Being a regular reader and rabid fan of preview card articles, I realize that any introduction I write will be immediately scrolled over in anticipation of seeing a brand new Heralds of Galactus card. So, I’ll just skip the introduction for now and get straight to business.

Done looking at it? Okay, on with the introduction!

I’m writing this article during the week leading up to Pro Circuit Indianapolis 2006. All I’ve been doing for the past two weeks is drafting Infinite Crisis and testing my team’s DC Modern Age deck. It’s really awesome that I get to play this much Vs. System, but sometimes, you just need a break from all the testing and retesting. Usually what I’ll do is play some of my pet decks, or force my friends into doing a draft where each pack is from a different set, to relax and loosen up a bit. This time, though, instead of playing Constructed jank or random Draft formats, I get to be a part of the Sneak Preview process and reveal a card from the new Heralds of Galactus set. Previews have begun! I get to take a much-needed break from thinking about Good Guys and the Fate Artifacts, and instead I get to look at a bunch of brand new cards that open up thousands more possibilities within our complex game. I absolutely love preview articles, and I’m ecstatic that I have the opportunity to write one.

I’m probably the last person you want to ask about comic history, so I’ll stick with the traditional route of analyzing how this card will affect both Constructed and Sealed Pack play. If you’re interested in finding out the story behind the two figures on this card, you can probably find a satisfactory explanation by using Wikipedia or by asking anyone you know who’s an expert on comic book lore.

Constructed

Kindred Spirits has two specific functions: character searching and deck stacking. Most character search effects in Vs. System only allow you to search for one character at a time, but Kindred Spirits lets you fetch two of them at the cost of having to wait a while before they are in your hand. The best time to play Kindred Spirits is the start of the recovery phase or after the game-based effect of drawing two cards is put on the chain; that way, you draw into the two characters you searched for almost immediately. By itself, though, Kindred Spirits isn’t a strong character search effect compared to the likes of Enemy of My Enemy because putting characters on the top of your deck requires you to plan further ahead and is rarely as good as putting them straight into your hand. However, Kindred Spirits really begins to shine when it’s combined with effects that allow you to draw cards. You can play Kindred Spirits, search for two Heralds of Galactus character cards, put them on top of your deck, and then use a card such as Birthing Chamber to draw them. As long as you play any effect that lets you draw cards, Kindred Spirits becomes a straight character search effect that doesn’t even require a discard! Cards such as Cerebro and JSA Headquarters that reveal the top two or three cards of your deck also work well with Kindred Spirits, but to make them effective, you have to make sure you’re teamed-up. Remember, the effect says “up to two Heralds of Galactus character cards,” so if you only want to search for one character for whatever reason, you’re allowed to do so.

However, Kindred Spirits doesn’t just act as a search card; there are plenty of other effects that you can exploit if you know what the top cards of your deck are. One such potentially abusive combination (and one I’m sure Metagame.com’s own Rian Fike will enjoy) is throwing Longshot, Rebel Freedom Fighter into the mix. After you play Kindred Spirits, you’ll know for certain what two of the four top cards of your deck are, so you can activate Longshot and be guaranteed to hit with him. You could place a high-cost character on top of your deck and then play Shape Change to get a massive DEF boost. The same principle applies for Unexpected Mutation, except this time, you’ll know exactly what kind of mutation your character’s stats will experience. If you somehow manage to give all of your characters a Mutant trait through a card like Brave New World, then you could put a Physical character on top of your deck for Beef’s effect or a Mental one for Tarot. That brief list was compiled after a quick run-through of the card list; I’m sure there are plenty of other cards that combo well with the deck stacking that Kindred Spirits provides. Not to mention that the rest of the cards in Heralds of Galactus should provide even more ways to take advantage of knowing the top two cards of your deck.

Sealed Pack

It’s almost futile for me to write an analysis on Kindred Spirits in Sealed Pack when the majority of the set has yet to be previewed, but there are a few things on which I feel I should shine some light. In the simplest terms, the objective of Sealed Pack or Draft is to recruit characters that are better than your opponent’s and deal more damage. This goal can be accomplished in many different ways, but mainly through playing either an on-curve deck or an off-curve deck (like the Blackbird Blue deck from The X-Men Draft). Depending on what archetype you end up playing, you either have to hit your curve to succeed or have enough low-cost characters in play to overwhelm your opponent.

Kindred Spirits benefits both strategies by getting the on-curve player two missing pieces of his or her curve and the off-curve player access to any two characters in his or her deck (as long as they have the Heralds of Galactus affiliation). If a good number of the new characters in this set have press, you can use Kindred Spirits to set up a huge swarm where you recruit characters in ascending cost starting from 1 so that each character you play only costs a single resource point. In Sealed Pack, there are far fewer draw effects than in Constructed, so generally, you’ll have to be content with waiting until your next turn to draw into the characters you searched. I think that this card will be a very high Draft pick because none of its disadvantages that affect you in Constructed matter in Sealed Pack. Grabbing two characters will guarantee your optimal curve, and getting two low-cost characters will help you swarm your opponent and cause massive amounts of damage. Anything that adds consistency to a Sealed Pack deck is a winner in my book, especially if it’s only an uncommon. I wouldn’t consider it a bomb in Draft or a reason to force the Heralds of Galactus team, but it is nonetheless a good card in both Constructed and Sealed Pack.