"Never waited more than I ever had to when I was waiting on Ollie." -Roy Harper, Green Arrow #1

So, I've been #####ing and moaning about this 5 drop Green Arrow. What can I say, I don't think he's powerful enough. He couldn't possibly be powerful enough. He's ####ing Oliver Queen, he shot down Parallax for godsake! And don't forget the Demon! That's a 9 drop and an 8 drop already under his belt!

In any case, Biz told me to shut my ####ing piehole (in much more elegant words, mind you) and ponder on how I could use him.

Since I'm not one to shut my ####ing piehole unless there's pie in it (mmmmmmm, pie), I figured I'd just ponder publicly, see what other people could throw back at me.

Here's the card, for those few cats out in the cold:

Oliver Queen<>Green Arrow
Hard-Traveling Hero
Cost: 5
JLA/GL
9/9
Range
Willpower 1
Ally: Whenever a character you control becomes powered up, you may exhaust Oliver Queen. If you do, stun target character of cost 3 or less.

So far, in JLA, he loses horribly to Firestorm (or whatever the card-drawing maniac is) on the 5 drop slot, and, since we haven't seen enough cards for JLA, I don't think I'll delve too much into his uses in that deck.

However, in GL is where he will go in, at least that we can discuss for now. Their other 5 drops are:

Hal Jordon (Useful alone, I guess)
Katma Tui (Life gain, yay)
John Stewart (Useful with constructs, yay)
and
Guy Gardner (Useful in decks that...uh...want to win)

I've always had a hard time getting myself to play Hal at 5, as he just doesn't seem quite good enough. Katma Tui is useful in stall, but I'm thinking more Curve GL Beats for Ollie. John isn't good enough to quite make it, IMO. Which leaves us with Guy Gardner as the big powerhouse 5 drop for Ollie to compete with.

When it's not my intiative on turn 5 (which we'll assume will happen on a regular to semi-regular basis), I do NOT want to drop a 10/7, which makes Ollie the much, much better drop. I guess I have found his niche in a deck with minimul thought.

And, now that he's in this deck, I can do things like TRHC him, or use him in a Battle of Wills, and he can count for Helping Hands....

In fact, the more I think about it, the more I like it. I still want an Oliver Queen that does more than a much more limited version of Gambit, but since he does such things as 1) makes it cool when I play Hal Jordon, Hard-Traveling Hero (which I assume will come out this set), and 2) gives me access to Hero's Welcome (oh, look, I'll get another Hal), plus comes as a built in tech against GLEE in DC Modern, I guess I can accept him for now.

In the meantime, Capt Timmy Dick McWheelsTron 5000 brought up an interesting point via AIM: it would be pretty stupid for them to have only one Oliver Queen in this set, what with the whole Ally mechanic. So, here's to the next Ollie Queen in the set, probably a 3 drop (as I can't imagine them doing the drops back to back, and a 7 drop is, even for me, a little out of Ollie's league) being one which really gets my goose going, or at least doesn't make my blood boil.

And all this time I thought the only DC Modern deck I'd play while GL was viable was Quad Split.

So, as I'm sure I'm not the only Ollie fan out there, how are you guys planning on using him? Anyone dared to think him good enough to surpass Firestorm for JLA? Or maybe just better than Katma Tui as your back-up 5 drop for GL?

He's not exactly a Gambit, but his stats don't blow, and he can be all sorts of fun with the JLA, the Lanterns, or even Anti-Matter. They are, after all, full of Army characters ripe for powering up. The nice thing about Quinn's ability is that there's no team-stamp to his power at all. He's anti-swarm tech for any Willpower team willing to use him.

BTW, The Ring Has Chosen doesn't care if he has Willpower when looking for him; that's what Emerald Dawn needs to see, however, should you need to blow up Rayner for him. ;)

We might be able to drop the team-up with EE and go for straight GL beats - or, perhaps a GL/JLA team-up...I like the looks of Aquaman, and GL lacks a truely balanced seven drop.

uhhh, i relly don't think oliver queen will do that good in glee. First off, GL doesnt run more than one version of the same character, except maybe hal, to power up naturally enough. They also don't have any tamaran-like abilities to power up unnaturally. Sorry, but oliver queen was only even decent for his ally ability. otherwise he's just a 5 drop 9/9 with range, even hal jordan 5 dorp can beat him, who's ability would probably come into use mroe than oliver queens' (abin sure helps)

See, there's a significant difference between GLEE and GL Curve.

Namely, the lack of a Dr. Light and a Prison Planet and, in it's place, CURVE. It's like we trade the EE for a Curve.

Wait, I think I'm on to something...Curve Decks...BRILLIANT!

Yes, because we're going to see multiple drops of Katar Hol and Firestorm, right? Accept it, dude. The odds that there's another Ollie in the set are stunningly low. More likely, we see a location (the Watchtower? I dunno) that powers up JLA characters a la Tamaran.

Or, alternately, maybe they don't do that either and the JLA just suck ass. It could happen.

Oliver Quinn sucks because GL/EE or GL/Whatevs can't search for copies of the same character in multiple ways? Oh... that makes sense then.

Wait a second... TRHC, Willworld, Emerald Dawn, and Hero's Welcome...

It doesn't even seem like people are trying to make him useful. I'm sure you'll have an easy time getting that stunback on Black Panther all the time, right? ;)

See, Prof, now I have to make a new thread or article explaining why direct stunning effects are so busted. Man, you people... lol

I've heard comments all day that Oliver is not worth it, but I am all too eager to ditch Star Sapphire (and her 7 defense) and Dr. Light from my deck and either make it GL Curve with added search or GL/JLA. Who doesn't want to reunite the Hard Traveling Heroes team of Hal Jordan and Oliver (and use the team-up, too)?

ollie rules!

i hope they make connor as a 4 drop with an electro style stun up the curve ability.

I just thought of something. Hal Jordan, John Stewart, and Kyle Rayner were all prominent members of the JLA, and will each probably be getting a new version in this set.

That's 4 characters with the same two teams. Provided that none of them are given the same drop, that's a pretty nice curve all on it's own. Is it possible that Green Arrow is instrumental in helping the consistency a "Best of Both Worlds" sort of deck, that takes advantage of the best JLA and Green Lantern support cards without ever needing to team up?

I can't believe I'm helping out with this thread. I just want to see Profparm happy so bad!

Like a Hal 6, Stweart 3, and a Rayner 3 or 5? And we know Gardner needs to be a JLI/GL character. :)

wow, ollie must have trained roy right, or maybe it was all that crack the little pill head was hopped up on, cuz roy is a bad-ass!

i do think ollie is the right play on 5 for GL curve, when they have even initiative, but if they go on odds, then guy will take over and smash face with Oa and a couple of beatdowns.luckily GL has plenty of ways to pick and choose, such as .. all the cards that many people said allready, plus willworld, cerebro's better cousin.

Yes, you do.

This is getting too strange. Even for me.

This would have been on par:

Ally: Whenever a character you control becomes powered-up, put an Arrow counter on Oliver Queen.
Activate, remove all counters from Oliver Queen --- Stun target character with cost less than the number of counters on Oliver Queen.