Marvel Evolution - Previews Officially Announced!

TBS, you remember him, right? Started a thread today on the Realms announcing the beginning of preview season. You can read it here.

Along with the start date and telling us that VS Bloggers would again get to preview cards, he also told us WHICH bloggers would get previews and even spoiled the themes they were be covering!

Now, this is cool enough on it's own. However, infinitely cooler is this... I'm on the list! We get a preview! Snazzy! For those of you who didn't follow the link here's a list of the themes TBS mentioned as preview material.

"X-Factor"
1. Cyclops Legend
2. Multiple Man Legend
3. Energize

"X-Force"
1. Cable Legend
2. Combat Plot Twists

"Marauders"
1. Gambit Legend
2. "Press the Advantage" Opposing Stunned
3. Mr. Sinster Legend
4. Mystique Legend

"Exiles"
1. Blink Legend
2. Mimic Legend
3. Shift

"Weapon X"
1. Deadpool
2. Shift
3. Hunter

"Runaways"
1. Secret Mechanic

"The Horseman of Apocalypse"
1. "The Coming of Apocalypse"

"Starjammers"
1. "Piracy"

"Generics"
1. Including- "M'Kraan Crystal" and "Kid Omega"

Now seriously. It's hard not to be uber-geeked getting a preview. It's impossible not to be full on geeked out of my head after reading that list! We're supposedly going to be doing some sort of blogger draft to see which theme we preview, so I have my fingers crossed to get my hands on Deadpool or Mimic for the Exiles. Blink or Shift is fine by me too, but Mimic has always been my favorite Exile and Deadpool is one of my favorite comic characters period.

To think I have Rob Liefield to thank for that. ::Shudder::

Anyway, beyond that all that we have right now is rampant speculation. Which, I should point out, is hella fun. So let's try some.

Mystique Legend: I'm thinking Bizarro World, Legend stealing effects. Maybe even something like a payment power on an ongoing plot twist to treat your Mystique as if she had a name of your choice. I also imagine she'll do some concealed play as I can't see the Marauders NOT being a concealed heavy team. Mystique is a sneaky little assassin/spy/terrorist and not being able to attack her while she's visible would be a good way to represent her being undercover and make for a very tempting option if you have to pick between always getting attack backs or something juicy while she's hidden. Activate to KO a stunned character? Mystique lock? I like it!

And she can lock me up anytime... Rowr. She seems nice, not at all like a cat with a mouse. Not at all. Eeep.

We know there's a Cable and Deadpool named Plot Twist in the set, I'm hoping it's not JUST an X-Force/Weapon X team up. I'm hoping it's something real complicated. Something that teams up Cable and Deadpool, but also does something funky and off the wall. Like team up all teams that Cable and Deadpool that you control have and when something effects one it effects the other. Bodyslide one, bodyslide the other. Even if it has to be a payment power. Pay 3-5 Endurance -> Copy target effect targeting a Cable or Deadpool you control, choose a new target named Cable or Deadpool.

Considering Deadpool and Cable are both the first theme listed for their teams, I would hope they're considered worthy of such thought out and complex strategy.

The Hunter keyword for Weapon X, I feel probably is something we've seen before. "When this character enters play choose a character in play..." and then some effect that revolves around that character. Dominus, Despero, Hank Henshaw <> Cyborg, all had them. So did Wolverine, Sabretooth and Mavrick. Point being the later three were ON the Weapon X team. I think a team that keeps bouncing back to hand might be fun. Just as long as it's at LEAST as good as the X-Statix. The idea of Deadpool sucking breaks my heart more than a little bit.

I had to look up the M'Kraan Crystal, but it sounds very interesting. I hope we maybe get some of the Marvel Ultimate Alliance storyline here, since apparently it would mean Dr. Doom + Some Power Stolen From Odin, which to me = freaking awesome. I'm a fan of Doom and any chance to see him kicking more ass is to be savored. Also we know UDE doesn't shy away from letting Marvel video games influence their designs. Charging Star and the rest of the Captain America suite, anyone?

I noticed both Exiles and Weapon X will have a focus on the Shift ability or keyword, whatever that is. Considering the Exiles are dimension hoppers and my thoughts on Hunter... I have to think "shift" is a keyworded form of Bodyslide. Maybe you stun the character, remove them from the game and at the start of the next turn they come into play all shiny and new? Allowing you to pick new Hunter targets and representing very well the way the Exiles move from one altered reality to the next.

Kid Omega... Well, I have a very love/hate deal for Grant Morrison's X-Men run. Mostly I hate what follow ups did to the characters and the situations it set up. I'm very curious to see if maybe this will mean a good chunk of unaffiliated characters in Evolution, which would be cool. He is listed as a "Generic" theme, after all.

All will be known very soon though. Previews start this week!

-Mike Continue reading...

Oh yeah! More Marvel Evolutions preview material!

Things are getting pretty exciting here. We've been shown an uncut sheet of proof cards. I.E. no text, just pictures to make sure they're on the right cards. You can see it at the VS Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=1448970&id=12722434186

So who can you make out? I see Deadpool, Cyclops, Shatter Star, The Tallus (The Exiles dimension hopping device!), Beast, Morph looking like Marilyn Monroe, Tabitha Smith, another Cyclops I think, Psylocke, Siryn, Orphan and a plot twist with the Astonishing X-Men. The image where they're walking down the hall back in spandex. Love that image.

This is where my eyes start to bleed so I'll stop here. Needless to say... This is awesome. They also have a picture showing a black out sheet that shows where foil goes on the pictures, which is pretty interesting.

The final new picture is a "Sweet Ass" Ultimate playmat that will be in a future hobby league kit. Booyah! There you go doubters. Future plans confirmed. :) That is an awesome mat too.

-Mike Continue reading...

Marvel Evolution... Just. Got. REAL!

So, THE Ben Seck, master of one of those cool Aussie accents and esteemed member of our beloved R&D Overlords has done the unbelievable... Posted a preview that was up for over an HOUR before someone posted it on VSRealms! Grats to our good friend Bloke of Lost Hemisphere demi-fame for scooping everybody... Hmmm... This doesn't happen to be one of those "foreigner conspiracies" does it? HMMMM? HMMM? Did you just find it, or did you get a TIP OFF!? HUH!? HUH!?

Erm... Anyway...



How sweet is that!?

So, Skrulls have a pretty good 5-drop, Paibok who gives a pump to all your Skrulls with a lot of team affiliations. Is this guy better? Hmmm, maybe. Different. I think that's better than an outright "replacement" drop. Having options is ALWAYS good.

So what does he really do?

Evasion. Evasion is great, for the mere cost of 5-endurance which you probably were taking anyway, and some extra breakthrough you get to keep an extra character going into a turn where you have initiative and can make the attacks that go YOUR way. So, your opponent gets an endurance advantage, but loses their ability to control your board. This can be very powerful. Decks like the Morlocks and Spider-Friends use evasion extraordinarily well. While the Skrulls haven't played with this ability in the past, that doesn't mean it can't work in your favor. Plus, with his other effects, he could be the catalyst for a fun team up.

Invulnerability. Invulnerability is great. If you don't need it, you don't discard, or get a different useful ability, but if you do you can save 5 endurance on an unexpected stun back. Opponent thinks they're going to eat your end because you left Super Skrull out to the side and they took out the guy next to him? Discard a card for invulnerability, play a reinforce effect like Poker Night and take NOTHING instead of "A LOT!" Turns fair trades into a sweet five endurance swing in your favor. Very nice.

Energize. It... Well... You can... I have no idea! Hopefully we find out real soon. If it has the utility of Evasion and Invulnerability, Super Skrull may indeed be a World Champion.

Wait... He does MORE!?

He also has an activate ability with three options. The first is a simple discard. UDE R&D has a good memory. Discards outside of the combat phase are bah-roken. So he can make your opponent drop a card from their hand. Discard is hard to pull off as a main strategy, in fact the only time it's worked, it was banned. So, discard is... Nice. It's nothing special, but options? They're good. Unless they're all bad... Sort of. But that's a whole other discussion!

Target player loses 3 endurance. So you discard for invulnerability, you activate to burn for 3 and a fair trade becomes an EIGHT endurance swing? Yes! Nice! It also gives you protection against exhaustion effects in a manner of speaking. They try to lock up your boy and he burns for three instead. It's not 9 attack, but it's better than twiddling your thumbs!

The final power is the best I think. Target player replaces a face-up resource. Now, obviously you can replace whatever you want. However, you can also play some mentalism on your opponent. Let him pick. Maybe you don't care about what he replaces. Maybe you're playing a lot of reservists and most of your stuff is face down or will potentially draw into your next turn's drop. Maybe you want to protect your face-ups and by letting him choose he'll over think it. Maybe you misdirect them and they think you WANT your resources replaced. Thus instead of replacing your resources they cycle their own stuff, forgoing their own replacement effects? May be. I like it. Plus, you can just replace whatever you want anyway.

Choices, this card is all about choices! And choices allow you to fill in a gap wherever you need it. How many decks have you seen over the years that are brutally dominate because they have options for every threat coming their way. Decks like New School, Crisis Doom, Teen Titans (even if their option for every threat was... Roy Harper!) and Deadshot.dec. I personally liked the name Banana Hammock, but I guess it was too risque for Metagame.com. Hehe. Options are the best thing in VS System. Overwhelming power can win games, stall can win games, but options can win games you were supposed to lose.

Options separate the best of players from the good players from the bad players. Making the right choice at the right time is the hardest skill to learn. Some people never do. So more choices, in my estimation, is always better. I like to think I'm a good player, I know I'm not one of the best, but cards like this are a quick way to find out.

-Mike Continue reading...

Little Deck Creations: Hidden (Little) Evil

All right, time for another of my ideas. I think I like this one quite a bit. Enough I may try and ebay the cards for it. Luckily with Little Deck even the most expensive card is only a one of so you never break the bank on them. Hehe.

Faces of Evil is a pivotal card in VS history. It rocked the world in Avengers sealed and had a starring role at PC Atlanta, where two of twenty players using the card made the top 8, though they didn't pass the second round. I'm sure somebody won a 10K with it too. I'm not looking that one up though, no matter how fun it is to read the old event coverage sometimes. (I seriously mean that!) I miss reading about big events more than going to big events I think.

Anyway, one variant that had some time in the sun and may have helped lead to the ban on Detective Chimp was Hidden Faces. The idea being that you could play a bunch of little guys in the concealed area and while you sacrificed swing through to the face, you always got to attack back. And because your board was replacable, or even dead at the end of the turn anyway (Hard Sound Construct) you could make great leaps in board position with the right attacks. Better yet, you could make great leaps in the endurance total.

I won't even mention the Kent Farm trick.

Anyway, I built my first copy of Hidden Faces for the Random Punks event way back when. It was long past Bobo T. Champanzee's time, but it still hit hard on a good draw. It was fun and I still play it casually. It still packs no rares and it still kicks a fair share of ass. So, when making that Revenge Squad Little Deck the other day I got the inspiration to put this together too.

After a little testing, I made some changes and it seemed to perk up quite a bit. Here's the list as it stands.

1 Drop
Anti-Green Lantern, Army
Black Bolt, Enemy Within
Dallas Riordan, Mayoral Aide
Green Goblin, Insanity Unleashed
Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster
Surveillance Pawn, Army
Terry Sloane <> Mr. Terrific, Golden Age Gold Medalist
Yellowjacket, Rita DeMara
2 Drop
Beetle, Armorsmith
Bullseye, Lester
Captain America, The Patriot - Secret Avenger
Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter Earth
Joystick, Fun and Games
Melissa Gold <> Screaming Mimi, Mimi Schwartz
Warskrull, Infilltrator
3 Drop
Crystal, Elementelle
Shadow Thief, Carl Sands
Wolverine, Skrunucklehead
5 Drop
Paibok, The Power Skrull

Equipment
Image Inducer
Quantum Bands, Unique

Locations
Birthing Chamber
Hunte Castle
Soul World
The Hellfire Club

Plot Twists
Act of Defiance, Team-Up
Cannibal Tech
Faces of Evil, Team-Up
Tech Upgrade
Underground Movement, Team-Up

I started with the auto inclusions. Faces of Evil, Beetle, Yellowjacket, Dallas, Hunte Castle, Hellfire Club, Birthing Chamber. Then I added some personal favorites, Crystal, Surveillance Pawn, Terry Sloane, Shadow Thief, AGL, Captain America.

I thought I had a solid base here, but I was trying to think of more ways to turn up global pumps. This led me to think of Act of Defiance. Thinking about it, made me think of the typical Skrull deck with poor little kidnapped Franklin Richards doing all the dirty work. Hiding the evil Skrulls in the hidden area. Where Hunte Castle and The Hellfire Club could pump them even more!

Along with Act and Franklin I added Warskrull for his search effect and Wolverine: Skrunucklehead for his potential to swing for 12-13 or more. Paibok was added because with so little deck space, I imagine I wouldn't have more than my Global +1 pumps and so having a five drop that could provide another "global" pump would be a smart move.

To make sure I could share that pump with everyone though I had to think. What could I do? What granted everybody the same affiliation on my side. Well, Super Human Registration Act does. And it lets you recruit off your deck, which would be nice for off curve, but wait... Isn't there another team-up like that? Something that has something to do with the hidden area? Hehe. Oh yeah. Underground Movement, how I love thee! While SHRA hogs the spotlight, I think Underground is honestly an out and out better card.

In this deck it allows those great characters like Beetle and Melissa Gold and Joystick to jump into the hidden area and hang out in the castles and clubs the rest of the deck chills in. They're the kind of characters you'd play even if you couldn't hide them, which says a lot. Normally, in a full size deck, I'd play the one drop Joystick, but I added the two drop instead after another idea struck me.

When looking for small Skrulls I was reminded of Black Bolt: Enemy Within. What's better than a board full of hidden characters with global pumps? The same thing but with a fat, juicy 1 drop soaking damage in the visible area! With just the cards in the deck all ready, Black Bolt plus Quantum Bands had potential to be very large. Like a four drop on turn three or even just four.

With the addition of some of the dual affiliated Thunderbolts in Marvel Universe, the potential is even better. Joystick and Green Goblin add Sinister Syndicate while Bullseye provides his S.H.I.E.L.D. credentials. There's still other affiliations on the character list, I believe meaning with just my board he could (potentially!) be an 14/14. Wanting to ensure that if I hit Black Bolt I'd get him all affiliated up, I added an Image Inducer to the list giving me two equipments to bloat him up. Also added two search cards for the equipment. With Yellowjacket to search for Beetle, Beetle to search for Black Bolt and the two equipment searchers, it seems like he'll hit the board pretty consistently with a good bit of pumped up brawn.

Now, if I had all my affiliations out it might be a pretty bad situation for me, cause that'd take a long time and late turns aren't exactly where you wanna be with any Face variant. But Quantum Bands gives you every affiliation around. So most of the time your opponent will give him 2-3 points himself. Hopefully that's enough to end the game before their big hitters come out and snuff the (little) evil hanging out in the concealed area.

-Mike Continue reading...

Little Deck Creations: Revenge Squad - Ongoing

All right, untested deck reports rule. :)

I saw some mention of Revenge Squad in the VSR MWS Little Deck tournament and I figured before I saw any sort of decklist from the two people playing it I should try my own version and see what differences there were later. I figure it'll make for a fun comparison.

Jumping straight in, here's my list.

1 Drop
Hope, Amazon Bodyguard
2 Drop
Atomic Skull, Joe Martin
Brainiac 13, Mental Giant
Mole Man, Leader of the Moloids
Mr. Mxyzptlk, Fifth Dimension Imp
Terra-Man, Toby Manning
3 Drop
Lex Luthor, Champion of the Common Man
Lex Luthor, Megalomaniac
Lex Luthor, President Luthor
Professor Emil Hamilton <> Ruin
4 Drop
Atomic Skull, Cursed
Kiman, Chief Weaponer
Maxima, Empress of Almerac
Metallo, Kryptonite Heart
5 Drop
Preus, Citizen's Patrol
Mongul, Tyrant of Warworld
6 Drop
Brainiac 12, Upgrade Complete
Brainiac 2.5, Future Intelligence
7 Drop
Braniac 13, B-13

Battle for Metropolis
Bizarro Ray
Concrete Jungle
Death of Superman
Executive Privilege
Hostile Takeover
Null Time Zone
Omnipotence
Revenge Pact
Standoff
Toy Soldiers

Standoff may be one to jettison as I don't know how often it's really going to burn anybody for a significant amount, but without play testing it I like the card. If it had a lower threshold I'd like it more. It's probably best kept to a full size format where you can flip multiple of it on turn 4.

I also dabble in the 0 Defense Stun theme, as you can see. Kiman, Bizarro Ray and the Brainiac's all combine to provide some good potential for out of combat stuns. If nothing else stun backs or extra damage can't be scoffed at. Not when a game can be decided by getting that last 1-2 points on your initiative or losing next turn. I went this direction because the Revenge Squad 4 drops didn't excite me enough to include any but the ones I have.

That being said Metallo, Atomic Skull and Maxima are awesome. Burn, stun and big attacks are all very nice. In a perfect world I would hit Atomic Skull every game though. The reason why is he forces your opponent's attack order and controlling your opponent off-initiative wins games. Even optimal attacks can turn bad. But if they have to save Atomic Skull for last, chances are you can reinforce every swing that comes your way.

In my last post I mentioned the one major problem in the Little Deck format, Deck Out decks, but there's another thing that can cause problems for you. I don't see it as a problem with the format that needs to be fixed, but it's certainly something that will challenge you as you build with this format in mind.

Consistency.

While one-of's are often found in the most consistent of control decks, that's because they're able to manipulate the deck as much as possible by stacking a ton of search, mill and sifting effects. Four Enemy, four Mobilize, four Straight To The Grave, four Wild Ride is excessive, but there are tons of winning decks that run some 8-10 card combination of those to vast success. Yet, nearly all winning decks have something in common. The early game is full of 4x cards on the decklist. Four of the optimal two drop, four of the power one drop (often a search effect themselves), four of the best three drop.

In Little Deck you just can't do that. You can't even play Enemy of My Enemy or Mobilize ONCE, let alone four to eight times. So, the point of all this?

Look at Mole Man and look at Terra-Man on turn two. They serve vastly the same purpose. In fact the only difference in playing one of each as opposed to two of Terra-Man is flight/range, some Plot Twist interaction with team affiliation (pretty important if you need to fill 2 points on 5 and miss because Mole Man can't be picked up by Revenge Pact) is that you can have BOTH of them out on the field if you're lucky enough.

In fact, I'd be pretty pleased to set Terra-Man on turn two and Mole Man with Hope on turn three. Ruin is the obvious better choice, but if you have a row full of Ongoings without him, these growth minded 2 drops can swell into your second and third four drop on turn 5.

In what I've played of little deck, finding similar cards like this is one of the best strategies. Consistency is the best way to victory in our little game. If you can stack a ton of similar effects into your Little Deck you may find it playing very much like it's older brother varients.

The suite of Lex Luthors on three seemed the best option to me as backup for Ruin. They each do something effective and provide me with a way to power up in a format not very conducive to such a thing, which could lead to many surprise bricks on Defense or stuns on offense. It does lock me out of playing Lex at any other drop though, because I think his best options are at four and five and if you lose your three on those turns you're in bad shape.

This may be another change that has to be made to the deck once I start play testing, because while I'm very happy with the turn four options, the turn five options without Lex seriously SUCK. Preus is incredible. Mongul is a nostalgia choice. I had many great turns thanks to Mongul back in Man of Steel sealed pack. I don't think there's any better options for the Revenge Squad at five, but I all most considered playing Preus or Die as my turn five option. After all, with Revenge Pact and Executive Privilege I have a fair chance of cycling through a lot of my deck.

With them both active on turn three I can see more than half my deck. By turn 5 I will have cycled through it's entirety and begun drawing into cards stacked as I chose. Which can be used to your advantage by simply taking quick notes during play.

Which reminds me... I need to make a Longshot Little Deck. Hehe.

If I do have to replace Standoff, a strong choice might be Thinking Outside the Box which forces you to draw from the bottom of your deck instead of the top. Which means instead of waiting for your good cards to cycle back through the deck, you just pick them up next turn.

With such strong effects that simply require you to lay down your blues every turn, this concept seems like a powerhouse. You have to be wary though, because without Ruin you can end up rowing characters and losing your biggest advantage. Little Deck, like sealed, seems best suited for a 20/10 spread of characters vs. others. Meaning it's not that hard to face a hand full of characters on an early or mid-game turn.

With that in mind, in goldfishing the deck I've mulliganed for a hand full of blue or Ruin each time. So far it hasn't led me wrong.

To give you an idea of how different I expect this deck and the ones in the tournament to be, I heard mention of Reign of Terra and Total Anarchy. Yeah, Reign of Terra. The worst card in VS System history. lol And it was praised! So, I can't wait to see how that works. To further illustrate my point, here's a list of Ongoings I considered.

HONORABLE MENTIONS

Absolute Dominance
Anti-Life
Assault and Battery
Bad Press
Banished To The Anti-Matter Universe
Blood In The Dark
Carrying The Torch
Dimensional Deal, Team-Up
Foiled
Global Domination
Help Wanted
Hostage Situation
Knowledge Is Power
Magical Lobotomy, Magic
Mob Mentality
New and Improved
New Mutations (before I realized I had a fair amount of flight and plenty of range, if I needed it)
No Hope
Research and Development
State of the Union
Thinking Outside The Box
Total Anarchy
Trapped In The Sciencells

That's a BIG list. Many of them would change the deck quite a bit. Well, I would be forced to change the deck quite a bit that is. I could just slot them in and it'd suck and they'd be useless. Hehe. But from teaming up to focusing on certain characters there's a lot of ways to build this, it'll be fun finding out which ones are most effective and how many of them are effective.

-Mike


Continue reading...

How I Learned to Love MWS

Instead of rambling about how I'm "back" or going to try and post daily again, instead I'm just going to post and if you're out there, I appreciate it. I know somebody has been visiting every week, I've had hits and all. Sorry I didn't have anything for you before now.

Before this last two weeks the only thing I could tell you about MWS is that it's terrible and doesn't work and ugly and annoying and gives me conniptions. I couldn't remember specifics, but the first time I tried it, I could not for the life of me to get it installed properly. It wouldn't let me switch from library mode to deck editor mode and I couldn't get the cards out of the Magic template. You know, all squashed up inside the little art box? Ugh, I hated that so much.

I don't like Magic, I play it, because it's there. I know players and we have fun. It's very casual. I enjoy myself, but it's just... Not the same. It's so frustrating. To see my beloved VS squeezed into a Magic card hit some psychological nerve with me. After a couple days I just jettisoned it all, chucked it, deleted it, round filed it and didn't look back.

After all, OCTGN worked very well, it was easy to find the sets and I don't play online nearly enough to justify trying to force it. The online tournaments I had played at the time had all been on OCTGN or the precursor for online VS play Apprentice. I was resistant to switching from Apprentice to OCTGN at the time, but I actually LIKED OCTGN. I _still_ like OCTGN.

Really, I do.

But you know what else I like? I like Little Deck. I love Little Deck. It's such a brilliant format. It's like constructed sealed. Sealed is one of my favorite formats. Not draft, which is fun, but sealed. The only problem in sealed is bad packs = bad packs. Hard to beat the guy who opened two Faces, Yellowjacket, Beetle AND Joystick.

So, when Flashback81, now the newly appointed VSRealms Online Tournament Organizer (in caps because it's an official title!), told me about putting together an online Little Deck tournament for his big 2000th post I was very excited. OCTGN he said!

Suuuch a dirty, dirty liar. Hehe. After a public vote willed things the way of MWS I was in a terrible dilemma. To play Little Deck I had to soil my PC with MWS again. This was a new PC, a PC that hadn't been there to see the horrors of MWS before. I could scar it's young soul! What to do, what to do!

Being something of an unintentional masochist I asked Flashback to help me get MWS installed so I could play. I really, really wanted to play. This time things went better. I had a bit of a snag trying to install the sets, but Flashback got it all straightened out real quick and thank the heavens it actually WORKED! Holy crap, I was not prepared for that! I had no idea what to play so I grabbed my box of Little Decks (I have 10 put together) and started looking through them. Most are pretty horrible, because I just threw them together with whatever I had lying around.

Little Deck isn't supposed to be good, it's supposed to be fun. :)

After paring it down to three choices that seemed to play pretty well in the games I've had I was left with Crisis Doom, SecSoc/Manhunters Deckout and Suicide Sinister Syndicate. My choice was easy. Not because I'm a power monger (I am) or because I thought it would do well (I did), but simply because Little Deck offers a unique chance that no other format does.

In Little Deck you can very well decimate an opponent by depleting their deck and leaving them with NO resources but a vastly dwindling hand. The Deck Out, which is deadly in Magic is non-existent in VS. Deck out is one strategy I really enjoy in Magic. So to try it out in VS was attractive. Here's the problem, it's not that it's just "deadly" in Little Deck, it's that it's EASY and that it's a painful, brutal process.

BANNED IN THE V S R (Online Little Deck Tournament)

Characters
1 Drop
Lana Lang, Manhunter Sleeper
Manhunter Clone, Clone of Paul Kirk
Riddler, Riddle Me This
2 Drop
Dr. Sivana, Mad Scientist
James Jesse <> Trickster, Giovanni Giuseppe
3 Drop
Floronic Man, Jason Woodrue
Kate Spencer <> Manhunter, Vigilante Justice
Manhunter Soldier, Army
Quakemaster, Robert Coleman
4 Drop
Black Cat, Felicia Hardy
Felix Faust, Dark Bargain
Gorilla Grodd, Grodd Awful
Pan, Manhunter Duplicate
5 Drop
Black Manta, Underwater Marauder
Hank Henshaw <> Cyborg, Manhunter Grandmaster
Manhunter Giant, Army
6 Drop
Manhunter Conqueror, Grandmaster
7 Drop
Solomon Grundy, Buried On A Sunday

Locations
Gorilla City
Slaughter Swamp

Plot Twists
Attend or Die!
Funky's Big Rat Code
Gravesite
Overpowered
Sorcerer's Treasure
The Fall of Oa
Unnatural Selection
With Prejudice

Turns out, I'm not the only person who was going for the Deck Out. When Flashback WISELY banned the purposeful attempt to mill your opponent's deck into the KO'd pile an outpouring of people posted about their need for a new deck now. How sick is it?

Turn 3 in one game, Manhunter Clone double evaded on turns one and two, Riddler and Lana Lang came out on two with Funky's Big Rat Code, Kate Spencer stunned their two on three, I played Overpowered, I replayed it with Sorcerer's Treasure. I then drew my deck with Fall of Oa. I didn't even need Overpowered twice, I just did it because I could. lol He only had one card left on the Sorcerer's Treasure replay. It took me three more turns to kill him even though he missed 5 and 6 because he had one card in hand and played it as a resource on turn 5.

Yes, it's that sick. Worse yet? I did it in much the same way with a few differences in a game I played after the ban came down. That was 2 out of 3 games with a turn 3 deck out. So, there's ONE problem with Little Deck. While the format is genius, it's not perfect. Enemy and Mobilize are banned, can't have anything but one of's in your deck... But the Red Robots from Space break the format in half. I think the only way to work around the problem is to ban the deckout concept. Which is kind of hard. Maybe cards milled by an opponent should be put into a secondary KO'd pile and when your deck is empty, that's shuffled into your deck? Fall of Oa still lets them pick up their deck, but it doesn't let them pick up their deck and smack you in the face with it.

In any case, this isn't about the (one) problems with Little Deck, this is about loving MWS!

Needing a new deck I didn't really think about it until the pairings went up, in fact I didn't install MWS until the day before that. I was paired up with the Lost Hemisphere's own Captain Spud. When he contacted me about playing the next day is when it suddenly hit me that I should build a deck.

I opened MWS and figured I'd try the deck editor out to start with. I needed to get used to it and the best way to test a deck editor, in my opinion, is to see if you can build a deck from scratch with just their filters.

Well, you cannot build a deck from scratch with JUST MWS' deck editor. Well, you can but it's a pain in the ass. I had to use the fantastic little website DocX give's us over at, my home page. I do not like MWS' deck editor at all, but it does it's job well enough to pass. Throwing together a Thunderbolts deck mostly focused on their "Growth" theme emboldened me to try another.

After thinking back to my previous choices I thought, "Let's play with the Syndicate a bit." Because, after all, I've always loved Spidey's rogue's gallery. Even back in Web of Spiderman, as bad as they sucked, I thought that Sinister Syndicate had some AMAZING drops. Stuff like Tombstone: Lonnie Lincoln, Hammerhead: Gangster (he's a GANGSTER yo!) Vulture: Adrian Toomes, Green Goblin: Norman Osborn and Goblin Glider scream out for blood.

Suicide Syndicate (more fitting than you know!)

Characters
1 Drop
Basilisk, Basil Elks
Fusion, Markley
Doppleganger, Killer Clone
Razorfist, Sociopathic Mercenary
Slyde, Jalome Beacher
Tinkerer, Phineas Mason
Tombstone: Lonnie Lincoln
Vulture: Adrian Toomes
2 Drop
Electro, Shock Jock
Swarm, Fritz Von Meyer
Hammerhead, Gangster
Shriek, Frances Barrison
Silvermane, Silvio Manfredi
Trapster, Peter Putski
3 Drop
Bullseye, Assassin For Hire
Venom, Mac Gargan
Spider-Man Robot, Timespinner
4 Drop
Carnage, Psychopath
5 Drop
Green Goblin, Norman Osborn

Equipment
Goblin Glider

Locations
Doc Ock's Lab

Plot Twists
Blinding Rage
Crushing Blow
Flying Kick
Legacy of Evil
Sadistic Choice
Sand Trap
Savage Beatdown
Sinister Salvo
Spider Hunt
Spider Slayers

Well, this is what I decided to play. Oh noes! My secret tech! lol To put it mildly I don't think I have to worry. Even without warning I have been severely trounced in both rounds one and two. The first match against Spud was a nicely thematic beating with Spider-Man and a motley crew providing the beat down.

(You can read a report by Spud at the Realms in the following post.)

Ironically, the second round was against Pi_3.14159 who you should all know from his awesome blog in my links over to the left. The irony is he played a Counter Growth deck based mostly around the Thunderbolts. I wasn't too surprised as I know he plays a full size deck around the theme after all.

In anycase, while having to mulligan Carnage, Bullseye and Green Goblin in my opening hand against Spud could have cost me the match in round one, in round two I had a pretty dang good draw and still got absolutely trounced.

But I had fun. I always have fun when playing VS System.

The thing is I had fun and it was very easy. Which is not always the case with online play. MWS wasn't just easy, it was COOL! With Spud talking me through it I learned the ropes and some of the features are just awesome. I wish there was a graphical reference for your KO'd pile so you could see the cards, but that's a minor complaint. Also would be nice to roll over your face down resources and be able to see them, like OCTGN, but again... Minor complaint.

The thing that makes MWS super awesome and, now in my opinion, better than OCTGN?

The arrows. You can right click your card and drag to another, drop it on and you get a big red arrow from your card to the other card. Why is that so helpful? Well, instead of typing, "Declare an attack on Spider-Man with Venom" you just right click Venom and drop him on Spidey. Have an effect that targets? You can shift click, drag a card and drop it on the target and you get a big YELLOW arrow to the card.

Man does that sound like a silly reason to love something now that I type it out.

I don't care. I love MWS for the arrows. The arrows are awesome! The arrows are WIN! And besides making the game play easier, they've got another thing going for them. As I sat staring at a board with 4-5 arrows going all over the place as effects and attacks piled up... It reminded me of one of the reasons I love VS System itself.

The tangle of arrows was a perfect representation of the complex computations that go into a game of VS. It was like looking at my thought process during a game graphed out. That is cool. Very cool. I love MWS.

-Mike Continue reading...

Wow, it's been a long time...

Sorry, I just haven't had too much to say or talk about. Yeesh, you'd think I could at least keep a weekly update. >_< That's the problem with World of Warcraft though I think. Instead of sitting at the computer, doing nothing and deciding to update my blog... I play WoW. Instead of sitting here doing nothing and deciding to cruise Ebay for random junk I'm not gonna buy... I play WoW. So on and etc. Click below to see the rest. This'll probably be a bit rambley.

Well, yesterday I went to try and make a new deck and I had forgotten I barely have any Infinite Crisis so I have like 20 Villains United cards. Argh. It's so frustrating. I basically work for room and board, apprenticing to be a tattoo artist with my Mom and we own a shop together, which is awesome and all, but it means I'm always broke. I'm kinda used to that, I've always been broke most of my adult life, largely due to personal issues.

But anyway, normally I woulda just made a deck using which is my home page I use it so often and then seen what I had, filled it out with proxies and seen how I liked it before trying to buy some singles, but the main person I play with doesn't like proxies so I kinda try and not use them. He doesn't make a big deal, but it's just one of those things where I'm trying to be polite. I seem to go out of my way to not inconvenience other people a lot, which I guess isn't the worst "flaw" a guy could have.

I think I want to do a burn deck with a heavy low curve. Dr. Light and Talia 5-drop letting me spam out extra guys. I haven't looked at the cards in a long time I don't remember really the ideas I used to have except Dr. Light being cool. And Deathstroke-4 is awesome. I've actually wanted to build the deck for a long time, I just always got distracted by other ideas.

I'd also love to have a Rock of Eternity or Blackbriar Thorn/Magic deck. I always thought both were incredibly cool. With Power Girl on 5 I think the Rock deck is absolutely ridiculous. I guess you would still have to play Ahmed because, I mean... Ahmed. Rock. Locations. Duh.

Guess this is rambling a little more than I thought. I'm gonna get some sleep and try and post something more substantive soon.

-Mike Continue reading...

Marvel Zombies - The Survivors = Broken!

So I've been putting off continuing this because I haven't had a chance to do any work on FIXING the Survivors team, but I figure, who cares? I'd prefer to be a daily blog, I tried really hard to keep up the pace, but if I can only do 1-3 posts a week I might as well go with it. So click below and you'll see the raw text for the Survivors as they stand. They need fixing.

The idea was a strategy of Reverse King, kind of. Force them to attack the hidden area and the Distraction who stands alone weathers the storm. But the fact is, it's easy to go too far with control. I think Sue is the worst of the bunch. She'll be getting a definite overhaul. Especially since she can no Force Field Project to boot.

AU = Alternate Universe. The idea was that this would be a mechanic to allow you to play Ultimate Mr. Fantastic with regular Mr. Fantastic without something like Clash of Worlds to enable it. Basically, you have Alternate Universe: Ultimates and you're only unique to characters from THAT universe. Considering UDE doesn't seem to want to play that way, I'll probably remove the keyword and design something else for the Survivors. I all ready have an idea, actually.

You can see where I made some changes in play testing, it wasn't enough however. They still were way too strong.

Here, you go, enjoy.

Asteroid M: Zombie Earth
2 Cost
Location
Whenever a character comes into play under your control, if they're the only character in the area they come into play in, put a +1 ATK/+1 DEF counter on them.
Activate -> Move target +1 ATK/+1 DEF counter to a character you control.

Interdimensional Teleporter: Zombie Earth
1 Cost
Location
Activate -> Move a character you control with the printed affiliation Survivors to your hidden or visible area.
"What happened? This is _horrible_,"

ORIGINAL
Narrow Sewers
3 Cost
Location
Activate -> Target character with the printed Survivors team affiliation cannot be team attacked this turn unless they have all ready been attacked at least once this turn.
NEW
Narrow Sewers
3 Cost
Location
Activate -> Target character with the printed Survivors team affiliation cannot be team attacked this turn unless they have all ready been a defender this turn.

Railway Tunnel
4 Cost
Location
When you flip up Railway Tunnel, you may discard a character card. If you do search your deck for a Survivors character card.
Replace Railway Tunnel -> Stun target character with cost 3 or less with more than double it's printed attack value. Use this power only if all characters you control share a printed team affiliation.

Distraction
3 Cost
ONGOING: While you control one hidden character, your opponent's characters may attack hidden characters and must attack hidden characters before visible characters.

Can't Eat Us All At Once
3 Cost
Target defender you control gets +2 DEF for each other character you control in the same area and -2 DEF for each other character you control in another area this attack.

Reed To The Rescue
2 Cost
Move a character you control to the hidden area. Move any number of characters you control to the visible area.
"I can't believe we never thought of this. Did you hear what Mindy _said_?"

Mindy Glidewell: Diabetic Genius
0 Drop
Survivors
0/0
Loyalty - Hardfast.
Mindy has reinforcement.
Whenever Mindy defends move her to your Hidden Area.

Human Torch: Ultimate Johnny Storm
1 Drop
Survivors/Fantastic Four
1/2 Flight/Range
Concealed. AU - Ultimate
Activate -> Search your deck for a character card that shares a printed affiliation with Human Torch. Use this power only once per turn and only if Human Torch is visible.
"Yo, Sue. You seen Reed?"

Black Panther: Light Snack
2 Drop
Survivors/Avengers
2/3
Concealed. AU - Zombie Earth. Reservist.
Reveal Black Panther -> Target character you control who is the only character you control in your hidden or your visible area may attack hidden characters this turn. Use this power only while Black Panther is in your hand or resource row.

Mr. Fantastic: Ultimate Reed Richards
2 Drop
Survivors/Fantastic Four
3/3 Range
Concealed - Optional. AU - Ultimate.
Whenever you are attacked directly you may exhaust Mr. Fantastic. If you do gain endurence equal to Mr. Fantastic's defense.

ORIGINAL
Invisible Woman: Ultimate Sue Storm
3 Drop
Survivors/Fantastic Four
4/5
Concealed - Optional. AU - Ultimate.
Activate -> Target character you control gets plus X defense this turn where X is equal to Invisble Woman's defense. Invisible Woman gets minus X defense for the turn.
"I don't know how long I can _hold_ them."
NEW
Invisible Woman: Ultimate Sue Storm
3 Drop
Survivors/Fantastic Four
4/3
Concealed - Optional. AU - Ultimate.
Activate -> Target character you control gets plus X defense this turn during your opponent's attack step where X is equal to Invisble Woman's defense. Invisible Woman gets minus X defense for the turn.
"I don't know how long I can _hold_ them."

Silver Surfer: Zombie Killing Space Surfer
3 Drop
Survivors/Heralds of Galactus
5/5 Flight/Range
Concealed - Optional. AU - Zombie Earth.
Silver Surfer gets -1 ATK/-1 DEF for each character you control in the same area.
Silver Surfer gets +1 ATK/+1 DEF for each character you control in a different area.

Thing: Ultimate Benjamin Grimm
4 Drop
Survivors/Fantastic Four
6/9
Concealed. AU - Ultimate.
At the start of your attack step, you may exhaust Thing. If you do exhaust target character with attack less than or equal to Thing's defense.
"Always _wondered_ if I could take this freak!"

Fabian Cortez: Leader in Exile
5 Drop
Survivors/Acolytes
9/9 Range
Concealed. Reservist. AU - Zombie Earth.
Reveal Fabian Cortez -> KO Fabian Cortez, search your deck for a location, reveal it and put it face down in your resource row. Use this power only if all characters you control share a printed affiliation with Fabian Cortez.

Magneto: Appetizer
5 Drop
Survivors/Acolytes
9/10 Flight/Range
Concealed - Optional. AU - Zombie Earth.
Free -> If you control an attacker, Magneto becomes an attacker. If you control a defender, Magneto becomes a defender and remove all other defenders from this attack. Use this power only while Magneto is the only hidden or only visible character you control and only once per turn.

Silver Surfer: Entree
6 Drop
Survivors/Heralds of Galactus
12/13 Flight/Range
Concealed - Optional. AU - Zombie Earth.
If Silver Surfer is the only character in your hidden area or the only character in your visible area he has Invulnerability.

Galactus: Main Course
7 Drop
Survivors/Heralds of Galactus
16/16 Flight/Range
AU - Zombie Earth.
When Galactus enters your hidden area move all other characters you control to your visible area. When Galactus enters your Visible Area move all other characters you control to your hidden area.
"YOU hunger!?" Continue reading...

"You wanna know how I got these scars...?"

No Spoilers, short review of the Dark Knight, various thoughts, updates.

AHHAHHHAHAHAHAHHAHAHHHHAHAHAHAAHHAAHAHAHHAAHAHAHHAAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA
AHhaHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABWAHAHAHAHAHAHABWAHHHHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEBWWWAAAHHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHhhhhAAAAaaahahaahahahahahahahaahhhAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHHAHA
AHhaHHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHABWAHAHAHAHAHAHABWAHHHHAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA
AHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHhahahahahahahahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHEHEHEHEBWWWAAAHHAHAH
HAHAHAHAHAAHHAHAHhhhhAAAAaaahahaahahahahahahahaahhhAHHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAHA
AAHHHAAAAAHAHAHAHehehehehhHEHEHHEHEHEHEHHEEEHHHEHEHEHEBWWWAAAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!

/takes a deep breath.

I needed that. The Dark Knight was exactly what I needed, exactly what I wanted, everything I expected and more. Heath Ledger's performance was haunting, transcendent and I'd just like to say that the idea of a posthumous Oscar has true merit. If there is justice he will at least get the nomination. Will it be because he died? Probably. But never once did I stop to think, "Wow, it's creepy watching this knowing that he's dead." or "What a legacy." or anything of the sort in fact. I was so enraptured by The Joker that I forgot about actors and real life for two and half hours. And if Daniel Day-Lewis can get an Oscar for "just acting" regardless of the movie as some people claim (I haven't seen it yet, I want to, but I have a billion movies, comics, books and the like to catch up on) then why not Ledger? Whom Mr. Day-Lewis dedicated his Screen Actor's Guild award too, calling him "unique, perfect."

But it WASN'T "just acting" because the meat of this film is The Joker. They gave him so much to work with. He revels in it. He takes it and runs. It's... It's Oscar worthy, genre picture stigma be damned.

Look at the rest of the cast! Christian Bale, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Morgan Freeman, Michael Caine, Gary Oldman, Aaron Eckhart... Wow, look at that cast folks. That's serious weighty actor folk there. They all deliver intense, amazing performances.

And if they hadn't set up the continuation of the franchise so well I'd wonder how the hell they move on from here. I think this is the 21rst century answer to James Bond. Batman can be forever. Just don't remind us of Batman Forever, okay guys?

Speaking of Bond, I'm really looking forward to the next one. I always like the idea of Bond more than the actual movies, but the new Bond series is exactly what he should be. No nonsense, tough as nails, witty super spy who bangs molten hot tail and then leaves without saying goodbye and never calls again, but cares.

Since there isn't any Bond VS I'll leave that there and move on.

UDE recently updated the points store and I was one of the lucky people to slip in early and grab my playset of Clash of Worlds. I told you all I was getting ready! I wasn't kidding, I popped my codes ASAP from my two MUN boxes and I grabbed 4x Clash as soon as they updated. I'm on Realms everyday and I was checking UDE.com/points every other day. Realms to the rescue as they were put up on my off day. Special thanks to KardKrazy who put the thread up. You can still grab Roshambo, Origin Story, Royal Flush Gang, Agility, 52, I think Superman/Batman Robot and some other nice cards though. I think I wanna play around with a Joker-Clash deck in honor of TDK. We'll see.

ALSO! Big news, Marvel Universe is getting a reprint! UDE listens and apparently enough of you played re-orders with stores. MAKE SURE YOU FOLLOW THROUGH! It's decidedly important that MUN does not end up festering on shelves, because seriously folks this is a HUGE step. UDE is taking a massive risk to the bottom line and this is sink or swim. We NEED a reprint, but at the same time we need to BUY that reprint, you know? I'm honestly not sure what to do. I have about a hundred bucks left from selling my guitar right now. I may pick up another box of MUN instead of saving it towards Evolutions. I just don't know what to do though.

Any thoughts?

Who's buying more MUN?

Anyway, that's it, sorry for updating so sparsely. I've taken up WoW. Not the card game, the MMO. I'm not sure which is worse. Hehe.

-Mike Continue reading...

DCU Preview! Tattooed Man, Mark Richards

So, you're here for a DCU Preview eh? I hope you've been keeping up because this stuff is EXCITING! Direct stun? Check. Reign of Terror effect? Check. Just for SINESTRO!? Check! There was some Hal Jordan and Green Lantern goodies last week, but this week is about the Emerald Enemies.

I've been dying to show off this card, it's amazing. Absolutely, positively, amazing and follows in Sinestro: Deposed Dictator's footsteps of recalling previous effects that rocked the game. What effect is on the comeback? Well continue reading to see...

I'm not going to make you wait through a bunch more text, check out the card.



Whaaaaaaaaaat!? Yeah! No kidding! Dr. Light is back and he's bigger than before! Yes, not only does he gain the power affiliation of Secret Society, but he's also got an extra attack! He loses flight and now he's team stamped, but the only additional cost is that he has to pay the 2 willpower he has for the turn.

Oh no! How terrible- Wait. How insane is that!?

Even more insane is that you don't have to put a printed Emerald Enemy into play, you can put any 2 drop or less that you team up with them into play! You can put something like, oh, say...

Deadshot: Floyd Lawton into play! Did you miss him on 2? Did they play another 3 drop and you want to play your 4-drop? Kill it anyway! Wanna burn a LOT with Wylde: Charlie Wylde in your Outsiders team attack deck? Just start spamming characters old school GLEE style. 6 resource points on 4 could translate into 5 extra burn. Crime Doctor: Bradford Thorne turns Tattooed Man into a Puppet Master like character. You get two exhausts every other turn instead of one a turn, but on the off turn you can drop something like... Puppet Master. Thank you Underground Movement/Superhero Registration Act!

Team up with the X-Men and you can keep dropping Bishop: Age of Apocalypse to search for cards, much like Dr. Light's old buddy Kyle Rayner: Last Green Lantern. Want 3 or 4 copies of X-Men Assemble! online? Tattooed Man will help you!

Writing this preview is so easy. It was like a gift. To be fair, most of the hard work previewing this guy was done by all the people who made such innovative and sometimes obvious decks abusing our "favorite" card board rapist. So to feel like I'm putting a little more work into it, here's a little preview deck list! It's not complete, but it gives you the idea.

4x Emerald Enemy 1-drop
4x Domino, Neena Thurman
2x Shadowcat, Phase Shifter
4x Professor X, Idealistic Dreamer
4x Bishop, Age of Apocalypse
4x Captain America, The Patriot - Secret Avenger
4x Tattooed Man, Mark Richards
4x Wolverine, Age of Apocalypse
1x Blink, Age of Apocalypse
1x Holocaust, Age of Apocalypse

4x Birthing Chamber
4x Muir Island

4x Home Surgery
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Something That Grants Willpower
4x The Spectrum
4x X-Men Assemble

As we see more Emerald Enemies and more plot twists from the DC Universe set, this card just gets more and more powerful. Without even seeing a card in the set that can be put into play with Tattooed Man or enables him to team up more easily, he can all ready be a powerful lynch pin to many controlling or rush strategies.

-Mike Continue reading...