Todays preview is non other than the Sorcerer Supreme himself. Dr. Strange, Secret Avenger.

Dr. Strange, Secret Avenger
Character
Cost 2
2/3
F/R
Avengers/Marvel Knights
Concealed

Reservist

When Dr. Strange comes into play, rally for a card type of your choice. Each time you’re successful, repeat this process with a card type you haven’t chosen yet. (The card types are character, equipment, location and plot twist.)

MUN-010

I am really impressed with how the Illuminati are being handled this time around. Especially as it makes a Crisis Black Bolt possible, not that it would necessarily be amazing, but from a fan-boy perspective it is amazing. From Ben Secks complete list in mondays article it seems as though they are finishing off some of the illuminati’s curves which for some legends involves the low costing characters. Dr. Strange is one such low costing character.

So then, lets take a step back from all the Illuminati shennanigans and look at this card. He’s reservist and he’s concealed so can easily slot his way into Marvel Knights or the Avengers. He has flight and range, which in the current modern age is looking pretty darn sweet, due to to the distinct lack of flight/flight granting abilities.

So, Rally. We have seen one previous rally card Captain America, Secret Avenger which to me indicates Secret Avengers have a rallying theme to them, but too far it may be too early to say. This Rally effect that our sorcerer supreme has is something quite special. I like cards that involve risks, this instantly makes this card appeal to me, and considering all the top of the deck shenanigans that the illuminati have had previously makes this good.

One such card is the Secret Government. Search for a character and get the boost cost relatively free. Even if you don’t combine him with tricks, he still has the potential to net you up to a whopping 4 cards. 100 Ideas is a nice touch with this, because you have cycled through, you may have missed a card when you fail with Dr. Strange, which makes it all the better, because you have advanced knowledge of when you should use 100 ideas.

Superhuman Registration Act. Revealing the top card of your deck makes you Garunteed to net one card, and then it is all how your deck is stacked. This sort of allows you to make an Illmuniati rush, because their search effects put on top of the deck, they have the top of the deck manipulation from past days and with the Superhuman Registration Act a rush deck leading up to a resource KO or hand discard is not unreasonable.

I’m sure your may be like me, now that todays preview is up, Bring on tomorrows preview!

The past week or so has been the last weeks at university. So I now have more time to blog. GTA4 has taken up my entire weekend as well, which is why this is being posted now.

First of all, let me talk about GTA. It’s good. It’s really good, but it’s not amazing. The missions are good, the pay is good, but mad rampages aren’t as mad. Vice city had it right, even now I could spend hours killing everyone in sight, just for fun. This just doesn’t have that fun factor.

Second, the money. The single most pointless thing in the world. Vice City and San Andreas(the game that shall not be named, that was named) both had actual applications for the money. You could buy cars, new houses, sweet upgrades for your cars. This one? Burgers, hot dogs, sodas, chicken, hookers, strippers, taxis and weapons. Weapons and taxis. These are the only ones that are worth having on the game. Sure hookers are a good way of making about $40 if you kill them, but it gets boring. Sure the food is good to replenish your health but kind of shit.

Drink driving is one of the really nice touches. If you go out drinking, the screen goes all wibbly your driving goes all wibbly, and you fall down all the time. The nicest touch of it all though is the police will try to pull you over for drink driving. Anyways, whether or not the 360 has worse graphics the acheivements that you can get are fun and worth getting.

As good as Vice City, not as good as GTA3 though. GTA3 was where it peaked, I will be surprised if we ever see one as good.

So, back to VS. Tonight the Illuminati cards were spoiled, sans article. So far, they have exhaust effects, hand fill and an uncommon search. I am building illuminati, and it has been brought up that a team-up with the infinity watch - iron mans convienient second affiliation- gives anybody a deck with 8 tutors. I was always one for 4 tutors, but 8 is the key. 8 Uncommons are going to be sweet.

So far the illuminati keyverb, keycondensationofalotofnames, whatever seems like the perfect way to handle a ”team” like the illuminati, and I am impressed. Maybe we will get some actual legend cards to go along with the illuminati theme. I NEED to make a Black Bolt legend deck.

What I am finding intersting is that when this comes out we will at least have a 3,4,5 of Iron Man, which is a wierd distributon for a legend curve, not unlike ghost riders 3,5,6,8. So hopefully we will get a 2 or a 7 cost Iron Man to go with the 5 and 6. Though the equipment to go on the Iron Man could be a little silly on a 7 drop Iron Man, so I am thinking that it may not happen for us.

100 Ideas. 100 more ways that Family of Four can get even better. Sigh. I am not lucking forward to this, so hopefully we will get some more out of combat stuns/exhausts for characters with a cost of 3 or less.

What I want most out of this set it bizarre though. I really, really want a few c/uc generics. Prefereably a search card, even if it is along the lines of a Vicarious Living card, something that says something along the lines of:

To play Discard a Character Card.

Search your deck for a character card with cost less than the card you discarded that shares a printed affiliation with that character card.

I ask this because I know when I started the game, I couldn’t win games because I didn’t have the search capabilities of some of the other players. We also need a Flying Kick card in modern, even if is just an homage to Flying Kick, like Roundhouse Kick or something silly.

I hope I can pull all the C/UC’s I need from the 2 boxes I have on order, mostly because I don’t think I can afford more than 2 boxes of it.

Right so this is my very first article and I would like to thank Joe (lordoflimbo) for giving me the opportunity to write for his blog, and I hope you all enjoy it.

It was not a difficult to decide what I would write about in this first article as I have one thing on my mind and it just excites me sooooo much. Ever since the release of DCL I saw league of Assassins (LOA) and knew instantly that I needed to abuse their location theme…

My first idea was to team LOA with Inhumans as they also have a location them, however when I found a major problem… LOA like to replace locations Inhumans like face up resources, the two themes did not seem to click. Checkmate (shudder) was an option, but not one I was willing to consider, just like Joe, I am also a member of the “checkmate hate” simply because I find that one character (that I will not dignify by saying his name) simply spoils the game in my opinion.

Well I put this project to one side whilst I worked on my Unofficial UK Nationals BYOS deck (Inhumans / Heralds of Galactus) Then it struck me!!!

LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS / HERALDS OF GALACTUS!!!

Heralds of Galactus have a lot of locations a fair amount of search and draw effects and some characters with some nice abilities too.

I tried to build the deck, but I couldn’t find any 1-drop characters or enough locations that would be useful for this deck (or what I wanted to do with it). Therefore I decided to throw in some Inhumans in the form of Lockjaw and San, and also some of there locations Atilan and Blue Area of the Moon. These cards are really really nice (search for any card and no stun-backs = thank you very much).

A Key Note: Inhumans are not a major theme in this deck, so if I have face down resources or don’t get Atilan at all, it really does not matter.

So now I have a finished formula of:

LEAGUE OF ASSASSINS / HERALDS OF GALACTUS / INHUMANS!!!

So, Here is the moment you have all been waiting for… The Decklist and how to play it:

Characters (32)

1 Drops

x4 Lockjaw, Inhuman’s Best Friend

2 Drops

x2 Silver Surfer, Skyrider of the Spaceways

x4 San, The Alienated One

3 Drops

x2 Crystal, Elementelle

x4 The Mad Dog, Rabid Killer

4 Drops

x2 Terrax, The Tamer

x4 Merlin, Direct Hit Man

5 Drops

x1 Red Shift, Rift Walker

x1 Silver Surfer, Righteous Protector

x1 Cassandra Cain, Daughter of Shiva

6 Drops

x1 Terrax, Harbinger of Ruin

x1 David Cain, World Class Assassin

x1 Nyssa Raatko, Daughter of the Demon

7 Drops

x1 Silver Surfer, Last Zenn-Lavian

x1 Galactus, The Maker

8 Drops

x1 Tyrant, The Original Herald

9 Drops

x1 Galactus, Devourer of Worlds

Locations (17)

x2 Attilan

x2 Elemental Converters

x1 Worldship

x1 The Kyln

x1 Soul World

x1 Negative Zone

x1 Blue Area of the moon

x2 Lazarus Pit

x1 Mountain Stronghold

x1 Flying Fortress

x4 Metropolis Reborn

Plot Twists (12)

x2 Creation of a Herald

x4 Kindred Spirits

x1 Power Struggle

x4 The Demon’s Head

x1 Demonfang

Equipment (4)

x2 Mind Gem

x1 Reality Gem

x1 Power Gem

Total Cards = 65

So the general idea is to stun and bounce your opponent’s board.

The ideal play is as follows:

Turn 1

Lockjaw – if you hit him, fetch San, if you don’t, who cares it does not matter

Turn 2

San – If you hit him fetch Attilan, if you don’t, who cares it does not matter

OR

Silver Surfer – If you hit him fetch Elemental converters or Metropolis Reborn or Merlin, Direct Hit Man, whichever suits you more at the time.

Turn 3

Mad Dog – KO your opponents 2 drop

Turn 4

Merlyn – But do not use his ability this turn unless you have Worldship in your resource row

Turn 5

Silver Surfer – Remove his counter, Use Merlyn’s ability then attack your opponent’s 4 drop. Now you have KO’d your opponent’s 2 drop, bounced their 3 and 4 drops, while you still have a full board.

Turn 6

Nyssa Raatko – Only play her based on how many locations you can exhaust, you are looking to KO characters with her, not recover your own!

Terrax - If for some reason their 4 drop is still around

David Cain – Is nice and can do a lot of damage

Turn 7

You now have a choice; you can either Stall, or Try to win. If you have the initiative play Galactus and win (half your opponents endurance and beat them up)

Or

You can play Silver Surfer and Play Galactus (9-drop) on turn 8 and win

Do not be afraid of replacing locations that you may consider important, Attilan is not that great as a lot of the time it doesn’t work, Elemental Converters is nice but not a necessity, and the others can be easily replaced too.

There is a lot of search to ensure that you get the locations in your resource row and hit the characters that you need to.

Well after testing this deck a few times I decided it was time to release it to the public and went playing a few friendly games at my hobby league.

The best thing about this deck is the look that people give me when I tell them what it is, they just look really confused it’s hilarious!

I then asked Joe for his opinion of the deck (as he is a good deck builder and I have the utmost respect for his ability in the game). He asked if he could play as the deck so he could get a feel for it and understand it better. So he used this deck and I used his Dr. Doom deck (link here).

Joe won the game, and then my most proud moment came… He said that this deck was “Amazing”. He told me that he not only liked it because it consisted of out of combat stuns, but it was “tricksy” too. There was so much you can do with the deck, it is just real fun to play.

I am not trying to say the deck is perfect, I got beat by darkseid in a close game with Dave (bungo_underhill) as he just brick-walled all of my attacks so I could not bounce his characters. However the deck is quite good and really fun to play.

It may need some work but for now I would definitely check it out!!!

Rob ‘RD52169′  Elstone.

I had notes on my drafting experience, but there was a little mishap with a jug of water, and now… all I remember is that I went 2-1.

I went in to the draft with wanting to try something new. I had never played revenge squad, ever so I decided to go with them. I managed to pull almost a FULL curve of revenge squad, with Terra, Lil Sis and Gypsy, Illusionary Operative as filling in. Even this wasn’t forced, this was by choice. Lil Sis proved to be the winner of my two games, stopping Pyrogen and allowing Brainiac 12 to not get the stunback to allow a brickwall with a powerup. Her being off team didn’t matter as well, due to the power of a surprise Hostile Takeover. I won’t lie, I never really thought that Hostile Takeover was that good until I felt the power of it.

So, in the end I finish in 3rd place. Behind Dave ‘Bungo_Underhill’ Pyrah(1st), and Felix Hughes(2nd)
. Which makes me happy, as Dave is Dave and Felix is the national champion.

I got a chance to test my Golden Dr. Doom Legend deck against Felix’s Manhunter legend deck. Safe to say 4 attacks with a 26/9 will win against, pretty much any formation. Even with no flight, I managed to beat him down to a pulp. This makes me happy, but only temporarily as it lost to a Silver Age League of Assassins/Heralds of Galactus deck.

In other news, we should be getting a new guest writer over here. Yes, all the way from Rotherham (oooooh) my ever so lazy cousin. Rob ‘RD52169′ Elstone, he has finally gotten something written for me to put up here, now all I need to do is work out how the multiple editors thing works.

So, tonight we are drafting. I love to draft, mostly because I am not too bad at it.

We are drafting the funnest, and worst set to draft. DC’s worlds finest is a blast to draft, because in my experince if you see an insanity card you are picking it, whether you want to or not. Not only that, but it is a real challenge due to the chronic lack of 5 drops.

So, I have been thinking about the tactics and draft strategies that I can employ. Last time I drafted Worlds Finest, I drafted an outsiders/arkham inmates deck. This…wasn’t the best way to go about it. This time, I am going to narrow my thoughts down a little before I go into it, do a little research. So, off I go to the DocXmobile.

By looking at random punks I can give myself a reasonable idea of what is to come, and what may be a reasonable strategy.

My first thought is to try to go with Arkham Inmates/Gotham Knights as they both have uncommon search cards, and the Hook-Up to draw a lot of cards.

One that I would like to go with, is a Birds of a Feather style tactic. Drafting concealed characters with the pumps that rely on costs of resources.

Worlds Worstest/Insiders would be a nice tactic to go with. Draft a few of these then any really nice characters that come my way.

Arkham non adjacent could also be pretty nice, as they are all over statted, and there are reasonable support for them. Another nice thing about these are that there is little stunback in DWF which would make for interesting attacks.

Tonight I care not for my position, but I wan’t to draft a fun deck, and have reasonable notes for a draft report.

With this being the last week before the legend tournement, this may be the first and last time I get to test for it.

I have just got around to watching the Special Extended versions of the lord of the rings movies, and boy. It is worth it, now I have seen this, I doubt I can watch the regular movies again.

This week has been very interesting.

Shield, so far from the few cards we have seen are not messing about. Powerlevel is high. The true extent of their power we cannot know yet, but from what we have seen we have reason to be excited.

My brother in Jank, Soshi Kenpachi came up with a work of True Beauty. The League of Extraorinary Wood Rats.

Tek Upgrade:

Turn 1 Squirrel Girl+SHIELD Agent. She swings, they’ve lost 3 Endurance. Turn 2: 2 Novice Assassins, flip the Multiverse. A Crackshot from the resource row lets your SHIELD agent take down their 2 drop, and 4 goes to your opponent’s face(7 total lost) Turn 3: Nick drops in, played by himself, not David Hasselhoff. He puts two more assassins into play. A crackshot on squirrel girl takes down their 3 drop. 4 assassins swing in for 16 Damage.(23 Total Lost without adding in stun damage) Turn 4: However you pull it off, 4 assassins drop. 3 take out their 4 drop, Nick takes their 3 out, and you swing to 25 to the face. That’s game. And you only ever had 5 ATK printed on the board.

Now, as he says draw power is where it all lies.

In silver this is easily accomplished. I know Rian Fike is wanting to make it modern legal, for worlds. This is where the predicament lies.

For draw power I would suggest two main cards. Birthing Chamber (du’h), and Genosha.

Wait. What?

Correct, Genosha. I have been playing around with it in my Novice Assasins Go! deck, and for turn 5 it is a nice play. Sack a resource to potentially get the characters you need or some more Teen Titans Go!

I have already twisted a few builds for League of Extraordinary Wood Rats, and this is the one I am currently going with.

3x Lazarus Pit, Non-Unique * Death’s Door
2x Mountain Stronghold, Non-Unique
1x Metropolis Reborn, Non-Unique * Team-Up
3x Truth and Justice, Team-Up
1x Espionage, Non-Unique
3x Helicarrier
3x Genosha
4x Birthing Chamber
2x The Demon’s Head
4x Finishing Move

16x Novice Assassins
8x SHIELD Agents
4x Squirrel Girl
4x Nick Fury, Director of SHIELD

Not amazing. But a decent shell. I am very, very very excite about MUN. 2 Boxes preordered, which is turning out to be a better investment the more I think about it.

So, i’m here looking at my wall cards. I have bounty hunt, Sabretooth AoA, Steel Girder and Titania….

Yeah, Titania, Big Bad Bully.

So, my mind got to work.

I went through some teams. The first one, was doom. Shock Horror. I considered just slipping her into a Doomed Earth Build and going nuts with the attack. This seemed attractive, but it didn’t excite me. I also thought that Doom Guards could work, but again it didnt excite me.

So I shifted away from doom. I went to an army team. Sentinels. No, wouldnt work.

X-Men, they have enough one to three characters that a decent rush deck could be made in random punks but I think that the best rusch deck with X-Men has to be super troopers.

I was also looking at the Revenge Squad for all their front row bonus’s, when my brain had one of the rare sparks when it all clicks.

The one team I hate the most, the one team I wished had never been summoned from hell. Checkmate.

Surveillance Pawns, not only are they Army Characters, they also have concealed. I love this on army characters, the ability to have a massive board of 2/1’s is something I really like.

So, building the Bully.

4x Titania, Big Bad Bully
2x Dr. Doom, Richards Rival
Xx Surveillance Pawn, Army
4x Vicarious Living

I am leaving the X until I figure out how many more cards I choose to go with under the character heading.

So, for a draw engine I have to alter my regular engine, due to high amount of concealed characters. The ego gem/mind gems may not be the best way to approach this situation. So after birthing chamber, new baxter building, brother eye I have a few other considerations. Laser watch is a given and another equipment I am considering is the Framistadt. On my off initiative Reinforcement for her and attack on my initiative.

1x Brother Eye
4x Laser Watch
2x Framistadt
2x Poker Night
2x Robotic Offensive
3x Vicarious Living
4x Millenium
4x Lost in Translation
3x Secret Checkmate HQ

This leaves me with 31 non-characters. Which at current leaves me with 22 Surveillance Pawns.

So, then my current list of the build is:

4x Titania, Big Bad Bully
2x Dr. Doom, Richards Rival
22x Surveillance Pawn, Army

3x Birthing Chamber
2x New Baxter Building
2x Arsenal of Doom
1x Brother Eye
4x Laser Watch
2x Framistadt
2x Poker Night
2x Robotic Offensive
3x Vicarious Living
4x Millenium
4x Lost in Translation
3x Secret Checkmate HQ

I will goldfish this over the next few days, and get back to you with how it goes.

So, GDaybloke commented on my last post about what was in my Reed Richards deck. Lo and Behold.

Mr Fantastic Legend Deck:

4x Mr Fantastic, Reed Richards 3x Night Thrasher, Dwayne Michael Taylor 3x Invisible Woman, First Lady of the Fantastic Four 4x Quentino, Raul Quentino 4x Mr. Fantastic, Critical Thinker 2x Samantha Parrington <> Valkrie, Chooser of the Slain 4x Mr. Fantastic, Stretch 4x Vic Stone, Titans Warhorse 1x Mr. Fantastic, Dimensional Explorer 4x Mobilize 2x Enemy of My Enemy 3x New Baxter Building 3x Baxter Building 3x From the Shadows 4x Teamwork 2x Crisis Upon Infinite Earths 4x Power Gem 1x Weapon Upgrade 2x Mind Gem 4x Atlantean Trident 1x High-Tech Flare Gun 1x Steel Girder 1x Mindtap Mechanism

So, I managed to get some more Weapon Upgrades on cards in hand all I have to do is wait it out and see if they will arrive this time. So it may be fairly obvious as to what the deck wants to do. It’s all about loading up on equipments and slapping them all on the same dude who could, with the help of his friend attack twice. With a few weapon upgrades he can burn for a lot of Damage, and hopefully get some KO’s with the steel girder.

It’s kind of funny, its a Vic Stone legend deck with Mr Fantastic as it’s legend…well it seems funny to me.

I also said that I would put up my Swarm Bots with the rares in it.

Golden Legend Swarm Bots:

1x Mr Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster 17x Swarm Bots, Army 9x Doom-Bot, Army 4x Dr. Doom, Diabolical Genius 2x Mr Fantastic, Doom’s Adversary 3x Arsenal of Doom 3x Doomstadt 4x Armies of Doom 3x Birthing Chamber 2x New Baxter Building 2x Ego Gem 1x Mind Gem 4x Mega-Blast 2x Flying Kick 2x Armor of Doom

I have no idea whether this is the best way to go about such a thing, but realistically I think that I have almost 2 weeks to go yet, so have a while to get it fine tuned. I am terrified about stunbacks in a deck like this, so I am unsure whether to go with Supersize over Armor of Doom. Supersize gives me the pump I need to push them over the edge but Armor of Doom garuntees that I will have the ability to attack a second time.

Steel girder could also be a nice touch for multiple attacks to help to clear the board. I am having some trouble trying to decide which would be the better, and since I have no ability to play any actual games beforehand, I am going to have to just go on my own judgement….this will not end well.

So, since my last post a few new cards have been up.

HULK SMASH and Hulk, Ultimates both make Reset seem like a really really good card. The Hulk, Ultimates makes Reset very powerful, especially if you can rig the top few cards of your deck then Reset a few combats which would boost him up an unreasonable amount.

So, the package I sent for before easter that never arrived? I was refunded on it, so I am guessing that they recieved it back. So, I went on the spending spree and purchased some more cards this morning. Most for my Golden Legend / Random Punks and some, just for fun. This time I am hoping that they come through before the tourne otherwise I will be screwed. Royally screwed.

So, after sending my Legend build and my new Random Punks build to my cuz(RD52169) he replied with:

”If you use the Mr. Fantastic Deck can I Use the Doom deck (or the other way round - can I use the opposite one to you)”

So rob, in his total lack of pay-attentionyness completely didn’t noice that my Doom deck was actually my random punks deck and therefore will be playing the Doom Deck. Silly silly rob. Though this gives me a few tweaks I need to make.

Random Punks Swarm Bots:

16x Swarm Bots, Army 10x Doom-Bot, Army 4x Dr. Doom, Diabolical Genius 2x Mr Fantastic, Doom’s Adversary 4x Arsenal of Doom 3x Doomstadt 4x Armies of Doom 3x Birthing Chamber 2x New Baxter Building 3x Ego Gem 3x Mega-Blast 3x Flying Kick 3x From the Shadows

So, then for the Legendifying, there is no need. It is almost a triple legend deck. With Swarm Bots, Doom and almost Doom-Bots as the Legends. So I am thinking that being all golden legendy, that I should maybe slide in some mind gem/Mxy/Sinestro goddness into the mix. Since the swarm bots do not have range, sinestro could be nice, but I think I will give it a miss. As for the Mxylplykt, he will have to go in their with some mind gem goodness.

Genosha is a card that I have come to know and love, as it allows me to kick my hand size up a notch when I am lacking cards to flood the board with.

I was also looking to Seriously Upping the number of the army characters and going with Longshot. Sadly this would require me to play less plot twists and I would only get to actually play a few swarm bots, so I am going to give it a miss.

I would like to make the deck a little more agressive in the was of Robotic Offensive and Sacrificial Pawn, but I am unsure as of yet as of what to take out.

I was also going to consider a Secret Society Version of the deck which would help to use Attend or Die! thus not needing the amount of draw hat this deck uses.

I have to go help my sister with some gardening issues so will post up another draft of the deck on sunday.

I would like to apologise for my lack of posting of late, Mario Kart has taken over my life for the past week or so.

So, I figured I would give you the run down of my verdict on the previews thus far. Captain America looks solid, he doesnt look like he will be abusable on the scale of punisher, but he looks like maybe he could be really strong. One of the mid to high end legendary characters.

Now the hulk, he could go either way. He could be like the juggernaut was. When previews were  coming around he looked like the legend to beat, but he was just completely swarmed with an influx of better legends. The hulk could be one of the obvious go-to legends such as Punisher, Wolverine or Jean grey or he could be a reluctant back burner such as Magneto, Ghost Rider or Juggernaut. I am currently under the thought that he will be a front runner. Though with only a few cards previewed to date it is looking like these will be the make or break cards. Any legend that has the ability to ready ones self is going to be one of the more powerful legends, but out of 5 previews so far, 2 have had ready effects and 3 have had free stuns/KO’s I am definately thinking that pretty much regardless of what the newer previews show he will be a back breaker.

The Worldbreaker for example is a little iffy, my first thought is that he is ridiculous, but my other thought is that an character with a big 8 in the corner should say ‘I win’, so the problem with him is that you have to control no other characters. This means that you don’t automatically win when you play him. There are ways around this as a pre combat Join Us Or Die followed by some Righteous Anger says that a direct attack for 20 will win the game. Or you could always Bodyslide a cable out of play get him stunned in your opponents attacks then directly attack with Bodyslide.

The Strongest one there is, up tonight is…iffy. For a legend stamp a stun for a cost should be a pretty powerful effect. This is, but stunning your hulk, who will most likely be your only character to KO just one attacker. The effect is good, but I am not sure if it is that good.