Making basic universe, training, and tactic cards useful...(part 2)

[Nostalgic]

What about simply making basic universe, training, or tactic cards used for an attack or defense considered "draw one card discard if duplicate" cards? It's simple, it takes care of the card advantage issue, and I don't think it would break the game's mechanics.  Any problems you guys see with this from a tactical, or game mechanic point of view?

[Bios]

Like you said, it takes care of the card advantage issue. Mojoworld Aspect card had a similar effect:  "For remainder of game, Mojoworld's team may draw 1 card from top of Draw Pile immediately after playing any Basic Universe card. Discard if duplicate." It doesn't work as an aspect card because you cannot be sure that you will play that card before you draw a couple universe cards. But I think it would work as a general rule.
I like that idea and I've used it in many of my homemade cards. I also saw a couple Homemades by CCTelander using the same concept. The only problem I see is that it allows a player to get access to his cards much more quickly, since you draw additional cards every time you play those cards.

[CCTelander]

Like you said, it takes care of the card advantage issue. Mojoworld Aspect card had a similar effect:  "For remainder of game, Mojoworld's team may draw 1 card from top of Draw Pile immediately after playing any Basic Universe card. Discard if duplicate." It doesn't work as an aspect card because you cannot be sure that you will play that card before you draw a couple universe cards. But I think it would work as a general rule.

If you really wanted to make Basic Universe, Training and Double Shot Cards usable, this is a very good way to do it.

Anyone who is familiar with the New England OP System might remember that their rules allowed you to draw a card to replace a played card once per battle, under certain circumstances. That worked out well for making BU, Training, DS and other cards that produce limited or weak effects and cause you to lose card advantage by playing them more useful.

IMO it just isn't worth the effort for BU, Training and Double Shot Cards. They don't produce any effect that can't be had with other, better cards, and even if you allow a draw to replace you're still better off using those other cards.

We consider BU, Training and DS Crads to be ill-conceived cards right from the start, and really see no reason to even try to make them more useful. I could see doing it just for the fun of it, but it doesn't really add anything worthwhile to the game.

I like that idea and I've used it in many of my homemade cards. I also saw a couple Homemades by CCTelander using the same concept. The only problem I see is that it allows a player to get access to his cards much more quickly, since you draw additional cards every time you play those cards.

In our environment this isn't a problem at all for a number of reasons.

First, virtually every strategy has certain cards that allow you a DTR (Draw to Replace). So the "advantage" is spread out fairly evenly.

Second, we play with a larger minimum deck requirement. Our min deck size is a flat 65 cards. With larger decks you can use more different cards, it tends to minimize the danger of duplication, and the DTRs don't really give you a significant advantage. It helps that in our environment there are actions you can take during a battle that don't require you to actually play a card too, such as removing counters to produce certain effect etc., so there are ways to mitigate against any card advantage an opponent might get by playing a lot of DTRs.

Another thing that helps is that in our environment there are actually cases where min/maxing your deck to the minimum number of cards actually makes it less effective. I know that seems counterintuitive, but in actual practice that's exactly how it works out in some cases.

As examples, our Spying/Deception and Venture Manipulation Strategies rely upon having a LOT of Specials available revolving around those specific strategies. But they don't rely on any PARTICULAR Specials, almost any Spying or Venture Manipulation Special is as good as another for the purposes of making the decks work.

In both cases these decks stand up exceptionally well against Legacy Style decks that are ruthlessly min/maxed to our min 65 cards, even though some of the Spying and Venture Manip decks hover in the neighborhood of 75-80 cards.

You'd have to actually play them to really get the feel for what I'm trying to convey, but that's been our experience.

[Nostalgic]

Great comments guys, and just the feed back I was looking for. I get the fact that the those cards ill-conceived, but there is something about playing str8 power card combined with a 'city bus' b.u. that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :-) Just watch the Doomsday vs Superman or World War Hulk animated movies. I'll noodle on it some more, but I think you're right.

I've really been into the homemade cards.  The only way I know to get them is to copy, paste, and make them bigger.  Though the text is a little blurry, they are still great fun.  I also like the various strategies that are developing.  I've got a pretty good burn deck using blob, super scroll, absorbing man, and scorpion.  Me and my OP partner since 95 recently started playing again and wanted to do a string of linked games based on the classic good vs evil concept.  I'm playing all villain teams and he's playing the heros.  We've never been 'hardcore' competative.  In fact our decks are usually between 80-100 cards. 

[CCTelander]

Great comments guys, and just the feed back I was looking for. I get the fact that the those cards ill-conceived, but there is something about playing str8 power card combined with a 'city bus' b.u. that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :-) Just watch the Doomsday vs Superman or World War Hulk animated movies. I'll noodle on it some more, but I think you're right.

Yeah, I can't deny that there's some kind of ephemeral fun factor involved with using Basic Universe Cards! And hey, who am I to tell anyone else how to have fun?

We don't use 'em around here, but that shouldn't stop anyone from messing with them if they get a kick out of it.

I've really been into the homemade cards.  The only way I know to get them is to copy, paste, and make them bigger.  Though the text is a little blurry, they are still great fun.  I also like the various strategies that are developing.  I've got a pretty good burn deck using blob, super scroll, absorbing man, and scorpion.  Me and my OP partner since 95 recently started playing again and wanted to do a string of linked games based on the classic good vs evil concept.  I'm playing all villain teams and he's playing the heros.  We've never been 'hardcore' competative.  In fact our decks are usually between 80-100 cards. 

Go Blob! My favorite Burn deck that I'm running right now has Blob, Iron Man: Hulkbuster Armor, Super Skrull, Metallo (R). That's right, Metallo! It's Eeeeevil!

Glad you're getting a kick out of the homemades so far. If you like the strategies that have made it to the site so far, you'll probably dig the next 2-3 that are on the way. It may be a few months yet, there are still a few kinks to work out, but they should be a lot of fun. Here's a short preview:

Spying/Deception should be coming online pretty soon. Most of the Specials are already up on the site, we've just been tweaking the Homebase and Aspects a little. This one will make all those "Opponent must reveal "X" cards from Hand" type cards actually playable. It's a really unique strategy that adds a ton of fun elements, or, more accurately, builds on fun elements that already existed in OP but were never very well developed.

Venture Manioulation is a quirky strategy that's pretty much unique to OP, since there really aren't any other CCG/TCGs out there that include the Venture Mechanic. I'm actually running 2 VM decks right now that don't have ANY attacks in the decks at all, and also no Power Cards. It's also possible with VM to build aggressive, attack oriented decks, so the strategy gives you several different options for accomplishing the same end goal. It's a lot of fun, but takes some getting used to.

We just started working on Placement Disruption, so it may be a little while before all the kinks are worked out. But as things stand right now it looks like it could be one of the most devastating strtegies so far. It's also a lot of fun!

One thing I never really understood was the rift or conflict that exists in a lot of gaming circles between people who play for "fun" and those who are more competitive. To me there's no real conflict.

The way I see things is that competition IS fun, but so is just fooling around with some off-the-wall idea that probably would never win a tournament. At the same time though, I've always felt that every character in the game should be able to contribute SOMETHING to a competitive, tournament winning team. I guess in the end I just don't make the same distinction between the two that some people do.

LONG LIVE OP!
Post Merge: July 22, 2011, 04:40:07 PM

Great comments guys, and just the feed back I was looking for. I get the fact that the those cards ill-conceived, but there is something about playing str8 power card combined with a 'city bus' b.u. that just makes me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. :-) Just watch the Doomsday vs Superman or World War Hulk animated movies. I'll noodle on it some more, but I think you're right.

I've really been into the homemade cards.  The only way I know to get them is to copy, paste, and make them bigger.  Though the text is a little blurry, they are still great fun.  I also like the various strategies that are developing.  I've got a pretty good burn deck using blob, super scroll, absorbing man, and scorpion.  Me and my OP partner since 95 recently started playing again and wanted to do a string of linked games based on the classic good vs evil concept.  I'm playing all villain teams and he's playing the heros.  We've never been 'hardcore' competative.  In fact our decks are usually between 80-100 cards. 

Another thing I forgot in my last post.

I really like the whole all heroes/all villains thing. Most of the decks I build are done around that paradigm, but I don't consider it a hard and fast rule. Just wanted to mention that too!

[Nostalgic]

Go Blob! My favorite Burn deck that I'm running right now has Blob, Iron Man: Hulkbuster Armor, Super Skrull, Metallo (R). That's right, Metallo! It's Eeeeevil!

Glad you're getting a kick out of the homemades so far. If you like the strategies that have made it to the site so far, you'll probably dig the next 2-3 that are on the way. It may be a few months yet, there are still a few kinks to work out, but they should be a lot of fun. Here's a short preview:

Spying/Deception should be coming online pretty soon. Most of the Specials are already up on the site, we've just been tweaking the Homebase and Aspects a little. This one will make all those "Opponent must reveal "X" cards from Hand" type cards actually playable. It's a really unique strategy that adds a ton of fun elements, or, more accurately, builds on fun elements that already existed in OP but were never very well developed.

I have a team with Mr. Sinister and the Kingpin that I am trying to incorporate aspects of that strategy.  Related to that I did wonder if you have an xc special and a wn special in play and the opponent is forced to reveal a card, do both specials get to place a counter.  ( Hoping the answer is yes..  )

Venture Manioulation is a quirky strategy that's pretty much unique to OP, since there really aren't any other CCG/TCGs out there that include the Venture Mechanic. I'm actually running 2 VM decks right now that don't have ANY attacks in the decks at all, and also no Power Cards. It's also possible with VM to build aggressive, attack oriented decks, so the strategy gives you several different options for accomplishing the same end goal. It's a lot of fun, but takes some getting used to.

No power cards?!  This really sounds intriguing.  I guess if you had a lot of venture manipulation, solid defense, a character like Longshot or invisible woman, and the Homebase Marvel Universe, you could do some interesting things.

One thing I never really understood was the rift or conflict that exists in a lot of gaming circles between people who play for "fun" and those who are more competitive. To me there's no real conflict.

The way I see things is that competition IS fun, but so is just fooling around with some off-the-wall idea that probably would never win a tournament. At the same time though, I've always felt that every character in the game should be able to contribute SOMETHING to a competitive, tournament winning team. I guess in the end I just don't make the same distinction between the two that some people do.

LONG LIVE OP!

I agree on the 'competition is fun' point of view.  I just meant we were never into legacy decks.  We like to come up with teams, based on comic/ cartoon team ups that happened.  My only disappointment in overpower were that some teams couldn't work because of the fundamental game structure of discarding duplicates and the necessity of teams to have similar strengths and weaknesses.  So if you wanted to make an X-men team with Wolverine, Storm, Beast and Colossus it of course wouldn't work.  It makes me think they should have come up with more homebases for the famous teams with rules similar to Four Freedoms Plaza so they would be practical to use. 

I really like the whole all heroes/all villains thing. Most of the decks I build are done around that paradigm, but I don't consider it a hard and fast rule. Just wanted to mention that too!

Just out of curiosity, do you use the sum decks rules for deck building for rank 12-16 teams?

[CCTelander]

Go Blob! My favorite Burn deck that I'm running right now has Blob, Iron Man: Hulkbuster Armor, Super Skrull, Metallo (R). That's right, Metallo! It's Eeeeevil!

Glad you're getting a kick out of the homemades so far. If you like the strategies that have made it to the site so far, you'll probably dig the next 2-3 that are on the way. It may be a few months yet, there are still a few kinks to work out, but they should be a lot of fun. Here's a short preview:

Spying/Deception should be coming online pretty soon. Most of the Specials are already up on the site, we've just been tweaking the Homebase and Aspects a little. This one will make all those "Opponent must reveal "X" cards from Hand" type cards actually playable. It's a really unique strategy that adds a ton of fun elements, or, more accurately, builds on fun elements that already existed in OP but were never very well developed.

I have a team with Mr. Sinister and the Kingpin that I am trying to incorporate aspects of that strategy.  Related to that I did wonder if you have an xc special and a wn special in play and the opponent is forced to reveal a card, do both specials get to place a counter.  ( Hoping the answer is yes..  )

The intent behind those types of cards is that yes, every single card that specifies that you may Place a counter to it for any particular action gets a counter every time that actions is successful. So, if you had both a WN and an XC in play, and forced your opponent to reveal a card, both would get counters.

However, I really don't want people to feel "locked in" to playing the homemades any particular way. If your play group thinks it's just too heinous to do things the way we do, then by all means adapt the homemades to your own particular style of play. I promise you won't hurt our feelings!

I'm happy to answer any questions regarding what we intended or how we do things, but don't feel like you absolutely HAVE to do it that way. Whatever works for you is fine by us. It's all about having fun with OP.

Venture Manioulation is a quirky strategy that's pretty much unique to OP, since there really aren't any other CCG/TCGs out there that include the Venture Mechanic. I'm actually running 2 VM decks right now that don't have ANY attacks in the decks at all, and also no Power Cards. It's also possible with VM to build aggressive, attack oriented decks, so the strategy gives you several different options for accomplishing the same end goal. It's a lot of fun, but takes some getting used to.

No power cards?!  This really sounds intriguing.  I guess if you had a lot of venture manipulation, solid defense, a character like Longshot or invisible woman, and the Homebase Marvel Universe, you could do some interesting things.

[/quote]


Oh these are some of our favorite decks currently, but we're still in the tweaking stage. They hold up well against most strategies, but when it comes to Rush they fall apart. We definitely don't want that, so we're working on some fixes that should help them have a decent chance of beating Rush decks.

The two decks I'm running right now are Beast, Forge, Professor X, Black Knight (R), and Enchantress, Hellfire Club, Jackal, The Kree (R). They both take a LOT of getting used to before you can even play them worth a darn, but once you actually get into the mindset they're a TON of fun. You definitely need the Homebase (Initiative HQ) and Aspects to pull it off though.

The big problem against Rush decks is that the VM decks rely almost exclusively on Specials for defense, but Rush has a LOT of ways around defensive Specials. We're working on fixes, and it looks like the Bystander Cards will play an important role.

The other big issue is that once your opponent figures out that you have absolutely no attacks in your deck, they never have to worry about defense so they can pull out all the stops. The non-attack decks are capable of dealing with this MOST of the time, but not very well against Rush because of the defense thing.

Even in situations where they work well you absolutely have to think all your plays through very carefully. Playing 1 card out of order or at the wrong time can really hurt you with these decks.

Another neat thing about these kinds of decks is that, because they don't have ANY Power Cards, you can pretty much ignore Power Grids when choosing characters. A LOT of wacky teams are possible.

On the other hand, my best aggressive, attack oriented VM deck right now is Adam Warlock, Jean Grey, Superman KC, Polaris (R). It stands up to Rush decks a LOT better.

One thing I never really understood was the rift or conflict that exists in a lot of gaming circles between people who play for "fun" and those who are more competitive. To me there's no real conflict.

The way I see things is that competition IS fun, but so is just fooling around with some off-the-wall idea that probably would never win a tournament. At the same time though, I've always felt that every character in the game should be able to contribute SOMETHING to a competitive, tournament winning team. I guess in the end I just don't make the same distinction between the two that some people do.

LONG LIVE OP!

I agree on the 'competition is fun' point of view.  I just meant we were never into legacy decks.  We like to come up with teams, based on comic/ cartoon team ups that happened.  My only disappointment in overpower were that some teams couldn't work because of the fundamental game structure of discarding duplicates and the necessity of teams to have similar strengths and weaknesses.  So if you wanted to make an X-men team with Wolverine, Storm, Beast and Colossus it of course wouldn't work.  It makes me think they should have come up with more homebases for the famous teams with rules similar to Four Freedoms Plaza so they would be practical to use. 

[/quote]


This was always a REAL challenge for me too. It SHOULD be possible to build decks with mismatched Power Grids that are still successful, since it would more accurately reflect "real" teams in comics. You seldom have a team in comics that is made up of JUST characters with super-strength.

One easy solution to this problem, and one we've actually been implimenting to a degree is to give a LOT more characters "LN" coded Specials (Vertigo). The Shift Mechanic makes it a lot more feasable to build temas with Power Grids that don't match up.

A lot of players back in the day thought Vertigo was broken, or at least too good. We never did. We actually LOVE the card largely BECAUSE it makes it possible to build these kinds of teams. So, expect to see, over time, more characters get LN homemades!

Also, when we get to the Teamwork Strategy we intend to build in a mechanism that IS NOT shifting, but which does allow you to build Teamwork style decks with mismatched Power Grids.

So, with the homemade cards at least, there will be at least 2 different ways to build successful teams around this idea.

I really like the whole all heroes/all villains thing. Most of the decks I build are done around that paradigm, but I don't consider it a hard and fast rule. Just wanted to mention that too!

Just out of curiosity, do you use the sum decks rules for deck building for rank 12-16 teams?

[/quote]


You know, we've never really been big fans of the Deck Sum Rule. Back in the day there were lots of REALLY powerful decks that fit easily within it, and lots of totally crappy decks that would be illegal under it. As a way of limiting excessively powerful or "broken" decks it was pretty much a failure.

It also limited the deck variety, since it limited the number of character combinations you could play. The last thing OP needs is anything that further limits variety!

We've considered just dumping the Deck Sum Rule MANY times, but always come up short of actually doing it. It's so much a part of OP that we hesitate.

What we wound up doing is kind of a compromise, and this is where we are today. We use the NEO Cost Capping rules for Legacy Style decks. For any strategy-based decks, the Homebases actually allow you to use any 4 characters from that strat's list of characters, so it's a moot point for those.

It's not a perfect solution, but it's one we can live with, at least for now.

[Bios]

I agree on the 'competition is fun' point of view.  I just meant we were never into legacy decks.  We like to come up with teams, based on comic/ cartoon team ups that happened.  My only disappointment in overpower were that some teams couldn't work because of the fundamental game structure of discarding duplicates and the necessity of teams to have similar strengths and weaknesses.  So if you wanted to make an X-men team with Wolverine, Storm, Beast and Colossus it of course wouldn't work.  It makes me think they should have come up with more homebases for the famous teams with rules similar to Four Freedoms Plaza so they would be practical to use. 

This was always a REAL challenge for me too. It SHOULD be possible to build decks with mismatched Power Grids that are still successful, since it would more accurately reflect "real" teams in comics. You seldom have a team in comics that is made up of JUST characters with super-strength.

I really love CCTelander ideas, specially the ones about strategy. I always thought that it should be possible to build teams based in "real" teams from comics. The way I found to deal with those issues was creating homebases that allow some sort of Power Grid manipulation. Take for example my "Stark Enterprises" HB, its inherent ability says that the team's Strength Power Grid is 8 for defense. Since no characters from that HB have a rating of 8, the team offesinve power is limited, but the inherent ability pretty much helps to hold up against any other team.

I also think that Homebases are a good way to deal with the Sum deck rule. Our "DC Universe" Homebase allows teams with a Power grid sum up to 80 points, with a penalty that is not prohibitive: "Opponent's team is +2 to Venture Total per battle for each 2 points over 76 in the Sum Grid of DCU's team."

Those cards are available at http://phillipgs.virtuaserver.com.br/overpower/ . You can check any cards using the "build a deck" tool or look for specials by code or character using the "find special" tool.


Chris, is there another way to check the homemades in your website? I really love your work, but we have to open a link and then search for the cards wich are in the middle of the page and then search for another link to check another character. Maybe you could place a "next page" buttom just after the cards. 

[Nostalgic]

Those cards are available at http://phillipgs.virtuaserver.com.br/overpower/ . You can check any cards using the "build a deck" tool or look for specials by code or character using the "find special" tool.

One word... AWSOME!

Okay more words...
Why couldn't the designers see the game like you guys do with the homemades?  I first looked up my two favorites, Wolverine and the Hulk, and was quite pleased.  I mean making the healing factor 'remove one hit' (Instantaneous) or the snik a 'draw 3', or even the adamantium skeleton an attack or defensive card just makes sense.  Of course the 'best at what I do' special is a homerun! Good job!

[Bios]

Why couldn't the designers see the game like you guys do with the homemades?  

I think that CCTelander and I have the same "modus operandi". We spend more time planning than making the cards and we do lots of test playing before approving an idea.

Despite the fact that the original designers did some test playing, I don't believe that they paid much attention to that. Otherwise, how we can explain that specials like "draw 3 cards" were released as non-OPD or that most of the homebases, even the latest ones don't work at all?

Sometimes I dream if OP could ever be officially released again and how things could be better if a homemaker had the opportunity to work with the game.

[CCTelander]

I agree on the 'competition is fun' point of view.  I just meant we were never into legacy decks.  We like to come up with teams, based on comic/ cartoon team ups that happened.  My only disappointment in overpower were that some teams couldn't work because of the fundamental game structure of discarding duplicates and the necessity of teams to have similar strengths and weaknesses.  So if you wanted to make an X-men team with Wolverine, Storm, Beast and Colossus it of course wouldn't work.  It makes me think they should have come up with more homebases for the famous teams with rules similar to Four Freedoms Plaza so they would be practical to use. 

This was always a REAL challenge for me too. It SHOULD be possible to build decks with mismatched Power Grids that are still successful, since it would more accurately reflect "real" teams in comics. You seldom have a team in comics that is made up of JUST characters with super-strength.

I really love CCTelander ideas, specially the ones about strategy.

[/quote]


Thanks man! I appreciate the kind words.

I always thought that it should be possible to build teams based in "real" teams from comics. The way I found to deal with those issues was creating homebases that allow some sort of Power Grid manipulation. Take for example my "Stark Enterprises" HB, its inherent ability says that the team's Strength Power Grid is 8 for defense. Since no characters from that HB have a rating of 8, the team offesinve power is limited, but the inherent ability pretty much helps to hold up against any other team.

Yeah, being able to build "comic realistic" teams was never one of OP's strong areas. The best available was the FF, and then people complained endlessly about it!

That's always been one of the areas that we wanted to address with the homemade cards. And there are some really cool things coming in that area before too awful long.

I also think that Homebases are a good way to deal with the Sum deck rule. Our "DC Universe" Homebase allows teams with a Power grid sum up to 80 points, with a penalty that is not prohibitive: "Opponent's team is +2 to Venture Total per battle for each 2 points over 76 in the Sum Grid of DCU's team."


Those cards are available at http://phillipgs.virtuaserver.com.br/overpower/ . You can check any cards using the "build a deck" tool or look for specials by code or character using the "find special" tool.

Let me once again compliment you on your homemade cards. They definitely are among the best I've seen!

Chris, is there another way to check the homemades in your website? I really love your work, but we have to open a link and then search for the cards wich are in the middle of the page and then search for another link to check another character. Maybe you could place a "next page" buttom just after the cards. 

Thanks again!

I'm open to any suggestions anyone might have to make the site more user friendly. I've thought about adding a "Comprehensive Galleries" section that would at least have all of a particular character's cards on one page. My concern is that it may take a while to DL for anyone lacking broadband service.

And, just to be clear, my web design skills aren't exactly what I'd call professional grade. I'll happily listen to ideas, but I may lack the skill to impliment them, at least for the time being.
Post Merge: July 22, 2011, 01:40:29 PM

Those cards are available at http://phillipgs.virtuaserver.com.br/overpower/ . You can check any cards using the "build a deck" tool or look for specials by code or character using the "find special" tool.

One word... AWSOME!

Okay more words...
Why couldn't the designers see the game like you guys do with the homemades?

Just to be fair to the guys who actually designed OP originally, the conditions they were working under were somewhat less than ideal. Marvel had no end of problems back in those days, and the designers were forced to work in a situation that probably really curtailed their efforts.

There never was a consistent design team. Sometimes there were several people doing the design work, and at other times it was down to just one guy.

Plus, keep in mind that back then the whole idea of CCG/TCGs was a new idea. there were bound to be some mistakes made. But there were also at least moments of pure genius too.

I first looked up my two favorites, Wolverine and the Hulk, and was quite pleased.  I mean making the healing factor 'remove one hit' (Instantaneous) or the snik a 'draw 3', or even the adamantium skeleton an attack or defensive card just makes sense.  Of course the 'best at what I do' special is a homerun! Good job!

Yeah, you can put me down as one of Bios' biggest fans too!

LONG LIVE OP!
Post Merge: July 22, 2011, 04:40:55 PM

Why couldn't the designers see the game like you guys do with the homemades? 

I think that CCTelander and I have the same "modus operandi". We spend more time planning than making the cards and we do lots of test playing before approving an idea.

You're definitely right about this. The ideas we've been implimenting are actually the result of almost 10 years worth of planning and brainstorming. My main OP Bud Rob and I have been doing most of the work, but several other of our OP Buds have contributed ideas and helped here and there with play testing.

We actually have several additional ideas for new strategies that we haven't included yet because we just can't figure a way, yet, to get them to work without making massive changes to the basic OP structure, which is something we don't want to do. That would make it, essentially, a different game and we don't want a different game. We want OP at its best!

Despite the fact that the original designers did some test playing, I don't believe that they paid much attention to that. Otherwise, how we can explain that specials like "draw 3 cards" were released as non-OPD or that most of the homebases, even the latest ones don't work at all?

I don't claim to have any inside info or anything like that, but back in the day there was a LOT of information about what was going on at Marvel available on the net. OP suffered from Marvel's situation at the time, a lot. Many times OP wouldn't get the support it needed from Marvel just because they were in such dire straits themselves.

In the end OP was kind of a victim of circumstances.

Sometimes I dream if OP could ever be officially released again and how things could be better if a homemaker had the opportunity to work with the game.

This would probably be the best thing that could ever happen to OP. But realistically speaking it's probably just a pipe dream.

[Karmanal of Zert]

I was also disappointed when my brother realized these cards were pretty much always a waste of a card in one's hand. The game mechanic suggested in this thread's opening post would definitely add an interesting twist, and I think definitely put favor on the side on whoever has the most universe cards - unless of course they kill it with doubles.

But to be completely honest I have always found training cards to be much less utterly-useless than, say, basic universe cards. They give a +4 (which means suddenly a 1 can defend a heckuva lot of stuff) and also give you the option of 2 power types, so you have at least a 50% chance of your power card type aligning (rather than 25% with BU), and that percentage obviously increases greatly when you consider multi- and any-power power cards (though of course only the 5 any-power would be usable with a training card).

I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about the usefulness of training cards (particularly given the clear uselessness of BUs), but the fact is we're all going to draw doubles here and there anyway, and I think having one or two training cards is a nice way to break that up a little. My brother is very strict with never having any of these kinds of universe cards in his deck, but there have been numerous occasions on which my having that training card in my hand saved the battle for me. There are just so many ways this card can come in handy that you don't expect until the moment arrives, that I think having one or two in a deck is always a good idea.

Did no one else even think training cards are at least better than BUs?

[CCTelander]

I was also disappointed when my brother realized these cards were pretty much always a waste of a card in one's hand. The game mechanic suggested in this thread's opening post would definitely add an interesting twist, and I think definitely put favor on the side on whoever has the most universe cards - unless of course they kill it with doubles.

But to be completely honest I have always found training cards to be much less utterly-useless than, say, basic universe cards. They give a +4 (which means suddenly a 1 can defend a heckuva lot of stuff) and also give you the option of 2 power types, so you have at least a 50% chance of your power card type aligning (rather than 25% with BU), and that percentage obviously increases greatly when you consider multi- and any-power power cards (though of course only the 5 any-power would be usable with a training card).

I can't blame anyone for being skeptical about the usefulness of training cards (particularly given the clear uselessness of BUs), but the fact is we're all going to draw doubles here and there anyway, and I think having one or two training cards is a nice way to break that up a little. My brother is very strict with never having any of these kinds of universe cards in his deck, but there have been numerous occasions on which my having that training card in my hand saved the battle for me. There are just so many ways this card can come in handy that you don't expect until the moment arrives, that I think having one or two in a deck is always a good idea.

Did no one else even think training cards are at least better than BUs?

I can't really argue with your last comment.

However, in our environment BU, Training and Double Shots simply don't fill any role that can't be filled better by some other card.

They could be fun to mess around with, but we're not really interested in resurrecting them from their well-deserved grave.

If you like 'em, by all means have fun with 'em! We've just chosen not to bother.
Post Merge: July 22, 2011, 04:39:23 PM

Chris, is there another way to check the homemades in your website? I really love your work, but we have to open a link and then search for the cards wich are in the middle of the page and then search for another link to check another character. Maybe you could place a "next page" buttom just after the cards. 

I meant to ask you about this in an earlier post, but forgot.

Do you mean a link that would just take you to the next gallery in whatever set you were browsing? That woulkd be easy to do, but I'm not sure how much help it would be.

[Karmanal of Zert]

I certainly don't expect to change anyone's mind regarding the use of training cards, but I am highly curious as to what you're referring to when you say they "don't fill any role that can't be filled better by some other card". I'm not aware of any special or other type of card that would perform the same function but better, were you referring to a specific type(s) of card or did you just mean generally speaking it's better to have a different, better card in one's deck? My brother and I are equally strict in never having a single BU, ally, or double-shot card in our decks, but while he also abides by the strict no-trainings-rule, I do not. Just last night I was able to defend the initial (6) strike from a teamwork attack with a 2 energy which wound up giving me the battle (I still had a 6 or 7 in hand and had ventured more than one) and changed the momentum of the game so that for the first time I finally beat him with the decks we're currently playing with (him: Dr. Strange, Captain Mar-Vell, Omega Red, Morph [MC]; me: Brainiac, Riddler, Lex Luthor, Penguin). He's as strict as it seems everyone else here is about the use of trainings, so I figured I'd just point out that that didn't stop him from getting his butt whooped with a training card.  

[CCTelander]

I certainly don't expect to change anyone's mind regarding the use of training cards, but I am highly curious as to what you're referring to when you say they "don't fill any role that can't be filled better by some other card". I'm not aware of any special or other type of card that would perform the same function but better, were you referring to a specific type(s) of card or did you just mean generally speaking it's better to have a different, better card in one's deck? My brother and I are equally strict in never having a single BU, ally, or double-shot card in our decks, but while he also abides by the strict no-trainings-rule, I do not. Just last night I was able to defend the initial (6) strike from a teamwork attack with a 2 energy which wound up giving me the battle (I still had a 6 or 7 in hand and had ventured more than one) and changed the momentum of the game so that for the first time I finally beat him with the decks we're currently playing with (him: Dr. Strange, Captain Mar-Vell, Omega Red, Morph [MC]; me: Brainiac, Riddler, Lex Luthor, Penguin). He's as strict as it seems everyone else here is about the use of trainings, so I figured I'd just point out that that didn't stop him from getting his butt whooped with a training card. 

Okay, basically here's what I mean.

The purpose of BU, Training, and, to a more limited degree Double Shot Cards is to augment either an attack or a defensive action. But they only do so under limited circumstances, and with Double Shots the limitations are so severe as to render the cards completely useless.

If you need a BIG attack, you're always better off using a Special that acts as a big attack. If you need good defense, Avoids, Negates, regular Power Cards and level 0 Power Cards all do the job better and more efficiently than BU and Training Cards.

In your example you could have defended that initial Teamwork attack with an Avoid, saving your level 2 Energy PC to attack later. You could have used an "EB" coded Special avoiding ALL of the attack from that Teamwork and, having had the option of forcing your opponent to discard a Placed Teamwork if that had been to your advantage. You could have used a level 6 PC and again saved your off-ability Energy PC to attack later, possibly contributing to a Spectrum KO.

In every one of these cases and more you'd have been better off NOT using a Training card to augment your defense.

But hey, I'd never tell anyone not to use them if they get a kick out of them. If you like 'em, use 'em! We just consider them pointless, so we don't. At some point in the future we may decide that they'd be fun to play around with again, who knows?