SUM DECK Rule

[Kal-el]

I actually never used the sum deck rule either, but I want to start playing with it. I feel like it does promote fair teams in the IQ and previous era, which is primarily what my normal opponent plays with.

[Nostalgic]

I will admit I wasn't very thrilled when I came across the Sum Deck Rule. As a comic book fan first and foremost, I like seeing teams made up of characters that make sense being together. Its strange picturing the Marauders teaming up with the X-Babies.   I do understand the reason for the rule though and I will adhere to it if I ever play against you guys. I just feel that the rule makes so many people play with the same characters against one another.

QFT!!!!  

This is the fundamental reason why we use the NEO cost capping rules.  It allows for a much broader array of 'real' comic team ups.  Admittedly we haven't been into the most 'efficient' deck building / meta game strategies, but OP was always mostly about recreating comic battles as opposed to only looking at the various combinations characters' special card effects.  However, I'm sure we would have viewed this differently if we were more tournament minded back then.  

[Nate Grey]

I will admit I wasn't very thrilled when I came across the Sum Deck Rule. As a comic book fan first and foremost, I like seeing teams made up of characters that make sense being together. Its strange picturing the Marauders teaming up with the X-Babies.   I do understand the reason for the rule though and I will adhere to it if I ever play against you guys. I just feel that the rule makes so many people play with the same characters against one another.

QFT!!!!  

This is the fundamental reason why we use the NEO cost capping rules.  It allows for a much broader array of 'real' comic team ups.  Admittedly we haven't been into the most 'efficient' deck building / meta game strategies, but OP was always mostly about recreating comic battles as opposed to only looking at the various combinations characters' special card effects.  However, I'm sure we would have viewed this differently if we were more tournament minded back then.  

Wow! Exactly! Now I'm curious to read about this NEO style of play. Being comic fans, we like to recreate comic battles instead of building tournament minded decks. That's something we'll have to reconsider though, but for the moment we are just having fun coming up with all sorts of comic book team ups. For instance a team with the Summers Family (Cyclops, Cable, Havok, Jean Grey), a Mafia team (Kingpin, Elektra, The Hand, Bullseye) or a Cosmic Alliance team (Thor, Adam Warlock, Silver Surfer, Captain Mar-Vell). I haven't checked the Sum Deck on these but those are the types of teams we like to play with.

[gameplan.exe]

I will admit I wasn't very thrilled when I came across the Sum Deck Rule. As a comic book fan first and foremost, I like seeing teams made up of characters that make sense being together. Its strange picturing the Marauders teaming up with the X-Babies.  I do understand the reason for the rule though and I will adhere to it if I ever play against you guys. I just feel that the rule makes so many people play with the same characters against one another.

This is exactly how I feel. Almost all of the decks I build are based on actual comic plots in some capacity. Also, my collection is exclusively MUTANT/Gotham I have a hard time using the X-Babies on any other team except Mojoworld.
I guess, having no tournament experience, I'm less driven to make the ultimate win team. Not even close to that mindset, really. Instead, I make a team of 4, then I carefully construct the deck to make them as good as possible.

I use a lot of themes. Here are a few that are together right now.

Age of Apocalypse: Magneto, X-man, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver (R)
                           Outback BattleS with only Dazzler, Jubilee, Sentinels, & Wolvie cards
Fatal Attractions: Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, Jean Grey (R)
                           Avalon BattleS with only Bishop, Cable, Colossus, & ProfX cards
X-Men Gold team: Colossus, Iceman, Bishop, Storm (R)
                           with Any Heroes

[Nostalgic]

Wow! Exactly! Now I'm curious to read about this NEO style of play. Being comic fans, we like to recreate comic battles instead of building tournament minded decks. That's something we'll have to reconsider though, but for the moment we are just having fun coming up with all sorts of comic book team ups. For instance a team with the Summers Family (Cyclops, Cable, Havok, Jean Grey), a Mafia team (Kingpin, Elektra, The Hand, Bullseye) or a Cosmic Alliance team (Thor, Adam Warlock, Silver Surfer, Captain Mar-Vell). I haven't checked the Sum Deck on these but those are the types of teams we like to play with.

Group huge for the like-minded!  However...innocent..  that mindset may have been, having read through this forum and now understanding some of the finer strategic points of the game I see validity in which ever perspective one comes at the game from.  I love the themes you put forward as those are the same concepts I use in creating decks. 

As far as the NEO style of play goes I must say I'm honestly unfamiliar with it.  I did look into the rules some, but it seemed pretty complex and really changed the game.  However, the formula for recosting charcter was pretty cool so we use that.  Basically, most characters will be cheaper using the NEO formula, if played on the front line, and if they would actually be more expensive (as a small few are) you use the standard cost.  I'll give you a few examples of the points difference.  The first number is the standard cost and the second is the NEO cost.

Cyclops      20/17
Cable         23/19
Havok        19/17
Jean Grey   16/16
Gambit       20/16
Spiderman   21/18
Superman   21/19
Thor          23/19
Post Merge: July 11, 2011, 06:31:25 PM

I use a lot of themes. Here are a few that are together right now.

Age of Apocalypse: Magneto, X-man, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver (R)
                           Outback BattleS with only Dazzler, Jubilee, Sentinels, & Wolvie cards
Fatal Attractions: Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, Jean Grey (R)
                           Avalon BattleS with only Bishop, Cable, Colossus, & ProfX cards
X-Men Gold team: Colossus, Iceman, Bishop, Storm (R)
                           with Any Heroes

Some of my themes...

Arachnophobia: Spiderman, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Girl, Spider Woman (R) (fighting artifact)

X-men: Gambit, Nightcrawler, Bishop, Shadowcat: Age of Apocalypse (Battlesite: Ship)

International Business: Captain Britain, War Machine, Colossus, Strong Guy (R)

Charlie's Angels: Jean Grey, Storm, White Queen, Shadowcat (R)

Power Cosmic: Beta Ray Bill, Thor, Silver Surfer, Superman (R)

Admittedly, these are concepts, and some only possible using the NEO cost-capping rules, but most I think are feasible.

[Nate Grey]

I use a lot of themes. Here are a few that are together right now.

Age of Apocalypse: Magneto, X-man, Nightcrawler, Quicksilver (R)
                           Outback BattleS with only Dazzler, Jubilee, Sentinels, & Wolvie cards
Fatal Attractions: Gambit, Rogue, Wolverine, Jean Grey (R)
                           Avalon BattleS with only Bishop, Cable, Colossus, & ProfX cards
X-Men Gold team: Colossus, Iceman, Bishop, Storm (R)
                           with Any Heroes

Some of my themes...

Arachnophobia: Spiderman, Scarlet Spider, Spider-Girl, Spider Woman (R) (fighting artifact)

X-men: Gambit, Nightcrawler, Bishop, Shadowcat: Age of Apocalypse (Battlesite: Ship)

International Business: Captain Britain, War Machine, Colossus, Strong Guy (R)

Charlie's Angels: Jean Grey, Storm, White Queen, Shadowcat (R)

Power Cosmic: Beta Ray Bill, Thor, Silver Surfer, Superman (R)

Admittedly, these are concepts, and some only possible using the NEO cost-capping rules, but most I think are feasible.

Very creative themes you guys got going!  I'll definitely try them out. I've also been eager to try the Arachnophobia one once I get Spider-man's IQ Hero.

[Bios]

I think the sum deck rule is necessary. But it shouldn't be limited to 76 points. Heroclix for example allows multiples of 100, so you can play with a max 600 or with a max 1000 for example.

I think OP could use multiples of 4, like max 72, max 76 or max 80 points.

[Nate Grey]

I think the sum deck rule is necessary. But it shouldn't be limited to 76 points. Heroclix for example allows multiples of 100, so you can play with a max 600 or with a max 1000 for example.

I think OP could use multiples of 4, like max 72, max 76 or max 80 points.

If the limits were slightly higher then I wouldn't have such a problem with the sum deck rule.

[Demacus]

I just don't understand how anyone who picked up the game and read the rule book that explained every other aspect of the game would consider contending this rule.

I understand that, via variants/house rules you might want to throw this, as well as other, rules out the window, but if you ever planned to play against someone outside your immediate circle of friends, you would need to play by the rules that were distributed world-wide, and not just what you decided to keep.

That would be like disputing the "Max 4" rule in M:TG.  The decks that could be made without these restrictions in place would be severely unfair to anybody playing against them, if they didn't have the same luck to get their hands on the same cards.

To me, ignoring the SUM DECK rule would be equivalent to ignoreing that little note on the bottom of certain specials that state "One-Per-Deck."  The potential for devistation is far too high, because it's no longer checked.

Homebases do allow you to climb above the 76 point limit, under the check that you do it using four of these six characters.  You don't even have to go high over the limit to make the deck too destructive if you chose the right characters.

Team X (23), Wolverine (19), Sabretooth (19), Maverick(19) = 80.  With a 76 point limit in place, and no homebase that lists these 4 characters, those 4 little points are all that keep you from sitting down across from this lethal team.

[gameplan.exe]

I just don't understand how anyone who picked up the game and read the rule book that explained every other aspect of the game would consider contending this rule.

I understand that, via variants/house rules you might want to throw this, as well as other, rules out the window, but if you ever planned to play against someone outside your immediate circle of friends, you would need to play by the rules that were distributed world-wide, and not just what you decided to keep.

That would be like disputing the "Max 4" rule in M:TG.  The decks that could be made without these restrictions in place would be severely unfair to anybody playing against them, if they didn't have the same luck to get their hands on the same cards.

To me, ignoring the SUM DECK rule would be equivalent to ignoreing that little note on the bottom of certain specials that state "One-Per-Deck."  The potential for devistation is far too high, because it's no longer checked.

Homebases do allow you to climb above the 76 point limit, under the check that you do it using four of these six characters.  You don't even have to go high over the limit to make the deck too destructive if you chose the right characters.

Team X (23), Wolverine (19), Sabretooth (19), Maverick(19) = 80.  With a 76 point limit in place, and no homebase that lists these 4 characters, those 4 little points are all that keep you from sitting down across from this lethal team.

I hear ya. And, for the record, I always play by the Sum Deck Rule - it just annoys very often so I like to do this about it: 

lol

[steve2275]

Team X (23), Wolverine (19), Sabretooth (19), Maverick(19) = 80.  With a 76 point limit in place, and no homebase that lists these 4 characters, those 4 little points are all that keep you from sitting down across from this lethal team.

replace one of the 19's with x-babies 

[a_noble_kaz]

This Event owns Team X, Wolverine, Sabertooth, Maverick.

[gameplan.exe]

This Event owns Team X, Wolverine, Sabertooth, Maverick.

not really. At most, it would drop 3 cards from my hand (8, 7, 6), but I'd probably even split my 6 off, and have only a single 6f PC. If you want, I'll totally build that team and you can use that Event, and we'll see how it goes? 

[a_noble_kaz]

[Demacus]

Imprisoned for Science would be a hindrance, but not all of their specials have a fighting Icon, even if their grids are fighting heavy.