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The Sentry™
Card# MTU-017
While his stats aren’t much bigger than those of the average 7-drop, Sentry’s “Pay ATK” power can drastically hinder an opponent’s attacking options in the late game.
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 A lot of people have been reading Danny Mandel and David Humpherys’s articles on design and development and have been led to believe that we have some sort of gift for designing cards as a well-oiled R&D team. They describe thoughtful design concept meetings where scholarly debate brings about a harmonious result.
Sorry to disappoint those who think we know what we’re doing, but all we have are some ten-sided dice and a couple of charts. I know the guys will have my head for posting our top-secret design charts, but I feel the public has a right to know. So let’s build some Vs. System characters! All you need is a piece of paper, a pencil, and a D10, or, if you don't have one handy, download Marshall J. Hornberger's Polyhedron Dice program at snow.ucsd.edu:44/progs/util/polydice/polydice.zip.
Cost
The first thing we need to do is figure out the character’s recruit cost. That’s the easiest part. Break out that trusty D10 and roll. There aren’t that many 9s and 10s out there, so if you roll of one those you have to “prove it” by rolling a second time and rolling equal to or higher than the result. If your roll doesn’t prove it, you get what you rolled the second time.
Result
1–8 What you roll is what you get.
9 Prove it 9+
10 Prove it 10
ATK/DEF
Ok, now comes time for figuring out the ATK and DEF of the character. Hope you like charts. Find the cost of the character below, then roll the die to determine the character’s stats. If you roll any result that has a + or - sign in it, roll again and apply the modifier to the new result. The letter D is short for DEF, and A is short for ATK. If you see a -->, roll on the next chart up the scale. If you see a <--, roll on the chart down the scale. Sometimes multiple modifiers can cancel each other out or add up to big bonuses before you roll an actual ATK/DEF number. How else can you explain Mammoth?
Cost
1 2 3 4 5
Result
1 -1A/-1D <-- <-- <-- <--
2 -1D -1D -1A/-1D -1A/-1D -1A/-1D
3 -1A -1A -1D -1A/-1D -1A/-1D
4 1/1 2/2 -1A 6/7 8/9
5 1/1 2/2 3/3 7/6 9/8
6 1/1 2/2 3/3 7/7 9/9
7 +1A +1A +1A +1A +1A
8 +1A +1A +1D +1D +1D
9 +1D +1D +1A/+1D +1A/+1D +1A/+1D
10 --> --> --> --> -->
Cost
6 7 8 9 10
Result
1 <-- <-- <-- <-- 25/25
2 -1A/-1D -1A/-1D -1A/-1D -1D 25/25
3 -1D -1D -1D -1A 25/25
4 -1A -1A -1A 18/18 25/25
5 11/12 14/13 18/17 19/19 25/25
6 12/11 14/14 17/18 +1A 25/25
7 12/12 +1A 18/18 +1D 25/25
8 +1A +1A +1A/+1D +1A/+1D 25/25
9 +1D +1A/+1D +2A/+2D +2A/+2D 25/25
10 --> --> --> +3A/+3D 25/25
Hope you had some scratch paper handy. How’d you fare? Doesn’t matter. Everyone knows that powers are more interesting than numbers. I mean, c’mon, Sabretooth, Feral Rage is a throwaway rare, as he’s just big numbers and a drawback to boot!
Team
Now you need to figure out what team the character belongs to.
Result
1 Roll on Team Subtable below
2 Doom
3 Fantastic Four
4 X-Men
5 Gotham Knights
6 Teen Titans
7 League of Assassins
8 Arkham Inmates
9 Spider-Friends
10 Sinister Syndicate
Team Subtable
1 Brotherhood
2 Skrulls
3 Sentinels
4 Sentinels
5 Negative Zone
6 Deathstroke
7 Fearsome Five
8 Unaligned
9 Unaligned
10 Unaligned
Yeah, that’s right! We have it in for the Brotherhood ’cuz they win too much. And we plain just don’t like the Sentinels or anyone who plays them. We figure that these “Tier 2” teams deserve to be left high and dry with no new characters. If we “forget” to include any new team members in the next few sets, maybe you’ll forget about them, too.
Powers
Ok, here’s where things start to get interesting. Roll on the powers chart to see what power(s) your character has.
Result
1 Payment
2 Payment
3 Payment
4 Payment
5 Continuous
6 Continuous
7 Triggered
8 Triggered
9 Drawback
10 Roll 2 more times
Once you’ve figured out the type of power(s) your character will have, consult the appropriate table below. Where you find a “__________,” that’s where you’ll plug in the name of the character later in the process. What? Did you think it mattered what the character’s name was beforehand?
Payment
Result
1 Activate >>> Target opponent discards a character
card from his hand.
2 Activate >>> KO target stunned character.
3 Activate, discard a card from your hand >>> Target
character loses range this turn.
4 Pay 2 endurance >>> Ready __________. __________
causes no breakthrough this turn.
5 Activate >>> Target player who controls a character
loses [roll 1D10] endurance.
6 Roll again, but add the phrase “with a cost of [roll 1D10]
or less” to the power.
7 Roll again, but add the phrase “Use this power only during
your attack step” to the power.
8 Roll again, but add the phrase “Use this power only once
per turn” to the power.
9 Roll again, but add the phrase “Use this power only during
the recovery phase” to the power.
10 Roll again, but add the phrase “Use this power only during
the combat phase” to the power.
Continuous
Result
1 Other characters get +1 ATK.
2 _______ gets +1 DEF for each resource you control.
3 Army
4 Your opponents may not play plot twists with threshold
costs of [roll 1D10] or less.
5 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is defending”
to the power.
6 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is attacking”
to the power.
7 Roll again, but add the phrase “while you control [roll 1D10]
or less resources” to the power.
8 Roll again, but add the phrase “while you control a
<teamname> character” to the power.
9 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is ready”
to the power.
10 Roll again, but add the phrase “with a cost of [roll 1D10]
or less” to the power.
Triggered
Result
1 At the start of each attack step, each player draws
a card.
2 Whenever _______ stuns a character, KO that character.
3 Whenever _______ stuns a character, draw a card.
4 Whenever _______ stuns a character, gain endurance
equal to that character's cost.
5 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is defending”
to the power.
6 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is attacking”
to the power.
7 Roll again, but add the phrase “you may pay [roll 1D10]
endurance. If you do,” to the power.
8 Roll again, but add the phrase “while you control a
<teamname> character” to the power.
9 Roll again, but add the phrase “while ______ is ready”
to the power.
10 Roll again, but add the phrase “with a cost of [roll 1D10]
or less” to the power.
Drawback
Result
1 Loyalty
2 Reveal a <teamname> character card from your hand
to recruit.
3 Discard a <teamname> character card from your hand
to recruit.
4 At the start of the recovery phase, pay 4 endurance
or KO _________.
5 At the start of the build phase, discard a card from
your hand or KO __________.
6 Rare
7 Bad in draft
8 Common
9 ________ cannot ready during the recovery phase this
turn.
10 ________ comes into play exhausted.
Name
Last but not least, this character is gonna need a cool name. Roll once on each of the following three charts to find out what the character’s name is.
Name Chart One
Result
1 The
2 Mr.
3 Miss
4 Captain
5 Super
6 King
7 Queen
8 Kid
9 Dr.
10 Bat
Name Chart Two
Result
1 Boy
2 Girl
3 Man
4 Woman
5 Red
6 Black
7 Green
8 Masked
9 Incredible
10 Bat
Name Chart Three
Result
1 Pants
2 Head
3 Hands
4 Wonder
5 -ster
6 Man
7 Woman
8 Girl
9 Boy
10 Bat
There you have it. With the above charts, you can build your very own Vs. System set, just like the designers do. How did your first character turn out? Not so good? It takes a lot of practice to roll a D10 properly, so don’t become frustrated if your first character isn’t a home run. Just the other day, I had a D10 take a bad bounce off some graphic novels. I called “do over,” but Danny wouldn’t hear of it. This was right after he let Mike get away with yet another cry of “cocked-die!” Perhaps he shouldn’t let Mike rolled on a tiled floor anymore.
Send your favorite rolled-up character to me at mhyra@metagame.com . . . but keep in mind that it becomes property of Upper Deck Entertainment.
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