Attack up the curve with a character and play an ATK pump. Bash down the curve with another, and play an ATK pump when your opponent plays a DEF pump. Cause breakthrough with your last attacker by playing even more ATK pumps.

Vs. System revolves around combat. Given that you're reading this article, you probably either enjoy Vs. or are a crazed fan of yours truly (or my mom). I'll just assume you've played Vs. System before today, which means combat is not a foreign concept to you (Mom, Vs. revolves around combat—just thought I would let you know). If you’re going to be in combat, it sure would be nice to have the numbers always work in your favor. In other words, you’d like for your character to always stun the opponent’s character; hence, ATK pumps are good. This should not be new for you either. (Mom, ATK pumps are good.)

While some people like to avoid fights and seek to interact outside of combat (Roy Harper ◊ Arsenal, Dr. Doom, and Jason Hager, to name a few), nothing screams Vs. System like a good old-fashioned Savage Beatdown.

Well, here's a card that demands comparison to the gold standard of ATK pumps. Ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, and because I could not avoid this pun:

Welcome to the Big Leagues!

This one obviously comes with a slight restriction, but we'll know if we can play this card as we're building our decks. There are basically four classes of decks to consider when evaluating the reliability of playing this card.

1. Enemy of My Enemy-fueled decks that might have a dozen affiliations: Sorry—back to the minors for you. (Blame Toby Watcher for giving me a pun-tastic preview card.)

2. Decks with incidental team-ups: Examples of these decks include Good Guys and Anthony Calabrese’s Society deck from Pro Circuit Indy '06. This deck is the only one in the grey area, but I would advise leaving Big Leagues at home. ATK pumps are cards that you always want to be able to play (more on this later); don't risk being unable to play your ATK pump.

3. Decks with more than one team that rely on team-ups: Checkmate/Villains United decks and the “Crisis on Infinite Doom” deck more or less rely on having their characters share an affiliation. You're safe here. There will be very few times when you cannot play this plot twist.

4. Mono-team decks: If you want an ATK pump, this is almost always your best choice.

In many respects, the requirements for Big Leagues are more or less the same as the requirements for Mobilize. I'm sure you'll start to see the two cards together in many decks in the near future.

An extra +4 ATK is quite a bit, and given that the standard ATK pump gives +3 ATK, this is sure to find its way into many different decks. Let's compare Big Leagues to some of its competition.

Savage Beatdown: The granddaddy of ATK pumps. While Vs. was in its infancy, most games lasted between six and eight turns. This gave the Savage Beatdown player plenty of opportunities to play his or her marquee plot twist. As the card pool expanded and decks became more focused, however, many decks had the capacity to end games on turn 5 (and in some extreme cases, even sooner). When the game ends on turn 5, Savage Beatdown only has one turn in which it can be played during an attack. Most of the time, this just makes the Beatdown little more than a glorified Surprise Attack. This is where the 3 threshold cost of Big Leagues makes a world of difference. A single turn may not seem like much, but the next time you're packing Savage Beatdown and need some extra juice on turn 3, or your attack step gets shut down on turn 5, don't come crying to me with your blank Savage Beatdown. If we're talking Silver or Modern Age tournaments, then I'd go with the one that won't get you disqualified.

Flying Kick: There is nothing I hate more than having to settle for Flying Kick when all my characters have flight. Big Leagues is a certain upgrade. If breaking up formations is crucial, though, and your characters aren't blessed with flight, then you might want to stick with Flying Kick. Most reservist-based decks will want the ability to fly, although reservist decks typically want enough ATK pumps that both Flying Kick and this card will make the deck.

No Man Escapes the Manhunters: Cards that give +ATK to your characters are almost strictly better than those that give -DEF to the opponent’s characters. The latter doesn't really help when you're attacking directly. One of the few times you'd rather have -DEF is when you're making an attack that may or may not succeed, and you have the ability to attack the same character again. The other major reason you’d prefer -DEF is to play around the presence of System Failure, which may or may not be relevant. Outside of the distinction between +ATK and -DEF, the other major consideration when choosing between No Man Escapes the Manhunters and Big Leagues is the presence and popularity of concealed characters in the given metagame. When in doubt, 4 > 3. I'm good at math.

Crime and Punishment: You do want to attack again, don't you? Oh, you have a Marvel Knights deck? Then they're the same card; how do you want me to distinguish them?

With that said, I'll share a decklist I've been working on since the first time I saw Big Leagues.

X Characters

Y Search cards

Z Other attack pumps

4 Big Leagues

X + Y + Z = 56 cards. Definitely not 57.

Pretty simple, right? Big Leagues is not a card that will alter the way you think about the game. It does not demand that you build a deck around it, but it is very good at what it does—and what it does is bash your face!