A Man And His City
by Scott Gerhardt

With the new release of Man of Steel, the second set based on D.C. comics, Upper Deck has been very gracious to let yours truly break one of the new cards.  So here we go!

All the time games like to put new spins on old cards.  Sometimes these new spins make them better, and sometimes they make them worse.  Sometimes they seem functionally similar, but still can cause certain decks to prefer one or the other based on some little factor about the card.  Sometimes the cards can be really flashy and do a lot of really neat things.  Next week, I will be previewing a card just like that.  This week, though, we're going to keep things a little simpler.  It's a card we've all seen before, but not quite like this.

Do I think it's going to be useful?  Most definitely.  This is a card that is going to see play in almost every limited deck, and is guaranteed to find it's way into a lot of constructed decks as well.  So what kinda staple can I be talking about?  Well, I have to give you the opening teaser, right?  Something that makes you think a little like, "Well, I wonder what he may be talking about."

I'll give you a hint - it's a card that does nothing on it's own particularly, but allows the other cards in your deck to run much more efficiently.  It also can be a vital part of several combo decks.

Give up?

I'll give you one more hint before I show it to you:

If you're the type of guy that likes some of the D.C. bad guys, you're going to absolutely love this little gem.  You could always have this ability before, but now you can have it AND abuse all your other cards as well.

Any last guesses?  Okay, I will keep you in suspense no more:

Welcome to Metroplis - Superman's adopted adult home, and also home to any two teams you want.  That's right!  Man of Steel gives us a new team up card with a twist - it's a location!  I understand going into this that a lot of decks may prefer to play the Plot Twist version for fear of getting this Relocationed.  But let's consider a couple of factors:

#1 - In an all-D.C. environment like the upcoming 10k tournament at GenCon SoCal, you now have have 8 full fledged team up cards.  Marvel only gets 4.  Additionally, in the all D.C environment, Relocation doesn't exist.  Ka-Boom! doesn't exist.  The only real removal being played there is Have A Blast! and it can get this or the Plot Twist, so it doesn't matter which one you play.

#2 - You know all those "evil" D.C. cards that reward you for playing locations?  Cards like Talia, Jynx, Remake the World and more?  Well, now we have a team up cards that lets Fearsome Five and League of Assassins much easier, by finding the team up.  This allows a lot of the combined loyalty characters to be played easier and still being able to used the "Search and Destroy" tactics of Talia and Jynx.  And remember boys and girls - Metropolis is NOT unique, so you can get multiples flipped over with no problem.

There's not a lot about this card that can be said that's not self-explanatory.  You're going to find uses for it no doubt.  I'm sure there are plenty of uses that can be found even within the Man of Steel set itself.   We'll have to wait for it to come out and see, won't we.

Until next time, keep playing!