Compare the team-stamped searching cards in Avengers, JLA, and X-Men to those in Infinite Crisis, Heralds, and Legion, then tell me you don't see an increased emphasis on high quality team-stamped search cards in the three most recent sets. Heck, the Inhumans team alone has more good search cards than all the teams in Avengers combined.

And rep for you ...

I am constantly wondering about this perceived dominance of aggro. Is it just me or did some people not notice that the meta is currently dominated by broken stall and broken combo?

Where is the rush? Aside from TNNB, it's dead. If anything, we need to have more ways to beat curve, because curve is all over.

Oops, I repped Kansas Hoops instead.

Bah - Kansas gets random rep for just being at the top of the page and confusing me.

Told you I'm sick.

Well, I do not know if the difference is that big. I agree that UDE realized that one good tutor card is needed to make a team playable, but I do not think the emphasis is that big. The X-men set had some awesome tutors, aside from EOME for example. It is more that the themes that the tutors support are more useful. Avengers Assemble for example is an excellent tutor on it's own, it's just that the whole Leader theme of the team is so bad, especially compared to the Reservists that it is not used for that reason.

I am guessing they mean a curve deck as in it curves and is about actual combat as opposed to "throw in a bunch of tutors and silver bullets with lots of cards draw that happens to curve". Just a guess though, honestly. When people mention curve for me it is always something like Avengers Reservist that pops to my mind and not the latest cherry pick stall decks even though they both curve. Weird.

It's just you. I hate TNB. Stupid Kabooms. I would love to face stall all day.

This has been an excellent thread so far about what cards should get ban. This is a good question to needs to be answered. However, I think another question that could help future cards from getting banned is this. What gets a card banned to begin with? If there are some common traits, then can these traits be fix or avoid so future cards do not get banned. I give my opinion to these questions. First, I look at the banned list as of January 20, 2007.

Antarctic Research Base
Detective Chimp, Bobo T. Chimpanzee
Dr. Light, Master of Holograms
Fiddler, Isaac Bowin
Go Down Fighting
Gone But Not Forgotten
Justice League of Arkham
Overload
Talia, LexCorp CEO
Valeria Von Doom, Heir to Latveria

To me, there seems to be three problems associated with these banned cards. Some of the cards can be used near infinite times like Antarctic Research Base, some cards have no affiliated or keyword requirements like Dr. Light, and other cards are too powerful too begin with like Overload.

Now, R&D has little choice but to ban the cards that are too powerful like Overload since the alternative is errata or ban lots of cards in order for the single card not to work. However, the near infinite cards like Antarctic Research Base and cards with no keyword or affiliation requirements like Dr. Light are tricky. R&D does have a choice with these two types of cards. They can ban these cards. However, R&D could try to keep these two types of cards but R&D then has to limit the cards that can enable them or the near infinite cards and the lack of keyword or affiliation cards may become too powerful.

Now, R&D by its nature is creative group. Limitations are hard to tolerant for creative people. Sooner or later, R&D will push the envelope on the cards that can make near infinite cards or cards without keyword or affiliation requirements too powerful. R&D does sometimes keep near infinite cards and cards with no team or keyword requirement balance despite new cards that could break them. However, some near infinite cards like Antarctic Research Base and cards with no team or keyword requirements like Dr. Light are too poorly worded to not become broken eventually.

This is no to say that R&D does not know what they are doing. In an excellent game like Vs., R&D has to make calculations about every card that they design. How much power a card should have, and what if any limitations are needed. Most of these calculations are correct as the total ban cards to total printed cards prove. However, no one is perfect but many people come close. I think of R&D as the people who come close.

Now in my opinion and provided that R&D is not doing this already, R&D should include the below statements when they design a card. If they do this, then I think the chances of future cards getting banned is slim.

If a card can be used infinite times in theory, then put a limitation on the card as to how many times it can be used.

If a card has a powerful ability but no keyword and/or affiliation limitations on it, then put some keyword and/or affiliation limitations on the card.

If a card has a powerful ability, then make sure that the card can be played in at a certain time during a phrase where it cannot be broken.

Enemy will not be banned, nor should it be. If you compare it to the cards that are currently on the banned list and take into consideration the reasons as to why they were banned in the first place, Enemy doesn't even come close. It is not a main piece to any broken combos other than fetching pieces of the puzzle, it does not create infinite loops, let you draw your whole deck, gain infy life or let you play 2 free resource points worth of characters every turn. It enables decks to run smoother, it helps people not lose games because of missed drops and it allows you to run off team characters that are good in certain match-ups.

If you think that running off team characters that enable you to win certain match-ups is bad, then you are not playing for money. If you are playing the game for fun and fun alone, then you should get no say in what is or is not banned.

That being said, having fun and playing to win are not mutually exclusive concepts. If there is a player that brings a deck that you consider "broken" to your casual Hobby League then you should take it up with that player. If UDE intended us all to play 1 or 2 team decks then it would be in the rules.

I have my Frankie abuse deck which contains lots of different teams and threfore it obviously runs Enemy. But I also have things like my Above and Below deck. (with Bamf!) I play Enemy in it as well because the X-Men have a weenie tutor and the Morlocks have an Evasion specific tutor.

If we do away with generic search, then teams that have crappy search will fall (further) by the wayside and casual players/comic fans everywhere will cry foul against UDE for not supporting marquee teams.

Ban degenerate combos, ban infi-loops and, hell, ban things like Frankie (if you must) but don't take away generic search, it is far too important.

Team-up and play Mobilize then. That's why Mobilize is there. Enemy of my Enemy literally made combos like Talia shenanigans viable in the first place. Same for combos like the Go down Fighting deck (I'd love to hear some input from TAWC on this one. Do you think your deck would be a good turn or two slower if you couldn't play EOME?)

You could make the same case for Vampiric Tutor in magic, by the way. Vampiric Tutor is essentially an EOME for Magic, with a fairly cheap manacost that players can cheat on with many of the mana-fixers in that game, and you had to play the card during your upkeep or at EOT or with card draw to even get the card you search for. And you lost life, which was actually relevant to some combo decks in staying alive since most lands for these decks did a fairly good job of killing you.

That card still got banned, because it "enabled" too many combos way too easily. EOME requires a discard, and it enables you to run any combo they keys off of various off-team characters. Frankie + Stranger? Much easier with EOME. Talia and then Ivy to find your Punisher's Armory. Turn 3 EOME enables this. I understand that UDE had good intentions with this card, by printing a tutor that gives deck-builders access to more consistency for many fair decks, and allowing players to do what was most important in Vs System: playing their curve. However, the generic power of EOME makes it much easier for degenerate decks that have massive build phases to "do their stuff".

Also, with EOME around, are cards like Ivy really that bad? What if there was some character that has a power comparable to Poison Ivy, or some other really good character that you're willing to underdrop for. If I only have access to Mobilize and Straight to the Grave (which is really powerful, but requires access to some sort of recursion to be 100% effective), then I might have to settle with a card not on Ivy's power level and find some synergies for this deck type around that card instead (say, San, who's efficient but not as powerful as Ivy and isn't completely ridiculous when you pair it off with another 1 drop that should be banned). What if UDE makes something decent at the 2 drop spot, but your deck likes locations, wants to run SttG or a recursion engine, and you ask yourself, "Why do I run this card over Ivy? Oh, right. I have EOME. I can play Ivy anyway.".

Obviously this example applies to more than just Ivy, who's just fresh on my mind right now. The problem is that EOME literally dictates a skeleton of cards for the base of any deck a player is currently making. If you're making a deck with more than one affiliation, there's a good chance EOME will be in it at 4 copies. But then if you require things like locations, then the ease of using EOME leaves you adding 4 copies of something like Ivy to that deck. Need easy ways to filter your deck of locations and make use of that Ivy? EOME lets you play Haywire and Nenora with ease too.

This problem is also degenerating away from locations and into 3 drops. With Dr. Light gone, I have to ask myself when I start looking a building a deck, "Do I really give a flying #### about my main team's 3 drop? Nah, I'll run Dr. Doom.". So because Dr. Doom lets me smooth out my plot twists for the game (or my characters, since I can get an EOME), I have 8 cards already decided in this deck. But because I want to KO something to Dr. Doom on turn 3 to get a free card (essentially, that plot twist by replacing something I've used), I'll be playing 4 Frankie Raye. Why play another 1 drop when I can just play the one that lets my filter my deck and can be played on turn 3 if I miss in the first two turns as a body to KO to doom? I heard KOing Frankie is pretty good with recursion effects too, so I can do it again next turn.

EOME sets standards for what a deck is going to look like. I don't care if UDE makes interesting cards at the 2 or 3 drop, because if they're not as good as one or two other cards (Ie Ivy, Doom, some other key 2 or 3 drop for the format I expect like Time Trapper) then I'm going to play it over any new cards. EOME is effectively hindering R&D by forcing them to make cards that will ALWAYS be better than the previous options we have, and this will end up pushing the game to a degenerate tournament scene we almost saw at PCLA. EOME is just flat-out too good for this game, where we need to accept the fact that some decks will have to play inferior cards. Creativity in deck-building is great and all, but not when the card that should be enabling us is actually forcing us into playing a set number of cards in all of our decks. EOME does this.

I agree with everything Dawn is saying and its what i have been trying to put into words since silverage began in 06 and what is saw out of that pc was basicly the cherry pick format, it nearly made me quit the game.

I'm fairly new to VS. but i have played most games out there...and i have to say that there is always "broken" cards or figures......untill some one comes up with a way to beat them...then they don't get used anymore. i am aginst banning because the more you ban the less you get in your packs....imagine if you ban all the cards people have problems with, then there is new "broken"cards so you ban those......and then there is new "broken" cards so you ban those, and then when you open a new pack you send up with like 3 cards that are not banned.........banning is not the solution, creative use of the other cards is.

Word. You may be fairly new, but you are brilliant! 19 rep points and a toast to your health.

One thing I have been wondering. Is it considered "emo" to whine about not having fun with the cards we have been given? Let me try it in verse.

I've been sittin' here wishin'
Feelin' somethin' is missin'
Hit the forums, start dissin'
Hope that someone will listen.

That there card game I love
Needs a push and a shove
Cry to UDE above
Got no life to speak of.

Can't be happy with this
No one will take my fist
Cardboard's my only kiss
Maybe banning brings bliss.

So I cry "It's no fun!"
Maybe something gets done
I know best, I'm the one
It's MY life, it must have problems.

(Please forgive me, I'm just feeling goofy this morning. All the suggestions and opinions in this thread are very thoughful and I really don't mean to belittle anyone. I just have my take on the situation, and I like to write poems. Thanks.)

Lol, thats good.
Anyway here is what I think on some of the cards every one is mentioning for a ban.

EOME: Now come on a know a bunch of people ere complaing before this card cam out about how only if there was a tutor that could be used to do "fill in the blink" with out having to team-up or do some other non since. Well people got their wish and now some are complaining b/c with this so called broken tutor new stragies are comming out. Its not EOME its self that broken but the cards it searches out for some of the combos

Poision Ivy: IMO this should be the card that gets banned it speeds up almost any deck now a day. Turn 1 Frankie, Turn 2 Ivy then ko Frankie and maybe I will discard a card to recruit anothr Frankie and then discard one to sift though some cards. In one turn a player just went through 5 cards and could possibly do more.

Frankie Raye, Otomistic Youth: This should also be banned because of its drawing power. I am pretty sure with in a short time some one will figure out an infinte combo with her and she will get banned any way. In fact after typying thta I think I may have thought of one but thats beside the point. She alows you to shift through cards pretty fast and that about what the game has come down to.

Haywire, Neonora, Any free card that does not have a stamped discard effect on it: These could stay if Ivy would go well except Neonora, giving every one the same affilation is just worng and its basicly free and she can almost stay out the entire game.

wow. except for that last line that was genious (close enough. more than enough for rep.)

as for enemy/mobilize:
If there were a team who had a theme to not use plot-twists or was hurt by using plot twists, AND was consistant and powerfull, then maybe in that type of a deck neither of the named cards would be used. (Hint R&D: This is HUGE! Make this work) =p

seriously though they either add consistancy or toolbox. decks that already have either or both don't need EoME or Mobilize unless they want crazy consistancy or crazy toolboxing = |