Wait Until The Edges Get Dark

So The last two weeks I’ve been in class learning about Combatives(hand to hand fighting). Hence the complete lack of posts in the last two weeks when we’ve gotten some amazing cards. We learned arm bars, chokes, and other nonlethal means of finishing the fight. One thing they told us at the beginning of the class ‘Don’t just tap because they get a choke. Try to break it, wait until the edges start getting dark’. For the most part, we tapped after they got the choke and we failed to fight it off. Normally we didn’t let the effects of the choke actually take hold.

The last day I made a small mistake. You have to understand, one of my classmates had been doing Judo for over 30 years and he took the time while we were rolling to teach me, not just win because he was the superior opponent. The last time I got the pleasure of rolling with him, I steeled my nerves and decided I was going to wait until the last moment to tap. I was going to go balls to the wall and at least not lose even if I couldn’t win. I believe the word that best describes that feeling is ‘Hubris’. He got a cross collar choke on me while I was in his guard. I pushed past it and went for a leaning choke(Those of you who are familiar with MMA are probably wincing… I know… bad idea). The edges got black and I thought ‘I’ve almost got him’. When my brain was working 60 seconds later, he checked to make sure I was OK, laughed a bit, and patted me on the back for not breaking down even if it wasn’t the most intelligent way to do. I was so embarassed to actually pass out, even if it was for such a short amount of time.

This little story does have a point: Act of Vengeance. You play it so that you can redirect any stun on Red Skull to another person. This combined with Red Skull, Johann Schmidt and Vengeance or Invulnerability characters makes for a nasty, nasty mid-late game scenario. Oh delicious Irony: the two best teams for this scario: Revenge Squad and Team Superman. While I’m no fan of TS, I think Revenge Squad is a bit too obvious a choice.

There’s an easy set-up: Maggie Sawyer behind Red Skull, two Invulnerable people on both sides of Red Skull. You drop your Acts of Vengeance, and all the sudden you don’t take damage when they hit Red Skull. Why? Maggie reinforces him, prevent break through. You redirect the stun to say… Superman, Man of Tomorrow. He takes the stun, I take no stun loss, and I burn my opponent for 5.

But wait, Kenpachi, what about ‘winning’. Sure you’re going to be burning people for 5-10 a turn once Red Skull drops, so it should end by turn 7 when combined with your counter attacks… but how do you keep from being whelmed, or even OVER whelmed by the fact that you’re getting beaten on without hitting back? Well, to those haters I proffer two thoughts:

-The 3 Drop Crime Lords Bucky. If I have to explain more, I don’t believe you deserve to know.

-Red Skull can be equipped with +ATK type stuff, along with Team Superman defensive pumps, Nasty Surprise, Etc. He counters people who attack him, redirects the stun, giggles… etc. Think about it: Your 5 swings into my 5. It’s a mutual. Acts redirects the stun to Man of Tomorrow. My opponent burns for 5, then they take 5 counterstun. If I don’t have a way to counter the attacker I can Flying High their attacker, then throw Bucky back on the top of my deck to stun the attacker I can’t counter. Those foolish enough to raise arms against me are punished, God is in Heaven, all is good in the world.

It’s a janktastic combo, but incredibly powerful. My pushing past the choke you can reverse it and make your opponents suffer for their hubris. Or you end up staring at your opponent thinking ‘Where the hell am I, I should get up’ over and over again. *sigh* At least I learned something from it.

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’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.

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.

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.

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.

MUN is Vs Au Ju

A few closing comments, a Wrap Up if you will, on Hulk Week.

First, to the Design Team, congratulations. I’m impressed that Design has done such a good job translating the Flavor of the Hulk. He’s powerful, but that power comes at a price. He’s a stand alone, take all comers who is paradoxically defined by those whose friendship he holds so dear. A tragedy in that his power, that which allows his existence, separates him from those he wishes to exist with. Design did an excellent job of taking that flavor, and infusing each card with it like a Basil Infused Olive Oil of Green Hate.

Unfortunately, I think the Hulk’s a crappy character. Say what you will, but I think he’s misused as a literary figure and ends up bottom of the barrel. I view Hulk Comics the same way I view the AVP series. Either they put too much into defining characters at the cost of the action that made me want to see the movie in the first place, or they finally capture the brutality and danger of the encounter at the cost of me giving a damn about anyone in that danger. An equilibrium is never met. So it is with the Hulk.

Let’s look at each card individually. Each card can be found here with a deep thanks to OnyxWeapon for keeping the list fresh, and sexy. If there’s one thing Onyx knows, it’s how to keep it sexy.

Hulk, Green Scar-Flame Trap on a stick. Decent Stats. Combined with Righteous Anger you have a potential early game ending set-up. Violently wonderful. I approve. It’s got the power and versatility that make me giggle with sinister delight.

Hulk, Gladiator-10/10 5 drop with massive stats. A bit too fragile, and costly ability. Still, marginally functional as long as your opponent doesn’t run Grodd, or Pathetic Attempts. The price of power, and ease of interruption are what relegate this card to the ‘maybe’ pile for me. Solid, to be sure. Not a game breaker.

Caiera, The Oldstrong- Mrs Hulk has respectable stats, and an ability that can be combined for 3 massive attacks from a prepared Hulk 5 drop that end the game on 6.

Righteous Anger-If any card made the Hulk Cool, it would be this one. Nothing to say about it. Like Taft in 1912, this card can let its record speak for it.
Hulk, Worldbreaker- This is where I begin really differing with people. Don’t get me wrong, this card can be raw power. It can be. Unfortunately, the Warbound previewed don’t show an ability to make it to 8. There’s no true to form stall, as the only stall card burns you. A stall deck can be used to get to 8, then drop this and Righteous Anger to clear their board and kill Kathy Lee Gifford.

The Strongest There Is-Kinda give and take version of ‘No Match for Darkseid’. Really it’s the potayto of no match’s Potahto. It has its place, but my problem with Strongest will be discussed in the final verdict.

The Great Arena- I can’t give words to the exact amount of crap I think this card is. When ever I see the number is in yellow I can feel it. I can hear the vein in my head that’s going to kill me, and it’s laughing. This card brings its day of triumph years closer every time I look at that terrible, damning yellow font color.
Final Verdict- Week 1 I looked at the previews and saw a world opened to me. The Hulk has earned his name
. He’s broken those dreams of an idealistic deckbuilder. The man who strode proudly into the Monday previews finds himself a bitter, cynical veteran of a week of ‘almost’. The Hulk was almost good. Some of it is, legitimately, awesome. Green Scar has such possibilities… Gladiator is… a 10/10 5 drop. Mrs. Hulk can set the game up for a turn 6 finisher. Righteous Anger is a giant leap towards redemption. Worldbreaker neither excites nor disappoints me. The Strongest there is weakens the grip of those thick green sausages. It’s cool, but it’s nothing new and requires a Stun. Then we get into the ass rare that is The Great Arena.

Allow me to get onto my Bully Pulpit about the wholly misleadingly named ‘Great Arena’. The thing about the hulk, and this is part of the reason I love the flavor and think design did a great job on the Warbound, is that he suffers for his power. No matter how many writers fail to capitalize on the wealth of subtlety that is Bruce Banner and his Radiation infused alter ego, design has taken it and run with it. They ran right into a brick wall, from the small sliver of the map I can see.

This is because let’s see how many effects require a stun, or comparable endurance loss: The Great Arena, Righteous Anger, The Strongest There Is, Worldbreaker, Green Scar, and Mrs. Hulk. The lowest cost hulk previewed thus far is a 4 drop, though I guess a 3 drop is leaping round the bend. Still… let’s say on turn 4 you decide to Great Arena their 4 drop, then Righteous Anger to ready him and clear their 1 and 2. Ok. Cool. You just took 8 damage. That 8 loss incurred and 4 endurance loss to your opponent and prevents you from using any effects on Hulk for his final swing. Guess what that means? If you’re swinging into Wolverine, Logan, you’re a turnabout from screwing the pooch and losing 12 to their 4. If my opponent wants to burn though 24% of his allotted endurance in a single turn and I have to pay 8% of mine for it… awesome. I’m ecstatic if I can cause damage to my opponent on a 1:3 ratio. Ask anyone who’s played Vs against me. Calculated Loss is a concept I use whenever possible.
The issue I have with the Warbound is that using them will kill me faster than my opponent kills me. The price is too high in an environment where negation is about as hard to find as smear ads in October. The cost is too high, the rewards too few. The affiliation can’t make it past 5 to use Mrs. Hulk in the current speedtastic environ.

These cards drip with flavor. Unfortunately that flavor just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Edit: I just saw Hulk, Ultimates and Hulk Smash! Hulk, Ultimates is S.H.I.E.L.D. affiliated and pretty sweet. Haven’t seen enough Shield yet, but considering Captain America, Champion License is Shield, I think you could stall into him for a nasty, nasty game ender. Hulk smash is a 3 threshold plot twist that gives an attacking Hulk +8 ATK. Holy ‘eff’. That’s… that’s horrible. I believe that’s prevented by the Geneva Convention. AWESOME!

Strangely, It Doesn’t Run ‘Heroes of Two Worlds’…

Mightiest Heroes and Avengers Reassembled are the best of times, and the worst of times. They don’t allow you to draw the card you searched for, but they do allow for search. AR lets you replace a resource you control. Avengers have reservist as one of their themes, so this makes sense. JLA, though, also has Reservists. 6 in fact, and they rock out on turn 1, 2, 5, and 6.

Spider-Man, New New Avenger is a 2 drop Reservist that you can reveal from your resource row to crossover Avengers and whoever. The fun thing about New New Avenger is that Avengers Reassembled will put him into your resource row if you pay your pound of flesh. That’s nice, as it allows you to have a team-up out without having it face-up and therefore a target for Batman, Founding Member. It also lets you crossover JLA and the Avengers on turn 1. Not often an issue, but one to be aware of.

Then we go into Captain America(Who, after 60 years as an O-3, probably should’ve been picked up for major by now). Here we find the crux of our deck. With 3 tutors(Avengers Reassembled, Mightiest Heroes, Mobilize), and a curve that runs through 7 (that’s right, 7) we can get to work.

Now, turns 1-3 are kinda strange. We’re going to start off with Aztek and blackbird, you’ll see why in a bit. From there we move into 2 sporting Captain America, The Patriot mixed with Gypsy, Operative. On 3 we hit Katar Hol, Hal Jordan, Founding Member, and Batman, Founding Member. 4 gives us Captain America, Champion License drops, with Wonder Woman, Ambassador of Peace as backup. 5 Drops Batman, Justice’s Shadow. 6 brings us Captain America, Living Legend, ending with Hal Jordan, Fearless.

The way the deck is set to run you hit your curve with Katar Hol being the first important drop. On 4, Champion License goes infront of Kator Hol. The shield goes on the Captain, and he swings into a soft target. Then the shield pops to exhaust another one of their people. When their last guy gets an attack, he either swings into Captain America, or he swings into Captain America via his ability. An auto-Power-Up makes Cap a 9/8. If you’d played a stalwart defense earlier, he becomes a 9/10 against their attack. Batman, Founding Member drops to give Captain America the ability to swing into the opposing 5 drop. A Charging Star turns him into a 9/12 for the attack. The Shield keeps exhausting an opposing character while Steve Rogers draws the big attacks to himself.

The finisher involves Hal Jordan, and a good mix of Fearless, Assorted Alias, and Savage Beatdown, if not Armageddon(yes, I said Armageddon) swinging into their softest target for 25+ ATK, which should finish them on turn 7. The proactive stall should keep whittling their board and endurance throughout the turns.

The last card important to the deck, and really the crux of the deck, is SRA. Superhuman Registration Act allows you to immediately recruit the guys you search our with Avengers Reassembled and Mightiest Heroes. That adds the little bit of speed you need to get the necessary edge for a proactive stall deck like this.

The decklist is going to change quite a bit over the next two months, but I think the general idea is going to remain the same: Mix Avengers and JLA for consistency and pumps, using Captain America to draw in fire from the opposing board while exhausting an opposing character every turn. It’s going to be a tightwire to walk until we get some more Avengers love. Even as is, it’s a delightfully frustrating deck to play against… at least in a game of Mental Vs.

I’m Not Gonna Cook it, But I’ll Order It From Zanzibar

Talk about semi-obscure titles.

MUN’s bounty has rained upon us in the form of an angry green man with, I believe, self esteem issues. World War Hulk was the post Civil War cigarette Marvel gave us last fall. It mainly involved the Hulk returning to earth to exact revenge. It wasn’t… well the writing was on the level of a high schooler’s creative writing final, and the final emotionally devastating betrayal was telegraphed and unimpressive. WWH was about one thing: Kicking people’s asses. Asses were kicked, my friend. Asses were indeed kicked.

In regards to the asses in question, and the main kicking component was the Gamma Rager, with his new pack of drinking buddies the Warbound. They were survivors of the ship exploding… you know what? Let’s not pretend there was a story to WWH. It was mindless molly whopping to restore the balance after the 6 month political discussion that was Civil War. We’ll leave it at he had friends, they were named the Warbound. He was a King, and they were his loyal followers and brothers in blood. They lived and died for each other. As long as ‘each other’ is latin for Bruce Banner.

Design has gone a way we haven’t seen since MMK’s X-Statix affiliation: A one man wrecking Crew. Two hulks have been previewed, along with Mrs. Hulk(May she rest in peace). We have a 4 drop Hulk, a 5 drop hulk that eats the 4 drop, and a 6 drop wife with a honey do list that she’s very passionate about. I believe my wife is emotionally healthy enough to allow my small failures without ending her life as a motivator. Ceiala or however you spell it is not so emotionally stable. She’d rather be dead than have the trash not taken out.

The Hulks in question are interesting. 4 drop is a flame trap that 5 drop eats to gain the strength to out of combat stun one of their guys. Straightforward.

Ordinarily, I’d give a few tek ideas for the previewed cards, and basically pee myself over what the good Mr. Seck and his posse have unleashed on my Vs collection. All I can do is sigh and hope that when I wake up tomorrow afternoon, I have something to work with. I’m thanking the fortunes I didn’t get these because there’s not much good I can say about this from my point of view. They’re solid cards, don’t get me wrong. Unfortunately, RTFC is king with Warbound so far. Read the card. That’s what it does. It doesn’t synergize, it doesn’t do anything. The best I can say is Hulk, Grumpy Goliath+Mrs. Hulk makes for the hulk staying on curve. Oh stop, my beating heart.

The problem I see with the initial offering of Warbound is that 1) They’re beginner card. Warbound seems designed for little Billy Smith whose mom just let him buy a few packs of MUN. They do what they say they do. They make a prepackaged deck that can be played to nasty effect as is. Basically: Design made something so horrendously WYSIWYG I have no comment.

The other problem is the Loner issue. Guess how you kill a loner deck? Coup D’Tat, Fatal Weakness, Deadpool, Vigilante, Fastball Special, Finishing Move… some brands of cotton depending on allergies… I mean, they’d better have some godlike protection effects, or the Warbound 3 drop better have the ability ‘Activate>Make me a sandwich’ or some high calibur ability in regards to my own procurement of sustainence without any work on my own behalf.

The final nail in the coffin of initial preview euphoria is the fact that it’s a lategame deck with little to no stall power. Sure, Hulk 5 drop has solid stats. a 10/10 on 5 is AWESOME… until you look at Pathetic Attempt stopping his ability, losing your 4 drop to use his PA-able ability in the first place, and the fact that Ben Grimm can molly whomp him. This guy could get into a FIST FIGHT with a Dr. Strange that used his magic to its limits to make himself as strong as possible. He’s so strong he can punch through magic… but some space radiated, rock looking guy whose catch phrase is nowhere near as fun can mop the floor with this Hulk. I’m disappointed. It’s too little, too late as far as hulk strategy is looking at first glance.

The only really lasting thing I can walk away with from the first forray into the Warbound is that it’s interesting that a weapons technology is presented as weaker than human exploration and ingenuity. The thing’s freak accident on peaceful mission of knowledge makes him stronger than a scientist whose work would end the life of millions. An interesting social commentary. Unfortunately the Hulk isn’t about social commentary. It’s about breaking stuff. Sadly for Hulk Fans the one thing immune to raw  human anguish given form is Modern Age. The one thing Hulk isn’t going to break is the current environment. At least, not without the help of his friends.

Stuff I Need When My Wife Gets Angry

So the thing about gaming is that we’re all after the same thing. We want to get your endurance below 0, and lower than our endurance. That’s the point, right?

Well, taking things beyond cardboard, we find ourselves asking: Do we really want to worry about endurance? Looking at all things from a strategic angle, we should be able to agree most players come to the table with the intent of taking your endurance below 0, and keeping theirs higher than yours. You know where your opponent is going. Most deck archetypes you’ll see are already discussed or you have good experience with, so you know where they’re coming from. So then… what? You know what they’re going to do, generally speaking.

Sun Tzu made a good point: When they come left, you counterstrike right. Well that involves either AWC, or simply preventing them from reaching their end point through stall. The problem with AWC is their lack of prominence, and easy of execution. Stall is fine, but it’s just another path from point A to point B. You’re doing the same thing as your opponent.

As I was thinking about things a few days ago, I was discussing deck construction for my other game with my buddy Dev. While discussing how a player’s personality effects tek and strategy, he stated something that got me thinking: I don’t need to win, I just need to make you lose as much sanity in the process of making me lose as possible. So I sat down to think about how I could integrate this into a right strategy for the left strikes I was expecting at the tourney yesterday. To add to the issues, it was for Strange Bedfellows that I was going this.

My default base for any deck is GK. I love the versatility of GK, and I love Batman in general. He’s more or less the literary equivalent of the American Dream. His life has been one of tragedy, but he’s overcome and turned his scars into strength. He stands for Justice, even going so far as to defend a man who murdered one partner and crippled another because the way he was going to be taken down was unjust. He is a man of principles, and the will to realize those principles. He is willpower in action. Love Batman.
On a mechanical level they have a great attack pump(Taking Aim for a +8 is always nice), Card Cycle(The Hook-Up), Card Draw(Card Draw Barbie), a common Tutor(Bat Signal) and the ability to interrupt your opponent’s tek and disrupt their rhythm(Most Modern Legal Batmans, From the Shadows, Bat Got Your Tongue, Interrogate, etc.). So you have a solid base to build from. Mechanically they’re one of the best rounded teams in modern. So then with my mechanical inclinations, and literary devotion, I had a base.

Still, a base without meat and veggies is just broth. Also, to meet the Strange Bedfellows reqs I needed to mix a villain in with the whole thing. Joker+Batman=Robber Barons. Already played that last month. So then, who? A brief look through the old binder o’ love and I see Hush. Hush is definitely a Batman villain. Awesome.

So GK/Arkham Inmates. Taking these two, I found an idea fluttering around my head. The problem with Ideas fluttering around your head is that if they stay in there, they just bother you. You have to let them out. It’s similar to a fly fluttering around your car while you drive. You have to roll down the window and let it out. And so I sat down and let this idea out. When I rolled the window back up and looked down at the table, I saw all hidden GK characters, allowing me to have only one visible character: Hush. That meant that with no one visible but Hush, he’d be adjacent to no one. No one Adjacent meant his effect would trigger, and I realized what that idea was going for: If anyone attacked Hush, they’d die.

Let me backtrack here, to explain in full, the text of Hush, Silent and Deadly reads: While Hush is not adjacent to any character, whenever he stuns an exhausted character, KO that character. As you have to exhaust to attack, generally, that means anyone he counterstuns dies. Point blank, they’re gone.  Unfortunately at 7/7 on turn 4 he’s paid for that kind of skill with stats. What are Friends For? and Nasty Surprise make up for that, allowing him to counterstun up to a 6 drop. And thus, Wall of Silence came into its first incarnation.

The deck was run, it did well, but it needs work. The main problem is that I refuse to run Fartifacts. I find them immoral. The problem is that with Fate’s Tower, Fartifacts, and Shaw Industries, I’d have a 14/14 4 drop with an auto kill ability. The added cycle of Fartifacts would only make the cycle tek of the Gotham Knights more potent. That’s really what should go in the deck, but I’d feel like a sell out for running them. So I need a way to build up Hush. My inclination is to run Universal Weapon instead of a 5 drop to give him +3/+3, turning him into a 10/10. A few heroic efforts and I can rock him out as a 14/14 by the time all is said and done.

Now back to Dev’s comment and how it relates to Wall of Silence: Point A>Point B and the running off of said issue. Hush buffed to 6 drop stats means you’re unable to attack without losing people. A few defensive tricks like Against all odds, and general pumps like Great White, and Shaw Industries and even when outgunned by a team attack he simply repels the hate with Bruce and Company preventing opposing pumps and Tek. You Play completely defensively, contradictory to the common sense approach of A to B. You allow them to become stymied, unable to attack without losing a massive amount of people, and after they shatter against the deadly quiet you come in and clean up. Your “to” in the “A to B” is simply kicking the opponent’s “To” out of the equation, never allowing them to get to B. Not winning, but making them lose.

It’s a different way of looking at things. It’s not stall, because you’re not trying to make it to a higher turn. You end it on 6, after they’ve exhausted everything they have just to fail. Attrition. Hush’s job is not to die for his country, it’s to make some other poor son of a bitch die for his.