A Death in the Family

Today's news isn't happy news, as last night we lost my almost father-in-law.

Nothing VS related to post for a few days, folks. I hope you all have good days today and get in a couple of extra games for me!

Peace

Sneaky

So last night, while working I thought up a clever deck idea. It is piggy backed from my other ideas and my fixation with the Black Panther. Personally, i really like the 3 drop from MXM, but all versions really make me happy.

This deck idea is based around my Ultimate Alliance deck idea. The intention is to use the Martial Artists team from Ultimate Alliance and build a 4 man team. That's right, just 4 personas in the entire deck.

I LOVE New and improved and with my current thoughts, I think it could be a lot of fun for a Silver Age deck.

Martial Artists:

4x Black Panther MVL
4x Daredevil MMK
4x Black Panther MXM
2x Captain America MHG
4x Daredevil MVL
1x Captain America MVL
2x Moon Knight MMK
1x Daredevil MEX
4x Daredevil MTU
4x Captain America MTU

2x Ultimate Nullifier
1x Steel Girder

4x Flying Kick
3x Combat Reflexes
4x Neighborhood Watch
2x Savage Beatdown
4x New and Improved
3x Bring the Pain
2x Pathetic Attempt
4x Wild Ride

1x Stark's Tower

The idea for this deck is to get in to combat and beat the eyes out of some sucka. The optimal turn 1 is a Black Panther, and turn 2 should be a Daredevil. Turn 3 should see a New and Improved and k.o. the Panther to play a 3 drop Panther and get 2 counters and either the UN or the SG. turn 4 would most like to see a Daredevil k.o. to play a 4 drop Hornhead, though playing a Captain America on 4 isn't the end of the world. DD would be a 9/9 so he is the optimal. Turn 5 we'd like to see Moon knight just to get him on the table, but Captain is a stronger play overall. Whichever one did get played between the two could get played on 6 with an equipment if you got one, or you could lose Hornhead and make a 12/15 6 drop DD. turn 7 brings us a Captain which is why turn 6 SHOULD be a Cap if hea wasn't your 5 drop.

Most mid game drops have alternate drop options available.

The deck mostly just looks like a simple attack and defense game..well more like attack and attack game, but you get the idea.

I made a similar deck months back, but now I've gotten a few more ideas for playing it to the max. See ya soon!

Mains and Toys

If you never played Star Wars CCG by Decipher, you only THINK you know what a hard card game is. This game was so complex that you couldn't possibly be an average person, pick up the starter deck and learn to play the game on your own. Impossible and anybody that says otherwise is a fibber!

What does that have to do with VS? Well, I'm glad you asked!

In Star Wars, a popular deck building strategy eventually came to revolve around the Main Characters (called Mains) and their personal weaponry (called Toys). The deck was really good for the game, especially during a time when card efficiency frequently gave players little reason to play with the main characters in favor of just Jedi and big ships. Mains and Toys, as the decks were called, allowed players to use the very characters that they got in to the game for in the first place.

That brings us to todays deck:

Mains and Toys

Using the Spider-friends and Marvel Knights the goal was to build a deck that would allow a player to "tool box" if you will the most popular characters from the comic books in a cometitive quality deck. Dual Affiliated characters offered up the chance to meet the requirements for Loyalty for either team, should it be needed while also making it possible to use either teams dedicated search cards to find the desired characters.

This is the deck list:

1x Zabu constant companion
1x Speedball Robert Baldwin
1x Frank Drake nightstalker
1x Black Widow femme fatale
1x Aunt May golden oldie
1x Night Thrasher dwayne taylor
1x Punisher suicide run
2x Blade nightstalker
3x Black Panther kind of wakanda
1x Kazar lord kevin plunder
1x Cloak shadowmaster
1x Wolverine covert predator
1x Elektra Masterless assassin
1x Spider-man the sensational spider-man
1x Spider-man parasitic host
1x Daredevil kitchen cleanser
2x Captain America loyal patriot
1x Venom lethal protector
1x Daredevil new kingpin
2x Wolverine canucklehead
1x Hulk savage hulk
2x Spider-man stark's protege
1x Dr. Strange master of the mystic arts
1x Ghost Rider danny ketch

3x Empire State University
1x Soul World
1x Stark's Tower team up

1x Ego Gem unique infinity gem
2x Ultimate Nullifier one-way trip

2x Armageddon
4x Big Leagues
2x Encircle
1x Flying Kick
4x Indebted
2x Nasty Surprise
3x Neighborhood Watch team up
2x Pathetic Attempt
4x Wild Ride

The deck's main goal is simply field position while using the popular well known characters of the Marvel Universe.

The single copy of Flying Kick in the deck is there just for good luck :)

Hulk is a one of, as he should only be used in a desperate situation or if using him will win you the game, in which case, he should be easily searched for on turn 6 if you need to. The 2 Encircles are there to help clear a path for Hulk in a desperate situation, though most of the games you'll play should make it a playable game for the same basic reason: clearing a direct path to your opponent's dome.

The deck plays very smoothly and is a lot of fun to see so many big names in play in a single game, free from the Ahmed Samsarra crutches and the other decks that only seek to abuse the most powerful cards in the game.

I'll be running this deck again this week when my padawans come out to play. See ya'll soon!

The best laid plans of mice and men

So my plan to attend Hobby League tonight has been usurped by my having had errands to run this morning, thus keeping me from sleeping, thus keeping me from being able to attend Hobby League unless I want to sleep at work. A bad idea, to be sure.

So my deck won't get it's take off tonight as planned :(

Bummer.

Closing Time...

It's Monday morning, and getting closer to quitting time for the shift. Tonight is our Silver Age tournament, and I'm having confidence issues with my deck. I'm strongly favoring a combat theme with Finishing Move and Nasty Surprise and maybe even the Infinity Gauntlet as a nice trick. Using Reed Richards makes it a little easier to pull off. Panther and Cannibal tech help make Eureka turn this in to something much more plausible. I'm wondering how to best keep the opposing field clear and to minimize Damage as best I can. Sue and Reed set up a good walling system. Storm brings stats and Panther brings tricks.

Maybe I'll toss in some stall elements..or at least Anti-stall anyway... I'll post later to tell the tales of triumph and woe. Good morning, friends!

Just another Manic ..Sunday?

So I've not gotten to do nearly enough with VS this week. My 'Padawans' (the younglings that I've taught to play VS since it's debut) want to come out and play either this weekend or this coming weekend, but my work schedule has me tied up instead. So I'm trying to convince them to come out the last weekend of the month instead. As younglings, still, they don't have unlimited access to cards, so I'm pretty much their supplier. That said, they don't go to tournaments ever, and just play for fun amongst themselves most of the time, so almost all of their decks are Golden Age. One of them was the first one to build a Puppet Master based deck. At least the first one we knew of, since he made it within a day or two of the game coming out. Most memorable to me because of my attacking my Bishop MOR in to his Puppet Master MOR and Puppet MAster stunning back Bishop, but not getting stunned, due to Avalon Space Station and an extra Puppet in hand. Ouch.

So I always enjoy playing games with my padawans. Our last meet up, my number one student took it to me like nobody's business, beating me with an end record of something like 12 to 3 or 4.

So I'm going to break out my Infinity Gauntlet deck on him this next time, and i'm going to fine tune my Nick Fury based "Furious" deck and we'll have another few rounds of fun.

Monday is the tournament at Games of Berkeley, Silver Age..yuck..but I'm playing Double Date, so I'll have fun I'm sure. I'll post more about how it went on Tuesday.

See ya'll in the funny papers!

One, two, skip a few...

This week has flown by and I've hardly had the time to delve as deep in to my cardboard jungle as I'd have liked. With a tournament Monday night before I go to work, I've had no time to play test at all, which is a little disheartening.

But that doesn't mean I haven't had it on my mind!

Today, Suanne is going to hook me up with a new deck box cover, based on my own original artwork instead of using other people's art. It will begin my new method of storing my decks, using the awesome UDEck boxes with all original art custom covers!

So Monday night at Hobby League I'll be sporting my "Double Date" deck box in a Double Date themed box. I'm excited!

I've also recently come across new card sleeves from Ultra-Pro that are similar in overall style to the favored Japanese style sleeves, but these UP sleeves are amazing! they have a very stylized kind of texture to their backings while maintaining their matte coat appearance! I'm very approving!

I'll be sleeving my newest Black Panther deck in these sleeves for Monday night.

I've got some more odds and ends to tie up this morning before I go back to work tonight, so I'll post more later, for you night owls and others that come late to the party :)

Tuesday, Tuesday..so good to me?

Tuesday nights are the predesignated date nights for my girlfriend and I, kind of as a way to make sure that we are not letting the stresses of everyday life drive a wedge between us. For Christmas I gave my favorite doll collector a coupon good for "One Free Doll up to $150.00". She found her doll of choice and I sold off a bunch of cards to buy her the doll she covets so.

So how do those facts mesh together and then have anything to do with VS?

Well, since I'm spending so much on her present already, I've got to keep the belt tighter this week for date night. And waht better way to do just that than by playing some VS together? We'll spend time together, we'll get to play some cards and we won't spend a lot of extra money, since we already spent the money to get the cards in the first place.

In actuality we likely won't even play, but instead we'll tinker on some decks together and just be close for a few hours, sharing each other's company.

Nothing like VS to bring people closer together :)

Monday Monday.. So good to me..?

Well, my new work schedule has me working on Mondays again, but not being off on Friday and Saturday as I once was. It's almost as if they don't want me to attend any VS related events. The upside is that I COULD still make it to Hobby League. The down side is that I'd have to leave a little early in order to make it to work on time. This also means that I'll not get to finish the tournament next Monday if I dare to brave the trip knowing I'll be working that night, too.

I've pulled out most of my cards and I'm starting to look for better ideas for how the deck should run. I'm inclined to want some Nasy Surprises and some What are Friends For since I'm going to be relying almost exclusively on Combat for my win condition.

Time to do some more work and we'll see how things go from there...

Ultimate Alliance: Double Date VS deck

For months I've been enthralled with this silly notion of a deck built around the Ultimate Alliance video game's team bonuses. My favorites are Marvel Royalty and Double Date, mostly because both allow Black Panther and Storm to be used together. In the next 2 weeks I have a Silver Age tournament to attend and I want to play something powerful but still themed and fun, and this is going to be my goal. Since I'll only be using 4 characters in play at a time, I'm going to rely on New and Improved to help keep my characters strong as well as some Equipment to help me get the most out of my resource points. Pier 4 will come in handy as well I suspect. Mandroid Armor and Ultimate Nullifier will also be involved. Those aside, the deck will be focused very heavily on combat. Mr. Fantastic and Sue are my only Fantastic 4 characters, while Panther is only Marvel Knights but Storm is on Morlocks and X-men. So teaming up will be important as well as a small variety of search cards. Enemy of my Enemy and Wild Ride and likely even Call in a Favor though Call might help my opponent too much for me to use it a lot. To Me My X-men will serve me very well I think and Fastball Special might be my saving grace on turns 6 and 7, since my only playable 7 drop is Sue.

My current thinking for the deck list looks like this so far:

Double Date:

4x Black Panther
2x Invisible Woman

4x Mr. Fantastic

2x Black Panther
4x Invisible Woman

4x Mr. Fantastic
2x Storm

4x Invisible Woman

3x Storm
1x Mr. Fantastic

1x Invisible Woman

3x New and Improved
2x Wild Ride
3x Neighborhood watch
3x Flying Kick
2x Enemy of my Enemy
3x Crackshot
2x Call in a Favor
4x Forcefield Projection
2x Fastball Special
2x To me my X-men

1x Ultimate Nullifier
1x Mandroid Armor
1x Fantasticar 2.0
1x Future Technology

61 cards. I'm going to look for a way to trim off that one last card. I'm building this tonight and testing it Monday at hobby league. I'll post Monday night and let ya'll know how it does.

Tales from the Cardboard Jungle

It is no accident that you found me.

My name is Curtis, and if you don't know me personally, I'd like to take a brief moment and welcome you to my neck of the woods.

I'm a proud father of one little boy thus far and look forward to adding another to me family some day. I'm an ex-martial artist, one time self defense instructor, aspiring comic book artist, comic book fan, action figure enthusiast and Collectible/Customizable Card Game player (also called CCGs).

My blogs will frequently address an array of these topics, since they frequently intertwine.

My CCG of choice is VS System, a cleverly designed and executed game built around super hero combat and interaction. When you visit my blog you can look forward to finding tournament reports, thoughts on deck designs and other assorted experiences related to VS System.

Welcome to "Tales from the Cardboard Jungle!"