Crisis is here, and as I write this I am sitting in a happy reverie, sated (for now) after gorging on a weekend of sneaky peeks at the latest DC set. I had an absolute blast playing Sealed Pack and drafting with the new cards, and now I cannot help but glance toward Constructed in general and Silver Age (the format for Pro Circuit San Francisco) in particular.
For me at the moment, Constructed has a few big conflicts going on, and Crisis has shifted the balance in a few little ways that will likely have a big impact on our next Pro Circuit.
If you look at Constructed events throughout the life cycle of the game, there has been a slow but steady move away from the traditional curve philosophy and toward decks that recruit multiple characters on a single turn. While characters with a higher cost typically have much higher stats than their low-cost brethren, in recent sets there has been a great selection of low-cost characters with powerful abilities. When combined with ways of attacking higher-cost characters on a fairly even playing field, going off-curve becomes an attractive proposition.
The most important piece of the off-curve puzzle relates to search effects and card drawing. In typical curve decks, having a good quality search effect or two is more or less essential, as missing out on spending resource points on any turn is just a nightmare. In off-curve decks, there is little chance of not being able to spend all those points each turn because there is a lot more fluidity in what one can recruit. The problem is that on each turn, one only draws two cards naturally. After the one that goes in the resource row, there is only one card left to recruit—clearly not ideal for a deck looking to put two or three guys into play each turn.
With cards like Birthing Chamber in the mix, along with Dr. Light, Master of Holograms and a whole host of characters who naturally search for extra cards, decks like the Faces of Evil builds seen in the hands of Anand Khare and members of The Donkey Club in Atlanta became, to my mind, the decks to beat.
For curve decks, creations like Faces of Evil can be tricky to match up against. Often, their characters can happily be taken down in lopsided fights, thanks to lots of good quality ways of making attacking up the curve work. Meanwhile, for the big baddies looking to even the score, attacking became a frustrating exercise with little guys getting reinforced and only tiny amounts of breakthrough being achieved.
With Crisis, the big boys get to fight back, and I for one am rather looking forward to putting a few of the smaller heroes in their place. With characters like Fatality, Flawless Victory running around to make sure that stunned characters don’t get to stay in play for long, and even the KO’d pile being scoured of most of Dr. Light, Master of Holograms’s friends thanks to Absolute Dominance, life is a little tougher for would-be swarms out there. Don’t even get me started on the naughty things that Shadowpact can do with their new Flame Trap.
Meanwhile, there are some really interesting new bits and pieces for taking Constructed play into new areas. I had a draft featuring a frankly absurd Checkmate deck that, thanks to lots of locations and a couple of Tricked-Out Sports Cars, seemed to play out a character far above the curve without much difficulty on key turns. Who needs Conjuration? This wasn’t the most impressive trick to be highlighted during Crisis drafts for me this weekend, though.
As somebody who has always had a bit of a soft spot for Teen Titans and for engineering over-the-top turns featuring Teen Titans Go!, it sent a shiver down my spine to see the impressive naughtiness that can be achieved with the appropriate JSA characters and Double Play. Two different identities of Hawkman swinging in, with both getting the powerful plot twist played on them, seems to be some sort of a home run from my perspective; and for Constructed purposes, it seems to me that even scarier results might be possible if all the different identities of Hourman (who was large and in charge all weekend) decided to get together for some team attacking action.
Inevitably, there will already be discussions going on about what the “best card in the set” is. Ultimately, I think that these are probably redundant, as power levels are largely contingent on what everyone else is playing. However, for those of you who were wondering, the following are my favorite cards in the set for future Constructed play.
Mr. Mytzxglkj . . . Mxphsadgu . . . you know the one
A curious little fellow who I can imagine seeing quite a lot of play without ever literally hitting play, Mr. Myximatosis turns various cards that have an inherent discard cost into very efficient cards indeed. A Birthing Chamber that just draws two cards per turn? A Slaughter Swamp that can get back Mikado and Mosha each turn at no real cost? Various character search effects getting that little bit more efficient? Mr. Mxyzptlk, Troublesome Trickster is the perfect fuel for a forest fire of card advantage. Though probably not the best choice for Squadron Supreme . . .
- Talia, Daughter of Madness
Wearing nothing but a soapy smile as she gets out of her Lazarus Pit, Talia, much like the first member of my list, gives you something for virtually nothing. There are plenty of outlets for her unique talents, many of which are just as good for Mr. M. The best clever play I’ve seen involving her so far is to use her with Katar Hol ◊ Hawkman, Eternal Hero so that, in the process of powering-up a character, a different identity of the hero being powered-up could join the fray.
Of course, these are still just Sealed Pack plays. For Constructed, the mind boggles. As I write this, my mind is boggling. By the time you read it, I’m not convinced that it will have stopped. Here’s a first thought for you: Dagger, Child of Light.
- Sarge Steel
I didn’t get to do anything particularly absurd with any of my first couple of picks during Sneak Preview weekend, but with the Sarge, I was both purveyor of and victim to some real beatings. There have been various bodyguards in the game up until this point, but Sarge is my pick for the absolute best. A frequent issue with DC sets is that more or less every DC hero can fly, and all that flight makes the formation step a little redundant. Cards like Coast City and our Sarge put a stop to that.
He will take a bullet whenever one is coming and happily protect his boss on attack or defense. In the meantime, he is a very solid 3 ATK / 3 DEF body on turn 2 who will on occasion take down frustrating 1-drops on the way in. This is a 2-drop I want in my corner for a fight. At the Sneak Preview, I had to face down an Annihilation Protocol ◊ OMAC Robot hiding behind Sarge. Often, the Robots don’t actually get to beat a lot up; their high ATK values get wasted because players want to keep them alive in order to use their stellar abilities. With Sarge around, they can do both. I had my 5-drop attacked up into by my opponent’s 4-drop and then stunned and KO’d by Mister Steel. Then the OMAC Robots smashed straight through my 4-drop, and rather than getting stunned, Sarge took the bullet. It was a beating.
On offense and defense—any time you have a solid body in play—you need a good bodyguard. Sarge Steel is just that.
For both Sealed Pack and Constructed play, Crisis seems to have put the cat among the pigeons. With the Pro Circuit just one month away, this is a time for the innovative to step up, make the most of all the new options open to them, and stamp their mark on Silver Age.
One month.
You’d better get started.
Tim “Pisces of Infinite Mirth” Willoughby
timwilloughby@hotmail.com