Wednesday, August 20, 2008

The Ant- Batmanchrist.


This is my last Preview before the set "goes public."

Damian here is a perfect toolbox for GK and League decks. Or a really good in between for both.

The only real good interaction I have noticed is between him and his 5 drop mama. You search then discard him to his own effect then her effect triggers and brings him back into play.



Good Eating, and do not stop playing Vs even if your life depends on it.

Thursday, August 14, 2008

2 for 1 special























These two cards make me wish they were real and I had 4 of them. I love equipment based decks, Notably Hellboy equips.

Io Here is 2 atk 3 def. 2 drop with an amazing ability to search out a 0 cost equipment and equip it to a character you control. The only draw back is that all equipment put into play this way KO's at the start of the recovery phase.

Equipments that benefit.

Katana
Power Gem
Ego Gem
Mind Gem
Soul Gem
Well any ) cost equipment to be exact.


The Themysciran Forges is a work of art. It is a 3 cost Location that is no-unique(which means you may play multiples of them from your resource row). It allows you to search your deck for an equipment card equal to the number of ready Forges you control and equip it to a Themyscira character. If you had all of the locations face up in your row you could potnetially search your deck for a 3 cost equipment or a 4 cost if you had Black Thorn. The draw back is a little hefty though, in that all equipment is Ko'd at the start of the recovery phase.

Equipments that would rock with this card.

Kevlar Body Armor
Personal Force Field
Steel Girder
Wait for it............. 3 ton Boulder.......... yes now you can stun a 3 drop without having to pay the resources
Any Equipment of 3 or less.

Tuesday, August 5, 2008

Sheild Burn 2.0

After reading the wonderful report on Majestics page, I decided I was going to rebuild the Shield burn deck that BCMer and I were working on.


First here is the deck that they used in their write up.

SHIELD Burn

Characters
* 24 SHIELD Agents, Army/Agent of SHIELD
* 4 Squirrel Girl, Doreen Green
* 3 Maria Hill, Deputy Commander of SHIELD
* 2 Speedball ◊ Penance, Painmonger
* 4 Wolverine, Agent of SHIELD/HYDRA
* 2 Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD

Total: 39

Plot Twists
* 4 Blinding Rage
* 4 Savage Beatdown

Total: 8

Locations
* 4 SHIELD Helicarrier
* 4 Birthing Chamber
* 3 Torture Chamber
* 2 Evil Lair

Total: 13

60 cards

I went with what Michael had to say about the deck in general and tried to fix the problem areas. As he stated it seemed like he had to use the Helicarier just to get some Agents back to his hand after mulling that over and sifting through 13 boxes worth of Vs I came up with a few solutions.

1. Adding in 2 Jessica Drew to bounce a guy if necessary.

2. Adding in 1 Sentinel Squad O*N*E* to bring back Agents from the KO'd pile

3. Adding in 4 Layla Millers as pseudo-plot twist to bring back 2 Agents from the Ko'd pile

After making these additions it allowed me to bring the # of Agents down from 24 to 15 without truthfully messing with how the deck works.

The second thing I did was to also evaluate the other characters in the deck and how they "Help the Cause". The only big changes were as follows.

4. Reducing the # of Wolverines from 4 to 3, I always seem to hit him.

5. Reducing the # of Maria Hills from 3 to 2 and the # of Squirrel Girls (sorry Stu) from 4 to 3, this opened up space for,

6. Adding in 2 (a.)Life Model Decoys and 1 (b.)Hank Pym who are there to
A. be an on curve filler.
B. Help Wolverine Smash

Well that takes us from 38 characters to 31. I know what you are thinking in a deck that is supposed to vomit out Agents that is going to hurt the flow. Just work with me and follow my logic.

With the addition of Layla you can retrieve 2 Agents back from the grave for the price of 1 card so that is 4 cards that can replace 8 (sorta). And with the other curve fillers such as Jessica and the Sentinel it wasn't necessary to have so many Agents still in the deck.


The rest of the deck was pretty spot on, but since I hand a little wiggle room to add extra cards I went a diggin this time through MVL/DCL/MUN/DWF to find my answers.

7. Adding in 1 extra Evil Lair

8. Adding 2 Research Facilities ( replaces those pesky Helicarriers/and other locations and characters you might have had to place in your row).

9. Cutting 1 Birthing Chamber and 1 Blinding Rage and adding 3 Invasion Plans.(It came up a lot in testing that I had an Agent that wasn't doing anything, well thats government jobs for you).

And with those changes it brings the "others" count to 29.


To recap:

15-Shield Agents
3-Squirrel Girl
2-Maria Hill
2-Life Model Decoy
1-Hank Pym
2- Jessica Drew
1- Sentinel Squad O*N*E*
2-Nick Fury
3-Wolverine

4-Layla Miller
4-Shield Helicarrier
3-Torture Chamber
3-Evil Lair
3- Birthing Chamber
2- research Facility
4- Savage Beatdown
3-Blinding Rage
3- Invasion Plans


The deck plays pretty much the same way as it did before, but now it has options togo go on curve. Also with the added recursion it is easier to get as many Agents out as possible.


Please leave some feedback if you have any questions or ideas.

Monday, August 4, 2008

Thar be a storm a brewin.


Ah, good ole Weather Wizard and his shenanigans. So far there is only one Weather Wizard to be able to play this card, but if I were a betting man, I would say there will be a few out of this set.


The card itself is a lot like Dirty Tricks, but slightly different in that instead of all characters getting -1 atk only attackers get -1 atk. There is also a little add on that at the start of the recover phase you have to replace Sudden Storm unless you discard a card.







A little history.

Escaping a prison transport, Mark Mardon fled to his brother's house only to find him dead. Mardon's brother, Clyde, a scientist, had just discovered a way to control the weather before dying of a heart attack (although recent evidence implies that Mardon murdered his brother and either lied about or blocked out the memory of finding his body). Mardon took Clyde's notes and used them to make a wand to generate weather and embarked on a criminal career as The Weather Wizard, sometimes using his powers on a small scale (such as zapping someone with lightning) and sometimes a larger scale (imprisoning a town in winter), almost always facing defeat by The Flash (Barry Allen).

After Barry Allen's death during the Crisis on Infinite Earths, The Weather Wizard went into semi-retirement for a while, until, during Underworld Unleashed, he teamed up with other Rogues which included Captain Cold, Heat Wave, Captain Boomerang, and Mirror Master, as part of a ploy for greater power. Ultimately, it ended with their deaths and the release of the demon Neron. They were later resurrected as soulless demons, by Neron to use against Barry Allen's successor Wally West, who manipulated Neron to return the Rogue's souls. The Weather Wizard and the others, save Heat Wave, returned to a life of crime.

Weather Wizard joined up with Blacksmith and her rogues. Through her, he learns he has a son from a one night stand with Keystone City police officer Julie Jackham. Their son, Josh, had exhibited internalized weather-controlling abilities and Mardon wanted to have the same ability without the use of his wand. He tried to kidnap Josh from Wally's wife, Linda and dissect him to understand out how his son gained that ability, but hesitated to harm the child when he notice that the child had "my eyes...my brother's eyes." He was stopped by Flash and sent to Iron Heights, but escaped. After Blacksmith's group disbanded, the Weather Wizard, along with Mirror Master and Trickster, joined up with Captain Cold, who declared himself the leader of the Rogues. Mardon was also the representative of the rogues for the Secret Society of Super Villains.

One Year Later, he and several other Rogues are approached by Inertia with a plan to kill the Flash (then Bart Allen). Inertia destroyed Weather Wizard's wand and used 30th century psychological therapies to remove the mental blocks which prevented him from using his powers without it. Though Inertia is eventually defeated, the other Rogues successfully beat Bart to death, Weather Wizard using his control over lightning to electrocute him. After Allen's identity was revealed, Mardon was surprised and horrified to discover that the Rogues had "killed a kid" (All Flash #1).

Weather Wizard is also one of the exiled villains featured in Salvation Run.

He was seen as the member of Rogues who joined the Libra's Secret Society of Super Villains. In "Final Crisis: Rogues' Revenge" #1, however, Weather Wizard and the rest of the Rogues reject Libra's offer, wanting to stay out of the game. Before they can retire, they hear of Inertia escaping and decide to stick around long enough to get revenge for being used.

I will reserve the right not to make a deck until another version of the Wizard Wizard is revealed.