Welcome to another installment of the Week in Review. This past week has been a relatively quiet one, and it’s likely the most uneventful we’ll see for another few months. You see, this coming weekend is $10K Minneapolis, the first major Golden Age event in quite a while. You can be sure that many players will be dusting off their Savage Beatdowns to give this thoroughly explored format another try. It’s also a certainty that professionals will be eyeing this tournament closely, as its metagame will be the first real hint of what the dominant decks might be in the new Silver Age format.
After Minneapolis, there’s another week off—sort of. You see, Infinite Crisis previews are starting quite soon here on Metagame.com, and they will culminate in the set’s official debut at Sneak Preview tournaments on the weekend of April 29. From there, we have a feverish month of testing, and just like that, there’s another Pro Circuit. And round and round we go. This PC is in San Francisco and it will debut the long-awaited Silver Age format. These events are looming large on the horizon—Minneapolis, Infinite Crisis, and San Francisco are all in the very near future—but they haven’t happened yet, and this column is the “Week in Review.” So, let’s get down to business, shall we?
The week began with a tournament report, of sorts, from our very own Rian Fike. He explains how he chose to forego a more traditional Avengers team-attack deck in favor of an unorthodox Multiple Man concoction. (Is anyone surprised?) He gives a nice rundown of his performance in each round. Of course, the Pro Circuit is about more than decks and matchups, so Rian will be back this week with more about his PC experience.
On Tuesday, Toby brought us word that the Infinite Crisis page had been updated. If you want a hint of what’s to come in the new set, you should definitely check it out. The art alone is some of the most impressive yet.
Also on Tuesday, we had a very special article from Mike Hummel. Some of you may remember Danny Mandel’s “How to Make a Vs. Expansion in Nine Easy Steps.” Well, Mike’s been passed the proverbial torch, bringing us Step Eight in the series. Before diving into this article, you might want to take a look at the first seven. They can be found here. After you’ve perused Danny’s masterpiece, you can come back to last Tuesday and read Mike’s rundown of how R&D handles Constructed testing. An interesting read, for sure.
Wednesday brought us Ben Seck and the Fan Card Crossover. Our current card is Nyssa Raatko, a League of Assassins 6-drop with an (as-yet-undecided) ability that keys off of locations. Interesting. Last week’s fan contribution was a chance for you to submit your ideas on what Nyssa’s actual game text should be. This is perhaps the most important part of them all, so I hope you all had some good ideas! Come back tomorrow to find out what R&D picked as the best.
Michael Barnes returned on Wednesday, as well. This time, the card he’s trying to break is none other than Project Liberator. This installment of Breaking Ground is a bit different from all the others. You see, this week, Project Liberator isn’t used as the centerpiece of some grand strategy or the lynchpin in a wacky combo. Rather, it’s used to shore up an already existing deck against some of its poorer matchups. In essence, Michael makes use of Project Liberator as a metagame card. The team that he tries to improve is Arkham Inmates. I can’t say whether or not he succeeded—that would require quite a bit of playtesting. If you’ve had your heart set on Arkham for the past few years, though, and you’ve just been itching for a way to make the team viable, tossing in a few Liberators might be just what the doctor ordered.
On Thursday, Olav Rokne came back with a lot more math. I enjoy Olav’s column, not only because I am technically a mathematician myself, but also because he goes a long way toward deconstructing the phenomenon known as luck. While it’s something that most players praise or bemoan or just plain come to accept, the concept of luck is a good deal more complicated than you’d think. In fact, there are several branches of mathematics devoted to its study—including probability, statistics, and chaos theory—and all of them have applications in Vs. System. But, I digress. Read Olav’s article for a more artful take on some of the hard numbers associated with the bad beats dealt out in any given game of Vs.
Friday was Tim Willoughby’s chance to shine. He succeeded in spectacular fashion, composing an epic account of his experiences at the Pro Circuit. Among the topics covered were his biases about Atlanta and the American South, the second Timvitational, his experiences covering both of the weekend’s events, and the aftermath of the PC. I know I say this every week, but . . . read the article.
That about covers it for the past week on Metagame.com. This coming weekend is $10K Minneapolis, and I’ll be onsite doing coverage. If you’re at the event, feel free to drop by and say hello. And as always, I’ll be back next Monday with another Week in Review.