tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-83026359721436570822024-03-13T12:31:06.005-07:00VS System is LEGIONA wacky walk through the wild world of VS System. Decks! Deck Theory! Tournament Reports! Comic Talk! Other things that have nothing to do with comics or VS! It's all here for 4 easy payments of $9.95! Or, you know, free. That works too.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.comBlogger42125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-3697743554047890162008-06-10T14:30:00.001-07:002008-06-10T14:40:01.791-07:00Point Store CardsI got a package today that featured four copies of The Infinites, Breeding Pens and Holocaust. It's funny, because I forgot I ordered them, and was lamenting my inability to build a SHIELD/Horsemen Team-Up that counters up Iron Man 4 like nobody's business using Nick Fury to bring out Infinites and KO them to Breeding Pens. That's mainly a hobby league deck, especially since both Breeding Pens and Stark's Armory are probably going to be replaced like nobody's business by Have a Blast/Batman 3/Death of a Dream/Silent War/etc. in a big time constructed tournament.<br /><br />Still, it's fun to have the opportunity.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-76585939964731992622008-06-05T17:20:00.000-07:002008-06-05T17:21:54.611-07:00Good Week<p class="MsoNormal">You know, some days everything just seems to work out. Some background: My brother and I decided to combine our gift giving efforts for my father’s birthday by chipping in to pay for a year of Verizon DVR. We were going to get him the standard one room DVR, and in standard Dad fashion, he decided to go above and beyond and order the Hi Def Multi Room DVR and buy an HDTV (while still only expecting our original price in payment). We got the box Monday night, and I attempted to set it up Tuesday after he acquired the new TV. Lots of frustration and more than an hour spent on the phone with Verizon led to no working set top box. And this was after seeing my beloved Red Wings fall 34.3 seconds short of winning the Stanley Cup in Hockeytown, only to lose the game 47 minutes of overtime later at around <st1:time hour="1" minute="0">1 AM</st1:time>. So I was a bit frustrated. And Tuesday’s work sucked. And Rock Band DLC was pretty disappointing (as interested as I am in three tier seven drum songs, I’m not buying a Disturbed pack). Then Wednesday came around. And things took a turn. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">Wednesdays of course mean new comics day. And this one was a doosy. Secret Invasion #3, Kick-Ass #3 and Trinity #1, all very good books (look for reviews on read/RANT soon). Got home from work to find a replacement Set Top Box waiting. Set it up and we were still having a few issues, but after 20 minutes on the phone (mostly while holding), we got it working. And I turned on the TV and set it to the NBC HD feed just in time to see Lord Stanley’s Cup in pristine HD staring back at me. Two and a half hours later as Nicklas Lidstrom was skating over to raise the Cup, all was as it should be. My Wings are on top of the hockey world, and the Sox are in the process of smacking down the upstart Rays and cementing their place on top of the <st1:state><st1:place>AL</st1:place></st1:State> East. Things were looking up. I’ve got the Random Punks tourney to look forward to this weekend, and while I still have to put together the cards, my Heralds/Inhumans bounce deck is put together and ready for good times.<br /><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">And this morning was the icing on the cake. Temping for a company is always a dangerous game, and I had been informed last week that my contract would be expiring on the 13<sup>th</sup> and my department would be unable to extend my time. Well, turns out that’s not exactly the case. I got extended a month. So I’m still in business through mid-July, which puts me that much closer to the relocation in July. Good times. </p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-43093543399444256452008-06-04T21:31:00.000-07:002008-06-04T21:33:55.973-07:00Back Issue Order<p>Through the listening of the Comic Book Page family of podcasts, I discovered this awesome little back issue website called <a mce_href="http://www.mycomicshop.com" href="http://www.mycomicshop.com/">My Comic Shop</a>. They have weekly specials that you can unlock after joining their mailing list that give 5-10% off their prices for various divisions of comics. This week they've got the entirety of their Marvel stock on sale, so I decided to place an order. Let's take a look, shall we?</p><p>Captain Marvel #'s 17 and 32. This is the first volume of the Peter David run, and it'll complete the series for me. </p><p>The Death of Captain Marvel OGN. I've only actually read the Death of Captain Marvel reprinted in the Life and Death of Captain Marvel trade, and I've heard it's not the most ideal reprinting, so I decided to get the original.</p><p>Inhumans #'s 1-4 (Volume 3 from 2000). Thanks to Billy for pointing this one out to me. </p><p>Marvel Team-Up #137. Yup. It's the Aunt May/Franklin Richards one.</p><p>Sidekick #'s 1-5. This is the Paul Jenkins/Chris Moreno humor book. I've heard a lot of good about it, and I picked up the two issue Summer Fun Special at Wizard World Philly, so I wanted to grab these as well. Seems like they'll be very much in the style of the backups from World War Hulk: Front Line</p><p>Silver Surfer Vol. 2 #'s 70-73 and 75. I already had issue 74, so this will let me read the Herald Ordeal storyline with lots of Morg goodness and the death of Frankie Raye. </p><p>Warlock and the Infinity Watch #'s 9 and 19. Galactus appearances.</p><p>Should be good stuff. Another 8 Galactus appearances to add to my slowly building shrine to the big purple one.<br /></p><p><br /></p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-72872886172321167372008-06-02T21:57:00.000-07:002008-06-02T21:58:00.932-07:00Wizard World Philly Wrap Up<p class="MsoNormal">Wizard World Philly came and went this past weekend. Let’s talk about it. So I didn’t go to the show on Friday due to not wanting to miss a day of work, and once I got out of work, I took the regional rail down to Market East station, met up with my friend from High School and went back to his apartment for the night. We played some Rock Band, hung out, watched some television, what have you. But that’s not really pertinent information, so let’s move on to the first day of the show.<o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Saturday:<o:p></o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">One of my little foibles is my extreme desire to get to places early. This has always been the case. Thus, I took the walk down from my friend’s apartment about six to eight blocks away from the Convention Center with my bag full of various stuff, and was registered and in my place in line at about 8:30 for the 10 AM opening. I waited around and talked to a guy next to me in line wearing a Green Lantern VS shirt who didn’t play the game anymore. We talked HeroClix for a bit and so on. The doors eventually opened and I made my way to the hall. Pretty overwhelming for someone that’s never been to a big time con before. I walked the floor, checked out the retailers, thumbed through some cheap bins and walked the artist alley circuit. I bumped into Bryan and Pants from Comic Geek Speak next to the vacant table where Katie Cook was supposed to be (shame, I wanted to thank her in person for doing a Lockjaw sketch for me that I’ll be picking up in September), talked to them for a bit and grabbed my CGS convention shirt. I also made my way over to Stuart Sayger’s table and talked to him for quite a while. He’s probably the one artist I really picked up on through VS cards. I only had one of my rare binders with me as far as cards are concerned, so I didn’t have my World’s Finest cards on me, but I still got him to sign a Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster and Judgment Day. He told me a cool story about how he finished off the Judgment Day art. We had a good time chatting and I picked up the three issues of Shiver in the Dark, as well as two prints (one of the art from Certifiable, and the second of a wicked looking Dr. Doom). I should talk to artists more often. Enthusiasm is a wonderful thing. It was around this time that I randomly bumped into Los as he was coming into the hall. We ended up traveling the retailers as he frantically looked for a copy of Ultimate Spider-Man #3 he had seen the day before. During these trips, I picked up a couple of back issues of Starlin’s Captain Marvel and also found the Absolute sized JLA/Avengers slip case hardcover super crazy edition for a very respectable $30. We made our way over to the gaming area and found a nice spot. Los clued me in on a vendor that was facing the gaming area who had boxes of VS for very good prices. I grabbed a box of Legion for $25, cracked it open and pulled a Mobilize, as well as some other goodies (Need for Speed, foil No Match for Darkseid, and so on). Shortly after this, I got a call from Cliff and he made his way over to our neck of the woods. <st1:city><st1:place>Bryan</st1:place></st1:City> came by a bit after that, and we got down to business.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I had brought four decks with me that day. My own version of Money.dec that isn’t fully complete (I’d say there are about eight or so proxies of cards like Superman 5, Hal <st1:country-region><st1:place>Jordan</st1:place></st1:country-region> 3, Mightiest Heroes, Indestructible, etc.) was the only deck I brought with me that had been built and unchanged for a while. The other three decks were either new or tweaked heavily from earlier designs. The first deck I played against Cliff was a Heralds deck that utilized Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways, Silver Surfer’s Board and Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem to draw a <i style="">ton</i> of cards. The card draw combined with my deck stacking capabilities, Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin Shape Change, Omnipotence and Negative Zone, Shadow Dimension (It should be noted that Barbara Gordon <> Oracle, Hacker Elite <i style="">HATES</i> that card) causes a lot of problems and allows for a pretty effective stall against a curve deck. It was a fun game with some pretty glaring errors (Cliff had two Daredevils in play for <i style="">two turns</i> before either of us noticed), but it was a good time nonetheless. I ended up winning thanks to a big swing on seven with Silver Surfer, Last Zenn-Lavian and Terrax, which was enough to put him below zero. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The second game I played against Cliff used my brand new Gotham Knights/Marvel Knights team up that generally focuses on using Barbara Gordon and The Hook Up to improve my hand while running a mostly hidden attack deck with Punisher, Guns Blazing as my only visible character. Cliff ended up beating me with his Random Punks Birds of Prey by <i style="">one</i> endurance as we were both in the negatives, and the use of three Tied Downs from the row to stop my Punisher from stunning back and KO’ing his Vixen on four. It’s an interesting way to play the deck, and pretty darned powerful. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">The final game we played (to what I can remember at least, without taking any notes and writing this two days later) was my Inhumans aggro deck that utilizes Quicksilver, Inhuman By Marriage pretty much only to draw cards via Ego Gem, Infinity Gem. The extra card draw fuels the super beats that come from Tonaja, The Responsible One, <st1:place>Karnak</st1:place>, The Shatterer, and Maximus the Mad, Mental Manipulator with the ability to draw into my Royal Guards and Savage Beatdowns and Slobberin’ Times. This deck went up against the infamous Arkham Inmates/Injustice Gang team up. I was doing well throughout this game, drawing a ton of cards with Quicksilver and getting a lot of damage from Tonaja, Thing and <st1:place>Karnak</st1:place> due to bypassing their surge effects with Extended Family. We got to turn six, and I realized I was going to have a problem. I was playing against IG and had about 10 cards in hand. I did a lot of damage that turn, but Quicksilver was my only visible character, and he stunned while attacking Abra Kadabra, Magical Rogue thanks to <st1:place>Karnak</st1:place>’s effect. A couple All Too Easys, and he caught up and ONCE AGAIN BEAT ME BY ONE. Damn you, Cliff! I shake the fist! Either way, it was a ton of fun playing with Cliff and <st1:city><st1:place>Bryan</st1:place></st1:City> and Los, and a good way to spend a good five hours. I headed back to the apartment for the night, and watched the Red Wings beat the Penguins, which was good times. </p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Sunday:<o:p> </o:p></b></p> <p class="MsoNormal">I wasn’t planning to go to the con on Sunday. I was tired as all hell and sore from walking and such, so I was planning to relax. But when I woke up the next day, I was energized, and decided to head over anyway. But this time, I took a cab. When I paid my fare outside of the entrance to the con, I fumbled through my pocket for some change. In so doing, I managed to knock my cell phone out of my pocket without realizing it, and didn’t notice this until after he drove away. So I didn’t get the number of the cab or the company. Suddenly, I’m sitting here without a phone, which was a bit of an issue considering I had to call my dad to tell him when to pick me up at the train station, since I didn’t want to leave my car in the parking lot for three days. Thus, I ran around the con like a madman trying to find Los to borrow his cell to call my dad to let him know, and I ended up having to use a pay phone so I could call my dad and get his cell phone so I could call him again later. This definitely threw me out of sorts, but once that was all set up, I got to calm down a bit and attack the cheap bins in earnest. I walked away from a giant section of 50 cent bins with 38 issues of Peter David’s Captain Marvel series (I missed two issues without realizing it) as well as a random one off of She-Hulk and the first issue of Silent War (And we all know my love for the Inhumans). I also ran into CGS trivia geek extraordinaire and generally really cool guy Adam Murdough and talked to him for a bit. He was running through the quarter bins across from my bins. It’s funny, because once I found my haul and moved on, I kept dropping by and he was still there, practically in the same spot for <i style="">hours</i>. I got some other assorted cheap stuff, including a couple issues of Warlock and The Infinity Watch, Paul Jenkins’ Sidekick and a few other odds and ends. I ran into Pants and Shane (another CGS’er), and saw Jamie (yet another CGS guy) from afar, but didn’t get a chance to get over and talk to him. I also hung around with Los for a bit, but we got separated pretty quick, and since I didn’t have a cell phone, it was pretty hard to get back to meet up with him. I was tired as all hell and carrying around both a shoulder bag, a valise and a con bag, so I decided to cut out at around <st1:time hour="14" minute="30">2:30</st1:time>. I was back home by <st1:time hour="16" minute="35">4:35</st1:time> (I <i style="">just </i>missed a train heading back home as I got to Market East station), and had time to relax. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So overall thoughts on my first official con: how the hell do these people so multiple cons? It’s completely exhausting, and I didn’t even get to do 30% of the stuff I wanted to. Didn’t get to talk to Maleev or Fred Van Lente or Brian Reed or any of the other creators, nor did I get the chance to talk to any of the CGS forum crew. But I still had a great time, had a blast playing Cliff and got a bunch of awesome stuff. All this makes me do is wait with baited breath for the CGS Super Show in September. Now I have to get ready for Random Punks this weekend. <span style=""> </span><o:p></o:p></p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-19659989292506076682008-05-28T20:14:00.000-07:002008-05-28T20:22:49.783-07:00Wizard World Philly!Two days until I descend upon the Philly Convention Center for some Wizard World comic conny goodness. Things I plan to look forward to:<br /><br />!. Meeting some choice creators. The short list includes Dan Slott (Avengers: The Initiative, Spider-Man Brand New Day), Fred Van Lente (Action Philosophers!, The Incredible Hercules), Greg Pak (Incredible Hulk, Skaar: Son of Hulk), Brian Reed (Captain Marvel, Ms. Marvel), and Alex Maleev (Badass covers on Nova and Punisher War Journal, Daredevil with Bendis)<br /><br />2. Checking in with the Comic Geek Speak folks. CGS Nation will be there in various strengths, and I never turn down an opportunity to chill with the geeks and forumites.<br /><br />3. VS SYSTEM! Stuart Sayger's going to be there, so I'll be bringing my Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Tricksters to be signed. Plus myself, Bryan and Los will be meeting up with one Clifford Parmiter (you may have heard of him) for a little four man tournament some time on Saturday.<br /><br />4. Bargain Bins! Dollar bins? Fifty cent bins? Quarter bins? BRING 'EM ON! I'll be taking the shot at filling in my Warlock and the Infinity Watch and Peter David Captain Marvel runs.<br /><br />5. Wrestlers! Yeah, I'm a sucker for pro wrestling. Mick Foley's going to be in the house, and I'm looking forward to shaking the man's hand.<br /><br />The Summer of Madness rolls on. Full reports to follow.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-27546465815455460262008-05-25T22:35:00.001-07:002008-05-25T22:35:44.203-07:00Firewater Live at the North Star Bart's been a while since I've been to a concert. Who better then to mark my return to the fold than that mad traveling band, Firewater. Hot off the heels of their excellent new album, Tod A decided to bring along a new bevy of musicians (he was the only member of the band I saw at the Paradise in Boston four years ago that was also there tonight. No Oren Kaplan or Tamir Muskat) to rock the house in North Philly. And rock the house they did. Nearly the entire set comprised of songs from The Golden Hour, and while that is technically a disappointment (no songs from Ponzi Scheme or Man on the Burning Tightrope), the band was on fire all night long. Tod played guitar the whole night and was backed by another guitarist, a bassist, a drummer, an ABSOLUTELY INSANE Trombone player (Seriously. She was out of this world. Solos in nearly every song. Crazy improvisations. Really impressive stuff), and the capper, an auxiliary percussionist that went back and forth from tablas to bongos to a double sided conga all night. This guy was a lunatic. One of the best pure percussionists I've ever seen. He had a spotlight during the instrumental "Bhanga Bros." that is one of those once in a lifetime experiences that I know I'll never forget. He was jumping around and playing the hell out of those drums all night long. And that's what I really love about Firewater. It was true in Boston and it was true tonight. These people genuinely love to play music. And it shows. Huge smiles on all their faces. Dancing around the stage. Tod being the consummate front man making sure everybody in the club is up out of their seats and having fun. I mean, the selist for the first show I saw was definitely better (no matter how good the new album is, it's not quite the same as "Man With the Blurry Face," "Knock 'Em Down" or "Another Perfect Catastrophe"), but the band for this show was incredible. I have no doubt in my mind that Firewater is the best band I've ever seen live. And I'm thrilled I got the opportunity to bask in their awesomeness one more time. Let's hope it's not the last.<br /><br /><b>Set List:<br /></b>Hey Clown<br />Some Strange Reaction<br />Borneo<br />Already Gone<br />Bhanga Bros.<br />6:45 (This is How it Feels)<br />Electric City<br />Some Kind of Kindness<br />Get Out of My Head<br />Weird to Be Back<br /><br /><b>Encore 1<br /></b>Paradise<br />Three Legged Dog<br /><br /><b>Encore 2<br /></b>This is My Life<br /><br />Sure, only 13 songs, but just like last time, everything was drawn out with solos and improvisational jams. That was a solid hour and a half of kick ass music. And what more can you ask for?Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-57296816359958642182008-05-24T13:33:00.000-07:002008-05-24T13:38:48.736-07:00Modern BYOS Tourney Report<p class="MsoNormal">This past Sunday’s Modern Age Bring Your Own Set was an example of mistakes completely sinking me on multiple occasions. I decided to build a solo Marvel Defenders deck, as I liked their defensive capabilities (through Hellcat, Defenders Defend and Against All Odds), as well as the inclusion of plot twists like Big Leagues. I built another deck for the day which I gave to <st1:city><st1:place>Bryan</st1:place></st1:City>, which was your standard IG Hidden aggro deck. We had two others show up, one with his own solo Defenders build, and the other packing Outsiders/Gotham Knights. <span style=""> </span><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Round 1: Solo Defenders mirror (Los)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">So this round my deck decided to be very uncooperative. I whiffed on one (no big deal), hit Tania on two and Hawkeye on three (Hawkeye wasn’t exactly what I was looking for), whiffed on four (underdropping into Hellcat), whiffed on five (underdropping into, you know, nothing), whiffed on six (dropping Wong and US Agent), hit Hulk on seven and 5 drop Dr. Strange on eight. Los was using Iceman to keep Tania locked down, as well as the combination of US Agent and Brunhilde to keep his endurance high due to constant reinforcement. He ended up getting the better of me in late game thanks to Quasar giving him better backups than my board. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">0-1<o:p><br /></o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Round 2: Outsiders/Gotham Knights (Los’ Mom)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Another example of a long game thanks to the Outsiders swarm leading to easy reinforcement. Multiple swings with characters allowed me to stop board presence which generally neutralized Dr. Light. I ended up winning on seven thanks to a triple swinging 23 ATK Hulk. The first two attacks were reinforced, but a full on brunt against Dr. Light was enough to take her down.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">1-1</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Round 3: IG Hidden (<st1:city><st1:place>Bryan</st1:place></st1:City>)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Here’s where the idiocy comes in. So when I built this version of the deck, I realized that losing Beatdown, Flying Kick, Big Leagues and <st1:place><st1:placename>Hunte</st1:PlaceName> <st1:placetype>Castle</st1:PlaceType></st1:place> slowed down the deck way too much. That combined with the loss of Mobilize led to the inclusion of a playset of Criminal Mastermind. So turn five comes around, and he’s got two Masterminds flipped in his row. And I forgot to draw the cards. I didn’t realize this until late in the combat phase that turn. We couldn’t really rewind things due to Secret Files shuffling both of our decks. Now, it’s impossible to know if I would have drawn into Dr. Strange or a way to get him. <span style=""> </span>But if I could have, I had game. I had a Tania in hand to sub over US Agent, as well as Rabbit Fire, Big Leagues and The Order in the row. Had I gotten Dr. Strange, I would have been able to deal 60 endurance direct through double swings by Dr. Strange and Hawkeye. But since I forgot, I lost the game a turn later. Thems the breaks. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">1-2</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Round 4: Solo Defenders mirror REMATCH (Los)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I hit my curve this time, but the combination of reinforcement and invulnerability from Brunhilde stalled me out. Same story as the first game, really.</p>So it wasn't a very successful day. But at the same time, oddly enough, it sorta was. A deck I built won the tournament, and without the mistake I made against that selfsame deck, I could have easily finished 3-1 instead of 1-3 and won the damned thing. I did realize that my deck relied a little too much on the turn 5 Dr. Strange combo face crushing for the win, with successive turns as an afterthought (sort of an "Ah, I guess I'll throw in a couple Sub Mariners and Hulks just in case it goes past 5. But I'll be good"). I had the defense down, but I probably should have taken the opportunity to use Ego Gem to draw through the deck a little faster, but these are all things you learn as you go. Not by best tournament, and the first time in a while I was sub .500 in a costructed tournament, but I'll get back in the saddle in time for Punks.<br /><br />Heralds Bounce Punks deck for the win?<br /><p class="MsoNormal"></p><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-27285997530719259972008-05-20T18:05:00.000-07:002008-05-20T18:41:29.833-07:00Et tu, Scarlett?I remember the confusion when I first heard about it. Wait, Scarlett Johannson is going to put out an album of Tom Waits covers? Seems a little odd. Seems a little random. Then she goes and picks a bunch of very obscure songs, like Falling Down and Green Grass and Town With No Cheer, with the most well known song being I Don't Wanna Grow Up. Seems a little odd. Seems a little random. It came out today. I've now heard it...<br /><br />It sucks.<br /><br />I get it. She's trying to be Nico. It's cute. She can't pull it off, but she tries. Here's the thing. Tom Waits is often dismissed by a lot of folks due to his voice, which can at times be an unholy union between Bob Dylan and Louis Armstrong and can at other times be simply unholy (any time he beat boxes on Real Gone legitimately sounds like the devil has taken over your stereo). But there's another side to him. Despite the gruff voice and the often bizarre instrumental choices, Tom Waits can make <span style="font-style: italic;">extremely</span> emotionally affecting songs and albums. From the early work with "Invitation to the Blues" and "Blue Valentines" to "Who Are You?" and "Make it Rain" from more recent years, Tom's been very capable of resonating with his ridiculously rabid fan base. As such, we have a tendency to react pretty fucking negatively when other artists try to mess with his songs. Rod Stewart cannot pull off the emotional complexity of "Tom Traubert's Blues," especially when he decides to be a bastard and cut the verse with the stabbing in it. The only one who came close was Springsteen, and that was mostly because Waits managed to out-Springsteen Springsteen when he wrote "Jersey Girl." So we're pretty protective of our boy Tom.<br /><br />But Scarlett can't pull it off. Her Nico-esque delivery would work for songs that were, you know, designed to be sung by Nico, but it doesn't work for Tom. She squeezes all the emotion out of everything. It just comes out like a monotone. You can't take the emotion you hear in Waits' voice out of a song like "Who Are You?" It doesn't work. The skeptic in me really believes that the indie cred Scarlett built up on Ghost World is pretty much diminished, so she made a surgical strike by putting out an album of obscure Tom Waits songs. I hope I'm wrong, and I hope she legitimately likes Tom Waits, but at the same time, why would someone who legitimately likes Tom Waits completely butcher his songs over and over again? Doesn't make sense.<br /><br />There is one good thing here. The musical background supplied by the guitarist from TV on the Radio (there's that indie cred!) is pretty good stuff. It's quite ethereal, and evokes a strong sense of a dream state. But it also overpowers Scarlett on numerous occasions, making it nearly impossible to hear her intonation (which, to be honest, isn't exactly a bad thing often times...). To be frank, the entire album's a mess. If you're even a basic fan of Tom Waits, skip it. If you're like me, and your ring tone is the chorus from "Tom Traubert's Blues," <span style="font-style: italic;">definitely </span>skip it. If you're not a fan, check it out, but listen to the originals to hear what it's supposed to sound like.<br /><br />I will be getting back to the VS talk soon, mostly based around thoughts about the cosmicky goodness currently going on in previews this week, as well as my terrible, terrible mistakes at the Bring Your Own Set this past Sunday.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-55652982942662799062008-05-19T19:05:00.001-07:002008-05-19T19:08:12.875-07:00The Wonders of Modern Medicine<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/BDD_JL_royals_5.19.08.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://bostondirtdogs.boston.com/BDD_JL_royals_5.19.08.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br />Two years ago, Jon Lester was diagnosed with lymphoma. Tonight, he threw a no hitter. Ain't life grand?Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-85895433345165383882008-05-17T14:36:00.000-07:002008-05-17T14:36:05.700-07:00Musical SeasonsOne of the things I love to death about music is the way that just listening to a song can be such a memorable experience that it transports you to where you were when it first really struck you. You can see everything playing out in your mind's eye. This can, of course, be for good or ill. Just as much as that one uproarious song can take you back to an awesome concert experience or a night out with friends, the depressing stuff can just as easily take you back to a failed relationship or a death in the family. It's powerful stuff. When I was studying Philosophy at Boston University as an undergrad, I immediately became enamored with Friedrich Nietzsche, mostly because of what he said about music in <span style="font-style: italic;">The Birth of Tragedy</span>. He talked about how music is the most immediate art form. If you're reading a book or a poem or looking at a painting or sculpture, you can always simply close your eyes and it all goes away. You can't do that with music. You can't close your ears. Sure, things like earplugs exist, but music is persistent, and at the right volume can penetrate even the staunchest of earplugs. And this is why I love music. It's inescapable.<br /><br />I wanted to throw something out here, which I was reminded of when I put my iPod on shuffle the other day at work. A certain song came on, and it immediately made me think of Winter. Not just the moment that the song first affected me in the winter months, but the actual notion of Winter itself. As an idea. A thing in itself. I started to think about how there are definitely songs or albums I own that immediately evoke the various seasons of the year. And I thought I would share them with everyone.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613AT5CW1PL._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/613AT5CW1PL._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Fall:</span> Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - <span style="font-style: italic;">Murder Ballads</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Specifically the song "Lovely Creature."</span> There's a detachment to this song. It features a constant, almost galloping series of snare drum rolls backed up by a walking bass line and otherworldly choir. Every now and then, a sharp intrusion by Blixa Bargeld's electric guitar punctures the trancelike rhythm section. This song has <span style="font-style: italic;">always</span> made me think of those chilly fall nights in late October that signal the coming of Halloween. And this isn't even a case of hearing it for the first time in the fall. I bought that album in the summer. <span style="font-style: italic;">A sample lyric</span>: <span style="font-style: italic;">"Oh through the night, through the night/The wind lashed and it whipped me/When I got home, my creature was no longer with me"</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gvo5jU%2B8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51gvo5jU%2B8L._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Winter: </span>The Knife - <span style="font-style: italic;">Silent Shout<br /><span style="font-style: italic;"></span>Specifically the title track, "Silent Shout."</span> My brother bought me this album for Christmas two years ago, and I can't help but notice how much of a quintessential winter record this really is. I mean, coming from a duo of Swedish techno artists, you're not surprised that they can make music that chills, but I can't really explain more strongly how much I think of <span style="font-style: italic;">ice</span> when I hear the title track. I just get a picture in my mind of a camera tracking over a large, blank, chilly frozen meadow. It's a song and an album that gets a lot of play for me during the winter months, especially when it snows. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sample lyric</span>: <span style="font-style: italic;">"In a dream I lost my teeth again/Calling me woman and half man/Yes, in a dream all my teeth fell out/A cracked smile and a silent shout"</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61NM6WV4WZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61NM6WV4WZL._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Spring: </span>The Dresden Dolls - <span style="font-style: italic;">Yes, Virginia</span><br /><span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;">Specifically the song "Backstabber". </span></span>I always think about those days in March and April where the temperature finally breaks and gets up into that high 50's to mid 60's range. That's my wheelhouse right there. And when it's that temperature and a bright, sunny day, there's nothing nicer than taking a drive with all the windows down. That's made even better if the Dolls are blasting their percussion heavy, bouncy music through the stereo. Their second album is a lot lighter than their first, and it definitely shows. Great spring record for those days where you step outside and just become invigorated. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sample lyric: "You always struck me as the type to take it lightly/But now you're going to have to shut your mouth or fight me"</span><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E2DR77B7L._SL500_AA240_.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51E2DR77B7L._SL500_AA240_.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Summer: </span>Firewater - <span style="font-style: italic;">The Man on the Burning Tightrope<br />Specifically the song "Dark Days Indeed."</span> I don't think it's possible for me to write a post about music and not bring up Firewater in some fashion. Even still, "Dark Days" is arguably of my college years. The album came out in the summer, and while we didn't adopt it as the anthem of our quad Sophomore year until a different season, it was always a fixture when I would make trips up to Boston over the summers to relax with the crew, have some drinks and dance and sing like idiots to "Dark Days." It's the ultimate drinking song. A chorus that demands sing alongs, great lyrics throughout, a ripping sax solo right in the middle. It's all good. I think for the rest of my life, I'm always going to think about those summer trips whenever "Dark Days" comes up. It's such a defining moment for my social life. And that'll never change. <span style="font-style: italic;">Sample lyric: "We don't know who put this cup/Of life into our hands/But when we go our bones will bake/Upon the burning sands/Cause we walk but once among the living/So no regrets and no forgiving/Hard to dance when you're down upon your knees/And these are Dark Days Indeed"</span><br /><br />That felt good. I should write about music more often. But we'll be getting back to VS in the next few days with some new thoughts about my Red Skull preview card from last week in light of Acts of Vengeance, as well as a hopeful tournament report on Bring Your Own Set Modern.<span style="font-style: italic;"><span style="font-style: italic;"></span><br /></span>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-32874030118404102412008-05-16T16:54:00.000-07:002008-05-16T17:03:48.012-07:00Crazy MonthI am officially entering a very exciting span of weeks chock full of travel and concerts and card playing and all sorts of things. Not really going to have much weekend time until, oh I don't know, July, but that's probably for the best. Here's what we're looking at.<br /><br />Sunday, May 18th - Bring Your Own Set Modern event at Great Traditions<br /><br />Sunday, May 25th - Firewater live at the North Star Bar in Philly<br /><br />Friday, May 30th to Sunday, June 1st - Wizard World Philly at the Philly Convention Center (complete with plans to meet up with a certain Clifford Parmiter for some VS goodness)<br /><br />Saturday, June 7th - Ring of Honor at the National Guard Armory in (technically) Philly.<br /><br />Saturday, June 14th to Sunday, June 15th - Megaweekend New York<br /><br />Friday, June 20th to Sunday, June 22nd - NEARfest in Bethlehem, PA<br /><br />Friday, June 27th to Sunday, June 29th - VS World Champs (sure, I'm most likely not going, but it's still a possibility, so I'm keeping it on the schedule)<br /><br />Gonna be busy. And there's this "Marvel Universe Set Release" thing I keep hearing about.<br /><br />Crazy go nuts.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-72303416921355602032008-05-14T21:28:00.001-07:002008-05-14T21:30:29.687-07:00The Greatest T-Shirt Ever?I found out about this little gem on the Comic Geek Speak forums, and immediately bought one.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/planetlunch400.png"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/planetlunch400.png" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />R Stevens, you are one magnificent bastard.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.dieselsweeties.com/shirts/planetlunch/">Linky</a>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-10124705839202465252008-05-14T21:17:00.001-07:002008-05-14T21:28:06.767-07:00Best DCBS Box ever?SERIOUSLY looking forward to Friday's box of comicky goodness. Let's take a peek at the shipping list, shall we? Super Awesome books are in caps and bolded.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">NOVA #13</span> (The Galactus Arc begins!!!!)<br />Punisher War Journal #19<br />X-Factor: The Quick and the Dead (This should be interesting. Haven't read any Quicksilver since Son of M)<br />Angel: After the Fall #7<br />Avengers/Invaders #1 (Should be tons of fun)<br />Franklin Richards: Not So Secret Invasion (Time to find out if these books are as good as I've heard)<br />Invincible Iron Man #1 (Hoping for the best)<br />Buffy the Vampire Slayer #14 (Goddard's arc has been awesome so far)<br />Secret Invasion #2 (Yep, already have it)<br />Mighty Avengers #13 (Nick Fury!)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">CASANOVA #14</span> (Absolute top of the stack. If the internet is to be believed, this is one of the best comic books to come out in a very, very long time. I LOVE CASANOVA)<br />Captain Britain and MI:13 #1 (British Skrulls!)<br />Secret Invasion: Fantastic Four #1 (Fantastic Skrulls!)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">THE TWELVE #5</span> (It's still great. JSA, eat you heart out. Yeah! I said it!)<br />Green Lantern Corps #24 (MongulThanos continues his quest)<br />Sky Doll #1 (Super interested to see how this turns out. Loved the preview in the Soleil sampler)<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">GUARDIANS OF THE GALAXY #1</span> (YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!)<br />Serenity: Better Days #3<br />Booster Gold #9<br /><br />19 books? Two completely awesome (or so I assume) cosmic books? One of which has FUCKING GALACTUS in it? And the finale of the current Casanova arc, which has been absolutely mindblowing and amazing and deep and funny and all of the great things that make Casanova Casanova? Good, good, good times.<br /><br />Plus, we've got the Modern Bring Your Own Set on Sunday. Dr. Strange will be my strength as I pilot my solo Defenders build into the fields of battle. Tournament Report will follow (if anyone else bothers to show up, of course).Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-66989832457618610252008-04-23T19:09:00.001-07:002008-04-23T19:27:46.018-07:00Random Preview Review: SHIELD Helicarrier<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.realmsradio.com/images/SHIELD_Helicarrier.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.realmsradio.com/images/SHIELD_Helicarrier.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />Hold on a second there. That Helicarrier isn't on its side! What was David Finch thinking? Was he holding the Bristol Board sideways that day without realizing it? That was for Billy. Moving on to the card itself in some random bursts.<br /><br />Woo! Terraform! And it makes perfect sense here, as a flying ship should pretty much be able to land wherever the hell it wants. Terraform is a fantastic mechanic, and it's nice to see it come back.<br /><br />From my perspective, the card is good because there are no restrictions as to when you have to flip it. Sure, it's a pain that the characters you return have to be non-stunned, but SHIELD is very obviously a team that rolls with the off curve army love. Thus it's nice that you can flip in response to an attack and perhaps force them into attacking your giant Iron Man with all his delicious +1/+1 counters because you bounced back all his friends. I'm a little iffy on resource row cards that have hefty flip costs thanks to reusable non Team-Up resource row hate like Batman/Reality Gem/Unravel Reality/Planet Weapon, but it seems like the juice is worth the squeeze in this case provided you can protect it (*COUGH*Pathetic Attempt*COUGH*).<br /><br />Look, we all know how good a blanket +2 ATK to your whole field is. Look at The New/Next Brotherhood. Look at Doomed Earth. Look at MTU Carnage. All of these cards have been part of decks that have either been at or close to tier 1 at various points in the grand VS metagame. Of course, there's a big difference here in that we're dealing with a unique location, which means no multiples, so you probably can't build a super potent rush deck based around this thing, but it does give flight, and we are heading towards a modern age devoid of Flying Kick. Global flight has <span style="font-style: italic;">never</span> been a bad thing.<br /><br />I think it's a good card overall, but a bit underwhelming compared to the other things we've seen (Kinda like The Great Arena in that respect). It will no doubt be powerful in the right deck, and Stu and Squire have probably been working overtime trying to figure out the perfect army deck for it and how to somehow fit it into Super Troopers (respectively), so it'll definitely find its place. Personally, I want to see more Iron Man love, because dammit, he's one of the most fascinating characters in the current Marvel U (I'm really tired of him being simply written off as a dick. It's a hell of a lot more complex than that).<br /><br />I do like the feel that you've got this potentially gigantic Iron Man surrounded by hoards of little dudes that can come and go as he sees fit. It'll be interesting to see how far reaching the R&D fellas really take the SHIELD umbrella. Seems like with Squirrel Girl joining the party, SHIELD encompasses the entire 50 States Initiative, which means we're dealing with approximately two thirds of the Marvel Universe as active SHIELD agents. Allows for a lot of potential shenanigans in card choices. The only downside is the inclusion of Squirrel Girl (who sadly does not have the text I wanted for her, which was something along the lines of "Activate -> KO target character with cost 9 or greater" and the art from when she took down Doom. Imagine: Ditko on a VS card...), I now really want to see the rest of the GL(Insert flavor of the month initial here) crew, including silly things like a Mr. Immortal that auto recovers the second you stun him or something along those lines. A man can dream.<br /><br />Oh, and for those of you that haven't read the manic and crazy awesome <span style="font-style: italic;">Deadpool/GLI Summer Fun Spectacular</span> one-shot from last year, try and find it on the cheap at a con. It's Fabian Nicieza and Dan Slott being as silly as possible with some of the silliest characters in the Marvel U. It's also the place where Stu got all the panel scans for his Squirrel Girl preview. Awesome, awesome stuff.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-71105484897325335912008-04-22T16:14:00.000-07:002008-04-22T16:26:05.430-07:00TBS Interviewed on Comic Geek SpeakI'm at work listening to Comic Geek Speak's wrap up of Day 3 at New York Comic Con. It's the standard con show, mostly consisting of co-host Peter Rios taking his iRiver around and interviewing various creators and fans at the cons. Imagine my surprise when I hear none other than The Ben Seck himself being interviewed by Peter and Kevin Moyer. It's a fun interview, with some nice little tidbits about Marvel Universe, including a Fin Fang Foom card featuring new art from Mike Mignola. It's awesome stuff. You can find the interview in episode 422 (<a href="http://www.comicgeekspeak.com/episodes/comic_geek_speak-555.php">linky</a>), and it's the last major interview done on the con floor, starting at around the hour and fifteen minute mark. It's good stuff.<br /><br />It should be noted that when Peter was talking about the listener he talked to that got into comics because of VS, he was talking about me.<br /><br />Ok, self serving grandstanding is now over.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-30935337946697314782008-04-21T18:39:00.000-07:002008-04-21T19:52:43.294-07:00Various upheavals in my professional life have caused me to neglect both this blog and my contributions to read/RANT. I finally got off my ass and wrote up a review of Captain Marvel #5 at the sister blog, so I wanted to throw something up here to prove that I'm not dead yet. Sure, I probably lost whatever readers I had in the hiatus, but what's the fun in not toiling in obscurity? Calvin's dad would claim that it builds character. So why stop now? I'm going to start a bit fresh here. Missed a bunch of previews (I hear that this Hulk fella might be pretty good...) and left some strings hanging, but there's not much I can do about that now.<br /><br />Oddly enough, I want to talk to you folks out there about Magic. Not Joey Q's Spider-Man marriage altering unexplainable Magic, but the original cardboard crack, Magic: The Gathering. I haven't played Magic in years. I bought some packs of Tenth Edition a little while ago on a nostalgia trip, but I haven't played the physical game in an extremely long time. I was surprised when my WoW playing buddies at the local store were planning to bring Magic decks this past Sunday. So, of course, I decided to bring my own, slapping together two mono color decks. I went with mono Black discard, because it's what I used to play 12 years ago (the concept that that was 12 years ago frightens me), as well as Mono Blue. I didn't exactly have playsets of the cards anymore, so most of my stuff was relegated to one-ofs and two-ofs. And considering when I played the game, my decks were pretty much only legal in Vintage. We played a bunch of games yesterday, and it was one of those odd situations where a good chunk of the cards in my decks were out of print and thus unrecognizable to my friends that started playing long after the days of Ice Age and The Dark. This of course means that I didn't recognize their cards either, which made the games a bit longer than expected. Still, it was a hell of a lot of fun.<br /><br />The glory of Magic that makes it such a great casual game to just dust off and play is the ridiculous amount of stuff you can have happen out of nowhere. Here's some examples.<br /><ul><li>The first game I played with my Black deck involved using a swamp and Dark Ritual to drop Underworld Dreams (IQ in enchantment form) on turn one, which absolutely wrecked Bryan.</li><li>At the end of his turn on four, Mage Dan (so stated due to the multiple Dans in our play group and his affinity for the Mage class in WoW) had seven cards in hand. A Cursed Rack and Mind Twist later, he had no hand on turn five without playing a single card.<br /></li><li>The Rack is a ludicrously powerful card.</li></ul>I also had fun with the Mono Blue deck, but in a different fashion. I had two different games that went to turns 25 and beyond, one against a crazy Green enchantment deck, and the other against an equally crazy Blue/White ping deck that had so much defensive tactics it was crazy.<br /><br />So what was the point of this little excursion? Well, I've realized that Magic is one of those games that will always be there. VS is my game. I think it's a better overall game than Magic. That'll never change. However, the casual pick up and play aspect of Magic is really enjoyable in its own right. I'll never go out of my way to buy cards or play in tournaments, but every once in a while when WoW or VS gets tedious for a week, it's nice to bring out the old guard.<br /><br />I also wanted to mention that every card previewed so far for Marvel Universe has been pretty much crazy. When you look at previews and have to think of what <span style="font-style: italic;">isn't</span> a money rare (which for me is basically just 8 drop Hulk and The Great Arena so far), you're looking at some good times. Good times indeed.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-84562367602056369872008-04-10T06:53:00.001-07:002008-04-10T08:04:04.738-07:00Avengers Previews!At the end of every week, I'm going to be going over our preview cards from that week and sharing some of my thoughts concerning playability, flavor, mechanics, balance and such. So let's get going with the Avengers Centric previews.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ArticleImages/VsSystem/2008/April/capsecret.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ArticleImages/VsSystem/2008/April/capsecret.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />We've got the new mechanic of Rally with Captain America, The Patriot*Secret Avenger. Rallying is a very powerful effect in theory, with the chance of both drawing a card and getting an effect at the same time, or cycling a card off the top (which can of course be good or bad). This guy was made for off curve decks, especially those that swarm the board with characters. Depending on what else we get in the set, I wouldn't be surprised to see this guy at the end of a couple press chains in a Kree Avengers team-up in Silver. Sure, Kree may not be the best team for this considering their penchant for bouncing their own characters back to their hands, but if you drop Cap at the end of your press chain on the kill turn and throw out a Lunatic Legion, your opponent's probably going to be pretty upset with your entire board getting +3/+1 this turn. His secondary power isn't going to be as useful in a curve deck, but if the rally goes off it doesn't really matter. With no one drop, you'd still be getting a 4/3 two drop that cantrips and keeps your hand healthy. Plus, we've got the version "Secret Avengers," which is a definite portent about the importance of version in the Avengers team, so look for cards like Ravaged and Furious Assault to make a comeback in these decks.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ArticleImages/VsSystem/2008/April/reassembled.gif"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://entertainment.upperdeck.com/ArticleImages/VsSystem/2008/April/reassembled.gif" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It's basically Mightiest Heroes for the Avengers. Similar effect in that it stacks any Avenger on top of your deck, and has the alternate discard effect to get the card to a place you can use it. Mightiest Heroes put a power-up (or discard for Truth, Justice, and Peace) in your hand, and Avengers Reassembled puts a Reservist into your row. It is a nice effect to be able to flip this from your row and have it replace itself into a reservist so you can still search and not mess up your theme. Very strong. Hell, even if you're playing this in a non reservist Avengers curve or swarm deck, it's still as functional as Mightiest Heroes, 2 drop Surfer, Attilan, Kindred Spirits or any other cards that stack your deck. Very strong, and the mechanic of adding alternate cost boosts to Plot Twists is a good move that opens up R&D even more.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://the-kamiza.com/vs/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/captain-america-champion-license.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://the-kamiza.com/vs/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/captain-america-champion-license.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />We've technically seen this guy before, in that he's the Captain America card we voted on during the voting sessions to prepare for Marvel Universe. That doesn't change how strong he is. You can wreak havoc on an attack step with this guy, especially if he's got his Shield equipped to him. I like that it's an attack redirection that does not cost an exhaust like most of the other ones, with the added bonus of the second part of the text that allows for some invulnerability to be passed around. Plus, he's an 8/7. That's always nice. I do think that some sort of Avengers/Team Superman deck that basically makes it impossible for your opponent to actually choose who he is attacking could be pretty strong. Just having Captain America adjacent to Wonder Woman is going to cause all kinds of trouble, and he's a lot better than Vartox. Good stuff.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://the-kamiza.com/vs/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/human-torch-secret-avenger.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://the-kamiza.com/vs/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/human-torch-secret-avenger.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />It only took a couple minutes for Tchalla to come up with a way to stack the 11 drop unaffiliated Surfer from the Coming of Galactus set to burn your opponent for 11 on turn four (It involves We Had a Team-Up and 2 Drop Surfer, for those that don't know). Plus, you've got tons of synergy with 2 drop Captain America's rally mechanic, which you know will be on other characters in other forms. It's reusable burn. And it can burn for quite a lot under the right circumstances. And he's another Secret Avenger. Good stuff.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://vs.tcgplayer.com/images/article/Charging_Star.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://vs.tcgplayer.com/images/article/Charging_Star.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />I love this card. It's a very strong Defense pump with no visible drawbacks. Plus it's got the added bonus of negating everything else on the chain that's targeting him. Which sounds great, but that's really what makes this card balanced. There are very few cards that are going to be played by your opponent during an attack that target your character. Most of them (your SKREEEE!'s, your Going Apes, your Atomizes, etc.) can be played at any time, and are likely to be done before combat is legal, especially with a card like this out now. Sure, it might negate a What Are Friends For?, but that's not exactly the most popular card on earth. So basically, the secondary power of this card is more likely to negate your own stuff. This card cannot be played in multiples, as first one to resolve will cancel out any others still on the chain. You can't play it with any other ATK or DEF pumps unless you have a strong understanding of the chain. This means that you can play out this card first and chain a Savage Beatdown to it for a pretty crazy +5/+4 on the attack, but that allows your opponent to play any effects that target you without worry, as another Charging Star would negate the first one and the Beatdown if you want to stop your opponent. This card is really good.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.the-kamiza.com/images/sra.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 320px;" src="http://www.the-kamiza.com/images/sra.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br />And now we get to the reason why I couldn't wait until tomorrow to write this up. This card is ABSOLUTELY CRAZY. It's a global team-up that hits every card you own and artificially increases your hand size by one. That's all well and good right there. You have to play with the top card of your deck revealed, which is technically a drawback (The Secret Society loves to know what they can get their hands on to mill off the top of your deck). But to be honest, the rest of the text could be blank after that first sentence for all I care. This card gives unaffiliated characters team affiliations. While they're in your deck. And automatically lets you Mobilize for them. Mr. Sinister is an extremely powerful card. Holocaust is a ludicrously powerful card. Now, you can not only play them <span style="font-style: italic;">and</span> search for them, but you can also play Big Leagues and Against All Odds without losing your other team affiliations by playing Crisis on Infinite Earths, so you can still run all your team stamped stuff from other teams. Plus, all those character searches that stack characters on top of your deck (Kindred Spirits, Mightiest Heroes, Avengers Reassembled, 2 drop Surfer, Attilan, Lady Blackhawk, Sintaris) can now be played on the turn you want to use them, and you can still recruit from the top of your deck. This card is insanely powerful and should be a big time money rare.<br /><br />I'll pop in with a quick post tomorrow about tomorrow's card. This set already looks insane. And I can't wait to see next week's Hulk/Warbound previews.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-19389254707836959252008-03-31T20:19:00.001-07:002008-03-31T20:49:36.655-07:00New Blood Part 1: Fantastic FourI met my friend Will when I picked up WoW and started playing at the local hobby league around January-February of 2007. The guy is quite the card player and one of the best metagame callers I've personally seen. When I was playing a few casual VS games with Bryan on Sunday (wherein I managed to win two games with Skrulls despite not playing Franklin Richards either game and not playing Captain America the first game), Will showed some interest in learning how to play VS. He's watched us play a lot, and always found the game intriguing, but monetary concerns have kept him from jumping in full tilt. So we sat down and went over the basics of combat and the phases of the game and such. Next week we're going to sit down and play some games.<br /><br />Now, out of the decks that I usually have on my person, only one of them (Injustice Gang hidden beats) is probably easily grasped by a new player. The others (JSA/FF Alan Scott abuse, Skrulls, JLA stall, Substibuse, and World's Finest) would probably be a bit too esoteric for someone who's just starting out. I've got the starters, and I've got the Hellboy Essential (which is what was used to teach me the game), but I've always found them a little lacking in terms of either easing someone into game mechanics (Hellboy) or being legitimately fun to play (the starters). But we have a trick up our sleeve. And that trick is Marvel Legends. As we all know, Marvel Legends is not the most complicated set, and it's the perfect jumping on point for new players. Very few cards are super complicated, keywords are pretty much nonexistent, and even though the cards are simplistic in nature, they're still very powerful. And what team is the best example of this? Why, the Fantastic Four, of course. So I decided to make my own damned starter deck. 60 cards, mono team Fantastic Four. It's got a very good cross section of the basic points of the game. Concealed characters, activated abilities, equipment, locations, search, combat pumps, and so on. Plus, for being (mostly) short on rares, it's a pretty strong little deck in its own right. It's not exactly as abusive as Miguel's deck, but it's still a lot of fun to just shuffle up and play. And without further ado, here we go.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Characters:<br /></span>4x Invisible Woman, Walking on Air<br />1x Uatu the Watcher, He Who Watches<br />3x Human Torch, Matchstick<br />3x Mr. Fantastic, Stringbean<br />4x Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four<br />2x Thing, Idol O' Millions<br />4x Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker<br />2x Luke Cage, Paid in Full<br />2x Franklin Richards, Child of the Cosmos<br />2x Ghost Rider, Rider on the Storm<br />2x She-Hulk, Single Green Lawyer<br />1x Human Torch, Flame On!<br />1x Hulk, The Fantastic Hulk<br />1x Thing, The Ever-Lovin' Blue-Eyed Thing<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Plot Twists:<br /></span>4x Mobilize/Signal Flare (take your pick, really)<br />4x Finishing Move<br />4x Devastating Blow<br />4x Torch and Thing<br />3x It's Clobberin' Time!<br />2x Stretch Out<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Equipment:<br /></span>4x Unstable Molecular Suit<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Locations:<br /></span>3x Research Facility<br /><br />I'm probably going to whip one of these up for each team from Marvel Legends (except, you know, the Shi'ar) and post them on the blog this week if I get a chance.<br /><br />And as for the Ultimate Cosmic Deck, I'm still working on it. The Wild Pig sale and the short box full of comics I got out of it have put a bit of a dent into my free time.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-85786255733366903952008-03-29T17:53:00.000-07:002008-03-29T17:54:07.315-07:00Wild Pig Comics Madness<p>Twice a year, Wild Pig Comics (<a href="http://www.wildpigcomics.com/" title="Website" mce_href="http://www.wildpigcomics.com">www.wildpigcomics.com</a>) in Kenilworth, New Jersey runs a 50% off everything in the store sale. The March sale, which celebrates their anniversary of opening the store, is a 29 hour long period of madness. Hell, the store's still open right now and will remain open until 5 PM tomorrow. So get out there if you're reading this, in the area, love comics and can get there before it ends. You've basically got four major things to buy at these sales. Wall Books for the high quality Silver/Golden Age books (Detective Comics 42 was there for a cool $1,100), priced back issues for the less high profile Silver and Bronze Age books, 50 cent back issues of all kinds of random stuff, and recent 50 cent back issues from the past year to year and a half. I love these sales. I went to the one last October and picked up all kinds of stuff, and this trip was no different.</p>I went to the store hoping to pick up all three trades of Brian Michael Bendis' Alias. I didn't even really look for them after I found 27 of the 28 issues for 50 cents apiece. Once I find issue 22, I'll have gotten the entire run in pristine condition for basically the price of the first trade. I also got a TON of cosmic Marvel stuff, which was mainly the Jim Starlin Warlock and Warlock & The Infinity Watch as well as a big chunk of Peter David's Genis-Vell Captain Marvel series. I pretty much went nuts, and all told (between three different trips to the cash register), I walked out of there with two trades (Jinx and Batman: Year One) and 170 50 cent comic books ranging in publishing years from 1974 to 2007. It was good times, and it should give me a lot of fodder for retro reviews on read/RANT in the future. I definitely plan to review Alias once I get that last issue and read the whole run.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-69966735590556778132008-03-27T19:25:00.000-07:002008-03-27T19:36:28.126-07:00The Ultimate Cosmic Deck<p class="MsoNormal">So I had an idea. I love cosmic characters, both from the perspective of the mechanic in VS System and the characters in the comics themselves. I’ve built all kinds of cosmic decks that revolve around 2 drop Surfer (especially after his Board was released) or 2 drop Franklin Richards or this or that, and wherever I go to play VS, I always have at least one deck on hand based around the cosmic mechanic. But you know what? That’s not good enough. I want to push it further. I want <i style="">every single card</i> in my deck to have the word cosmic on it somewhere. Whether it’s the name, version, keyword, text box, flavor text, I don’t care. But it’s got to have the word cosmic on it somewhere. Will it be good? Probably not. But it’ll be a fun experiment, and that’s what’s important in this day and age. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I'm limiting myself to Silver Age here, as I don't really have any cards that stretch back to Golden. So after doing some quick research on Doc X’s Search Engine, we’re looking at 23 Plot Twists, 6 Locations and 3 Equipments with the word cosmic in the name or text box. Some of these cards, namely Bestow the Power Cosmic as an example, are completely useless to me, but we should still have enough support cards to put something together. What’s really fun about this is what we <i style="">can’t </i>use. The king of cosmic stall decks (and all stall decks, really) that is Galactus, Devourer of Worlds? Can’t use him. One of the most popular one drops in the Silver Age that makes his personal job searching out cosmic characters? No Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend for you. Want to draw some cards? No Elemental Converters. Want some pumps? You’d better be running Titans. Exhaustion effects? You’d better be a fan of Air-Walker 3. No I Must Obey or Spider-stall. Recursion? Soul World doesn’t have the word cosmic anywhere on it. Endurance gain? Say hello to Plasma, because that’s pretty much your only option. Indeed, there are only about four to six teams that are legitimately playable in this deck, and two of them, the Skrulls and the Infinity Watch, are mini teams, one of which only has three cosmic characters. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">So what options do we have? The two most obvious are the Heralds of Galactus and Legionnaires. Indeed, the Legionnaires have probably the most cosmic support out there. Our other options are the Legion of Superheroes refeature of the Teen Titans, and the Inhumans. But at the same time, both of these teams are very important, as the only two Team-Ups available in this “format” are Extended Family (not stamped, but definitely beneficial to have some Inhumans out there) and Youth of Tomorrow, which requires Titans and Legion. Plus, the only search available to me (outside of Bestow the Power Cosmic, of course) is New Recruits, which requires a Legionnaires discard, but has the added bonus of searching for any character in my deck. Cosmic Tuning Fork will also allow for sifting, and it'll be nice to never miss with it as long as I hit a character card. Considering their support, the Legion should probably be the main focus of the deck, with splashes of the other teams. I am adamant in getting Adam Warlock, Protector of the Soul Gem into the deck even as a one of just due to the fact that I love his cosmic loyalty. I don’t know if I would ever actually play him, considering he does a pretty good job of completely dicking over the Legion’s undercurve strategy, but this is more of a thought experiment than anything else, so I'm trying to have some fun.<br /></p> <p class="MsoNormal">From here, we want to start formulating out overall character skeleton. With the Legion as our foundation, we’re going to want to go with a swarm curve that takes advantage of the bonuses from both the Legion and the Titans. The nice thing about this is suddenly cards that are pretty bad for their team (I’m definitely thinking Destroyer, Soulless Juggernaut) are a lot better in this situation, especially with the Legion’s multiple abilities to recur counters. I mean, boosting Timber Wolf on three and dropping Destroyer just put 8 attack on your board turn 3 with both characters able to stun up the curve. The character suite is starting to fall into place, but I’ve still got some combination of 33 characters (15 Legionnaires, 5 Teen Titans, 7 Heralds of Galactus, 2 Inhumans, 2 Infinity Watch and 1 Skrull) that I need to find out numbers and cut down. It’s still going to take a lot of work to try to finish this out, so I’m going to come back later with a second part complete with deck list. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">And I’m also going to throw in a quick little extra. For those of you that also read my contributions to the Read/RANT comic review blog, I’m getting my new shipment of comics on Friday. This is what I plan to read in order, and what you folks can look forward to hearing my thoughts on in the next two weeks.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">1. Captain Marvel #4 (Secret Invasion)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">2. New Avengers #39 (Secret Invasion)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">3. Ms. Marvel #25 (Secret Invasion)</p> <p class="MsoNormal">4. Mighty Avengers #11</p> <p class="MsoNormal">5. The Order #9</p> <p class="MsoNormal">6. The Immortal Iron Fist #13</p> <p class="MsoNormal">7. Thor #7</p> <p class="MsoNormal">8. Angel: After the Fall #5</p> <p class="MsoNormal">9. Incredible Hercules #115</p> <p class="MsoNormal">10. Captain America #36</p> <p class="MsoNormal">11. Green Lantern #29</p> <p class="MsoNormal">12. World War Hulk Aftersmash: Warbound #4</p> <p class="MsoNormal">13. World War Hulk Aftersmash: Damage Control #3</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Plus, Comics Now Issue 2</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Not a bad book on the list, and I want to immediately read every single book in this shipment. Pretty sure that the second I get home from work, I’m going to tear through every single one of these books back to back. Then I’ll hold on to Comics Now 2 for the long wait outside Wild Pig Comics Saturday morning prior to the uber sale. <o:p></o:p></p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-80204195650899616382008-03-24T19:31:00.000-07:002008-03-24T19:49:11.170-07:00Comic Geek Speak Episode 400For the 400th episode of CGS, the Geeks decided to do a call in show. After much fighting for air time with the rest of the rabid fan base, I finally made it through around 7:45. I was a bit nervous and didn't really let the Geeks speak too much (I made a comment about how one of the preconstructed computer characters in Rock Band shares an eerie resemblance to CGS co-host Adam), but when I was asked to elaborate as to why I got into comics as a hobby, I made sure to mention that playing VS System was a major contributing factor to jumping into this crazy medium and buying monthlies.<br /><br />It's been a pretty slow month for me VS wise. City Champs was at the beginning of the month, and I haven't played a game since. Two weeks ago was washed out by the Boston trip, and last week I was very surprised to find our weekly pseudo Hobby League was canceled by this thing called "Easter." To be honest, it hadn't even occurred to me that Sunday was Easter. These things happen when you're a lapsed Jew that's basically been an atheist your entire life. There's also a possibility that I might miss this Sunday's proceedings thanks to the 29 hour Wild Pig Comics sale in Northern New Jersey that begins on Saturday at noon and ends Sunday at 5 PM. Should be interesting. Lots of 50 cent books for the taking.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-75350730930037160732008-03-21T14:57:00.000-07:002008-03-21T15:26:22.379-07:00Skrulls with no EOME? What is a boy to do?I've been thinking a lot about how one of my favorite decks is going to look once Marvel Universe comes out and Enemy of My Enemy rotates out of the Silver Age. Of course, some of this is silly considering the fact that we have no clue what is to come in Marvel Universe. Hell, considering that issue 3 of Secret Invasion will be shipping right around the time Mega Weekend New York happens, we might be in a situation where not only did Marvel Universe come out, it might at least partially feature the Skrulls and make the current deck stronger. But I can't assume that that will be the case.<br /><br />So what can be done to make the Skrull deck still work sans Enemy? Is Enemy even truly needed in the Skrull deck? I would think so, as hitting Captain America on 3 seems tantamount to success and the Skrulls do not have their own in team search. Mobilize isn't an option due to the fact that there are no Skrull characters on turn 1 (shed a tear for the busted, busted Nenora) and Franklin's your turn two play (who would actually play Warskrull anyway?). Heroes of Two Worlds is a turn too late. So do we have any options for searching out Captain America? This is where I turned to Doc X's search engine and did some digging. What I found was New Recruits. I can discard a Legionnaire character card and search my deck for any cosmic character? And it's active on two? So not only can I use it to find Captain America, I could conceivably use it to find Franklin as well if I managed to miss Lockjaw on one and didn't have him in hand. Plus, it's going to pretty much search for any character in my deck sans Lockjaw and Warskrull, both of whom are basically plot twists. But this does create a problem. We need to discard Legionnaires to make it work. This means we're looking at a pretty significant overhaul of the deck to fit in a third major team and at least slightly alter our strategy.<br /><br />Running the Legion allows us to consider some things. Skrulls, for the most part, are a curve based deck. Lockjaw on one, Franklin on two, Cappy on three, Ethan on four, Paibok on five. Sure, under dropping can occur, but it's unlikely to happen any time before turn five. The Legion gives us a ton of very powerful low drop characters, as well as a free one drop in Jazmin Cullen. Timber Wolf's boost is a swarm curve's dream, as well as being a 4/1, which is great in a deck where you're not getting stunned while attacking. Element Lad can add to the up the curve madness that's already apparent thanks to Act of Defiance. XS is basically Quicksilver on three. And Wildfire can allow for Cap or Ronan or someone equally important to regain their counter once they recover. And, of course, they're all cosmic, so they can all be hidden by Franklin. The only apparent downside to this is the fact that Franklin can basically only hide one guy a turn, so you might have to leave a character or two visible if you do indeed underdrop. The full Skrulls curve is still there, and the addition of a solid swarm strategy with a predominantly hidden board can allow for full Birthing Chamber activations.<br /><br />Th main drawback of the deck seems to be that the addition of the Legionnaires and Birthing Chambers take away from the number of raw attack pumps in the deck. There's a pretty big difference between running 12-13 pumps and 16-17. Those four missing attack bonuses can end up losing you a game. But this is the type of thing that can be ironed out in testing. Here's a very early build to give an idea of what I'm thinking here.<br /><br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Characters:<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span></span></span></span>4x Lockjaw, Inhuman's Best Friend<br />2x Jazmin Cullen <> Kid Quantum, Hero of Xanthu<br />4x Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter Earth<br />4x Warskrull, Skrull Infiltrator<br />3x Timber Wolf, Brin Londo<br />2x Ferro Lad, Andrew Nolan<br />2x Element Lad, Jan Arrah<br />4x Captain America, Skrull Imposter<br />2x Wolverine, Skrunucklehead<br />2x XS, Jenni Ognats<br />1x Ethan Edwards, Visitor From Another World<br />1x Ronan the Accuser, Starforce<br />1x Wild Fire, Drake Burroughs<br />1x Paibok, The Power Skrull<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Locations:<br /></span>3x Birthing Chamber<br /><span style="font-weight: bold;">Plot Twists:<br /></span>4x New Recruits<br />4x Act of Defiance, Team-Up<br />3x Extended Family, Team-Up<br />4x Flying Kick<br />4x Savage Beatdown<br />4x The Uni-Power<br />3x Blinding Rage<br /><br />So there you have it. We'll have to see if this even works.<span style="font-weight: bold;"><span style="font-weight: bold;"></span><br /></span>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-11878734332558913342008-03-19T18:12:00.000-07:002008-03-19T18:36:27.585-07:00Comic News WrapupThings have been a little slow on the VS tip. Didn't get to play last week due to my Boston trip, so I've been a little out of sorts for the past couple of days trying to get myself back into the VS frame of mind. What did not help this was the crazy amount of comic news that seemed to come out of nowhere from Wizard World LA over the weekend. That con never seemed like a big announcement con, but that sure was the case this year. Some highlights.<br /><br />~ Matt Fraction announced that he is officially a Marvel exclusive now. This will not be getting in the way of Casanova, as all his exclusive really does is block him from DC (and presumably Dark Horse), and his creator owned stuff would not be affected. I honestly expected them to simply move Cas over to the Icon line, which could still happen, but for now it's staying at Image. Fraction's celebrating this by adding even more to his prodigious workload. It has been announced that his is going to start co-writing duties with Ed Brubaker on Uncanny X-Men beginning with issue 500. All I can say is goddamnit. I really didn't want to start buying an X book, but I go where Fraction goes. The June solicits have come out, and Fraction's all over the place on the Marvel side, which makes me happy.<br /><br />~ Some artists are on the move, as Tim Sale is returning to Marvel comics to work with Jeph Loeb on their fourth "color" book, with Captain America: White. Terry Dodson also signed an exclusive for Marvel, and he will be joining Matt Fraction as he jumps on to art duties on Uncanny X-Men. Loeb does his best stuff when working with Tim Sale, and Dodson just adds to the excitement of Uncanny post 500.<br /><br />~ The first issue of DC Trinity is going to be an extra sized issue, and the price point for the weekly series is going to be $2.99. For those that do not know, the major creative team is Kurk Busiek and Mark Bagley, with backups written by Fabian Nicieza. After the disaster that was Countdown, I wasn't planning to buy this one anyway, and I definitely don't like the idea of buying 52 $3 books in a year beyond my standard pull list. It could be good, and the creative team is good, but Dini is a great writer and he couldn't save Countdown. I think what will make the difference is how tied to continuity this book is planning to be. 52 worked because it was its own little corner of the universe and didn't have to worry about anything else. Countdown was too tied into continuity to the point that it either got repetitive (the Karate Kid/Batman fight) or gave away things that hadn't happened yet (the non-Parallax infused Kyle Rayner showing up prior to the end of Sinestro Corps). Either way, it didn't work. So if Trinity is out of continuity, that would be better, but do we really need any more Superman, Batman or Wonder Woman? Wonder Woman maybe, but the other two have plenty of books to fall back on.<br /><br />~ Joe Pokasi, a writer on <span style="font-style: italic;">Heroes</span> will be joining the Secret Invasion fray, writing the tie in miniseries "Secret Invasion: Inhumans" dealing with the reveal of Black Bolt's skrully nature and how the Inhuman Royal Family must deal with the fallout of their king not actually being their king. Now, I love the Inhumans as characters. Paul Jenkins and Jae Lee's 12 issue Marvel Knights series was fantastic in every sense of the word. I really loved <span style="font-style: italic;">Son of M</span>. I haven't actually read Silent War because I'm missing the first issue, and while I've heard it wasn't very good, I'm still looking forward to reading it at some point. I'm jazzed like crazy for this. New Avengers: Illuminati #5 was my favorite issue of last year, and I'll be loving some crazy Inhumans skrully goodness.<br /><br />That's all for now.Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-17159250288523004272008-03-17T17:04:00.000-07:002008-03-17T17:07:08.390-07:00Franklin Richards, Creator of Cosmic Madness<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614274&c=MHG-098"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614274&c=MHG-098" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">One of my favorite VS System characters of all time is Franklin Richards, Creator of Counter Earth. As a huge fan of the Marvel cosmic comic universe, characters with that little cosmic keyword would always catch my eye. It’s a great keyword, which allows for the ability to mix powerful effects with the gambit of losing said effects thanks to an errant attack or power up. The Heralds set granted us the boon that is <b>Cosmic-Surge</b>, allowing for the continued replacement of lost cosmic counters, with the added proviso of having to be face up at the start of combat. Once again, it’s a well balanced system. And then Mr. Richards comes along. He changes things. The ability to move any cosmic character back and forth from the hidden area at will without any kind of team stamping is supremely powerful. Some of those visible cosmic characters with strong abilities that are supposed to be kept in check by having a high chance of losing that counter in combat can be made even more powerful thanks to being shipped to the hidden area by Franklin. So I decided that it would be fun to throw out my personal opinion of the top ten characters that love Franklin Richards. I’ve stuck to the Silver Age here, just to let you folks know.</p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">10. Connor Kent <> Superman, Titans Tomorrow West – So what we’ve got here is someone that’s going to very much enjoy being in a stall build. Granted, most decks dealing in the Franklin Richards trade tend to have a strong hidden area presence, but if you’re trying to do more tricky things where you have a low drop you want to move hidden and mostly play visible characters, Connor Kent can come down off initiative and save you a healthy amount of endurance off initiative, which might be enough to survive to a turn eight or have that extra 11 or so endurance be the difference when you swing back on your attack step. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">9. Frankie Raye <> Nova, Soul Searcher – An extra card at the start of the combat phase every turn? Awesome. If not for the fact that there’s a much better cosmic Heralds three drop, she’d be higher on the list. Card draw is never a bad thing. Continuous card draw is also never a bad thing. She’s got synergy with other characters as well, so moving her hidden for some protection is a solid strategy.</p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">8. Triton, Aquatic Ambassador – He is, of course, a cosmic counter based Garth, Tempest. Granted, tricks can be used to allow him to be active a turn early, but the standard way to get him his counter is going to put him active on five just like Garth. I’d rank him higher if not for the fact that I usually use my Inhumans decks for location based effects, which limits the reusability of my KO’d pile. But you can’t deny it’s powerful, nor can you deny that’s it’s a good idea to get him out of the way.</p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">7. Moondragon, Protector of the Mind Gem – Oh, Moondragon. You draw me so so many cards. And you’re very good friends with 3 drop Frankie Raye. And you’re very good friends with Elemental Converters. It’s not difficult to set up the situation of drawing at least one card every phase (in the Heralds team-up, for example, you can trigger off the draw phase, a Mind Gem during build, Frankie Raye at start of combat and Elemental Converters during recovery), meaning that you would be netting at least 9 cards a turn. Which is crazy. And so much easier to pull off when she’s hidden.</p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">6. Human Torch, The Invisible Man – The funny thing about this is that his non cosmic ability is a hell of a lot more important to me than the one tied to a counter. Moving him hidden and making sure all your visible characters are constantly reinforced at all times seems pretty damned good to me. Perhaps you can have him and Connor Kent in the hidden area off initiative on seven, which means you can completely foil some attacks and take nothing. Sure, the endurance gain from his cosmic effect can be a big deal, but that reinforcement thing is wicked. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">5. XS, Jenni Ognats – She’s Quicksilver, for all intents and purposes. She’s got Surge, so you can fuel her power with her own counter every turn after three. Sure, you have to keep her up, but Franklin’s going to at least make sure that she gets to attack every time. And with a character like Wildfire (who was definitely an honorable mention for this list), you’ve got ways to keep counters going. I mean, the Quicksilver decks ran Luna, and Quicksilver in the hidden area always wreaked havoc. She’s not as good as Quicksilver for various reasons, but she’s still good. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">4. Air-Walker, Gabriel Lan – Puppet Master in the hidden area? Yes, please. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">3. Brainiac 2.5, Future Intelligence – He’s basically the Revenge Squad version of Merlyn. Both characters have cosmic counters, which means you can pull them both hidden with Franklin, but as I said, I’m aiming for Silver Age here. Direct KO’s are a very good thing. Revenge Squad is built for ongoings, which means that you should be able to KO their six drop regardless of initiative thanks to moving him hidden. And you’ll be KO’ing a character every turn. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">2. Ronan the Accuser, Starforce – Nobody locks down a resource row like the big, bad Kree with his giant hammer. I mean, reservist decks won’t care about Ronan too much, but most other decks are not going to be thrilled about losing use of their resource row. The Ronan lock helped push two Skrull decks into the Silver top eight at Mega Weekend So-Cal, mostly due to it shutting down the Bizarro World deck. But other decks can be really hurt by Ronan’s existence. Hell, a Darkseid’s Elite team-up and the new DCX Thank Granny Goodness card can really mess with their plans. It’s one of the better soft locks in the game as far as restricting your opponent’s options. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1a. Captain America, Skrull Imposter – This guy’s ability is ludicrously powerful. Once this guy’s on the field, it’s very possible that one Team-Up is all you need to make your entire board not stun while attacking. That’s insane. Powerful. Crazy. Then you move him hidden and all kinds of madness takes over. It’s very likely (especially in the standard Skrull build) that everyone’s going to be hidden, and when you get the chance to attack on three and one way their board, you’ve just created a MASSIVE board advantage that’s going to last the rest of the game. This guy can break games wide open all by himself, and Franklin just helps make sure that’ll happen. </p> <p class="western" style="margin-bottom: 0in;">1b. Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend – Because if you’re playing Franklin on two, you’re playing four Lockjaws. You just are. </p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8302635972143657082.post-27423295622405711742008-03-12T14:28:00.000-07:002008-03-14T07:17:35.101-07:00Spotlight On: Alternate Win ConditionsSo today my blog got mentioned as part of the inaugural edition of Rallying Cry! (rock on for that, Mr. Fike) and also got linked to on the Comic Geek Speak boards for my podcasting article (rock on for that, Mr. Rios). One can only assume that such exposure would at least lead to a small bump in the number of people reading this blog, so of course I will be leaving for <st1:city><st1:place>Boston</st1:place></st1:city><p class="MsoNormal"> tomorrow and probably won’t be able to update this thing until Sunday. Never fear, ye fans of VS, crazy music and comics, I shall return triumphant and hopefully better than ever (which seems like a hollow phrase considering this thing’s only been around for two weeks). Now, on to the article.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Ever since the first VS System set ever made, this game has been a fan of Alternate Win Conditions. Xavier’s Dream set the stage for many different and various AWC’s over the years and sets. I thought I would take a closer look at some of the AWC’s that are available to us in the Silver and Modern Ages. So let’s take a look at the set on its way out of Silver, The X-men.</p><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200613176&c=MXM-044"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200613176&c=MXM-044" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Ape, Metamorph</b>: “Discard an Energy card <span style="font-family:Wingdings;"><span style="">à</span></span> Target opponent with 0 or less endurance loses the game”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is a pretty self explanatory effect that can be quite useful under the correct circumstances. Ape is a 7 drop from the Morlocks, but it should be noted that he has no loyalty or team-stamping to his effect, which means he could be splashed into pretty much any deck. There is the added restriction of needing a card featuring the Energy trait to make him go, but that shouldn’t be too hard to do. He’s a 16/14, which means that you’re better off playing him on initiative, as a character like this is going to have a pretty big bullseye on his forehead. Still, with the right cards, especially as late as turn seven, it shouldn’t be too tough to get your opponent below 0, and Ape allows you to immediately end things without any kind of shenanigans prior to the recovery phase. It’s also a good deal if you’re both in the negatives and you have less endurance than your opponent. It’s an effect that’s been seen in other places as well, and it’s hard to deny the power of ending the game prior to the recovery phase. Mysterium, Joseph Lightner is another Alternate Win from this set, but for reasons that will become clear later, he’s not exactly the nine drop AWC of choice.</p><p class="MsoNormal">Now, in the Infinite Crisis set, we have multiple iterations of the AWC. But let’s get to the big one.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200613535&c=DCR-047"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200613535&c=DCR-047" alt="" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Captain Marvel, Champion of Magic</b>: “Pay 25 Endurance <span style="font-family:Wingdings;"><span style="">à</span></span> You win the game</p> <p class="MsoNormal">He is of course an 8 drop with loyalty to the Shadowpact that has some beautiful Alex Ross art on his card. It’s an enjoyable mechanic for the team, due to the Shadowpact having nearly every character and Magic Plot Twist effect involving paying endurance for effects. Plus, even more characters get extra effects from having less than 25 endurance (which of course means Captain Marvel’s effect couldn’t be used). Still, many Shadowpact based stall decks have surfaced, one of the more famous being the ultra counter based Shadow Knights (the Shadowpact/Gotham Knights deck that runs Bat Got Your Tongue? and The Conclave). If you can make it to 8 with enough endurance, you’ve got the added bonus of being able to use his effect the second he hits play. A very good card, and a very strong AWC</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><o:p> </o:p></p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, the Crisis set has other AWC’s, but not in the way that one would expect. Being the set that established Checkmate, they also established the Alternate Loss Condition via the dreaded King Kill. Sure, the King effects are for the most part extremely powerful effects (Sorry Harry Stein, King in Check), and there are many ways to protect them, but the danger is still there. Now, let’s move on to the Heralds of Galactus set, for a character that’s not officially an Alternate Win Condition, but is pretty damned close.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614274&c=MHG-011"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614274&c=MHG-011" alt="" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Galactus, Devourer of Worlds</b>: “When Galactus enters play, you may gain endurance equal to target opponent's endurance total. If you do, that player's endurance total becomes 0”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Sure, it’s not an Alternate Win. It doesn’t specifically state on the card that you’re winning or your opponent is losing because of the card, and Galactus decks still win the game on endurance. However, it is impossible to deny the power of Galactus. There is a reason why every Silver Age long term stall deck plays at least one copy of this nine drop monster. He’s affiliated, which means he’s searchable, and in nearly every case he’s a better choice than any other nine drops currently legal in Silver Age (or, arguably, Golden Age). Mysterium is good, but can be played around. Onslaught and Imperiex can do quite a lot, but are both unaffiliated and cannot guarantee victory to the extent of a Galactus. Agamemno is a joke. So is Superman. Kyle Rayner Ion is cute, but he’s not an auto win. Sure, Galactus isn’t an auto-win either, but he’s going to be gaining you a ton of endurance in addition to putting your opponent at 0, and on top of all that, he still gets to throw his weight around as a 25/25 during the combat phase. This is why Galactus has become the gold standard finisher of stall decks all around the world. To continue, let’s move on to the Legion of Superheroes set.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614297&c=DLS-042"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200614297&c=DLS-042" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Terror Incognita</b>: “To play, remove three cosmic counters from Legionnaires characters you control. Target player loses 5 endurance. Then, if that player has 0 or less endurance, he loses the game.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">You’ve basically got the Ape, Metamorph effect tied to a plot twist with an added burn effect. For those Legion decks that are designed to manipulate cosmic counters (which is, you know, every Legion deck on Earth), this can turn out to be an excellent finisher. With a card like We Are Legion (which is the namesake of this here blog), cosmic counters can always be replaced, which means the three counter cost isn’t as completely debilitating as it could be. With the way the Legion is built, they can do well with nearly any other team that uses cosmic counters, so team-ups with the Heralds of Galactus or Inhuman or DLS Teen Titans can allow for the quickest possible way to burn down your opponent and finish him off with Terror Incognita. As I mentioned with Ape, any time you can end the game on endurance prior to the recovery phase is a good time indeed. It should be noted that the Legion set also gave us Alan Scott, White King, which is yet another Checkmate king that can lead to an Alternate Loss Condition.</p> <p class="MsoNormal">Now, both Marvel Team-Up and World’s Finest took a break from the Alternate Win Condition, with neither set featuring anything that could really be considered Alternate Win. Granted, the Team-Up set did create the stall deck du jour of Spider-Heralds, combining the Spider-Friends exhaust effects with the Heralds of Galactus to stall to the big man, but he’s already been covered, so let’s move on to the Hellboy Essential Collection, where the Alternate Win Condition returned.</p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.vsrealms.com/images/EHB/EHB-053.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.vsrealms.com/images/EHB/EHB-053.jpg" alt="" border="0" /></a><br /><p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Project Ragna Rok: </b>“<b>Ongoing:</b> At the start of the recovery phase, you win the game if there are four or more doomsday counters on Project Ragna Rok. Exhaust a Thule Society character you control -> KO target stunned B.P.R.D. character. If you do, put a doomsday counter on Project Ragna Rok. Use only once per turn.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">I have very fond memories of this card. As I’ve stated many times, I’m still relatively new to this game, and the way my buddy Brian decided to teach me the rules and mechanics of VS System was to bring the Hellboy Essential set to my house and play a bunch of games against me using a preconstructed deck. The second game we played, which was the first VS System game I ever won, was won thanks to the Alternate Win of Project Ranga Rok. It’s a deck that can be made thanks to a B.P.R.D. and Thule Society team-up (or the use of Cavendish Hall to team-up in a solo Thule Society deck) that relies on KO’ing your own characters for Ragna Rok counters, but it’s not one of the best. Still, it’s a fun card that can lead to some really cool deck ideas. And now, on to Marvel Legends.<o:p></o:p></p> <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200714393&c=MVL-100"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 200px;" src="http://www.metagame.com/includes/image.aspx?s=200714393&c=MVL-100" alt="" border="0" /></a> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Xorn’s Takeover: </b>“<b>Ongoing:</b> At the start of the recovery phase, if all characters are stunned or there are no characters in play, you may discard a [Brotherhood Icon] character card. If you do, put a despair counter on Xorn's Takeover. Then, if there are three despair counters on Xorn's Takeover, you win the game.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This is, put simply, Bizarro Xavier’s Dream. It works in the exact opposite way. Whereas Xavier’s Dream required no stunned characters in play, Xorn requires the opposite to get his mojo going. Now, Xavier’s Dream very rarely saw play, and nearly every time it did, it was usually some kind of crazy ass janky combo deck that was designed for casual silliness. And that card had a hell of a lot easier condition to fulfill than Xorn’s Takeover. It’s going to be damn near impossible to pull this thing off even in a casual vein, and the idea of making a Xorn’s Takeover deck viable in any kind of constructed environment is a virtual impossibility. Sure, if someone pulls it off, it could go down as the greatest rogue deck in history, but it doesn’t seem likely. With DC Legends, however, we’ve gotten the best AWC card since Galactus, and one that has already seen a deck built around him.</p> <p class="MsoNormal"><b style="">Darkseid, Dark God: </b>“At the start of the recovery phase, if no other player controls a non-stunned character, you win the game.”</p> <p class="MsoNormal">This 8 drop Secret Society character is an 18/20, which is pretty big for the current stats of 8 drops, and has a fantastic effect. The first thing that I’m sure a lot of people thought of while looking over the spoiler for DC Legends was seeing the <i style="">blatant</i> synergy between Darkseid and his 9 cost Plot Twist Endgame, that allows him to KO all characters on the board except him to set up the Alternate Win. But there are other ways to pull it off. A card like Koriand’r <> Starfire, X’Hal’s Fury that stuns your opponent’s entire board at the start of the recovery phase would be another way to trigger Darkseid, and with something like Born of Blood, you can just about guarantee she’d be face up at the end of turn 8. At the same time, with the various ways to accelerate resources, which includes Dark Kryptonian <> Dark Superboy, Mockery that’s in team, it isn’t difficult to turn on Endgame as early as turn 7 (thanks to a Samantha Parrington that could allow Kryptonian to swing twice on six and jump two resources). A modern age Secret Society deck that jumped the curve with Silver Surfer, Last Zenn-Lavian to Endgame on 8 made it to the top eight at Mega Weekend So-Cal. It’s a strong effect, and not tough to pull off, which puts Darkseid near the top of the VS System Alternate Win Conditions. </p> <p class="MsoNormal">I think people love the Alternate Win Conditions because they’re a good way to shake things up. Combat decks can become staid after a while, and having the option to make a crazy deck around Project Ragna Rok or Darkseid, Dark God not only allows for challenges during the deck building stage, but challenges while playing the game as well. I hope that VS R&D will continue to create cards like this in the future, as they always lead to interesting discussion at the very least. <o:p></o:p></p>Desiatohttp://www.blogger.com/profile/02750782702639987753noreply@blogger.com0