Tons of News: Crazy Times

First of all … HUGE load off my mind with exams over. I can start getting into summer mode, which will be nice. Tons of stuff happening, and just wanted to put out my thoughts on a few things.

First of all, we have the greatness that is Marvel Universe. Everything that has been spoiled so far just goes to further show that the people designing on the cards have really hit on exactly what Versus should be about. In the current Modern Metagame we have decks featuring the World’s Finest with a Superman being large and in charge in the visible area while Batman sits back in the shadow ruining anyone’s plans. And then there is money.dec where a ton of the big guns of the JLA work together to just plain be awesome. And in Marvel Universe, they have taken the Legend idea and made it even cooler. Hulk is probably going to be an archetypal legend going forward. We’ve seen legendary teams before, but outside of Doom, they’ve often required some sort of non-uniqueness trick to really see play. Even those decks that do play multiples of the same legend have to either rely on some sort of tricks [like using Basil Karlo on 5] to be able to play anything close to consecutive drops. It’s just difficult to justify losing a character to replace them with a higher drop version. Substitute can help, but that can’t be the only answer. Thankfully it isn’t. Not only have we seen at least one version of the Hulk that directly “eats” his smaller version via Boost, we’ve also seen some things Hulk can do before he goes away. And now we have Stark’s Armory. Hopefully we see a curve of Iron Men, perhaps on drops 2, 4 and 6 at the very least. Combining the ability to accumulate and pass on +1/+1 counters thanks to Stark’s Armory, and the card I’ve always wanted to take advantage of: New and Improved … is going to just be cool. Counter accumulation decks have always been cool, a friend of mine piloted such a deck to a top 4 finish at 10K Hamilton, using the original Secret Society and the tricks with the Sinister Citadel. While I like the stuff they’ve done with Doom Patrol and the Horsemen of Apoc, I’m looking forward to Iron Man’s take on it.

Related to Iron Man, I find it really interesting how his 4-drop contrasts with Captain America’s. It would be very interesting to see a few points on the curve where both men have the same drop and comparable effects. It really fits into the flavor of Civil War to be forced to choose which one you want to have as your 4-drop, and how each of them provides something different. Captain America is able to redirect attacks, and odds are good that, to make use of his secondary power, he’ll be the one taking the bullet. However, for Tony, he wants everyone close to him to get stunned. Captain America might prevent some damage, but Tony is looking at the big picture. He might be letting the people close to him get hurt while he just stands there, but in the long run, they survive and are better for it. Captain America might prevent a lot of people from getting hurt, but he doesn’t really stop anyone from getting KO’d in the long run. It’s an interesting and flavorful take on their positions and motivations as characters.

Another thing I want to say about MUN, it’s very cool to see old themes come back. Not only are we seeing the old Avengers get a refeature in the form of Secret Avengers as reservists and Young Avengers as team attackers, but we are getting an X-Statix thematic refeature with the Warbond and something similar to the old Injustice Gang army swarm looks to be appearing with SHIELD. With Modern and Silver Age rotating old stuff out, it’s nice to see that refeaturing old content needs to come in the way of reprints or seeing new versions of old teams, but instead seeing old mechanics done new ways.

Now, there are other things going on. We now know that the set AFTER Marvel Universe is tentatively called Marvel Evolution. It looks like it will be touching on some of the more mutant centric storylines in recent years. Even for those that aren’t necessarily that interested in the X-men, there are a number of things to look forward to. Specifically, two words: Deadpool Legend.

The big thing though, is what came out as part of that. Upper Deck is negotiating with DC Comics about expanding their licensing category (no idea what it means, but propably has more to do with things like Marvel Ultimate Battle and the other Marvel related stuff that Upper Deck does than Vs. itself). One of the byproducts of the discussions however, is there being no DC set this year. We are just about at the end of the DCX line, and from that day in June when Marvel Universe drops, the earliest possible time we’d see a new DC set would be June 2009, unless I’m missing something. Hypothetically, it could come out in Feb 2009, which would probably mean a return to 4 sets per year, which might explain the reason they went to 2 sets a year in the first place, perhaps to buy time for the discussions and hopefully get DC on board in time to have a set by the end of the year.

Honestly, it’s going to be disappointing to miss out on seeing stuff from the Sinestro War, and hopefully by the time a DC set does come out, it will still be recent enough to have it work in the set. Of course, as of 2009, In Blackest Night should be starting, which would provide a ton of content for a Green Lantern based set. Similarly, while 52, OYL and Countdown, and the storylines that are connected to those, would be nice to see now, but in 2009, we’ll also be able to include Final Crisis as part of it. Hopefully it will be worth the wait. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to Marvel Universe, and World’s.