Variations on a Theme

One thing my wife and I agree on about Bobby Flay is this: He’s no Alton Brown. No, instead of showing a deep knowledge of any given food he works with, down to the chemistry involved, our self obsessed chef friend is more or less a one trick pony. That’s not to say his culinary skills are lacking. By no means are they, but they’re very focused on one thing: South Western Style. The easy way to predict how any given episode of Iron Chef or Throw Down is going to work unless it’s a dessert: Take the most basic recipe, mix vigorously with chipotle and other south western style additives, stir in a half cup of experience and ta da! You have something bobby flay would make. Not Alton Brown, who is my favorite TV Chef ever. He shows a deep understanding of not just one style, but a deep understanding of the basics of culinary chemistry and craft. He’s not concerned with what style or what have you he’s working with. He’s concerned that the proteins of the egg need to be opened up and combined with an emulsifier so that the broth he’s adding with combine properly. He’s worried about mechnics, whereas bobby flay always seems like he’s pitching new ideas to Chili’s.

In my mind, I like to think I am more like Alton Brown than bobby flay in deck construction. Both are excellent chefs, and deserve respect. Alton, though, has a zen view of cooking: It’s mechanically influenced art. As such, by manipulating the mechanics you create new art. Bobby Flay’s great contribution to Culinary philosophy, namely the question of ‘How do I add more peppers?’ just seems lacking in comparison despite his skill and accomplishment.

This relates to Vs like this: I ❤ Hush, Silent and Deadly. You’ve seen, if you’re one of the loyal 13 who still read post MUN preview, the Wall of Silence. Then the Illuminati started dropping and I resisted the urge to go “OMFG HUSH!’ to any large degree(I think I mentioned it with Iron Man). Then Clandestine Operation dropped. Need I say it? You run attack pumps, and hidden Illuminati members. Turn 3 releases the hounds. Turn 4 brings in Hush. Mixing SRA and a second Team-Up makes everyone F4, making Pier 4 viable for everyone. Turn 5 drops two mandroid prototypes on Hush, ensuring his ability to attack anyone they drop with impunity. You simply kill any curve they drop while you keep rocking your curve.

Example:

Turn 4: Hush and his opponent drop, both exhausted. No one attacks you because Hush is the only visible character.

Turn 5: The Mandroid Prototypes go on Hush and you bring in a third lowbie Illuminati member. Hush swings into their exhausted 5 drop as a 13/13. They die. Their 4 drop doesn’t dare attack a 13/13 Hush and a team attack is useless. Lock established. Rinse and repeat, killing their curve drop every turn with your buffed up Hush and maybe a savage beatdown or two.

I must build this deck. All I need is one of any number of late game finishers available now, and we’ve got nasty on a stick.

Still, despite the obvious power of this deck type, I still feel like Bobby Flay. One day though, I’ll be Alton Brown.

The Difference Between Saving a Life and Ending One is Volition

Last week I spent the week learning the different functions and uses of the Carotid and Radial arteries in the quest to save a life. This week we’ve taken that knowledge in the opposite direction. And by We, I mean my opponents. Needless to say I’m bruised, scraped up, I’ve sprained my finger, and I’m exhausted. To say nothing of the L5R Charity tourney/drunken birthday bash on the third. It’s been a long week and a half since I graced you all with my presence.

It’s been a hellish week, with next week promising even more fun. And by “fun” I mean injuries both internal and external. I’ve managed a meager presence on VSR, but as for blogging worth the time to read… it’s been beyond me emotionally and(Tuesday at least) physically.

Tomorrow we get the day off of the arm press and roll, arm trap and roll, and any other variation of abusing an arm for the sole purpose of gaining a dominant position. I wish I could explain how incredibly strange it is to hear ‘Worst case, check their Carotid artery to make sure they’re still alive. You have to do everything you can to keep them that way’ one week, followed by ‘This is their carotid artery. Push hard enough and their brain will stop getting the blood it needs. Normally you’ll just try this to make them black out.’ a mere 7 days later.

Also: The illuminati scare me.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

The Correlation of Fast and Right: An Observation

I work out every day with coworkers. Sometimes I choose the regimen, other times my supervisor calls the shots. I took charge yesterday, so he took it today. We ended up doing a circuit, a 1 mile cardio run, and finished it up with a few sets of Sprints. The problem? The guy behind me in the circuit was catching up while I was doing squats. So as not to hold up the others, I sped up. For those unfamiliar, a squat involves holding weight on your shoulders and squatting until your thighs are parallel to the ground. You have to keep your back straight or you end up hurting it. I sped up and my form suffered. 3 Tylenol later, I can walk and do my job. Wow.

So this coincides with Hulk Week. How funny. Maybe it’s just the excrutiating pain of running a mile with a strained back, or maybe it’s my gun shy attitude towards the Warbound. Still, I see a bit of a correlation. The thing is, the Hulk is turning into a turn 5 kill, turn 4 kill if you do it just right.  Think of it this way: Hulk 4 drop is an 8/7 with a built in flame trap. He kills rush. Batman, Founding Member is a 5/5 3 drop. Hawk girl is a 4/5 2 drop.

With the right pumps, you should be able to leave only thei 3 and 4 on the board on turn 4. Hawgirl gets a power-up to nail their 3 drop, Batman takes aim at their 4 drop. They should be around 40 endurance by the end of your onslaught. So 2x Battle Training and 1x Crackshot make the Hulk 19/7 for the turn. If he has an Nth Metal equipped he becomes a 20/8 each attack. Righteous Anger makes him a finisher on 4.

You might be saying ‘But Kenpachi, that belongs in the ‘never gonna happen’ thread!’. Maybe not that exact situation, but 4 turn long pumps(Combat Reflexes, Battle Training, Crackshot, and Flying Kick) can make up 20% of your deck. Fartifacts+Fate’s Tower take up another 20%. Heroes of Two Worlds,  Call in a Favor and Mobilize make up another fun 15%, with team-ups making up the last of it. JLA’s ‘New Era’ finds as many Fate’s Towers as you want/need, and turn it into metropolis when you’re done, teaming up Warbound and JLA. 3 pumps(which you’ve cycled into) plus fartifacts(which you’ve towered into) make Hulk a 20/11 for the turn while attacking. With the board cleared via Hawkgirl and Batman, you have a straight shot to your opponent’s face.

The strategy focuses on doing it right, not forcing the speed. It seems like the problem with loner decks is their necessity in the speed department. Slow is Smooth, smooth is fast. I think that as I await previews these next few days I’m going to try to keep that in mind. I don’t want Bruce pulling his back.

Throw Away Youth

So then it came to pass that Superhuman Registration Act was previewed today. It team stamps everyone with the Pro-Registration affiliation, makes you play with the top card of your deck revealed, and allows you to recruit the person you revealed that way if you haven’t recruited anyone else with that name this turn. Going back into my renewed interest in Reservist, I’m drawn to this.

I thought of using it as loyalty abuse, but CaptainSpud gave me a well earned slap in the ‘OMFG OLD!’ when 3 plot twists and two locations do the same thing(Well, that I can think of off the top of my head). It allows you to recruit people without taking a hit in the hand size. Rush deck? methinks yes. Titans are Kings and Queens of Team attack Rush. It accentuates their current build a good bit.

But there’s an interesting angle to this whole thing. What if you don’t like or need the card on top? That’s when we gamble. Tutors like Mobilize, Straight to the Grave, and Heroes of Two Worlds cause you to reshuffle your deck, yes? Now let’s look at a few other things in regards to gambling:

Cerebro: You look at the top two cards of your deck, put X-men in your hand, the rest on the bottom. This gets you a new top card.

Damocles Base: Name a character, top two card(or three if you named Kang). Copies of the named character go in your hand, the rest on the bottom of your deck.

Underground Resistance: Discard a brotherhood card to look at the top three cards of your deck, pick one and put the rest on the bottom of your deck.

Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker does the same thing without the discard. Forge lets you look at the top card of your deck and put it in your hand if its cost is less than the number of cards in your hand. A lot lets you move the top card of your deck if you’re not a fan of it. X-Men seems to be the best at it, between being able to run Forge, Cerebro, Damocles Base, and Domino using the predetermined card to protect herself and cable. Using the gamble with those people, statistically you’re going to be able to rush and force the odds to get you the card you need. New life for X-Babies perhaps?

Patriotic Youth

Wow. MUN previews are going down, and I’d like to point to two in particular I’m looking at with some love:

Captain America, The Patriot * Secret Avenger. This is a two drop with an ability to Rally for a character card. If the Rally works, a +1/+1 Counter goes on all characters you control. Avengers reassembled works with this pretty well because it puts an avengers character on top of your deck.

Then we Have Captain America, Champion License. He allows you to change defenders once a turn with his leader ability. In addition, when he gets clocked the rest of my characters have Invulnerability for the rest of the turn.

Now take this and mix in the shield, which I can return to my hand and exhaust the good Cap during the Combat phase to exhaust an opposing character. Stall, and strategy disruption. But who else do I know that can use counters and reservist.

Oh that’s Right! Teen Titans! To add to the mayhem, we have avengers reassembled as noted above. That searches out an Avengers character with the boost cost of discarding a card to replace a resource you control. Why is this so awesome? Spider-Man, New New Avenger is a team up from the resource row. That means you have tutors for your team up that pull double duty as character tutors. Now add Garfield Logan to the mix(Who captain America can make the target of… oh I don’t know… team attack) and you have a very interesting situation. I think TT/Avengers are going to mesh quite well. More to come when I can sit down and do a good post.