It's been a good two weeks. I've played more Vs. in that time than I probably have in the past 3 or 4 months put together. We've got a few new players who are really into learning the game and older players are playing more often. It's all good stuff, because the more games I get to play, the more fun I have!
I've had a chance to play with and against most of the main teams in Marvel Universe. I'll cover each one below based on my play experiences. Of course they all have their pros and cons, like any other team previously. A lot of my testing gets done with decks made entirely of commons, to get a feel for what the teams can do if a person only has a few packs to work with. Any uncommons or rares that get added in after that are even better. So let's get started.
Avengers: This team has some amazing rally effects. Coupled with the sheer volume of reservists and leader cards available you can really do some crazy stuff. With a few good rally effects you can have a mittful of cards in your hand and shouldn't miss a drop after turn 2 or 3. You'll also have plenty of cards available to pay discard costs, or use as power-ups.
SHIELD: Of the main teams this is the only one I haven't played against except in team-up decks. These guys really seem to center around your army characters. You'll need a good number of soldiers to make things happen, but if you can get it to work it's good times.
Crime Lords: This team can seriously burn you with a lot of effects, centering mainly on the various Red Skull cards. Master Man is a stand out as well I think. If you play it carefully you can lose characters every turn and still keep growing while bleeding your opponent to death.
Thunderbolts: I think so far this is my favorite team to play. They have some fantastic mechanics to keep their characters on the board, and they almost all get better the longer they stay around. I've seen the 2-drop Beetle <> Mach sitting on the board with eight +1/+1 counters on him. An 11/9 2-drop is insane!
Warbound: While it has been said many times already, I think this is definitely going to be the deck to beat for a while. If you can hit the combination of Brood (4), Hulk (5), and Hulk (6) with his boost on turns 4, 5, and 6 you've got something really tough to beat. Since almost all of these powers are triggered effects and not payment powers or plot twists, they're very difficult to negate. If you boost in Hulk on turn 6 you have a 19/19 body who is only a location or Archangel-discard away from having flight, and anyone he stuns gets sent to the KO pile. That's just nasty.
The other smaller affiliations: Nextwave, Negative Zone, Illuminati (yes, I know not an affiliation, but it works about the same), and Alpha Flight are largely unexplored by me thus far. I'd dearly love to make an Alpha Flight deck. I think they have a very interesting mechanic, but I simply can't figure out what other team they would work well with yet. Sasquatch fits in well with the Warbound, but he's not really a good replacement for the 5-drop Hulk. I'll have to do some more testing with the smaller TAs to see what will work out.
That's it for now. Please post or email me any comments!
I've had a chance to play with and against most of the main teams in Marvel Universe. I'll cover each one below based on my play experiences. Of course they all have their pros and cons, like any other team previously. A lot of my testing gets done with decks made entirely of commons, to get a feel for what the teams can do if a person only has a few packs to work with. Any uncommons or rares that get added in after that are even better. So let's get started.
Avengers: This team has some amazing rally effects. Coupled with the sheer volume of reservists and leader cards available you can really do some crazy stuff. With a few good rally effects you can have a mittful of cards in your hand and shouldn't miss a drop after turn 2 or 3. You'll also have plenty of cards available to pay discard costs, or use as power-ups.
SHIELD: Of the main teams this is the only one I haven't played against except in team-up decks. These guys really seem to center around your army characters. You'll need a good number of soldiers to make things happen, but if you can get it to work it's good times.
Crime Lords: This team can seriously burn you with a lot of effects, centering mainly on the various Red Skull cards. Master Man is a stand out as well I think. If you play it carefully you can lose characters every turn and still keep growing while bleeding your opponent to death.
Thunderbolts: I think so far this is my favorite team to play. They have some fantastic mechanics to keep their characters on the board, and they almost all get better the longer they stay around. I've seen the 2-drop Beetle <> Mach sitting on the board with eight +1/+1 counters on him. An 11/9 2-drop is insane!
Warbound: While it has been said many times already, I think this is definitely going to be the deck to beat for a while. If you can hit the combination of Brood (4), Hulk (5), and Hulk (6) with his boost on turns 4, 5, and 6 you've got something really tough to beat. Since almost all of these powers are triggered effects and not payment powers or plot twists, they're very difficult to negate. If you boost in Hulk on turn 6 you have a 19/19 body who is only a location or Archangel-discard away from having flight, and anyone he stuns gets sent to the KO pile. That's just nasty.
The other smaller affiliations: Nextwave, Negative Zone, Illuminati (yes, I know not an affiliation, but it works about the same), and Alpha Flight are largely unexplored by me thus far. I'd dearly love to make an Alpha Flight deck. I think they have a very interesting mechanic, but I simply can't figure out what other team they would work well with yet. Sasquatch fits in well with the Warbound, but he's not really a good replacement for the 5-drop Hulk. I'll have to do some more testing with the smaller TAs to see what will work out.
That's it for now. Please post or email me any comments!
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