As many of you know, many (many, many, many) weeks ago, our good friend and associate, Patrick Yapjoco had to hand off his work for DSM-2 to the VS Council, due to life and its accompanying trials. Cliff Parameter and myself were the happy recipients of the project, and dove in with gusto. There were polls, and posts, and arguments, and discussions, and various other interactions regarding the project. We studied what Patrick had done, and invited Joe Corbett to continue the role he had with Patrick, in continuing development. While evaluating the set, however, several things have become apparent to the design team, which have delayed, and ultimately changed, the direction we are headed with the project.
1) DSM is a beloved and well-played set. As bad as it was from a design standpoint, there are cards and characters and decks that exist throughout VS that rely on cards in DSM as they were printed. Many, were re-printed. This impacts what we are trying to do, greatly. How does a team ‘fix’ a set, without ruining the history that the cards have generated for themselves?
2) DSM is made up, primarily, of four teams. Team Superman, Revenge Squad, Darkseid’s Elite, and New Gods. Of these teams, and the legacy content, Revenge Squad and Darkseid have both been re-envisioned, and seen significant improvement in playability and design since the printing of DSM. Team Superman has also been re-designed, but arguably, only Superman himself has seen improvement, while the rest of the team remains lost in mediocrity. (One VsSystem.org member described the DWF Team Superman team as the DC version of Warbound. I think it’s quite a poignant statement.) The remaining team, New Gods, saw only 9 additional cards printed since DSM, and has never been ‘rebooted’ in VS.
3) The major challenge of this project, was to make a playable set of DSM. Designing a completely new set by changing text boxes, but staying confined to the 165 cards, characters, attack, defense, and the rest, makes for a mediocre and uninspired effort. Anyone who has worked on a fan-set can tell you how difficult it is to design cards when you’re NOT confined to a predetermined character set, with pre-defined casting costs, curves, and support cards.
4) DC Final Crisis is almost ready. In January, it made perfect sense to release DSM-2 to the world, but due to the delays we have seen, DFC is nearly completed, and very likely may see distribution before DSM-2. Rather that swamp the players with multiple fan-sets, it seems necessary to make changes to the project plan.
In the end, these major points, and other less important ones, brought the design team to the following conclusion: We can’t fix DSM. Simply put, it’s not broken. What is broken is the Team Superman and New Gods teams. So here is where the team is headed. We will be reviewing and updating the New Gods cards from DSM (DSM-035 through DSM-060), utilizing minor, errata-styled changes, that will make the New Gods playable, but not significantly impacting the existing DSM cards. Additionally, we will be designing a short list of new cards to supplement the existing New Gods team. In the end, we hope to have a reimagined, all inclusive, sub-set of cards, similar to the MAA and MUL styled sub-sets of the past. This set of updated and new cards will be designated DNG (DC New Gods). Our hope is by taking these steps, we will make the New Gods a more playable and interesting team, but without compromising old-school decks and strategies based on the New Gods. The greatest benefit of this release is that the fan voting that was so hotly contested for the creation of a new Mr. Miracle card can/will be fully realized in a completely new card form. Rather that squeeze all the requested powers onto an undersized and pre-existing 5-drop, we can now (maybe) imagine a 7-drop with all the impact that Scott Free should have on the game.
Additionally, based on fan imput and acceptance, we will then be making a similar effort with Team Superman (DTS) shortly there after, giving the ‘Team’ in ‘Team Superman’ the love they so desperately deserve.
I look forward to hearing your comments and complaints, and I hope you’re as excited about this announcement as we are having written it.
Sincerely,
HomerJ (with Captain_Comet and Savage_tofu)
Just before the holidays kicked in during the tail end of 2008, 
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.
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.
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