Vs. System Trading Card Game: Marvel Evolution Preview - Marauders Week!
Marvel Evolution Preview - Marauders Week!
Hey Vs. gamers!
After a few weeks of the good guys, I think that it's time for the the bad guys to take center stage! This week focuses on the Marauders and their legends. The main theme of this team is getting an opponent's characters stunned, and while this might seem like an obvious thing to want to do, in practice it presents interesting decisions on both attack and defense.
Lets take a "Random" example:
Exhausting any character is a powerful power that is usually reserved for rares, but this incarnation of Random can do it - as long as an opponent has a stunned character. This means that you'll need to do a little bit of work on your off-initiative to construct a situation where Random isn't the first one stunned. But the payout is significant, and it often means that you are able to create a no-win situation where the order of attacks essentially "turn on" Random's power. Also, if you are able to direct stun any of an opponent's characters, you'll essentially get a Mystical Paralysis every turn - a payout well worth a little effort. As a quick aside, you'll find that many of the Marauders have their histories entwined with the Brotherhood - so each of those characters, aside from being dual-affiliated with the Brotherhood, are reservists - so you can play them effectively with your cards from The X-Men set!
After a few weeks of the good guys, I think that it's time for the the bad guys to take center stage! This week focuses on the Marauders and their legends. The main theme of this team is getting an opponent's characters stunned, and while this might seem like an obvious thing to want to do, in practice it presents interesting decisions on both attack and defense.
Lets take a "Random" example:
Exhausting any character is a powerful power that is usually reserved for rares, but this incarnation of Random can do it - as long as an opponent has a stunned character. This means that you'll need to do a little bit of work on your off-initiative to construct a situation where Random isn't the first one stunned. But the payout is significant, and it often means that you are able to create a no-win situation where the order of attacks essentially "turn on" Random's power. Also, if you are able to direct stun any of an opponent's characters, you'll essentially get a Mystical Paralysis every turn - a payout well worth a little effort. As a quick aside, you'll find that many of the Marauders have their histories entwined with the Brotherhood - so each of those characters, aside from being dual-affiliated with the Brotherhood, are reservists - so you can play them effectively with your cards from The X-Men set!
Now lets get to the Marauders' Legends!
Historically, we have chosen each team's legends based on some fairly simple criteria - importance to the team, importance to storyline and just general "mainstream awareness". Now with Marauders, we were faced with a dilemma. Which characters do we choose for "Legend" status? Mr. Sinister was the leader of the group (though he died relatively early in the Messiah Complex storyline) but has a fairly low name recognition among non-comic readers. On the other hand, Mystique has a high recognition in the fame stakes (mainly due to the movies) while having a relatively low popularity. Gambit was a fan favorite for many years, but it just felt weird to have his first incarnation as a Legend to be as a bad guy. Ultimately we just decided to load up the Marauders with all these guys, and make sure their treatments as Legends do each of them justice.
We attempted to give each of these iconic characters some new ground to cover that felt thematic, yet still fit within the structure of the team:
Mr. Sinister - Mr. Sinister is the master of power manipulation. He generally is able to supress character powers and affect the opponent's ability to play his tricks. This makes him a prime weapon against Energize and activated abilities.
Gambit - Gambit is the king of direct stuns and thievery. Many of his character cards and plot twists deal with out of combat stuns and taking things from an opponent. You can see his former power set in the following preview:
Mystique - As previously seen in Marvel Legends, Mystique is the queen of subterfuge. Many of her powers involves name manipulation and also involve some amount of KOing. "Identity Theft" is a perfect melding of these two concepts, and also provides them in a powerful package:
So before I give too many previews away, I'll have to go now! Enjoy Marauders week, and you can find previews on the following blogs/webistes this week:
28th October
Beta Ray Blog
http://betarayblog.wordpre
Darkseid Revenge
http://www.darkseidrevenge
29th October
It's A VS Life
http://onyxweaponvs.blogsp
Planet Kalee
http://casualvs.wordpress.
The Jank Has Chosen
http://jankhaschosen.com/
30th October
The Kamiza
http://the-kamiza.com/vs/
Brave and the Blog
http://thebraveandtheblog.
TheBritishInitiative
http://ukvssystem.wordpres
31st October
The Kamiza
http://the-kamiza.com/vs/
VsNotDead
http://vsnotdead.tumblr.co
Scythe Castle
http://scythecastle.wordpr
Until next week, when we see all the different incarnations of Weapon X!
Good games,
TBS