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!

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.

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.