Wednesday, January 14, 2009

Suggested Banned Card Revisions













I have been working on some tentative plans should UDE bail on our great game, the VS System, for a few weeks now. Besides dividing up VS play regions and assigning a few people to overlook the area and organize major events every once in awhile, I have more ideas. One person on the realms mentioned that we could errata or revise old "crap" cards or banned cards and allow them for play. I have taken each of the banned cards and revised them so they can no longer create infinite or ridiculously powerful combos, but have kept the "feel" of the card. I have also updated some of them so they can fit with some Modern stuff as well, such as Dr. Light's additional team affiliation and Talia's effect to replace an ongoing plot twist instead of exhausting a location. Check them out! Positive criticism is welcomed :)

Saturday, November 22, 2008

Marvel Evolution, Three. More. Days......

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OKAY! I'm going nuts! I have just posted the entire set spoiler, and have gotten a look at most of what the set has to offer. I am very impressed with the power of this set. Move on over Marvel Universe, with your wimpy Hulk. And I can't wait to get my hands on this stuff and build away!

I have just ordered myself as many Runaways rares as I could get from CoolStuffInc, so I got some decent stuff. And the one thing I am most excited about? My girlfriend, Adrienne, will be learning the ways of this great game through this set! I will be teaching her to play this weekend, and we will draft my six boxes (later this week when we get our boxes) to really tune her skills. She's really interested in this, which surprises me to no end. The guys at my shop were pretty shocked when I told them.

So, my overall view of the set is a good one. I can definitely say that much. I will go over each team one by one here:

X-Factor:

Cyclops will make X-Factor even more annoying than those damned Illuminati. With all the X-Factor Exhaust abilities, along with cards such as Mutant Town Messiahs (PT, Cost 3, Ready target X-Factor defender you control), and Energize, you have a pretty nice stall. Too bad Galactus isn't modern. Hopefully we will be getting a nice game finisher here. (Although the drop Cyclops should be enough to burn the pants off your opponent). Multiple Man/Jami Madrox will be very cool. I am very happy I bought 10 of the one drop from MVL before they sold out everywhere. This will definitely come in handy later on. Multiple Man will have some good flow with S.H.I.E.L.D./Crime Lords (HYDRA) army decks that like to abuse Cut Off One Head. Lots of nice recovery effects reminiscient of X-Men also. Not much I don't like about these guys.

X-Force:

This is pretty much a revamp of X-Statix, with most of them dual-affiliated with X-Force and some characters just X-Force (or another dual with X-Force). This team will be very plot twist heavy and the attack phase could be pretty brutal for their opponent. However, I don't see this team being one for the top eight decks in the future. Cable is pretty sweet though. :)

Marauders:

I don't see many people who want to do Gambit legend, but Mystique and Sinister are creating some buzz. The Sinister deck has the ability to shut down a player's field by negating effects, mill their deck by X-Gene Decoded, and nailing their opponent without taking lash-back from stun (Malleable DNA). Mystique will be a lot like Mimic, except she will actually take on their names, or even straight out steal their character from the opponent. All good stuff.

Exiles:

Talk about a rare heavy team, geesh. I really like this team, it is a lot like SHIELD was in MUN, when it comes to amount of characters compared to other featured teams. Exiles' shift ability is so amazing, and M'Kraan Crystal just sped that up. To build the rare-heavy version, you will need some moolah, since their team searcher is already at the same value as DLS's Mobilize.
Panoptichron is amazing. Blink is cool (Warp Shards is gonna be tricky). Mimic is wacky ( I like Five in One ). Nothing bad about this team that I can even come up with. (And almost forgot Wolverine Squad.....talk about WOW)

Weapon X:
Cool team all around. Their legend is easily Deadpool, who seems like a really interesting character to abuse. There will be plenty of Deadpool's hitting the field on turn 5, but wait, tat's a seven drop! Hey! Yeah Trouble with Clones is busted, but is oh so much fun. And that's Deadpool inside and out. Fun. *And a little crazy in there* And Mesmero is sick...so...so...sick...

Runaways:

YAY! I have been waiting for this team. The deck out strategy is not one often visited in VS. But when they try something new, boy do they do it right. These guys (and girls) are going to tear some decks apart. Some people say "Ooh, well I will just Messiah Complex my stuff back, thanks for the free card." Then you go, "Oh hey look, I teamed the kids up with big daddy Mr. Sinister, and he has a present for you! X-Gene Decoded! Was that a Messiah complex I just hit? Oh Yeah!" Or even by themselves, they will tear peoples' curves up like there' no tomorrow. Great team design. *claps*

Purifiers:

New Sentinels, different name. These guys will eff...... you..... up. I'm thinking a SHIELD/Purifiers team-up with this one. And the old sentinels will just love their new shiny buddies, I'm sure. The only thing I don't like is that there is not a full curve and the team is not represented by very many cards.

Horsemen of Apocalypse:

Meh. Good luck playing all the rider cards and dropping Apoc for zero. It almost reminds me of some kind of messed up Exodia (from Yu-Gi-Oh) alt-win thingy. You have to play four cards, drop the fifth for free, and hope he doesn't get smashed. A much better HoA team could have been made. I believe the old theme should have been kept (well it's not really "old").

Starjammers:

Future Foes, aaarrrgggghhhhh! This will be a fun team to play. And good hand control is always great for card games.

So overall, I give the set an A-. To reach the A+, it would need a better HoA team, in my opinion. But the set does not seem to be as broken as the doomsayers have been spewing over the past two months. Told you so. :P

Peace.

Wednesday, November 12, 2008

MEV Runaways Preview! Molly Hayes!

My Marvel Evolution preview is.. Molly Hayes, of the Runaways!

First off, I am honored to do a preview and this is my first one. Thanks TBS, for letting some of the lesser known bloggers to do an MEV preview. I am excited about this set, and Runaways just sold the set for me. I really liked the idea of a deck out team, and I'm sure once I build the deck, it will make me reminisce about the days of the Dragon Ball Z CCG back in the day.

Molly Hayes. For those of you who do not know about the Runaways, they are a band of kids who discover their parents are actually villains and they have inherited their powers. They use these powers to steal from their parents and fight against them. I was recently introduced to the series (so I don't have extensive knowledge of it... yet), and I am hooked! Molly's powers are super-strength and invulnerability. In the series, she is the youngest of the Runaways (until Klara Plast of course), and is one of the more intelligent Runaways (even though she does not show it at times). She can use her powers only by conciously activating them, and they do not last very long, as she gets tired quickly and passes out. (Caffeine has helped her with this problem :) ).

On to the card itself...

I'm glad there is a common for the team at least, haha. I know some people have made comments on Realms about this being an all-rare team due to its power. I actually like this card though. It may not be of extreme value on the turn it is brought out. Which is most likely turn six, unless we get some cards for Runaways to jump that curve (I hope not). Your opponent might not be decked by turn six, but you can bet they will be soon if you hit them with this big slugger while her team-mate Victor Mancha is on the field. For a six drop, she has pretty solid stats with no drawback whatsoever (minus the no flight/range thing). Once you deck your opponent, this character will be VERY difficult to get rid of. We don't get many characters in this game that plain out cannot be stunned. Usually we get "can't be stunned while attacking..etc".

So, there is my preview, and I hope you enjoyed! Hope to see you on the Realms soon!

(Not being able to check VSrealms at least once today is making me all obsessive-compulsive, rrraaawrrr!)

Brandon (HeraldofDoom)

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Hey, I'm back to write my first VS blog! I'm from Otsego, Michigan (aka the middle of nowhere), and I have a small group of people that play locally. They include me, Steve (0n51@u9h7 on vsrealms), Shyo(Crushtelevision on realms), Josh, Mike, Higgins, Chris, and Jason. We used to have an unsanctioned hobby league back in the day ( with a few other players like Shea and Mikey) at a game shop the next town over called Hometown Hobby, but unfortunately, the store owner closed up after only two years of business. So the nearest hobby shops were about 15-20 minutes away in Kalamazoo. The three of them were Game Shop, Fanfare, and Scott's. Scott's sold VS but did not support it, Fanfare had a small following of players that were an older group of players who were very irregular (due to their jobs), and Game Shop was a Yu-Gi-Oh and Magic lover....so no love for VS.

Our group's game went from a huge success at the start during Marvel Origins, to a halting grind just before the release of DC Green Lanterns. I went to GenCon in 2005 for the Yu-Gi-Oh Shonen Jump championship (Yes I played it, but not anymore) and sold my entire VS rare collection to a group of VS players for a mere 150 bucks. I still had my commons and uncommons, which I put away in a box for a couple years.

One day, in the summer of '07, I was packing my stuff to move out of my parent's house and I came across my VS collection (or what was left of it), and I put it to the side instead of burying it once again. After I moved in with a friend and got all situated, I decided to mess around with my old stuff. I built a Doom/Crime Lords deck and an X-Men/Brotherhood deck. I convinced Steve to pick up one of the decks and play me a couple rounds. He wanted to tweak the deck, so he went through my stuff and built a straight X-Men deck. Afterwards, he said that the game was dead, so he wouldn't get back into it. This saddened me, because I wanted to play again so badly.
One day while in Kalamazoo, I stopped in at Game Shop and saw that there was a bargain box. I started digging through it, looking for some DBZ CCG cards (which I found some of :)). I then stumbled across four X-Men/Brotherhood Starter decks (MXS). They were marked down to two dollars each, so I snatched them up and sat down, cracked them open, and built an X-Men and a Brotherhood deck. I also purchased 6 packs of MHG for a mere $7.25. I pulled quite a few Doom cards, so I threw them into my Doom-Crime Lords Hybrid (LOTS of Stun-back). Then I slowly realized, I had no one to play :(.
The next week, Steve comes over to play some Halo 3, and he is packing a deck box. I ask him what it is, and he told me he ordered some cards and built a deck. I asked him to play. I am playing my Doom CL deck and he is playing something I had no clue about. I soon find out he's playing a deck that actually won a PCQ.... The Cosmic Skrull deck... yeah, no stun backs for me... So, I started buying more cards myself. In less than a month, I ended up with many decks. They included Brotherhood (TNB), X-Men (stall), Common Enemy, Avengers Reservist, Kang City, and Squadron/Tbolts. Steve had Skrulls, Checkmate/VU, Future Foes, Checkmate/League, and a couple others I can't remember.
One day while in GameStop, we ran into an old friend, Shyo. We got on the subject of VS and he told us he still had his stuff. We arranged a get-together to play some VS. The three of us continued to play for awhile. We soon got another person in our group of friends, Eric, to join in the game. He had some money, so he acquired alot of the money rares quickly and built some very nice decks. In early '08, we learned of the Mega Weekend taking place in Chicago and we decided to go.
Skip to Mega Weekend....
This is my first time playing in an official tourney. I couldn't wait to play. We missed the Silver Age event and played in the Super X-Over, which was amazing. I ended up 3-4 when I dropped. The second day, I decided not to play in Modern. But I did play in a DCL draft with Cliff, Squire, and Mr. Awesome. I ended up winning it too! I got The Ring Has Chosen shirt and a few packs of DCL. More to come later.... :)

My First VS Blog!

Hey, this is Brandon! My username on Vsrealms is HeraldofDoom and this is my new blog, "Doom's Throne Room"! I'm looking forward to hearing from everyone!