Welcome to the first episode of Team Attack, the unofficial podcast for Upper Deck Games. In our first episode we talk about a few cards from the new VS Aliens release and introduce ourselves.

There are many who are for a ban or at minimum a drastic change of Thanos MC, but there are still those who oppose the banning. There have been several arguments for and against the banning and each side has their own valid reasons. There have been a plethora of suggestions on how to deal with the Thanos issue including banning him, errata for the card, changing the ruling on goblin tokens, and changing how the Top 8 is determined. All of these methods have their own merits and flaws. The question is, what should be done?

Alien Battles will be releasing this week and the majority of OP (Organized Play) Kit tournaments have already been run, but before the second wave of OP Kits arrives at our local game store, I'd like to give you my review on the first OP Kit.

Please excuse the disorganized nature of the following, it is a bit of an internal ramble.

So we have ALN-027 as the first Alien MC shown so far which lines up with the first of the second factions MCs from the first two small expansion sets. Assuming 4 MCs per faction and two levels of each MC, the numbers would be:

First off, let's look at the stats. A 2/5 with 6 health is not terrible, but not having flight or range makes this card a hard sell. Other aliens that have been spoiled don't have ranged or flying either, so it is staying on theme. I was hoping The Queen would have Grab at the very least but she seems to have an all in strategy. I'm excited to see her level 2 stats to help further evaluate how strong The Queen will be.

The Dragon is from the Alien 3 movie for those who have seen it or would like to get more of a backstory on this character. With me not wanting to spoil the movie for you, I'll let you go look that up on your own if you wish.

This 5 cost Xenomorph brings a world of headaches onto your opponent turn after turn. With the cards spoiled so far from The Alien Battles set, we have seen the highly aggressive nature of the alien faction to which this card is no exception. My fear with the Alien faction was that with the cards spoiled, many have 1 defense and 1 health. The faction needs something that that sticks on the board and remains as a constant threat otherwise it would likely "run out of gas" later in the game. This card remedies that issue by being the attacker that keeps on attacking.

The age old question in card games is whether it is more beneficial to play first or draw first. Due to the differences in certain games and how decks work, it can be advantageous to do one or the other by getting more cards or having some sort of handicap for playing first.

Thanos is the boogeyman of the format. There are a few different ways to build him and each have their advantages and disadvantages. Regardless of the build, he is usually a force to be reckoned with. Often players talk about him needing a ban, but recently a few more decks have been able to fairly consistently take down "The Mad Titan". With all of these new decks running around, is the mad titan still relevant and a powerhouse? Yes he is.

Today we will look at an alternate build for Thanos, a combo version that was inspired by a post in the VS 2PCG Collective on Facebook. Others have taken to the deck and made their own unique changes to the Glass Cannon shell posted and I will share a sturdier more consistent shell, yet usually a little more cautious version with some consistency over the explosiveness of other posted versions. It has some advantages and disadvantages over normal Thanos Lists. First, let's take a look at "The Mad Titan" and what he is all about.

Updated 12-23-16

Even the Odds is a powerful and versatile card that and sees play in many decks. However due to the card's wording and how it interacts with other cards, it can be very confusing at first glance. We will take a look at what it does and doesn't do.

Over the next few articles I am going to take a look at all of the plot twists released to date and describe why they are useful (or not) and some plays and situations in which they are optimal. The first article will be the generic plot twists from Marvel Battles. There has been 1 generic per team affiliation so far, so as new sets are released the total number will only get larger.

Generic plot twists can be played with any combination of characters on your side, so they are always more versatile than team plot twists. Thus on average they are slightly less powerful than their team plot twist comparisons. Every deck needs at least some generics, though, and so knowing which ones compliment which decks will help when building and playing.

When looking at the defenders spoilers, one thing certainly stood out to me and I've been a fan of it since the hour it was spoiled: Luke Cage Main Character. After testing him in over 50 games, some even before the set was released, he has always stood out as potentially the best MC in the game. That's right; you didn't read the caveat of "except Thanos" or "with Thanos banned".

Stats

Starting with 4 power at level 1 is amazing. You can attack many MC's your first turn with no help from a team attack or plot twist. Many other MC's won't even stun you back if you do this. I think that LC might even be broken in this regard, because you can play no cards at all and force some other MC's (Magneto, Prof X, Green Goblin, ect) to defend themselves from turn 1. Nothing looks more unfair than having a massive hand and still having the opponent spending cards or taking wounds. 3 defense is a slight liability, but as you will see below in the Super Powers section, one that he covers pretty nicely.

Level 2, Luke is a 6/6. This is pretty standard, nothing too exciting about this. As you will read in the Level Up section, the fact that you get here on turn 3 is good, and it's a solid base for team attacks.

Definition and Use in Card Games

There has been a discussion of what is and what isn't card advantage in recent weeks after a spoiler of Dr. Strange from the defenders set was introduced.

The definition paraphrased from Wikipedia:

Card Advantage is a term often used in various strategic card games to indicate one player having "access" to more cards than another player.

The basic concept of card advantage is that one player has more cards in hand and/or in play than their opponent.