Hi folks, how’s it going?
Super exciting week – Tom Vasel over at the Dice Tower did an unboxing review of the upcoming ‘Doom Patrol’ and ‘Mystics’ team packs. You can find the video here:
The folks over at the Dice Coalition have also posted screen grabs of each card (with the Screen Capturing talent of one upstanding Josh Bodi) to allow for the repeated pouring over and getting excited about. (Find that HERE)
Then – as if that wasn’t enough – our good man Stephen over at DMArmada cracked open the main Campaign box and we were able to fill in the gaps for all the un-spoiled cards. You can find DMArmada’s vid HERE.
I’ve had a look over and here is my top pick cards from the spoilers I’m excited about coming up. I’ve focussed on cards that have not been spoiled up to this point, if you want to see other previous picks from earlier Spoiler news then head over to these posts HERE and HERE.
This batch of stuff is simply marvellous (pun not intended) My third set of picks and It’s a fairly long post still yet, so stick with it…
Justice Campaign Box
Clayface – Restless
Finally the card holding the spoiled global from our MoD interview with Jimmy at Wizkids is revealed.
This global is going to be insane. The ability to grab a die from used and add it to your Reserve Pool as ANY ENERGY YOU WANT is so full of potential I can’t even fathom it.
And to top it off: it doesn’t specify what type of dice either, so you can grab a character or Action die and place it on the double energy side for a little boost to your spending power.
AND, further to that even, it’s “Once per turn”, so you can use it in your opponent’s turn if you need to. Got a couple of Globals you want to use in your opponent’s go but one energy short? No probs, keep a Mask and grab a Character die on it’s double energy side and Global away to your heart’s content.
The core game-text is kinda fun too, especially with a global that will increase your chances of getting the energy you need to make ‘Clayface’ an enormous, overcrushing beast. I love cards where the global and the core game-text line up like that.
This guy is definitely going to see play.
Gorilla Grodd – Stronger Than You
I wanted to pick an example of the new ‘Strike’ game-text to put in my Spoiler picks and there was one that stood out above all the rest.
‘Strike’ is interesting keyword and one worthy of experimentation with. I’ll be keeping my eye on how often I field just one character over the next few weeks in my games down the FLGS to get a sense of it’s feasibility.
If I do use a ‘Strike’ though this would be the one, because a 9/9 Overcrusher who can determine their own blocker is just too fun to pass up.
A Couple of Poison Ivy’s
There’s two ‘Poison Ivy’ cards that have caught my eye – the first is ‘Criminal Because of Love’.
There’s two things going on here. First, you get to KO one of your own characters, so there’s the combo potential with all the juicy ‘When KO’d’ effects you could put on your team.
Then there’s the damage she deals to both your opponent AND all of their characters. That’s got the potential to deliver a 3 damage hit across all your opponent’s dice, which I’m sure you’ll agree could be pretty devastating.
I’m definitely thinking of trying this bad girl out with things like ‘Grey Hunter‘, ‘Rarecrow’, Retaliation ‘Black Manta’, ‘The Collector’, and ‘Staff of the Forgotten One’.
The next ‘Poison Ivy’ to catch my eye was this one – ‘A New Leaf’.
Here is the totally mental global Jimmy spoiled during his interview on the MoD. It’s crackers.
It’s a gamble; being a global our opponent could equally use it against you, but here’s another example of a card with a core-text that combos well with the global on the same card.
It certainly will be fun to use when your opponent is loaded up with dice on a card they’d like to purchase multiple times. Move quickly enough and this is very painful for an opponent using ‘Swarm’ or a Weenie force.
One to play around with for sure.
Scarecrow – Chose Poorly
It’s no secret I’m a massive fan of Villain Control cards, so it probably comes as no surprise to those who know me that this guy stood out to me.
This guy is a 3 cost purchase, reasonable fielding costed, decent defense stat’d control piece that can be totally prohibitive for your opponent.
First thing of note is that he “names an opposing card”, so, like ‘Shriek – Sonic Beam’, he’s a way around the ‘Raven’ defense in Golden. It also means he can be used on Action cards as well as character cards.
Then he makes the die on that card cost 3 more. 3 MORE! That’s just crackers. He has so much utility – make that weenie too hard to multi-buy for your opponent, or make that game-finishing 7 cost too expensive to ever buy.
His stats make him pretty tough to remove as well. On his second & third level he survives a ‘Breath Weapon’ attack or a ‘Batarang’ throw.
Actually – the more I think on it – I don’t like this card AT ALL. It’s mad unbalanced, it may just be the new ‘Shriek’…
Toyman – Play Dead
Here’s some crazy fun to have a play around with.
I don’t think it’s competitive, there’s just too many variables around what your opponent has brought in their Basic Action choices and how they could lumber you with something you didn’t really need or want, but I do think the idea of acquiring a free Basic Action die is something worth exploring.
I would mostly operate on the assumption that everyone has brought Basic Action cards that strengthen their team, so anything you end up with is going to be vaguely useful somehow. But you may end up filling your bag with stuff that doesn’t really help you out.
I dunno, but I’m going to give this guy a punt (with ‘The Collector’, I totally think that would be fun) and see how things go.
The Team Packs
Phantom Stranger – Mysticism
This card jumped out at me straight away, it is chock full of potential.
It seems that sweeping damage effects are the tone of the meta right now and here’s another card with the capacity to damage numerous die in one go.
What separates this guy from the others is that the trigger is your opponent initiating an attack. It happens in their turn.
That’s a really interesting means of control – placing your opponent in a position to decide whether they attack and possibly weaken their field in the process, or don’t attack and leave their win condition sitting idle. Really, really interesting. Especially when you consider his purchase cost, fielding costs and stats in the mix too.
Lots of janky fun to be had. Pair him with a force attack global and an Uncommon Danger Room for maximum laughs.
I’m going to try this guy out for sure.
Black Adam – Angered
Yet more Villainous loveliness that appeals to my Villain Control sensibilities.
I always loved removal mechanics that placed your opponent’s dice in the Used Pile instead of Prep, so it’s great to see another option to interfere with your opponent’s best laid plans.
Loads of fun combo potential in this guy. Cards liked ‘Venerable Dreadnaught’ and the spammy ‘ Poison Ivy’ I wrote about above are going to be super-fun combos with ‘Black Adam’ and a buddy or two from the Legion of Doom Affiliation.
Also – three Affiliations – can you say “Team Up”?
Yellow Lantern Ring – Green Lantern Killer
How could anyone resist adding some more janky, gamblers fun to their teams with this card? We get together to roll dice after all.
I love the extra little layer of pressure this adds to your opponent’s decision making process. Block a weenie and there’s a chance the character gets KO’d and I take some damage. Don’t block and the weenie goes through for a little chip of damage. Do you take the chance on the ‘Yellow Lantern Ring’.
It’s not consistent, and likely not a top tier competitive card, but it looks like a lot of fun. I love cards like this that give you the “Wooaaaah” moment in games.
Green Arrow
We play quite a bit of Golden format Single Affiliation themes around these parts (It’s the theme of our upcoming MoDPDM event, for example) and I love to see new cards that might add a new twist that could strengthen an Affiliation. This guy is one such example.
I’ve always loved classic Justice League teams from back in the day, so I’m really keen to give this guy a try on some Golden Single Affiliation theme nights down the FLGS.
If I was to lean more towards one than the other it would probably be ‘No Fancy Ring’ – I’m pretty certain this can deliver anywhere between 2 – 4 damage across all your opponent’s dice, which I think is pretty good for a 4 cost.
I’m definitely going to try this out as a board clear option, swiftly followed by a stat bump from the new ‘Watchtower – JLA Headquarters.’
Plastic Man – Elasticity
There’s a couple of ‘Plastic Man’ cards worthy of a look, but this particular one is the card I’ve chosen to focus on.
Multi-blockers are the business. I used to make loads of use out of ‘Cyborg’ and ‘Medusa’ from earlier sets for their multi-blocking capability. It’s just a really useful thing.
It’s particular useful on a 4 cost character with those defence stats. He’s got 8 defence at his level 3, for 1 fielding cost. That’s some strong blocking power right there that can be handy with Overcrushers or a couple of mid-sized attackers.
It’s got a lot of casual play potential, and I can see myself dropping him in as the eighth card as a handy little back up if I’m getting overwhelmed.
Shazam – Power of Zeus
So… not the most outstanding of cards here, but a curiosity that caught my eye.
I just think it’s really interesting to have an ‘Attune’ character that also has the potential to gain you 2 free actions. (Or Inclusive in his cost I suppose, his TFC is pretty high).
I’m not an odds guy, so someone will have to look into it, but rolling two gives you a pretty good chance of getting at least one of them… I think. So, in effect, the minute this beefy ‘Attune’ character hits the field you can Prep some Attune fodder to get dealing damage with.
There’s lots of help to get through the purchase & fielding costs too. In set we have the return of ‘Aquaman – Arthur Curry’, and of course all the great popular Globals like ‘Ring of Winter’ and ‘Kree Captain’, not to mention the classic ‘Wonder Woman – Champion of Themyscira’ from back in the day.
Going to be putting some thought into this one for sure.
Black Canary
Yet another character with multiple variants that have caught my eye… and the first of the ‘Black Canary’ cards I want to look at is ‘Costumed Adventurer’.
‘Retaliation’ is a cool keyword that is long overdue a return – it’s perfect for a direct damage lover like me. There’s a couple of ‘Retaliation’ cards in this set that mark it’s return to the Modern format,
The other ‘Black Canary’ that caught my eye is ‘Flower Shop Owner’.
The combo potential on this lady is obvious – get her paired up with a strong attack character or two, fire off a Rare ‘Danger Room’ and swing in big on your opponent while their character dice are impotent.
At just a 3 cost it’s super cheap to line up, she’s cheap to field, and can work with loads of cool stuff. I can’t wait to try her out.
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There we are boys & girls – my top picks from the newly spoiled stuff. I’m mega in love with this set, as I’m sure you can tell. As a blogger I can judge it by the number of column inches I’ve filled on the set – every time a spoiler came out something caught my eye.
What about you? Anything you’ve got your eye on that I’ve not mentioned? Am I talking bobbins again? Let me know in the comments below…
