Editor: Webmaster. Thursday 18th November 2004.
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Editor: Webmaster. Thursday 18th November 2004.
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or Some Very Early Thoughts on Limited Man of Steel
Except for those luck people heading off to PC SoCal, I think there are very few people who are not happy to say that our days of drafting ‘Web of Spiderman’ are over. Don’t get me wrong, I love VS, but I have not been able to get a draft for well over a month, as no one wants to draft WoS. It was not a good draft set. But, all of that is about to change with Superman – Man of Steel (MoS) leaping onto the VS scene. This article is a very early collection of thoughts on sealed pack and drafting MoS. Already, a number of people have approached me with questions about what cards I think will be good in the limited environment. I know I am going out on a limb, but as the complete spoiler is out, I thought it may be handy for those who are not confident limited players to have a basic guide as to what cards are good to include in their decks, particularly if you are playing in a Sneak Peak this Weekend. I will focus on common cards, though give special mention to a few uncommon cards. This is because these are cards you are most likely to see. Obviously, there are rare bombs that will cause devastation, but you are very unlikely to have one of these, so I’m afraid you will need to make up your own mind if you get one of these. As an important note to understanding the MoS set it is important to be familiar with the new mechanics in the set – namely ‘Cosmic’ and ‘Invulnerability’. As these are explained in many other places I will not go into them here, but Top of my list of cards to look out for are team-up cards. Unlike WoS, which had only only two main affiliations, MoS has four. Thus, in limited play, the ability to team-up different affiliations becomes highly important again. The Superman set comes with a great new team-up card – 'Metropolis'. Metropolis brings something new to Vs. It's a team-up location, and best off all for limited play, it is a common. Besides being a location card it works the same as 'Marvel Team-Up' or 'World's Finest'. The only other team-up card I have been able to spot in the spoiler is 'Royal Decree', an uncommon. This is a plot twists that works much the same way as previous generic team-up cards with 2 important differences – it's threshold cost is 3 (rather than 2), and if one of the two affiliations you name is New Gods you get to draw a card. It's great to see that each set UDE continues t due something new with the concept of the team up card, which is so vital to limited play (and as an aside is a significant part of the constructed metagame). After team up the next on my hit list in drafting, and important for any limited deck are good plot twists and locations. MoS has a few 'little rippers' in the common slot. I'll talk about the ones available to any deck first, and about the team specific ones in a quick run down of each affiliation. Again, I will be sticking to commons (except for the odd important uncommon). Top of my list is 'I Hate Magic!”
I Hate Magic!Threshold: 2Effect: Target defender gets -3 DEF and loses invulnerability this attack. Wow. Not only do you get to reduce the defenders defence by 3, but if they have invulnerability they lose it. I can see this being use late game for 4 drops to take down 5 drops, or 5 drops to maul 6 drops, etc etc. A close second to ‘I Hate Magic!’ would be ‘Heat Vision’. This card has great surprise value. Not only does your defender’s attack increase by 3, and cause the attacker to stun where it was not expected, but the attacker loses additional endurance. This card is going to really hurt a lot of people. Honourable mentions go to ‘Path of Destruction’, ‘Female Furies’ and ‘Up, Up, and Away’ in that order. The next area of consideration is team specific cards. A great feature of this new set is a common seven cost character for each of the four major affiliations. Having a few big cost characters in a limited deck is usually essential. TEAM SUPERMAN In Team Superman (yes, lets all give UDE a cheer for the most dumb affiliation name so far!) there are a few common characters that jump out at me from the spoiler. The first is ‘Cir-El <> Supergirl’. In a Team where most characters have cosmic, having a common character that replaces cosmic counters on all other characters with cosmic appears to be amazing. That her cosmic ability then benefits from other characters having cosmic is a wonderful piece of design symmetry. Though her stats are slightly below the curve (with an attack of 8) when she has a cosmic counter she will be on the curve or above. Honourable mentions go to ‘Eradicator’, this teams seven cost character, and Superman – Red, who is able to make Superman “not unique”. Though there are no common plot twists or locations for this team, I will give a brief mention to ‘Man of Tomorrow’ – which allows you to search for a Superman. NEW GODS The New Gods have a few very exciting common characters. ‘Izaya <> Highfather’, with his ability to recover a stunned character could be great. For a four cost character his stats of 7/8 sit nicely above the curve. ‘Lightray’ is the New Gods common seven cost character, with an awesome ability when you don’t have the initiative – he burns your opponent for seven endurance. Continuing the burn theme theme is ‘Mark Moonrider’, whose cosmic ability is activate and burn for five. Finally there is ‘Metron’, who while he has a cosmic counter is a ‘Fizzle’ on a stick. With common characters like these I suspect the New Gods will be very strong in limited. REVENGE SQUAD Hats off to the ‘Braniac 2.5’
Brainiac 2.5Version: Vrill DoxRecruit: 5Flight: NoRange: NoAtk: 9Def: 8Abilities: While Brainiac 2.5 is ready, non-Revenge Squad characters get -1 DEF.While Brainiac 2.5 is exhausted, non-Revenge Squad characters get -1 ATK.Boost 2: When Brainiac 2.5 comes into play non-Revenge Squad characters get -2 ATK and -2 DEF this turn. Though his 9/8 stats sit just below the curve for defence whenever he is attacking he blunts the defenders attack anyway. As long as he is not stunned he effects all of your opponents characters. I get the feeling that this will have significant effects over 2-3 turns. Special mentions go to ‘Gog’, the common seven cost who cause endurance loss just by attacking you. That’s nice. I will be interested to see if ‘Metallo’ and ‘Parasite’ are as good as they look., or if I have been fooled. DARKSEID ELITE I struggled to find a stand out common character in this team. ‘Desaad’ and his ability to inflict extra endurance loss could be useful, but looks rather situational. ‘Devilance’ might do a few extra point of stun damage (depending in how many face down resources your opponent controls) and has the ability to boost to a 14/14 seven cost character (for a turn). ‘Kalibak’ is the common seven cost in this team, and he is very big at 18/17 but he comes with a nasty drawback – you loose 7 endurance when he is stunned. Finally spare a thought for Kanto, who may be able to inflict the odd surprise stun on opponents until they are ready for him. Well, with these thoughts in mind, I hope you will all go out and play in Sneak Peaks this weekend. I will be playing at Card Heaven in Chapel Street (Melbourne). You can check the details at www.cardheaven.com.au. I hope to see many of you there, leaping buildings in a single bound. Up, up, up and away. |
