<table><tr><td width="100" style="text-align:center;"><img src="http://www.realmsradio.com/images/TRHC2.JPG">

<a href="http://phobos.apple.com/WebObjects/MZStore.woa/wa/viewPodcast?id=11967951"><img src="http://www.pcgamerpodcast.com/assets/chicklet_itunes.gif" border="0"></a></td><td>The Ring Has Chosen: Episode 9



Your latest VS System news and information.

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First post-YAY!

Firstly the sound quality was much better this week and it was SO much better just having one person reading the decklist. Although i was under the impression that the deck was called thor-bomb.....i dont know where i heard that...

GREAT show guys...just 7 days till the next one...a WHOLE seven days...man thats a long time:p

Just dropping in some comments mid way through the show. enjoying it a lot so far but have to pause for a second and make a quick trip to pay my rent and wanted to get this out while it's fresh in my thoughts.

Nope, only one build phase eash turn, they are the same build phase. The player with initiative has the first resource step. Steps are done for each individual player. If it was worded to cause each player to have an extra resource when you have initative, it would be worded with the first resource step each turn rather than the first build phase. I'm sure it means the first build phase of the game.

I don't think Sandman is made for the Wild Pack. I think he is made for the syndicate, judging by the picture as well as the effect, which I think fits the huge front, small back of the sydicate rush characters.

Yeah, legacy is WAY playable! With the syndicate KO resource effects. Syndicate rush doesn't need to play 3 resources IMO, so blowing up resources to draw(Fusion is the bomb), and then bringing this online to draw more is the NUTZ... Not the strongest rush deck ever, but close, and really able to pump out that early damage. There are defiantly weaknesses to this, but over all it's pretty damn good.

Big props for defenders/wildpack Just wait till modern. With Kree bouncing guys, darkseid subbing guys, doom KOing guys, ect ect ect, Bounty Hunt is going to pay off, at the very least forcing your oppoent to get rid of it any way they can, which will usually cost them a card via Reality Gem. Either way it's card advantage. In this Team Up only format, even better, no darkseid and no reality gem. Rock on! Silver Sable FTW! When you have a team up deck so powrful that Sam Parrington is not your 4 frop of choice, you know you have something special :-P

BRB with more thought after I get back and listen tot he rest of the show. Later

SHOTGUN
(or Thor-Bomb for some of you)
4 Lockjaw
1 Rick Jones
1 Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marrage
4 San
1 Kang, Kang Cobra
4 Tonaja
1 Dewoz
4 Thor, Odinson
1 Firestar
1 Mr. Fantastic, Illuminati
1 Scarecrow, Fearmonger
1 Maximus the Mad
3 Mjolnir
4 Great Refuge
3 Attilan
4 Flying Kick
4 Meltdown
4 No Man Escapes the Manhunters
4 Enemy of my enemy
4 Mob Mentality
3 Walk Through Walls
3 Nega-Bomb

Top 5 was AWSOME: I heard Acrododge as number 5, and I screamed... NO, why not coverfire... Then Coverfire came in at 2, and I was like YES! Offense wins games, defense wins tournaments. I agreed with almost everything you guys said in that top 5. Except maybe live Kree or Die... *scratches head*

Unfortunatly have to pause again for work. :-(

Life is conspiring to keep from hearing the remainder of the show. Damn you LIFE! Why wont you die?

Later.

Hey guys,

Another great show. I really think that the Sandman AE is actually a LOT better than people are giving him credit for. Do the math. Against an aggressive deck, your opponent will try to stun all of your characters in play each turn. We'll assume that you keep your biggest character each turn. If you hit a 2-5 curve, you actuall gain endurance with Sandman:

Turn 2 - Save 2 endurance (2-drop stuns)
Turn 3 - Save 5 endurance (2- and 3-drops stun)
Turn 4 - Save 7 endurance (3- and 4-drops stun)
Turn 5 - Save 9 endurance (4- and 5-drops stun)
Total endurance saved: 23
Net endurance savings (from standard 50 END): 8

It's important to note that there are a BUNCH of ways in MTU to improve on this advantage. With the right build, you should be able to get to turn seven or eight. At that point, I would say that you could net at least as much endurance as the Hulk AE (75; net of 40). For the most part, all of the damage that your opponents deal will have to be breakthrough or direct endurance loss. I think a lot of people will find that, against a deck specifically built to take advantage of Sandman AE, this is a LOT more difficult than it sounds.

I love the addition of the Top 5. I look forward to hearing more of these in the future. Just for reference, here are my picks for the Top Five plot twists in the Random Punks format:

5) Unmasked (tons of Lost City variants in my area)
4) Vicarious Living (it's not Enemy of my Enemy, but it's still quite good)
3) Acrobatic Dodge (I'd almost forgotten how potent +3 DEF could be)
2) Press the Attack (Multiple Merlyn/Dr. Light activations FTW!)
1) Flying Kick (IMO, it will always be the best plot twist in any format where it is legal)

Much like Cliff, I tried to keep these fairly general - useful in a number of different decks. If I were to say which plot twist was the best overall in Random Punks, I'd have to go with Last Stand. In the Morlocks Evasion decks, it flat out wins. 99 times out of 100, one copy will trump any answers that your opponent will have. Usually the only way to beat a deck that can use Last Stand is to have a card that can prevent it from ever being used (i.e. Anne-Marie Cortez) or to KO characters so that the Morlocks deck won't have enough stunned characters in play to use Last Stand. That's it - almost nothing else can beat it.

Just so you know, Cliff, bashing Smallville can earn you the Wrath of BigSpooky (which is a lot like Nega-Bomb, except that it has the additional effect of slapping you silly and saying rude things about your dog).


P.S. Ironically, for all of the Marquee Event tournaments in Texas, my home store in Mesquite isn't even on the list! LOL!

Interesting. I tried Vicarious Living in a couple of Punks decks I was testing, and it was always the first thing I cut. Maybe my testing was inadequate (or the decks were less suitable than I thought), but it always seemed to be an unwelcome draw. It seemed to me that I was far more likely to draw it when I had no use for it than when I did.

The card I kept finding myself making room for was No Man Escapes the Manhunter, both for Checkmate decks and for decks with hidden attackers like AGL. It definitely saved my butt in the semis of our RP tournament. I would have lost to an AGL deck if not for the two copies of No Man I managed to draw into late in the game.

And sorry guys but none of down here that i know ofwill be going to alter ego. This is happening in all the places that there is no vs community rather than nashville where there is one. Donnie said he didnt even know about hte event till I told him last week. And since hes one of the biggest T.O's in tennessee and didnt know about it. he said he wasnt going to do it cause ude isnt sending it to him. And I was so picking venom.

I'm very sad to hear this. I had my T.O.'s ### on the phone calling, and demanding prize support, as he didn't get the email/etc. I'm sure your guy is a lovely person, but I would have ##### smacked him Krystle Carrington style.

I'm a Superman fan, I can't like Smallville. I also don't own a dog, but if you want to smack me silly; I hope you've watched enough Dynasty to defend yourself.

Squire and I are totaly geeking out that you listened to the show. Thanks for listening and we'll try to keep it worth your while.

Vicarios Living certainly isn't for every deck. However, I have a couple of different decks that are weighted towards the low curve where it is quite amazing.

Its not that simple. According to Donnie the prize support is being sold through the sales department. Which isnt the right department it should be through the hobby league department or which ever one is in charge of league. The reason all those stores get their tournament but have no community is because they go through sales when they buy yugi or warcraft. Because we are larger more active store we buy not only from them but other distributors so we dont get the event because our bussiness isnt solely from them.

No, I understand that. I tried it in X-Faces, as a way to search for specific 1 and 2 drops, and an RP version of Kree/VU, where the idea was to search for a specific 2 or 3 drop given a different one. Perhaps with more extensive testing it would have proven more valuable, or perhaps those just weren't the right decks for it. I've already ruled out option #3 (I suck at Vs.) out of simple pride. :)

OK, I guess I'll just be saddened by UDE then.

I thought this info was pretty well known by now. Aren't the marquee events sent with the hobby league kits, meaning that your store owner has to order the hobby leauge kits, which you can only get if you are a UDE direct store. Does your store do a hobby league? Our store is a UDE direct store, but they also buy product from distributors as well. Am I misunderstanding this? Maybe this belongs in it's own thread so we don't jack this up.

Moving on. Liked hearing about the source. Nuff said.

Championing original decks! Ah HA! Brilliant. We have a player in my local group who calls net decks "blind child decks" and thinks if you didn't build it or it's not unbelievably hard to play, your not a respectable card player. Ofcourse he developed this theory playing pokemon and yughio, so I don't think he is a respectable card player. Ofcourse now he plays vs, and he does come up with usually playable original ideas, so I can't hate on him too hard, but still, anyone who thinks net decking is bad doesn't understand how to work a meta game. If everyone else is net decking, then you should know what to play to beat them and make them look silly for being so unoriginal.

great show guys, and defiantly looking forward as always to next week, and all the fun fo the fantasy card submissions.