Marvel Legends will undoubtedly change the face of Vs. forever, yet nobody really seems to know how. The most exciting news to come out regarding this is the idea that one could build a deck centered around their favorite character, rather than a specific team or central theme. That's not to say team affiliations are going the way of the Dodo, but it appears that characters will receive a renewed focus (as they arguably should.)

There are a lot of ways this could work, but what are some of the most likely?

Popular Characters Being More Playable Cards: MTU was very good about this, the sole exception probably being Captain America's awful seven drop. In addition to giving popular characters powerful cards (as opposed to the D-List that currently dominates the Top 10) a good way to do this is to make them dual-affiliated. The more team affiliations a character has the more likely they are to be played. Just look at the new 5 drop Power Girl; she makes an excellent addition to any JSA or JLI deck.

Name Stamping Plot Twists, Character Abilities and Equipment: It's possible we could see more character specific plot twists and equipment in the game, a la MTU Spider-Friends. While giving Cap his shield or Dr. Doom his armor would definitely empower cards with those names, would creating individual equipment on par with the Fate Artifacts really help the game? And looking at the set as a whole, creating 20-40 name-specific plot twists/equipment could take up a significant portion of space for the new set.

Multiple Copies of Popular Characters: I think this one is basically a given. I loved the way MTU gave Spider-Man 4 different 4 drops, since it basically ensures that Spider-Man will see play in a significant drop in his team. World's Finest will probably see much of the same for Batman and Superman, but is doing this really an option for teams with larger rosters like the X-Men or Avengers?

Much like the Name Stamping problem with Plot Twists or Equipment, giving a few popular characters multiple copies takes up a lot of room from the new set. This in turn hurts the 'diversity' of Marvel Legends, but that might not really be a problem. Unfortunately the risk of abusing these multiple versions with cards like Crisis on Infinite Earths is there, and it will only become more likely with the creation of more name-stamped Plot Twists, Equipment, etc.

New Keyword: Hero/Villain -- This keyword is obviously inspired by World of Warcraft, but it could end up functioning in a much different way. The basic idea is that certain 'major' characters would receive a special Keyword somewhere on their card, much in the same way that certain characters have the Mutant Trait.

By creating Plot Twists and Locations centered around this keyword, it would be possible to create a deck including all of your favorite heroes or villains, rather than a deck centered around your favorite character and a half-dozen other forgettable ones.

Examples:

Arguably this kind of mechanic simpifies the game, but doesn't make it less interesting to longtime players. I should also note that not every character would receive the Hero/Villain designation, so anyone wanting to use secondary characters like Falcon or Lois Lane would still need to stick with their respective teams.

Team Decks and Hero/Villain decks could easily co-exist in Vs. Hero/Villain would probably be more simple and straightforward, so newer players could enter the game by focusing exclusively on this mechanic.

So um, yeah. What are your thoughts about these?

I agree that more recent sets (MTU) have done a very good job with this, so I think this is kind of a given.


I think this is about more than just giving Cap his shield, although that's definitely a pretty iconic element of the issue. Namestamping isn't limited to equipment, or things that REQUIRE a character of given name, and definitely not limited to "things on par with fate artifacts".

Here's a thread on name-stamping in VS:

Linky

EDIT: Also, as to whether or not 'character-focus' in Marvel Legends implies name-stamping, yes, it's already been confirmed.

I have to kind of agree with some of your concern here that this could easily be overdone, but I wouldn't count myself as 'worried'. I'm hoping that for some of the newer "Legendary Status" character (those who will be name-stamp-referenced), that rather than trying to flood the set with them, they focus on making some solid common ones (for limited's sake as well).

This ties into the name-stamping being hard/soft as well (required/bonus), as the more soft name-stamps you have rather than hard, the fewer copies of a given character in a given set you can get away with.

I both like and dislike this idea.

This is basically adding "null traits" to the game. We saw this a bit with Mutants of different types. I'm all for "null traits" (traits that do nothing on their own, but are merely referenced by other cards).

The two things I dislike about your specific construction, however:

1) It's a keyword. This is inconsistent with the existing trait type in the game (Mutant - Type), and creates rules complications (a keyword goes away when stunned).

2) It's Hero/Villian. I don't think just dividing the characters in a set in half, giving one half one trait and the other half another trait (which is how I would interpret the premise of Hero/Villian) leads to anything very interesting. Erick had a thread up about potential future traits for the game that had some more interesting ideas of possible traits that could be added.

I strongly disagree with the Heroes/Villain stamping. It would interfere with the earlier sets to much, and just be overall confusing to new players. And plus, didn't Heroes and Villains team up often in the comics?


I really don't think their is any thing wrong with Vs current play style. Adding Heroes/Villains could probably only mess things up. Although making popular characters the focus of decks is a great idea, and I cant wait to see what they come up with. They did a great job with Spider-man in MTU.

the problem with name-stamping, imo, is the restrictions to limited play it can make. Something like web shooters works (does something, but does it better with character X). see Indebted, creation of a herald, etc.
that way you don't get dead picks/pulls.

That's why 'soft' name-stamping is probably a better choice, for the most part. We don't want this to become Overpower 2.0

Plus, there's a cool 'What If?' element to it.

I mean, what's stopping anyone from using Web Shooters?

Still, Spidey is definetly better with them than everyone else.

Yes it will.:devious:

These 'Legendary' characters may be few and far between at first, but I would expect every team featured in Marvel Legends to get at least one. Cards like Astral Projection are a great example of what we should expect to see, but I imagine that having too many of these cards in a single set could create problems. What will likely result is a flood of boring Plot Twists that only become workable by playing a certain strategy and a certain character. If nothing else, that limits the scope of the game (and future expansions) more than team-specific abilities do.


I understand your concern, but I envision it as more than a keyword. It could be more than a keyword. One could include the words 'Hero' or 'Villain' in the version name, or maybe add a certain icon onto the cards themselves.

The idea is that only 'A-List' characters would get the Hero and Villain status. Certain abilities, Plot Twists, etc. could reference Heroes or Villains rather than specific characters or teams. This way you could center your deck around whatever Hero or Villain you wanted, rather than being forced to use Captain America in order to play an effective Avengers deck (for example.)

And, if you wanted a team consisting of both Heroes and Villains, there could be Team-Up cards to support it. Of course, some characters could justify getting cards of both types, which I don't object to at all. I don't see this interfering with the game as it stands, although I do see that it would require a strong amount of support initially.

With Marvel and DC Legends as the new 'Base Sets' there really isn't going to be a better time to unveil new card types, keywords, or whatever.

Access: Do you have a link to the thread where someone suggested new keywords? Sounds interesting...

I'm looking forward to seeing the new sets. I'm feeling that kid at christmas kind of feeling coming on, and I've been extra good this year :)

I know we have good stuff coming. I just want to see it in action. Focusing more on combat is nice. I hate that decks can avoid combat almost altogether in this game. There should be huge penalties for not attacking or something. Give me a character that says every time he or she exhausts due to an opponent's effect, that opponent loses 5 END or something like that. Give me something to punish an opponent that can punish me for playing character cards.

And that 7 drop Captain America is my favorite 7 drop for Spiderfriends! I like hi more than iron spider and more than electra. The original Spider-man is really really good, and his ability is killer, but ver conditional. I like Cap's ability to protect himself or another with his shield. A very flavorful version of the character.

I love your thoughts for a 5 drop Cap. That would be really good too. I'm really really wanting a Cap's Shield Equipment card though.

Cost 2

Costs 1 less to recruit to an Avengers character, or 2 less to recruit to Captain America. Equipped Character gets +1/+2 while attacking and +2/+1 while defending. Equipped Character is considered Protected.

Or something along those lines.

I want my Cap's shield!!!