will be probably 2 parts. Continue reading...

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Coming soon....

Just figured while I work on the "Big Post" I mentioned yesterday, I'd post a piece of art each day to tease it until it's ready.

-Mike Continue reading...

Returning To VS System

My name is Mike. I am a gamer, a nerd, a geek, whatever you wanna label me, it's cool. I know what I am. I am a traitor. I've betrayed my true love and bedded another. I've been playing Magic The Gathering for about five months with friends at home. I bought new cards. Singles. Packs. I even went in half and half on a booster box! I could have gotten an entire box of VS System for that price. I really regret it now that I realize Magic just isn't the game for me. It might be fun, but that's because I'm hanging out with people I like, not because I like Magic.

To be honest, Magic is a great game, but it's not VS. It doesn't excite me the way VS does. It's not as fun as VS. It's not as good as VS. It's second best. Plain and simple.

So Saturday I finally started the task of re-organizing all my cards. I spent pretty much all day sorting through piles that have laid on tables for months on end untouched. Wiped off the dust and lovingly remembered all the wonderful art, the quirky or cool cards I never got to play, but always wanted too (In The Hands of Qward! New Identity!), the banned cards that I used so often, but totally was glad to see go (Overload!) or didn't get to use enough before they got banned (Detective Chimp, who I received 4 of in the mail days after the ban... With 4x Valeria Von Doom) and of course the banned cards I still wish could be around, but I know it's for the best they're not. (Antarctic Research Base and Gone But Not Forgotten!) I can't mention the ban list without talking about Justice League of Arkham, which is oddly a sentimental favorite of mine.

I never played Ivy League and it cost me one my only two shots at making day 2 of a Pro Circuit (the other time the deck I played cost me my day 2 chance, hehe), but still I absolutely marveled at the ingenuity of that deck. Also it's got some of the best art on a banned card. Batman with his Rogue's Gallery of villains on stormy knight in front of the gates of Arkham Asylum? So awesome. Better yet, Batman is with them because he and Nightwing are about to TEAM UP with the Joker, Riddler, Catwoman, Poison Ivy, The Ventriloquist and Scarface? Hell yeah! Of course it doesn't hurt I somehow pulled off a win against it with No-Hand Squadron Supreme. Without Fate Artifacts. Yeah, that's how well prepared I was... And it wasn't against a bad draw.

Isn't that what we all love about VS System though? Even in the worst match up you always feel like there's a way to win if you just play better than your opponent. It's a really stimulating experience to sit down and realize you should totally lose this game, but stand up, shake hands and walk away the winner. I don't think there's a better feeling in the world. It's why I never feel bad when I lose in this game. There's times when you don't draw anything, but you know that and your opponent knows that. When you draw well and lose, it's because your opponent played better. I can respect losing to a better player. I can learn from losing to a better player.

VS System, in essence, makes me a better person.

I love VS System.

-Mike Continue reading...