I find my lack of faith… disturbing.

by Spud

It’s my birthday today, and as my present to myself, I’m going to allow myself to change out of my cheerleader uniform and be blunt. Yes, more blunt than usual.

So, yeah. MEV previews are about to start, and we’ve gotten semi-official confirmation that X-Statix will be returning, as evidenced by the handful of X-Statix cards in the uncut proof sheet TBS leaked to us.

I think it’s fairly widely-known that I’m a pretty huge X-Statix fan, both in the comics and in our game. So, you’d think I’d be pretty excited right now– the team that defied all odds to be included in VS at all (in its first year, no less!) is making a comeback! I can finally stop proxying Hulk as my “Modern X-Statix” and just play ACTUAL Modern X-Statix!

You’d expect me to be excited, but oddly enough, I’m… not. It’s weird. I love me some X-Statix, but what excitement I’ve been able to conjure up seems to be overshadowed by something else: confusion. Having the team show up the first time was a major curve-ball– nobody expected it to happen, so it was almost like a prank UDE played on us. And hey, they got a cool-as-all-get-out theme to go along with their weirdness, being VS’ very first Loner team.

Their first feature was neat, but I’m having trouble figuring out why they’re being refeatured. Let’s look at some facts.

How I’d Do It: Episode 13

I almost threw this article away because I couldn’t write the intro.

This article was inspired by a conversation I had with another card developer; he made a comment which boiled down to him not quite understanding a certain design concept, and then my brain snapped to attention and it occurred to me that perhaps that design concept wasn’t as fundamental and obvious as I’d assumed, and would actually make a great subject for a How I’d Do It article.

How I’d Do It: Episode 12

Remember back in the day, on the last day of the elementary school year? Remember how useless it was to try to get the kids to do anything? Summer was a day away, report cards had already gone out, and it was impossible to grade you on anything. So generally speaking, we had parties. No lessons or tests, we just watched movies and brought in snacks.

Those were some good times.

How I’d Do It: Episode 11

We interrupt your regularly-scheduled How I’d Do It to bring you something a little different!

When the fan previews were first announced, I had just started working on this article series, and I made a semi-joking request that when LH got its preview card, could it PRETTY PLEASE be on a Tuesday, so that I could form my article around it, designing cards to go along with it? I didn’t expect anyone to listen… and maybe they didn’t. Maybe this is just pure blind luck.

But hot damn, it happened that way, so I’m going to take advantage of it! Now, a fairly obvious caveat here: the stuff I show you today is almost guaranteed to be proven completely wrong. In fact, it’s likely that we’ll see cards before the end of this week that contradict one or more items in this article. And that’s fine; I’m just having fun here.

How I’d Do It: Episode 10

For those of you just tuning in: this is week 2 of a 3-week series, wherein I’m trying to cobble together an Invincible Essential Collection using all the combined strategies and techniques I’ve talked about in my previous articles. Last week, we covered the good guys; this week, we cover the bad ones.

I ran into a problem with these guys right off the bat: which bad guys do I even pick? There isn’t a single enemy group in the Invincible universe who can be justified as anything more than a six-character team. So, it seemed like the best solution would be to bring them all into one big “umbrella team” that would contain all the various bad guys from the IP, but still keep the groups distinct by unifying them with versions.

How I’d Do It: Episode 9

Aaaaaaaand we’re back. Sorry about last week, but I’ve been doing this non-stop for three months and kinda needed a break.

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This week marks the first part of a three-week series. I’ve spent the past two months talking about different elements of card design in a vacuum. I think I’ve covered all the fundamentals, so now we’re ready to move onto something a bit more advanced: we’re going to put it all together and make an Essential Collection. This week, I’m going to cover “the good guys”, and next week is “the bad guys”. In these two articles, I’ll only be bringing up their key cards– the full card lists, and my final thoughts, will be in week 3.

The subject matter for this little excercise will be my favourite ongoing series: Robert Kirkman’s Invincible.

How I’d Do It: Episode 8

Take a look at these cards:

What do all of these card have in common? If you said “They’re all legacy cards!”, then congratulations, you proved that you’re capable of reading this episode’s banner.

But you’re only half-right.

How I’d Do It: Episode 7

This week, we’re going to cover some dry, boring theory.

Yaaaaaaay!

So, yeah. Our topic today is the delicate art of balancing effects. It’s not glamorous or tremendously exciting, but it’s something every card designer needs to know.

How I’d Do It: Episode 6

Disclaimer: This is true of any article I write, but this week especially so: Nothing I make for these articles is tested. These are only initial ideas, the pack of test cards I’d bring to a full group discussion if I was actually making them for real. No “values” are final– if there’s a 3 on a card, it might be broken and need to be dropped to a 2. But that’s not what I concern myself with. I’m only spitting out ideas, I leave it to my nonexistant playtesting team to figure out if they’re any good.

With that said, let’s proceed with the article.

When the Coming of Galactus raid deck first came out, a thread popped up on the Realms where people started brainstorming new ideas for other comic threats that could be justified as a Giant Size. There were several valid suggestions– everything from Magneto to Imperiex. Basically, people were looking at the Galactus starter and thinking of characters who could fill the same role; they were looking to recreate the Galactus experience with new faces.

I found the excercise unsatisfying.

How I’d Do It: Episode 5

I don’t have a full article today, because I spent most of last week and the weekend working on something else for the blog. Instead of delving into a bunch of theory, this week I’m just going to share with you some random (well, not all that random…) cards I tossed together last week for fun. Considering my word-tastic episode from last week was universally reviled (or so I must assume, given the lack of comments), I don’t imagine you folks’ll mind a shorter installment this week.

Without further ado, let’s take get started!