Tales from the crew: Silver-age Speedforce lives!... maybe…

Our city is flooding. We're looking at possibly the worst flood damage to hit in the last 30 years. And I have to say, it's a good day to play VS. Stuck in the house, some surprising amounts of free time, It's great how I don't need power, or batteries to jam with my close friends, just a deck and a pal with some time to kill. *sigh* anyway, enough reminiscing, I have a treat for you today.

I was minding my own business today, trying to incorporate busted ways to address combat pumps with the 3-set modern age we're left to test and explore until June 11th arrives. (The day after my birthday!) When I get an email alert from a very good buddy of mine, Mark Holmes, aka: Widied. I always enjoy his refreshing take on deckbuilding. His ideas never fail to rev up my combo-oriented mind. It's like a nice slice of home apple pie for the VS soul. That said, I'll let his Silver-age oriented article to the talking, and get to it.
Enjoy.

-Aaron

I’ve typed up a new decklist that I fully intend to bust out at Hobby League tonight for best or for worst. I`ve been toying with speed force since the release of DCL trying desperately to come up with something astounding for them – and likewise, I have been a fan of the Wally West, Flash, stories for awhile. I’ve always liked the odd-ball quality of his character. The Flash has always been portrayed as the ‘every-man’ hero – just a normal guy... That can shiver so fast he accidentally enters alternate realities. Ok not so normal, but he`s got an approachable-ness to his character. A comforting degree of humanity you just don`t see in the man of steel. He wasn’t the invulnerable Superman, or a super-smart detective, he was just some dude that could move at the speed of light. No big deal. Hell, I remember a peculiar stint in Wally’s life when he worked for tax return -- that was entertaining.

Don’t get me wrong, the comic writing wasn’t always epic – trust me, Wally had his fair share of “what the heck was that all about?” moments, but there was just something that resonated in the ‘everyday-ness’ of his character. I appreciated the familiar yet extraordinary angle and the "everyone wishes they could be a hundred places at once" plots. Not to mention that the Speed Force oriented stories were always just plain cool! But enough of that comic gushing, possibly the most real reason I decided to make this deck was I traded a lot of cards to rally up all the Speed force pieces I need, so I want to put them to good use!

Card-wise, the Speed Force team is loaded with a pile of great abilities but they need special treatment. A synergistic team that can bring it's own brand of rain, if you will.

Enter, Alan Scott.

Immediately I saw some potential fun between him and Wally West - The Fastest Man Alive and I guess my mind got stuck there. I’m not convinced of it’s consistency, but I am convinced of its fun.

Don't Fear the Reaper -V1.0

Characters:
4x Atom Smasher
4x Blue Beetle - equip search

4x Jack Knight - Starman

4x XS
2x Michael Holt - Mr. Terrific

4x Alan Scott – Golden-Age Engineer
2x Barry Allen

3x Wally West - The Fastest Man Alive
1x Wally West - Keystone Cop

2x Jay Garrick
2x Barry Allen - Founding Member

Plot Twists:
4x Allied Against the Dark
4x Enemy of my Enemy
1x Mightiest Heroes
2x New Era

Locations:
3x Rock of Eternity
3x Fates Tower
1x Metropolis
3x JSA HQ

Equipment:

3x Helm of Nabu
2x Cloak of Nabu
2x Amulet of Nabu

First off. this is my first draft. So overlook the roughness of it and appreciate the core of the idea with me as I walk you through the coolness… picture a turn five where I possess on my board one fully fated XS, one Alan Scott, and one freshly recruited Wally West – The Fastest Man Alive. I then activate Wally’s ability to stun your five. Oh no! My five stuns too. Ok, Alan Scott chimes in with a “Have no fear good friend!” Wally’s back! He goes at it again and stuns your four drop and stuns back yet again. At this point, I’ve used JSA HQ to exhaust the remaining characters. It’s your attack and all you have is a two drop and possibly a three facing off against my gynormous Atom Smasher and fated XS, not to mention Alan Scott. You tremble. You shake uncontrollably for a moment… and then you pass.
A smart choice, until I flip over the Rock of Eternity and at the start of my attack step my exhausted characters are suddenly revived. I use Alan to bring back my stunned Wally West. I fly over with XS against your two drop. It is downed and now reinforcement is no longer a problem. Revived Wally takes a smack at your remaining three drop. It downs and so does Wally. I ready XS and she attacks in again. Atom Smasher who is now a 6 attack is also feeling left out so he goes at it. In terms of turns – that’s a pretty good turn-around.

The preferred initiative is evens. The plan is to stall the game with the large Atom Smasher and XS then take their initiative on five. The whole model is board control on five with a win on six with Jay or Barry who basically act as clean-up.

In theory, I should be pumping through more damage than what I’m taking… in theory…

But now that I’ve boasted the idea… obviously there are some holes in the deck design. For instance, for a deck that is so stubbornly dependant on Rock of Eternity I have no real way to bring it back in a pinch or protect it if I need to (hopefully I won’t and I’ll just play it well timed). There is also an astounding lack of attack pumpage or other fun that have been known in the past to seal games. What’s that? Yes. Yes. I hear your thoughts Mr. Reader. Get over it! I know what you are thinking right now: “OMFG. What a noob! I cannot believe, I simply cannot believe, they’re no Terminal Velocities!!!’ Don’t fret reader friend, if the deck goes off there won’t be a need to attack to the face with said card. It’ll be something I’ll be doing anyway thanks to the man himself Wally West! I don’t know why but I’ve always liked this card. Maybe I thought there’d be a day where it’d become broken or something, which is still far from the case but who knows?

Widied – The Don

Called Shot: Tackling a blind meta

So things have really hit the fan for me around here, I won't bore you with details, but the main part is I've been severely reduced in my ability to post here every day.

So the testing for Worlds is erm.... coming? I can't even begin to explain how difficult it is knowing there are 300 more x-factors to take into consideration from an unknown cardbase, so lets look at what we know.

Modern age has the most pumps any modern age format may have ever seen. Blinding Rage and Savage Beatdown will be all over the meta, and the general consensus is: Go! Go! Go! Testing guantlets are filling with IG Hidden rush, Gotham based control, and the savage swings of Revenge Squad's battle for Metropolis as primary builds to prep against. But don't ignore the x-factor decks, Riddler SS can really disrupt a solid swarm, and there are some very interesting abuses available to the coup d'etat set-up for Gorilla Grodd.
Fantastic Four are just rocks in this format. If you dont have them in your guantlet then you just aren't taking worlds seriously.

And then MUN shows up, we've seen some stall tactics in the guise of the Avengers, Keep in mind zombie spidey is legal! So there will be some considerable exhaust effects. I expect to see them team with the Fan 4 personally, but at this point it's just conjecture.

Shield is looking to swarm and burn. however i don't expect to see as many shield agents as you'll see penance taking everyone down a peg or three, A good friend of mine revealed to me an interesting team-up allowing for 40+ points of pure burn damage by turn 5 not taking stunbacks into account. so there might be something there, maybe... Who knows? maybe someone will get another eye of agamotto effect and burn will be irrelevant.

So what of things yet to come?
we've yet to see negative zone, crimelords, alpha flight, and who knows what else they added?

So hard to plan for a supersized set that looks like a player going to worlds could use cards ONLY in that set and still pilot a deck to wild success. Until my next brainstorm, i'll leave you all to go get those Pathetic Attempts and Omnipotences.

-Peace

Murder Mystery #2: Part 3 -- If the enemy of my enemy is still my enemy, then who is my friend?

It's been far too long since my last blog installment kids. But not to worry. I haven't been far. Some of you keeners may already know the solution to my mystery. If you do, I invite you to submit your answers to onyxweaponvs@hotmail.com for your shot at the Beatdown tin. This third installment will be the concluding episode of my month-long mystery epic with more than enough clues for you and hopefully a winner is crowned. Thank you oh so much for your patience you loyal blog-checkers, you. And for those of you just along for the ride, i'm thankful I got to be a part of it. So sit back, grab a note-pad, reserve the batcomputer while you can. It all ends now.

Thanks again.

-Aaron


It had long since become difficult to tell the passing of time in the dark pit. Days became marked by the once-a day food stuffs dropped from the opening in the ceiling granting their unnatural light. Kovacs had to rip an opening in his moth to eat but it seemed he was beginning to grow accustomed to his new face as time passed.

Steve's diligence in the card studies were well putting Miguel to shame. He decided he would be more useful helping Chris and Brian look for any clues regarding an opening.

When their captor wanted to pick one away from the group it always happened when they slept. But they had long since agreed that a gas knocked them unconscious beforehand without them even knowing. It was also noteworthy that every two "days" a card fell from the light source along with the food stuffs. Once Brian tried to investigate the light source but their captor simply shut off the light. Essentially making the entire effort moot.

As of now, they seemed to have found the entryway their captor used. it turned out to be directly beneath the corner Kovacs had claimed. And it would have been found sooner had he not been so insistent on his spot. For obvious reasons this shed him in an untrusting light, but no-one could explain the reasoning to self mutilate himself with the permanent bag-head treatment if he truly was the mastermind behind the plot. The main issue was motive. What did everyone here have in common that tied them to their captor? Steve interrupted his reverie with a startling realisation. Had they been replaced? Did anyone even know they were gone? He looked over at Chris while he investigated the seam of the concrete entryway while Kovacs impatiently waited for his spot back.

Steve turned again to his card collection. The gang was all here, except for his own card. He looked them over again.




"Looks like it's dinner time." Miguel mentioned a little too matter-of-factly for Steve's liking.
Familiar food stuffs once again fell into the center of the room. Obviously some sort of mechanism was behind it. That much everyone seemed to agree on.

"Looks like another card is with it." Brian spied the card for a moment and handed Steve his own likeness. "I can't focus enough to care, man. Here, do your thing Steve."

Steve never saw it.

He collapsed in a heap.
Now, it seemed everyone was noticing the strange chemical pumping into the room. From where? But time was not on the prisoners side as one by one they fell unconscious. One lone figure from among them stood up, laughed to himself, and hitting a tab on his belt the exit groaned as it opened.

"If you only knew how deep this was Kamiza. If only you knew the suffering you caused me."

**********

Miguel slowly came to. "wha? what the?"
"So you made it." Brian was standing over him. "Don't worry, If you don't wake up on your own I've got the medicine right here. He made a fist and punched his open hand.

"Ugh, Hoops, I'm a happily married man..." Miguel grunted as he took to his feet. Dizziness overtook him and he dropped back to the ground. "...and besides, there's no soap here for me to drop."

Brian turned to the others, "Yeah he'll be alright. Hopefully them sneakers have training wheels. Here, I'll help you up."

Miguel allowed his vision to clear on its own and took a quick headcount.
"Two missing, huh."
"Yeah. Looks that way. Kamiza and Kovacs. Now it's just the three of us.
"More food for us." Chris murmured to himself. But it was loud enough for all to hear. "Looks like our jailor is using gas on us now. Maybe he took notice of Steve's workouts. Anyways mate, Brian was up first, then me and well, he was slapping you for some time before he woke you Miguel. I figure he liked it."

"He would."

"Here Miguel, maybe you can figure this out." Brian tossed him the final card to arrive.


"Talk about your strange ironies eh?" Chris bit into some dried something-or-other. "KO Kamiza, The end. It'd almost be funny if it wasn't really happening. I personally think it was Kovacs all along if it even was actually him to begin with."

Miguel studied the cards. "Without any means to an outside source of information some of these clues are unsolvable. I don't know what to do here but it seems obvious our host is toying with us. I think he wants to be found."

Can you solve the clues hidden in the cards? Is Chris right? IS there motive? does motive even matter? Not all the cards are needed to come to a conclusion, but all help point you in the right direction. Send your submissions with your reasonings behind the kidnappers identity for your shot at the prize! I'll announce the winner, the answer keys to all the cards, and the conclusion next month.

Peace.

MUN Preview: The Strongest One There Is

In preview land it is time for the Hulk to get some of his. So first i'll show everyone what they came to see.

David Finch, oh how I love thee.



Used in conjunction with Hulk, green scar, on turn 4 you can actually flat-out MURDER an attacking 4 drop with this card, and then watch the weenies flee in terror. consider the implications this will have on a modern age format with no fate artifacts and no BPRD signal devices. Only pathetic attempt remains to protect character targetting unless MUN brings us something else, we'll always know what to call on our omnipotences if we want to see this card see its effect play out consistently. And even more than that, this effect essentially takes a losing situation and completely turns it around. say your looking down the barrel of a 4 drop that you otherwise wouldn't stun back in combat. Or possible a swing with too much potential breakthrough. Maybe a geared up punisher looking for a Knockout blow (barring cloak of course). Go ahead and flat out KO the aggressor with only a stun cost you very well would have taken anyways.

Brilliant.

So let's look at some options... with the cards we've seen so far, what can we do to take advantage of hulk's penchant to stun himself? Well an X Men team-up with X-Men Assemble! is an obvious option, but i find myself drawn to a certain Defender... Johnny Blaze <> Ghostrider. He loves to spread that stun damage around. Unfortunately this pushes the build to the realm of silver age, but with substitute you can easily get blaze in play, and with hulk doing the self mutilation bit, It's always nice to know your opponent is getting burned to a crisp while you establish huge swings in field advantage.

It is also worth noting the possibility of having fields with additional hulks. Since with the arrival of the uniqueness skirting DC Promo card. its not only possible, but very likely to end up playing against a field of multiple hulks, each potentially smashing face, or just smashing themselves to devastating effect.

Now if he only had an invulnerability effect... Keep an eye for other previews! I'll see you here next week with another one for you all!

Peace.

Remember me?

Hey remember when i was able to post almost everyday? yeah me too. no i didn't forget about you all. i just wanted to let you all know some things out of my control are unfortunately distracting me from my faithfulness in this blog. Don't fret though kids. all will be settled by thursday.

In the meantime, my sincerest apologies to my loyal readers while i get all this distracting stuff dealt with. I'll still do my best to post my next murder mystery installment within the next day or so.

thanks everyone.

Murder Mystery #2: Part 2 -- And then there were five.

The 6 people stood in silence. Unsure what to do. Could the sick mastermind behind this elaborate setup be one of these other "victims"?
"If you're going to be playing detective, you bloody best be sure you have all the facts first." Chris spat out. "Will someone tell him already? Tell him someone may have already died down here."

The bag-man walked towards the center of the room.
"It was Hero Complex. He was the first one here. But he got taken a while back."
He trailed off... "He screamed for what must have been days..." His voice choked up.

"I wasn't here for that." Miguel spoke up. "But after I arrived, whoever it is, decided to take Walter Kovacs, there was some yelling but none of us could make out what was going on. Then he gets returned and that bag thing is on there for keeps! it's as if he tried to actually turn him into Walter freakin Kovacs!"

Composing himself some, Kovacs continued. "When I was taken I was given a card. I cant read it with this over my head." he said motioning to his bag-covered head. "Maybe you guys can make sense of it."


Each member took turns trying to deduce the strange text. None seeming to be able to make heads or tails out of it.

Stu turned his head sideways, "I think i'm on to something, but wait that can't be right, not unless I'm going to..."

The solitary light went out. there was a sound of metal on metal, maybe a hidden door? Stu heard Kovacs scream out into the darkness "Not again!" And suddenly felt a sharp pain in his neck. As he lost conciousness he wondered if there was another reality where this was perhaps all just a tale. And the last thing Stu Barnes saw were his own feet as he was dragged away before the blackness claimed him.

The light turned on once more. In a matter of moments their most recent addition was gone.

"Heh, go figure." mused Chris, "Just when he was getting useful."

Brian punched the concrete wall in frustration while Kovacs rocked back and forth in his corner.

"How can you act like that?" Miguel questioned. "Stu's gone! Maybe dead!"

"Much good it does US mate." Chris retorted "Thinking like that is only going to waste time we could be using to figure out that code or whatever. So we cant let this get to us if we're going to stand a shot of figuring out this whole mess."

"He's right Miguel." Steve spoke pensively. "Cold as it is, he's right. We need to organize and figure out the clues we have access to. Now does anyone else have a card?"
He waited a moment, impatient and very much taking charge.
"No? Fine. we work with what we have then. Lets get to the bloody bottom of this. Shall we? Miguel, you help me try to figure out these cards, Brian, Chris, you two figure out where the hell the entrance is to this place."

Kovacs simply rocked back in forth mumbling to himself.


Should the 5 take Stu's previous warning a little more seriously?
Is the killer really among them?
Does the "bag-man Kovacs play a more sinister role?
Stay tuned kids! there's much more to come!

FINALLY! Murder Mystery #2: part 1 - the pawns take their places.

I know many of you have been impatiently waiting for this, and a lot of hard work has gone into it. The murder mystery itself will slowly be unravelled over several blog instalments each featuring its own smaller mystery challenges. After the final part in the epic, it will be left up to you, the reader, to piece together what clues you can to solve the mystery. So please have some fun with it and enjoy!

Oh yes, I almost forgot. Contest details. All submissions NEED to be sent to onyxweaponvs@hotmail.com to be considered.

I will be sending a SAVAGE BEATDOWN TIN to the winner. So get those brainpans pumping!

Also, please do not send any guesses before the mystery series is complete. But feel free to chat it up in the forums.

Sometime in the future...

This had been one long day for Stu Barnes. He looked up only to see a dark figure looming over him. He told the figure everything he knew.
“Well I’m sure you all knew the 10^th annual Worlds tournament was coming. And with it the familiar stress of pre-tournament preparations. I was sitting back in my desk. Allowing myself a moment of reverie while trolling the vsrealms forums. I eventually stumbled across a strange thread where a new user by the name of primesuspect had posted a strange and unique prose.

It was... unsettling poetry to say the least. Not exactly a typical entry for a new member. Although it was a dark piece, the writer seemed to have a certain degree of talent. I wondered if he had written it himself.

Then, my computer just, turned off! I crawled under my desk to check what was wrong and couldn’t find anything. Then I got up off the floor And there it was, stuck to my monitor.”

Chris Miller, also known as G’daybloke, finally released Stu Barnes from his vicelike grip. “And that’s it?” His aussie accent failing at concealing his suspicion towards their most recent addition.

“Well not long after that I passed out.” Stu continued. “I’m guessing someone drugged my coffee. Anyways, where the hell are we? And will you let me go now?””

Chris obliged and stepped back. It was a dark room. Illuminated only by a solitary skylight shining down the center of the area. The light was just bright enough that he could see movement along the walls but his vision still blurred too much to make out any faces. After effects of his drugging perhaps? He wiped his eyes. “Wait a second, where are my glasses?” he inquired openly.

“Ere you go, mate.” A new voice, definately European, said. “You dropped them while Chris was being a hardass.”

Stu felt someone take his hand and felt the familiar frames in his fingers. “How many people are down here anyways?” He questioned aloud, and placed the frames over his eyes. The room finally coming into focus.

A familiar face, Steve Garrett stepped back into the arc of light. “Seems there are 6 of us altogether. Understandably Some people haven’t spoken yet at all. I can only guess that some people’s abduction’s have been more... traumatic that others.” He motioned his head towards a dark corner of the room. A shadow rocked back and forth. “This one keeps calling himself a ‘Watchman’. Miguel and I tried taking his mask off, but it seems as though someone has bonded it permanently to his skin.”

“Yeah, a total sick fu...”

“Brian?!? Hoops man what the hell? You’re here too?” Miguel Rodriguez immediately recognized his good friend’s voice.

“Yeah, I’ve been here for a while... a helluva lot longer than I’d have liked to anyways. The sad truth is, it’s impossible to know how much time we’ve spent here.” He motioned towards the light. “That isn’t the sun.” It’s some light fixture I guess. It’s always on.”

“He’s right.” Chris interjected. “I’m guessing I’ve been here anywhere from 1 to 3 days. And Brian and bag-head were both here when I came to. The question is, why have we been brought here?”

“It can’t be...” Stu stammered. “Guys, whoever, or whatever is controlling this situation... I think one of us is going to die.”

Even bag-head stopped his seemingly inane ramblings in his corner and stood up and took notice of Stu’s shaky words.

Stu hesitated for a moment as it sunk in.

“...and I think our kidnapper may be one of the people in this room.”

Enjoy the first installment of my murder EPIC! I hope you have as much fun reading and playing detective as i have putting it together! let the games begin!

World's announced!

For those of you that know me, you know I'm a Canadian. So travel is difficult. Just to get to an elite series, i have to drive at least 6 hours in any direction. So my old stockpile of pc points from the old PCQ era still remains. You also might know that this blog's name actually comes pretty darn close to my life. (sometimes annoyingly so for my friends) I've played this game since day one, reading the accounts and stories of the pro circuit titans the way a child reads about David and Goliath at bedtime.
Hoping to someday just be able to say that In the time of the worlds most talented stage, I sat across from the greats.

Then UDE stopped all OP support.

Maybe I'm just a big fish in a little pond, but I've always strived to somehow leave a lasting mark on this game. Hoping for my chance to truly find out just how good I am. (understand, I'm not being full of myself, but the challenge is too much a temptation NOT to have it haunt me.)
Unfortunately, paying bills VS last pro Circuit event ended in the dismal loss of the final PC.

Missing my chance to financially justify attending the PC, I saw my aspirations for the game that I love drop. The big names attended, and a new king was crowned.
One last king anyway. And the elites walked away, to other horizons, other games, other events.

Now we have Worlds. Even now the exitement is stirring, flights are being booked, hotels reserved, And with the release of a set weeks before Worlds, the metagame may be the most wide open breakaway decks we've ever seen. And finally. Finally. I'll be there. While we still wait for format announcements and specific details pertaining to the World's stage, I can't help but hope some of the old "pros" give VS a second glance. Beacuse maybe, just maybe I'll be sitting across from one of them. One of the heroes I've read about. And I'll be there as an equal. Perhaps I'd win? Perhaps not. But I'll always have that moment. That time stopping moment where anything can happen and a wide-eyed fan like me can clash with the best of them and throw my lot to the winds.

This is what makes our game so amazing, guys. When all of the sudden, the pictures on the cardboard fade away, and the heroes become the players themselves. Wrapping up their hopes, dreams, aspirations in those 60+ card decks. Each playstyle like a fingerprint. This is the community we live in today. Creating newer heroes for tomorrow. Each of us with a special place and purpose. I'm just so exited sometimes to simply be able to say that I can be a part of it.

Watch for the previews to start in the next week or so around here in blogland. I'll have a few of them to show you all myself. and also i have such an epic murder mystery on deck for you guys, it will take multiple installments for me to give you! Not to worry, i'll be starting a dedicated thread in the realms keeping all my murder mystery related content in one easy to organise section. and also where you can band together and do some detective work as well.

I will leave you with this however:

the prize for my Murder Mystery #2 will be:

ONE SAVAGE BEATDOWN TIN!

How cool is that? The tin is mint and was donated by a fan of mystery it would seem. If i can swing it, i will also be awarding a new savage beatdown tshirt as well! Watch for my first installment in this epic drama of mystery, familiar faces, and death!