"That slacker is a day late with his article and not only does he not do his own intro, but he re-treads the same ground that Dave Humphreys did yesterday. If you're into reading this hack's ramblings, read on."

Today we're going to talk about the new cards in the DGL set. I'm not sure if I'm the only one who does this, but when I get a spoiler list, the first thing I do is skim the new teams to see if there are any cool ideas that I can sink my teeth into. But inevitably, my eyes move forwrad to the legacy cards. There's something about new cards for old teams. It's like seeing an old girlfriend who grew up to be really hot. You can't help but think of the possibilities.

"You are so crass. Just because you're taking over on Fridays doesn't mean you have to start talking about hot women. By the way, what's up with you doing this on Friday? I was here yesterday ready to bug you and you had the gall to stand me up."

Well, with the new job, it's easier to get time to do the articles on Fridays than it is to do them on Thursdays.

"If it's easier to get the articles done on Fridays, why the heck are you posting this so late? Shouldn't you have posted this earlier today?"

It's one of the hazards of being in th ecomputer industry. If there's an outage, you gotta work on the outage before you can write articles for a gaming website.

"Excuses, excuses. Anyway, now that you can't steal ideas regularly from Chad Brunner, you're going to steal from Dave Humphreys, eh?"

Well, I hadn't realised Dave was going to do the same topic as me and I had already written the skeleton of the article when I saw Dave's article. I'll try to do something a little different than Dave.

"So, you going to tell us about your pet team, the Gotham Knights?"

I know they got some good cards in this set, but I'll save them until later. I'll be going over the cards in the order they are listed in the card set.

First up is Team Superman. They only got one character in the set, but he's got reasonable stats for a 5 drop and has Flight and Ranged. But his real benefit is being able to prevent the stun endurance damage when your opponent has initiative. But the major addition are some new Locations. Team Superman is very reliant on having the right formation with cards like Jimmy Olsen, Kara Zor-El, Perry White, etc, being able to re-arrange your characters when you need to is a good thing. House of El provides you this flexibility. S.T.A.R. Labs lets you refill your cosmic counters at the cost of precious Resource Points. You can go the expensive, but repeatable route and pay 3 resource points; or go the cheap, but single-use effect if you have a Team Superman character. But the best location in my opinion is The Kent Farm. Using it in conjunction with Kandor, you can have a weenie team attack deck that lets you swarm with low drop team attacks to take down your opponent's big guys. I imagine using this with Krypto and Sturmer for an K/NGSPCA (Kryptonian/New Genesis Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) deck.

"If only the Qwardian Watchdog could attack, it'd be a theme deck that might actually not suck."

The New Gods got some help with their own Cosmic counter recovery to go along with New Genesis. Commander doesn't have the large discard downside that new Genesis does. He's also got a beefy attack for a 4 drop (though he needs a protector to keep him around since he doesn't have a very big DEF). I talked about Sturmer above, but will mention him again. He's a Big Dog and can bring th epain up the curve if you can team attack with someone. He's also a good searcher for your larger characters (so you don't have to save your Exchanges for your big drops). Also, when you don't have Big Bear around to walk the dog, you can always use the new 2/2 1 drop Soldiers of New Genesis to hold Sturmer's leash. The Forever People also got some support for their resource accelleration strategy to bring out the Infinity Man with Children of Forever. While I don't believe it'll make it Tier 1, it'll help it at least become competitive.

"Maybe in someone else's hands, but definitely not in yours, Mr. 0-4."

One of these days, I'm gonna splurge on that Psychiatrist and get rid of you once and for all.

Next up on the docket is the Revenge Squad. They only got a single character, but it's an Army character, so it's like it counts as more than one. It goes with the "Reduce your opponent's DEF" motif that the Revenge Squad has going. Though I'd generally rather team attack with them on the initiative, their ability works well to help you stun up the curve on the defense. The Fifth Dimension can help you get multiple copies of a single character into play at the same time. Having multiple copies of Dominus or Hank Henshaw in play wouldn't suck. It's a bit clockworky, though and would require you to play below the curve. to do it. The next two cards are Ongoing Plot Twists. Death of Superman gives you a KO effect that feeds Atomic Skull, Lex Luthor and the rest of the cards that key off of Ongoing Plot Twists. It also helps against Army/Clone decks and really knocks out decks that center around Superman, Red and Cadmus Labs. The other Ongoing Plot Twist is the Revenge Squad version of The Demon's Head. Hostage Situation lets you go searching for whatever Ongoing Plot twist you need from your deck. It's for times when that State of the Union, Team Up or other Ongoing Plot Twist you need.

"Your janky State of the Union deck might just become viable."

Darkseid's Elite this expansion is all about getting your opponents resource row to be face down. Dr. Bedlam's overpowered ATK and DEF gets downright tiny when your opponent turns cards over in their resource row. Virman Vundabar is an exhausting machine with a reasonable DEF for a 4 drop. And the Parademons let you turn whatever face up plot twists your opponent was lucky enough to be able to use hopefully into a character they won't be able to use. Darkseid Undenied lets you replace your opponent's non-ongoing plot twists in his resource row, with the added bonus of a first-time endurance burn. And last, but not least, Apokoliptian Hospitality lets you do double stun and lets you keep your opponent's big guys down.

"So, Darkseid got a pretty straightforward boost to their 'Resource Row Hate' strategy."

Well, they already had some good rush/burn going, but this gives them a bit of variety.

Next up is the DOR team that is near and dear to my heart, the Gotham Knights.

"Why do you have to front like that. You aren't a Batman fan. You think the Gotham courts should learn the idea behind capital punishment, especially for mass murderers. The idea that Bruce Wayne lets those guys continue to escape time after time irritated the crap out of you. How can you like the Knights?"

Fizzle and Detective Work rock, Utility Belt is the great negator and Barbara Gordon facilitates my love of equipment. Plus, with the the new AzBats at the 7 drop, the team has become a viable curve deck while being able to bring out their incredible 8 drop, Superman. Azrael <> Batman also continued the double stun theme of the Caped Crusader, but he uses his ability on the defense, not the offense. Ragman's a reasonable Concealed 4 drop (high ATK, low DEF and Flight) with the flexibility of becoming a Total Anarchy on steroids if you Boost him. Rounding out the Knights cards in the set is Blood in the Dark. This Ongoing Plot Twist allows you to spend a paltry 2 endurance to let all of your Knights characters attack hidden characters for the turn. Nobody escapes the Dark Knight's watchful eye.

"If I'm doing my math right, the next team is the Teen Titans. Great, just what the Titans need, more cards."

Well, they got some new characters, but the best one is just mediocre. Bart Allen <> Impulse continues the conceit started by Wally West <> Kid Flash that speedsters have the ability to re-ready. If Bart had better than a 1 DEF, this might be useful. As it is, there's not a lot he'll be used for (unless you run some crazy Army deck with Bart Allen, Advanced Hardware and Cosmic Radiation). Next up is Garth <> Aqualad. Finally, a card that helps that elusive "Drain my deck into my KO pile" strategy. I can think of two things that could work well with Garth: Phantasm and Underworld decks. Both of those are things that are dead, much like you will likely be if you play this card. And last, and certainly least, is Jericho. He's a 3 drop with a 1 drop's stats. If he were actually a 1 drop, his ability might be very useful (since it would only cost you 2 extra resource points to gain control of your opponent's character). But since he costs 3, he sucks.

"Woah. I'm the cranky one. You're supposed to be the nice one. What's Danny Mandel going to do at the chat after he sees you're dissing his cards?"

If Danny says anything, I'll challenge him to a constructed game at PCNY. He'll have to play Jericho as a primary strategy and I can play something that doesn't suck. If he beats me using Jericho, I'll happily recant. If I beat him, I get extended art versions of all the dog cards released so far (Lockjaw, Krypto, Qwardian Guardian and Sturmer). I'm calling him out!

"You realise he's got lots mor eplay experience than you do. And where's the Dog of War in that list of cards?"

If it doesn't have four legs and a slobbery tongue, it ain't a dog. Anyway, moving on to my favorite team to rag on in the game, the Arkham Inmates. They got two characters and a Location. Does it make them not suck? Well, maybe. Hush really helps with the "exhaustion" strategy of the Inmates. Two-Face is a 7 drop that might give Magneto a run for his money as the most splashed big guy. Not only does he make the mulligan less of a crapshoot, his ability to exhaust half your opponent's board (or more, depending on how much they like to repeat drops) is tremendous. And his stats are very solid compared to most other 7 drops. Finally, we have Bat's Belfry. This works very well with the 4 drop Joker. If you're not going to use those non-character cards anyway, put them to the side and gain the benefit of auto-exhaustion for Charaxes or whoever you attack with after playing Smiles Everyone! Plus, you can save the cards you like before doing a Prison Break. All in all, solid additions to a team that's been significantly underpowered compared to the rest of the teams that are out there.

"Does this mean you'll stop ragging on them?"

Well, let's just say I won't be challenging Danny to a game where he plays an Arkham deck. I've seen glimpses of potential in some of the local Arkham decks and I think the new cards could help push them into contender status.

The last team on the block is the League of Assassins. The League finally got a 7 drop that doesn't have Loyalty to a specific character. I really like Lady Shiva, but she dictates what you play at the 4 or 6 drop and that you make sure you keep your 4 or 6 drop in play. With Dr. Ebenezer, you get a stealthy guy with good stats who can get bigger by you having stunned guys on your side of the field or by flipping over locations (and of course you can then play Pit of Madness to make him even bigger). Sensei has some good synergy with both Merlyn (if you can manipulate things so you put a location face up in your resource row you can use Merlyn to KO along the curve instead of behind it) and Whisper A'Dair (who suddenly becomes a viable 5 drop since any breakthrough she does on turn 6 with Sensei on the board can force your opponent to discard their entire hand. Finally, they got Shadows of the Past. For League players who hate Spider Senses, Heroic Sacrifice, etc. this is the card for you. It prevents you from doing breakthrough, but it keeps your opponents from doing any crazy team-specific stuff. It also works to kill X-Statix decks since most of their abilities are team stamped.

"So, that's it then, eh?"

Almost. I wanted to give a quick shout out to the Non-Aligned characters and some of the boosts they got. With Guy Gardner, finally team attacking doesn't require packing Com Links (which just aren't very fashionable these days). And Mosaic World not only allows for Non-Aligned team attacking, but for reinforcing as well. Reign of Terra lets those affiliated characters forget about their loyalties and join Mojo for some frollicking fun. And Solomon Grundy's solid stats, ability to rise from the KO pile and massive Boost make the Non-Aligned a serious possibility for a competitive deck.

"So, of all the teams that got cards in this set, what do you like the most?"

While the idea of a Kent Farm deck really appeals to me, I think the Gotham Knights deck will be the first one I try out for real since I already have the GK cards and would have to track down the Superman Rares. I'd also like to see if Arkham would be a real possibility for a solid deck, though I still have my doubts.

One thing's for certain, I'm really looking forward to seeing how the new cards affect the old teams and what impact they'll be making on both the Golden Age and DC Modern metagame.

Good Article. I always love hearing what Im thinking from someone else's mouth :)

Nice review overall of the Legacy cards, heres to AzBats and teh lovely boost that unaffiliated got. I know that Kent Farm will be a deck in DMA...its got to be. A card like that....daaaayum.

good article, i like the way you describe each team and hoe they will befenit the most from these new cards however my pick for best legacy cards have to go to arkham and the league because of all the possiblites it puts in my head :)

yet another great article from you docx.
i am looking foward to the kent farm deck myself, i have seen some sick options for a golden age deck with it, and you know that it will be huge in modernage.
lbx!

I was really glad to see Arkham get some good stuff. They're a cool idea, but they needed help. As for repeating drops with Fifth Dimension, it also allows you to have both Lex Luthors in play (continuing to have strong drawing while also denying your opponent big drops), or even just use it to protect President Lex later on to keep the cards flowing.

Although Kent Farm really intrigues me, I completely disagree with the above posters about its viability in Modern Age. It would be near impossible to build a competitive, consistant team-up deck to abuse that card with stuff from just Superman and Green Lantern. Not to mention if you just wanted a straight curve Superman deck with that card then I would just call you stupid because ALWAYS having to team attack every one of your opponents characters would never work to your advantage, mostly because you could never attack every character on their board if you had to use 2+ characters for every attack, and you would never be causing breakthrough. If you played against a deck with invulnerability you would also be completely screwed because you would never cause any damage. It would be a funny game to watch though, lol.

speed demon, you are totally wrong about that. Kent Farm can and may be a strong deck possibility for dc modern. Why would it be difficult to make a consistant team-up deck to abuse the card?

jason hager

Assuming a Kandor type build, you would be using a swarm mentality, so you would likely be able to pull off a better than 2 to 1 ratio (especially given that two of the one drop characters are free to recruit if you use their alternate payment).

Add to that, you most certainly CAN inflict breakthrough. You just can't do it while your opponent controls a non-stunned visible character. After beating down your opponent at the start. . . you now have some characters who if they team attack will not only cause breakthrough, but will be doing +3 damage for each character team attacking directly (you could attack one at a time... but why would you?)

Envision this, if you will: Turn 1, get Lois or Lana for free and recruit another 1 drop. (2 chars on the field now) Few people play 1 drops, so you have 2 free points of damage. Turn 2, get Lois or Lana (whichever you didn't recruit last turn) for free and recruit a 2 drop (Gangbuster is nice). Lana and Lois team attack their 2 drop and almost definitely stun it. Gangbuster and the other one drop team attack and you now inflict 10 points of damage. At the end of Turn 2, you have inflicted 14 points of damage already and you have taken none (assuming your team attacking one drops didn't stun back because they were each 4/4 against a 2 drop).
Turn 3, take your pick: A 3 drop or a 2 and a 1 drop. If you are taking odd initiatives, which this type of deck would most likely enjoy (which also means the damage from the last turn is slightly less) Either Superman, Linda Danvers, or even Rose are decent choices (assuming they get to team attack directly, Superman is 11 points, Rose and Danvers are 10.) And it goes downhill for your opponent from there. You've reached your 3 drops, which means from this point on, you're swarming, putting down generally 2 characters to your opponent's 1, which means you can take them down, generally, and still inflict some breakthrough (Some of it team attack breakthrough).

Really, I wouldn't knock the possibilities (and this is without even considering some team up possibilities, which may or may not be viable in a deck this fast).

If I'm playing below the curve with 1 drops and cards like Krypto and Linda Danvers (who are very large for their size), why wouldn't I be able to keep up with my opponent on the offense if they're playing straight curve. On offence, I should have a 2:1 ratio for my characters to his (since I'm playing below curve). And with my big guys, I can put them up front to protect my weenies in the back (using Stopped Cold or some such to keep the pesky fliers away).

Invulnerability would cause problems, but how many cards have straight up Invulnerability? Not many at the low drops and most of them are based on Cosmic counters (like Serifan and Soldiers of New Genesis).

While I'm not claiming it's Tier 1, I also didn't think Jean Grey, Phoenix Force was a power card, but look what happened at PCLA. The right card(s) with the right interactions can change the metagame in ways nobody will forsee.

As an aside, calling people "stupid" is not nice, and could be considered "harrassing" and "cause discomfort or distress" to the person you're calling stupid. That'd be a violation of the Community Standards for the Realms. Calling a Moderator "stupid" or even implying it could be considered unwise. Let's keep everything nice and friendly here and provide "constructive" criticism.

All I can say is, Great Article! I just can't wait for this set to come out.

kent farm, kandor, and cyclops slim, make me very happy in a janky way.

I've also got to love the Supes Robots in that Kent Farm deck as well. Never curve past 4 (Krypto) and the swarm is on. It seems to need a draw engine though.

Birthing Chamber is a drawing engine. Extra Card per turn. Also Volcanic Base is a drawing engine as well.

NOT TO SOUND LIKE A NOOB, BUT DON'T THE RULES STATE THAT TEAM ATTACKERS DON'T CAUSE BRAKETHROUGH. I'M NOT AWARE OF A CLAUSE ABOUT ATACKING DIRECTLY.