Answering the Call: X-Factor

Continuing with the introduction of nifty little head icons, Aaron “Onyxweapon” Mead has decided he wants to get in touch with his dark side… going forward, you can expect Aaron’s posts to feature Darkseid’s ugly mug.

This week we started a series of challenges, seeing what Aaron can come up with that reeks of niftiness for the new affiliations from Marvel Evolution. This week, X-Factor.

Okay first thing? I hate kidney stones. So, I apologize for the lateness of this. At first, I hated X-Factor because I couldn’t tell what the team was trying to do but after sitting down and playing them for a week, they may possibly be one of the most powerful teams in this set. And what makes them so good you ask?

RESET.

So I submit to you:

Xfactordeckofsweetsweetwin

Got a call from an old friend…

Looks like I spoke not a moment too soon – already, Lost Hemisphere’s newest resident has an article for your perusal! Please join me in welcoming KaleeshWarrior to Lost Hemisphere.
With our family expanding, it’s my intention to post an icon in each post to let you know just who’s responsible for the dribble you’re wading through. For myself, I’m returning to my roots and adopting Stilt-Man’s majestic mug. Kaleesh, naturally, bears the proud and noble visage of a Kaleesh… well, warrior. Happy reading!
- Gdaybloke

We used to be real close. Said he couldn’t go on the American way. Closed the shop, sold the house, bought a ticket to the West Coast. Now he gives them a stand-up routine in L.A.

When one thinks of classic pairings, quite a few come to mind: Laurel and Hardy, Sonny and Cher, Donnie and Marie, R2-D2 and C-3P0. If you go into comics, you of course have the Dynamic Duo of Batman and Robin or the World War II heroes in Captain America and Bucky amongst many other similar pairs.

Before MEV, only one duo had a set of legend cards showing their strength as a pair and that is the World’s Finest: Batman and Superman. Now that Marvel Evolution has been released, another two characters share a delightfully powerful plot twist. Sure, these two aren’t on quite the same amiable terms as Bats and Supes (although those two have had their fair share of spats), they are still quite the formidable foe. You probably know who I’m talking about by now…

In the family way…

When Lost Hemisphere first started out, it was li’l ole me. Before long, Spud signed on and provided us with a whole bunch of excellent articles, and together he and I (with the aid of silent partner, the Eponymous Pablo) gave you March Madness and the Summer of Love.

It was only a matter of time before Lost Hemisphere’s family expanded.

I nudged the door open by browbeating Aaron “Onyxweapon” Mead into writing a weekly deckbuilding collumn based on whatever wackiness tickled my fancy on a Monday evening.

Now, it looks like some more feet have wedged their way in the door.

Over the coming weeks, don’t be surprised if you see a new writer or two dispensing their wit and wisdom in these hallowed halls… just go gentle on ‘em, it’s their first time being Lost

Marauding at turn three

Now that you’ve all had a break from my Marauder ramblings, it’s time for a followup.

Spud, Pablo and I occasionally discuss combos and indulge in a little theoretical rumination. The topic of discussion yesterday was, in a BYOT format, attaining that critical first out-of-combat stun for the Marauders, to bring all of their abilities online.

Basically, we determined three main avenues of obtaining said stun for turn three.

1) 2-drop Gambit, Three Card Monte, and discards
2) 4-drop Gambit, shifted with four counters
3) 3-drop Riptide

Now, each has its pros and cons, and when it barrels down to it a lot will depend on personal preference, but it remains to be seen which will prove ‘better’ in testing.

Marauders: Thematically brilliant

Designing expansions must be one of the most rewarding, yet simultaneously must frustrating, facets of the gaming industry.

Even completely ignoring the fact that every card must be balanced against the rest of its affiliation, against the rest of the expansion, and against the rest of the format (generally Silver onwards)…

Even disregarding the difficulty of creating, and subsequent insertion of, new keywords, new abilities, new play concepts…

Even not considering the chore of hunting down art assets, especially for little known or under-represented characters (though I’m shocked and dismayed that Sikorsky was left out of the Starjammers)…

Everything has to make sense.

… or at least something approximating sense.

Spider-Friends have a good stall game – makes sense considering their flagship character likes to web things up while he takes his time going about his business. Doom controls, X-Men come back from the dead, Batman gathers resources,Villains United are spiteful, Arkham’s just plain insane.

You get the idea.

I can’t be the only one who laughed when looking at the Marauders.

They completely hose the Morlocks!

Highball Update

Two more boxes, trade lists updated at VSRealms. Refreshingly, the count of high-drop rares was much more reasonable, with only 3 8+ cost characters over two boxes.

Scoreboard:

Cable	2	…	Exodus	1
Holocaust	2	…	Hyperion	1
Cyclops	1	…	Jean Grey	1
Danger	1	…	Vulcan	0

For MSUHitman

Flavour Text…

Props to Flashback81 for his efforts in getting the MWS patch up and running… and also for the above card

The Highball Curse – pick your pony

In Marvel Evolution there are 110 rares.

Of these 110 rares, 8 are characters with a cost of 8 or more. For those who like percentages, that’s 7.27%.

In a single booster box, there are 24 rares. Based on the above percentage, one would assume that, on averages and assuming even distribution of rares across the expansion, I should be looking at 1.75 characters with a cost of 8 or more. Let’s round it up to 2, just because I don’t think anyone would really want to open a booster to find .75 if a card.

Finances being what they may, I’m unable to pick up half a case in one hit this time around, so I’m picking up a box here, a box there – that sort of thing. Behold the 24 rares I pulled from my first box.

MEV: First blood

Tonight for Hobby League we played sealed MEV. Five packs each. I pulled some niftiness in my five packs. No money rares, but I was able to put together a passable X-Factor/X-Force curve with a dash of Exiles and Weapon X thrown in.

Once character featured in all three games. In the third he didn’t play a significant role, but in the first and second he was deciding.

Yup, Albert the robot Wolverine.

Gauntlet XII: New Breed

Welcome to yet another opportunity to make Aaron “Onyxweapon” Mead share with you the bountiful fruit of his janktastic mind. Yes, once more we’re holding Aaron on the ground and kicking him repeatedly until he relinquishes whatever insane combo he’s concocted this week, based on our own little criteria.

This week we’re especially blessed, since we see the release of the hallowed and heralded Marvel Evolution, the latest expansion for our beloved VS System trading card game. Thus, it’s only fitting that we make Aaron spill the beans on just what he’d like to do with the new toys.

This week’s challenge should be fairly simple, but timely. Aaron, show us what you can do with Silver BYOT X-Factor.

My personal favourite lineup was Havok/Polaris/Quicksilver/Strong Guy/Wolfsbane/Madrox, but I won’t hold you to that.

The penalty for failure to provide an article in time to post on Sunday? Should you fail, YOU, Aaron,  must pony up the prize for the current caption contest. Yes, the one with Hulk ripping his shirt off. So go ahead, fail, and save me the cost of a postage stamp