However we seem to be entering a strange new precipice, the culmination of our card-flopping community lives on, and what's more, has evolved.
VS is now, it seems a legitimate fanset community. And with the onset of fan-made content it's only right that several projects were bound to take center stage. Few have been in the workshop or pumped out more custom creation love than CaptainSpud and friends. And the Final Crisis DC fanset, seems to exemtion to testament their creative prowess And in true set release fashion, we're getting PREVIEWS!
So lets get to it. Shall we?
I'm a fan of a good bad guy. Not just any bad guy, i really, REALLY enjoy reading about the hardcore villians. No master plans, no overly convoluted series of manipulations, no no sir, give me a ridiculously overpowered dude with no sense of justice or morality.
I'm talking about Doomsday. I'm talking about Galactus, I'm talking about Superboy prime.
Oh Superboy Prime. And does he deliver.
Superboy Prime starts out as an unassuming wannabe superman, playing a significant role in the destruction of an alternate reality anti-monitor, however at the cost of his entire universe. After this moment with some manipulation and goading from alexander luthor of earth-3 Superboy prime realizes that the surviving earths in the multiverse are a far cry from the "perfection" of his own Earth Prime. All of the sudden this good kid essentially has a temper tantrum. and in doing so, becomes a misguided titan of destruction, notably, killing the real Connor Kent(of teen titans), among numerous others. Eventually, he decides that by destroying mogo he can recreate a big-bang event and become the universe's only hero, and although almost every single hero on earth is in pursuit, he eludes being captured, manages to break through a 300 mile wall of pure willpower and on the other side proceeds to slaughter 32 green-lanterns. this allows earth 2 superman and earth1 superman to overtake him and they shove him through kryptons red star Rao, severely weakening all 3 of them and they land on Mogo surrounded by kryptonite. However even this does not stop Superboy prime from beating Earth 2 superman into a bloody pulp before earth 1 supes finally takes him down.Check please. Table 1.
And that's just the beginnings of Prime. he later joins the sinestro corps, if only to single-handedly murder that reality's anti-monitor, and even later takes down Monarch during Countdown to final crisis. and who knows what the Blackest Night arc will bring.
This kid is an overpowered roach, and watching the deluded kid do his thing is comic GOLD.
Needless to say, any self-respecting DC set absolutely HAS to have him represented and the DFC crew did not fail to make me giggle in ways i can never fully explain.
As in true Future Foes fashion, a return to the discard theme is a very nice fit to an already ridiculous card. His flaw essentially making him simply overpowered and not absolutely devastating. With the right card, however it is worth noting that the flaw does not NEGATE his readying effect, it actually ADDS a trigger effect exhausting him again. So cards like Banished to the abyss make the already formidable 4 drop a minimum 11/12 on the trigger of his effect.
Also you can chain an exhaust cost to the trigger of his flaw for cards like ego gem, milenium, etc.
Now lets take this a bit further.
Any equipment that grants the equipped character an activated effect will love to see play on Superboy prime as well, even with Primes flaw working against him we can still see an activation of cards like War Wagon, Advanced Hardware, Med Kit, Ultimate Nullifier, Phantom Zone Projector, and others, by simply chaining to the flaw trigger.
Now i have debated keeping this next part secret or if i should divulge away, And I at last decided, aw HECK lets let the kids play.
Picture this, a shield deck teaming with Future foes, and then on turn 4 recruiting Superboy Prime with War Machine Armor. Our opponent will likely do what most opponents would do and gladly pay the flaw. (for the sake of this illustration we'll say our opponent has drops 1,2,3 and 4 still in play.)
So the start of combat arrives and YAY it's our initiative! so we activate war machine armor, discarding our hand as a cost, burning our opponent for 4, replacing 4 resources they control and forcing them to stun a character with a cost of 4 or less. so in this case lets say they stun their 1. Since Prime is the controller of the effect. (equipped character has:.....) he will ready from his effect. at this point the flaw will trigger. except for one small problem for our opponent.
We can chain to the trigger! so we activate again! now we replace 4 more, burn for 4 and stun their 2! A wise opponent will now realize that discarding is pointless and will only play the flaw on his last ready, but not before prime does this again on the three drop and again on the 4 drop, where the opponent would pay the flaw, and instead of a final attack we would have to settle for one last activation chained for 4 more burn.
In total thats a turn 4 burn for 30 endurance, 20 resources replaced, and a fully stunned opposing field. and we havent considered damage from turns 1-3 and we havent attacked with any other characters yet. Keeping opposing characters in play, is not difficult to achieve as most of the future foes lineup will auto-recover any of their targets to begin with. And we've already seen a future foes build that abuses internal bleeding for a relatively early win as it is. (ask Scott Hamilton of you doubt!)
Now i'm a big fan of a thematic villian with a great effect. but i'm forced to ask the question, should this be fixed before there's a problem? or will this set have a timely answer for this? Hopefully it doesn't take a red sun, 2 supermen, the entire Green Lantern corps and a planet full of kryptonite to slow down the cardboard version either.
that's my nickel, thanks for stopping by guys.
***edit***
in true DC style the DFC crew decided to retcon punch Prime's flaw to the new wording: The next time he would ready this turn, instead, he remains exhausted.
