A couple of points here....

Brotherhood in either form is insanely good. And easy to play. That is one of the biggest reasons for heavy tournament play. When you have been playing for ten hours straight, you can't concentrate enough for doom control.

Will DC level the field? Unfortunately based on what I've read of the cards, I don't think so. LOA stands a good fighting chance. Gotham Knights can fizzle out the savage beatdowns, but what about TNB or LC and ASS. Let's see if you can survive until the turn 5 Batman...ha,ha,ha. Teen Titans, they are toast. F5 get real.

Another point, and I've said this in all my posts so far. It's mute to whine about Brotherhood. If you want get the trained monkey down the street and about $500 and buy a TNB deck. Send the monkey to PCQs and rake home the bucks(if he doesn't fling his poop on someone when he doesn't draw TNB through six turns). If not play what you want, there is still luck involved for even TNB. Also, do you play this game just to win PCQs or for fun or nostalgia over the comics? With me, it is definitely the last two. The worst part of the whole NB/Big Bro thing is there are probably plenty of people out there who always loved Magneto, Quicksilver, and Sabretooth and play because of this, so please I hope you all don't take offense to this. You are what this game should be about IMHO.

Finally, even if you approach this from a comic booky perspective, Brotherhood has a boat load of cards. How many more Brotherhood cards are there vs doom? You can play Brotherhood across the years and you know what I would argue there is only two comic book teams that could go toe to toe with this sort of "Brotherhood United" ideal. That would be the Avengers and JLA. So based on the number of cards, I wonder if we'll see any new Brotherhood(cards, not a pun there) any time soon, and for those of us who are comic book fans remember this is an encapsulation of one of the premiere Marvel villian teams.....

my Thor on your Sabretooth, Feral Rage(insert Brotherhood player ranting about Thor being overpowered!!)....my Flash on your Quicksilver,Speed Demon...my Flash(insert Brotherhood player ranting about Flash can attack again)on your Magneto. I can't wait for my JLA/Avengers deck....my Scarlet Witch(I guess the Avengers one will be a 7 drop) on your Scarlet Witch, now that would be nice.

I really don't see an unbalanced environment right now. Yes Brotherhood is good. Bloke does raise obvious points about Doom which I have never called into question. Doom is a good deck. I have openly admitted this and in fact never denied it. There are a number of playable decks right now including the afformentioned one and FF and some of the team up decks (and whatever advocates for other decks may think). I simply raised a rebuttal to Bloke stating the Doom was "far more powerful as a faction."

As far as the whole "a monkey could play Brotherhood" debate, I think some people associate aggro with easy. I don't necessarily feel this is the case. While Doom may be slightly more difficult to play, I think people stating they aren't playing it at tournies because you would have to "think too much" is a plain cop out. Doom really isn't that hard to play. I have played many a U/W control games in Magic at tournies, so Doom is fairly instinctive and there are far fewer timing issues, etc. in VS. The simply fact is that each deck is played differently. I am more interested in aggro control type decks, hence I really don't play TNB much nor do I play Doom much. I feel more comfortable with FF and Big Brotherhood, more midrange type decks. The key component in playing VS well is identifying whose the beatdown and whose the control and each stage of the game and playing appropriately. Those familiar with Magic will understand what I mean by this.

Quote

Arguing that your 'pet' deck is the most powerful and getting everyone to jump onto the bandwagon is certainly not helping the game develop.

This has nothing to do with a 'pet' deck and I certainly don't care if people jump onto one bandwagon or another. The debate was whether Doom is "much more powerful as a faction" than Brotherhood. I don't think so and was simply pointed out my reasoning why I didn't think it was. I'm in no way upset with Bloke and frankly I doubt he will ever agree with me (aside from the fact he apparently is a Brotherhood player himself...). The premise of a message board is for people to discuss and debate. I apologize if people think this has become heated, but I bear no ill will at all towards Bloke or any other poster on this board. I was simply defending my side of the arguement, as was Bloke (although he is wrong;) ). And I seriously doubt any arguement I make is going to affect the development of the VS game system, although I am flattered to think I could affect it such.

As I stated in the previous post, Doom control is not so hard to play that you can't concentrate sufficiently in a tournament. If it truly was a powerhouse deck, the big name players would be playing it. I'm reminded of Worls in Magic when Mirari's Wake was the dominant deck. The fact that the mirror matches were the most boring in history (Doom on Doom has nothing on Wake mirrors...) and that alot of thought was involved in no way prevented the best players from playing this deck. Frankly, good players play the best deck, whatever it may be. I'm simply stating that based on the current results from recent tournies, the Brotherhood decks are rising to the top. Granted the field is predominately Brotherhood, but there is also alot of decks geared to beat Brotherhood (the nature of a metagame).

And as to your comment about Big Brotherhood being "easy to play," I would suspect that you are not playing it correctly then. There are in fact alot of decisions that need to be made, ie do I flip the LC for risk of it being hit with Relocation/Ka-Boom (meaning analyzing my opponents plays and judging if I think he has these cards), which card do I pitch to Avalon Space Station to maximize my Lost City pumps, etc. That's certainly not to say there aren't difficult decisions for Doom players, etc. However, calling Big Brotherhood "easy" to play I think is wrong. MHO.

Quote

Finally, even if you approach this from a comic booky perspective, Brotherhood has a boat load of cards. How many more Brotherhood cards are there vs doom? You can play Brotherhood across the years and you know what I would argue there is only two comic book teams that could go toe to toe with this sort of "Brotherhood United" ideal. That would be the Avengers and JLA. So based on the number of cards, I wonder if we'll see any new Brotherhood(cards, not a pun there) any time soon, and for those of us who are comic book fans remember this is an encapsulation of one of the premiere Marvel villian teams..... my Thor on your Sabretooth, Feral Rage(insert Brotherhood player ranting about Thor being overpowered!!)....my Flash on your Quicksilver,Speed Demon...my Flash(insert Brotherhood player ranting about Flash can attack again)on your Magneto. I can't wait for my JLA/Avengers deck....my Scarlet Witch(I guess the Avengers one will be a 7 drop) on your Scarlet Witch, now that would be nice.

I would love to play my favorite characters (believe me I'm still trying to make a Spider Team deck that's any good at all...). When I'm around friends I play all kinds of decks. I love playing X-Men and pretty much any faction. I guess I'm just a comic book nut and have read most every book at one point in history. I can guarantee when team Galactus is formed I will be all over that (I'm a huge Galactus/Surfer fan). I will also enjory playing team Thanos whenever he comes out (I assume the Infinity Guantlet will be an equipment...).

And you are right about different cards changing the environment. I consider myself a Brotherhood player right now because it's what I would play at a tourney. If something better comes along I will jump ship to that. I find that just as appealing as playing with my favorite Marvel characters is that each team has it's own synergy. I'm just as into the strategy of the game as the characters, so I play all factions and enjoy it all. That is the ultimate draw of the game currently to me.

OK, Brotherhood is an easy deck to play, but not an easy deck to play WELL.

Doom Never was a deck for Noobs.

I think the best way to beat New brotherhood decks is to never drop the 6 drop doom, and keep the 4 drop alive. TNB deck have to stay at 4 resources, and thus must play all plot twists from the hand.

Relocating the Space station, which in my opinion is the strongest location they have (because they never run out, they can afford to put their high RC magneto/quicksilver in the KO pile) is one of the best things they can do.

And between boris and the throne room, Doom can get whatever he needs at the time. either Reign of terror, Paralysis, Relocation, or whatever.