Heres Garys tournament report from the UK Nationals along with his deck analysis of his BYOS Legend deck:
Quintessentially Quirky - The Helmets take Manhattan
(Well, London… and less take and more visit and get some photos….)
Apologies that there is still no new material from me, really, really tied up with work with the end of the financial year approaching.
Here’s another QQ from Gary.
Quintessentially Quirky – Going Old School
First Lady of Crime
This is another quirky golden age deck that is once again designed to demonstrate the possibilities there are for some really very odd combinations of teams.
There are a few teams that really struggled to find a place in the competitive histories of VS. Teams like New Gods, Man-hunters and X-Statix have all missed out on their chance to shine. Another team has always hovered just outside of the competitive circuit, with an unusual play style they promised much but never quite delivered. The Crime Lords featured in the Marvel Knights set and tried to make us believe that penalising your opponent for daring to attack was a good way to secure victory. To some extent they worked, making attacking difficult through high defence pumps and redirection was something that has always been a strong play in a combat focused world. Unfortunately, the reliance on reinforcement and the inability to use formation proved too much. The lessons learnt here were put to good effect in the Team Superman re-feature in DC Worlds Finest.
But the Crime Lords should not be forgotten. If we can find away to give them consistent reinforcement and even some additional attack control then there may be a way to bring the best out in them.
There has been one character in VS that has always been synonymous with protection and reinforcement, and that is Invisible Woman. From Marvel Origins, she has been negating attacks on herself and reinforcing her family simply by being there, and over the last few sets her repertoire of sneaky tricks has just got bigger.
So I hereby present you with the new First Lady of Crime….
Queen Pin. Read more »
The latest deck to appear in Gary’s series of Quintessentially Quirky articles actually saw play at last weekends London City Champs. So here it is - Another Brick in the Wall. Read more »
Another deck of workable jank from Happymoog
Big Red Gauntlet
This is another janky deck that looks to do something a bit quirky and odd to win the game.
I adored the Hellboy Essential Collection. It had great artwork, one of the better rule books I have seen, and two decks that brought something interesting to VS. A lot of starter decks have been overly simplistic decks that have also been under-powered when paired up against more traditional builds. This was not something that the H.E.C suffered from. Both decks had their own definite themes and play styles that were competitive.
I have decided to take one of those themes and see if I can combine it with possibly the most ridiculous suite of cards in VS.
The Bureau of Paranormal Research and Development are known for two things: Big Red himself, Hellboy, and the use of other-world technology to overcome their opponents. This was represented by some of the strongest equipment support in any team. So I wanted to give them so powerful toys to play with, and the best toys in town are…………… no, not the Fate Artifacts, they are for beginners! Much better than that……
The Infinity Gauntlet and its component gems! Anything that costs 10 resource points to recruit has to be good, and you are not disappointed. This is a powerful piece of kit… but nothing this good comes easy J (see earlier deck lists for why this is a good thing!) Read more »
Another delightfully janky build from Garry ’Happymoog’ Hewitt
DOOM’S PET G.
I just want to echo what Graham said in his Intro article. These decks are not tournament winning power-houses. I build quirky decks that are often easily improved, and certainly do not compare myself to the Pro players of old. These decks are designed to make you think outside the box and look to creating decks that are interesting and fun to play.
This is another one of the jank decks that shouldn’t really see the light of day. Yet there is something within a lot of VS players that makes them want to take those crazy cards that shouldn’t impact on a normal game and bring them to the table.
My personal approach to most decks I build is that if it’s not difficult to do, then it’s not worth doing. My main Elite Series decks were based around Four Freedoms Plaza (pre-Bizarro obviously) and the Dual-Loyalty Dr Doom. So getting hold of the “Galactus is Coming” set was always going to get the creative juices flowing. Now getting to turn 8 to use a ridiculous plot twist like Obliterate is a lot easier when you start on turn 4 or 5, and your opponent is only recruiting smaller guys. In a normal game, when you start on turn 1, things get trickier. Even tougher would be the ability to use it earlier than turn 8. Sounds like fun doesn’t it J
Taking the ideas behind the old Gamma Bomb decks that looks to go off on turn 6 or 7, I decided that it was time for Dr Doom to hire some help to start blowing stuff up. Read more »
The following article has been submitted by a fellow UK player, Garry Hewitt, known around the forums as HappyMoog. A great builder of fun decks as is the british way, Garry’s sealed rating is therefore a lot better than his constructed…..although the recent round of Elite Series did see him set about rectifying that fact. This will be the first in his series of fun casual decks, a series that I am going to name after a snippet from my welcome thread, Quintessentially Quirky.
ROCKSLIDE – Infinite Thing Deck.
When Crisis on Infinite Earths was released in the JLA set, it became clear that there were some abusive combinations that could be brought to the table. Crisis Doom was a powerhouse deck that looked to bypass the problem that using all the powerful plot twist based effects that the Evil Doctor possessed meant minimal field presence through Uniqueness. It had consistency and power, able to merge the most powerful cards from an assortment of teams, in order to create a curve of high utility and power.
However, this card was also a comic book fan’s best friend. If you had always wanted to play a deck that focused on the main facets of your favourite character, this was your chance. All it needed was a bit of imagination and you could bring your Hero (or heroine) to the table in their resplendent glory. Here is one such deck….
The Thing, aka Mr Ben Grimm, is the rock-coated heart of the Fantastic 4. In the game, he has ATK and DEF stats above the curve on most of his drops. What he lacks in finesse and trickery he makes up for in power.
So the build…. Read more »
