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Top Teir Decks?
Topic Started: Mar 16 2012, 07:44 PM (1,501 Views)
ukyo_rulz
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Canadian Bacon
Apr 6 2012, 01:43 PM
Although this deck building theory was turned on its head as early as the second set, with the appearance of Titans.
And look how long it took for players to figure it out. You can even add the "New School", "Child Named Valeria" variants and "X-Stall" decks to the list.

Those decks were good for like 15 minutes, but ultimately not good enough. Curve Sentinels destroyed everthing, and it was supplanted by Avengers Reservist and Squadron No-Hand shortly afterwards.

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ukyo_rulz
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Wallywest1988
Apr 7 2012, 03:09 AM
See there were cards that shut other decks down even since launch of the game but they were harder to put in decks wich made them normal
I think it's even worse than you described. The way I see it, one of the key mistakes made in VS System design was the proliferation of powerful generic effects. From the time I first started playing seriously (around MMK), I was talking about how the card "Savage Beatdown" was a slap in the face to team-stamped pumps like "Crime and Punishment". How many team-stamped pumps can you even name that are better than Savage Beatdown or Flying Kick? It just didn't make any sense for me to have the best of any kind of card be generic.

This led to a situation where every deck that wanted pumps play Beatdown or Dodge, or any deck that wanted to beat swarm strategies played Flame Trap. In Magic the Gathering, WotC tried to avoid having artifacts with powerful effects, because it frequently leads to those artifacts saturating decklists. There were many time periods where they missed one or two (Sensei's Divining Top, Masticore, Cursed Scroll, Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, etc) and during those time periods just about every deck played the overpowered artifacts. Not only did it lead to fewer choices for creative deck-builders, it also led to the prices for those cards sky-rocketing because everyone needed a set (or two).

VS System was like that EXCEPT THERE WERE TONS OF OVERPOWERED GENERICS AT THE SAME TIME, AND IT LASTED FOR THE ENTIRE LIFETIME OF THE GAME.
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Wallywest1988
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ukyo_rulz
Apr 8 2012, 01:24 AM
Wallywest1988
Apr 7 2012, 03:09 AM
See there were cards that shut other decks down even since launch of the game but they were harder to put in decks wich made them normal
I think it's even worse than you described. The way I see it, one of the key mistakes made in VS System design was the proliferation of powerful generic effects. From the time I first started playing seriously (around MMK), I was talking about how the card "Savage Beatdown" was a slap in the face to team-stamped pumps like "Crime and Punishment". How many team-stamped pumps can you even name that are better than Savage Beatdown or Flying Kick? It just didn't make any sense for me to have the best of any kind of card be generic.

This led to a situation where every deck that wanted pumps play Beatdown or Dodge, or any deck that wanted to beat swarm strategies played Flame Trap. In Magic the Gathering, WotC tried to avoid having artifacts with powerful effects, because it frequently leads to those artifacts saturating decklists. There were many time periods where they missed one or two (Sensei's Divining Top, Masticore, Cursed Scroll, Skullclamp, Umezawa's Jitte, etc) and during those time periods just about every deck played the overpowered artifacts. Not only did it lead to fewer choices for creative deck-builders, it also led to the prices for those cards sky-rocketing because everyone needed a set (or two).

VS System was like that EXCEPT THERE WERE TONS OF OVERPOWERED GENERICS AT THE SAME TIME, AND IT LASTED FOR THE ENTIRE LIFETIME OF THE GAME.
Well said. VS didn't seem to even wanna revert and fix the amount of generics that were strong. They seemed to make more = /

Acrobatic Dodge and Savage Beatdown were the early cards and eventually got weeded out in later formats. Then they print EoME, Mobilize, Only Human, Omni, PA, etc.

Who needed cards like Hero's Welcome, UN General assembly, Weapon of Choice, Vicarious Living, and Call in a favor, etc. with Mobs and EoME. I like that the game had consistency but It was unfavorable for them to be in nearly every format.

They seemed to be in a downkill spiral and didn't want to revamp. Still an amazing game but design ways it had its flaws. A lot of the games card pool was severely diminished by this design.
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SuperAzn
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I know this thread is old but I just found it lol. Couldn't agree anymore about the generic cards. The only way to fix the issue would be to create a restriction list in GA. Just like Mtg has with its Vintage format. Many of these generic cards are simply the lazy way of fixing a situation. They needed to accept that not every team would be amazing in every format and to try to push a teams concept even further.

Even simple restrictions for generic cards could've made them slightly more balanced but in the end a restriction list is the only way. Unbalanced generic cards should either be restricted to 1-2 copies max, 1 copy on some. Balanced generic cards should be 2-3 cards. Here are some examples;

Unbalanced generic examples:
Savage beatdown (biggest pump with ZERO restrictions)
Flying kick (too good for cost of 1 with no restrictions)
Acrobatic dodge (same as flying kick)
Flame trap (too generic of hate for an entire way of deck building)
Mobilize (why did they make this card)
Enemy of my enemy (why did they make this card)
Pathetic attempt (lazy mans card design right here)
Omnipotence (why did they make NTZ even better?)
Only human (may be needed but this card is just too good)
Blind sided (reinforcement breaking for free?)
Death of the dream(OP version of have a blast)
Overload(banned)

Balanced generic examples
Have a blast (fair trade, no crazy extra effects)
Birthing chamber (fair card for swarm decks, curve decks have no real way to abuse)
Not so fast (fair trade, not enough cards cost 1 though)
Blinding rage (big pump but makes ur guys easier to stun back)
Foiled (fair trade, errata to keep from breaking)
Ka-boom (see foiled)
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SKAZ1
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Whilst I agree with SuperAnz about the majority of cards on his list I have to disagree about the 2 search cards Mobilise and EOME for a fairly simple reason and that is that they give consistency to a deck.
By that I mean that both myself and my opponent should be able to play a good game without relying on luck, even a bad opening draw can still be put right by turn 3 and it should, more often, come down to the better deck/player winning rather than who missed the most drops.
I get more satisfaction from winning when I know that it wasn't because they missed "Hulk green scar" or "Superman metropolis marvel" or any other excuse they might come up with (even though their excuse might have merit).
Having said that I do see that almost every deck has one or the other in it except for the teams that already have their own search cards so personally I think it just balances the field and helps the game to flow.
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SuperAzn
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I can see your point SKAZ1 but I think they should've made more dedicated search cards that better flow with team mechanics rather than these super ridic generic cards. For example, Mobilize, only helps Teen Titans, Optitron on the other hand, is great but is balanced for the titans. They are a great low curve team so missing a drop would cost you perfect curve but you could still get a great option for the moment. Mobilize shatters the balance with a team like TT since they now have the ability to hit a perfect curve every game now.
EoME is good in thought but rewards 2 team decks too high. 3 team + this card is amazing and I feel is where the thought for the card was originally.

Better balanced wording like "play only if_____" or "use this ability once per turn" and even "play only from your hand" was really missing from this game.
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ukyo_rulz
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SuperAzn
Jan 22 2013, 01:55 PM
I can see your point SKAZ1 but I think they should've made more dedicated search cards that better flow with team mechanics rather than these super ridic generic cards.
This man speaks the truth. Instead of printing a single search card that every deck plays, UDE should have designed tons of search cards that can only be played in certain archetypes. IMO for a game like VS System search cards are even more essential to having fun games than combat pumps.
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kariggi
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Of course they could have always upped the ante the other way, by printing better team stamped cards instead of worse, why other than limited am I playing a +2 team stamped pump?

Wild Ride and er the new Underworld search are good examples of cards better than mobilize, where so many other team stamped searches just aren't so why other than I'm poor or unlucky.
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SuperAzn
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Hopefully the new council figures something out because building GA decks is not the same since I came back and found out about some of the newer generic plot twists, looking right at only human, pathetic attempt and omnipotence o_O
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Wallywest1988
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You could always play an older version of golden. Pre-MXM if you liked that model of play better. Back then you had abundance of Titans and B-hood though.

I like to play vintage every once in a while. Break out the old Common Enemy, Titans, B-hood, and Sentinel decks.
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SuperAzn
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Wallywest1988
Jan 23 2013, 05:18 AM
You could always play an older version of golden. Pre-MXM if you liked that model of play better. Back then you had abundance of Titans and B-hood though.

I like to play vintage every once in a while. Break out the old Common Enemy, Titans, B-hood, and Sentinel decks.
True but then the card pool is limited and the no limit of sets is why I play GA.
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ukyo_rulz
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I plug our own fan-made format every chance I get:
http://w11.zetaboards.com/vssystem/topic/7164987/1/
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Speedy92286
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Why is Morlocks listed so low? My group plays most of the A/B teams and I have beaten them pretty consistently. Same for Hellboy. Hell, the only decks that beat Morlocks consistently is Spider-man, Heralds and IG. But that is neither here nor there.

I really like that new format you have posted though. It makes teams that are definetley less powerful still playable since many of those C and D teams are extremely fun to play with/against.
Edited by Speedy92286, Jan 23 2013, 10:59 AM.
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ukyo_rulz
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Speedy92286
Jan 23 2013, 10:56 AM
Why is Morlocks listed so low? My group plays most of the A/B teams and I have beaten them pretty consistently. Same for Hellboy. Hell, the only decks that beat Morlocks consistently is Spider-man, Heralds and IG. But that is neither here nor there.

I really like that new format you have posted though. It makes teams that are definetley less powerful still playable since many of those C and D teams are extremely fun to play with/against.
All the teams were placed where they are for balance reasons. Morlocks evasion is not a bad deck, but all of the decks in A are just light years better than anything from B or below. They are simply the best of the best. All of the aggressive teams like Brotherhood and Exiles will kill off Morlocks long before Marrow becomes a factor, and the stall decks like Doom and Spider-Friends can make it completely unable to attack meaningfully. Combo decks like Titans and Kree have no problem going off against Morlocks either.

As for the B teams, they are mostly of similar power level to Morlocks. Morlocks is riskier to play though. It gets bumped one level lower because it can sometimes just lose outright to something like Total Anarchy.
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OMB
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Speedy92286
Jan 23 2013, 10:56 AM
Hell, the only decks that beat Morlocks consistently is Spider-man, Heralds and IG.
I'm gonna go out on a limb here and say that Marauders (especially with Mystique legend support) would straight murder a Morlocks deck. [grin]
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