You know you're getting old when you start saying things like, “When I was a kid, I'd never do that.” This has started to happen to me over the last few months. On July 19th, 2007, I will be celebrating my 32nd birthday—something I couldn't possibly consider when I was a teenager. As time marches on, I find myself reminiscing and clinging to the stuff of my youth. Last weekend I took my daughters to the movies, and as we walked through the arcade, I found myself hoping to hear “Elf needs food!” blurting out from a Gauntlet machine. Of course, this is not 1985, and my days of decimating hordes of ghosts, grunts, and lobbers are far behind me. Still, it's good to reminisce. 

After the movie we took a walk through the shopping mall, and I checked out the sales in various computer game stores. I looked at the latest copy of Tekken for the PS2, but put it down as soon as I saw one of those game machines you plug straight into the TV. This one had Street Fighter II on it—the greatest beat-’em-up of all time. I've spent many hours smacking Zangief around the head with a well timed Dragon Punch. It's good to reminisce.

A little while ago, my Metagame.com writer colleagues and I received an email from our commander in chief—Toby Wachter—requesting an article themed on classic Marvel Vs. System. Bloody brilliant! This is absolutely perfect for me right now. I've spent so long remembering the good things from my past; taking a short walk down Vs. System's memory lane is going to be a blast. 

I wrote a small piece a short time after the Avengers Reservist deck began to dominate the tournament scene, and I'd like to share a small except from it:

"There is a Japanese philosophy that I firmly believe in. Kyu Shin Do is the name given to the teachings of the late Kenshiro Abbe Sensei. He was an esteemed martial artist and a pioneer. He was one of the few Japanese masters who dared to venture forth into the Western world and spread the word of martial arts. An exact translation of Kyu Shin Do does not really explain the essence of the philosophy, but the following statement can generally sum it up: “Life is a circle.” The idea behind Abbe Sensei’s way of thinking is that the entire universe is based on circular motion and shapes; thus, he taught his martial art students to reflect this in their movements. However, he did not limit his teaching of the philosophy to application within martial arts. He was a firm believer in karma—what goes around comes around. And I think that we have come to a time where the philosophy of Kyu Shin Do is about to be realized in Vs. System."

I went on to discuss what I believed would be a return to form for Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius and the Common Enemy deck. I was suitably smug when I was proven right. While I may have been on the money with that prediction, the application of Kyu Shin Do to Vs. System does not stop with that one instance. Vs. System is such a dynamic game that we are constantly seeing revolution combined with evolution. Old ideas and decks come back to the fore with a few tweaks here and there. Just look at the popularity of The New Brotherhood at the moment. People everywhere are playing this deck and doing very well with it. The use of reservist characters and replacement effect plot twists has solved the consistency issue that plagued the deck back in its 2004 heyday. 

At $10K Origins 2004, Carl Perlas took an interesting build of TNB to the final of the event, only to lose out at the final hurdle to Bill Hodack and his Big Brotherhood build (more on that a little later). 

Carl Perlas

Characters
2 Blob, Fred Dukes
3 Quicksilver, Speed Demon
3 Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff
4 Pyro, St. John Allerdyce
4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage
3 Toad, Mortimer Toynbee
4 Mystique, Raven Darkholme
2 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin
4 Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr

Plot Twists
3 The New Brotherhood
4 Savage Beatdown
3 Not So Fast
3 Flying Kick
3 Ka-Boom!
3 Acrobatic Dodge

Locations
4 Avalon Space Station
4 Lost City
4 Genosha

The build was certainly different from the norm, seeming to straddle both the Big and New Brotherhood builds. Still, who am I to argue with success? More recently, Stephen King found a great deal of success with a very interesting build at Pro Circuit Los Angeles 2006:

Stephen King

Characters

4 Barnacle

4 Chrome

4 Amelia Voght

4 Senyaka

4 Rem-Ram

4 Kleinstock Brothers

4 Joanna Cargill

4 Spoor

4 Anne-Marie Cortez

2 Scanner

Plot Twists

4 Air Strike

4 The New Brotherhood

4 Boot to the Head

3 Call Down the Lightning

3 Meltdown

Locations

4 Planet X

At the end of Day 1, Stephen sat in second place with an awesome 9-1 record. Unfortunately, Day 2 was not as productive for him, so we did not get to see him in the Top 8, but he did finish in a very respectable 10th place.

Going back to $10K Origins and the other half of the finals, we see the winner—Bill Hodack—piloted what is one of my favorite decks to play.

Bill Hodack

Big Brotherhood

Characters
4 Toad, Mortimer Toynbee
4 Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff
4 Quicksilver, Speed Demon
4 Mystique, Raven Darkholme
4 Mystique, Shape-Changing Assassin
4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage
2 Sabretooth, Victor Creed
4 Blob, Fred Dukes
4 Magneto, Eric Lehnsherr
4 Magneto, Master of Magnetism

Plot Twists
4 Acrobatic Dodge
4 Overload

4 Relocation
2 Burn Rubber

Locations
4 Lost City
4 Avalon Space Station

For the uninitiated, the Big Brotherhood deck was a monstrous powerhouse that used Lost City and Avalon Space Station to create immense characters that stomped on your face and then wiped their feet on your back. The problem I always found was that if I could not get Avalon and Lost City, the deck was not particularly effective. The idea has always been solid, and when it works, it's a fantastic deck. It's the deck I always turn to when I'm not sure what I want to play, and it's the deck that always elicits groans and whimpers from the guys down at my local store. For anyone that might be interested, here's my current build: 

"Heavy Metal"

Characters

4 Ted Kord ◊ Blue Beetle
4 San, The Alienated One
2 Crimson Commando, Freedom Force
4 Silver Sabre, Freedom Force

2 Avalanche, Freedom Force
4 Sabretooth, Feral Rage
2 Julia Carpenter, Freedom Force
4 Quicksilver, Speed Demon
1 Stonewall, Freedom Force
3 Mystique, Freedom Force
2 Magneto, Master of Magnetism

Plot Twists
4 Straight to the Grave
4 Insignificant Threat
4 Freedom Force
3 The Uni-Power

Locations
4 Lost City
3 Avalon Space Station
1 Slaughter Swamp
1 Soul World

Equipment
4 Nth Metal

Basically, Lost City is the primary goal, and San can help to ensure that you find this lynchpin card. Either one of these is your mulligan condition. I take odd initiatives to make the most of Quicksilver, Speed Demon, who can decimate a board. The Freedom Force plot twist is primarily in there for the power-up, but with a good number of Freedom Force characters in the deck, we have plenty of opportunity to use the secondary, ongoing feature of the card.

If you're a new player, it's very easy to lose sight of what has gone before. It's easy to get swept along with established decks and established opinions. It's easy to miss some of the gems that are tucked away in the older sets like Marvel Origins. Back in September of last year, I wrote an article in which I tried to emphasize the importance of knowing the history of the game. It can give you valuable insights into forgotten strategies, cards, and interactions. It can help you understand the evolution of the game, which is essential for developing your play. So far I've highlighted a couple of the popular decks from yesteryear, and now I want to draw your attention to some my favorite cards from Marvel Origins. Some you will balk at, while others are common sense. But hey, I'm the one with the keyboard in front of me, so I get to pick 'em.

For the X-Men: Bishop, Lucas Bishop

I know the X-Men are not the most popular tournament team out there, but here is a guy that would be an absolute monster in an awful lot of matchups. I know a lot of people will be scratching their heads at this pick, but I love him.  

For the Fantastic Four: Cosmic Radiation

Okay, so this is not exactly an obscure card forgotten by time, but it is so immense in potential and so surprisingly absent from recent tournament decks that I thought it worth a mention. It enables so many combinations that many have called for the ban-hammer to come crashing down. Personally, I hope that never happens. After all, how would I play my jank-tastic Hannibal King abuse deck without Cosmic Radiation?

For the Brotherhood: Global Domination

For a long, long time, this has been my favorite card in the set. Until Enemy of My Enemy came along, it was probably the card that featured most in all my decks. There have always been decks that rely heavily on location activations to switch on key abilities. There are plenty of plot twist negation tricks in circulation, but few people expect to have the location ability Fizzled. Remember, it is only the ongoing part of the ability that is team-stamped. You can happily include this card in any deck you build regardless of your team affiliation.

For Doom: Micro-Size

I know that most first picks would go to Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius; Reign of Terror; or Mystical Paralysis; but those are far too obvious for my liking. Micro-Size has long been a favorite of mine—attacking up the curve and not getting stunned back? Yes, please!

For the Sentinels: Search and Destroy

Without a second’s hesitation, I would pick this card time and time again. It's so handy for getting to those hard-to-reach characters. It's the Vs. System equivalent of a backscratcher. Quality!

The Generics: Nasty Surprise

This card is just plain . . . well . . . nasty.

Well, I think that about does it for me today. Remember, people—an old dog can still teach you a few tricks. Don't lose sight of what has gone before, because it might just help you out tomorrow.

But just before I go . . .


Deckbuilder Challenge Cup #8: Old School

Okay, I got a bit of noise for not following up on the last edition of the Deckbuilder Challenge Cup, but to be honest, I did not see much interest from you, the reader, in that last challenge. So here we go for 2007: DBCC redux!

·       Your challenge is to build an original team-up deck that uses cards from only Marvel Origins and Web of Spider-Man.

·       60 card minimum.

·       Your deck must have at least two teams and must team-up.

·       Closing date is January 26^th, so you’d better get your skates on!

Cheers,

Steve