Part 1
Part 2
It’s time for another installment of everyone’s favorite midday soap opera, The Manual . . . Who am I kidding? I wish I could write as well as those soap writers. Those guys are geniuses. Why else would people keep watching those shows after the main characters die for the sixth time, only to be awakened from a seemingly irreversible coma in a faraway city, only to discover that they have amnesia? Insightful stuff, really.
I do know at least one person on this earth with writing skills up to par with the best that daytime TV has to offer. His Draft manual has been the main focus of my articles for the past couple of weeks, and I’m here today to continue my examination of it for all of you lovely people out there.
This week’s article focuses on characters. As the backbone of every deck, characters really define what your deck is. Is it a curve deck? Is it off-curve? Did you draft Avengers, Squadron Supreme, or the mighty Kang? These are questions that can only be answered by your characters. They’re also the only way you can win the game. Characters put the hurtin’ on your opponent.
Sadly, as has been mentioned previously by both me and the manual, most characters are dreadfully average. Sure, they have abilities that separate them from the pack, but honestly, unless the ability is really good, they’re pretty average. Today, the manual will take you through the wonderful world of characters and help you to decide which ones are perfect for your deck and which ones are merely one of the pack.
4. Characters...................................................................................19
Broken Characters.....................................................................20
Quality Bodies...........................................................................22
Filling in the Curve.....................................................................25
“Characters are the meat of your deck. They are your weapons, your means to kill your opponents. As important as plot twists are, they get you absolutely nowhere without a solid character base. Characters come in all shapes and sizes. For the most part, they are relatively average. But once in a while, a truly broken character—one with abilities far and above a normal character—is printed. You should constantly be on the lookout for broken characters because they usually have the ability to win games on their own. Other than the broken characters, you should be on the lookout for quality characters with abilities that are beneficial and fit in nicely with the theme of your deck. Finally, as the draft wanes, you should try to fill in your curve. It is very hard to maintain consistency without a proper curve.
“Much of the last chapter was devoted to explaining the reason that plot twists are better early picks in a draft. Characters come and go, but good plot twists are few and far between. Also, most characters are fairly average statistics-wise, and plot twists are a good way to break this stalemate. However, not all characters are created equal. The designers of Vs. System have managed to produce a few characters so powerful that their presence is devastating to opponents. These characters are referred to as ‘broken’ characters.
“What exactly makes a character broken? A few different factors can go into it. First, since most characters are of fairly average stats, a character with an obscenely large ATK and DEF can make for a broken character. Good examples of such monsters include Wolverine, Logan and Deathwatch, Unrepentant Killer. Both of these characters are so large that it’s almost like getting to drop a character a turn early. Another thing that makes a character broken is an ability that either breaks the rules of the game or creates a situation that offers your opponent no good choices. Good examples of characters like this are Sinestro, Green Lantern of Korugar and Varnae, First Vampire. Both of these characters make it so that your opponent doesn’t really have any good options during his or her turns.”
Just a quick aside on broken characters, if you don’t mind. Something the author appears to have left out regarding broken characters is not to overlook the smaller characters. With the release of the two most recent sets, Green Lantern Corps and The Avengers, the designers have really pushed for an off-curve strategy. Thus, any character that goes a long way toward making that strategy feasible usually qualifies as broken. Good example of this are Arisia and Heinrich Zemo ◊ Baron Zemo. Both of them give all of your characters a bit of a boost while attacking larger characters. They are a huge boon to an off-curve strategy and should be taken very highly. Anyway, enough of my babbling. I know you guys didn’t come here for my writing.
“Another group of characters to keep an eye on are the quality bodies in a pack. These characters are the upper middle class of the set. Most characters are average, but these are slightly better and will hopefully make up the majority of the characters in your deck. What usually sets them apart is an extra point of ATK or DEF or a useful ability. Good examples of such characters are Hal Jordan, Green Lantern of Earth, La Nuit, and Skymax. All three of these characters have slightly above average statistics and useful abilities for their respective teams. These characters will make up the majority of your picks after you have settled into your teams in the middle of the first pack.”
Okay, I’m sorry. I have to break in here again. I kinda sorta left something out of the last article. I didn’t realize that I’d missed it until this week when I was reviewing for this article. It’s not all bad, though, because it ties in really well with the discussion here about characters.
Basically, the author explains that another really important reason for choosing plot twists first in Draft is that doing so allows you to get a good feel for the teams being drafted to your right. You should be able to pick up on the signals your opponents are feeding you. Signals are like a fingerprint in each pack that lets you know what teams your opponents are or are not drafting. If you look down at a pack and notice that there are four Thunderbolts characters in the pack and only one Avengers character, you might start to think that the guy to your right is drafting Avengers and leaving Thunderbolts alone. Remember this! Store that info away—it’ll be useful later. If you check the next few packs and notice that the same observation holds true, you should probably start drafting Thunderbolts and leave Avengers alone.
Things like this are key to having a successful Draft. It’s really easy to come up with a good deck if you are the only drafter at the table taking certain teams. I’ve had some truly ridiculous decks by being the only X-Statix, Manhunter, or Kang drafter at the table. Let everyone else fight over teams while you happily scoop up the under-drafted team and churn out a monster deck.
Sometimes, though, it’s really tough to take a reactive stance on picking a team. If you open up a broken character that sets you into a team, don’t worry. Realize that you usually will end up with two teams, and that’s fine. If the player to your right is drafting the same team as you, it usually means that the player to your left will get the hint and not draft that team. This means that you should get free reign in the second pack to pick all of the best cards for your team, while the player to your right is left with the second picks. All you have to do is use the third pack to solidify your second team, and things will work out fine.
Once again, I’m sorry I interrupted. Back to the manual.
“Without fail, novice drafters run into the problem of having too few characters at a given drop. This is one of the most common problems among Draft decks and by far the easiest to fix. However, it is first necessary to understand a little more about the problem.
“Each set has a different distribution of cost among the characters. Marvel Origins, for example, had a very low percentage of 7-drops, and they were all rare. Contrast that with Superman, Man of Steel, where common 7-drops abound, and you can see the problem. The first step to making a good curve is to recognize where a set’s weak points are. You should figure out whether or not there are many 7-drops. You should also check out the character quality at each drop. This will change how highly you pick certain characters. Take Green Lantern Corps, for example. One of the weakest spots in GL was the 4-drop slot. Most of the characters were just underpowered. Kyle Rayner, Green Lantern of the Universe, though, was a solid character with a great ability and an above average power. This made him a bit more necessary than the average 4-drop because he was so much better.
“As the packs wind down, you may find yourself facing the unfortunate problem of not having enough characters at a given drop. This means that, going into pack three, you’ll need to pick the characters you are missing a bit higher than you normally would to make sure that your curve isn’t compromised. It’s better to miss out on a good character or plot twist to get a substantially more consistent deck than to have holes in your curve.”
His curve diagram is a little out of date, so I’ll walk you through a curve by today’s standards. Since recent sets focus more on off-curve strategies, early drops have become more important. It used to be possible for a deck to get away with a low number of 1- and 2-drops. However, now you need to combat the fact that your opponents’ decks will be coming out of the gates much faster. The standard curve is as follow: one to two 1-drops, two to three 2-drops, four to five 3-drops, four to five 4-drops, three to four 5-drops, two to three 6-drops, and one to two 7-drops.
Another thing that has had a big impact on the curve is the new reservist mechanic. Previously, if you had an opening draw that contained one of your only later drops, you had no choice but to keep. This was rather unfortunate because it left you with a dead card in your hand. If you drew too few plot twists, you had to start putting characters into your resource row, which lead to a great deal of inconsistency. Now, however, you can just play those larger characters in your resource row and recruit them from there when the time comes. It adds so much more consistency to the game.
So much for this week. I’ve received a few emails regarding Sealed Pack questions, but don’t feel bad if your question hasn’t made it up here yet. I’m probably waiting for a better time to address it. I respond to all emails individually and will post the most pertinent ones in due time. That’s all until next week, when I’ll be back with the part that sums all of this up—basic strategy. Until then, keep sending me those emails, and I’ll keep trying to help you improve your game. You can reach me at the_priceis_right@yahoo.com. Thanks for reading!