Kergy’s Korner #19: An Encounter With The Man(del)


(this is a follow-up to Kergy’s Korner #17)

When I sat down with Danny Mandel and Mike Hummel at Origins, they promised me time to finish our ‘interview’. Due to a lack of time (these TCG people are ALWAYS busy…) I figured that my best chance would be to send them a list of 20 Questions, and hope that they’d answer at least SOME of them.

Danny did finally respond last week, and here are the results. Rather than edit them, I just left them as is to incorporate the full range of Danny’s humour. I snuck in some spoiler questions, figuring maybe something would slip. Alas! not much can be found within these enchanted words – but I will speak of what can be gleaned from them at the end of the article. I'm actually a little disappointed that he didn't give me a little more juice, but I think it's probably all Dave Humphreys fault...

1) So, is Avengers the next Marvel set after Spidey…?

The Avengers set will be out after the Spider-Man set. Unfortunately I’m not allowed to say if it’ll be out right after the Spider-Man set or 6 months later or a year later or what. But I can go on record as saying at some point after the Spider-Man set has released we will release an Avengers set. Probably.

(Continued next post...)

2) Any hints on what new teams will be in Spidey aside from Spider-Friends and Syndicate? Will it contain any other teams that weren’t in Marvel Origins?

Mike says: Stay tuned true believers.


3) Why didn’t the League of Assassins include the original League members? (such as Sensei, Merlyn, Bronze Tiger, Dr. Ebeneezer Darrk, etc) It’s more like a Ra’s al-Ghul team than the League…

You’ve done your homework, and you’re right – the current League is focused mostly on Ra’s and his “direct” family. As you’ll see with the Spider-Man set, we don’t forget about the “old teams” when we do a new set. In later expansions we’ll explore more of the League.


4) What are your personal favourite teams? Characters? Cards? Comics?

As a player, my favorite Marvel team is probably Doom and my favorite DC team is the Gotham Knights. I’m a big fan of taking complete control of the game and/or building the perfect hand of cards. As a designer I’m probably happiest with how the Teen Titans turned out. They have tons of cool tricks and synergies, and they really capture the whole “we’re a team” feeling out there on the field.

My two favorite characters are Unus and Robot Seeker because from the moment they hit the table they just dominate the game. Um, yeah. I also love Apocalypse because he blows stuff up, and he’s, you know, Apocalypse! My favorite DC characters to play are Hank Hall and Dawn Granger, Batman (The Dark Knight), Terra, and Neutron. I’m also really happy with Barbara Gordon and the Riddler because they have weak stats but have to survive the combat phase to be effective.

As for non-characters, I really like how No Fear and Mega Blast are more versatile but trickier to use than their cousins, Flying Kick and Savage Beatdown. My favorite location is probably Professor Xavier’s Mansion, but that’s just because I have this horrible deck that never works (but I love to play it)!

Growing up my favorite comics were Iron Man, Captain America, and the Avengers. These days (in addition to all the standard Marvel + DC comics we use for research) I like to read Powers, Astro City, Y The Last Man, and the America’s Best line.


5) Will there be Kryptonite in Superman? A card that can shut Supes down? As a follow-up, will here ever be cards that specifically target a character? (Excluding characters that target themselves…)

“Will there be Kryptonite in Superman?” Does a Kryptonian bear go to the bathroom in the Kryptonian woods? Of course there will be Kryptonite. And let’s just say Superman won’t be happy when it’s around.

As far as having a card that specifically targets a character… Generally we’d rather have a card key off of a class of cards such as “target X-Men character”, however it’s not crazy to have something target a named character especially when there are several versions of that character. Of course this hypothetical card would have a very narrow application if it’s intended to be played as a negative against your opponent’s character. Just look at poor, underused Dragon Man (and he keys off of a whole opposing team – not just a single character).


6) Will Vertigo characters ever be included in DC? What about
Wildstorm/Homage/Cliffhanger characters – or are the licenses for those separate from DC proper…?

Only time will tell. And he’s usually pretty tight-lipped unless you get him liquored up.


7) Will there be cards that specifically hinder a team? (X-Men characters get –2/-2; KO target Doom character, While ‘xxxxx’ is in play, opponents may not recruit Sentinels, etc)

In general, cards like the ones you’re describing are too narrow and situational. A card that punishes the X-Men would be completely busted when you’re playing against the X-Men but useless when you’re not. While there are plenty of situational cards, they tend to be good against specific strategies, not specific teams. It might be that Flame Trap is especially good against the Sentinels, but that’s just because the most popular Sentinel deck is built around one-cost characters. If another deck built completely around one and two drops pops up, Flame Trap will be good against it as well.


8) What decks are you guys running these days…?

My favorite deck right now that’s tournament legal is probably my X-Men discard deck. It never wins, but it sure plays poorly. I also have a Doom/X-Men Xavier’s Dream deck that can win on turn 6 (sometimes) and a really fun Teen Titans control deck. As far as future teams both the Sinister Syndicate and Spider-Friends are very strong in our metagame.


9) What’s the Design & Development stance on sideboards? Do you see a need for them in the future?

While we have no plans to add a sideboard/side deck, we’re not ruling anything out for the future. Personally, I’m not a huge fan of adding sideboards to VS. There are usually ways to discard dead cards (especially situational cards that are not good in a particular match-up) for a good effect, so if you want to play situational cards just put them in your (main) deck.


10) Any plans for the Defenders? How about smaller/more obscure teams like the Champions?

Again, time will tell. I recommend tequila or vodka.


11) Will we ever see Golden Age teams/characters? (Go Hourman!)

No. Never.

Just kidding! A lot of us are big fans of the old school stuff. It might take a few expansions, but we’re definitely going to go there.


12) What about alternate reality characters like Exiles or Squadron Supreme?

Time also likes whiskey.


13) Will we ever see a card to make unique characters non-unique?

That’s crazy talk. There’s no way we would ever do something like that. No way. Crazy…


14) Any truth to the rumours about a Marvel Knights set next year?

A Marvel Knights set, huh? That’s not such a bad idea. Hmmm…


15) Any offers for an Indy set or three?

Also peach schnapps…


16) Licensing issues create difficulties in this regard, but are you guys considering cards for Rom, Micronauts, etc?

…Some mixed drinks, especially pina coladas and amaretto sours.


17) What’s the D&D stance on anime or video game characters in VS?

Our current plan is to keep VS about comic book characters. But, as always, we don’t like to rule anything out.


18) When you pick the artists for the cards, do you meet with them and discuss the cards and art face-to-face, or do you simply select the art you like best and apply it to the cards?

R+D comes up with art descriptions to match card ideas. We give the descriptions to Mark Irwin (our Art Director) who cleans up our descriptions, adds reference materials, and contacts the artists.


19) Have you seen Spider-Man 2? What did you think…?

Yeah, it was awesome. I liked the first one better because I felt it was a tighter narrative, but #2 was still great. Man, Doc Ock was cool! He basically beat the crap out of Spider-Man over and over. The whole psychosomatic-losing-his-powers thing stuck me as a little weak, but on the whole the movie was a nice riff on the “Spider-Man No More” story.


20) If you could be any superhero, who would you want to be, and why?

I’m tempted to say Dr. Bong and win the five bucks Mike offered me, but there’s already enough substance abuse stuff going on in these questions. I think I’m going to go boring here and say If I could be any superhero I’d be Superman and I’d use my powers to make the world a better place. That, or I’d be Mr. Fantastic so I could make myself into a ball and just roll around all day.


So what can be gleaned from this?

1) I can say with quite a lot of certainty that there WILL be a Marvel Knights set – and when one combines this with a hint Jeff Donais dropped a couple of weeks ago, I can tell you that it’s likely to be the set after Superman.

2) I can also say with a lot of certainty that Avengers will likely be the Marvel set after MK. Jeff Donais confirmed that there WILL be an Avengers set – he, in fact, told me that there are TWO Avengers sets in the long-term plans for VS (although that’s a ten-year plan, so we may not see the second one for a while, yet…)

3) Any answer that refers to alcohol most likely means ‘yes, but they’ll kill me if I say anything – so if you want to know for sure, it’ll cost ya, chief!’ So you can keep your hopes up on the possibility of an Indy set (my guess is that they’re in discussions regarding this possibility), characters with indirect licensing arrangements (though we know that GiJoe is out due to the upcoming WoTC game), and teams like the Defenders and Exiles.

4) Don’t get your hopes up for a sideboard any time soon. His answer tells me ‘never say never, but not very likely…’

5) I know that Dr. Light and Dual Nature already allow multiple unique characters to be in play simultaneously, but I was thinking more along the lines of the foreshadowed Ben Reilly character in Undefeated, who appears to make it possible to recruit multiple copies of unique characters. This is likely the card that Danny was so subtly broadcasting with his answer…

6) I'm least certain of this, but something tells me that we WILL see some new, non-Spidey and non-Syndicate teams popping up in the Spider-Man set...

As always, it was a pleasure reading Danny’s responses and I look forward to pestering him endlessly at GenCon Indy for more spoilers (which I would, of course, immediately post into another article…)

NEXT WEEK: I’m still trying to get Time to tell me what I'll be writing about…I’ll let it slip to the first person who offers me a Bailey’s on the rocks…

give time 151!

this was a cool read keep them coming.

Who/what are the Marvel Knights?

Marvel Knights were a team that consisted of Daredevil, Punisher, Electra and others. It's also a line of comics that focusses on the grittier characters, the current Marvel Knights characters are: Daredevil, Fantastic Four (A 2nd book.), Wolverine, Hulk, District X, Spiderman (A 3rd book.) and a few others. Odds are Daredevil, Electra and Punsiher will be key characters and characters like Ghost Rider, Blade, Cloak and Dagger will also appear. It seems weird that it would go before Avengers as many Marvel Knights characters appear in the Spiderman deck.

awesome, Danny has always been my favorite Metagame writer, and was quick to respond to an e-mail I sent him about pretty much nothing. I hope he sticks around for a long time!


And it's good to hear they plan on staying wtih comics.

Very interesting. Keep it up!!!

What ever happened to it going Marvel -> DC -> Marvel -> DC?

I thought Spidey would be next then Superman, then Avengers, then something else...

i think it might be likeyly that marvel knights might just be a second team in the avengers team. i mean they kinda fit in the same genre right...any way good read...

It is gonna be marvel/dc/marvel/dc/marvel/dc


You have Marvel Origins/DC Origins/Spiderman/Superman/Mystery Marvel/Mystery DC

Wasn't it confirmed that the next DC set after Superman was going to be "Emerald Knights" or something close to that? Or was this just a rumor which was squashed?

Here's a question I have to pose: Will Spider-slayers be on the Sindicate team, non affiliated or a mini-team all their own? How cool would it be to have a Spider-Slayer team with Smythe and a bunch of killer Robots? Better yet, a team of villians created by J. Jonah Jameson. Scorpion? Check. Smythe and the spider-Slayers? Check (I think...). I know there's plenty more too...

If HeroClix has taught us anything, it's that DC isn't as easy to work with as Marvel, and it's likely why there are sooooo many Marvel HeroClix sets, and only three DC.

It looks like the Vs system is taking the same route, as Marvel was first, so was Marvel in HeroClix, but at least UpperDeck has announced a second DC set at the time of the first sets' release.;-)

If only Wizkids would follow that pattern with HeroClix . . .

it's still that way.

September: Spidey

late November/early December: Superman

Spring 2005: Marvel set 3

Summer 2005: DC set 3

Fall 2005: Marvel set 4

Winter 2005: DC set 4


The ORIGINAL plan, as I was told many, many moons ago, which may or may not have been true, was to hae a JLA set followed by an Emerald Knights set.

Jeff Donais dropped a hint a few weeks ago that tells me that the Emerald Knights set is probably going to be ahead of the JLA set after all - so expect the set after Supes to feature the Gang in Green...and a Sinestro Surprise;)

FYI: Jess Donais just dropped a tease on my list:

"That's 3 more than he answers at the office!

Why didn't you ask about Alpha Flight? I wanted to give my answer. Too late now, I guess...

Jeff Donais
UDE"


-grin- gets you thinking, doesn't it...?