The End of All Things

The thing I’m digging about MUN is that a lot of the cards are inspiring to me as a deckbuilder. Last week was excellent, this week I’ve loved what I’ve seen. The thing is, they were all missing a certain je ne se quois. As I said a few days ago, I’ve got ideas. None of them compare, though, to the rampant abuse I’m seeing via JLA/Thunderbolts, and SHIELD/TT.

JLA Thunderbolts reminds me of isreali bandages and claymore mines. On the bandages, on the side of the bandage opposite the pad, it states in large, red letters even a blind man could see ‘Place Opposite Side on Wound’. LIke some jackass is going to put that on the outside… seriously. Same with a claymore. It seriously, not joking at all, says ‘This side toward enemy’ on the side you don’t want to be on. I love the faith our leaders have in us. *sigh*

The reason I say this is because of the discussion held on VSR about the implications of a Judgment Day on turn 4 or 5. The whole idea is ignoring the ‘This Side Toward the Enemy’ and facing it at both people. Take that obnoxiously obvious warnings! I IGNORE YOU!

The idea? Using Poseidonis/Construction Site and Modern Era you utilize Thunderbolts Mountain 5 times. This leaves 9 resources in your resource row. That’s enough for (shock) a Judgment day to come in and slaughter everyone’s resources. Nailing a Radioactive man on 3 means that he’ll have 1 counter on 4, and 1 on 5. That means they can only Bat Got Your Tongue?, or Jean Grey the bomb. That also means that once the resource reset goes down they can no longer play plot twists. This tends to be a good thing, as it will fill their hand, and on turn three: The quest for more money you drop Venom, “Mac” Gargan and he’s looking a very statuesque 10+ ATK.

The other thing it allows you is to use multiple copies of identical locations without fear of rebuttal. How, you may ask? By chaining their effects to Judgment Day you’ve already set to KO each resource you control. You simply KO them a step early. Example: You want to cycle your deck for another 1 drop to start next turn off well? Watchtower, then flip another one and watchtower on the chain. They’re going to die anyway. You want to make sure you get those heroic efforts you dropped to pump Radioactive man back? Poseidonis, Poseidonis and you have your next draw already squared away. The brief chained moment of playing Judgment day allows a bit more resource recklessness than one normally sees. Hooray freedom.

The kill condition is, of course, Venom and Aquaman. By running KO Tek you can take down your opponent’s 4 drop, finish him off, and be king of the scene for a while. With the afforementioned Heroic Efforts your Radioactive man should be able to withstand their 3 drop, and he dies on the next turn. It’s artificial board superiority that’s maintained until on turn 4 redux you’ve nickel and dimed your opponent’s life to the other side of the number line.

A difficult build, yes. But a powerful build. What good is a rush deck that can’t rush? What use is a curve deck if the mainstay of their curve is just a dead card for the whole game? The power is worth the price of tuning such a deck so finely. Once it’s where it needs to be its strategy is so left field that there really is no way to counter it without sacrificing your ability to play normal decks. Jank FTW.

I Will Be A Benevolent….ish… Dictator

The Thunderbolts dropped today. Watch this space… two decks have already formed in my brain: SS/TB, and SHIELD/DP. Sadly, this will have to wait as I had a nasopharengeal(I think that’s how it’s spelled) airway inserted in my nostril today and it still kinda feels funny. That makes my brain not work too well. STILL!

There will be a post about the sexiness of the Thunderbolts today, I assure you.

I’m Unsure if this is Clarifications or an addendum

Ok, Captainspud asked about the inner workings of Stunt Doubles. Well, it’s a concept I’ve been working on, obviously, for a few weeks. It goes as follows:

You build your deck around two Legends. Right now it’s looking like Cap and Iron Man. It could really be any two legends. Hulk/Wolverine could be kinda funny. Anyway, the deck concept it basically that by running your legends/support characters on 2 and 3, Mystique on 4, Basil Karlo on 5, and your legends taking over again on 6 you maximize the effectiveness of Legends cards. For Instance: Running Cap/Iron man I’d be running SRA, Cap 2 drop, Avengers 3 drop, Mystique/Iron Man on 4, Basil on 5, Cap on 6, and Thor on 7. Clash of worlds leaves me with an army of two drop caps, or what have you. By maximizing two defensive type characters like that(Extremis/Recovery from iron man, mighty avenger, and Charging Star/Cap’s Shield from Captain America, The patriot) I could stall my way into a large hand on 7 which I then proceeded to burn through to pump Thor up into a killer.

The basic concept, whoever you play, remains unchanged: by finding two legends that have similar themes or at least can synergize, you run two back up characters to use their abilities in their absence and proceed to kill. All that with a few brotherhood and Secret Society Tricks from those two should make for a fun play.

It’s Latin, and Sexy

Point of Origin:

From http://www.reference.com/search?r=13&q=In%20Extremis:

In extremis is a Latin phrase meaning “in the furthest reaches” or “at the point of death”.

From Wikipedia’s Entry on Iron Man’s Powers:

After being critically injured during a battle with the Extremis-enhanced Mallen, Stark injects his nervous system with a modified techno-organic virus (the Extremis process) that not only saves his life, but also fuses Stark’s armor to his body. This allows him to store the inner layers of the Iron Man armor in the hollows of his bones as well as control it through direct brain impulses. Stark can control the layer of the armor underneath his skin and make it emerge from numerous exit points around his limbs as a gold-colored neural interface under-sheath. While in this form, Stark has technopathic control of armor and can suit up at any time, calling the larger components to him. Furthermore, the Extremis process has increased his body’s recuperative and healing abilities.

From Ben Seck:

Initial Thoughts:

Well It’s 6:00 PM on April 14th. 11 Days before you read this, here I am with a strange bit of a puzzle. Keep in mind that today we started Warbound previews, and I’m contemplating the Stunt Doubles deck that you may or may not have already read my thoughts on. So we’re already starting at an off place.

I’ll be honest, my first thought when The Superstation sent the e-mail was ‘Oh… it’s… it’s Armor of Doom for Iron Man. I guess that’s flavorful, but there isn’t a lot to say about a piece of equipment we’ve had sitting in decks since last August.’ My second thought was trying to remember is MVL was released in August or September. Then I wanted coffee.

After I made myself an Americano, extra shot(For those who love starbucks, save your money and just get the espresso from there. The Espresso make is worth it if you hit starbucks more than thrice a week.) I noticed something strange. Armor of Doom costs 1 point to equip. Extremis Upgrade costs 0. That means once Iron Man drops, so does his protection. Interesting. That means it’s more functional as a throw away piece of armor. I don’t mean it’s useless, I mean it can be used more recklessly than a piece of armor that I have to underdrop to put into play.

With that, Bizarro.dec just got worse. Now it can run 8 pieces of equipment that I can KO instead of stunning Clark’s imperfect clone. That combined with Stunt Doubles already means that without everyone’s favorite Happy Hour Regular I can make use of it. So I’ve established there is a functional use for the card. Excellent. Now to determine the range of functionality.

Functions(Non to Mid Jank)

The obvious use of this card is to keep Tony alive. This is pretty standard. We’ve seen it with Armor of Doom. The big difference is the cost. You can just equip another one for free next turn if you have it. That makes it a LOT more powerful, simply because you’re not forced to decide between a 4 drop or a protected 3 drop. Again, keep in mind that the stuff you’ve been drooling over this week is still a mystery to me as of this writing. I’m looking at the only legal Iron Man for Silver. Iron Man, Illuminati gets +3 DEF if the top card of your deck is a plot twist as checked at the beginning of combat. Neat. a 3 drop with potential to stun a 4 drop now can do so carte blanche.

The Stunt Doubles deck kinda makes weird use of this. it’s non unique so both Basil and Mystique can both have one at the same time. Between that and The Next Brotherhood, it makes mystique nasty on offense as well as leaving her sitting there to counterstun their attackers. Good times. Basil doesn’t get the mileage out of it that Mystique does. He’s a 9/10 meaning that without pumps the majority of 5 drops are going to just bounce off his muddy hide anyway. Still, Stunt Doubles can make use of the card a good deal. So it’s got moderate versatility.

Now looking at things we’ve seen from MUN, I see a pretty interesting stall strategy. Captain America, 6 drop, prevents people from becoming stunned. He’s an avenger. Iron Man can safely assume to be an Avenger at this point. Then we throw in a bit of the fantastic 4, who have both pier 4 and a bit of equipment search. Now imagine this scenario: It’s turn 6. Captain America is safely sitting behind Iron Man, ensured by Coast City. Iron Man has 2 Extremis Upgrades on him. Attack 1 comes, blows up the Upgrade. Attack 2 offs the next upgrade. On the third attack, Steve helps Tony out, so you don’t even need to THINK about defensive pumps until their 4th attack. If we have a way to recover expended Equipment then you have a hell of a stall method.

I think the real strength of the armor, though, goes back to its 0 cost. What that says to me is access to the more vicious attack pumps(All Too Easy!, Blinding Rage, Etc.) that transfer your DEF to ATK without losing a defender, or leaving your Iron Man open to effects that target stunned characters, or the obvious loss of endurance from stun. Here’s where the versatility of the card really becomes worth comment outside an aside about ‘Well of course Stunt Doubles can Use it, it’s a legend card’.

Secret Society is the master of recursion. They have ways and means, a true presence in the recycling community. So as It’s been 7 hours since I got the card(Yes, it took me an hour to write what you’ve seen so far) and we finally have a deck that makes use of the card in an interesting, and probably unintended manner. Injustice Gang is the delicious, smooth chocolate to Secret Society’s hearty, satisfying peanut butter. Their best attack pump normally leaves my attacker’s DEF at a goose egg. Basil can throw on the Armor(finding a way to discard an Iron Man can’t be too difficult in a Secret Society deck), and drop every all too easy! and blinding Rage you have without losing a potent defender. This sets you up for an interesting turn 5 finisher, as his DEF(especially with Agility!) should soak up if not completely shrug off attack.

One other thought that I think makes this card good is that it’s Uncommon. Given the lessons from DCL and MVL, Rares can be difficult to get ahold of. The sheer availability factor already makes the card worth a good hard look. It’s going to be in your card boxes.

Preview -4

So I’m writing this in the aftermath of Hulk Week. Looking at Extremis Upgrade now, I’m curious to see what today brings in the way of Iron Man previews. With Iron Man vs. The Hulk, I see some interesting fights. Again, I write this with the excitement of the first Iron man previews still shooting through my veins.

I’m hoping for a 5 drop. Regardless, a 4 drop Iron man basically fizzles Hulk, Gladiator. Extremis allows you to resist a lot of the Hulk’s madness. Something special tingles when I think about Extremis+Reinforcement is nice. You take no damage, and still have a defender to soak up damage. The F4/Avengers work up seems nice. Two Extremis Upgrades on Iron Man, Two Stall Shields on Captain America, and Two Fantasticar 2.0’s on 3 drop Invisible Woman to pumps people up. I can’t wait for MUN to come out so this Herbert Hoover deck can really come to fruition.

Preview -3

So it’s Tuesday. After the wave of previews that’s been dropped over the past 18 hours, my head’s spinning. Avengers/TT is looking REALLY good. I say this because Beastboy, Garfield Logan can protect Iron Man, stay in play, and get continuously bigger while Extremis can go onto Tony to keep him safe from Flight, and an opening from Beastboy getting stunned. Between that kind of reliability, and Stark Armory making both of them bigger every turn you have a solid 3 and 4 drop who work together, with Extremis, to stay alive until a massive 6 drop Beatstick comes in and they both swing with 6 Drop Stats. Protecting Iron Man, Mighty Avenger makes Garfield a target of sorts, which not only enters him into combat, but should get him stunned as well. So between Call of the Wild and constant combat and recovery from Iron man he gets huge. The fun part is Clawyface dropping on 5, with the Finisher on 6. That means Extremis can protect two characters, and Iron man Keeps Beast Boy on the table so you have for full curve on 6, while whittling the opposing side down to almost nothing. Stark Armory then takes all of the +1/+1 Counters from Tony after his swing and puts them on Basil, making the imitator a 13/14. So Using extremis to maintain board presence allows you to effectively swing with four 6 Drops on turn six. The more I look at this card, the more important I’m seeing it as being. It keeps people on the field. That in and of itself is power.

Preview -1

Sorry about the missing day, and the relative shortness of the final entry. Thor, and Hellicarrier were both dropped in the 48 hours since I last spoke of the subject. Thor is easier to get to. Hellicarrier is another card that really makes me like Extremis. It allows you to jump a turn without losing the sexiness of Iron Man, Mighty Avenger’s leader ability.

Final Thoughts from Kenpachi

We’ve seen the effect before. It’s been on Kevlar body Armor, and Armor of Doom. The real kicker is the cost. The environment dictates the exact use of the card. The Modern environment, as it’s shaping up post MUN, is going to be as varied as the players who come to the tourneys. From Secret SocietyS/SHIELD army love that constantly recycles the armor to keep Tony alive, to the unstoppable wall of a Team Superman/Avengers build that uses Maggie Sawyer to reinforce and Extremis to keep him from getting stunned as a form of ultimate stall tek, the Artists of the Vs community will find ways to make use of the potential power from the card. New variants of classic Kevlar Strategies and brand new tek borne of the creativity and innovation that have come to define the modern Vs Community are both inevitable.

Onward to June 10th.

A Final Thought From Erin

As I’m Anti-Registration, Iron Man has been on my bad list for the last year. I’m not an expert on Iron Man. So I asked one of my friends, who doesn’t play Vs., about Extremis. After explaining what she did, she had this to say: “I think that’s about the best way for a collectible card game to represent Extremis. You can’t get rid of Extremis like that, but I like it. The thing that gets me is that it’s not an ‘upgrade’. You either have Extremis or not. Still, completely awesome!”

With the final words from an Iron Man fangirl, enjoy the card.

Politics is about getting your enemy to stab themselves in the back

I love IG and GK. As The League of Extraordinary Wood Rats seems to be picking up momentum I’m forced to ask: What Meta can be used against Squirrel Girl. As her and nick seem to be pointing to a rush scenario utilizing Army+SHIELD, I’m interested if the decks will garner enough infamy and momentum to be considered a threat. And here’s where a fresh meta is fun, the only time I think Meta is fun.

I’m going to drop 1 small idea, a tiny fragment of a thought, and let the players decide if Squirrel Rush is strong enough for the following risk:

Turn 3 Owl Man, Turn 4 Hulk, Green Scar. The Kill turn for LoEWR is turn 4, and they should have at least 8 people on the field. Combine that with Criminal Mastermind, and Secret Files and you have an interesting scenario. You’re doing what they want. You’re fetching them Novice assassins with Secret Files, getting them the card draw they need to maintain a strong board presence. You’re MAKING their deck run the way it’s intended. Then when Hulk, Green Scar gets stunned Squirrel Girl’s ability triggers and the whole field goes back to their owner’s hand.

Using concealed characters and gumption, you let them swing into a single  visible defender every turn to soak up damage(if they have to send two assassins into a character on turn 3, that means they won’t be swinging for 16 they’ll be swinging for 4). Power Siphon keeps your defender alive and your endurance in the positive.  Taking even init, Hulk can swing into their assassin, blindside them, and HULK SMASH their face in. Throw an ATE! on him, and his DEF becomes 0, causing stunback. When he stuns the counter blows up and all of the sudden your opponent’s already bulging handsize gets an addition of 10+ cards. Owl Man comes in with a few All Too Easy! dropped on him, and finishes the game against their frail, undefended face.

Even without a finishing move on 4 you’ve made your stuff more powerful, and theirs less effective. It seems Warbound+Injustice Gang could be a nasty, nasty counter to the oncoming army rush scenario.

The Monk and the Scorpion

Once in a monastery two monks walked about doing their morning duties. As they passed a small bowl, filled with rain, they saw a scorpion was drowning in the water. One monk reached in to save the creature. As soon as his fingers touched the panicking Scorpion, it stung him and the monk dropped the Scorpion back into the water. The monk sighed, and reached back in. This time he got his grip a little firmer, but still dropped the Scorpion when he was stung. He kept reaching in, as his friend looked on in confusion. After dozens of attempts, the other monk spoke up saying “Brother, why do you keep trying to save that scorpion? It stings you every time you come near it” the monk paused before reaching in again. As another sting bit into his hand, he smiled “Because it is his nature to sting, and my nature to save. Don’t forget brother, soon either I’ll stop feeling the pain of the sting and he will be saved, or he will stop being afraid and be saved.’ Compassion cannot be stopped so easily.’

A retelling of an old story from the L5R world. Translated into Vs, though, we find ourselves in a strange place. The infinates/breeding pens+Stark Armory is a given. I’ve been at work for a while, so forgive me if this has been brought up, but by teaming up SHIELD and Horsemen, we have Nick Fury dropping an infinates for free, which get pumped up and then blown up to make Iron man leap past curve considerations. Between Stark Armory and the Infinates/Breeding Pens you have Iron Man jumping by AT LEAST +3/+3 a turn. That means that he’ll come in at 10/10 on 4, go 13/13, 16/16, etc. etc.

It’s a simple engine, but effective. To add to the pain, you have Finishing Move, as performed by whatever backup support guy you have behind Tony, and you have Abyss to clear out the guys you can’t handle by yourself. A few Heroic Efforts and you have a deck with a turn 6 kill goal.

Nick Fury raises an army because that’s his nature. The Infinates are sacrificed because it’s their nature. Compassion still wins, as the deck should end your opponent’s suffering in short time.

Tony Stark is a Coward

There is, for those who know me, no surprise that I have a low opinion of Tony Stark. I was vehemently anti-registration, and I have a few more issues with the character Tony Stark. That being said, I’m in love with Iron man, Mighty Avenger. And, as I’ve been happy with this whole set, flavor is seared with love into every card we bust out of packs.

This deck, which we’ll review later this week, is a flavor soaked rush of cherry infused goodness. It goes back to the TT/Avengers set up I’ve been tossing around. With Argent on 2, and Stark Armory you have a 10/10 Iron Man on turn 4. He becomes a 12/12 on 5. Better yet? He becomes an 11/11 on 5, you drop Basil Karlo, and transfer counters after Iron Man swings. That means you swing with an 11/11, then follow up with a 14/15. To finish everything up you have Beastboy, Garfield Logan as your 3 drop. Why, you probably aren’t asking? Because that means that instead of losing a fight and getting a little bit bigger Beastboy jumps a whole turn’s worth of stats up and recovers.

Now going to the tile, here’s why I think this deck espouses a sense of distaste for our Multibillionaire hero: He’s hiding behind children! By putting Argent and Beast Boy infront of, and next to him, by surrounding him with patsies, you maintain your whole board every turn. On top of that, both characters get bigger by losing. A bit of Burn Rubber, maybe a poker night or two, and you have a solid defensive wall. That selfsame wall makes every attack hurt your opponent. Every time they stun Tony’s bodyguards they get bigger, meaning they’re effectively higher drop characters for the final round. If all goes well you may as well be swinging with a low tier 7 drop, a low tier 6 drop, a high 5 drop, and a standard 3 drop.

Like in the Civil War, Tony Stark’s backhanded tactics will win the day.

Crossing the Aisle

One of the many notable people I’ve met and consider friends from my time in the Vs community is one Rian Fike. While I lost his address and need it again, with multiple apologies, so his Wild Childs can be sent out, I’m still happy to speak with him on most matters. We disagree fundamentally on some things, but I believe we both agree on the most important issues, namely: A person cannot relinquish their fate to the ideas of another. Self empowerment is as fundamental to one’s existence as breathing. At least, that’s how I see our interactions.

Empowered he has been, through his own very vocal love notes and song to the girl with the wood rats. It seems for at least ten minutes, probably longer, Rian has longed for a Squirrel Girl card. A few hours, it dropped like an S bomb, blowing away rush and army deckbuilders. Of course Squirrel girl would have an army related ability. That’s what makes sense. And it’s that army ability, combined with the new nick fury that we’re going to look at today. Rian, today’s such a monumental day for you that I’m going to post a deck idea that LITERALLY has 20 ATK printed in the whole deck. That’s right. Some 8 drops have printed attack equal to your whole deck. The fun part is that no more than 5 printed attack will be on the board at any given time.

The basis for the deck is Squirrel Girl, and Nick Fury. Squirrel Girl keeps the cards from going to the KO pile, while Nick keeps them coming hard and fast. But let’s face it, burning for two every time that you drop someone isn’t going to win you the game. It’s going to keep you alive with artificial reinforcement, though! And that’s where things start to get silly.

Proletariat Uprising is comprised of a Dozen Novice Assassins, and Ten SHIELD Agents. By crossing over LoA and SHIELD you can have two new assassins every turn. Also, with LoA you can use tower of Babel to cripple Team stamped plot twists, and abuse locations like Mountain Stronghold, and Flying Fortress. The only thing you have to worry about is keeping cards in your hand. Luckily, Doreen makes it so your Army Characters don’t really die. They just get dropped again next turn. The twist? You don’t run defensive plot twists outside Burn Rubber, and maybe Poker Night. You should have sufficient board presence to reinforce anyway. You run things like Savage Beatdown, Flying Fortress, Crackshot, and the like. You make it so your SHIELD Agents clear a path and then your Novice Assassins take care of the rest. The impossible Game?

Turn 1 Squirrel Girl+SHIELD Agent. She swings, they’ve lost 3 Endurance.

Turn 2: 2 Novice Assassins, flip the Multiverse. A Crackshot from the resource row lets your SHIELD agent take down their 2 drop, and 4 goes to your opponent’s face(7 total lost)

Turn 3: Nick drops in, played by himself, not David Hasselhoff. He puts two more assassins into play. A crackshot on squirrel girl takes down their 3 drop. 4 assassins swing in for 16 Damage.(23 Total Lost without adding in stun damage)

Turn 4: However you pull it off, 4 assassins drop. 3 take out their 4 drop, Nick takes their 3 out, and you swing to 25 to the face. That’s game. And you only ever had 5 ATK printed on the board.

Proof positive that with Squirrel Girl on your side, you don’t need to be big. You need to be smart, with a lot of dumb friends. These friends bring the most refreshing sauna, though. With that lovely sauna your opponent can attack Squirrel girl directly to stop her power from activating, then you recover her mid attack on another army character. That’s a lot you can do with the deck, methinks. I can’t wait for more SHIELD stuff to drop.

Dude, If I Could Clone My Wife…

One thing about pumps is that 4 is the magic number. Any pump that’s 4 or higher is a surefire way to swing into someone two drops higher than you. Fantastic Four is fun because they have a great one: Family of Four. It gives +1/+1 for each of the fantastic four you have in play(only Dick, Sue, Johnny, and Ben) so it’s a potential +4/+4. BUT WAIT! What about Secret Society, who have a printed +4/+4 pump. On top of that, Poison Ivy is there.

The thing is Family checks for each character with that name in play. Invisible woman is the only 1 drop on the list, but that’s immaterial. All we need is 1 trigger for the card to be a first turn drop. Assuming you rock out Sue, then Reed on 2, Poison Ivy on 3, and finally you drop Johnny on 4, you have an interesting set-up in motion. Pam can get Sue from the discard pile, assuming a team-up, and put her into play without worrying about silly things like uniqueness. Silly rule book. That means on turn 4 you can have 3 Invisible Women(Dick, you’re a lucky lucky man), Mr Fantastic, and Human Torch in play. That makes Family of Four +5/+5. That’s savage beatdown worthy.

When we make it to 5 we have Thing, Heavy hitter. He’s naturally an 11/11. With the fourth and final Sue dropping to make the pump insane. That does two things: It makes Family a +7/+7, and allows use of Four Freedoms Plaza. If you can get all 4 in your hand, you have a 39/39 swinging for a win. 2 Savage Beatdowns and a Blindsided makes him 49/49 that can’t be reinforced against. That’s… massive. Anger and hate, Savage Beatdown, Acceptable Loss, and Family of Four give your deck about a 1:4 ratio of 4+ pump factors.

To keep everyone alive you have Invisibility, and Reed and Sue. The main issue is keeping everyone alive so Ben can finish things off on 5. If you can rock that out, you’ve won. Period.

Z?

So I was discussing my disappointment in the Hulk stuff. Most of them… they aren’t BAD cards. They’re just a little more middle of the road than I’m used to from Vs. A word, if I may, about Vs as a set of mechanics.

The thing that makes me love Vs is that it has depth. Every game has its core set of equations. For L5R, it’s a combination. If X>39 At Point in 00:00, If Y<-19, XX=5 or if Z=0 where X=Your Honor, Y=Your opponent’s honor, Z=The number of your opponent’s province, and XX=The number of elemental rings with different elemental keywords. That’s it. L5R through poorly written math. Magic, in retrospect is simply ‘X<1 where X=your opponent’s life total’. Vs is a midway between as X>(Y>0) Where X if your endurance and Y is your opponent’s endurance. It’s not 4 equations to worry about, but it’s still more complicated than X<1.

The reason I love Vs is that there are a myriad of options opened up by the simple (0<Y). It opens up Kamikaze possibilities that allow you to drop your own endurance below 0 to win. It allows more freedom of form, as your opponent is your opponent instead of you against your opponent and the rule book. The simple exclusion of the rule book as an opposing force has a huge impact.

Vs is a game whose design philosophy is, in essence, controlled chaos. Design says ‘Here are your inputs. Solving the forumla is up to you’. I can mix teams, formations, team-ups, ongoing plot twists, and other mechanics to effects I want. I, for myself and by myself, am the sole arbiter of the proper solution to X>(Y>0). MUN -8 brought that freedom of expression to the table. You could drop Cap on 2, Mr Fantastic, Flexible thinker=Eureka to get Cap’s shield on 3, Then Clash of Worlds/Champion License on 4, then teamp-up Avengers and F4, and flip pier 4. That gives you an ability to exhaust up to 4 people every turn(depending on your ability to find said shields). That’s just one example, and I believe the next 5 days will show a dozen more premutations of X>(0>Y)=Z.

Warbound seems to play as seen. MUN -7 seems to be finding Z by looking in the back of the book. These are, like all of my MUN thoughts, based on a view of less than 5% of the whole product. Still, with this new slew of cards, strategies, and solutions for Z, I think the summer is going to be very exciting for the Artists of Vs. Tell a friend: It’s going to be amazing.