I can see it: players striving for the best, turning themselves outwards toward each other. Somewhere we suddenly developed an honest, caring community that asks “What do you need?” instead of “What can I get?” It is one with power in its fist and determination in its breath. We have formed a group of people with smiles and laughs, new friends, some common ground, and some really good times. It’s not about naming names. It doesn’t matter whom you’re friends with. Somehow, we became universally approachable to each other.
We became equals.
Each one of us brings something different to the table, and yet each of us equally holds the future of the game we love in our hands.
- Aaron “OnyxWeapon” Mead
Welcome to another edition of Rallying Cry! I would like to thank Aaron Mead for that warm introduction, and I would like to direct your attention to his wonderfully Canadian blog for more. Not only will you find that quote, but there is also a killer tribute to Dean Sohnle this week. Fabulous stuff.
Of course, in our quest to keep a finger on the pulse of the community while we crown the first-ever Vs. System Hero of the Month, we cannot deny the power of a simple email. I was overwhelmed by this one:
Hi Rian,
My name is Kristoffer, and I live and play Vs. System in New Zealand. I have to say I’ve really enjoyed reading your articles. They always seem to show the fun and the passion in the game, and the sheer excitement you seemed to have over the prizes at the recent Mega Weekend reminded me of when I was a kid, picking up my latest comic from the corner store. It was the highlight of the month getting the latest issue of my favorite title and adding it to the rest of my collection. So, a big thank you for sharing your own excitement and reminding me of the excitement I used to enjoy.
As for the scene here in New Zealand, there is a pocket of players working with our local store to make sure product is always stocked. We received our first shipment of DC Legends less than two weeks ago. In our Hobby League fervor, we all contacted each other and started early, getting in two drafts. We cleared about a quarter of the stock that was brought in that night. We all continue to play and love the game, with each one of us seeming to have our own little way of playing and our favorite characters.
At the draft last week, I tried something new: I ran a control deck for the first time instead of trying for the typical beatdown approach. And I did okay. In fact, my results were better than usual. I caught others off guard, I made them stop and think—I even made one of the judges start sweating.
It felt great. It was something new for me, and I want to follow it up. I hope I get the chance to, because once again I feel like the 9-year-old waiting to open his latest comic book treasure all over again. It’s fantastic.
Ironically, our own little group is growing and expanding one person at a time, adding others who find the depth and freedom of the game just as intoxicating and addictive as we do. We don’t have the array of experiences to share—nor the advice, tactics, and guidance that many others can give—but we have the passion and the joy of the game.
My short spiel has turned into a novel, but I just wanted to wave my hand and say please don’t forget us. Thank you for your time and your articles. I look forward to seeing what you and others still have to share with all of us.
Regards,
Kristoffer Schou
Hamilton, New Zealand
Kristoffer, reports like that keep the wind in the sails. I salute you, and give mad props to Alex, Jared, Avon, and Jason for the photographic evidence. Dedication like yours encourages everyone. Please continue.
Staying on the email kick, I would like to share Charles Burke’s personal vision for the Infinites. I am obviously obsessed. Check this out:
First thought: mass accumulation of counters on one character via Breeding Pens and Freak Out, only to come full circle and transfer all counters onto Apocalypse’s Age of Apocalypse 5-drop. After attacking on turn 5, sacrifice that Apocalypse to bring out the Age of Apocalypse 8-drop, and attack again.
Apocalyptic Infi-Beats
Charles Burke
Characters
4 Elasti-Girl
14 The Infinites
4 Mento
3 Apocalypse, Age of Apocalypse (5-drop)
3 Apocalypse, Age of Apocalypse (8-drop)
Plot Twists
4 Freak Out
4 Strategic Thinking
4 Membership Drive
4 Forbidden Loyalties
4 Survival of the Fittest
4 Meltdown
4 Enemy of My Enemy
Locations
4 Breeding Pens
Ideal Play:
Turn 1 – Elasti-Girl.
Turn 2 – The Infinites; use Freak Out.
Turn 3 – Mento; use Freak Out to transfer counters to Mento.
Turn 4 – Recruit two Infinites. Use Freak Out to transfer counters to Mento. KO The Infinites to Breeding Pen to add counters to Mento.
Turn 5 – Start with the 5-drop Apocalypse. Use Freak Out to transfer counters to him; attack with a 29 ATK / 29 DEF Apocalypse. KO Apocalypse to bring in 8-drop Apocalypse. Attack with the big guy for the win.
Between Freak Out, Strategic Thinking, Membership Drive, Forbidden Loyalties, Survival of the Fittest, and Breeding Pens, there are plenty of counters to stockpile on Apocalypse to activate his 20-counter cost on turn 5 and bring out the 8-drop after the attack. Sounds like a plan.
Sincerely,
Charles Burke
Dear Sir: Sign me up! Tricks like that form the essence of Vs. System jank. Whether they come via email, blog, or message board, we want to wallow in them each week. Thank you.
Moving back blog-side, we find a very special series of articles appearing on Lost Hemisphere.
David “captainspud” Tierney is in the house. He is one of the most engaging and enraptured Vs. System fans in existence. He has started a project called “How I’d Do It.” With this endeavor, he is taking his favorite characters and cards and dressing them up in new clothes, but not before he thoroughly analyzes the background myths and mechanics that tickled his fancy in the first place. Sample:
I was a huge fan of the X-Statix comics, and I was pretty shocked (and delighted, of course, but mostly shocked) to see them appear in Vs. System at all . . . never mind being a fully featured team in the game’s first year.
What made me even happier was when it turned out that they had a really interesting mechanical concept for the team. They strive for, and benefit from, having exactly one guy on the board. Considering the extraordinarily curve-based meta that existed at the time, the X-Statix strategy seemed, to say the least, ill-advised. And yet, it worked.
At its core, X-Statix is a control deck. Control comes in a lot of flavors, but ultimately, any good control deck aims to have the opponent sitting there at the end of the turn with a slightly shocked look on his face, muttering, “That wasn’t how that was supposed to go at all.”
The X-Statix use all three control types to a degree, but they focus most heavily on combat control. With Acrobatic Dodge and Entangle legal at the time, X-Statix could pull off some incredible turnovers on an opponent’s initiative. For instance: I exhaust my 5-drop to exhaust your 4; you swing your 2 and 3 into my 5 with a pump; I brickwall with Dead Weight and stun your 3. Your 5 comes in with another pump; I take the stun and stun your 5. I play Spin Doctoring to recover and smash your 4.
It was your initiative, but I wiped your board.
Spud is amazing in those articles, boiling down Vs. System mechanical theory to the sticky bones. Then he creates a casserole of potential updates, grinning and glowing the whole time. His articles are educational and enriching, for cardflipper and comic book addict alike. Very, very enjoyable.
If your taste runs more technical, then Paul Sung is the man to see. Every Thursday is Bearsday on the original Vs. System blog. There is nothing deranged at all about these strings of serious strategy. Here is some sage advice on the current competitive environment:
If you have not tested much, I suggest playing either a Deadshot, Floyd Lawton deck or an Ahmed Samsarra deck. These both have such powerful fundamentals that they can just randomly beat up opponents, even if you’re not playing optimally. Certainly you’ll want some practice learning how to meet Deadshot’s requirement on 3, but overall these decks are just really good. In addition, they are probably the best candidates for toolboxing in the format.
The other recourse is to find something new that can trump Ahmed and Deadshot. This is much easier said than done, but if you somehow manage to find something you like with relatively good percentages against both favorites, that is the deck you want to play.
Imagine the metagame as a picture or a diagram: if Ahmed Samsarra and Deadshot are the decks that control the vertical boundary of the Silver Age metagame, I would say that Have a Blast! dictates the horizontal boundary.
Thanks Paul, for remaining true to your school and providing the theoretical analysis that the competitive soul thrives on. Thanks Miguel, for hosting such a brilliant bear-like brain for us. See you there, every Thursday.
And now for something completely different.
The beauty of blogging is the bare individuality that it exposes. Where else could we find an ode to the crazy crunchy coolness of Shiloh Norman? Take a little trip with me, to the land of the Vs. Corps:
While thinking of the best teams to abuse Shiloh with, I became bogged down with ideas. This is something that never happens to me, so I figured I’d take advantage of the situation and write up a little bit on the many possibilities. The first thing I thought of was Villains United. They have an easy method of teaming-up, Join Us or Die to get multiple stuns out of Shiloh, and a 1-drop that can search for characters with vengeance. They do not really fit the stall theme, though. In fact, their stall-oriented character is already a 3-drop. If Dr. Polaris, Force of Nature was a 7 ATK / 7 DEF 4-drop, this team-up would get me too excited, especially with Mr. Freeze, Brutal Blizzard on turn 5. If you can make this work, give me a shout with your list. I would love to see it!
Yes, Scott Thompson rocks. He actually wrote a rundown of six different team affiliations that could perform the Shiloh miracle before he went on Spring Break. When he gets back, he is going to keep going! Join his corps today and get involved—or, better yet, start your own and cross-pollinate. We are having big fun in the blogosphere, and everyone is invited.
While clicking around, you might stumble upon the Tier 2 Tutor and hear this:
One of my goals in the game has always been to come up with a slightly competitive Army deck. Out of my Vs. playing friends, I’ve always been the one to bring the jank-tastic Army decks and see if they can at least scrape out a win.
Or, you might jump into the biggest Vs. System projects ever and see which team affiliation the Kaleesh Warrior is working on now:
As much of a Bat-Fan as I am, I absolutely cannot remember having heard of the Outsiders before getting into Vs. System. It’s horrible of me, I know. I guess it’s just because they aren’t in the Batman movies or old animated series, which are my primary sources of Bat-goodness. If not for Vs. System and the World’s Finest expansion, I never would have known Batman had founded his own superhero team.
Now, most Outsiders decks are team attack decks. The reasoning is a big fat “Duh!” You have Batman and the Outsiders; Kimiyo Hoshi ◊ Dr. Light, Sunburst; Get It Done; Wylde, and all those other team-attacking goodies. However, there is another side to the Outsiders that could be considered part of the team attack theme but is also something bigger. That side is swinging up-curve.
The Brave and the Blog is a bounty of Vs. System goodness, and it took the secondary Outsiders theme to the streets this week:
Goodnight, Grace!
Characters
4 Thunder, Anissa Pierce
3 Halo, Gabrielle Doe
4 Grace, Grace Choi
3 Katana, Tatsu Yamashiro
4 Batman, Problem Solver
2 Barbara Gordon ◊ Oracle, Hacker Elite
1 Catwoman, Feline Fatale
4 Huntress, Harsh Mistress
2 Batman, Twilight Vigilante
3 Grace, The Bouncer
Plot Twists
3 Soul Slicer
3 Fighting the Liar
4 The Hook-Up
2 Training Day
4 Bat-Signal
4 Taking Out the Trash
4 Crackshot
3 SKREEEEEEE!
Equipment
3 Batmobile, Burn Rubber
This deck is BYOS and Random Punks legal, so that’s kind of fun. As always, the plan is simple: hit their big characters with your tiny ones, making use of control-oriented Batman and Huntress to ensure that your opponent plays fairly.
Head over to The Brave and the Blog to see the results while we explore a new frontier. Billy “foilball” Zonos has spearheaded a new blog full of reviewers, and they are answering this call from Steve “kamiza” Garrett—as well as keeping the community absolutely up to date on the bumper crop of current comic myths. The Kamiza said:
As someone who came into the game of Vs. System with no comic background knowledge, I find myself lacking and feeling a little estranged when I hear folks debating and dancing around the quirks and characteristics that make up our roster of heroes and villains. I’ve begun to feel a draw toward the comics the longer I play this game, and I’ve recently bought a few graphic novels. Now, I’m not the sort to start subscribing to monthly comics, but I am interested in reading some meatier content on some of the names in the game. With that in mind, I’m looking for some help from the more educated in terms of comic culture. These are the thirteen characters I’m interested in reading about. If anyone can recommend a good graphic-novel-type thing for these guys, please leave a message after the beep.
The message was returned, in part, on the fabulous new read/RANT blog, within a Wonder Woman review by Steve “Desiato” Katz:
Everything I had a problem with—from future Blue Beetle’s lack of concern for changing the past, to the random appearance of Ultra-Humanite and Despero, to the fact that nothing about the time stream ever changed, to the fallout of Booster’s father as another Supernova—is dealt with in an interesting and legitimately exciting way. I love that since Ted was never killed, Wonder Woman never went looking for Max Lord to lead to his death, which means the OMACs have pretty much taken over the world. Sure, this time line probably won’t last more than an issue or two, but this is the type of stuff that’s pretty much required if you’re trying to tell a legitimate time travel story.
Trying to tell the time travel story of the Vs. System blogosphere is a thousand-mile-an-hour challenge, especially when we come to the climax of the week.
Chris “gdaybloke” Miller pioneers the Lost Hemisphere, and he and his friends have gone cuckoo in the best sort of way. They created an NCAA basketball-styled mock tournament, with every team affiliation and strategy they could think of. The results? See for yourself. These are the current standings for the Pudding Bracket, followed by an attempted explanation from its co-author:
Is there anything more dangerous than a handful of Vs. System nuts with too much time on their hands? One minute your day’s proceeding normally, the next you’re swept up in a maelstrom as an offhanded comment turns into a fully-fledged deckbuilding frenzy with improbable matchups, off-the-wall builds, and a bracket that could lead to anyone taking the prize! Forget that silly basketball stuff . . . THIS is March Madness!
The brackets, the brilliance, the total immersion in the Vs. System experience . . . it does not get any better. You will have to excuse me now; I need to study the matchups in Round Two so I can make the optimal picks, rubbing my favorite charms three times just in case. I will meet you back here next week for another Rallying Cry! Good luck.
Rian Fike is also known and stubarnes, and he grew up with a green rabbit’s foot keychain. Send your latest good luck charms to: rianfike@hattch.com