Marvel Warzone: Previews have begun!

There are a few things in Versus that I still have a soft spot for.  For instance, Team Superman was the first deck I ever built back in the days of DSM, so I’ll always hold them dear to me.  Kyle Rayner was also my favorite comic book hero, so you better believe I played Glock and/or Glee until DGL rotated out of Modern/Silver.  But my biggest soft spot was always for Crime Lords.  You see, even though DSM was the first set I ever purchased, Marvel Knights was only a week or so away from being released.  That means the first tournament I ever played in was a Marvel Knights hobby league.  I was taken in by Crime Lord’s counter-intuitive strategy of doing all their ‘damage’ on the defense (my roomate Martie, at the time, was equally entranced by X-Statix’s counter-intuitive ‘loner’ theme!).  The problem was, while they were OK in Modern when teamed up with Underworld, they were generally Tier 4, maybe worse.  Try as I did, I never made a very competitve variant.  Even their reincarnation in MUN, while better, still never made much noise outside of being splashed in other decks.

The crew behind Marvel Warzone apparently could not take the injustice any longer, because you’re about to see some suh-weet Crime Lords cards.  First off, let’s start with the man behind the curtain…

The Kingpin is a godfather-esque comic book character, as such, his effects often behave in a manner befitting a man behind the scenes.  He usually either improves the situation of all your other charcters, or improves his own situation based on your number of other characters.  In this case, it’s obviously the fomer.  This 8 drop is an already impressive 20/20 who will almost undoubtably get to attack reguardless of initiative as he sits safely in the hidden area.  His ability to give 5 and lower drops a stat boost may seem odd for such a late turn, but the many reinforcement tricks the team has should ensure late turns, and cards like Cold Storage can always bring back those low drops later.  And maybe, just maybe, we can take his text as a forshadowing of cards similar to Fisk Towers and Jackal, which bring low drops into play for free!

Next up is A Bitter Pill.  That’s right, I got a Kingpin and a Kingpin legend card.  Though Kingpin already technically had legend support with the card “Boss of Bosses”, this one is a vast improvement!

This card is makes me remember all the headaches I got trying to figure out how to best play Anti-Life Equation!  Though it gets a lot less complicated if you control Kingpin.  After all, imagine naming ’6′.  Your opponent has to face the very terrible choice of losing 7 endurance, or letting you get three cards for only 3 endurance.  That’s a fantastic tradeoff!

Then comes the fan-favorite Deadpool.  Though most people think of Bullseye when they think of gun-totting killers-for-hire on this team, Deadpool has has also been with this team since their MMK days.

Check out the stats!  Deadpool can take out a 5 drop no problem.  Usually stats like this come with a drawback, but not in this case.  Deadpool actually has an ability befitting both his teams.  First off, he’s got ‘Hunter’ to fit in with his Weapon X bunch, but that same hunter ability also helps the reinforcement theme of the Crime Lords.  To top it off, Deadpool is Concealed-Optional, making him one pretty crazy common!

Finally, I was also blessed with a non-Crime preview.  Check out Souls Ablaze!

From this card’s text I think it’s safe to assume that there will be a Midnight Sons team!  No longer will they play a support role to the Marvel Knights roster (I’m assuming!).  This card gives the team a bona-fide Fizzle, though there’s a twist: It can be negated by paying 5 endurance.  The fact that any player can pay the endurance leads to some pretty interesting situations.  For instance, Shadowpact needs to drop its own endurance for many of its effects.  Heck, even a couple of the original Ghost Riders can find synergy with this.  Ghost Rider, Johnny Blaze and Ghost Rider, New Fantastic Four both reward you for low endurance totals.  But the more obvious use is in simply placing your opponent in a tough situation.  Lose a plot twist’s effect, or lose 5 endurance; very literally a lose-lose situation for them.

Well that’s all of them.  I wish I could tell you that I was tasked with unveiling the whole set, but alas, you’ll have to wait (just like me) in eager anticipation as it trickles out.  I want to thank the whole Warzone team for giving me a sneak-peak at these cards, and more importantly for all the hard work they seem to have put into this set.  The cards look amazing guys.  I can’t wait to see what’s previewed the rest of this week!