The Amazing Spider-Man would not really be that amazing without impressive villains. There, I said it. When I was a youngster, I collected the bad guys. When I shopped the toy aisles, I looked for masks and grimacing faces. Forget the heroes and all of those good deeds—I wear the black hat. Give me Vader, Cobra, Gargamel, that sneaky cat Skeletor, and nearly every super villain instead of those pansy hero types. I never cared much for old Aunt May, never really cared if the Kent farm was taken over by a horde of locusts and burned to the ground, and never cheered for a happy ending.

My favorite comic characters have a mixture of grit and a little malice to offset the dry boredom of doing the “right thing.” Bad guys get a tough rap. Take over a city, try to kill off a couple people, or kidnap some old women, and you just get no love. What happened to the good old days? Our sense of justice has gone down the drain. Have you ever considered the fact that Dr. Doom might be the best world leader? I mean, come on . . . We follow a bunch of rules and laws, and look where it gets us.

Whether you are one of those hero-worshiping followers or a rogue lover of all things dark and meaningful, you have to acknowledge the wonderful spice brought to the world by a touch of pure evil. Where would the good guys even be if they didn’t have to spoil glorious plots for world domination and shady dealings? They would be at home watching Dr. Phil and boring comic fans to tears.

When I started playing Vs. System, I built Big Brotherhood and splashed Doom into all of my decks. I liked the proposition of mixing those beloved heroes into my dark dealings, and dropping my super villains into otherwise weak and boring decks filled with hapless do-gooders. Common Enemy was a stroke of pure genius, and now we have the opportunity to abuse the namesake of Marvel Team-Up by dropping poison into the heroic waters. I am advocating that you never run a deck again without mixing in at least two criminal masterminds or faces of evil.

During your next Sneak Preview tournament, turn all of your character cards into pawns of darkness and destruction. Bring back the Sinister Syndicate! Some of you may be too young to remember, and others may have wrongfully forgotten, but there was a time when the Sinister Syndicate ruled the Vs. System tournament scene. They dominated Pro Circuit Amsterdam (Honor Among Thieves) and packed a brutal punch in Draft.

In the comics, the Sinister Syndicate was a compilation of Spider-Man’s deadliest opponents. They started as a sort of second-class Sinister Six, but rose to fame under the leadership of Beetle. The team consisted of fan-favorite villains including Rhino, Speed Demon, and my favorite, Shocker. Eventually, the team faded and members popped up in a number of notable places and plots, including recent appearances of Beetle as a Thunderbolt.

In Vs. System, the team was one of the foundational rush teams, allowing players big ATK stats, a chance at modified attacking mayhem, and trickery with new mechanics (like one of the game’s first alternate recruits, Mysterio). I was pretty thrilled to get a chance to preview a Syndicate-related card, and even more impressed with the potential and merits of such a fine location.

My favorite Sealed and Draft cards all have a couple of notable characteristics. I love cards that provide ATK modifiers. Further, I love cards that can consistently generate such modifiers over the course of a game. In many Sealed Pack formats, +1 ATK can push an average character into a dominant position and put a great character over the top. Reusable ATK modification allows a player to make optimal attacks, and offers a chance for advantage where there otherwise may have been none.

I’ve always loved drafting cards like Brother I Satellite, Mech Bay, and more subtle location cards like Battleworld. In a format where ATK bonuses are often at a premium, these cards offer a continual stream of beatings to the head. The Ravencroft Institute is team stamped (which fits into my master plan), but offers a player the a chance to gamble on some serious beats. At worst, a player must give away some information about the contents of his or her hand. The ATK modifier will not be perfectly predictable (aside from having one or zero cards in your hand or a hand of matched threshold costs), but it offers a player a chance at glory.

Many Sealed Pack decks offer players a chance to go on curve through turns 6, 7, and occasionally 8. Imagine randomly selecting a high-cost character for that slick bonus. This card, though, does not seem destined to work best in a long-curve type of deck; it was built for the beats. It was designed for the rush. If you are the type of player who likes to mix in a bit of chance with well-focused gameplay, then you will value this card for its aggressive potential. If you are more conservative, then you may value this card for the chance to grant a field of similar-cost characters a strong ATK bonus for an entire turn.

If you run a weenie rush deck with five to six 1-drops, five to six 2-drops, and four to five 3-drops, then you will have a good chance of providing some of your field with the Ravencroft bonus. Add the fact that many playable cards in a Sealed Pack format have a cost of 1 and 2 (especially ATK modifiers), you add to the chance that the characters on the field obtain the turn-long bonus. I appreciate the slight tension in the design of this card; it remains balanced and will require some luck in application, but with the appropriate planning and deck construction, it could be a useful—if not brutal—addition to a Sinister Syndicate rush deck.

My master plan consists of assembling all the great low-cost characters, giving them a shared affiliation, and making advances on an evil agenda. There are several other decks, such as Faces of Evil and Skrulls, that facilitate broad field modifiers across a number of low-cost characters. These decks may offer players a chance to group multiple, effective, low-cost characters together, and then distribute high ATK bonuses to those characters for some deadly swarming attacks.

Applications for this card in Constructed play are alluring. It will be important, though, to watch the preview articles and spoilers for a chance to understand the rest of the Syndicate roster. Break out some of those original Syndicate characters, revisit the old Honor Among Thieves decklists of yore, and splash those villains as often as possible in each deck you play. If you ever want to be a truly dominant player, though, drop in a splash of the greatest villain of them all. Aside from his remarkable physical advantages and special paraphernalia, the Kingpin is intellectually formidable and a master tactician. He is sure to pack some junk in your trunk, and will lead to truly smashing victories. I may be biased, but only multiple hours of playtesting will prove me wrong.

I’ll see you all at the Sneak Preview! This set is going to be amazing on multiple levels, and I look forward to dropping a bunch of low drops and smashing face with my shiny new rare, Ravencroft Institute.