I’m a bit torn about how to approach this preview. Typically, I tend to chatter about all kinds of meaningless drivel before I get to the subject at hand. In the case of my regular column, I generally force my readers to indulge me as I ramble on with some kind of meaningless story about where I went to eat last week, or my favorite music/movie/TV show, or how “The Sauce” activated Boris, Personal Servant of Dr. Doom when I had Mageddon on my side of the board. Since I have a captive audience, I am free to perform such shenanigans at my whim.

However, previews are a different animal. I am well aware that many of you scrolled immediately down to check out the preview card without even bothering to examine any of my prior discourse. Such activity almost tempts me to insert random lines like “Email BigSpooky and win fifty dollars!” or “Shane Wiggans is a n00b!” into these opening paragraphs to see if anyone actually reads them. Fortunately, my better judgment—as well as my wish to avoid paying out large sums of money or incur the wrath of TAWC’s Tattooed Man—keeps me from such folly.

Well, since you came here for the card and not my storytelling, I’ll shut up and get to the nitty-gritty. I present to you the most powerful equipment card in the Vs. System: The Infinity Gauntlet!

No, that is not a misprint . . . The Infinity Gauntlet really is a 10-cost equipment card!

Unlike the preview cards that I have done in the past, I do happen to know a fair bit about The Infinity Gauntlet and its origins. Thus, before we get into mechanic and gameplay discussions, I’m going to let my inner Kergillian take over and tell you a little bit about this amazing glove.

“To Infinity and Beyond!”

Once upon a time, there was a nihilist named Thanos. He was a rather vicious individual and a rabid follower of Death (not the state of being dead— the actual, corporeal embodiment of Death). Fortunately, Thanos was dead himself, so he couldn’t really threaten the universe too much from six feet under. However, Death decided that she wasn’t really happy with the current scheme of the cosmos, so she decided to resurrect Thanos to carry out her dark mission. His task: kill half of the sentient beings in the universe.

Now, Thanos is a pretty tough guy, but we are talking about the universe here—it’s a rather large place! He could travel as fast as Santa Claus and still probably never move quickly enough to eventually wipe out half of existence. While considering this problem, Thanos stumbled upon the secret of six jewels known as the Infinity Gems.* These gems were powerful relics that granted the bearer complete control of one of the six aspects of the universe: Mind, Power, Reality, Space, Time, and Soul. While each of these gems was powerful in its own right, their true power was revealed when they were brought together to form an artifact known as The Infinity Gauntlet. The Infinity Gauntlet bestowed upon its wearer instant omniscience and omnipotence. Basically, the lucky person who wields The Infinity Gauntlet has the power to rule all of creation and shape it to his or her liking.

Armed with this knowledge, Thanos petitioned Death to grant him the power to assemble the Infinity Gems. Through a clever series of ploys, Thanos was able to wrest each of the six Infinity Gems from the grasp of its controller . . . and just like that, Thanos became the newest god on the block!

Given the immense power that Thanos now held, it seemed likely that no force in the universe would be able to stop him. This scenario seemed particularly likely when Thanos managed to defeat an assembly of the Earth’s mightiest heroes, the combined forces of the most powerful celestial beings in existence, and Eternity (the living embodiment of the Marvel universe). However, one man was able to successfully oppose Thanos: Adam Warlock. Warlock had supposedly given his life many years before defeating Thanos in one of his earlier nefarious schemes. The truth, however, was that Warlock was living on a world within the Soul Gem. While he really only desired to spend the remainder of his days at rest within the gem, the eminent peril that the universe faced due to Thanos’s possession of The Infinity Gauntlet forced him back to this plane of existence.

Adam Warlock claimed to know Thanos better than Thanos even knew himself. According to Warlock, Thanos had the raw ability to rule the universe unopposed. However, Thanos secretly lacked the desire to hold onto this power, as he didn’t deem himself worthy of it. This prophecy came to fruition when—after he had defeated the most powerful beings in the universe—Thanos lost The Infinity Gauntlet to his granddaughter, Nebula, through sheer carelessness. Thanos had grown too big for his britches—literally—and expanded his essence throughout the cosmos, leaving his body unattended. In that moment, Nebula snatched The Infinity Gauntlet from her grandpappy’s hand.

Given the relative inexperience of the newest holder of The Infinity Gauntlet, Warlock—with the help of several of the assembled heroes—was able to gain control of The Infinity Gauntlet back from Nebula. This seemed a turn in the right direction for the universe, as the artifact now resided with a reasonably benevolent being. Unfortunately, in the brief amount of time that Adam Warlock held The Infinity Gauntlet, he managed to stir up a whole new set of troubles.

The Infinity War

The Living Tribunal is the judge of all realities as well as all events within these realities. He alone controlled the power to determine whether the Infinity Gems would be allowed to work in unison to form The Infinity Gauntlet. In the situation with Thanos, the Tribunal deemed that Thanos’s possession of The Infinity Gauntlet was justified, as he only sought to replace Eternity’s grand scheme with his own (i.e., “survival of the fittest”). However, in the case of Warlock, the Tribunal was not satisfied that Warlock could adequately control the power of The Infinity Gauntlet. Thus, he ordered that the Gauntlet be disassembled, and the gems be given to new custodians. Grudgingly, Warlock complied and bestowed five of the gems to beings that he deemed capable of protecting them, keeping the Soul Gem for himself. This group of guardians became known as The Infinity Watch.

Prior to relinquishing The Infinity Gauntlet, however, Adam Warlock had performed a dire act. In his preparation for “godhood,” Warlock determined that he needed to rid himself of all emotions that might compromise his judgment. Thus, the good and evil sides of Adam Warlock were expunged from him. One would assume that this would leave a single neutral being in the form of Adam Warlock . . . but Adam Warlock is no simple being, and the act of eliminating his good and evil sides created two new beings: The Goddess, who was the embodiment of the good of Adam Warlock; and Magus, who represented the whole of Adam Warlock’s evil. The Goddess managed to create problems for Warlock and the rest of the Marvel universe in The Infinity Crusade series, but since that story really doesn’t involve The Infinity Gauntlet, we’ll skip it and take a look at Magus.

Upon his creation (or recreation, as it were, since Magus had actually existed some time before as a version of Adam Warlock gone bad . . . long story), Magus traveled to several parallel dimensions to collect a new set of artifacts known as the Cosmic Cubes. These items, while not collectively as powerful as The Infinity Gauntlet, nonetheless gave Magus a great deal of power—enough to send Eternity into a coma and set the entire Marvel universe into frenzy once more. To deal with Magus, Warlock decided to reassemble The Infinity Gauntlet. Unfortunately, the plan did not work as he had hoped. The combined power of the gems did not give Warlock the godlike level of power he once had due to the Tribunal’s decree that the Infinity Gems could no longer be used in unison. Gamora (guardian of the Time Gem and acting on behalf of Adam Warlock) and Galactus asked the Tribunal to reverse this ruling so that Magus could be stopped. The Tribunal called upon the decision of Eternity, who was just starting to reawaken after being battered around by Magus and the Cosmic Cubes. Eternity declared that the Infinity Gems could once more be allowed to combine to form The Infinity Gauntlet . . . right as Magus stole the gauntlet from Adam Warlock!**

Still, Adam Warlock was able to thwart Magus’s plans by replacing the Reality Gem with a fake, thus denying Magus the complete and total power of The Infinity Gauntlet. After regaining control of the Infinity Gems, Warlock absorbed his evil half into the Soul Gem, giving a new spin to the traditional portrayal of the devil within. He then dispersed the Infinity Gems back to their appointed guardians. Finally, Eternity declared that The Infinity Gauntlet would not be allowed to be reformed ever again, regardless of the circumstances. Thus, The Infinity Gauntlet, possibly the single most powerful weapon in the Marvel universe, disappeared into Marvel’s pantheon of long lost storylines.

Infinite Power in the Vs. System

Getting back to the Vs. System, let’s take a look at how The Infinity Gauntlet will affect the game. Obviously the first thing that jumps out is the card’s cost. Prior to Heralds of Galactus, there wasn’t a single equipment card that cost more than 2 resource points to recruit. The list of 2-cost equipment cards is extremely short, and none of these cards saw significant play. This was in large part due to the fact that no one wanted to waste 2 precious resource points on an equipment card, regardless of how amazing the equipment card’s effect might be. That said, it would seem “somewhat” unlikely that a 10-cost equipment would ever be viable.

This, of course, is where the first part of The Infinity Gauntlet’s text comes into play. Sure, you could wait until turn 10 and drop The Infinity Gauntlet onto one of your characters—but if you’re really enterprising and scheming like Thanos, then you can bypass The Infinity Gauntlet’s recruit cost by collecting the Infinity Gems. From a flavor perspective, this is a really cool design element. In order to wield the awesome power of The Infinity Gauntlet, a player can go on a “Thanos Quest” of his or her own to collect all six of the Infinity Gems. Of course, it probably goes without saying that Heralds of Galactus will contain six other equipment cards in the form of the Mind, Power, Reality, Space, Time, and Soul Gems, and that these equipment cards will all be powerful in their own right. It should be interesting to see what these cards look like and if players will be forced to choose between using the Infinity Gems versus hoarding them to bring The Infinity Gauntlet into play.

The Infinity Gauntlet’s ability, naturally, is even more interesting than its alternate cost. There has been quite a bit of speculation about what kind of effect The Infinity Gauntlet would have once it was made into a Vs. System card. These ideas ranged from the spectacular—like “Equipped character gets +20 ATK / +20 DEF and cannot be targeted or stunned”—to the outrageously spectacular—like “When you recruit The Infinity Gauntlet, you win the Pro Circuit.”

Here is what I saw:

Exhaust equipped character à Stun target character.

Other cards that stun characters always have some attached cost or condition, like “KO a resource you control,” or “with cost 3 or less,” or “only during the combat phase.” The Infinity Gauntlet has no associated cost whatsoever. What does this mean? It means that the character that you choose to equip with The Infinity Gauntlet automatically becomes more powerful than any character your opponent controls!!! Think of the possibilities! Dr. Doom, Lord of Latveria is one of the biggest and baddest in the game, but a single Wild Sentinel equipped with The Infinity Gauntlet can stop the armored despot in his tracks. Magneto, Master of Magnetism could normally toss Wolverine, Logan and his adamantium-laced skeleton around like a rag doll. However, if you drop The Infinity Gauntlet on Wolverine, then Magneto goes from being a “Master of Magnetism” to a “Master of Lying Face Down on Your Opponent’s Side of the Board.” And just imagine the fun when Onslaught tries to go head-to-head with Aunt May while she’s armed with The Infinity Gauntlet. Who wants pie now, sucka?!?

As far as gameplay goes, The Infinity Gauntlet may not be as easily absorbed into the competitive metagame as the Fate Artifacts were. However, it will definitely be a mainstay of casual play. Late game cards like Gamma Bomb and Imperiex have found consistent play in many different casual decks. Apparently, the thrill of playing the most powerful cards in the game to any kind of success is a great enticement to many Vs. System players. One could certainly take the approach of stalling until turn 10, then spending all of his or her resource points on The Infinity Gauntlet. However, it seems more likely that player will focus more on the alternate recruit cost: seeing how quickly he or she can assemble all of the Infinity Gems to bring out The Infinity Gauntlet for free. A deck that manages to get out The Infinity Gauntlet on turn 4 or 5 could certainly be a force to be reckoned with.

So get ready, people. The Devourer of Worlds is coming, and he brings with him the most powerful equipment card in the Vs. System to date! Will you be up to the challenge of collecting all of the Infinity Gems so that you can unleash their combined power on an unsuspecting opponent? Only time will tell. Be sure to attend the Heralds of Galactus Sneak Preview on August 26-27 for your chance to wield the limitless power of The Infinity Gauntlet!

Okay, so that last part was kind of cheesy, but I can’t help it! I’m so excited! The Infinity Gauntlet is finally here!

*Okay . . . so technically Thanos knew about the Infinity Gems long before this time—like the first time he tried to collect all of the Infinity Gems (but failed because Adam Warlock wouldn’t surrender the Soul Gem). But it wasn’t until this time around that he learned about the true power of The Infinity Gauntlet (you know—the ability to wield godlike power over all you survey . . . as opposed to the power to blow up a few stars). I only mention this little tidbit to appease all of the comic purists. Yes, The Infinity Gauntlet did exist in the Marvel universe prior to The Infinity Gauntlet series. But since this series is where The Infinity Gauntlet truly came to prominence, I decided to keep our story limited to the events surrounding this time period.