Thanks to the new-age Modern builds, the faces deck can consistenty get 2-3 faces per game, thus not needing wrecking crew for the awkward (And easily disruptable) Formation step.

What makes Genis so good is that it does a random +2 def (It's not supposed to make a difference, but hey, Reservatist 6 drop with decent effect that wastes hand? I'm in.)
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Kitchen Measures

you'd be surprised how amazing the 2 defense is. i was testing with shane and batow a few weeks before PC and so many games were won because of genis especially in the mirror. and taek.. its not teching when now every1 knows about it :[

Fox fire to take out all the ONGOING PTs.
I am thinking of teching some reinforcement base effect and some cards that breaks formations.

Breaking Formations is a DC skill. (evil laugh)

The best formation breaker in marvel is, in my opinion, Blizzard.

I saw some of the Avengers decks running Prisimatic Shield and System Failure doing OK in the Aggro Matchups. Avengers has always been a beatdown deck, but in this format, it cant compete in that area. So, if you want to run it, I think you sacrifice some raw power and get it to the later turns. If you can survive past 6 Herc should wreck them. Druid can help with some defense if you think Hawkeye is going to be stopped off init. Also, most of the Faces pumps are only in effect while attacking, so you can make good attacks without stunning back and force them to attack you and lose more guys on their init. While this Faces deck has plenty of gas, if you can get a stunned board on turn 4 or 5, they will have trouble getting enough guys back out to win the game, especially with Wonderman and Herc coming out. Another change might be to add in 6-drop Cap since Mob Ment makes Wonderman considerably less amazing.

A thought for Avengers is that if X-Faces with the Mentality & PL becomes popular, the Avengers are likely well-served by running Harry Delgado to act as a better finisher on 6. It kinda sucks that he won't play well with the Mansion, but sometimes sacrifices need to be made.

Camamrock, they can simply counter that by taking evens 0_o. It's not like Hawkeye does anything anyway to matter.
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Coach purses

IMO, running Prismatic Shield is not going to be such a big deal after all. I am sure those SS will pump their small to take on their big. Like Joystick or Shape on your Hawkeye and the ones with slightly bigger attack goes for life. FoE should have attacks high enough to take out the other characters.

It seems like in this format, Avengers cannot survive.

Well, first off, Joystick and Shape still have issues with Hawkeye ie He can stun them before their attack goes through. The Matchup with Squad hasn't changed all that much and is still fairly initiative dependent. Prisimatic Shield wasnt to stop stuns obviously. It just reinforced and stopped massive endurance loss. Remember, in general, Sqaud wants to play On Curve so they are usually trading with you. Stopping the breakthrough does help, especially after youve caused them to burn a few pumps.With Avengers, you get the stun backs easily so board position isn't a huge issue when facing Squad. Its not a matchup I worry about.

The X-Faces build on the other hand was awful for Avengers. Hawkeye was a killer for Faces, and not being able to use Fatality in MMA really figured to hurt Faces. Mob Mentality turned Faces worst matchup into their best. In this matchup, you are right. Prisimatic Shield isnt to useful because they have extra characters going for your head almost every turn. What you have to do here is play Defense and use System Failure, which still wrecks them. They will run out of gas quicker than Squad so if you can survive the middle turns and get to 7 you can win easily.

Avengers is not the best choice in the format. But, it is playable and can do well. Plenty of people got to Day 2 using it. It is consistent and has some semblnce of a late game unlike the other two choices.

Really, though, that requires them to want to pick evens on their own (possible, as I'm not sure what the newer non-Av. builds look for as init.), or they're specifically choosing odds because they know about Delgado and actually card enough to pick their possibly inferior init. choice. That's not really a major issue, though, compared to other matters.

It really does seem that some sort of Energy / Mental defense deck might be in order, since the decks pulling smaller characters are less resistant to Magnetic Force, and the best generic (a.k.a. X-Faces) answer to that card is PL, which makes pumps harder to use in an attack if the deck also has DEF pumps. With only two more months of possibly relevant development, however, I suspect that there won't be many good answers to the two main decks of choice in time. *shrug*

dragon11, you just told me how BAD Avengers is in this format. They have 2 big enemies around and both enemies requires different kind cards to help Avengers survive.

SQ is the hard-hitting one which is like you say initiative dependent. If he takes odd, you are likely to be finished. If you take odds, chances are you are more likely to win considering you not missing your 1 and 2 drops. Teching Prismatic Shield for a <3 breakthru damage IMO is just not worth it.

Faces on the other hand avoids your off-curve stun and in an aggro format, living till turn 7 is not reallly the solution. The damages that you have absorbed may be far too much for you to be able to survive. Faces have small characters and they can reinforce. Taking less damage and then later gang on you again. System Failure does not sound like a solution too. Beetle is 3 attack, to fail him, he needs to be 7. Speed Demon, Beast and the other 3 drops are at 5, failing them requires 11 attack. They can obviously avoid such kind of danger by team attacking on you in the later turns. Besides, they have Faces to increase attack and 2 small ones is enough to kick Sub-mariner's butt. Knowing Avengers have NO defensive pumps. Faces just need to make sure that their attack is 1 higher than your defense in case of a power-up. 2 power-ups are far too unlikely.

I agree that Avengers is not the best choice, but to be able to play well in this format, I'd say I believe what JinxM said in another thread that they beats mostly bad hands in this format. With superior board superiority, late games are far less of a worry. In fact, most Faces would kill their opponent by turn 7. Stalling to 7 in this format is really tough.

I dont think you fully understand just how big some of these characters are getting. Prisimatic Shield saves you more than 3 endurance on average.

At any rate, I'm just telling you what I actually saw at the PC and learned from talking to others there who either played Avengers or against it. You are welcome to speculate all you want about the relative merits of those cards. I'm just telling you that it seemed decks running them did better than those that didnt in actual competition.

Luffy, also, I can only assume you havn't played with Faces before. First off, a seven attack Beetle is very common to see. You have to realize with this new build flooding your row with multiple Faces, having Blackbird Blue out AND Viper, it is not unusual for every character on the board to be +4 or better. Read the feature matches on Metagame. With Speed Demon, you want him huge because you are going to swing twice with him. The build are playing Flying Kicks, No Fear, and Mob Mentality for a reason, namely a +3 attack.(With an obvious great benefit to Mob Mentality) Guess what Beetle with a Flying Kick or Mob Ment is with even 1 Faces turned up:

7

I played Faces the entire GA season in PCQ's and System Failure and Reign of Terror were the two hardest threats to deal with.

Also, Team Attacking and Reinforcing are not what Faces is about and both tactics are used very sparingly. I suggest reading Alex Browns Article on Metagame about the deck. Its not the exact same deck, but the pricipals are very similar.

wow i'm gonna have to give that the z snap

dragon11, point taken. I am just stating my opinion. I have not played Faces for like months and GA Faces that I have played against are somewhat different from the style nowadays. So, I am unsure about the current situation.

Anyway, thanks for telling. I shall read up.