The last couple of weeks have been a blur. I took advantage of my time off from writing (and yes, I do have to work at this job) to move across town and visit some friends during the holiday season. Hopefully, you all had as much fun during your holidays as I did. Sadly, even the best of times eventually comes to an end, and it’s once again time for me to return to the grind.
I left off last article with the next to last team featured in JLA. I know what you may be thinking. Yes, I covered four teams already. No, that isn’t all of them. The JLA development team had an interesting idea this time around. Rather than just making their unaffiliated characters extras, they chose to flesh them out enough for them to be considered their own team.
This set was made for Mojoverse lovers everywhere. It has more unaffiliated characters than any expansion yet. While the other teams each have a specific mechanic or two that make them unique, the unaffiliated characters take a different route; the only thing they have in common is that they have nothing in common. They’re a multifaceted “team” without any real thematic coherence. But what does tie them together is that no other team wants them. And exclusion can be a powerful rallying tool.
It’s time to check out its characters.
Amazo, Ivo’s Android - I will remind you that we’ve been discussing the virtues of these cards in a Draft format. In Draft, this guy gets rather low marks due to his enormous cost. Sure, he’s a ridiculously huge 8-drop. But 8-drops only matter if the game goes to turn 8, which it most likely won’t.
Despero, Master of the Third Eye - This guy is pretty solid. His stats aren’t anything too spectacular, but his ability can do wonders on either side of the initiative. On evens, you simply name the biggest character he can stun and dominate the attack step. If your opponent’s on evens, Despero creates a difficult attack by naming the biggest character and forcing the opponent to waste a team attack or a plot twist if he or she wants to take him down. His only major downside is that you have to be pretty good to take full advantage of him. Since he is best on the attack on turn 4, you will be building with him before your opponent builds. This means that you’ll have to make an educated guess about what your opponent’s 4-drop will be. That’s not the best situation to be in, but if you’re right, the game takes a huge swing in your favor.
Dr. Destiny, John Dee - As a rule, I dislike large concealed characters. One of the advantages large characters have is that they tend to soak up a bunch of endurance loss. However, this guy has the potential to do some serious damage in the right deck. In the Injustice Gang deck in particular, your opponent will usually have a bunch of useless cards in his or her hand. That means that he can cause a lot of pain to your opponent if the situation is right. All in all, I don’t think his ability overcomes the shortcomings of being a large concealed character. That is, of course, unless you’re IG.
Felix Faust, Infernal Dealmaker - Very interesting. This is another character that seems like it would be at home in an Injustice Gang deck. They have the best 1-drop Army characters. Without them, Faust becomes a sub-par 4-drop. His stats are pretty good, but unless you have the Army characters to abuse him, I’d pass.
Kanjar Ro, Kylaq Defense Minister - Some unaffiliated love at last! His leader ability is very good, even if all of your characters are affiliated. If you managed to get a serious unaffiliated deck, he becomes a 5-drop Iron Man, Tony Stark. I liked his predecessor, and I like this card as well.
Mageddon, Weapon of Universal Destruction – Talk about weird stats- 27 ATK / 27 DEF. Flight and range. Costs 10. Everything about this guy says big pimpin’. But in Draft, we’re mostly concerned with medium pimpin’. I’ll leave it to an X-Stall deck to abuse this guy.
Neron, Soul Collector - You’ve just gotten back from a light dinner and a good night out with Neron. He brings you back to his apartment and sits you on the couch. He turns the lights down, lights some candles, and dips into the wealth of Barry White and Marvin Gaye albums he has to find the perfect song. The mood is right and you’re feeling good. Then . . . something goes horribly wrong. That’s how the Soul Collector is in real life. He’s larger than life and gets all of your characters pumped up and feeling good. Then the problems start. He kicks you out of his apartment and never calls you again. Your characters feel great until they get stunned, and then you don’t hear from them anymore. If you can manage to keep your characters from taking that fatal turn, Neron has some real potential. But if you can’t, he’ll put your characters under for good.
Professor Ivo, Anthony Ivo - I love cards that improve a deck’s consistency. Ivo lets you trade a card in your hand for the unaffiliated character of your choice from your deck. As long as you have a character at more or less every drop, you won’t have to worry about missing a drop. Add evasion so that he can stick around a bit longer, and you get a rather good character for the unaffiliated affiliation.
Queen of Fables, Wickedest Witch - The 1-drop Army theme once again makes its presence felt on the Wickedest Witch of them all, the Queen of Fables. This is yet another in a long line of unaffiliated characters that would make a good addition to an IG deck. Keep your eyes out for the good Army characters and let the good times roll. Her ability is dependent on your opponent playing ongoing plot twists that aren’t Team-Ups, but as we’ll see in weeks to come, there are plenty of those that will be making decks.
Rama Khan, Elemental Magician - I love a good magician, and so should the Secret Society players out there. Secret Society has a multitude of fantastic locations that they’ll be clamoring to cram into their decks. Rama Khan turns all of those locations into combat plot twists on the final turns of the game. Since the locations power characters up, they also trigger ally abilities. I really like the fact that his ability turns what may be useless cards into pure dynamite at the time when high explosives are most needed. Just make sure it’s a long fuse.
Starro the Conqueror, Intergalactic Starfish - Not since SpongeBob SquarePants has the world been so captivated by an echinoderm. While Patrick has captivated audiences everywhere with his dull, gaping stare, Starro plans to conquer the world by giving everyone in it a dull, gaping stare of their own. At least he would if he ever got a chance to hit play. Since he costs 8, that isn’t likely. Maybe next time, little buddy.
T. O. Morrow, Thomas Oscar Morrow - After being cut from the Philadelphia Eagles, T.O. turned to a life of crime. He set out to create something that would ultimately lead to the destruction of the Justice League. When Donovan McNabb got word of this, he quickly assembled the rest of the Eagles and led them in an attempt to help the JLA thwart T.O.’s evil plans. Luckily, T.O. was never able to get a loyal army of 2-drops to follow him, and the combined efforts of the JLA and the Philadelphia Eagles were enough to put T.O. back on the bench.
Tomorrow Woman, Trojan Telepath - So big! A 4 ATK / 3 DEF with flight is absolutely humongous on turn 2. However, her drawback is rather severe. Not being able to hold cards is quite the drawback, and she makes sure that you play your hand out as quickly as possible to avoid having to discard. She really is very good, and unless your opponent’s 3-drop is a 4 ATK / 5 DEF, you’re in pretty good shape.
That about rounds out my look at the unaffiliated team’s characters. As you can see, many unaffiliated characters seem like they wanted to play for other teams, mainly Injustice Gang. If they manage to get teamed up with them, though, their abilities go a long way toward enhancing the theme of that team.
In the next couple of weeks, I’ll be taking a look at the remaining cards in the set—the plot twists, the locations, and the equipment. Once all of that gets fleshed out, you’ll be able to see why the unaffiliated team deserves mention separately from all of the other characters. As always, questions and comments can be sent to the_priceis_right@yahoo.com.