Where's the VS?

It's been a long time since I actually wrote an article about a VS System event, cards, or decks. This month due to scheduling conflicts I'll only be able to attend two of our weekly VS nights. The one I'm missing next week was actually something I was really looking forward to: DC Legend.

Most of the players in our group know, but you might not, that I prefer the DC Comics universe over that of Marvel. While I do have some beloved characters over there (Alpha Flight anyone?), there's just something that appeals more to me about DC's denizens. How that relates to my experience with building legend decks is what I thought I'd talk about today.

Going from memory I can recall four specific Legend builds of my own creation: Batman, Superman Sinestro and Darkseid. I've also tackled a Batman-Superman dual-legend which was a lot of fun to play as well.

Batman lends himself too much to control/negation, which is not my favorite style of play. I enjoyed the effects on his support characters more than those of the Dark Knight himself. Superman has tons of different strategies, and I've tried a few of them. While not a legend deck, the one I had the most fun testing was a Team Superman/New Gods team-up that tried to use the 5-cost Superman Blue with the New Gods soldier character. It didn't prove very successful though, and led me to try something similar with the Teen Titans. Again, not much success, but a fun diversion.

Sinestro is the character that I have spent the least amount of time working with, even though he has great support in the DCU set. I know other players have come up with far better builds than mine. But hands down my favorite of those four legends would have to be Darkseid!

Admittedly Darkseid's effects also lean more towards control, but I find them to be far more fun thematically than those of Batman. There's just something deliciously evil about making your opponents afraid to play plot twists, stun your characters or even flip resources over. Burn, KO, extra stun; Darkseid's everywhere, and if he doesn't get you, his Female Furies will!

I took my Darkseid deck apart a few months ago to try building a deck for a Countdown format and never put it back together. Now I'm wishing I had, because it was what I was hoping to play next week. Yes I know, Hal Jordan is the biggest, most powerful DC character in the game right now...but that's because someone designing the DCU set had a huge construct for him in their tights. I'd rather play something malicious and tricky that leaves my opponent guessing than a straight up, beat down deck.

Of course that's probably why I lose so often. I don't go for the obvious or easy path to victory. I want the fight to be entertaining, and without the danger of losing, where's the fun in the conflict?

I'm off to find my Darkseid Legend deck list. Apokolips awaits...