Michael Barnes says, there can be little argument that Dr. Doom is one of the most influential characters in competitive Vs. System play. In all four Pro Circuits in which Marvel Origins has been legal, Dr. Doom has seen play in at least one deck in the Top 8. And in two of these Pro Circuits, PC: Indy 2004 and PC: Los Angeles 2005, a deck that featured Doom won the whole thing. Perhaps most importantly, Dr. Doom was the centerpiece character for three different decks that have seen Day 3 success in Golden Age PCs: Mono Doom, Common Enemy, and New School. Suffice to say, no other character has played such a pivotal role as an engine for powerful Vs. System decks as successfully as the Lord of Latveria has. Read more.
Breaking Ground: Crisis on Infinite Earths
September 14, 2006 at 7:36 am (TCG)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Heralds of Galactus Preview: Rogue, Total Transformation
August 22, 2006 at 6:39 am (TCG)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Rian Fike says, Rogue, Total Transformation is the most thrilling kind of card. I am swelling with pride from the honor of introducing it to you. It has intense artwork that perfectly conveys the uncontrollable nature of Rogue during that period of her life. It gives the X-Men team affiliation a reason to go green while providing them with a solid concealed—optional 6-drop. Whether on offense or defense, no one will want to get stunned by this gal. Sure, it will be a gamble. Every opponent will try to play around the total transformer. Fetching all the other copies of the character she stuns out of the deck beforehand would make her mimicry moot. She will need to be included in a strategy that allows the game to go into the later turns, as her power will be most precious against larger victims. The character card that Rogue stuns and becomes may remain in play. This will create some insane mirror matches that could never take place without her. Read more.
Deck Analysis: Mexican Hardware Store
July 4, 2006 at 8:00 am (TCG)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Graham Van Leeuwen says, Mexican Hardware Store is a rush deck that incorporates burn effects to cause more damage throughout the course of the game. It’s relatively straightforward in what it intends to do, namely cause 50 points of endurance loss before other decks have a chance to set up their defenses. Team-Ups aren’t necessary for the deck to function, as none of the plot twist or equipment cards are team-stamped. In tough situations where team attacking or reinforcing is necessary, Image Inducer provides a fake team-up as well as an ATK bonus.
The standard rush curve of 1- through 5-drops is present, and it contains enough variety to ensure a unique recruit if the game goes to turn 6. Equipment cards are vital for any deck that plans to kill before curve decks get set up, and Mexican Hardware Store has plenty. Eight search cards guarantee you’ll be hitting your curve, and they allow you to include “silver bullet” cards for specific matchups. Mexican Hardware Store plays fast, hits hard, and separates itself from other rush decks by being shockingly consistent. Read more.
UDE $10,000 Championships
June 21, 2006 at 3:31 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Upper Deck Entertainment says, 10K Championships Schedule and Format, a schedule of upcoming 10K Championships. Upper Deck loves to reward its most dedicated players with great prizes! The $10,000 Championships are a way for dedicated players to win fortune and fame. Everyone is Welcome! These tournaments are open to all players, even those with no TCG experience or those already qualified for the Pro Circuit. Win a spot on the Pro Circuit! The top 10 finishers win invitations (10 PC credits) to the exclusive UDE Pro Circuit, which features regular $250,000 tournaments around the world.
$10K Championship Prizes
Everyone can use extra cash! The top 24 finishers will win a total of $10,000.
1st Place $2500 (Prize Card & Check) 24 packs
2nd Place $1500 (Prize Card & Check) 24 packs
3rd-4th $1000 (Prize Card & Check) 24 packs
5th-8th $500 (Prize Card) 24 packs
9th-12th $400 (Prize Card) 12 packs
13th-20th $300 (Prize Card)
21st-24th $200 (Prize Card)
Every $10K champion will also receive:
A magnificent championship trophy
Entrance into the UDE Hall-of-Fame
Constructed Tournament Format
Players bring their own constructed-format Vs. System decks, with 60 cards minimum. Players are expected to accurately complete a decklist of their cards before the tournament begins.
Players will be randomly paired for the first round, and then will be paired against people with similar records until enough rounds are completed to cut to the top 8. On day two, the top 8 players will play-off for the championship!
Sealed Pack Tournament Format
Players are given 5 boosters of the latest Vs. System set to construct their 30 card deck. Players are expected to accurately register the cards they open and the cards they intend to play.
Players will be randomly paired for the first round, and then will be paired against people with similar records until enough rounds are completed to cut to the top 24. On day two, the top 24 players will draft to play-off for the championship! Read more.
Metagame.com: Enemy of My Enemy
May 2, 2006 at 1:39 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Dave Humpherys says, cards that allow you to search out a hero or villain in your time of need have been staples in many popular decks. Deckbuilders around the world are always looking to add that extra bit of consistency with cards like Signal Flare; Bat-Signal; Optitron; Wild Ride; The Ring Has Chosen; Answer the Call; and Kooey, Kooey, Kooey. The Justice League set brought you two generic search effects that any deck can use. Those cards, Secret Origins and Vicarious Living, were meant to give players options when building a deck for a team that didn’t specialize in character searching. And now, here’s a search card that’s likely to change the face of Vs. as you know it. Those of you reading are probably either very excited or wondering how on Earth we could make this card.
The events leading up to the creation of this card began while I was tuning some Mutant-based decks. I’d taken up early efforts to investigate each of the Mutant trait’s deck builds. What would an Energy deck look like? Well, one of the goals of the Mutant traits was for players to be able to treat them like teams. This meant that they would have a number of trait-stamped cards. They would behave as a bridge between teams, functioning much like willpower in that sense. Only in this case, you would have three bridges to choose from. Read more.
Metagame.com: Infinite Crisis Sneak Preview
April 28, 2006 at 7:33 am (Uncategorized)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Anand Khare says, unless you’ve fallen off the face of the Earth for the past few weeks, you should have noticed a certain theme developing on Metagame.com. Daily card previews and community hype have been building for a while now, and it all adds up to one thing: Infinite Crisis is here! The new set that you’ve heard so much about will be making its debut this weekend at worldwide Sneak Preview events. I take it that most of you have attended Sneak Previews before. For those of you who haven’t, let me tell you, they are spectacular. As a player who has played in and written about every type of event from the Pro Circuit on down, I can tell you unequivocally that Sneak Previews are pretty much as good as it gets. There are a bunch of reasons for this. First of all, it’s your very first in-depth look at the set. Besides being a ton of fun, this also serves to be a great equalizer. Even if you haven’t picked up the game in a while, you’re on the same footing as a professional who plays every day. That brings me to the second reason why Sneak Previews are so much fun: they bring different types of players together. Cutthroat competitors, comic book fans, and casual players alike can have a great time checking out the new cards and picking up some swag. That’s the third thing that makes Sneak Previews great, by the way—free stuff. There’s a lot of it. Take these exclusive Extended Art foil cards.
So you walk into your local Sneak Preview and pick up five packs of Infinite Crisis so you can build a Sealed deck. You’re getting ready to sit down and then—bam! Superman. That’s right, folks. You get this hot little Extended Art card just for signing up to play. Read more.
Metagame.com: Lady Shiva
April 21, 2006 at 6:15 am (TCG)
Tags: TCG, VS System
Michael Barnes says, the moment the words came out of his mouth, my brain started percolating with thoughts of how to make a League of Assassins / Hellfire Club deck work. Skittles and I started exchanging ideas, and over the course of the three hour trip back to Dallas, we worked out exactly what cards we’d fit into the deck.
You wanted the limelight, Skittles, and now you have it. Skyler Thomas has a way with the ladies, and he and I are going to show you just how to make Lady Shiva, Master Assassin do your bidding . . . with a little assistance from the Hellfire Club.
Our obvious starting point is Lady Shiva. Since we will have several deck cycling and search cards at our disposal, we will probably only need two copies. From here, we’ll take the route that Skittles and I did and work backwards through the drops to decide who we want at each turn.
On turn 6, we’re going to need a copy of Ra’s al Ghul, Master Swordsman. To be fair, he is not a preferred drop on this turn in any shape or fashion. However, Lady Shiva’s recruit condition requires that we control Ra’s al Ghul. Since UDE has not yet seen fit to give us a card like Doomstadt for the leader of the League of Assassins, we must rely on having a character with his name in play.** Our best opportunity for this will be at the 4-slot, where we have multiple versions of Ra’s al Ghul at our disposal. However, we will not always be able to rely on drawing the 4-drop or on still having him in play on turn 7, so we must play one copy of the 6-drop version to ensure compliance with Lady Shiva’s cost. Our primary 6-drop is going to be Magneto, Black Lord. The way Skittles described the combo was impressive to say the least: ship Lady Shiva to the hidden area (using Deadly Game or the like), use her effect to KO our opponent’s 7-drop, and then stun Lady Shiva with Magneto’s effect to stun our opponent’s 6-drop. Magneto and our remaining characters will be free to ravage our opponent’s significantly weakened board. Out of the mouths of babes and all! Read more.
