So today I'd really like to talk about the new Organized Play cards (again) and how these cards, if they are allowed into later Organized Play (or regular tournament play) will affect the competitive meta. The thing to remember about these cards is that unlike the OP character rewards, there is always a possibility of running into these cards and actually being able to use them, because they are split between you and your opponent. Like all Basic Actions, you need to decide if they are personally worth bringing to your own deck, but you also need to have a good idea how you can make use of them if your opponent brings them.
We'll take a look at all six of the Basic Actions, how to incorporate them if you have them, and how to deal with them if your opponent brings them to the table.
Teamwork
Teamwork is the Month 1 participation reward, and it's got a pretty interesting ability. Each fielded character gains +1/+1 for each other fielded character that shares a team affiliation with it. We discussed some issues with this in a previous FAQTalk (whether it refers to unique characters, or just each instance of a character), but I think it's safe to say that this will be a favorite among players who have a strong thematic team focus. Right now, only Avengers and X-Men have enough variety and power curve to really benefit from this (with Villains being a bad idea because of a variety of Global Abilities), but they are also the two factions that take best advantage of this card. If your opponent brings many Black Widows and Hawkeyes, they are well-poised to benefit from this; buying your opponent out of these might be a good strategy (and that is ALWAYS a strategy you can employ on the most dangerous actions).
It's still up in the air, with no errata released to explain the details, but currently this seems to allow for two Black Widows (or two Hawkeyes, or two Storms) to buff each other up. You can possibly take advantage of this simply by buying multiples of dice that have a team affiliation at all. This could be brutal with a Nick Fury in an Avengers deck, so defensively you need to make sure you have your house in order if this gets into your opponent's dice bag (especially if Throw Car is around).
I'm not sure this will show up to a lot of play, despite how wonderful it is, because of the lack of Global Ability and the slight confusion about its play. There are also a lot of really exceptional good Basic Actions in this set, and it might not make the cut. Still, how to use it: theme decks; how to use your opponent's: multi-purchase of team affiliated cards.
Rally!
Good old Rally!, it's not even out yet and already Gobby players are drooling. Rally! allows you to take 2 (or 3 on a double burst) sidekicks from your used pile and field them. I like this card for a lot of reasons, and I do think this one will be a favorite of the mid-game for Gobby players, but it also has a few fun and helpful uses if you don't play Gobby.
Obviously, first and foremost, this can be deadly if you are playing an opponent with Gobby; it can provide up to 3 damage each time a Gobby is fielded, just on its own, and it gets rid of a key problem with the Gobby strategy (that sidekicks are not actually trivial to field). The other circumstance that makes this card pretty nasty is it's unclear exactly how this will interact with cards like Human Torch (Flame On! and Johnny Storm) that produce a damage when you field a character. Technically whenever you move something to the field, it's being fielded (sounds pedantic, but is important to note) so this might very well provide your opponent the ability to do 3 damage if used in conjunction with Human Torch. Ouch!
Defensively, the big things to worry about are Human Torch or Gobby, and like always the most important thing to focus on if you go up against these guys is keep Gobby on the field, and keep Human Torch OFF the field. If you have your own Torch (or Gobby) you can also take advantage of this card and I really encourage you to do so. The other, slightly less talked about, use for this card is the fact that it pulls sidekicks (which if you aren't playing Gobby are sadsack boring dice) and makes it far more likely when you refill your bag it mostly has characters in it. This is the famed 'culling' of many deck building games where you remove cards or dice you don't want anymore from play. Dice Masters doesn't have this mechanic, but Rally! is actually a great substitute, so even if you don't have Torch or Gobby, this is not a useless action to have for yourself. It denies it to your opponent, and offers you a chance to clear out your bag of boring sidekicks!
Deflection
Yawn. I said it before, and I said it again: Yawn. The Month 3 participation prize is just not a good card. You pick an energy type, characters of that type get +1D (on a double burst they get +3D instead). I could be wrong, it could be amazing and I just don't understand how to use it; it has a decent(ish) Global Ability (which is a slightly less good version of Vibranium Shield global), but it actually gives you and your opponent defensive buffs to your characters.
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| Deflection - 3 cost: Choose an energy type. Characters of that type get +1D. ** Those characters get +3D instead. Global: Pay shield. Prevent 1 damage to a character. Teleport - 4 cost - Swap your fielded character with a character of the same energy type from your used pile or prep area. Spin it to the same level. */** Spin the new character up a level. |
There are some circumstances where you want your attackers to have more defense, but it's far more frequent that you want your defenders to have more defense, and you can't use Global Actions on your defending turn (they are discarded along with unfielded character dice at the end of your turn). If you want your characters to not be KOd on attack, use Invulnerability; it's cheaper, and pretty much universally more awesome. The only way this card might be super cool is if the buff is permanent, (since there is no 'until the end of the turn' text), but this is pretty much a willful ignoring of the rules in the book, so we'll ignore it.
Seriously, let me know if you see this card in a tournament and tell me how it was used to good effect, and I will give you a metaphorical, internet $5.
Teleport
Teleport, on the other hand, is pretty awesome. It's pricey, at 4, but it allows you to take a character from your field and swap it with a same-energy card in used or prep. This is basically a really awesome variation on my already loved Brimstone Biker. It's not a character, sadly, which is just about the only thing that could make it more awesome, but it is pretty cool. Swap your Hawkeye for a Cyclops, or bring back that Johnny Storm! Nick Fury goes into the back lines and brings back Thor or Iron Man! This is a great card. It also has a good chance (2/3 if you get an action face) of allowing you to spin the character you bring to the field up a level.If your opponent brings this card, take a look at his or her party and note which characters share an energy type, especially if one of them is pretty cheap. This plus Brimstone Biker actually form a really nasty backbone to some fetch or 'tutor' dice that will allow you to keep cycling through and grabbing the dice you actually want. Another nice swap would be Beast for a Storm, perhaps. There are a lot of interesting opportunities here. I think another cute trick is to (for example) swap that Storm with her powerful 'on fielded' ability for a mask character in your prep area, making it that much easier to get her fielded again next turn.
With no Global Ability to take advantage of, it's all about the action, and you have just as much ability to snag these actions as your opponent does. Pretty much any deck can take advantage of this action, thankfully, so you don't need to plan to face it, you just need to know how to use it to best effect.
Takedown
In my opinion, Takedown is the scariest, and most meta-redefining Basic Action in the pack. Once again, Villain characters find themselves out in the cold. It's a bad time to be a Villain. At its most basic, Takedown is a slightly limited Power Bolt; it can't be used on your opponent, and it can't be used on shield energy characters. At it's most acidic (haha, bad chemistry joke) it's so much more than that.
It does 4 damage to Villains (instead of the basic 2), and at first that doesn't seem that amazing, as really the only Villain who sees consistent use in tournament play is Gobby, who you don't want to KO; after you look at its global, however, the whole story changes. For one mask energy you can give a character the Villain affiliation until the end of the turn.
This changes everything.
In layman's terms, you can use this action, and pay one mask, to do 4 damage to any non-shield character. It's also brutal with the common Mjolnir.
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Takedown - 3 cost: Deal 2 damage to a non-shield
character. If it's a Villain deal 4 damage instead.
Global: Pay 1 mask: Target character is [sic]
gains the Villain affiliation until the end of the turn
Collateral Damage - 4 cost: Deal one damage to your
opponent for each opposing character you knock out this turn
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I said in our very first podcast that the common Mjolnir would make it pretty much impossible to field a solid Villain team, if they became popular in the meta, but this actually makes it so Mjolnir is actually even better! In conjunction with uncommon/rare Magneto you can literally pay 2 masks and reroll any character.
Watch out, though, this is a real double-edged sword, and it can be used against you just as easily as it can be used for you. This is the scorched earth of actions. This is an aggressive card, and an opponent who brings this to the table leaves himself (or herself) open to similarly aggressive play. Once again this shows the importance of mask energy to most decks, and I think Dave is probably drooling over this baby for his Control Deck.
The most important thing to remember about these powerful global abilities is that they are double-edged; in this particular case, you can also guard against them with some decent shield characters (if we ever get them). If this starts to be a catch-all replacement to Power Bolt, look into shield energy characters, and remember to take advantage of the Globals that both you and your opponent bring.
Collateral Damage
Lastly, a slightly more situational card. I don't think it'll see quite as much play as some of the others. This card is really best in conjunction with the big KOers: Hulk: Green Goliath, Deadpool: Chiyonosake, and Cyclops: If Looks Could Kill. I'm sure there are one or two others that I'm forgetting, but those are the big ones. The nice thing about these (especially Cyclops, and to a lesser extent Hulk) is they are not (as) vulnerable to the Distraction tweaking that's such a prime aspect of Dave's Control Deck. You are able to KO some opponents (and do damage to your opponent) without committing all of your resources offensively.
I do think it only works well with 'area of effect' damage, though, as there are quite a few ways for players to block in a way that doesn't demand several characters be KOd. This is probably best against teams that have smaller blockers - I'm looking at you, Beast - where your opponent wants them to be KOd, but then Collateral Damage is there, making their lives difficult.
This could be a pretty solid include, however, just to keep a different sort of pressure up; you get one of these in your bag, and whenever you roll it, you press an attack. It's not going to be your only source of damage, but it's going to be a solid supplement to whatever else you are doing. Generally, an opponent getting KOd on the defensive is not the end of the world - they'll just get to roll them again next turn; this makes the decision to block, and how to block, that much more costly. It's a solid include if you don't have anything else on the table, and you, as someone who has an opponent bring this to the table, can make your opponent rue those Beasts and any other weenie blockers.
Conclusions
We here at The Reserve Pool are occasionally pretty hard on the Basic Actions, mostly because some of them are pretty mediocre. I think there was more room to get a bit more creative with them, and at least in the base set they occasionally missed the mark. These Organized Play participation rewards have the possibility of really stretching the bounds of what is capable with these actions, but I am a little disappointed that we don't have these in the base set.
Not everyone is going to be able to have access to these cards, with the distribution issues there have been serious issues with OP materials being available across the country. At first, I was thrilled that these actions would be participation rewards - all that would be required was attendance, not even competence or being any good - but now it seems that the access might be more restricted, based on being able to drive long distances or pay a markup on eBay, and I'm not a fan of that at all.
Long story short, some of these actions are really cool, but even if you don't need them to take advantage of your opponent bringing them, that's a far cry from being able to include them in your own deck at your leisure. I've been fairly comfortable with the limited nature of the character rewards because the Thor and Spider-Man we've seen so far haven't been game breaking, but Basic Actions should be more readily available; your meta options shouldn't bar you from accessing almost half of them.
If you have access to these, hopefully you have a better understanding of how you might use them, and if you don't, I hope you're able to make good use of them if your opponent brings them. Best of luck, and keep on rolling.
Not everyone is going to be able to have access to these cards, with the distribution issues there have been serious issues with OP materials being available across the country. At first, I was thrilled that these actions would be participation rewards - all that would be required was attendance, not even competence or being any good - but now it seems that the access might be more restricted, based on being able to drive long distances or pay a markup on eBay, and I'm not a fan of that at all.
Long story short, some of these actions are really cool, but even if you don't need them to take advantage of your opponent bringing them, that's a far cry from being able to include them in your own deck at your leisure. I've been fairly comfortable with the limited nature of the character rewards because the Thor and Spider-Man we've seen so far haven't been game breaking, but Basic Actions should be more readily available; your meta options shouldn't bar you from accessing almost half of them.
If you have access to these, hopefully you have a better understanding of how you might use them, and if you don't, I hope you're able to make good use of them if your opponent brings them. Best of luck, and keep on rolling.
Its cards like Mjolnir and Takedown that make me wonder if Villains will ever be prominent in the META game as a team instead of being used for their globals. Granted yes, even with "Teamwork" being a card, its much like you stated, their globals are too scary to allow your opponent access to them, unless you play 'Professor X (Powerful Telepath)'. Which kind of sucks, because I really like the cards Venom (Angelo Fortunato) and Loki (Gem-Keeper).
ReplyDeleteGreat article and good insight, nonetheless.
If only collateral triggered when you KO'd any character. NOGG would feed it well...
ReplyDeleteNick Fury isn't an actual Avenger, he merely facilitates them. He doesn't have a part in the Teamwork ability.
ReplyDelete