wouldnt meltdown work to kill this too?

I think a lot of people are giving a little too much weight to the term "infinite" (or if you're going to be anal about it, "arbitrarily large"). There is not that big a difference from a deck that hits you with a million points of burn and a deck that hits you with fifty points of burn. More is better, of course, but by and large a deck only needs to be strong enough to kill the opponent. You can win a race by an inch or you can win it by a mile, but the important thing is winning. There will be games, of course, where the added punch of an infinitely large attacker will mean the difference between winning and losing, but history teaches us that all you really need to win is a fated-up two-drop with a bunch of turn-long pumps.

So rather than focus on how much burn this combo can generate, I feel it is much more productive to think about how early that burn is generated, how consistently the combo can be assembled, and how difficult it is to disrupt. I think we need to have a little bit more info on the new set before we can have a meaningful discussion on this.

Food for thought: Doom-8 + Press the Attack has been around since MOR and I don't see anyone complaining about how infinitely broke it is.

That has no point in the conversation about the combo because it is Turn 8. There are a couple of infinite combo's that are possible with 8 or more resource points at your disposal. People are up in arms, prematurely I give you, because it can trigger on turn 3.
Trust me if you could do 8-Drop Doom + Press The Attack on turn 3 it would have been nerfed years ago.
later,
Kj

I have a question:
Red Skull reads: Leader: Whenever an adjacent character defends, each opponent loses 2 endurance, and you gain 2 endurance.

I was under the assumption that this was a triggered effect upon passing on a declared attack. When you use Armed Escort, you give "defender" to a character, but I don't thing this effect triggers the 'when an adjacent character defends' trigger.

Could a smart person comment? Hero Complex?

"Defends" means "becomes a defender".

Well, I must apologize to everyone for destroying the VS scene with the combo. I shouldn't have mentioned it on the forums. I should have just made the deck and splatter everyone on turn 3 in a GA tourney at the next World's Champ.


I think some of you guys don't realize the difference between a good combo deck and a bad combo deck. (Bad combo not = to nonbos)

A good combo deck is like the 10 team Child-Lock, Rigged Elections and Fat-Bat. A bad combo deck is Ivy League and Light-Show. The Zatanna + Fiddler + Gone But Not Forgotten deck is quite "bad" too. "Bad" doesn't refer to it's deckbuilding or it's card content, but more on it's execution.

10 team Child-lock is a combo deck. Child Named Valeria (CNV) + Catcher's Mitt. From there, it uses the best cards from various teams to work together to burn the opponent to 0. Rigged Elections and Fat-Bat is a combo deck utilizing Cosmic Radiation + GCPD officers + Child Named Valeria. Difference is that both of them have different kill conditions. These 2 decks are extremely fragile, but not to specific cards like HaB or Total Anarchy or Fizzle. They are fragile to the 2 most basic elements in VS system, Luck and good old-fashioned beating.

Sure, they fall to cards like Omnipotence when you name CNV, HaB their Rigged Elections and melt their Catcher's Mitt. But the fact that they are vulnerable to combat makes it more "human". These combo decks needs to build up it's cards over a few turns. They don't "explode" in a single turn.

Ivy League and Light-show are decks that "explode". Let's take Light-show for example. Assuming it's turn 4 and there's an empty board on the Light-show side. Here's all that he needs to do to win.

1) Play Dr. Light, MoH
2) Play Invisible Woman, Invisible Girl
3) Activate Dr. Light to retrieve Kristoff von Doom
4) Flip Marvel Team-up (F4 + EE)
5) Play Cosmic Radiation from hand
6) Activate Dr. Light to retrieve Rama Tut and Cosmic Rad
7) Flip Devil's Due and the combo continues to get a Kristoff von Doom with a trillion +1/+1 counters.

From the above steps, with (5) - (7) a repeating pattern, this deck can only get destroyed by the following cards.

Bat Got Your Tongue
Batman, Cape and Cowl
Chill Out!
Dr Strange, Protector of the Soul Gem
Fizzle
Have a Blast (or any other similar plot twist)
Leech, Inhibitor
Omnipotence
Ultimate Nullifier
Utility Belt

There are a few more, but like most of them on the list, they can't be used without 4 or more resources. The only cards that can be used on turn 3/4 are Bat Got Your Tongue, Fizzle and HaB. Other plot twist negation cards like The Conclave are also part of the list, but just too lazy to be added. The rest of the cards like Leech and Utility Belt have to be in play by then. Can't be played as an instant.

But they all share a common problem. If you don't have ANY of these cards in your hand before step (5), you've lost. You've lost even before you could stage a comeback. Remember that the player started with an empty board. All you did was attack for 3 turns and dealt an Insignificant amount of damage (Bolded for emphasis). Insignificant because even if he's at 1 endurance, it doesn't matter. He can always KO all his other characters, leaving him a single Kristoff von Doom with a trillion +1/+1 counters. If he managed to draw 2 team-ups, he would have at least 3 characters with a trillion +1/+1 counters each.

These bad combo decks do not react to the opponent's deck. Doesn't matter who or what you're playing against, everything's the same for the Light-show and Ivy League decks. Fat-Bat is similar to Light-show and Ivy League decks in that sense, but different because by the end of turn 6 the Fat-Bat player must have an army of GCPD officers in play. If he doesn't, he goes into turn 7 with a single GCPD officer and a 12/12 7drop Batman. It's game plan is the same regardless of what the opponent is playing but it still reacts differently depending on what the opponent is playing.

VS System is meant to be a game for 2 or more players. If you take that part out of the game and make it a solitaire, no one will enjoy it. You might, but everyone else won't.

So when Richard's Rival hits the field, fetches HAB, KOs himself to put HAB in the row...

Do you just scoop, or wait until next turn when the rest of your guys get Reigned?

Let me know.

CC

Except my entire combo is 3 pieces. I can reassemble it on turn 5, and every turn after. Can you kill me on 4 with Doom stall?

The O-Force weakness even that big a deal-- instead of playing the X-Statix bits, just run 6-drop Thanos. You wait a bit longer, but honestly... if the opponent wants to just sit there for three turns and not attack, what do you care? And then you've got 16 more slots to play with in the deck.

Note to the naysayers: the ONLY valid argument to marginalize this deck is "it's golden, so who cares". I can accept that, even if I don't agree (Golden keeps seeping into our marquee formats). But don't try to argue that it's "not that good". Because you're wrong. It's that good. It's a 3-card turn 3 win.

Well Crisis Doom runs Sinister at 5, so Thanos is kinda blank. Point is that Crisis Doom or any Doom variant has a plethora of options at it's disposal. Turn 5 also means Omnipotence...everyone's favorite.

This deck (in it's current mythical incarnation) can't beat Doom X.

If you can't beat Doom, you can't beat Golden.

CC

The O-Force bit is huge as it actually lets you combo off early. A combo deck that goes off on turn 6 is pointless. High Voltage already has the potential to kill on four.

I'm not saying the combo isn't good. The issue is whether the combo is consistently good. Right now, you have a PT pivot, a character pivot, and an equiment pivot which just might make this deck easily disruptable enought to not need the ban hammer.

High Voltage can't win on 4 if it doesn't attack-- and doesn't have room to pack hate. Same applies to most other high-speed decks.

And besides, you don't actually have to DROP the X-Statix part. The frame I posted earlier had 6 slots left over-- toss in six copies of Thanos just in case you have to go that late.

I'm not comparing Hi-V in relation to this deck, I'm comparing Hi-V in relation to other decks with this deck in relation to other decks.

Also, I think Omni the guy with the Armed Escort after builds then attacking is a reasonable play.

I've had more fun looking for bad cards that trounce this than anything Vs. related in the last month.

Banished to the Anti-Matter Universe BABY!!!

CC

alright guys, i've been looking into this and i have to say. that this may be one of the most insane 3 card interactions i've ever seen.

Yes there are ways around it, but i dont see how someone can CONSISTENTLY defend this kind of brokenness.

Dont tell me that it's ok because equip hate will trump it. In our hobby league we actually get NEW players. Want to guess what they play?

Spiderman starters
X-Men starters
Fantastic four starters
Hellboy essentials

I am all for competitive decks, but when someone brings a cannon to a knife-fight something needs to be done. The few times a deck emerged where players NEEDED certain cards to have a chance to compete, UDE has done the right thing and stepped in. I'm guessing they will either introduce a starter deck with plentiful resource, equipment, and low drop character hate... OR they will errata Armed Escourt to once per turn.
But bringing something like this to a hobby league event is just... mean.

its an effing 3 card combo at its core. at its SIMPLEST. it will go infinite from any energize character, equip arms deal, and play adjacent to red skull 3, once an opposing attack becomes legal. So congrats, you got HAB, if you attack your still very possibly dead. And on turn 4 or later, this deck can easily tech PA's, Omni's and all the other fun since it wont need any signifigant late curve.

Also, reign will just enable them to set up the following turn.

Can i remind you, this is hobby league. List me how often a deck that doesn't attack wins in a HL format? Fantastic fun maybe? Child Lock to gamma?

These "Oh yeah i would just...insert card played here" posts work both ways. And a deck catering to this combo could EASILY accomodate answers of its own.

I'd like to remind everyone no-one is denying that it CAN be stopped. But this early in a game it becomes less likely that it WILL be stopped.

Hey, I'm still trying to work out why Detective Chimp is banned.