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Is It Hot In Here Or Is It Just You?
A Vs System JLA Preview by Scott Gerhardt
October 17, 2005

I have to admit – this is one of my favorite parts of this job. I love the idea of being able to see a new card and try to find it’s uses. I admit – a few of the cards I have gotten in the past have been a little less than spectacular or fun to review. This one, though, I think stands a very good chance of seeing a great deal of play in any format.

So far, a 9/9 Fight and Range for 5, while not spectacular, certainly constitutes very reasonable stats. Certainly not too weak for it’s position, provided is has a solid ability. I do believe we have that solid ability:

A brief, easy definition of ally for you all. Ally triggers on a power up. In this case, any JLI character who gets powered up will trigger the loss of 2 endurance. Of course, when I read this, my mind almost immediately thought, “Team up JLA and Teen Titans?” Already one of the best decks in Golden Age, this teaming could turn it into a burn game very quickly. New Teen Titans could easily turn into a loss of 8-10 endurance, plus the obvious benefits involved with that deck. With initiative, you could simply burn out your opponent on turn 5 with little problem. Then again, good old Brotherhood has the fun goods of things like Avalon Space Station. Why not flick an extra 2 endurance loss into the massive beats already.

Any way you look at it, Fire could easily wind up ending games in a hurry. I somewhat see this as a trend. For those familiar with the high-level tournament scene, even with a 30 minute time limit for 1 game, a lot of games often go to and well over time. Cards like this could sure make that a thing of the past.

Of course, on top of all that, we have all the speculation as to what the rest of this set will product. Ally should be a big factor, so you might not even need to team at all. If you build your deck to power up, a mono-JLI deck might even have enough steam to get the job done solo – time will tell on that.

If this card wasn’t solid enough alone, we have the boost. It’s not exactly a bad thing to play this late to get it and it’s friend Ice at the same time. But what does Ice do? Well, lemme give you a hint – you’ll have to tune in here next week to find out. There is a little Ally going on there that leads me to believe that JLI is going to be playable.  Enough of a teaser for now, though.

Well, we want to know what you think. Hit the boards and give me your opinion on this Fire. Is this the start of a new deck archetype? Is this a solid addition to something new? It is going to be yet another crap common? Let us know!

Next week, obviously, we have Ice. You won’t want to miss the other half of this – I’m pretty excited about what I’ve seen there.

Until next time, keep playing!