Most of my gaming time these days revolves around board games. The fact that everything is self contained and nobody needs to bring anything to play is the most appealing aspect. Even if everyone had a deck made for a CCG, it can be stale playing the same matchup over and over again (especially if it's a non-interactive deck vs. a more straightforward deck, or a deck with a very strong advantage against whatever your friend happens to have). It seems to me that building and perfecting a single pet CCG deck is much more fun to use against a varied field in a "tournament environment" rather than just playing your buddy over and over again.
The first time I noticed that the board game kit mentality could be applied to a CCG was through the concept of a Magic Cube. In MTG, drafting is considered the most skill based format. Rather than constructing a deck with certain strengths and weaknesses, you have to do the best you can with what you're able to come up with on the fly. The only downside compared to constructed is that the power level is much lower. The best card in a given draft deck might not even worth playing at all in a constructed deck. Also, there's the same annoyance of "people need to bring stuff to play" since you need booster packs. A Cube gives you the best of both worlds: high powered, iconic cards that are fun to play, combined with the skill based elements of drafting - all in one convenient, infinitely replayable kit.
I tried to think of the best way to apply this to Overpower. Drafting in Overpower would be horrendous. Sealed deck tournaments were actually insanely fun, but I don't think the Cube setup would work with that either. So, the next best thing would be pre-constructed decks. The problem with this is that you don't really have a "complete" kit if you don't have enough decks to represent the entirety of the format - you'd just be a dude with a few decks for your friends to borrow. The current X-Men (or Marvels) format of OP is pretty wide open, even if you tried to streamline down to the very best of the best decks you are looking at 7 or 8 teams that need to be represented. That's too many, not to mention you'd need a lot of Beyonders, A-Next, 5 multi, etc for that "authentic" feel.
As far each era goes, you can break them down something like:
Original/Powersurge/Mission Control - strength was dominant but there are some really interesting decisions to make, this was the environment for the first ever Nationals (making multiple decks of this environment would be easy, and 3 or 4 decks would definitively cover all the top teams)
IQ/JLA era - this is probably the best format ever, but it is even more wide open than the X-Men era (though making multiples of each deck would be easy so it might not be out of the question to throw together 12-15 IQ/JLA era decks)
Monumental - while Marauders mirror matches can be extremely interesting/techy, I don't think anyone would choose this
Image/X-Men/Post April 1st errata - the current environment (as mentioned before, prohibitively expensive to make multiple decks and it would be difficult to capture the entire environment without making an obscene amount of decks)
So the two main candidates seem to be Mission Control format (the first nationals) and the IQ/JLA format (the 1998 regionals season). The only issue I have with choosing the IQ/JLA format is that there would be a lot of overlapping. Some may consider this a good thing (less variance in deck composition makes for more skill based play, ala poker). I really truly enjoyed some of the subtle tech decisions made in decks during this era...you may have had only one character different from your opponent, or used a different mission set, but these had huge implications on how matches played out. Furthermore, while multiple decks were viable at this time, it was obviously skewed more towards Intellect and Energy. The Mission Control era might do a better job of showcasing diversity between each different stat.
So taking that into account, I think I'm going to make a Mission Control era boardgame kit. It should be dirt cheap to put together, and if it proves to be a fun endeavor then it may be worth more fully exploring the idea of a 10-12 deck kit for the IQ/JLA era.
Anyway, for the Mission Control decks...I'm thinking 4 should do the trick. The super efficient Strength deck, the techy Fighting deck, a hard hitting Energy deck, and then a Wildcard deck. For the wildcard deck, I'd like it to feel very "modern." Playing more than 3 specials per character, criss crossing grids for powerful teamworks, maybe dabbling with Negates/EEs more...etc. For the older decks, I will resist the temptation to use modernized theories (like using multiple teammate avoid characters together) and try to capture what it felt like to be playing in 1996. ***Holy shit the first Nationals tournament was 15 years ago***
The level 8 stat characters:
Professor X, Magneto, Dr. Strange
Wolverine, Sabretooth, Domino
Hulk, Thing, Namor
Since characters die very quickly without Battlesites/defensive specials, powercards are infinitely more valuable than specials. Due to this, every 8 stat character is immensely playable, though some are obviously more powerful than others.
7-stat characters with good specials
Banshee, Iceman, Cyclops, Silver Surfer, Human Torch
Black Cat, Nightcrawler
Juggernaut, Blob
Some other characters of interest
Scarlet Witch, Ghost Rider, Daredevil, Psylocke, Rogue, War Machine, Morbius, Colossus, Scarlet Spider, Beast, Bishop, Cable, Sentinels
The alternate 7 strength characters all provide something interesting over Juggernaut, even if he is better on paper. Rogue's 9 is worlds harder to defend than Juggernaut's 8, and her 6 is comparable to Juggernaut's 7. Colossus and Morbius have personal avoids (so you may decide to slide Namor to Reserve and move up Thing with his avoid to reinforce the theme). Little changes like this make a big difference in the feel of your deck, at least in my opinion.
Specialists
Venom, Dr. Doom, Spider-Man, Iron Man
One of these will most likely be the glue of the wildcard deck....
So, just as a preliminary list, here is my current starting point for the four different decks:
Strength: Hulk, Namor, Juggernaut, Thing (R) - no events
Running this deck at 51 cards with Atlantis Attacks, Land Sea Air, Imperious Rex, Power Leap, Enraged, Battering Ram, Headbutt, Raze, and It's Clobbering Time as the only special cards is probably the best iteration of it. No basic universe cards, 5 less cards than the version that decides to run Infinity Gauntlet events...it is a brutally efficient Venture monster. There are still lots of tweaks that can be made though. A basic universe would let you defend 9 or higher attacks, giving you less venture but more defense. The 7 strength character slot is a matter of debate. You could run a second Battering Ram instead of Raze. You could drop Namor altogether. You could get new-school and try running Beast or Sentinel, and so on and so forth. This is still a good base for the marquee deck of the format though.
Atlantis Attacks, Land Sea Air, Imperious Rex, Power Leap, Enraged, Battering Ram, Headbutt, Raze, It's Clobbering Time, Death From Above, Guardian Angel, Gamma Terror, Webheaded Wizard, Confusion, 6s TWx2, 7s TWx2, 8s TWx2, E: 1112, F: 444, S: 555566667777788888, M: 22333
Fighting: Black Cat, Sabretooth, Nightcrawler, Domino - Age of Apocalypse
There are some tweaks that can be made to this too. You could run Wolverine frontline instead of Sabretooth, or Wolverine in reserve over Domino. You also have to decide if you want to be a "mini strength" deck - aka, efficiently running very few specials and trying to keep a maximum amount of Venture per hand. Alternatively, you could be more fancy and run multiple copies of useful specials, like Trick Transport (pre-errata). If you are trying to differentiate from just being a "slightly less average points to venture per turn than strength" and decide to run some less efficient but more defensive cards, Wolvie with his avoid should be the frontline character. Here's a preliminary build:
Kiss of Death, Bad Luck, Femme Fatale, Wildcat Attack x2, Vicious Teleport, Trick Transport, BAMF!, Tripwire, Guardian Angel, Gamma Terror, Webheaded Wizard, Confusion, Martyr for the Cause, Mutant Rebels Held Captive, 6f TW x2, 7f TW x2, 8f TW x2, Machine Gun, E: 22211, F: 888887777766665555, S: 3333, M: 4444211
Energy: Iceman, Silver Surfer, Banshee, Human Torch
There are a lot of ways to go with this. If you didn't want to dick around with deciding what breakdown of pure avoids and teammate avoids to play, you could drop Surfer for Cyke and run a special breakdown of: Shatter Shriek, Super Scream, Interpol Training, Ground Blast, Remove Visor, Wide Beam, Blood Chill, Sub Zero, Nova Burst.
Otherwise, you have to make some weird choices. Do you play a pure avoid and one teammate avoid for Surfer and Iceman? In that scenario you have two guaranteed dead cards for venture in the early game. Do you run more than one of Surfers teammate avoid figuring that Iceman is the bigger target? Do you run Banshee's avoid at all since he will be protected by two teammate avoids? Since this is a boxed set and your opponent will most likely know the contents of the deck (since he will have used it himself at some point!), taking a gamble on which sets of avoids to play seems bad. I love Cyclops in this environment, but for right now I'm looking at something like:
Shatter Shriek, Super Scream, Sonic Glide, Interpol Training, Blood Chill, Ice Armor, Sub Zero, Hailstorm, Power Cosmic, Force Shield, Double Power Blast, Energy Protection, Nova Burst.
I'd like to run this with Martyr for the Cause, so if you know a certain avoid or teammate avoid is coming up you can redirect their attacks to take advantage of it. Also that way you have Shatter Shriek vs. Fighting and Mutant Rebels Held Captive vs. Strength. Tough call overall though, having Cyke over Surfer and not running any avoids makes you a little more potent in terms of a fast 2 hit KO.
The Wildcard Deck
I am having the most fun thinking about this one. Just trying to go purely new school and seeing how it works under old sets, how about a frontline of Hulk, Beast, and Sentinels? With Analyze x3 and x3 Mastermold it could be interesting. Or maybe something using Nightcrawler with Trick Transport x3 and multiple Bamfs. Or, a very high to venture deck with Magneto, Wolverine, Hulk, and Iron Man. Speaking of Iron Man, I once saw a Venom deck win a 20 person tournament. The only way to overcome multiple single stat level 8 characters is to run a dual skill deck and hope that you can overrun them with different colored teamworks to win venture. The downside is, you have to do this quickly because as soon as someone dies you most likely won't have stat backups, so your unusuable discards start piling up. Maybe a dual skill deck based around Sentinel for more defense then? Or a dual skill deck with the aforementioned Nightcrawler setup. Trying to criss cross teammate avoids with an 8 stat character also seems worth trying, maybe something like Cable, Scarlet Spider, Magneto or Dr. Strange, and Prof X. in reserve. Pointwise, I'd have to think about what works with Galactus...but his teamworks could be overwhelming when paired with some new-school x3 defensive specials.
So, as you can see...a lot of variation and thought can go into this little box set with only 4 decks comprised of 15 or so usable character cards. At first thought, it might seem like "oh Mission Control era, slap together the strength deck and you're done." But really, there is a lot of room for creativity and some downright fun decks here, which hopefully will lead to a fun little mini-metagame and overall cool little project.
Please chime in with any commentary on my deck ideas, proposals of your own favorite/notable decks from this era, or any thoughts on the idea of Overpower as a board game overall!
This is an interesting idea. I was thinking the same thing actually (Overpower being like a board game now).
The Magic Cube is genious if you can make enough decks to hold a 20 person tournament. I was just thinking the other day about how fun the brief IQ-JLA era was, and how I'd like to play a tournament with only cards from JLA and previous sets. Though, there is something to be said about gunslinging your way through the rounds of a 100+ person tournament with your own constructed deck.
I can just imagine how fun it would be to "lotto" off the decks at the start of the tournament, kinda like the thrill of opening packs (you never know what you're going to get). I can say that some of the most fun I've ever had playing cards was in booster drafts, and sealed decks. The DC decks were so awful it was hilarious to play with them.
You have my vote for a JLA format cube!
Quote from: HotRod on January 26, 2011, 03:22:55 PM
I can just imagine how fun it would be to "lotto" off the decks at the start of the tournament
Or, consider how much fun this would be...
Say you have a list of 20 decks or so. Decks are nominated one at a time, with bids like "opponent starts with one completed mission and six reserve missions" or "I start with two defeated missions" and so on. You could even make the bidding more intricate, like "opponent may keep duplicate specials for X turns" or "my teamworks receive no bonuses for the entire game."
So, when the killer decks are up for auction, you'll really have to decide how much you're willing to give up in order to get it. In the JLA environment, I'm already imagining how much I would bid in order to get my hands on the mirror match breaking Batman Detective deck...
This system would also let some lesser powered decks with cool characters be used too. You might not want to run Captain America, Nightcrawler, Invisible Woman, and Sabretooth against some of the powerhouse JLA era lineups like Fantastic/Sinister/Dark Beast/Red Skull or Prof X/Scarlet Witch/White Queen/Magneto...but what if you started with an extra card in your hand the first two turns? Or what if you began with a mission in your completed pile and a defeated mission for you opponent? Now it becomes more interesting...
I really like that bid idea, it reminds me of Axis&Allies tournament play.
Would the bid be every game though? Like, each match you get to select a new deck? Or would you get locked in for the tournament based on the deck ranking? Lets say the top tier intellect deck starts with a mission in the defeated pile at the start of every game?
For A&A the bid is to see who plays what, so you can offer an extra 5 IPC or whatever to the other team to let you select your preference for that game.
You would stick with the deck/handicap you bid for the entire tournament, so it would work best with a larger amount of people. I guess if you wanted to only play with a few people you could predetermine what the bonuses/drawbacks to each team would be in advance. The easiest way to do this would be to weight average venture per turn and have the stronger decks start with some missions in defeated based on that. Anyway once you had the predetermined drawbacks, you could switch up decks frequently after each game if you were just playing against one or two people.
I took a stab at making a character ranking list for the JLA people, and boy is there a lot of wiggle room there. Once you get past the obvious top tier, there are like 30 characters I'd consider worth using.
Still though, I know some of you played during the 3-stat days and have some cool decks from that era to tell me about!
I like where you're going with the idea... but rather than make decks that are effective 'OverPower' teams, why not assemble teams of heroes based on comic book alliances? Characters who would logically work together. Since the idea is that teams are pre-packaged, you can create a nice variety and even mix up the grids a little bit (so long as all the different teams are balanced overall, screwy grids could be a fun wildcard.) Since you are spending the time to decide on the decks, you can give every team it's own advantages and disadvantages.
I'm not keen on the idea of 'bidding' but being assigned a random pre-built team would be a fun idea for sure. As you say, like sealed deck tournaments. I'd feel more comfortable as a player if I knew all the decks were carefully constructed for equality and balance. Perhaps if every team was designed to have one 8 Stat Character, two 7 stats and one 6 stat character, as well as following a theme of some kind so there's logic to the team itself context wise.
Context is especially important when luring in new players who don't care about mechanics, and are only interested in the Characters.
@ HotRod - I was thinking if our Toronto meetups gather momentum and warrant regular tournaments, then we'd do an ALL DC/JLA day. Possibly even an ALL pre-IQ Marvel day. Stuff like that to shake things up.
First tournament would obviously be anything goes, but it might be fun to do theme days.
-BBH
@ onslaught - this idea seems pretty cool. after you assemble all of the decks and get everything ironed out would you mind sending me an email detailing what you did? I know that's asking a lot from you, but I can't feasibly travel to Toronto (not anytime soon, anyway), but there are enough players in our circuit, as well as more than enough necessary cards, to make it happen, and I would love to try it out with our group.
Also, I never played OP back in the day, but my brother ncannelora did. But when we first started playing again in '07/'08 we only had my brother's cards and insight to go from, so we played 3stat only, and most of that from OOP/PS. As a matter of fact, it was about four months or so before we even go into MC, and another few months after that before we even really got into IQ and everything after that.
That being said, one of my favorite decks from our own early days was an X-Men team featuring Cyclops, Wolverine, Beast, and Bishop (R). Now, I played this team for any number of reasons, but most of it came down to A) they are some of my favorites, B) there was a period where my brother was sharing his cards with me, and C) the extra power cards he had largely dictated what possible combination of teams I could make. This team I remember being pretty good, what with Cyke's AR and Ground Blast (the original super special!), Wolverine's 8stat and Wounded Animal, Bishop's ridiculous offense, and Beast's Biochemist. That's right, in the early days we valued a heal special over a negate! Or at least I did.
Gradually this team shifted as I began my own collection and started buying PS and MC cards. I think one of my most consistent teams pre-IQ was something like Cyclops, Iceman, Banshee, and Jean Grey (R). It offers excellent offense from all four, and featured some good defense as well, both from everyone's personal avoid as well as Iceman's Hail Storm. As a matter of fact, this team had a ridiculous win/loss record in our group because it was one of the first teams any of us constructed that was suited and to great effect. Before that we would assemble teams according to various logic, but we never really had a focus on one power type over another. And if I remember correctly, my brother Josh followed suit and constructed his own suited team, it was strength I believe, that obliterated mine, and this started a chain of focused team-building.
Anyway, just thought I'd share some of insight from our own "early days of OP".
That energy lineup you posted is pretty killer and was one of the cooler niche decks back in the day, so kudos for coming up with it on your own in a vacuum. I really go back and forth on which old school energy deck I like better, the Cyke version or the Surfer version. The whole point of the energy deck is to try to get some boom boom dead hits off before you get overwhelmed by your lack of an 8 stat. Cyclops with remove visor gives you three frontline cards that can do a two hit KO, while the combination of Surfer and Iceman gives you a little more defense. Surfer also has the 4e combine to make an 11, but you'd need another one of your OPDs to get a "two turn KO" (vs. Remove Visor which can be followed up with 7s any hero, Cyke 7f, or a 7e powercard for KO). Tough call!
Another deck I've been looking at recently:
Punisher, Deadpool, Daredevil, Carnage
Now back in the day I would have dismissed this as a crappy deck with no purpose. Specials wise, this is true - it uses things that are strictly worse versions of other existing characters. However, if you actually go back and look at the old grids, it's actually pretty hard to get your non-primary stats to align nicely. If you want to use non-multipower level 4 powercards, you'd have to run a lineup like this. It's also easy to forget just how hard blocking a 6 is. These grids allow you to consistently make off-color sixes for teamwork followups, which makes spectrum KO much more viable. Even though these characters were chosen for their grids, the specials also compliment each other nicely as a sort of "mini energy deck." Fighting decks were normally based around venture efficiency (sorta like a "mini strength deck" but with more tricks), so it's cool to see one that has big hitting specials and a grid oriented to spectrum KO. Punisher and Deadpool can both make 11 E/F attacks, while Daredevil's 9 can finish them off.
The theme of this deck isn't bad either, they're all pretty gritty characters.
The bidding could be changed to a handicap/penalty type thing with a list of the decks and thier corresponding preamble.
@ BBH - Hell, I'd be happy with a JLA and earlier sets event (just so I can play Superman again). :P
What about a frontline of cable, iceman, and surfer giving everyone a teammate avoid. I know this is more of a modern style deck, which would be used in a older format. But i would be real interested to see how modern stategies would work in older formats.
That's an interesting frontline, and it makes me wonder even more how some of the more modern deckbuilding ideas would have worked back in the day. I guess we'll find out when this little project gets into the testing phase! I really think Nightcrawler with 3 Bamf 3 Trick Transport in unison with Sentinel and an 8 stat char will cause huge problems, we'll see though.
Also regarding the issue of "Cyke vs. Silver Surfer," I have a new compromise. Drop Human Torch, move Banshee to the reserve, and run a frontline of Cyke, Surfer, Iceman. You lose Banshee's discard all fighting icon, but it's the only way to run Cyke with the Surfer/Iceman "cover each others teammate avoid" tandem. Losing access to an 11 seems kind of crappy though...I guess it still comes down to Cyke/Banshee/Iceman (without teammate avoid)/Human Torch (R) vs. Banshee, Iceman (with teammate avoid), Surfer (with teammate avoid), Human Torch (R). I guess it can't hurt to test the build with Banshee in reserve though.
--------------------------------
Now for some miscellaneous lab work:
Comparison of the 19 pointers:
(http://overpower.ca/cards/characters/149.jpg)
Specials to consider: Avoid, 4e AA, 8m, Draw 1 keep dupe, Discard 5
(http://overpower.ca/cards/characters/85.jpg)
Specials to consider: 4e AA, Draw 1 keep dupe, -6 to venture
(http://overpower.ca/cards/characters/277.jpg)
Specials to consider: 4f AA, 4f combine w/ strength, Avoid, Target Can't Attack, Taunt
(http://overpower.ca/cards/characters/313.jpg)
Specials to consider: 4s AA, 4s combine w/ energy, Avoid, Discard placed universe, Target Can't Attack
So the first thing to notice is that they all have an AA in their biggest stat. The reason I mention that these might be worthwhile is that they will most likely be the glue to a deck of rainbow stats, so your power cards might be diverse enough that running a main stat AA might be OK. All of them except Doom have Avoids, but the more I think about it the more I envision these 19 point characters as coming up from the reserve. After all, their main strength lies in the grid, so you probably want them backing up teamworks instead of playing stuff frontline. As reservists, they all have an obvious OPD as their best card.
Venom and Spidey are worth considering frontline due to their AE specials. They are basically unblockable, but they would require being paired with energy characters (Venom) or strength characters (Spidey). I don't like running avoids in this format unless the entire frontline can do it, so Venom might actually be able to use his depending on which energy characters he is paired with. Spidey's Taunt seems legit, as sometimes I run Savage Land in these decks.
Spider-Man, Hulk, Cyclops, Black Widow (R) - Over the Edge, Taunt, Web, Enraged, Power Leap, Remove Visor, Wide Beam, Ground Blast, Defense Tactics, Avenging Agent
Venom, Prof X., Deadpool, Thing (R) - Rampage, Alien Symbiote, Creepy Crawler, Symbiotic Snare, Read Mind, Psionic Hold, Telepathic Coordination, Bushwack x2, Killing Machine, Assassin, It's Clobberin' Time
Nightcrawler, Magneto, Blob, Iron Man (R) - Vicious Teleport, Bamf!, Trick Transport, Power Flux, Paralyze Opponent, Blubber Block, Heavy Hitter, Sumo Slam, Heat Seeking Missile
Hrmph, there's a lot of room to play around here...I'm really liking this format. One thing that worried me a little when I started doing a few test hands against myself is that I might be too jaded as a more experienced player. That is to say, when I reminisce about this format, I always make sure to acknowledge the "wow, COOL!" factor of each skill type's unique abilities. Like, I remember at a tournament hearing someone say "the specials in this energy deck are just out of this world. 11, 10, 13....are you kidding me?!" or an Iron Man player telling his friend about his perfect turn of four teamworks. I think it would be easy to just take that kind of stuff for granted now, "ho hum I drew some big attacks, whatever" - but actually trying to play this era at a higher level has just given me more appreciation for how cool it was. So, I know one day I'll be looking back on this post to try to glean some info for this project: note to future self - don't take the differentiation of the decks for granted, and don't let repeated use of these old cards allow them to feel plain/normalized!
I think my list of noteworthy characters could even use some updating, I think Punisher and Deadpool are real candidates just because of their AEs. I think I've also underrated Colossus (his OPD makes something unblockable) and War Machine (only character in the game who can kill someone in one attack phase - AA into AE). Speaking of AE, anyone who can get one up to a 7 is worth considering. Maybe a team of all AEs that use the same kind of powercard to combine? Lots of ideas flowing!
On a side note, I really want the Hillshire Farms version of Spidey and Venom hero cards. Anyone wanna trade/sell? I actually have an entire trade list to make if anyone is interested.
My take on the Max-7E variant (i like the double power blast and remove visor attacks as alternates to torches 11)
BOARD GAME OVERPOWER: Iceman, Banshee, Silver Surfer, Cyclops®
BY TYPE:
Specials-20
Any-hero: Confusion, Death from Above , Gamma Terror, Guardian Angle
Iceman: Blood Chill, Hail Storm x2, Ice Armor, Sub-Zero
Banshee: Shatter Shriek, Sonic Glide, Super Scream, Vocal Hypnosis
Surfer: Double Power Blast, Energy Protection x2, Force Field, Power Cosmic
Cyclops: Remove Visor, Wide Beam
Power cards: 28
E-5555,6666,7777
F-11,22,33
S-11,22,33
MP-4444
Universe:7
Teamwork: 6Ex2, 7Ex2
Basic Universe: 6E+3, 7E+3
Training:<=5F/S+4
MISSION SET: AoA
Events: 2
Mutant Rebels Held Captive!, Rebel Forces Regroup
TOTAL: 57
Nice deck. I'm still grappling with the decision to play Banshee in reserve or to drop Human Torch.
Seeing your decklist with 4 multipower x4 reminds me of something. When I played some other CCGs around age 19 or 20, I had reached a point where card ownership was more of an annoyance instead of a hobby. I would often just borrow cards for whatever deck I was using at a tournament, or just buy them from a singles store online at the last minute after testing the deck online in Apprentice or whatever. There was no glory or fun to be had from acquiring cards and putting the deck together and such.
But when I see your list with four copies of a level 4 multipower, it reminds me how much different it was back then. I remember trading for the final (rare) four multipower card I needed to have enough to play as many as I wanted in any of my decks. The pride of ownership back then was a lot different from what players of modern CCGs might feel. Trading was probably much more fun back when it was ESSENTIAL to acquiring cards, as compared to today where there are probably very few trades. Also, we didn't have the option of just hopping online and paying a fairly market standardized price for singles. Instead of just making a few clicks and completing a deck, we really had to slave over it back in those days, so when YOUR deck was done it was just really satisfying to have it all compiled.
I dunno, just kind of a weird feeling to describe I guess. On a side note, I am also reminded of how much more fun it is to play in real life than it is to play online. As mentioned above, as I got older I would never attend weekly local tournaments. Online play was convenient for testing, but it isn't nearly as fun as face to face interaction. Most of all, I think the tactile pleasure of just shuffling some sleeved cards and snapping them down into play and stuff is really fun.
For Overpower, a game so steeped in bluffing and mind reading, playing face to face really can't be matched by anything else.
Quote from: Onslaught on January 30, 2011, 06:41:09 AM
I dunno, just kind of a weird feeling to describe I guess. On a side note, I am also reminded of how much more fun it is to play in real life than it is to play online. As mentioned above, as I got older I would never attend weekly local tournaments. Online play was convenient for testing, but it isn't nearly as fun as face to face interaction. Most of all, I think the tactile pleasure of just shuffling some sleeved cards and snapping them down into play and stuff is really fun.
For Overpower, a game so steeped in bluffing and mind reading, playing face to face really can't be matched by anything else.
Sing it sister!
I'm the same way with poker. I love to play poker, but I never play online. It's got to be in person, face to face, otherwise what's the point? But at least with poker I can find people almost any time I want.
OverPower not so much. Even if I find and teach new players, they are nowhere near my level. Finding experienced players who can give me a run for my money has been fun this past while. I have one regular playing partner and we strive to meet up once a month or so, but even that doesn't compare to an environment where you have a multitude of players with different playing styles.
Jack's online OP program should be awesome, though, at least for getting our East vs. West thing going. (Assuming we don't plan any trips). ;)
-BBH
perhaps the ability to face time via web cams during the game? I realize it can't compare to in game but even if you can see your opponents face it can make a difference in how you play your cards. Most laptop computers come with webcams built in...
Quote from: Onslaught on January 30, 2011, 06:41:09 AM
Seeing your decklist with 4 multipower x4 reminds me of something. When I played some other CCGs around age 19 or 20, I had reached a point where card ownership was more of an annoyance instead of a hobby. I would often just borrow cards for whatever deck I was using at a tournament, or just buy them from a singles store online at the last minute after testing the deck online in Apprentice or whatever. There was no glory or fun to be had from acquiring cards and putting the deck together and such.
Man, too true. I got the same way about cards at the same age. When I first got into Yu-Gi-Oh (2003) I bought a couple boxes, but after that I would only buy singles. Maybe this happens to everyone? I think it either starts to become less about the cards but more about the big-gaming, or perhaps in this day and age it's easier to see cards, so there isn't any mythos to the cards themselves.
I also remember as a kid wanting a mythical "Power Leech" when IQ came out, as well as a Superman's "The Man Beyond Tomorrow" 11, and The Ray hero plus his "In A Blaze Of Power" 9. Good times!
I can totally relate to that. Back in the mid-90s I knew nothing about any cards I didn't have. I remember when I found a checklist for the original set I remember being so excited that I actually knew the names of the cards I was missing.
With the internet that's completely gone, and that's sad.
I've been tinkering with a new deck concept for a few days now, and I think I've finally found the optimal lineup. Playing the Mission Control format these last few days has been fascinating, and really changed the way I think about the game. Is it better than current OP? Absolutely not. Is current OP better than Mission Control? Again, no. They're just different. Both formats contain all the defining gameplay elements that make Overpower what it is: bluffing, prediction, wagering skills, your ability to properly analyze (and attempt to dictate) tempo on the fly, etc. Mission Control makes you do this mostly through powercards, with your "X factor" being a few gaudy specials; while modern OP makes you do it through the way your character's special cards interact with each other, with your "X factor" usually being events/battlesite effects. Mission Control has less options than modern Overpower, so it is more streamlined or "simple." However, please note that simple does NOT mean dumbed down - for an explanation of this, check out the concept of subtractive design (http://www.sirlin.net/articles/subtractive-design.html).
Anyway, this deck is pretty neat. If you break down decks of this era into specialists (lots of loner characters without stat backups) vs. single skill decks, you get some subdivisions that look something like "teamwork based vs. 8 stat based vs. special card based." The special card based decks tend to be a little higher concept than the 8 stat based decks, though both have somewhat similar goals.
The strength deck wants to KO your characters very quickly, but it wants to do this as a path to winning by venture. It wins by venture far more than by KO, because a) it forces you to have unusuable discards since it kills your characters so fast, b) it can let characters die and continue having low duplicates, c) the combination of a and b allow it to play a list that has no frivolous cards since it has no need for "tricks" or "tech."
The energy deck wants to KO your characters very quickly as well, but it wants to do this as a path to winning by KO. With the right draws, it can and will kill two characters on the first turn of the game. Of course, it can still win by venture if you are conceding to save your characters, but with proper venturing this can be mitigated.
So, what does all this rambling mean? Generally, attack specials are more valuable to a deck trying to win by venture than they are to decks trying to win by KO. There are a few special cards that really break the mold though. I think the best example of this is Telepathic Coordination. You can afford to bet huge with this card because you are guaranteed to crush them that turn. It doesn't matter how many extra cards they gain from your bet if you are getting multiple guaranteed KOs. So instead of KO leading to a venture win, you are getting more bang for your buck from your attacking specials by posing a dual threat. It might just be that this format relies heavily on "good attacks lead to quick KOs which leads to good venture" moreso than other formats since it's so fast. I think I've kind of lost my original point here, so I'll just go ahead and get to the new deck now.
Without further ado, the devourer of worlds himself has shown up in this old (new) metagame:
(http://i.imgur.com/vsHZH.png)
So, like I mentioned in an earlier post in the thread, multi-skill decks can win venture in the earlier turns because they have more teamworks than the single stat decks. The level 6 attack from a teamwork is a huge amount of points to venture in this format. This deck kind of takes that idea to the extreme, running running sixteen teamworks (E: 887766, F: 87766, S: 87766) and not very many specials. I started off the concept of the deck based on the aforementioned "Telepathic Coordination is an amazing glue card" and went from there. I've been meaning to try out Galactus anyway, and Telepathic Coordination just happens to be on an 11 point character to help balance out his 24 point cost. It's a very vulnerable deck, but it's consistent and plays vastly different from what the other standard decks of this environment can offer.
We'll see how much it wins after some testing.
Galactus has so much potential. Sure, he has no specials, but being able to operate 9 TEAMWORKS(!!!) is pretty hefty.
That seems an interesting team, I'm curious as to how well it fares.
-BBH
The Galactus deck lost its first game, but it was a rudimentary list and I can see how much potential it has now. Since it has such a low special card count, I tried playing it similar to my other deck with low specials (Punisher Deadpool Carnage Daredevil). In that deck, I really don't care if somebody dies since they all can play every card in the deck except for 2 specials per character, so I rarely block and I'm more focused on trading hits. In theory, KOing their characters hurts them more than having my characters KOed, since I should have less unusable discards.
So with this deck, no character has more than two exclusive cards. I figured I could use it the same way, letting people die fairly easily if I didn't have any exclusive cards left in my hand for the battle. The difference is, the Punisher deck will continue having no unusable cards down to the very last character. In the Galactus deck, after the second character dies you are going to have tons of unusable discards. So, I played it a little wrong, but now I see that you need a mix of both strategies. Letting the game go to the powerpack was horrendous, as I had very small hands each turn while shedding unusables. This deck wants to take more of a midrange approach - abuse the early redundancy by trading hits judiciously, and make sure to target their character that has had the least specials shown. I may want to kill Iceman more than Silver Surfer, but if two Iceman specials come up first turn then I have to switch things up. Ideally, you can agressively trade hits in the early game, then overwhelm them in the mid game with your continued stream of teamworks. You should be in a good position to do this since your traded hits in the early game will always be big hits to venture from the teamworks. With some agressive venturing and a "now or never" approach in the mid game, you should be able to prevent a lategame situation - which is where the deck flounders.
Galactus decks are pretty kewl. It's too bad they never got the 4 stat version out the door.
This actually looks like a proto Beyonder deck of sorts. I can see the powercards being a bit weird if Galactus gets powered down early. I'm not sure how good the Black Cat opd's are agains't non strength decks of this format, maybe Captain America would help Galactus survive a bit longer if that's a problem.
Actually that's an amazing suggestion, especially since my Black Cat cards are already tied up in the fighting deck anyway. Nice!
Quote from: Onslaught on February 02, 2011, 11:33:46 PM
Actually that's an amazing suggestion, especially since my Black Cat cards are already tied up in the fighting deck anyway. Nice!
Thanks!
I figure that Black Cat is only there for her strength leech, the 3 is kinda gimicky, it will always hit against the strength deck, but it's only worth 3 venture. Her only fighting CD isn't bad, but I wouldn't be attacking her over Galactus, followed by Prof. With metagaming, Capt's 1-9 is pretty solid versus the strength deck setup, you can block all of thier big specials except Clobberin' Time, but Thing is usually in reserve. Also since you only have a single 1-9er on the team, if you have a 1-9 placed on said character, they will probbaly be taking most of the heat. Last but not least of course, the deck should run a lot more consistent plus play stronger against the fighting deck.
Just my thoughts on the matter!
So as I get closer and closer to completing this project (just missing some old multipowers, a few higher level powercards, and other easy to acquire things), I've been planning all the little peripheral details. Which kind of sleeves to use, the type of box to store it in, and so on. One thing I wanted to be sure to make was a pamphlet in order to kind of tie the whole box together. In a way, I was very worried that playing with older decks on a frequent basis would hurt the "legendary" feeling of them. For example, I still think of the energy deck's plethora of gigantic attacks with some degree of reverence, and it could become very easy to take that for granted with repeated use. "Oh ho-hum, I drew two level 11 attacks first turn again." So in order to prevent that feeling, I wanted to mythologize the decks by giving little blurbs for context and what it actually felt like to play against them at the time. Hopefully this little pamphlet (which will be laminated and fit into the final boxed set) will help preserve the original feelings towards these "museum display" decks. A lot of the text right now is just a placeholder, so please forgive the grammatical errors and wonky formatting. I'll probably gussy up the final version too, as the visual layout right now is a little bland.
(http://i.imgur.com/eZqnB.jpg)
I think that looks great! It really draws a person in!
So, thanks to an e-bay tip from CoS, I was able to track down one of the finishing touches for this project.
(http://i.imgur.com/Ei4zil.jpg)
It's a little worn down, but not bad considering it's 16 years old. All four of the decks fit in perfectly.
(http://i.imgur.com/HQ6Qel.jpg)
Here's all the hero cards for the four teams
(http://i.imgur.com/uwaPkl.jpg)
Here are the freshly sleeved decks
(http://i.imgur.com/JKY0ll.jpg)
Also, as long as I had my deckboxes out I figured I might as well take some shots of what I currently have put together
(http://i.imgur.com/cKQ56l.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/SzHUXl.jpg)
Bonus picture of my deckbox for normal decks. I will be really sad when this thing finally falls to pieces since it fits two Overpower decks perfectly
(http://i.imgur.com/ySSIAl.jpg)
Anyway, this project is almost 100% done now. I've finalized the pamphlet from the previous post, so once that is printed and laminated and I acquire just a few remaining cards (some Powersurge 4 multis, various Any Heroes), it's all done!
Man, that's so awesome the 4 decks fit perfectly into one of those old Overpower boxes. I remember wanting one of those boxes back in the day but I never got around to finding one. Though, 2 Ultra Pro sleeve boxes duct taped together with 4 beyonders on the outside worked alright!
The choice of Assualt on Onslaught is interesting for that Cable deck. I really like the Captain America in the Any Hero deck, his personal avoid is rather good in a metagame sense.
I remember seeing one of those Darth Vader boxes way back. Did they come with cards from that old Dechiper ccg? Or with movies?
I'm pretty sure it's from a starter deck for the Decipher version of the game. There's a bunch of other ones too, like a green Yoda one or blue Luke.
QuoteI really like the Captain America in the Any Hero deck, his personal avoid is rather good in a metagame sense.
It's funny that you mention that, because it's so true. At first glance the lineup might look a little silly since Captain America is sort of bland, and having teammate avoids is always preferable in pairs instead of just a huge target (such as your only 8 stat character) running them. But, Cap is actually the only 8 fighting character with an avoid that also has enough playable cards to be put on a frontline without struggling to get to 56 cards. Of course, pure avoids are normally pretty mediocre, but they are viable for people like Cap or Prof X if they are your only 8 stat character. When you factor in Cap's teammate avoids, you can really create some difficult guessing games for the opponent if you are good at concealing what you may have in your hand each turn.
Since the aim of the deck was to pair the two best 7F characters with an 8F character (it's too common to see them put with Spawn or H4H), Cap actually fills out the deck perfectly for what it's trying to do. 20 point characters are kind of rare too, so I love it when a 16 pointer can offset a 20 and a 21 when the opportunity comes up.
Haha, yeah, I meant Decipher (dyslexia ftl).
But ya, now that you mention it I remember seeing those yoda boxes too. There was a slim box people used as well, with MTG stuff on it, I think it was black?
I actually found my uncles old fighting deck completely unchanged from mid 1997. It was: Captain America - Nightcrawler - Wonder Woman
Hawkeye
I swapped Wonder Woman out (she had numericals) for Zealot, plus I took Capt's personal avoids out.. and the deck completely stopped working. Apparently people knew what they were doing in 1997!
That deck looks a lot like one of my favorite JLA era decks:
Captain America, Nightcrawler, Invisible Woman, 3 Stat Sabretooth
For whatever reason, I was just so enamored with that frontline. Nightcrawler was a mini-Spawn, so he was natural to put in most fighting decks. Then, you have Invisible Woman backing up the Cap 6I and Nightcrawler 6E. At age 14 or whatever I was when I used this team, I just thought it was so cool to be like "heh, yeah that's right I'm putting Invisible Woman in a FIGHTING deck even though she only has a 4 fighting. Deal with it."
Speaking of JLA era decks, ideally the next project will be to put together a 4 deck kit for the JLA environment. Like I said earlier, I could never make one for the X-men era because there would have to be way too many decks to provide an accurate snapshot of how many builds are viable (not to mention needing to acquire an additional 5+ copies of DoW and Beyonder). However, JLA can probably be explored in just four decks, and the only high cost repeating card would be Leech.
The candidates for that one will be:
-Intellect Team
There are lots of permutations of these, all stemming from the skeleton of (choose 2 from): Sinister, Fantastic, Neron, Luthor and (choose 2 from): Robin, Beast, Dark Beast, Red Skull. The most common one to place highly in regionals was the Mr./Mr. combination with Dark Beast and Robin, but they were all good. One of the more clever ones decided to pass on a negate in exchange for a mini combo - Robin's "teammate make an attack at +2" with Red Skull and Neron's "6 if successful discard 2." This wasn't as stable as the others, but an 8 was really hard to block if they didn't have a negate. Luthor was the reserve for this one.
-Energy/Intellect Team
This was the best archetype when IQ came out, and a lot of people felt that it still was even in the JLA format. In IQ you would see Dr. Strange and White Queen used a fair amount in order to keep with a strict stat backup, but by this time you were much more likely to see Scarlet Witch. Magneto (both IQ and original), Onslaught, Brainiac, Professor X, Scarlet Witch (and Holocaust to an extent), Dr. Strange, and White Queen are the characters to consider here.
-Fighting/Intellect Team
Much like the use of White Queen and Dr. Strange, these decks originally had some rigid inclusions of Daredevil and Black Widow to go with Captain America. Since redundancy in grids is such a minor consideration for modern deck building (thanks to anypower power cards and stronger defense), it seems funny to think that you would include weaker characters solely because they were a dual stat character in the color you wanted. That's just how it was though. I'll probably end up going with the Invisible Woman team posted above.
-Energy/Strength Team
This will be be the weakest of the bunch, but it's worth mentioning. Trish Yue somehow won a regional (I think it was in Canada) using an energy/strength deck, and it was somewhat popular just because (once again!) the grids aligned so "perfectly." Holocaust, Superman, Eradicator, Parasite, etc. would be the characters to look at for this deck. If I were to make a strength deck for this environment using modern hindsight, it would probably just be an updated version of the one that's already in the other board game set: Juggernaut, Hulk, Thing, and Doomsday I guess. This deck is probably a little better than the Energy/Strength team, but still inferior to the other three so I might as well stick with the one that was more historically well known.
Potential Wildcards - Since energy and intellect were the strongest icons, there were a few hybrids you could make that didn't focus on having multiple dual stat characters (maybe just one to tie the deck together). Stuff like Mr. Fantastic paired with Professor X, or using someone like Robin in an Onslaught deck. These were all neat, but they aren't historically relevant enough to include in a project that has limited space. Plus, the Cap/Inivsible Woman deck sorta covers the base of "whoa slow down, your stats aren't all backed up multiple times!" I've made a mental note to make reference to decks like these in the eventual pamphlet that I'll make to include in the box with the decks.
This breakdown actually works out nicely. Each icon is the primary stat for one deck, and the only non dual-stat deck (intellect) is represented the minor stat in two of the other decks. Since everybody was so obsessed with dual stat decks when IQ/JLA came out, this is actually a really accurate representation of what you could expect to play against during this time period. I think that is the best part of these board game kits - when you look at them from afar they are little time capsules of what each era was like.
Haha, man I did almost the same thing after I pulled an 8A in a pack: Captain America - Spawn - Invisible Woman
3 stat Spider Woman
Good times indeed!
I think I vaguely remember that tournament. I spent more time destroying Metro Hall with her youngest daughter (can't remember her name) than I did playing overpower, but I did beat Tyler Betrand before he was Tyler Bertrand, haha! That was also the tournament Cathy Probe gave me a stack of 25ish Beyonders, and a stack of the Hideout Discovered! any mission.
My dad had the intellect deck of that era. I can't remember if it was a Mr./Mr. with Dark Beast and Robin, or if it had Doom or Neron. He did beat Cherie Briggs with it at the Canada vs U.S.A match, he put in a Brilliant Deduction at the last minute just for her if I remember correctly, and when he played it she freaked (he removed all of her 8's and crushed her in the power pack).
The decks I remember the most from that time used a lot of energy characters, such as: The Ray, The Flash, Superman, Prof X, Magneto, White Queen, Doc Strange, Scarlet Witch, Holocaust, Onslaught, Banshee, Human Torch, Invisible Woman, Sentinels and Shadowcat. After that initial energy bonanza people started going with intellect and fighting.
It was really an awesome time for the game now that I think back on it. There was just so many playable characters after JLA came out.
Yeah I'm dumb for forgetting The Ray, here is the best JLA Energy deck that doesn't put an emphasis on intellect:
Ray, Prof X, Holocaust, Onslaught
I remember that deck, I had a deck with 3 of those minus Prof X, I can't recall who I had in there instead of him.
There was also the really annoying Onslaught lock decks with Invisible Woman and/or Blue Beetle, NightCrawler and some other placeholder. I only played those decks a few times but I wasn't very amused afterwards.
Getting close to finished now...
(http://i.imgur.com/Jikfy.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/a2dni.jpg)
(http://i.imgur.com/Dotn3.jpg)
Wow. That's looking really nice. I was actually taking pictures of some of the early promo sheets tonight and all you need in there is Spiderman's hand and you'll have captured the look of the early days:
(http://i1102.photobucket.com/albums/g443/thenorrin_radd/op2.jpg)
Haha, look at Spidey holding hero cards in his hand, that's not how you use them Pete! Unless...he knew about activators in advance...(http://i.imgur.com/Z2CeP.gif)
That image reminds me how attractive the retail displays were. I'm not even sure if CCGs even have little pop up images on booster boxes anymore.
Dude! Venom was a 1-5-6 ???