Fan Card Crossover – Week 1: Living Up to a Legacy

Current Card:

The votes are in, and the first element of the Fan Card Crossover has been chosen. The League of Assassins closely edged out Gotham Knights and Arkham Inmates. This result personally surprised me, but I think many people realized that League would be the team to benefit most from a new character, as both Gotham Knights and Arkham Inmates have strong character rosters in comparison.

Here are the results for those who are interested:

• League of Assassins – 21.2%
• Gotham Knights – 16%
• Arkham Inmates – 14.7%
• Team Superman – 9.2%
• Revenge Squad – 8.2%
• JLA – 5.8%
• New Gods – 5.5%
• Green Lantern – 5.5%
• Secret Society – 4.1%
• Manhunter – 3.4%
• JLI – 2.4%
• Anti-Matter – 1.5%
• Injustice Gang – 1.5%
• Emerald Enemies – 1.0%

As you can see, the race was really close, but one thing was abundantly clear: you guys really like the teams from DC Origins . . . or at least, you think that they deserve or need the most help!

This week’s design tutorial will look at the ingredients that make up an affiliation and how to apply this knowledge when you make a legacy card. When we make Vs. sets, each team has themes that are comprised of two important components: inputs and outputs. In essence, inputs and outputs are game mechanic roadmaps to how people perceive and associate with the team in question.

Inputs are costs or conditions that each team tries to pay or satisfy to get an effect. Inputs vary in intent and complexity, from merely choosing a team to play all the way to constructing an elaborate situation that might only occur once or twice a game. A good example of a simple input condition is the ally keyword, which triggers whenever a character is powered-up. Every card has an input. Even Savage Beatdown has the opportunity cost of playing the card itself.

In the case of the League of Assassins, the basic inputs are relatively clear:

• Requiring lots of locations (like Merlyn, Deadly Archer)
• Having stunned characters (like Pit of Madness)
• Heavy loyalty requirements (like Lady Shiva, Master Assassin)

Inputs also give deckbuilders clearer direction for how they should go about putting decks together and for seeing which affiliations have the most natural synergies.

Outputs in Vs. are the dividend, or “cookie,” that a player receives for playing the affiliation. Like inputs, they serve as guidelines, but they speak more to how the team affects the environment of the game or the other players within it. The reason we call these cookies (apart from the fact that Danny Mandel moonlights at the Children’s Television Workshop) is that they are the treat that you get for doing a little work—that is, for satisfying the input. There are basic outputs in Vs. that are generally available to all teams, such as ATK and DEF modifiers. But the more interesting outputs generally allow players to work out a strategy of how to interact with and ultimately win the game.

The League of Assassins has these as major outputs:

• KO’ing characters (like Bane, Ubu)
• Altering your resource row (like Sensei)
• Increasing the power of locations (like Ra’s al Ghul, The Demon’s Head)
• Removing opponents’ team affiliations (like Tower of Babel)

As you can see, most of the outputs point to the most powerful strategies that League has at its disposal. Outputs often increase in effectiveness with the density of effects, though there are some outputs whose utility will actually decrease with greater use (KO’ing characters, for example).

That’s enough work for this week. We’ll go into more depth about inputs and outputs in the coming weeks. Now, it’s time for some fun! I’ve recruited my friend and Vs. luminary (*cough cough*) Billy Zonos to give us a hand for the next stage of the evolution of the Fan Card Crossover, since he is unashamedly a comic fanboy.

1. David Cain

David Cain is one of the world’s premier assassins. He’s taken out some of the most famous and powerful people on the planet, no matter how seemingly impossible the task.

Cain is exceptionally meticulous, and his success can be partially attributed to his painstaking preparation. He always plans far ahead for any contingency, hence his decision to train someone to be his partner and eventual successor. Several attempts failed before he succeeded in acquiring a child who, at an extraordinarily early age, showed stunning physical prowess—the female who would one day become the new Batgirl. While it was originally believed that he had adopted her, recent issues suggest that he may actually be her biological father.

Cain named her Cassandra and trained the young girl in every imaginable form of violence, from hand-to-hand combat to weapons and explosives. To further her skills, Cain never taught her how to speak. Instead, physical movement became her language, and she learned to read a person’s body language as well and easily as other people can understand speech. This skill gave Cassandra the ability to predict exactly what her opponents were going to do, sometimes before they knew it themselves.

Cassandra left Cain immediately after performing her first assassination, shattered by the experience of ending another person’s life. Cain was surprisingly devastated by her disappearance and has never been the same since. He has never quite given up hope that someday she might return to his life. While Cain was not a good father, he has shown that he does care for Cassandra.

2. Nyssa Raatko (or Nyssa al Ghul)

In Batman: Death and the Maidens, it is revealed that Ra’s al Ghul had a love child called Nyssa, born during his travels in Russia in the 18th century. Enamored by the romantic stories that her mother told her about Ra’s, Nyssa set out to find Ra’s and eventually located him at his headquarters in North Africa.

Impressed by her beauty, her warrior skills, and the fact that she was able to locate him, Ra’s promoted her to a position similar to that held by her half-sister, Talia. As a right-hand associate, she accompanied him during his adventures. Ra’s was so impressed with her abilities that he even allowed Nyssa to use his Lazarus Pits. Like her sister Talia, Nyssa eventually became disenchanted with her father’s genocidal plans to “cleanse the Earth,” and she disassociated herself sometime in the early 19th century. Ra’s reluctantly approved this, believing that she would return to him and that she and/or her children would become his future heirs. To his disappointment, Nyssa refused to give herself or her family to him, causing him to disown her officially and permanently. He did, however, allow her to keep a Lazarus Pit for herself, and much to his surprise, she found a way to reuse it, allowing her to survive until modern times.

During World War II, Nyssa and her family were sent to a concentration camp, where Nyssa’s entire family died and she was rendered infertile by some gruesome experiments. Broken by her horrifying experiences and enraged that Ra’s had abandoned her and her family to die at the hands of the Nazis, she planned to kill Ra’s by befriending, kidnapping, and brainwashing Talia and using her to kill their father. She would then destroy all hope and optimism in the world by assassinating Superman with kryptonite bullets she stole from the Batcave.

While Batman was successful in preventing the assassination of Superman, he was unable to stop Ra’s from being killed by Nyssa. Both Nyssa and Talia then became the heads of the League of Assassins. Talia disavowed her love for Bruce Wayne, and both sisters declared Batman to be their enemy.

Nyssa is in possession of the world’s last Lazarus Pit, which has granted her longevity and the ability to heal her wounds—she survived the Holocaust thanks to its powers. She is also extremely wealthy, especially since she assumed control of Ra’s al Ghul’s organization and joined forces with Talia. Like her father and sister, she knows Batman’s secret identity and the location of the Batcave.

3. Ra’s al Ghul, The Dying Demon (This version should represent him at the end of Death and the Maidens.)

While Nyssa failed to kill Superman, she was still able to mortally wound her father. A dying Ra’s revealed that this was all part of his greater plan to ensure that his daughters, both initially dissatisfied with his plans, would realize that he was correct in his perceptions about the world and would come to accept their destinies as his heirs. Ra’s al Ghul’s plan worked, as both Nyssa and Talia became the heads of the League of Assassins. Talia disavowed her love for Bruce Wayne, and both sisters declared that Batman was their enemy.

4. Shrike (IV), Boone

Now educated by members of the League of Assassins, Shrike (IV) is one of the world’s foremost mercenaries. His preferred weapons include shuriken and daggers. He is currently being trained by the Lady Assassin herself, Lady Shiva.

Fan Card Crossover - Week 2

What Character?

·         David Cain

·         Nyssa Raatko

·         Ra’s al Ghul

TBS