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Alright. Every time I visit TCGplayer's Vs. section, I get a bit bummed by the fact that there hasn't been a new blog up on that right hand corner box since March. Sure, there's T_Man's great entries and Dragon's Jank Corner but those go up in the main article section. The "LATEST COMMUNITY BLOGS" bit hasn't been updated in forever. So, rather than sitting around just feeling sad about that, I figured I'd throw up a blog entry on here (admittedly a recycled entry, I need as many original postings for my main blog as I can get). This article is about one of my favorite jank comboes. Interestingly enough, it was featured in my first ever TCGplayer forum topics. I would call it “Growing Man” but there’s already a character named that so it’d be confusing. Instead I shall call it “Weight of the World Crushing Your Head”. I love it in ways that are difficult to comprehend. This combo has 4 major cards that go into it and I’ll be listing them starting… now. 
Josten is the central component to this combo (and the reason this combo and article have their respective names). He gets pretty big just by himself, going from 2/2 to 3/3 to 4/4 to 6/6 on and on. None of the other Thunderbolts characters I can think of have +1/+ counters as a power. However, there is an on-team way to speed Atlas’s growth.
Yeah, everyone probably guessed this was what was coming next. Just a single copy of this card means Atlas is getting +2/+2 each turn until turn 5 when he starts getting +3/+3. With a little luck, you’ll hit at least two of these in a game making Atlas naturally grow as big as the curve each turn. But just having a character following the curve isn’t quite janky enough. Needs moar cards. 
Assuming you are using two resource points on this each turn plus you have two New Identity cards inplay plus its at least turn 5, that means Atlas is gaining +6/+6 each turn. Not bad, eh? But wait! There’s a tiny bit more and it involves a non-MAV card that makes Josten even bigger. 
Yes, the oil that makes War Paint shine is also what adds that last bit of wham to Atlas. Just spend all your remaining resources after Force Field Belt on these guys, kamikazi them, and put the counters on Atlas. Gnarly. A really good day with this combo will see having odd initiatives, a hidden Infernal Minion on turn 1 and Atlas on turn 2 with two New Identity being flipped. That puts Atlas at 5/5 at the end of turn 2. Turn 3 Atlas gets a +1/+1, you equip a Force Field belt, pay 2 points for it, and recruit another hidden Minion. We’re going to say you weren’t fortunate to get a third Identity so after running the Minion into someone for the counter, Atlas is ready for combat at 9/10 on turn 3. After recovery he’ll be a whopping 11/12. Turn 4 you gain another one, pay 2 more, and play 2 more Minions. Josten enters the combat phase at 14/15 which will require team attacks and pumps on the opponent’s part to so much as get a stun. Minions kamikazi and the New Identities activate to make Josten a whopping 18/19 2-drop on turn 4. This can continue on all game as long as Josten doesn’t get KOed or an opponent doesn’t have something that can strip counters. Ways to keep Josten around include Project Liberator which makes him untargettable (even by yourself, though) and A Second Chance which will recover him. Other characters that help the combo are the 1-drop Dallas Riordan who can help make sure you draw decently and Ogre who gives another +1/+1 counter while Josten is attacking. And there you have it. A simple way to get at 8-drop sized, 2-drop character going into turn 5. This deck certainly isn’t anything amazing but it sure is janky fun. Try it out and let me know if you can come up with any other cards that enables this combo. I’m all ears for more ways to makes Josten live up to the name Atlas.
Tags: Vs System
Now, I’m sure all of you have seen the new City Champion prize cards that are up at VsSystem.com at the moment. If you haven’t go ahead and take a look. The first one is really “meh” and the second is usually going to be a Stalwart Defense that you can use outside the build phase. The third card, however, makes me smile. 
This group of guys and gals are awesome for three reasons. One, they take advantage of the new Hats/Clouds rule where blanket effects are constantly inplay meaning that when one of these cards enters play, it gets its own effect and becomes a 2/1. Two, they break a pair of Vs. System’s core rules about non-army characters: uniqueness and amount of copies. Three, they give me a new way to abuse Bodyslide.
Just imagine. It’s turn 5. You drop five copies of the Royal Flush Gang. Each copies’ effect triggers, giving you five 6/1 one-drops. Now, let’s presume you have Cable and MVL Bishop inplay along with a pair of Bodyslide in the row or hand. You bodyslide Bishop and one of your copies of the RFG. They come back into play at your attack phase and their effects trigger. You should now have a five 9/1 characters along with Bishop and Cable. From my perspective, that spells “ouch” for your opponent. So, building on that idea, here’s the basic concept for the deck. Going All-In Injustice Gang/X-Men Modern Age Characters: 3x Tattooed Man, Art Imitates Life
5x Royal Flush Gang, Non-Unique Full House
2x Shadowcat, Phase Shifter
2x Multiple Man, Army MadroX 3x Forge, Cheyenne Mystic
2x Sunfire, Rising Sun
2x Professor X, Idealistic Dreamer
1x Gambit, Swamp Rat
1x Havok, Unstable Son
1x Barracuda, Earth-3
1x Johnny Quick, Earth-3 4x Cable, Nathan Summers
1x Power Ring, Earth-3 4x Bishop, Time Cop
Plot Twists:
4x Secret Files
4x Savage Beatdown
4x Turnabout
4x Gang-Up, Team-up
4x Bodyslide
Locations:
3x Cerebro
2x Birthing Chamber
2x Stark Tower, Team-Up You definitely want odd initiatives here. Evens isn’t too horrific but odds makes life much easier. Mulligan condition is a bunch of the Royal Flush Gang, a way to get the Injustice Gang and X-Men teamed-up, or pretty much any good hand overall. Turn one play should be Shadowcat or a Multiple Man. Tattooed Man isn’t bad since he gets you another 1-drop for free although I’d prefer playing him on five to bring in a Royal Flush Gang member since you’d then net a free character. Never ever play a RFG on turn one. Turn two is pretty much whatever you have in hand, just avoid playing the Royal Flush Gang. Forge is easily the best since he nets you a free card. Hopefully you have Cerebro online by now and can start digging through your deck. Turn three is preferably Cable so you can play with his bodyslide. Otherwise, just dump out your hand other than the Royal Flush Gang. Bishop is your preferred turn four play, otherwise drop Cable with a 1-drop. If that isn’t an option, this is another dumping time out of your hand. Finally, turn 5 is the kill turn I mentioned earlier. Play all the Royal Flush Gang cards out of your hand, use Tattooed Man during this to net an extra character. Use as many Bodyslide as you have, targeting either RFG members or Bishop. When the attack phase comes, hopefully you can swing into the opponent for massive damage. The support cards in this deck are simple. Lots of search and card draw along with two great pumps in Turnabout and Savage Beatdown. Nothing better than swinging into the opposing 5-drop with a 12+ attack one-drop… Anyways, weaknesses of this deck. There are lots. You need a ton of luck for the primary combo to go off due to all the puzzle pieces required. You need to keep Cable inplay into turn five. If you miss the odd initiatives, the deck suffers a fair amount (although a turn four Royal Flush play isn’t a bad idea). Finally, it’s a swarm deck with a turn five kill condition. Guess when all the weenie hate happens? Exactly. If the opponent is packing the turn five low-drop hate, the deck dies. I’ll admit, I haven’t gotten the chance to play around with this deck yet since none of the cards are up on MWS as of my last check but I’m going to bet that this’ll be one fun deck to play, especially if I can ever get the combo to activate. So, yes, this deck is weak. It’s really dependent on god draws and the opponent not having weenie hate. However, I did mention this was the “Jank Deck of The Moment”, not a particularly good deck. If you want those, go lurk around other blogs. This one’s to busy trying to draw a Royal Flush…
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Whoosh!
Posted On 02/05/2008 15:34:24
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Did you hear that? That was the fastest man alive smacking you in the back of the head while on the way to foil a bank robbery. I think he's upset with you. It might be because you've ignored him, left him to sit in the bottom of a box of cards that might as well be marked "unusable". Yeah, Wally isn't all that happy about that. That's why I'm here. You see, the fastest man alive wants to make a comeback. The Flash wants to do what he does best: Smack the taste out of an opponent's mouth before they so much as have time to react. 
So, how does one go about playing with a card like Wally West The Flash, The Fastest Man Alive? Well, you need to be willing to have your 5-drop get stunned back before combat even starts. You need to be willing to risk everything by placing it all on the shoulders of one man. You need to be able to read the card and realize that it is only Wally's printed defense that matters, not the target of Wally's speed. I don't know how many times I passed this card in MWS and thought it was just a goofy way to stun an opponent's 5-drop out of combat. Big deal, I though. Then when I actually read it and realized you can hit characters by lowering their defense, I had to give Wally his props and build him a deck. Fastest Man Alive JLA/Brotherhood/Checkmate/X-Men/Teen Titans/Negative Zone (AKA Lots o' People) Silver Age Characters:
4x Dinah Laurel Lance Black Canary, New Wings
4x Ray Palmer The Atom, World's Smallest Hero
4x Mia Dearden Speedy - Deadly Aim 4x Random, Marshall Evan Stone III
3x Hal Jordan, Founding Member 3x Valentina Vostok Negative Woman - Bishop
4x Barry Allen The Flash, Crimson Tornado 4x Wally West The Flash - The Fastest Man Alive 3x Mimic, Exile 1x The Void - Robert Reynolds Equipment:
4x Frag Grenade
Plot Twists:
4x Truth and Justice - Team-Up
4x Full Throttle
4x Enemy Of My Enemy
3x Mightiest Heroes
3x RAT-TAT-TAT
2x Heroes of Two Worlds
Locations:
2x StarkTower - TEAM-UP
Your mulligan condition is one of the two JLA 1-drops and Random or a way to get a hold of Wally West. Preferred initiatives are odds so you can smack with Wally turn 5, hit around as needed to keep your board presence, then go into the big combo turn that is turn 6. Turn 1 you need to play either Canary or Atom, the deck doesn't run nearly as well without them since they are the best at fulfilling Wally's Loyalty. Atom is better since he's hidden so he can likely last you all the way until turn 5 but Canary is good enough if you have a team-up. If you missed the drop, you better hope you have Mightiest Heroes ready to search. Turn 2 is a second chance at the JLA 1-drops if you missed them. If you got them, you can either play another or play Mia Dearden Speedy. She's the first defense lowering card in the deck. She ain't great but she's useful enough. 
Random is your preferred turn 3 play. He is an absolute beast on the all important turn 6. He's also great leading up to that point. Secondary is Hal Jordan but you really do not want to have to play him. Turn 4 is one of three plays: One, if you missed Random last turn, play him now. Two, if you have a decent board, play Negative Woman for more defense lowering fun. Three, if you have a feeling your about to get smacked around, play Barry Allen so you can negate an opponent's attack. Any of these plays are decent and help lead into turn 5 and 6. Wally speeds onto the scene on turn 5. You should be off-initiative here so use him to stun the opponent's 5-drop and, if you have Barry Allen, force a bad play going into turn 6. If you have initiative, then you can basically do the same thing anyways. Finally, the over-hyped turn 6. You have the initiative but combat ain't all that important on this turn. All the magic happens during the build phase. Here's how it should go down. Play Mimic and copy Wally's effect. Use Random (hopefully he's still around) to lower the opponent's 6-drop's defense. Rat-tat-tat and Frag Grenade will work for this as well. This should leave the 6-drop at 9 attack. Send Wally into him for a mutual stun. Then, send Mimic into the opponent's 5-drop with Wally's effect. Free stun. Congratulations, you just stunned most, if not all, of the opponent's board if they're playing curve. Turn 7 is even more fun if Random is still around. Recruit whoever. Use Random on the opposing 7-drop, activate Wally West, chain Random on and exhaust again which will bring the 7-drop down by 6 defense, use either a Frag Grenade or an underdropped Mia to take them down by 8 defense which should be enough to bring them to the 9 defense level. Next, chain on a Full Throttle to ready Wally. Activate him while targetting the opposing 6-drop. Use Random's readying effect and target said 6-drop. That should bring him down to about 9 defense. Clear out the chain. Wally should stun both the opponent's 6 and 7 drops. From there, it should be easy pickings. Turn 8 shouldn't exist but, if it does, The Void should easily let ol' Wally stun all the way up into the opposing 8-drop. The plot twists and locations are basic. Lots of team-ups so if you lose your 1-drop you have a shot at keeping West in the game without recruiting Barry on 4. Rat-Tat-Tat is useful if you have the cards to pitch. Frag Grenade is more defense-lowering goodness. The rest is search. In all, I find this deck insanely fun to play with. However, it isn't great and it falls flat against off-curve/swarm decks. Sure, you can stun them for free but losing your 5 to their 3 or whatever isn't any fun. It also requires decent draws and a chunk of luck. However, it is still really, really cool to send Wally up into multiple big guys by combining his effect with Full Throttle and Mimic only helps the fun. Try the deck out if you can. You'll surely enjoy the jank  .
Tags: Vs System
Hello everyone to the last TCGplayer edition of Vs. Resolution. I'm both happy and sad to say that I've moved on. I've felt the need to grow so I've moved out of TCGplayer's blog section and now have my own blog. I doubt TCGplayer will let me direct link it here but just go google the name of this blog series and I'll be one of the top hits. With that said, let's go out with a bang! Yes, yes, I know. I promised a deck based on an affiliation that had a mega-broken, banned card in it and I promised it would be an article that went “back in time” and stuff but the hand of fate has forced a change of plans. I’ve been able to play that deck once and don’t feel I have enough of a grasp for the deck to write a decent article about it. So, in lieu of that, I’ll be writing about another fun Modern Age team known as the Teen Titans. Remember the Titans? (movie pun intended). Back in the old days of Vs. System, the Titans ran rampant across the countrysides of this fair game. Alongside the Curve Sentinels, few could stop these two menaces from steamrolling the competition. Abusing such cards as Roy Harper, Terra, and the infamous Teen Titans Go!, the Titans swept their pay to multiple major tournament victories. Then, they went Golden Age and the days of Titans glory fell back into the pages of history. The Teen Titans were then refeatured in the Legion of Super Heroes with a distinctly different flavor. These titans were all about using Cosmic and Substitute in combination. These Titans made next to no impact on the metagame, coming from a deck largely considered a failure and just overall not playing particularly well. And then, DC Legends hit. With DC Legends came another chance for the Teen Titans. This time around the Titans returned to their roots. With one single card, the Titans are back. When I saw that the old Titans were back, I sorta ignored them. I wasn’t around during the glory days of their youth, I’m not normally interested in weenie or team attack decks. I prefer strong curve decks. However, even I was called by that evil, evil card known as Teen Titans Go!. It was either that card and its deck or my “bland to play but original” Reservist themed Titans deck that I would use for this article. Evil won.
I put together this deck purely on the fly. Due to being inexperienced with team attack decks, I just took what little I knew and applied it. You usually want lots of different one, two, and three drops. No more than a handful of cards with a higher cost than that. TTG! lets you abuse activated effects so I figured those would be useful as well. Lastly, a card I desperately wanted and needed was Overwhelming Force. No stun for team attackers is beautiful with Titans. Sadly, Overwhelming Force is a Marvel card which breaks the rules of this little game. Instead, I went to talk to a leader of the Titans. You might even say he’s the leader of the pack, Tim Drake.
Not only does he give a global +2/+2 while team attacking, this boy wonder provides cards that make this deck busted beyond belief. First, Follow The Leader is a better version of Overwhelming Force, no stun for ANY attackers as well as a +2 attack boost. Beautiful. Second, is Cunning Strategy. The ability to pop multiple characters off the opponent’s board in one turn is crazy good. So, with Tim Drake being my pinch hitter, the guy who makes the deck sing, I built the following deck. Pesky Teenagers
Teen Titans
Modern Age Characters:
2x Dawn Granger Dove, Terataya’s Chosen
2x Bumblebee, Sonic Sting
2x Bette Kane Flamebird, Reflex Action
2x Pantha, Subject X-2×4x
2x Ray Palmer The Atom, Tiny Titan
1x Roy Harper Speedy, Mercurial Marksman
1x Mia Dearden Speedy, Archer’s Apprentice 3x Tim Drake Robin, Titan in Command
2x Argent, Toni Monetti
2x Holly Granger Hawk, T’Charr’s Chosen
2x Kid Devil, Teen Hellion
1x Donna Troy Wonder Girl, Amazon Warrior 2x Beast Boy, Garfield Logan
2x Dick Grayson Nightwing - Renegade
2x Vic Stone Cyborg, Mechanized Mentor
2x Roy Harper Arsenal, Additional Firepower
4x Tim Drake Robin, Leader of the Pack
2x Cassie Sandsmark Wonder Girl, Might of Atlas
Plot Twists
4x Teen Titans Go!
4x Follow the Leader
4x Cunning Strategy
4x Mobilize
3x Prodigies
Locations:
3x Birthing Chamber
2x Optitron You want even initiative here so you can smash with Drake on 4 and clear out the opponent’s board. Mulligan condition would be Titans Go! and some decent drops. Really, this deck draws and plays itself. Turn 1 you drop any of the one-drops. Bumblebee is probably the best since she gives you some more endurance burn each stun. Pantha isn’t bad and Dove gives everyone flight which is very helpful. It’d be best not to play Atom since he’s better off as a pseudo-plot twist for smashing hidden face. Turn 2 you either play another pair of one-drops or you play one of the two-drops. Only play Tim if you think you can get by without the 4-drop version until late game. Preferably, you want to see Argent if you’re playing a 2-drop. Turn 3 preferred is Cyborg if you’re on initiative since he can bounce their three or Nightwing since he has a miniature Titans Go built right in. Off initiative Beast Boy or Harper are preferred. BB gains his counters while preparing for turn four while Harper can insure stunbacks. Turn 4 is Drake if you haven’t played his 2-drop or Wonder Girl if you have. Both of them are very useful cards with global team attack helping effects. Plot Twists and locations are all built around the theme. Tim Drake’s plots, Titans Go, and Mobilize are all maxed out and Prodigies is in there just in case you missed Follow The Leader and need to make one guy unstunnable. Optitron is a moderately useful search while Birthing Chamber should be drawing you at least one extra card a turn. With this deck, you’re going to do one of two things. Smash serious face or flounder about and get your ass handed to you. If you don’t draw Titans Go! or your other essential plot twists, its game over. However, with a decent draw, you can completely hand an opponent a loss. While playing on MWS, I happened across HomerJ of the great Ring Has Chosen podcast. I got lucky with some beautiful draws culminating with my preferred drops from 1 to 4, a Teen Titans Go, and two Follow The Leader and two Cunning Strategy. Squire tried to negate the Drake plot twists but with a pair of ‘em, I was able to punch through. Combined with the Titans Go! and I completely cleared his JLA board on turn 4. Next game I played this deck, I missed all my plots and got whomped in the back of the head really hard. So, my ratings for these crazy teenagers? Teen Titans (Modern) Ratings:
Deck Strength: 8 (This deck is nuts when it works. Absolutely nuts. When it doesn’t though, it doesn’t.)
Deck Theme: 9 (All the Titans attacking one opponent is thematic and similar to the cartoon in their battles with Slade/Deathstroke.)
Ease of Use: 6 (You have to know when to drop who, when to play your plots, who to team attack with, what powers to activate… Lots going on with this deck)
Fun Factor: 7 (I dislike team attack, weenie decks but this one is fun. It’s not my funnest deck but its enjoyable)
Overall: 7.5 (If you want a strong weenie, team attack rush, Titans are where its at. Me, not my thing) Vs. System Affiliation Leaderboard
1. Fantastic Four (Modern)
2. Teen Titans (Modern) So, Titans couldn’t overthrow the Fantastic Family. Next article will either be the one I promised previously that steps into the past OR it’ll be one that goes far, far into the future depending on which I can play more. We’ll have to wait and see what fate has to decide. Remember, if you want to see the rest of this blog series, just google it. You'll find it quickly, about the fourth hit. And with that, I depart from TCGplayer's blog section...
Tags: Vs System
Welcome back to Vs Resolution, the blog series in which I try to build and play a mono-deck for all 57 affiliations in Vs. System by the end of the year. If you need a quick refresher on the rules: All characters must share a printed affiliation, at least 50% of non-character cards must be team or character-stamped, remaining cards must be from the same universe as the affiliation for the deck, deck must be in as recent of a format as possible. Today, I will be discussing my Fantastic Four Modern Age deck. There are many routes one can go down with Marvel's First Family. However, the rules of this challenge helps to limit these options. I can't go back and do Fantastic Fun since the deck must be Modern Age since that's the most recent format that Fantastic Four has been featured in. Human Torch abuse won't work since that requires off-team cards like Punisher or Random. Forunately, I had already decided to build a different deck when this affiliation came to mind. An unwritten rule of this Vs. Resolution is that a deck should be as thematic as possible. What could be more thematic for the Fantastic Four than a Family of Four deck? I personally can't think of any. So, that is the deck I built. The Fantastic Four Family of Four Modern Age 1-Drops: 4x Uatu the Watcher, He Who Watches 2-Drops: 4x Human Torch, Matchstick 3-Drops: 4x Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four 3x Thing, Idol o' Millions 4-Drops: 4x Mr. Fantastic, Flexible Thinker 2x Luke Cage, Paid in Full 5-Drops: 4x Thing, Heavy Hitter 6-Drops: 3x Human Torch, Flame On! 7-Drops: 1x Invisible Woman, Shield of the Four 1x Thing, The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing 8-Drops: 1x Silver Surfer, Norrin Radd Plot Twists: 4x Force Field Projectioni 4x Signal Flare 4x It's Clobberin' Time 4x Family of Four 2x Mobilize 2x Firewall 2x Stretch Out 2x Clobberin' Pine 1x Torch and Thing 1x Reed and Sue Locations: 3x Four Freedoms Plaza Preferred initiative is odd so you can double up with Surfer. Mulligan condition is Invisible Woman or a way to grab her. Basically, you want to curve on the primary Fantastic Four drops all the way up to turn 7. If you're playing a curve opponent, you play Invisible Woman. If you're playing swarm, you play Thing. Turn 8 you play Surfer who should give you the game. Just for the record, on some turns it is actually better to underdrop to complete your Fantastic Four. One of my preferred turn 6 plays if I missed Mr. Fantastic is a copy of the 2-drop Torch and then the 4-drop Fantastic if I have him. This completes the Four (Invisible Woman should be safe and hidden, Thing was your 5-drop) and gives you access to great search abilities which I find more useful than 6-drop Torch. This deck is similar to an infamous one by CarlosTheDwarf of Vs. System's homepage. It's all about getting out all the members of the Fantastic Four in order to abuse great cards like Four Freedoms and Family of Four. I like to think mine is different enough to stand out, though. I pack about 8 more characters than Carlos's build (I hate missing my drops so I'm a bit strict about always including enough characters, even with search) and I also included a little bit from every single Fantastic Four members' array of plot twists. This was purely for theme but they also have their uses.
Thing has Clobberin' Pine. I haven't been able to use the card to a massive amount of effect yet but I can see situations where it would. Say that someone is swinging their 5-drop into your 2-drop Human Torch that is still on the field, hoping to get big breakthrough and then team attack your Heavy Hitter. You play Clobberin' Pine and all of a sudden they better hope they have pumps and you don't have Family of Four. Plus, the card's name and art is too hilarious to keep away from. Mr. Fantastic is packing Stretch Out. I've found this card to actually be very useful. 13 defense on turn 4 is insane and most decks can't make up the ground. Even turn Critical Thinker into a 9/5 on turn 4 is useful if you have initiative. Firewall is basic but very helpful. Lets you swing about on spot up the curve which is very nice. If you draw both then you are definitely sitting pretty. Force Field Projection. There is a reason that it is the only character-stamped card I'm packing four of. It is perhaps the absolute nastiest card in the deck next to a maxed out Family of Four and Four Freedoms Plaza. Completely negating an opponent's attack is just sick and wrong. I personally hate the card just because it has been used so often against me and I know the feeling of pain it causes to see an opponent drop it. When I use it, it makes the opponent squirm and say "lame". It is often the primary reason I can win with this deck. The card is just sick and wrong. I guess I should talk about Reed and Sue/Thing and Torch as well. They're just in there because I had two open spots and wanted to stay thematic. They aren't very useful cards but the flavor is worth it. Plus, Reed and Sue saved my bacon in one game by stopping breakthrough by an attack on Luke Cage. Would've died if I hadn't drawn it. Both are only moderately useful but I like the theme. I have played with this deck about three times on MWS. I believe I won twice and lost once. I know one loss was to a very nice JLA/Team Superman deck and I believe I squeaked out a victory against IG Concealed but I can't quite remember if I won that or just almost won it. The deck is absolutely beautiful if you can get all the Fantastic Four out on turn 5 like it is designed to do. The deck is the Fantastic Four in its purest form, it's surprisingly solid considering it is a theme deck, and the deck is just plain fun to play. It is a strong and easy to play deck full of flavor. I now understand why it is one of CarlosTheDwarf's favorite decks. I've decided to add another piece of fun to this whole bit. I'm now going to rate the Vs. affiliations I play. These will be purely arbitary numbers but these are just my thoughts at things like how well these affiliations play and how much fun I find the
teams' themes. I'll also be putting all the affiliations against each other in a "leaderboard" of which affiliations I like most and which I like the least. Scales are one to ten. Fantastic Four (Modern) Ratings Deck Strength: 8 (Nice and powerful when it runs, sorta falters when it doesn't) Deck Theme: 10 (What could be more thematic for the F4 than having all four on the board at once? Ease of Use: 9 (Anyone could run this deck and that makes it nice. You don't need to know its ins and outs other than "Play the Fantastic Four primary members")
Fun Factor: 9 (There is little cooler than getting out all of the Fantastic Four and wiping out the opponent with them) Overall: 9 (I really like the Modern Fantastic Four, they're fun, thematic, and simple to use.) Vs. System Affiliation Leaderboard: 1. Fantastic Four
And with this article finished, it is time to prepare for the next one. I'll be going back in time to a set that brought to life one of the most broken cards in Vs. System. In fact, the deck will be based on the affiliation of that character. Anyone want to hazard a guess as to who that is? Find out next time on Vs. Resolution.
Tags: Vs System Fantastic Four
This past New Year's I decided I wanted to make a New Year's Resolution for once. However, I didn't want to make a boring one like everything else. So, I went ahead and made one based on Vs. System. What I did was lay down a challenge for myself. That challenge was to use MWS to build a deck for every single affiliation in Vs. System, play the deck, and then blog about it here on TCGPlayer. By my count, there are 57 affiliations in Vs. System if one counts the unaffiliated. That alone is a challenge to build and play (needing a deck every week) but I've decided I want to make it even more fun by adding a few other guidelines. Here are the rules that the decks for this challenge must abide by: 1. All character cards must have the affiliation for the deck printed on them. (AKA Mono decks only)
2. At least 50% of the non-character cards must be team-stamped or character-stamped to a character that has the printed affiliation. 3. All cards must be of the same universe as the affiliation of the deck (X-Men deck can only have Marvel cards, etc.) 4. All decks must be legal in the most recent format possible as of the time of the building (Teen Titans or Underworld must be Modern Legal since they are featured in Modern Legal decks, Sentinels or New Gods must be Golden Legal) Unwritten Rule. Decks should be as thematic as possible and should use at least one of the affiliation's primary themes. If anyone would like to join me, let me know and we can trade notes or something  .I have already started building decks although I haven't been able to play them. If you ever see me on MWS and I ask to play GA, remember this challenge. I won't be building anything broken, I won't be netdecking, so there is no need to fear if I ask for GA. You'll also be helping me complete my challenge which should make you all warm and fuzzy inside. With that all said and done, let the challenge begin!
Tags: Vs System
If you're looking for the deck list, it's about four paragraphs down from here. You can skip the anecdote at the beginning if that's all you're here for. Last time I checked in here, I'd written about a topic no one had ever written about. This time, I'm writing about a topic a LOT of people have written about and that topic is a Vs. System deck. Vs. is my greatest love in gaming, which is amusing seeing as I own exactly one physical cardboard piece of it. I got into the game via Marvel TCG for the DS and have been loving it ever since and I've since started playing on MWS (DOWNLOAD IT!). The thing I really enjoy about Vs. is constructing decks. I could care less about winning with a deck, I just enjoy building them. I especially enjoy playing around with things not many other people use. For example, my favorite card is Atlas, Kosmos Convict just because it's fun to build a deck around him. What does any of this have to do with Arkham Inmates? Simple. Arkham was refeatured in World's Finest. The biggest thing about the new Arkham are the new "Insanity" effects that are taking decklists by storm (and sheer mass). However, Arkham got another theme. Arkham learned that sometimes it is better to fight separately than to fight together. Sadly, I don't see many people using Arkham like this. A quick search of TCGplayer's archive didn't pull up a single deck based around this new theme. I thought that this was a crying shame so I am doing my part as hole-filler by making a "checkerboard" Arkham Inmates deck. Arkham Ununited (Modern Age) Characters (29): 4x Calender Man, Julian Gregory Day 4x Crime Doctor, Bradford Thorne 4x Great White, Warren White 4x Mr. Zsaz, Scar Tissue 4x Poison Ivy, Venomous Vixen 4x Mr. Freeze, Cold Shoulder 3x Sondra Fuller Clayface, Mudpack 2x Killer Croc, Cannibal Plot Twists (31): 4x All Locked Up 4x Hush Baby 4x Mobilize 4x Poker Night 4x Flying Kick 3x Savage Beatdown 3x Against All Odds 3x What Are Friend's For?
2x Usual Suspects Mulligan condition is usually Great White, Mr. Zsaz, or Calendar Man. Basic idea here is to drop Calendar Man on turn 2 in order to get a nice running source of cards through turn 4 or so. Great White comes down on turn 3 and gives all your characters a boost. If you don't have GW, Zsaz gives you some nice beating power. Turn 4 you play either Poison Ivy or whichever 3-drop you missed. Turn 5 gives you your main beatstick in Mr. Freeze who should be an 11/11. Turn 6 gives you an above-average stats drop in Clayface and turn 7 nets you Killer Croc who could win the game for you or blow it completely. The plot twists are your standard fair of beatdown. Lots of attack pumps/defense drops. Mobilize is also standard fair (hint: pitch Clayface if at all possible) alongside Against All Odds. Finally, Poker Night and All Locked Up gives you the reinforcement that you lose by checkerboarding. ALU has a bonus side effect of getting past reinforcement stoppers. This deck certainly isn't going to win any tournaments but, what do I care? It's a a really fun deck to play with that I feel deserved to be made. Insanity is fun and all but disuniting your entire field may be even more insane. If you made it all the way down here then congratulations! You survived all the above. Thank you so much for reading this and any comments are muchos appreciated.
So, I figured I'd take the time to go ahead and be the first person to ever write anything about Star Wars Pocketmodels (or at least have it listed under their category). I'll start by just talking about the resources in the game and what you have to play with. If I ever feel up to it, I'll write how the game is actually played. Might happen, might not . Pocketmodels is a simple game. There are two basic resources: ships and cards. Each ship has four basic stats (attack, defense, damage, and health) along with a star cost from 1-5 and also each ship has various "keywords" (which are actually symbols  ) that means that said ship is anything from a Trooper to the fact that it is armed with proton torpedoes. To start building a squad, a player takes any combination of units that's total star cost equals 20 and that is their starting fleet. This means you could have 20 1-star units, 4 5-star units, or something inbetween. A player then takes 10 more stars worth of units and puts them into his reserves. The reserves come into play later.
Each player also has a deck of 30 cards with no more than 3 of any single card. There are two types of cards: Combat and Objective.
A combat card is a one-time bonus that you play during combat (who would've guessed? ). Each combat card has a basic bonus, usually a "+1" to either attack, defense, or damage. They also have another effect that generally targets a specific unit with a certain "keyword". If the unit you are playing the combat card on matches that "keyword", they get an extra bonus. This means it is best to specialize your deck/fleet around one or two keywords so you'll almost always be able to use a card's power. An objective is a card you can play face-up for constant bonuses. These can be anything from an attack bonus to being able to bring a ship in from reserves whenever you destroy an enemy unit. These cards can be destroyed by your opponent so you must be careful with them. So, there's a basic introduction to the resources in Star Wars Pocketmodels. For a hyper quick review, I have this to say: The game is very short and very simple at first. You basically just throw together matching ships and cards and then roll die like crazy. However, there is a hidden bit of complexity to the game. The models are fun to build although the TIE fighters REALLY like breaking (shoddy Imperial workmanship  ). In all, this is a fun "filler" game that you can play in fifteen minutes. It is worth looking into if you enjoy Star Wars and little models made of credit card plastic. I know I enjoy it. :D
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