Showing posts with label Avengers. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Avengers. Show all posts

Sunday, June 8, 2008

Continuing First Impressions.

So we've now seen the entire set and I can't get over how amazing some of the cards are. I've got at least 3-4 different decks brewing in the back of my head. Things that just... Well, they're pretty cool in theory. We'll see if they pan out. If nothing else it's a lot of fun decks in mind.




Good: He draws a card every turn, including the first turn he's in play. He's also the new Bizarro. He adds a Legend to his bag of tricks every turn. Wolverine. Hulk. Captain America. Red Skull. Batman. Superman. The Captain is whoever you want him to be. A 7/6 reservist with flight, range and that amazing an ability?

Bad: Nextwave. I love the team, I love the comic, but he's gonna be off team in most builds. There's no Reservist search in modern. Thank God it's so each to team up. Avengers let you deputize anyone and everyone, War Bound says your on the team whether you like it or not and the Reg/Anti-Reg team-ups put everyone in your deck on the list. Otherwise it'd be strictly Straight To The Grave.





Good: First of all it's Spider-Girl. One of my favorite characters and one of the biggest stacks of books in my collection. I have about 70 Daredevil books, 74 Spider-Girl issues and Spider-Man may beat both if I count Ultimate Spider-Man, but I'm not sure.

The ability is great. At the cost of 3 endurance you can turn off everything that makes an opponent's character good. Even if she had to attack to use it, this would be good. But she has evasion!

Bad: Spider-Friends only. With Worlds looming and MTU out of modern, she probably won't be a major factor at the event. At the cost of 3, she also has to fight off notoriously strong characters like Poison Ivy: Intoxicating and Ahmed Samsarra for power slots.



Good: Everybody should know how much I miss Slaughter Swamp. Asgard looks to fill a bit of the gap between Slaughter Swamp and Soul World. For Marvel Universe I think it does nicely, depending on your team. For example the Avengers Rally so much that I think it's better than Slaughter Swamp because you're likely just increasing your hand size at will as opposed to discarding a card. There's even a location Alias Investigations that just lets you Rally for a card type of your choice for an activation. The two of them together are better than Slaughter Swamp.

Bad: The two of them together are better than Slaughter Swamp. Sure, Ahmed will search them both out in Silver. But that's a lot of row space to take up. Is the effect worth it? Probably. But what about now? Right now, it seems like a lot of effort for a non-rally based deck with not that much payback. You can still just draw it next turn, but if you need a card NOW, then it's troubling.



Good: Huge pump for Army decks. It also works very well in the swarm Secret Avengers build I wanna play. I don't know if it's Worlds worthy, but it seems quite good. So much card draw, so many good cards. If you swing with two characters, the bare minimum, this nets you +2 attack. That's okay. But then with 3 team attackers? It jumps to +6 attack. That's all most Wrecking Crew! Three one drops with +6 attack can hit most fives.

Bad: They have to share a version to pump. Though you don't have to have nothing but Secret Avengers in the team attack, you only your attack boosted if you have at least two characters that share a version. It's very nice, but it's definitely a niche card. Army decks love it.





Good: Built in Bodyslide. For a swarm deck, hiding a couple characters on a key turn until YOUR attack step could be key. 5/4 stats, range, reservist, lets you use the actual card Bodyslide and all that for just 3 resources. Also gives you the X-Men team. Very nice.

Bad: The built in Bodyslide costs 2. That's a bit steep for a swarm deck wanting to spam out characters and downright inexcusable for a deck that wants to curve. Why boost when you can just run Bodyslide anyway? Okay, you technically get two Bodyslides, but if you run 4x Bodyslide none of them cost you resource points.





Good: First of all, I'm VERY glad the 4-drop Bullseye isn't the only Bullseye card in the set. I was very disappointed by the 4-drop, who I think is rather unexciting. This guy however is damn nice. Starting turn 3 you get to stun their two drop just by exhausting. He's got Substitute so if you hit a different two drop earlier, Bullseye can always take their place. Or if you have a better 2-drop for the job at the time you play them and when the opponent's two drop becomes pesky, call up Bullseye to take care of it.

Bad: 2/2? If they don't have a two drop out he's kinda sitting in the hidden area hoping you have something to exhaust him for. And if they have hidden hate, he's gonna be a rail for the freight train to your face.




Good: Then again, maybe Bullseye is a 4/4. Exhaust to stun a two, play this, recover and he's a hidden Kyrpto with an ability instead of a draw back. Speedball is Dead plays very well with some of the Thunderbolt characters like Speed Demon who will gain reinforcement, Joystick who will gain Invulnerability and of course my favorite Radioactive Man who will lock up Plot Twists with a cost of 2. Plus it makes him as big as Hulk! You can also kills pumps with it if you're going to take breakthrough anyway, you stun your character, take the damage and recover them anyway, better than before.

Bad: It can start to get really costly if you try and use it on a 4 drop. Especially if you double dip like evasion with old Electric Eve. It's really just all in how you play it.

All right, that's it for now again, I'll be continuing this whenever the mood strikes me. Maybe even more tonight.

-Mike
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Saturday, June 7, 2008

More MUN First Thoughts.

These are all just the quick, first impressions I'm having as I browse through the scans provided by im_all_noobish over on VS Realms in this thread. There's so many amazing cards, but I'm only picking out the ones that really strike me as stuff I have to take about. I might do some sort of set review later, but I'd want to play with the cards a bit before then.


Good: I was worried that the Illuminati would have trouble with cards like Have a Blast and resource row disruption, but Sub-Mariner here offers you a way to mitigate the effectiveness of row replaces.

Bad: Yet another cost of "exhaust two different members of the Illuminati" and still no The Order, Cosmic Radiation or even To Me My X-Men. Despite the fact that they CAN use Cosmic and To Me My X-Men, one is Golden Age and the other just isn't enough juice. I was thinking and hoping they'd be a strong control deck, but I'm not so sure anymore. Great effects do not a great deck make. There needs to be synergy. And exhausting all your guys for all your effects is not so hot.





Good: It does something that was too powerful even at a cost of 5 plus the cost of the stolen character without a recovery, but for only an exhaust. If your four isn't stunned while attacking, then exhausting a 3 would be a pretty sweet play. Avengers have some pretty nice cards and I can see that happening with frequency.

Bad: You have to exhaust a character to steal stunned character. You might often be better served just attacking or playing a Finishing Move effect. It might tempt you into trying to do something like teaming up SHRA w/X-Men and Avengers so you can recover the stolen character which could be good, but it's one of those things where you might be trying to hard to make something good, great and instead coming up with something marginal.

Good: There's a free character to exhaust for Switching Sides, right there. The Avengers have a lot of Rallying for characters and they also have a fairly decent ability to put things on top of your deck, so the likelyhood of Echo <> Ronin being free is rather high. Reservist, 2/3 _and_ a Crime Lord? Well, you have me sold. Amelia Voght 2.0.

Oh the art is awesome? Yeah, it is. There's enough Ninjas in this set all ready to make me giddy. Let's not forget there's even a plot twist Ninjas! Ninjas! Ninjas!

Bad: Um,... I can't see her boobs in that costume? Yeah, that's probably it. Oh, um, concealed instead of concealed--optional I guess. It's always nice to have a choice. Especially since she's free, it would be nice to soak up some attacks with her.



Good: He's a 9/8 four drop off initiative with only one draw back. He's a freakin Nazi.

Bad: He's not an amusing Nazi like the schmucks on Damn Nazis. He doesn't look goofy. He's very serious looking. And while I hate the revisionist alternative of editing the giant swastika out of his picture, I have to admit I might feel uncomfortable playing him in some situations. "You shall call us The Master Race." Yeeeouch. This might be the first card I ever deface with a sharpie.

Gameplay wise, he kinda sucks when you have the initiative because his ability means nothing as an attacker. I'd think he's more of a backup character unless Crime Lords dig the odds. And Kingpin-4 may be a better off-turn drop anyway!





Good: Mutant of the Year was a key card in Adam Prosak's Devil's Due deck that won the last PC LA. This provides the same effect, none of the Loner drawback, plus a global D-pump. If you can get Suzie Secret Avenger visible she's got a huge rear end to soak up endurance.

Bad: On the other hand, it's better to just leave her cute butt in the hidden area because unlike Mutant of the Year, when you stun Invisible Woman your inaccessibility goes away and you're once again open to the nasty world out there waiting to burn you, exhaust your characters and discard your hand.





Good: They can usually only stun one of your team attackers anyway, right? Two cards from the hand to recover and ready an Avenger you control. That seems okay. But this is what probably makes Switching Sides so crazy. Team attack up the curve to their big drop. Recover and ready the guy they stun and exhaust him to steal their drop.

Bad: The fact that you have the option really makes these little downside to this card. If you HAD to discard two cards I really wouldn't like it. Three is just the right turn to start wanting to play the effect and options really leave it to do whatever you need it to, without excessive cost.









Good: I will call him Bob.

Bad: I might want to sharpie on him too... :(










Good: So, yeah, this guy hits turn 2. Goes away and turn three you fate up the Hulk cannon, blindside the crap out of someone with him, turn four Brood dies Hulk-KO, Turn five you play someone who can take the fate set... Turn six you play THIS guy...

Who takes the Fate suit, eats his dopple ganger and is an insane 20/20, no reinforcement, KO machine.





Oh... Bad? There's bad in the Hulk cards? Um, I guess that you have to choose between a couple of the Hulk drops and the INSANE effects Hulk gets for the entire game when his buddies die. Like I don't think you wanna really play the four drop Hulk when you can play Brood, have a bigger drop than their turn four anyway and then kill it... With your three drop.

That's it for now, I'll pick up more tomorrow.

-Mike
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Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Going A Little Crazy

I've become engrossed with making decks for the Little Deck Format. Read it about it here on VSRealms.com and I'll be waiting when you get back.

Okay...

So how crazy did I go? Yesterday I put together 8 decks! It's great! I have so many great cards in one ofs not the normal four-ofs you need for so many full size decks. But in a Highlander environment that's all I need! I have no Mobilize or Enemy of my Enemy, but those are banned! I think I'm in love! The first thing I built was actually an Avenger's Reservist deck. I always loved the deck, but never got to play it except in proxy.

In building it I was reminded of one big problem. You really only played Carol Danvers because you couldn't play 7-8x Hawkeye, Clinton Barton. So, now you still need 4-5 four drops, but you only have three on team! And I don't have Dr. Druid! Ack! What to do? Well, I looked through my Avengers cards and noticed Squadron Supreme had a lot of reservists. Lots of good reservists!

So in went Golden Archer and... Amphimbian. I could go with Brotherhood reservists, but those are in my TNNB deck and I didn't want to break it up. It's all ready got 4 random 2 drops because I don't have Amelia's. Hehe. Anyway, I looked around and I like some other Squadron reservists like Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Moonglow, Lady Lark (Linda Lewis) and Arcanna. Finally I grabbed Paladin and my curve was decided.

21 characters.

Beast, Furry Blue Scientist
Rick Jones, A Hero's Best Friend
Thermite, Sam Yurimoto
Dane Whitman <> Black Knight, Heroic Paladin
Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
Paladin, Intruders
Black Panther, T'Challa
Lady Lark, Linda Lewis
Moonglow, Melissa Hanover
Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
Amphibian, Kingsley Rice
Carol Danvers <> Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald
Hawkeye, Clinton Barton
Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Atomic Powerhouse
Hawkeye, Leader By Example
She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
Harry Delgado, Acolyte
Wonder Man, Simon Williams
Hercules, Son of Zeus
Arcanna, Arcanna Jones (...She's not related to Rick is she?)

This was always an attack deck, so I grabbed a few obvious pumps first of all.

3 Plot twists

Call Down The Lightning
Heroes In Reserve
Savage Beatdown

Next I decided if I should play a team up and figured with the ease of searching it, I might as well. The Squad and Avengers have their own team up anyway. It also made my non-Reservists, reservists... However, I didn't think I needed to play any non-Reservists. Plus depending on the team up would suck. But having it would occasionally make Answer the Call and Pancea Potion game winners! Even without the team up Answer is great on every turn I'm likely to play it except 6. To try and make my curve better, I also added Hibernaculum. At the discard of a Squadron Supreme character I can dig for my characters or bring back a character I lost earlier. It doesn't have to be Squadron either.

4 Plot Twists

Answer The Call
Hibernaculum
Pancea Potion
Supreme Sanction

I wanted more attack pumps so I grabbed Avengers Mansion, hard to argue with a reusable pump! Air Strike can be used as attack and a card draw. Might Makes Right is a nice 3 attack all the time and if I play into Answer, Pancea and Nuke it's Beatdown #2. That was 30 cards, but I kept coming back to a card that was in vogue with Reservist for a while, War of Attrition. It's like Have a Blast without the discard and most of the time and no drawback in this deck. I decided to keep it because I all most always play 61 cards and often play a little over 30 in sealed. I know the extras in sealed are bad, but mathematically the difference between 60 and 61 doesn't effect your mulligan condition.

1 Location

Avengers Mansion

3 Plot Twists

Air Strike
Might Makes Right
War of Attrition

Total = 31

Final List

21 characters.

Beast, Furry Blue Scientist
Rick Jones, A Hero's Best Friend
Thermite, Sam Yurimoto
Dane Whitman <> Black Knight, Heroic Paladin
Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Super Spy
Paladin, Intruders
Black Panther, T'Challa
Lady Lark, Linda Lewis
Moonglow, Melissa Hanover
Quicksilver, Mutant Avenger
Amphibian, Kingsley Rice
Carol Danvers <> Warbird, Galactic Adventurer
Golden Archer, Wyatt McDonald
Hawkeye, Clinton Barton
Albert Gaines <> Nuke, Atomic Powerhouse
Hawkeye, Leader By Example
She-Hulk, Gamma Bombshell
Harry Delgado, Acolyte
Wonder Man, Simon Williams
Hercules, Son of Zeus
Arcanna, Arcanna Jones

1 Location

Avengers Mansion

10 Plot Twists

Air Strike
Answer The Call
Call Down The Lightning
Heroes In Reserve
Hibernaculum
Might Makes Right
Pancea Potion
Savage Beatdown
Supreme Sanction
War of Attrition

So, once I get a few games in I'll update you with how it does. If you have any suggestions on how to make it better, I'd love to hear them, though this is me making decks out of what I have for now. Doesn't mean I can't be on the look out for new cards, hehe.

And seeing as I made 8 of these... Maybe I'll do Little Deck Week! Or maybe not... lol I'll definitely be posting a lot of these either way. If I feel up to it tomorrow you'll know.

-Mike Continue reading...