What to do with S.H.I.E.L.D. while waiting to see a Black Panther preview

A couple of days ago apal and I were discussing how effective the 7 drop Thor is going to be. He thinks he's pretty much trash.

This would be a VERY boring post if I didn't disagree.

His number one point was "how could you possibly keep the kind of cards needed in hand long enough for him to REALLY be effective. And that made me think harder on the matter.

Consider this:

Avengers/ SHIELD team up deck.

Turn 1, Squirrel Girl and a Shield army/agent
Turn 2, Captain America, chaining the Avengers new search card and chaining to that a 2 cost team up, bot from resource row. The team up resolves, then the search, searching for Nick Fury 3 drop, then Captain America rallies for a character, revealing Nick Fury, giving Cap, SG and the Army agent each a +1/+1 counter giving you a 2/3, a 1/2 and a 4/3 concealed. With Cap's Shield running around, you've got a very annoying character to hang on to here!
Turn 3 you get Nick, and if you are lucky, 2 more agents, or maybe an army 2 drop that hasn't been revealed yet? You can now flip the Helicarrier, returning the 3 one drops to your hand. This leaves you with a 6/3, a 4/5 and a 6/4.
Turn 4, you play Iron Man, and give him the Extremis Upgrade. Nick brings back 2 of the Agents, both 2/1s. Your opponent needs at least 2 attacks to stun Iron Man now, since you aren't likely to reinforce with Iron Man no matter how much damage you are going to take (moderately, any way) and if they go for IM first, you kust prevent the stun. Withi his 9/7 stats, he stuns back most every 4 drop. This also protects you from Punisher decks.
Turn 5, we hit our first mystery play.I haven't seen a 5 drop that we would toss in too this slot yet, but I'm sure there is a good one.
Turn 6 we want Captain America replacing the old one. Maybe New and Improved would be good for the deck as well, but we'll have to see about that one, right? Either way, Cap has the stats, the affiliation and the most impressive Shield to hold your opponent off with.
Turn 7 we get to Thor. Once more, SG shouldn't have had to die yet, thanks to IM. And she ought to have a little bit of UMPH behind her with those blessed counters IM has been giving her since turn 4 if we're lucky. Either way, SG should have been able to bounce your "In Danger" army guys back to your hand for 6 turns. That means that your opponent is likely in for a burn of at least 4 or more. That also means a chance to draw a few more cards, which could be more army guys or could be more combat pumps, the possiblities are entertaining.

This is the backbone of the deck I will be building once I decide on how many boxes I'll be getting of this set.

Well, I hope some of it was new to you and I hope all of it was fun to think about.

See you in a few.

VS from the front desk

For the last couple of nights my closest friends have come down to my job to get to hang out with me and play some cards for a little while. Our games are usually pretty balanced and back and forth volleys of attacks and counter-attacks determine the final winner.

Last night, I played my Furious deck after I sold off some of my "extras" like Black Widow and such. The deck did HORRIBLE. I didn't get my field lock in place even once! I gave my Marvel Defenders/ Underworld deck a dusting off and it did it's job laying smacks down for a few games. I played my other friend who is an aspiring jank-meister, and I have to say, while his deck is up to some evil combo stunts, when it goes off it is a force to be reckoned with. Fortunately for me, out of our 6 games, even with my mediocre draws I still won most of the games. He did get me once with a perfect draw for him and the worst draw for me (I only had Defenders on the table as of turn 6 and had never drew a team up all game).

My surprising deck of the night was my League of Assassins Silver Age. It is Silver Age because I REALLY wanted to play with Ra's other daughter in the deck. Out of another 5 or so games, I discarded her twice and never got her in play once. I DID lose one of those games, but the rest, against Spider Doom Stall, I did VERY well, losing no games to that match up at all.

Tonight, my pal played his combo deck again, and I played my Jean Grey Legend deck. Jean trampled him pretty seriously. He didn't fair so well against my Punisher deck either, and I had a HORRIBLE draw there, too. I never got a 4 drop Punisher in play, though I DID get to power up a Clayface 5 drop and then was able to play another Clayface on turn 6, since I missed anything else of value I could have played. My pal even flipped an Omnipotence against me and called Taking Aim (he meant Sniper Shot, but since I didn't have it I didn't bother to correct him about it either.)

This weekend we are building Mini-decks and will try out a few games like that and see what we think over all and I'll post our findings back here for your entertainment.

Let's go see what today's preview card is and see ya'll later :)

OH! And keep praying to the Panther God that I get to preview a Black Panther card!

MUN Previews abound!

Well, so far we've really seen a 3 way split for the MUN previews. We've seen Cap and some of his support, we've seen Hulk and some of his support, and we've seen a lot of the Registration Support, including an extremely impressive Iron Man. But what about the rest of the 2 dimensional men and women that strive to keep the world safe, but want to wear masks to keep their own loved ones safe while they do it? Where are they hiding out?

With another 5 weeks of previews roughly, we can rest assured we'll see some more of them soon.

I dreamt last night that I had opened my first 2 boxes and had gotten no Black Panthers at all, then my friend opened his first pack and pulled a rare 5 drop Black Panther that was concealed optional and couldn't be stunned while attacking and hidden and had reinforcement while defending and visible. And the dirty bastard wouldn't trade it to me :)

Here's hoping we get some good Panther-y news soon... hint hint...

Sidetracked for a bit

http://www.spylounge.net/

I just found out about a new grassroots action figure line that looks like a lot of cool stuff. check'em out if you get the time. Hit spylounge.com and take a peek if action figure collecting is your forte.

I'm still waiting on word of the Black Panther cards from the set, and as this is Hulk week, I don't expect to see him this week. Here's hoping next week will bring the King to these very pages :)

The Hulk cards are looking great, and should help bolster VS Marvel Universe sales greatly. I'm looking to see if one of my pals wants to split a case, since I'll be moving in a few months and don't know that i can afford to throw so much money in to buying a case for myself.

Either way, I'll trade for any and all Black Panther Vs cards anybody has that they want to trade. Donations are also accepted.

Thanks, and see you at the Roundtable Review later this week!

So long and thanks for all the fish

The new ability called Rally is creating quite the buzz in many VS playing circles. The opportunities to use this ability are wide ranging. The effects it can generate are, as of this moment, unlimited in scope and that has imaginations running wild!

Back for the DC Legends events, I designed an Aquaman Legend deck that did only one thing and it did it well: Stalemate opposing attacks. Poseidonis and the 4 drop Aquaman were so hated for a few weeks that opponents seeing me hit Aquaman would groan knowing that it would be turn 8 before another attack phase could even possibly go in their favor.

Now though, we have an ability that triggers based on the top card of the deck, and Poseidonis can not only get me back a card from my K.O. pile, but it can also help me to secure the correct card type for my next Rally effect in a given turn.

JLAvengers is off to a good start.

Mix in a little more Avengers flavor in the form of Captain America's newest 6 drop and his shield and your opponent's attack step might as well read "Do Nothing, maybe exhaust some of your own guys and then pass".

While I'm anxiously awaiting some more Avengers related previews, I know other people wanna see their fan favorites get some love too.

I'm undecided if I want to know what Black Panther does before I open that first pack, or if I want to have a deck ready to just drop him in to when he arrives. As I'm assuming he'll be Avengers affiliated, I'm wondering if he'll continue his Reservist them from before or if he will use something more representative of his abilities showcased in Civil War..?

Will his abilities further this "Wall of Water" deck? Or will I need to build something else totally new to fit him in to?

How to start a fire with just a little Torch

Take a peek at this Silver Age design:

4x Shadowcat
2x Wild Child
4x Silver Surfer 2 drop
2x Captain America 2 drop
4x Black Panther 3 drop MK
2x Captain America 3 drop mhg
4x Human Torch secret avenger
3x Daredevil MEX
1x Captain America MLV
1x Captain America 6 drop MUN
3x Silver Surfer 6 drop MTU
1x Captain America 7 drop mtu
1x Silver Surfer 7 drop MEX
1x Silver Surfer 8 drop MLV
1x Galactus 9 drop
1x Silver Surfer 11 drop

4x We had a team up
4x Kindred Spirits
4x Mobilize
4x To me my xmen
4x Neighborhood Watch

2x Surfer's Board
1x Ultimate Nullifier mex
1x Captain America's shield
1x Ego Gem

3x elemental converters
2x new baxter building

There's bound to be a bunch of points along the way that can be finely tuned, but this is what I'm thinking after just seeing Human Torch's premiere.