Dave Humphries is feeling frisky. He went way over the top with his praise of Enemy of My Enemy. Or did he?

These quotes from his Metagame preview are red due to extreme heat:

And now, here’s a search card that’s likely to change the face of Vs. as you know it.

We want our game to be open ended. While we want players to be rewarded for the consistency inherent to mono-team decks, via their team-stamped cards always working and the ability to reinforce and team attack, we also want the sky to be the limit when a player decides what to put in his or her deck.

Enemy of My Enemy opens so many doors in deckbuilding that we here in R&D couldn’t begin to test them all. I’m very eager to see what you come up with.


Now listen. I am not trying to start the "This is the next money rare." "No it's not." "Yes it is." "No it's not." thing. Let's just talk about those strong words from the hallowed halls of R&D.

Was he exaggerating, or what?

I don't think so. It is a very playable generic search card, thus it should see plenty of play.

I am scheming of using it to replace Assemble in Avengers Reservist. Then popping a Chaos Magic to redirect an exhaustion to an early off team character. Forget the team-up.

Does it make you all scheme of something else? Tell us your schemes.

It is very playable for a number of deck types but it is still short of the grail that is true generic search. I see this being particularly prevalent in off curve decks that like to splash utility 1-2 drops. (Poison Ivy anyone?) but does faces need another search card?

Will CE run 1-2 copies to hit Doom?

Will NS love this card?

The other thing about this card is that in any team-up deck no matter how many copies you are running you will likely only get to use it once-twice. Since as soon as you are teamed up this card is totally dead!

Verdict: A vast improvement on Secret origins for generic search but it still has its limitations.

I intend on running this in decks with Dr. Light, Master of Holograms or Dr. Doom, Diabolic Genius. They almost always involve team-up(s) and are often the mulligan conditions for their respective decks, with many losses attributing to a miss of either Doctor.

Gerry, it specifies printed affiliations - you can still use it to search for a teamed up character as long as their printed affilations are different!

This is one of few cards that might actually make it into alot of decks, joining the worlds of Savage Beatdown and HaB. Maybe not as much, but quite possibly for a team such as FoE decks that run or other decks that have just random guys.This is a potentially evil card, when utilized properly by those who wish to abuse it. There are problems though, such as when you team up, it no longer has a use, but that's if you plan to team up or just search for some random surprise character.

My Scheme?

Crisis deck

Very few characters will share a PRINTED affiliation in that deck.

I though the wording "printed affiliation" would allow for you to search for them even if there teamed up.

Could someone correct me if I'm wrong. Thanks.

EDIT: Seems somone beat me too it...

Well, say Longshot is teamed up with Sentinels. You can't pitch either team.

(edit: this is NOT true.)

I agree. If it doesn't work that way then I retract part of what I said, it makes it much more limited.

"Search your deck for an affiliated character card that does not share a printed affiliation with the card you discarded. Reveal that card, put it into your hand, and shuffle your deck."

Longshot's printed team affiliation is X-Men. Wild Sentinel's printed affiliation is Sentinels. Surely team-ups are irrelevant?

Looking back, it does say printed, allowing after the team up for this card to have some use. Now that's evil...

Yep. I just wanted to make sure.

Sorry, I might have misunderstood your post a little.

I think it will be interesting to see how this card fits into, say Common Enemy. It can't replace Signal Flare and I know the deck will struggle to fit in four copies. I would like to see the ratios people start using.

OOOH!

Money Rare!


Must get 4!

....

No, I should apologize. I was just trying to stir up some clear water on the uses of the card with a bit of deliberate debate. If people see how it doesn't work, then they will be sure of how it does.

Since I'm focused on Atlanta, it seems that Micheal Jacob and his ratio of 2 Assemble and 7 Leaders is a good start for my purposes. It will need to adjust since some of those Leaders are Avengers, of course. It will just be a matter of deciding which off-team characters to use.