VS Player

Well for anyone who hasn't seen it yet, Anthony Cheng and VSRealms forum members JPinter, darcspiral13, and WeissX did the bulk of the work I believe (if there is anyone else who contributed let me know) and the rest of the site pitched in and there's an almost complete spoiler based on packs that have already been opened which you can find here.

As I look over the spoiler, there aren't very many cards that jump out and say, "Hey, play me! I'm really good!" Of the sets in Modern Age now, I would rate this one as the third most powerful, behind the two Marvel sets, but still a little ways ahead of DLS. Heralds and MTU are significantly more powerful though. There are some pretty solid cards in the set though. Crackshot will get a ton of play as it's almost as good as Flying Kick. Soul Slicer seems ridiculous.

Team Superman got some decent cards. All of the Superman cards seem to be pretty good to me. There's a 4 drop with flight and range that basically has invulnerability and is unaffected by any card that references cost. The 5 drop is a 9/9 with flight and range that will usually have invulnerability on your turn which is a very good ability in limited. The seven drop will also be a monster in limited, and could see some play in Constructed. The 9-drop doesn't quite live up to other 9-drops though. Can't be stunned is solid, but it's no Galactus. The protection theme and messing with your opponent's attacks might be worth looking into, but most good opponents will probably be able to play around your tricks anyway.

Gotham Knights got some solid cards. Again, I think all the Batman cards are solid. The 8-drop in particular is very intriguing to me. I could see some sort of stall/combo deck that gets the big Bat into play and then plays a ton of plot twists into some ridiculous effect. I'm not sure what that is yet, but it's worth exploring. The team doesn't really have a theme other than plot twist negation and looking at your opponent's cards. The negation theme will probably get some of the Knights splashed into other decks, but looking at your opponent's cards is just so....bleh. Kate Kane could be ridiculous, but that may require to much work to pull off.

The Birds of Prey are really a minor team in this set. The fact that they are all Concealed-Optional gives you a lot of ummm...options when you play them. Expect Cassandra Cain to be very good, with 3 drop Oracle allowing you to draw a bunch of cards, she will be taking out a lot of 6-drops in the coming months.

The Outsiders initially strike me as the best team. Their theme is the one big team attack and they seem like the trickiest team (which usually leads to long turns and cries of abuse). They have some of the best cards in the set and a lot of potential both in a team-up scenario and as mono builds. They can be built off-curve or on and do some really cool stuff. They are the team I plan on working with the most right off the bat.

I was a little, no a lot, disappointed in Arkham. I wasn't one of the people who had been waiting years on this re-feature just to play the team, but I was quite excited to see all the really dumb, borderline broken Insanity cards and they're just not there. You would indeed have to be insane to play a deck like that, because only about 4 of the cards warrant it.

The Revenge Squad themes are pretty weak as well giving you marginal rewards for terrible formations. The ongoing plot twist thing will be the only thing worth even considering trying to make a deck with. The Sqaud does sport a nice curve though, even with the lack of a quality supporting theme. After the Outsiders, Revenge Squad seems to be the most playable out of the box.

One of the complaints I've heard from a lot of people is that this set is too bland and boring. I find this ironic because a few weeks ago, the big complaint was the one of the main drawbacks of the game is the complexity. Well, here they make a set with A-list teams that at least look to be competitive without making them require 20 minute build phases. A lot of casual players will enjoy getting to swing with Batman just to deal extra damage, or not taking any stun endurance when Superman gets stunned. Getting back to just playing the game with high-profile comic book characters seems to be the focus of this set, which will probably be good for the game as a whole. If that was indeed the desired effect, and it does draw new players in, then I will say that this set was a success despite the fact that it is unlikely to stand up in power to the Marvel sets at the Pro Circuit.

Well, it's been a while since I've updated here (over a month, even). I think I've finally managed to make arrangements with a local store to host Hobby Leagues and City Championships. It will be nice to finally have a place to play around here. I've managed to get a small local playgroup going. One of the good things about this group is some of the players have come from different games, but are going to give all the games we play a try as everyone loves to draft and just play in general so we'll play whatever game there is for us to play. I don't think our local store got set up in time to run the Marvel Team-Up City Championships so for now we'll have to just look forward to the Random Punks tournament next month.

When you look over their cards, the Sinister Syndicate really only has one theme that seems like it will be playable in a Constructed environment and that's the weenie rush. The Syndicate has a lot of good 1 and 2-drops, with some real standouts. One of the best is Answer. His ability to pretty much always stun their biggest drop will really come in handy when you're playing against a curve deck. There are a lot of other good low drops. I personally like most of the characters that are oversized but cause you to lose endurance like Electro. In addition to the off-curve capabilities of this team, they have one of the best six-drops around in Doc Ock. Anyone that basically gives out free stuns is someone I want on my team. His Loyalty will keep him from showing up in any toolbox decks and the Syndicate doesn't have a lot to make a good curve team, IMO. That's a real shame because Doc Ock is very good.

The Syndicate support cards mirror their characters in that most of the good ones will be in an off-curve deck. One thing that's a little disappointing to me is the power of the cards that cost you endurance equal to your resources. The price on these cards is relatively steep and many of them have effects similar to other cards that don't have the endurance cost with them. Demonic Association for example. This card is more heavily team-stamped than Big Leagues with a greater cost for the same effect. I think they could have pushed the power on these cards a little more.

There are three real standouts to me for the SS Swarm deck, Spider-Hunt, Ravencroft Institute, and Legacy of Evil. Between Spider-Hunt, Ravencroft, and Carnage's boost power, whatever turn you go for the kill, all your 2-drops should be at least +6 ATK. Throw in a Faces of Evil or three and you're going to have a monster army. Here's a Silver Age decklist to start with for Sinister Faces.

4 Yellowjacket
4 Beetle
1 Answer
1 Black Tarantula
2 Carnage
1 Chameleon
1 Electro
1 Fusion
1 Lizard
1 Razorfist
1 Slyde
1 Spider Slayer
1 Swarm
1 Trapster
1 Vulture
1 Shocker
1 Radioactive Man
1 Paul Ebersol
1 Nathan Garrett
1 Melter
1 Melissa Gold
1 Speed Demon
1 Ogre
1 Melissa Gold
1 Joystick
1 Erik Josten
1 Dallas Riordan
2 Beetle Mach 1

4 Legacy of Evil
4 Ravencroft Institute
3 Spider Hunt
4 Hard Sound Construct
2 Mystic Summons
4 Faces of Evil
4 The Wrecking Crew
3 Stormfront 1

I realized after I built this list that DGL is still legal in Silver, so this deck should also have Birthing Chambers and Kyle Rayner to fetch up the Hard Sound Constructs. Poison Ivy would also allow some added flexibility in the support cards.

I haven't played this deck at all yet, but I think you want evens to make turn 6 your kill turn. An ideal turn 6 would include a boosted Carnage, Spider-Hunt, Ravencroft a 2-cost, Hard Sound Constructing something and firing off a good Wrecking Crew. It sounds like a lot I know, but even just a small amount of global pumps will make your guys really big. The Masters of Evil add a lot to this deck. Yellowjacket and Beetle are both great cards for off-curve strategies and allow quite a bit of flexibility in your allies. They are also half of the Faces of Evil team-up. Possibly the best card the Masters bring to the table is Hard Sound Construct. This card is ridiculous, especially when combined with all the global pumps this decks runs.

The Thunderbolts are really only there to fulfill the Faces requirement, but their characters aren't bad either. They also give you access to Beetle Mach 1 to get your team-ups.

In Modern Age, it's hard to say whether there is a good enough team-up to get the Syndicate deck to the top. The Masters of Evil are probably the best off-curve team in the game and without them the Syndicate deck may fall short. It still has a lot of firepower though and there are a couple of teams that would make decent team-ups with them.

The Legionnaires and Titans both have decent off-curve options, but the most likely team-up in Modern Age (at least until World's Finest) is going to be with the JSA. The 2 Mr. Terrifics, Kate Spencer, and T-Spheres are all good additions to the deck and the JSA has some decent off-curve characters as well. The power up JSA's attacking up the curve with Syndicate's raw off-curve power may be a viable team-up, but only playtesting would tell.

That's all I've got for today, but next time I'll cover Underworld.

The recent announcement regarding the restructuring of Organized Play for VS. System has left me doing a little soul searching. Earlier this week, I was strongly considering making Marvel Team-Up my last set. I was upset about the announcement but not because I only play VS. for money. While I do consider myself a competitive player more than a casual one, I would continue to play the game without significant prize support. The thing that really bothered me was the way the situation seemed to be handled by Upper Deck. We had been promised exciting new $50K's, increased PC payouts and more for several months. Then, with relatively no warning (unless you consider Internet grumblings warning), all that was snatched away. I felt a little bit cheated, kinda like UDE had pulled the old bait-and-switch on us. At first the new system felt like an exit plan designed to keep people around long enough to sell off the remaining sets before they quit production. But one post this morning from Jeff Donais over on VSRealms brought me back.

He talked about how they are reacting to the players' reaction to the new OP. It looks like they will hopefully be implementing a new sort of event similar to PCQ's. Players will be able to run their own Hobby Leagues. That one post kept me around to try to help bring the game back in my area.

Now, I want to talk about some of the reasons I was torn in the first place and didn't just immediately pack up and quit.

Marvel Team-Up is a great set. I want to play all the teams in this set. The design team has really done a great job with the last 2 Marvel sets. I'm not really big on Legion, but Heralds of Galactus was a great set as well. If World's Finest can do for Batman and Superman what Marvel Team-up will likely do for Spider-Man it will be a great boost to the game.

VS. is a fun game. I think too many people think this game is more complicated than it really is. For evidence, last year I taught someone who had never played card games before how to play both Magic and VS. System and he is far better at VS. than Magic. There are just so many more minute card interactions in Magic. I think a lot of people, especially the pros at this game, like to make the game seem overly complicated because it plays to their ego. Especially at the kitchen table level, this game is very simple. At the highly competitive level, I still don't think it's as complicated as Magic, but that can be debated.

There are a lot of other reasons why I'm going to stay with this game, but the most important one is because I have a ton of fun playing it. I'll get back to my Marvel Team-Up team reviews next week.

Today we're going to move along to the next team in the new Marvel Team-up set, the Defenders. The Defenders really only have one true theme, backup. They have a lot of effects that are dependent on how many characters you have exhausted which is a byproduct of using all of their backup abilities during the build phase. There is a lot of power in this team and the longer you can keep your lower drops with the good backup abilities around, the bigger your advantage is going to be later in the game. In addition to a really good curve, the Defenders also have some great plot twist support. The lower part of the Defenders curve is really all about support, while the middle to top of the curve is where the beats will come from. While, I'm not going to do a card by card analysis for this team either, I will talk about possible teamups. The team-up that seems to be the most common topic around the Internet is JSA. This really has more to do with breaking Rock of Eternity than anything else. The problem I see with this team-up is the fact that there really isn't a JSA character I can see that I want to put into a Defenders curve anywhere. In fact, looking around the other teams available in Silver and Modern, I think the Defenders can really stand on their own without any support from another team. There's really not a weak spot in their curve. With Hulk at 7 and Dr. Strange at 8, should the game go that long, they're strong from top to bottom. Not adding a second team adds so much consistency here. You eliminate Team-ups which adds extra available spots for other plot twists. Your Mobilizes will always be online and all your team stamped cards will always be on the ready. I think the Defenders got a lot of great cards in the set and may be the best team in this set (which is saying a lot because of the power of this set). With all that said, here's my early version of a Defenders Modern Age deck.

4 Wong
4 Tania Belinskya
4 Hellcat
1 Hawkeye
4 Samantha Parrington
1 Richard Rider
3 Dr. Strange
2 Silver Surfer
2 Sub-Mariner
1 Hulk
1 Wendell Vaughn

4 Astral Projection
4 Defenders Defend
4 The "B" Team
3 Consulting the Orb
4 The Order
3 Soul Survival
3 Big Leagues
4 Mobilize
4 Against All Odds

This is the basic way this deck wants the game to go.

Take evens
Turn 1 Play Wong
Turn 2 Play Tania, activate Tania on herself to ensure a stunback if they attack.
Turn 3 Play Hellcat. This is a turn where your only objective is to leave your board intact. Activating Tania and Hellcat on Tania isn't a bad play here to make here a 7/6 and try to force a team attack. If it looks safe, you may try getting an attack in with Hellcat here, but it's more important to keep your board than deal a couple point of damage.
Turn 4 Play Samantha Parrington. Active Tania on Hellcat. Swing Hellcat into their 4 and Samantha into their 3. This should again leave you with your board intact going to the next turn.
Turn 5 Play Strange. Put his ability on the chain and target him with either Hellcat or Tania. Which one depends on whether you need the +2 DEF twice to avoid the stunback when you swing into their 4. Then play Astral Projection and move everyone to the hidden area. Use all your backup powers on Strange so he is either +10/+2 or +8/+4 and will ready on the first attack. Take the direct attack, then swing back with Strange on their 4, then Strange on their 5. This should again leave you a full board going to 6, whereas they should only have a 5 drop (maybe a 1 or 2 drop). Turn 6 you play Sub-Mariner. Use all your backup powers on SM, play The Order, backup Strange then set out your attacks. Both characters will be +6/+2 with 2 attacks. SM will also get the exhausted characters bonuses. His first attack should be as a 21/14 (12/11 +6/+2 from Tania and Hellcat, +3 exhausted characters since he will ready himself when he attacks and you will probably have to attack with him before Strange). His second attack will be as a 22/15 (since he will stay exhausted for this attack). Then Strange should get two free shots as a 15/10. If somehow, the game goes to 7, you've got Hulk and you can substitute in Wendell Vaughn since Hulk exhausts everyone when he comes in and you can activate Wendell targeting Hulk while his exhaust effect is on the chain. The biggest problem this deck will face is Spider-Friends exhuasting everything in sight. That's what Richard Rider is for. You should be able to get at least 2 stuns out of him several turn without ever entering combat. Depending on how popular Spider-Friends are, one 8-drop Dr. Strange could be added to the deck to try to kill them before they get to Galactus you. Other than that, DEF pumps won't do much good because the attacks aren't even close to getting bounced. An off-curve deck that can get into the hidden area may be a cause for concern, but you can play Hawkeye, and ready him to destroy off curve decks. It's a very early version but it packs a big punch. For anyone out there who has been wanting more mono-team curve decks, this one is right up your alley. Give it a try.

I've finally decided to start updating this blog since the newest set, Marvel Team-Up is about to be released. I'm going to do a set overview for each team. I'm not going to do a card by card analysis as I generally find those to be pretty bland and boring. I'm going to talk about what I think the team's strengths and weaknesses are and how I think they will be played in Modern and Silver Age. I didn't start playing until X-Men so I don't know all the cards very well from the early sets so for Golden Age, I usually defer to more knowledgeable friends. Without further ado, let's take a look at the Spider-Friends.

The Spider-Friends obvious first theme is stalling. With cards like Gift Wrapped, the 4-drop Spideys and then Stark's Protege at 7, the Spider-Friends can do an amazing job of making the game last until around turn 9 or so. They have a lot of tools at their disposal and the obvious team-up is going to be with the Heralds to stall until 9 with the big G will show up. Another team-up that's less obvious in Silver and may be worth some exploration is with X-Mental. i think the problem with this team-up though is the 4 drop. Professor X is really your only option here since without him, you won't be able to recruit Emma Frost on 5. The SF/HoG has a more seamless curve with optimal drops at almost every spot up to 9. The other problem is the better endgame of HoG. Stalling to 8 to win with Rachel Summers isn't bad, but it's not Sentry on 8, Galactus on 9. I think that Spider Friends/Heralds will be the premiere stall deck of Modern Age and it will probably give curve decks fits. In Silver, it will still be a good team-up but the X-Mental/HoG team will also be a good choice. I think the decision will be do you want to completely avoid combat by exhausting your opponent's characters every turn, or do you just want to play defensively in combat but gain the extra card draw and utility the X-Mental package offers.

Another somewhat interesting sub-theme is the big concealed short curve of Zabu, Shanna the She-Devil, and Ka-Zar. They are all concealed and have bigger stats than normal for their spot on the curve. They could make an interesting part of a Hellfire Club short curve or maybe even an Underworld short curve. Using Hellfire Club would give you access to their powerful location suite while Underworld would give you their recovery effects and another bigger than average character with the Dual Loyalty Morbius. If you want to go true short curve and try to win on 5 I think Hellfire Club will be the better team-up because they'll give you more broad pumps in Hellfire Club and Inner Circle. But in Modern , I could definitely see a Spider-Friends/Underworld short curve being pretty good.

I'll leave you with a decklist for the obvious SF/HoG team up.

4 Aunt May
3 Silver Surfer
1 Blade
2 Night Thrasher
4 Air Walker
2 Spider Man, The Sensational Spider Man
2 Spider Man, Parasitic Host
1 Spider Man, Spider Hulk
2 Silver Surfer (5)
2 Red Shift
3 Wolverine, Canucklehead
2 Spider Man, Stark's Protege
2 The Sentry
3 Galactus

4 The Herald Ordeal
2 Elemental Converters
4 Gift Wrapped
2 I Must Obey
2 Absorba Shield
4 Creation of a Herald
4 Mobilize
3 Feminine Wiles
2 Empire State University

This is a very rough build, but the idea is pretty simple. Don't die. Your characters are designed to stall the game long enough for Galactus to eat your opponent.

Well over at my other blog, it's pretty much all about World of Warcraft right now, and I realized for people who may not play all the games I blog about it might get a little tedious trying to figure out what they wanted to read and what they don't so this blog will be solely for VS. System. I will start posting here more when we hear something about the new Organized Play for 2007. Until then, I may post a little, but that's when posts here will really pick up.