Marvel Evolution set review: Purifiers

Today’s review is the short stack.  The Purifiers team only has six real character cards to choose from, but some of them are pretty interesting.  The team should seem familiar to anyone who saw X2.  The Purifiers weren’t actually in the movie, but one of their head honchos, William Stryker, was the antagonist, so building this deck is as close as you’re going to get to acting out the movie!  Plus, we’ve got some returning powerhouses that you might be interested in.

Read on to see if they’ve aged like fine wine… or like the beer that’s been in the trunk of my car for a year!

Marvel Evolution set review – Starjammers

The Starjammers are one of the minor teams represented in Marvel Evolution. They are a bunch of Space Pirates who spend their time fighting against various villainous elements within the Shi’Ar (usually involving Deathbird). And of course where the Shi’Ar are involved, so are the X-Men often as not. Even more complicated, Corsair turns out to be Major Christopher Summers, Cyclops long-lost Dad who was actually kidnapped by aliens instead of dying in a plane crash. I love comics sometimes. Their primary card themes turn out to be piracy and sabotage, represented by their various abilities to steal your opponent’s cards, force them to discard and otherwise restrict their ability to put their own game plan into action. Of course the Starjammers don’t have that much of a plan themselves, but they sure will be annoying, and for some people that is more than enough. Not to mention the chance that their semi-random acts of pillage will occasionally wreck their opponents completely.

Marvel Evolution set review: Weapon X

Today’s chunk of the set review will focus on Weapon X.  Weapon X’s featured keyword is Hunter, which reads, “When this card enters play, choose an opposing character. That character becomes hunted by you.”

• Becoming hunted doesn’t do anything by itself, but other cards refer to it.
• Each player may only have one character that is being hunted by them at any one time. If another character becomes hunted by you, all other characters stop being hunted by you.
• A character stays hunted by you until it leaves play or another character becomes hunted by you, even if it becomes stunned or loses its powers.

If you remember the four Weapon X cards from the MUN set, this mechanic may seem oddly familiar.  Before ‘hunter’ was actually a keyword, it was already the theme of Weapon X.  Take Sabretooth, Government Assassin for example.  His text reads:

The Ring has Chosen Episode 68

Cliff, Squire, and special guest Charles (Obsidian3d) close out the year chatting, about VS, blogging, MEV, and why we love this game. To wrap up this epic episode we’ve included lost footage featuring Joe10lo, BigBossMan, and Ludin Romero.

Special Thanks and shout-outs to The Kamiza, and the Lost Hemisphere crew.

Marvel Evolution set review: X-Factor

Welcome to the first instalment of The-Kamiza.com’s set review for the latest VS. System TCG expansion – Marvel Evolution. Keep your eyes out for more reviews from our other writers, but today Felix Hughes kicks us off with his thoughts on the X-Factor (the team, not the TV show, although if you ask me Alexandra totally nailed it and deserved the win over everyone else! Now, over to Felix – Steve

X Factor are a team based around controlling the game through exhausting other characters and generally making themselves difficult to attack. They are the main beneficiaries of the new energise mechanic, and the large number of activated powers that go with it. These powers have long been a feature of the X-Men teams, and it is with those that X-Factor have most in common; especially the X-Stall decks that held the game under control until they could build up to some powerful late game characters. They also encourage an interesting playing style. Off-initiative they are great, giving you plenty of things to do (and off-initiative tricks have often been a very powerful element in some very powerful teams). When you have the initiative you have to make the choice between attacking or activating, and that can lead to some interesting decisions, as well as some complicated board situations. While X-Factor are not the X-Men they definitely have this feel, as well as some of the recovery tricks and pacifistic tendencies of the X-Men. The large number of dual affiliated characters also contributes to this.

They also get two legendary characters, each representing different periods in the comic history of X-Factor. Cyclops comes from the first inception of the team – a reunion of the original X-Men. This version of Madrox represents the current series, based around X-Factor Investigations – A Private Investigation firm operating from inside Mutant Town. (Madrox and most of the other X-Factor regulars were also members of the X-Factor team during the 90s.) The one thing that links all these incarnations of X-Factor? They are always on the lookout for new threats to mutants and so far they have always been ready to deal with them.

The Ring has Chosen Episode 68

This Week Cliff and Joe take a crack at the next part of the MEV set review.