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"Accept no Limits – The State of VS Limited."
Common Characters
Tonight on Batman, our dynamic duo face their greatest foe yet. Who can
they turn to for help? Will Superman fly to their aid. Will the Joker
fight side by side with Batman? Tonight, all will be revealed.
My favorite form of VS play is drafting. I love cobbling together a deck
from only 42 hard fought for cards. The secret is in finding ways to make
those cards work together, like the Joker and Batman, fighting side by
side. This article contains my drafter's analysis of the DC Origins common
character cards. Rather than the more conventional analysis by attack
and defense, and how these sit on the power curve (which has been done
elsewhere), I have looked at the general character distribution, and the
distribution of loyalty, boost, flight and range. The article then discusses
a few of what I see as the implication of these distributions. This article
is 80% description, and 20% strategy, but contains the information breakdown
to inform your drafting strategy.
For those of you not familiar with drafting, a short description follows
(copied and condensed from UDE Tournament Appendix B). Those of you familiar
with drafting can feel free to skip ahead, fearing only that you missed
something indefinable, but significant.
In a draft each player starts with three sealed booster packs of cards.
When playing in a draft, players will be in a “pod”. Each
draft pod will consist of four or more players seated around a table.
Each player opens his or her first booster and reviews the cards. Each
player selects one card and passes the rest of the cards to the player
to his or her left. The drafted cards should be placed in a single, face
down pile in front of the player that selected them. This pile becomes
the draft pile for that player. Once each player has picked his or her
first card and passed the rest of the cards to the left, the players pick
up the stacks that were just passed to them. The next stack should have
thirteen cards remaining to choose from. Each player will take a card
from this pack and add it to the face down pile in front of him or her.
There should now be two cards in each player's face down pile and twelve
cards remaining to be passed to the player on the left. Players continue
picking a card from each booster and passing the boosters until all of
the cards have been drafted from the first booster. Each player then opens
his or her next booster pack and selects a card. Once each of the players
has each selected a card and added it to the draft pile in front of him
or her, the booster is passed to the right. Drafting continues until there
are no cards left in the boosters. During drafting, the first pack and
third pack are passed around the table to the left (clockwise). The second
is passed right (counter clockwise). Once the draft is finished, all players
should have the same number of cards in their draft piles. Players build
a 30 card minimum deck from there draft pile. You can read my previous
article (A beginners guide to limited deck construction) for help in doing
this.
There are fourty three common Character cards in DC Origins. A table of
their distribution can be seen below.
| Cost |
League of Assassins |
Arkham Inmates |
Teen Titans |
Gotham Knights |
Unaffiliated |
Total |
| 1 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
|
5 |
| 2 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
1 |
6 |
| 3 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
2 |
1 |
8 |
| 4 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
8 |
| 5 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
|
8 |
| 6 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
8 |
| Total |
9 |
10 |
11 |
10 |
3 |
43 |
Arkham Imates and Gotham Knights have ten each, while Teen Titans has
eleven, and League of Assassins only nine. Three of the characters are
unaffiliated (Wildebeest,
Ferak,
and Brother
Blood). There are five army characters; two Assassins, one Knight,
and two unaffiliated.
There are seven common characters with loyalty; three Assassins, three
Knights, and one Inmate.
There are eleven characters with boost, and it should be noted that for
five of them the boost turns either a 5 or 6 drop character into a 7 drop,
giving each affiliation a one 7 drop common. The fifth, and unaffiliated
7 drop, is of course Brother
Blood. Five of the 'boost brigade' are Teen Titans, but there are
a few things to consider with that statistic. The first is that Hawk
and Dove
should not be played except for their boost option (and I will discuss
the implications of that shortly). Vic Stone's 'equipment fetch' ability
makes for a pretty poor 5 drop. However, playing him as a 4 drop with
a boost of 0 to fetch a crossbow is pretty cool. After you eliminate those
three, the Titans only have 2 genuine boost characters, which puts them
level with the Assassins and the Inmates. The Knights lag here with only
one boost-able common character.
There are only six common characters with flight in the entire set. Four
of them are Titans, and two are Inmates, making access to flight in the
common slot a real strength for the Titans. Particularly when for the
Inmates it is on a 3 and a 4 drop. The Titans have flight on both their
6 drops, and one of their 5 drops, making them a real danger for breakthrough
damage in the late game.
Range is slightly less rare, with ten characters (almost a quarter of
commons) possessing this ability. However, the Titans dominate here as
well with four of that ten. The Knights have three, the Inmates two, and
the League only one. Again in the Titans it is on their two 6 drops (i.e.
They have flight and range).
So, those are the attributes on the distribution of common characters
in DC Origins. What does that tell us about DC as a draft set?
Firstly, as has been noted by many others before me, there are more high
drop commons in DC than there were in Marvel Origins. Therefore, there
is not as much pressure to draft the high drops early. As can been seen,
there are an equal number of 3,4,5, and 6 drops. The squeeze comes in
the 1 and 2 drops, but you usually wouldn't want too many of those in
your deck anyway.
The second point to jump out at me as that The League of Assassins are
slightly trickier to draft as you main affiliation than the other main
three. With a 3, 4, and 6 drop with loyalty you either need to draft stronger
on the Assassin 1 and 2 drops (which have the advantage of both being
army cards), or drafting Kyle
Abbots as a priority pick (as he is able to fill the 3 or 4 drop well)
and hopefully having 3 or 4 of him. Also, you only have one affiliated
6 drop, though he happens to be the totally insane Ra's
Al Ghul. So, why would anyone want to play Assassins? Well, with a
bit of skill and a small pinch of luck, you will have an insane build.
When you have a 3 drop who becomes a 4 drop when you have five or more
resources in play (Kyle
Abbott), a 4 drop who disables your opponents locations (Ra's
Al Ghul – Immortal Villain) , a 'control' 5 drop (Whisper A'Daire),
and a 6 drop who lets you replace 'dead' resources (Ra's
Al Ghul – Master Swordsman), that adds up to a whole lot of
'Zap, Pow, Kaboom'. However, you have to draft Assassins strongly, sometimes
ignoring a good splash card for the safer affiliated card. Otherwise,
Assassins work well as a late game splash, with a few team-ups in your
deck.
As I mentioned before, Hawk
and Dove
are really 3 drops, that are only good if you have both. Thus, the Titans
really one 1 drop, one 2 drop, and three 3 drops. However, they also have
no cards with affinity in the common slot. When you add their 6 drop cards
with flight and range, are an extremely splashable team if you are looking
for one more 6 drop. Though, the strength of the Titans lies not in any
individual cards being totally overpowering, but the way that they mesh
as a team.
Loyalty is also a feature of the Gotham Knights common characters, but
is less of an issue coming in drops 4, 5 and 6.
I don't have a great deal I want to say specifically about the Inmates
or the Knights in this article. In future articles I will look at pick
order for the various affiliations, but before then I will do a drafter's
analysis of plot twists and locations.
My main priority is the upcoming Melbourne PCQ. This time around it is
at Card Heaven (Level 1, 105 Chapel Street, Windsor) on the 15th of August
at 9am. You can check the details on their website (http://www.cardheaven.com.au).
I hope to see a lot of you there, putting some of this theory into practice.
Please feel free to come up and say hello.
I'll be back.
Same Bat-time.
Same Bat-channel.
Next Week...
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Editor: Paul Van Der Werk. Sunday 7th August 2004.
