We’re always curious to see players’ impressions of the fruits of our labor, so I went around to ask some of the pros around here what they thought of the newest addition to the Vs. System family, The Avengers.

Bulk Lao - “The Avengers seem very good. Monica Rambeau ◊ Captain Marvel and Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow, Super Spy both have flight and range, so you can’t hide your guys from them. In an ideal scenario, where you hit your 4 and 5, if you have Legendary Battles, you can team attack with your 5 into theirs, play Legendary Battles to bounce their 5-drop. Then you pay 3, readying you 4-drop which you then attack into their 4-drop, clearing their board. I don’t see how you could get out of that, if it happens. As a Sealed Pack set, it seems pretty fun. You get the Avengers, which are built around team attacking, and the Squadron, which is based on using all the cards in your hand to gain benefits, which seems pretty fun. The only real problem I have is that I think that the exclusive team-ups will force players into drafting a certain way.”

Nick Little - “It seems like all of the teams are really well designed. It seems like they’re all really playable. Avengers the team, as far as I can tell, with all of the character search—and the fact their characters are on par with or better than most of the other characters on the curve—should make them pretty good. I haven’t had a chance to look at all of the cards, but so far it seems good. As for Sealed Pack, I think it seems really fun. I’ve only drafted once, and I didn’t win any games with my deck, but it seems like you can draft a really good off-curve strategy with all of the reservist guys and a clear hand . . . those cards that give you bonuses for not having a hand . . . it seemed really good.

Anthony Justice - “We all went up to a prerelease in Cincinnati and we were all really impressed with the set. Kang just looks so interesting. I can’t wait to get my hands on some Kangs. It seems like The Avengers is going to have an impact straight away, because a lot of the Avengers cards seem packaged really well. They have good stats, good abilities, and the leader mechanic just seems really good. The reservist cards, like Bring Down the Lightning and Black Panther, T’Challa, things like that, I think those cards are going to see play right out of the gate. For Sealed Pack, it’s the first set that we’ve played where you don’t really have to follow your curve to follow your deck’s plan. I saw a lot of decks that were built around that Squadron team where you could really miss your drops, like from those proverbial bad beat stories, and still win the game.

Dair Grant - “I’ve seen most of the cards, but I’ve only drafted it like twice. Most of the cards seem really balanced, and it isn’t like there is one team that is way better than the rest. It seems pretty solid.

I also had a chance to speak with these players and a few of the up-and-coming players about the changes to the $10K payout structure. Most of the pros were pretty uniform in their opinions. They were happy to see that the payouts had gotten a bit bigger at the bottom. As Nick Little said, “It’s nice now because you can make the very end of the payout and still make enough money to cover the majority of your trip. It makes it much easier for players to travel to these events.” Anthony Justice went on to add, “I also love the new amateur prizes they’ve offered. It should really give new players a lot of incentive to try to do well and end up getting more players playing the game.” One of the up-and-coming new players I interviewed, Matt Lackey, told me, “I love it. I’m not really all that good, but I’m really trying to learn, and would love the ability to travel and go to all of these events. I also really like the amateur prize. It should really help the new players.” It appears that UDE has made a really successful move in changing the payout for the $10Ks. Hopefully, these players’ optimism about this change fostering growth in the Vs. System community comes true. Stay tuned for more coverage of $10K Wizard World Chicago at Metagame.com.