Editor: Keh-Gan Hau. Sunday 16th January 2005.
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Editor: Keh-Gan Hau. Sunday 16th January 2005.
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 “Getting Your Chocolate in My Peanut Butter”
"YOU got chocolate in my peanut butter!"
For the Australian audience and any other readers who may not be familiar with Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups or the series of advertisements that spruiked them, this was the exchange that followed two people, one eating chocolate and the other eating peanut butter, bumping into each other and melding together their respective treats. The whole idea of Reece’s Peanut Butter Cups and the M and M-like Reece’s Pieces (the tasty treats used by the young boy in ET to lure in his soon-to-be alien friend) is that, as good as the two flavours are separately, they are even better together. This is same kind of idea that’s behind teaming up different affiliations in Vs System (you were just waiting for this to become relevant weren’t you). So, if you take all the best guys from, say, the X-Men and all the best dudes from, I don’t know … League of Assassins, then you’d have a better deck than either of the mono-team efforts, right? Well, probably not. As most Vs stalwarts know, sometimes chocolate and peanut butter are strictly better on their own … err, I mean, mono-team decks are usually more consistent than hybrid decks. Why?Well, first of all you have to sacrifice at least four cards, and more often six to eight, from your deck just to include the cards that achieve your team up. This can seriously affect the potency of your deck, so you better make sure what you’re getting in return is worth it. In the case of team ups where there is a specific team up card, like Common Enemy or The Brave and the Bold, at least they replace themselves with a card drawn from the top of the deck when flipped. So effectively, those cards are kind of like a guaranteed Breaking Story, which basically shrinks your deck from 60 cards to 56 (assuming you’re running four of them). Sometimes this can be a very beneficial thing. For the generic team ups – Marvel Team-Up and World's Finest, as well as the new kids on the block Royal Decree and Metropolis(different but essentially the same), however, you don’t get any card advantage (unless teaming New Gods with another team using Royal Decree) and you don’t get to effectively shrink your deck from 60 cards to 56. This is why, I think, that we’ve seen a general reluctance from the Vs competitive gaming community to embrace team ups that aren’t spoon-fed to it with a named team up card. What benefits can be gained from putting Sinister Syndicate with Fantastic Four that would outweigh the loss of consistency and combat options?Probably few to none. But this isn’t a rule, as there are obvious exceptions. The only two generic team-ups I have noticed (I accept that there may be others, especially if you consider Rigged Alfred to fit the bill) that have achieved significant tournament success and popularity in some quarters are Israel Quiroz’s Psimon Says (Doom/Fearsome Five) deck from the Wizard World $10K held in Chicago back in August of this year, and Ben Kreis’ Fearsome Knights (Gotham Knights/Fearsome Five) deck from the Sydney $10K in September.Israel was placed third on day one of the Wizard World $10K (finishing fourth overall) and Ben, of course, won the Sydney $10K.The decklists follow. Israel Quiroz “Psimon Says”
Characters
Ben Kreis – “Fearsome Knights”
It’s semi-surprising that both decks feature Fearsome Five cards. I say semi-surprising because it’s not really surprising that any Fearsome Five deck would be a team-up deck. Back then F5 only had seven characters (and now only nine), one at each of the recruitment levels one to seven. Even now, they can’t really make a deck in and of themselves.I do, however, think it’s surprising that the effects available among F5 characters have proved so effective.That said, in both decks it is basically the same three F5 characters used – Shimmer, Dr Light and Psimon.A single copy of Jinx is also in Israel’s list, but that’s pretty random. The other key card that F5 can bring to the table is the character tutor Underworld Star. So, those effects seem worth it, but it seems only really in conjunction with teams that have good tutoring and control capabilities. It is perhaps not surprising that Doom and Gotham Knights are the best represented teams among the many team ups players have carried into the tournament fray. Both teams have access to a one-drop (Boris and Alfred Pennyworth) that can search out the vital team up cards in the first place and then dig up whatever other twist you need. Alfred Pennyworth even fetches equipment! These allow the decks to either run fewer team ups in the first place (Israel’s only has three) or to be able to focus the deck more tightly on twist effects, like using repeated Press the Attacks on Dr Light. Both affiliations also offer control elements which will make it difficult for your opponents to realise their own plans or disrupt yours, such as Dr Doom (4), Reign of Terror, GCPD Officers with Harvey Bullock, and Fizzle (to mention only a few). Despite these upstart Fearsome Five/X decks, the most popular team up decks are still Common Enemy (Doom/Fantastic Four) and The Brave and the Bold (Gotham Knights/Teen Titans).Not surprisingly, each of these decks centre around the cards I’ve already mentioned, supported by the best cards from the other two teams. Heroes United (Fantastic Four/X-Men) and Mutant Nation (Brotherhood/X-Men) also have their supporters, but it’s widely viewed that straight Fantastic Four decks and mono-Brotherhood decks are usually better than those diluted by Professor X’s students (don’t throw fruit at me). In the end, a hybrid deck really has to be better or, put another way, present a better chance of winning – maybe by utilising the element of surprise and making it hard for opponents to play against it, than the mono-team deck to be worthy of tournament play. Back to the issue of consistency in team ups. The most potent team up decks will obviously work best when they realise the team up.Fearsome Knights simply doesn’t work if all those cops aren’t F5. Common Enemy and The Brave and the Bold aren’t quite as troubled by this phenomenon, as one half of their decks can usually kind of play out alright on their own. CE can switch to a pseudo-FF Beats strategy, while B+B can play similar to a straight Teen Titans deck. Neither of these situations are ideal, however, and are still likely to result in a loss at the top tables of a serious tournament. Not only do you have to draw and realise your team ups, which could mean making less than optimal choices during recruitment and recovery, you also have to protect it.Have a Blast!, Apocalypse and, to a lesser extent, Foiled is gunning for you, not to mention all the hate in Man of Steel (I’ll get to that soon). Without your team-up in effect your options with regard to team attacking and defensive formations are seriously hindered. Without your team up, there will be times that you mightn’t be able to take down your opponent’s Blob (a hard enough task anyway), not to mention the times when Sabertooth (4) singles out a vulnerable weenie that can’t be reinforced. Interestingly, there are no real named team ups (disappointing, because I was really hoping for a Gotham Knights/Team Superman card) in the new set, although Royal Decree is effectively as good as one when New Gods characters are involved. Furthermore, there seem to be a lot of ways to attack the resource row and completely ruin any chances of guys from two different teams working together. Consider for a moment the New Gods location The Source [Replace The Source >>> Replace target plot twist an opponent controls. Search that opponent's deck, hand, and KO'd pile for all cards with the same name as that plot twist and remove them from the game. That opponent shuffles his deck. Use this power only if you control a New Gods character.] and its potential impact on team up decks.If the New Gods prove viable, let alone tier one, then relying on team-ups could be a very risky proposition. Team ups will always be popular in casual circles because they are fun and offer lots of room for personal touches and innovation. Popular competitive decks, however, will usually play it safe and just not get their chocolate mixed up with their peanut butter.
*Bamf*
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