And the Evolution Keeps Rolling…

… away?

I didn’t think it was a legitimate concern the first few times I read about it, but the comment from one of my VS playmates here in the Philippines was that he was getting worried about the power creep in MEV.  Considering that there doesn’t seem to be a DC set on the horizon as of yet and my friends are mostly DC enthusiasts, it’s possible that they’ll buy into MEV, but will the latest set make all the previous sets obsolete?

As of the present, MUN has still kept things fairly sober, partly due to the inherent limitation of supply that would engineer the creation of more frightening decks.  Now that we’ve learned from the MUN experience, we could be ordering MEV in abundance…

… or it may lead to our casting off VS to the level of purely casual gaming, to be replaced eventually by a more accessible hobby.

Hahaha.  There’s not much more to say at the moment with the MEV previews rushing in like tidal waves.  It’s nice to know, at least, that the R&D crew at UDE have yet to run out of fresh ideas.

A Shift in the Wind

The VS community is abuzz with the ramifications of the wildest resource-limit-breaking keyword to hit the game, Shift.  And for good reason, since resource acceleration is perhaps the most tightly-controlled aspect of Versus System.  The ability to recruit more characters than you’ve got resource points creates a relatively permanent power swing in your favor that’s harder to remove than a plot twist effect or a set of equipment.  The last team that broke this mechanic pretty much ensured that we won’t see the Press keyword for quite some time, if not never again.

I’m still on the fence about its actual utility until we see the rest of the Exiles team and their goodies.  We have yet to see any plot twists, Exile-stamped or otherwise, that reference the Shift keyword or provide bonuses based on it.  We could fall back on the effects that we’ve seen in previous sets that depend on the number of characters one has brought into play, but it doesn’t seem as if Shift was made to swarm the opposition the way the Kree did, with off-curve characters; rather, the best use of it would be to be able to drop a character on curve while being able to bring in another character of up to that size for free.  From turns 4 onwards, an extra on-curve character becomes more and more of a liability for an opponent, and that’s fine.  But I’m not excited about the prospect of Shift being the only thing the Exiles have going for them, such that what you end up shifting in are a bunch of average-sized characters with blank text boxes not counting any Shift-related powers.

And as for Mimic… copying abilities isn’t quite as effective as having those abilities on your characters to begin with, regardless of the cool factor.

What bugs me is that 90% of the cards we’ve seen so far are rares, which will make MEV yet another rare-chasing headache of a set.  The uncommon distribution is supposed to be much more manageable, though, which is definitely a relief given that MUN uncommons were practically rare due to their number versus distribution.

But still, I’m terribly excited to buy boxes of MEV.  We’ve been waiting for new mechanics for quite a few sets now (I still don’t think Insanity counts as a mechanic per se as a deck construction limitation), and with Energize and Shift being just two parts of the intricate puzzle, I’m gearing up to max out my credit card when December rolls around.

MEV: The Previews Begin

Haha, it’s preview season once again, and I’m hoping that we beleaguered, starving, huddled VS masses here in the Philippines will actually manage to score this set this time around.  The distribution of rares seems as abysmal as ever, which is annoying for those of us who don’t have the resources to splurge on a case, but it’s just one of those things we’ll have to deal with.

At last, underappreciated Cyclops finally achieves Legend status, and though we’ve only seen a couple of his versions, they’re both solid for off-initiative rounds, which is a welcome departure from the majority of the versions we’ve seen thus far that are blank boxes on defense.  Even if we were to resort to the Cyclopses of old, at least now they’ve got something to do off-initiative.  Forcing the exhaust of two of an opponent’s characters is a significant stall effect, that almost ensures you’re going in next round with your forces intact, and could mean stolen initiative if you’ve got a couple of bruisers ready to attack.

Multiple Man… I’m not so keen on, honestly, as it seems needlessly card intensive, but the new 1-drop Hydra army version seems pretty nasty, and the exhaustion card, while nothing we haven’t seen before, gives you something to do with those extra Multiple Men before they get reabsorbed.  It’s very flavorful, certainly, though how it will work competitively will be something to leave to Stubarnes to break.

Ah, Runaways.  I’m eagerly anticipating them and their “secret” mechanic.

And gosh, what does that Nightcrawler legend card do?