We play catchup this week!

We discuss the previous OTA and the past two weeks cards, Baron Zemo, Red Hulk and US Agent.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
Hey guys, and welcome to episodeten of Cubed. It should be eleven,
but we apologize for missing last week. Life just kind of you know,
it comes into play. So Dakotawas actually still what you're still moving
in? Right? Yep? Soactually, welcome back Dakota. Thanks.

(00:26):
I still don't have my clappy handsattached to this. Can you guys hear
that? Now? You guys can'thear that? Oh yeah, you can
fairly do. I have a nevermind, I don't have I don't have clapping
hands, so whatever. Okay,Yeah, so welcome back Dakota, and

(00:50):
as always, I do have adown on my on your right, on
our right, okay, yeah,don on my aka dark helmet and back
choi aka Dakota on my left.How you gentlemen doing today? Man?
It is good to have the boysback together. I miss you guys,

(01:15):
all right, so what's up?Sorry? I want to throw it out
there to all of our loyal fans. Congratulations mister Bockchoy on getting married and
being the last of the single menat work. Thank you, Thank you.

(01:37):
Does that come out when? Iwonder if it appears on leg I
don't know if I see it.I hear it on podcasts though, so
I don't know. All right,well let's get let's get into it,
because we got a lot to catchup on. We will try and make
this pretty quick. I don't knowif that means five hours or six I

(02:00):
don't know, but we have twoweeks to cover, so I mean it
might even be forty five minutes.Let's let's shoot for that. So the
first thing that we missed was theOta that they came out with, so
let's start with that. So thefirst change that we have is to our

(02:23):
tried and true I mean, forme personally, it was such a such
a good card that I enjoyed playing, and it was the Thanos, the
Thanos, the Thanos. So theychanged him where he starts in your hand
now, so he's like a quicksilver. And the other stone that they changed

(02:46):
was the timestone. So the timestone, it now gives Thanos minus one cost
power on the next sorry minus onecosts on the next turn. And you
still gets to draw a card,so on the timestone, you don't the
top card that you draw no longerloses a an energy usage or yeah,

(03:07):
it doesn't get a negative energy.It's just Thanos now, so let's start
with you, Dakota. I knowboth both of you guys did like playing
Thanos, and so let me startwith you. How do you feel about
this change? I think that it'sbeen a massive hit to its play run.

(03:29):
I stopped playing it after this happened. Granted, now that it's starting
in your hand, what happens tome the most because it's the far left
freaking spider Ham and I got sosick of it because it's like, Hey,
if we're going to make this archetypesomething where you're really focusing on getting
Thanos to twenty, that's awesome.You know, we're starting to pigeonhole a
little bit of while you have yourother cards is still working. There's got

(03:50):
a lot of synergy with all theramp opportunities. You can do different things
if you still got your side lockedto throw out. But it hurts,
man, honestly because of it.I've just I'm like, was it Andy
from Toys that I don't want toplay with you anymore. I've just dropped
him. I completely dropped him,and I focused on other things. Okay,
how about you, don how doyou feel about the change? Man?

(04:14):
They hate the big bads in thisgame, right, Like I've thought
about it, like, there reallyisn't a great big bad. I mean
you could say that hi Evo,but it really doesn't do I mean,
it just helps the other cards,right, but every other big bad you
have you know, oh beds youguys, No you didn't. I just

(04:34):
what did I do? Sorry?That's me baby? Hey how do I'm
kind of confused on I did that? I am dark helmet or anyway.

(04:58):
So it really is kind of disappointingthat they keep doing this and like these
changes that Thanos feel very schizophrenic.It's like the past two OTA's they hit
Thanos with the nerve, right,it really feels like they're they're doing this
this thing where they just don't andI get that's been a high meta card

(05:19):
for a very very long time,but it really kind of sucks that they
just keep going, mah, we'llhit they get now, we'll we'll just
change it again. Oh still toogood, change it again. Yeah.
I am not a big fan ofthe change that they did to this.
I mean, they basically made thetimestone not great. They also decrease the

(05:42):
chance of you pulling other cards,right, so like now you're guaranteed to
have Thanos, right, and youget three other cards. It was already
a problem having no stones on myhand when I started the game, and
now it is just going to bethat much worse. Okay, yeah,
and so the you know, I'mhaving trouble doing this, but I'm where

(06:04):
you gonna keep talking. It's apodcast anyway, so I will continue to
try and fix it while I getthis rolling. So I agree with all
that you guys were saying. Now, Dakota with the the Spider ham I
feel like it's you kind of runMobius in the deck already. So I
feel like spider hamming the very leftcard, which is always gonna be Thanos,

(06:28):
is not too bad. But Ifeel like if they're gonna push to
have Thanos be the star of hisdeck, they have to make change something
else. They either have to doan overhaul of all the stones. That
way it affects Thanos, because thatway, you know, you can build

(06:51):
a deck that supports Thanos. Becauseright now we are building decks that supports
the usage of the stones, andwe don't. We don't play Thanos because
even at a six twenty, youknow, an an unsure six twenty.
You don't really plan on playing him. You just play the stones and see,

(07:11):
you know what works. Even nowyou know Thnos isn't is far from
dead because in Thanos decks you typicallydo from time to time draw a dead
hand, which you know you drawall your sixes. It's just the higher
probability. Now that Thanos starts inyour hand, it's less of a chance

(07:32):
of you drawing a stone to toplay on curve. But now you know
it did, it does seem slowerbecause these stones are supporting the play of
Thanos, and in a Thanos deckyou kind of don't play with that strategy
in mind. So is there anythingelse you guys want to add on this

(07:54):
before we move on? I theythey're just doing stand of way too dirty.
Yeah, I feel like that.That's that's kind of been their plan
for a long time because Donos hasbeen one of the most consistent decks in
a while, and so, uh, they just wanted to, you know,

(08:15):
stop his viability for a bit.So moving on to the next one,
we have Meek and his effect change. Uh, actually no, the
only thing that changed was he wentfrom a one to one to a one
zero. Now, don can youcan you explain, like what if you
can? You know, But whatdo you think they meant to do with

(08:37):
this change? I think this changewas just them figuring out that because he's
a one cost, he just gainsthat energy pretty easily and with the ability
to hit for him to move ifyou want him to actually does kind of
increase his viability and his usability ifyou apployment. So I didn't see a

(09:03):
huge amount of play with him atone one. I don't think this changes
a whole lot there. I dothink it. I do like the first
change that they made to this whereit can actually move on its next turn,
which really kind of did improve thiscard. Mm hm. So have
you played this card at all sincethe change? I played it on Conquest

(09:28):
a little bit in one of mydiscard decks. I mean to me,
because he took out the randomness ofit moving around, it kind of has
a lot of the same viability,but not like, not necessarily better than
some of the other ones who playin a discard deck. Okay, how

(09:48):
about you, de Goode, howdo you feel why they made this change
or if anything at all? Whatdo you what do you think about this
change? I mean, I gotI'm not too partial on this card.
To begin with, Discard was somethingthat I like to roll with a little
bit ago. It's been a whilesince I really just said, oh,
let's just roll with Discard. I'vebeen having bad draws with it. And

(10:09):
Meek when he was when he firstcame out, it was a cool little
addition to what ran well. Evenwith the changes that they've done, I
don't ever see using him. There'sso many better options, and I don't
really know what the answer would beto make him a little more desirable.
There is some flexibility there with movement, right, so if you have those

(10:30):
places that you can't play into,having him is pretty nice. But you
also can do the same thing withProximate Midnight, like that's gonna be your
lowest point, you just discard thatit's gonna hop there. So I think
it's it's kind of like, forme, this change really doesn't do anything.
It's just kind of something they lookedat and like, well, let's
try this is it's play value goingup afterwards. I rarely see Meek on

(10:52):
the ladder. I rarely see Meekin conquests, so I don't really know
if they're just trying to get it. So these cards are all gonna be
getting played. Then maybe that's whythey're starting toy around with it. But
yeah, it doesn't affect my opinionon anything other than it's just like,
I'm still not gonna play it.Okay, Now, I feel for myself.
I haven't played Discard too much eversince the new season, and I

(11:18):
don't know if this change was warranted. I don't think I was playing enough
to Even when I played Discard,I wasn't really playing meek Discard, you
know, I was playing more targetedDiscard and feeling I felt like that was
more stronger. So I think thischange is just something to probably hold Discard

(11:43):
a bit down a bit, justbecause it is now that Thanos is gone,
it's probably the most consistent deck besidesDiscard, right, I mean Destruction,
So having those two decks kind ofbattle it out for the top.
I mean, I know we're seeinga lot of new types of decks come
out, especially with you know,Baron Zemo, and we'll talk about that

(12:09):
later, but with those decks comingout, I feel like it's it's more
like and anybody can take the topspot at the moment, So it's good
to see that that kind of stuffis happening, but uh, I just
wish it wasn't at the cost ofThano's souh. So the next card we

(12:33):
have that that they changed is misterCrossbones. So they the only thing they
change about him is they gave himtwo power to rival all the other cards
that have been that that are forecost and ten power. So let's start
with you, don how do youfeel the change about How do you feel

(12:56):
about them changing this card? Actuallykind of really like that they change his
card. You know, those twoups are power don't seem like a lot.
But you know what, I've actuallyplayed him a lot more this past
I don't know, a week orso than I ever had before. I
mean, it's nice to be ableto Let's say you throw down your you're

(13:22):
Zabu right on turn two, youcan play Crossbones if you're basically on that
same lane. Right if they don'tplay something in that lane, guess what
now you all of a sudden youhave ten power on there. It's really
easy to use I think a lotlike we learned with Cold City in Cold

(13:46):
City in yeah, that like youhaving that teen power for that cheap cost
is really nice, especially if you'regonna start setting up your you know,
trying to get priority, get allthat moving, and that power is just
very youthful. So I actually reallylike this change. It's shunk chieable,

(14:07):
so it's so counterable, which isnice. I think it's in a good
spot. All right, how aboutyou decode, how do you feel about
the change on this I'm on thesame page with Don. I like now
that with that additional two power,it kind of just opens up a ton
of options. Like, like yousaid, the Zabo play is key.
If you're able to put that out, you can really focus on one laying

(14:28):
Bill a high and then throwing likeeven was his name Omega Red, Like
you're you're starting to get this poweracross the border. That's it's going to
be a lot to contest with.And that's only by at this point you'd
be at turn four. You're alreadyputting so much across everything even with that
set up alone. So yeah,I'm happy that they're actually giving him some
love, because especially when Cold Cityand came out, it was like,

(14:50):
Okay, we're definitely leaving this guyin the dust, Like what's going on
over here with everything getting up inpower. He's definitely he was definitely just
Dusty on the so I'm excited tosee that heat. I mean, since
this change, I have seen himall the time, and it's cool that
he's back in the meta. Soyeah, I'm happy about it. Okay,
Yeah, I feel like one ofthe this card them updating it to

(15:13):
have two more power is great forother decks because, like you mentioned Dakota
where we did have coll Obsidian forThanos and it was purely meant to be
a Thanos card, right. Uh, Thanos plays the most one cost in
its deck besides a Zoo deck,and collb Citian just slots right in a
four to ten that you don't haveto worry about just by you know,

(15:37):
the condition is playing a one costcard where before the other four tens is
uh. You have Century where shegives you the void the negative ten,
and then you have Typhoid Mary,which she gives an ongoing of negative one
for all your cards. So thedownside to call Obsidian was not so much

(16:00):
now the downside to Crossbones is notso much either. You just have to
be winning the lane, so sometimesthat is hard when you're not building a
deck that does take a priority oryou know, wins a lane, especially
early on, right, So youwant to try and use this this card
where you're playing early power. Now, playing early power isn't always you know,

(16:26):
the best because then strategy, strategicwise, it just depends on what
you're trying to do. But Ifeel like them bringing this card up to
the part of the other four tensand it being splash doable in very different
decks. I feel like it's agood it's a good thing for the game.

(16:48):
Oh yeah, the game. Uhdid we losed on on? Just
texted? Right now? I guessthis computer booting? Okay, no problem,
all right, so we'll go aheadand move on and then we'll get
Don's input right after. So we'llgo on to Sabertooth. So the change
is Sabertooth is they changed him athree four to a three five. Now,

(17:15):
how do you feel this change?This changed his car? How this
changed the card? How do youfeel I like to look at it kind
of like the potential so Venom beforehe was a three power. He really
it was funny like people played him, but he wasn't as big of a

(17:36):
focal point to the destruction deck aspeople then realize wait a minute, he's
cracked. Actually, Like there's alot of moves we can do here.
So I think that this is thepotential in my mind, like maybe they're
starting to see, hey, likegiving just one more power, what can
we do here? Especially? Imean I like we were talking about this
a little bit ago. I'm goingto call this time right now the arrow
of inflation within Marstat because all thesecards are just beefing up in power.

(18:02):
And you know, like I said, same bing with Crossbones, he was
getting left in the dust. Inever see saber tooth, you know,
and uh, to kind of keepthings moving doing this, I wonder if
they're just testing the waters or what. But I'm actually excited. I'm running
a couple of decks. Well I'mrunning one deck right now. That's like
I've been testing it and what's init. My probability of winning definitely has

(18:25):
gone up. So it's funny justlike replacing a few things here and there.
I like the ability. I thinkthat it's pretty awesome to have the
additional five. And I mean youhit that with Venom already, now you're
at an eight, and then ifyou can arma in that, like there's
a lot of cool stuff, yougrand Master or whatever. I think that
he's pretty flexible, He's got somepotential. I don't know how long he'll

(18:47):
stay in the decks that I'm tryingto test him with or not, but
for now, I'm I'm enjoying it. Okay, Yeah, I feel like
the change to this card was toprovide destroy with you know, some like
you're saying some flex ability, somechange to that to the deck. But
I feel like he's such a becauseof how destroy runs. I feel like

(19:11):
he's such an easily cutable card,right, there's so much there's so much
viability in all of destroys uh cardsthat there seems to be better ones that
you could replace this with. Anduntil they find a way to uh to
to do that where there is viabilityin saber tooth over another card without destroying

(19:36):
that other card, then it kindof seems like, you know, they
he won't be played. I mean, he is a good card, uh,
especially if you run null, youknow, because every time he gets
destroyed, you get five power tothat null, right, and then he
becomes a zero cost, so thatmeans you have a zero five, which
is premium stats. If you ask, you know, anybody but it doesn't

(20:00):
seem like it's gonna be beneficial tocut another card for Sabertooth. So I
don't see. You know, maybethey they know what they're trying to do.
They're just doing it little by little, and until we know the very
the entire spectrum of what they're tryingto do to destroy, we can't really

(20:21):
appreciate what Sabertooth brings to the table. Yeah, I get you. I
think well that's the other thing too, Like we mentioned earlier today, there
are there's only one really good destroydeck. Maybe they're trying to change that,
you know, like maybe just discardthey're trying to do the same thing
with like the meet issue and everything, like there could be different lanes.

(20:44):
Are saying like, hey, tryit this way, try it this way,
instead of just doing like Okay,we're gonna do Deadpool. We're gonna
we're gonna end it with this andthen we're gonna make sure we gett Like,
it is interesting to see how theyare molding the potential. I'm here
for it. I think it'd becool to see, like, hey,
we don't have to always be pigeonholedinto one style. You know, you're
not gonna be able to predict itanymore. Like that's cool. You know,

(21:07):
we play as someone who's the destruction. I go, okay, I
can raise high right now because Homie'snot running Chang Chi. Everyone's running these
other stuff. Now, if we'rebuilding a new style that has Chang Chi
in it and these other cards,you're it's not going to have that same
chance to be like I know exactlywhat they're gonna do, which definitely added
some spice and freaks you out atthe same time. Exactly. Yeah,
So you're just like, okay,which style are they playing? Right?

(21:30):
They have the same cards and alot of them, But if you could
change interchange these tech cards, thenyou don't know, Okay, are they
running Chung Chi? Are they not? Are they running saber Tooth? Are
they not? Right? So makingmaking good destroy tech cards would be probably
the best way to to do thechange the viability of something. But also,

(21:52):
you know there's always gonna be thesecontent creators where it's like, oh
no, no, this one's thebest, right, So with people following,
you know, of course we youget content creators, uh input,
and you know they're they're playing atsuch a high tier, then you know,
of course we're gonna listen to theirtheir feedback on cards. We don't.
We don't let it be the endall, be all of everything,

(22:15):
because we like to play what welike to play. But you know,
it's it's good to to take inputand change up to your own style after
that. So hopefully that's what theydo. I mean, it would be
really cool that there's many viable differentthings that we can do with these decks
instead of like, oh, I'mgonna create a destroy deck and there's only

(22:37):
one way to create a destroy deckor the best destroy deck. It'd be
cool if there's many viable options andwe have variety in the game. So
it makes it tougher, you know, it makes us think more so,
all right, So, by far, the biggest change of this U O
T A UH is Angela and andso she went. She was a two

(23:00):
zero before and well they kind ofjust reverted her, right, So she
she was a two to two andevery time you played a card on her
you get plus one, and shereverted back to a two zero and every
time you play a card on her, she gets plus two. So have
you messed at all with this stepwith this card? No? I haven't

(23:23):
yet. I've been I've been fightingon the ladder with with you know what,
I was running so the Phoenix forSo I'm pumped now that I'm finally
not stressing for my life anymore.I definitely have some things I wanted to
test out with because I remember,I mean when we started, it was
Zoo all day, and she wassuch a huge part of getting us into
this game. So I'm excited tohave her back, you know. It's

(23:45):
it's awesome, I think because theyknow everything is so inflated with power.
To have her back into this it'scool because there's another option to go tall
while you're hitting things. And thenwe have elsa Bludstone now and we have
all these movements cards like this isexciting. I think it's a great time.
Yeah, So I'm glad they didthey they did revert her changes just

(24:07):
because, like you said, wekinda started with her. I mean I
think everybody does. Like if youlook up what what Tier one deck can
you play at Pool one, it'sbasically Zoo, right, So with her
being like a pivotal Zoo deck card, it makes it easier for the people

(24:33):
that are playing in the lower poolsto have a card that they could just
build up, and then you know, it gets them things starting to think
about, you know, I playhere, if I fill it up,
I can't get more power, youknow, so oh, you know,
let me add Nightcrawler into it,and if I move Nightcrawler out, that's
even plus two power. So itgets them thinking about different ways to beef

(24:53):
up cards and not just play cardswilly nilly right, makes them start thinking
about strategy and whatnot. And ontop of that, it's such a good
card now with like you said,those cards like Elsa Bloodstone with Hope,
Summers with Kitty Pride. So it'snice to get those types of decks back

(25:18):
into the game because once they changethis, they're like, well, you
know, those like the silky smoothdecks, they don't really have a lot
of power. They play more oflike you know, spread kind of wide.
They can't really go tall in onelane. They have to kind of
play all the lanes because they havea bunch of small cards that just beefs

(25:41):
up over time the more you playthem. But with other decks, you
know, you have let's just talkabout you know, the old Dono's deck.
You play a freaking magneto and youprobably have more power in one lane
than so now it's nice to havethese alternativeative decks that you can play that
can hang with the other top decksagain, m So let's easy. Oh

(26:07):
we got done back. Yay,all right, So tell us tell us
your take on both Sabertooth and Angela. So start with saber Tooth. Saber
Tooth change, he got a buffwith from four to five power, and
then I'm sure you know the Angelachange. So tell us your thoughts on
Sabertooth first. Well, first ofall, I'd like to say that literally

(26:33):
First Dinner doesn't want us talking aboutthis because they are causing so many technical
issues today, So you know,like and subscribe, get down there and
get in the comments. Okay,yes, anyways, So Sabertooth, you
know this is one of those lostcards in Destroy. Seeing that it is

(26:55):
just a three to five, Imean that one power is nice. I
don't see for planting anything in anyof my Destroy decks. It's a nice
little buff, but ultimately I don'tthink it really changed anything as far as
that goes. I agree, allright, So what are your thoughts on
Angela? Man, I'm so happyto see Angela back. I hate playing

(27:19):
against her right now because I'm notplaying that deck. But you know,
with the power spikes that we've beenseeing in this game, it's good that
they finally gave her her power back. You know, that one just wasn't
enough to compete with anything, buther having the plus two power again really
makes her useful in a lot ofdecks, right, especially with some of

(27:42):
those like Kitty Pride else A Bloodstonedecks, which man, I'm seeing everywhere
right now. But it's nice tosee that power back up. And I
caught the end of what you guyswere saying, and yep, this is
a card we all started with,and I'm glad that she's back. Yeah,

(28:03):
So it's it's nice that they broughtthat that that deck type back because
it's it's one of those combo deckswhere like you're playing a lot of bunches
like small cards, and then youhave one to two big cards, but
you're relying more on your small cardsand the big cards are basically there for
backup, right, whereas most decksis like, okay, you're playing small

(28:26):
cards just so you could play thebig cards. So it's a nice reverse.
So it's the type of gameplay thatwe kind of want in this game
where it's just like, Okay,you don't have to go that way,
you could always go this way,so you have options to build. So
so that was the ota for UHfor the last week that we had,

(28:48):
and I feel like these were positivechanges. Even though Thanos was kind of
shit on. We hope that hecould make a resurgence and probably not as
strong, but hopefully, you know, still top tier because he is still
considered one of the big bads rightand right now. I know Dakota was
mentioning all the big bads right noware kind of bad. I mean,

(29:12):
so you have Kang, which nobody'susing Kang, Thanos, they they nerved
high Evo. We're gonna talk aboutRed Hulk. I mean Red Hulk alone
having that card in your hand issuch a detriment to playing high Evo in
general. And who's the other bigbad Glacus Galactis. Yeah, so Galactus

(29:41):
he's never been I mean, hehas been great, but he's not actually
not top tier at the moment.He is a really good card. So
I think out of all the bigbads, I would say Galactis and Thanos
are probably on this similar level wherethey feel good but not great, and
then what is it hi evo andhigh eva and what's the other one?

(30:11):
He just case oh kang. Theyfeel kind of bad to play at the
moment. So uh, let's let'stalk about the week. The card of
the week last week was uh BaronOh actually no, it's a red Hulk.
But the card for the season isBaron Zmo. So let's let's actually

(30:32):
start with the card of the seasonBaron Zimo. So Baron Zemo his effect
I could bring it up. Theyactually added a new style of classification of
card. So he's an on reveal. He's three three costs five power,
and his own reveal is recruit,so that that's the keyword, recruit the

(30:57):
lowest cost card from opponent's deck toyour side of this location. So we've
gotten a week to play with thiscard. I don't know if you guys
played with him at all. Buthow do you how do you? How
do you feel about this card?Dawn? I like this card. I
think this card. It performs prettywell, especially for what it is.

(31:22):
You know, the thing is alot of low cost cards. If you
get two power that you're playing athree seven three eight. Sometimes like and
you take one of their their usefulcards, so like you take this card
and let's say you take their Zaboor or any number of low cost cards.

(31:42):
It's really kind of nice just tohave. Now, it does clog
up your lanes a little bit,but with the new deck style of just
basically like stealing stuff out of theirdeck to where they have, it's it's
pretty tough. Sometimes I like thecard. I think it's really interesting.
I don't think we've seen the bestfor this card yet, but it's been

(32:07):
a really interesting uh archetype to make. How about yourself to go to?
Have you played with this at all? I haven't played with it yet,
no, I said. I stuckkind of with the Phoenix force the entire
ladder, just because it works sowell. But whenever someone you know played
this against me, they would alwayspull the one car. I'm like,

(32:29):
date, I needed that car,So it was it was frustrating that point.
I could definitely see this kind ofheating up as time goes on,
because even though this thing had somegood sometimes I have some good energy and
pulling my stuff, uh, itwasn't enough to really even stop me.
Want to started moving, so Ithink as new cars come out along the

(32:50):
line, I could definitely see Iknow there was a deck that was like
delete your opponent's deck. It waswith this one and Yondu and and Gladiator,
and it can leave you kind ofhigh and dry at the end if
they don't slow down on pulling everythingout of your deck. So it's interesting,
it has potential. I think itlook get better as time goes on.

(33:12):
I plan on playing it and seeingwhat I can mess around with.
You. Yeah, you could sayit kind of leaves you deckless, but
I feel like this was a prettygood card that they've added, especially with
the new style that they're trying togo for. I'm glad that they're not
shying away from doing new things,right, because this game could get stale

(33:40):
if they don't consistently come up withnew things. It's a good thing,
it's a bad thing, right becausethey do come out with cards like this
where it's a new style and it, like Dakota is saying, it shows
promise for the future, and youknow, that's what we want from a
game that we kind of want toprolongedly play or play for a long time.

(34:05):
I don't know if I'm saying,right, if we want to play
it for a long time, right, we want to see its sustainability,
and we want to see them comeup with fresh ideas. Like we talked
about before, they have no shortageof characters that they can pull from,
So making some of these iconic charactersdo something different while kind of sticking to

(34:29):
their niche in the comics is apretty cool thing to think about, because
then you kind of feel more attachedto that card, like, oh,
this card is actually just like thecomics, right, So you get attached
to these cards and they build itin a way where it keeps the player
base content. But it could alsobe a downside, right, with them

(34:53):
releasing so many cards at a month, it kind of gets hard for new
players to come into the game andplay along with some of the top players.
It's like, Okay, I'll alwaysbe a step behind unless I put
money into it. So that's onlythat's the side thing that we kind of

(35:16):
always we talked about before. ButI feel like, you know, it's
cool that they add new things,but adding it so fast sometimes could discourage
new players. Now, the othercard that came out the same week,
because on the same Vein. Theycame out with two cards again at the

(35:37):
start of the month, where wealready talked about this. Yeah, I
think this is the third or fourthmonth they did this. Then four it's
the fourth month that they did twocard releases on the same week. And
it's always at the beginning the month, of course, because it's a new
season, and they before new season, they would only they would have an

(36:01):
off week where they didn't release anew card, but then you had the
what is it, the season Passcard, So now they feel, you
know, people are spending money orthey have to spend money to get the
card if they don't want to haveto buy two cards, which would be

(36:22):
what twelve twelve hundred tokens, andnobody has that, you know, just
lying around to use for two cards. So I'm gonna get off that.
We talked about that before. Sothe card that got released the same week
was Red Hulk. He's a sixcosts eleven power, and the effect is

(36:46):
when your opponent ends a turn withunspent energy, it gets plus four power
if in the hand or in play. So let's start with you, Dakota,
how do you feel about this card? It's it's a really awesome answer
to Hievo and I know the uswhere we agreed like, oh great,

(37:06):
now Hiio's kind of got trash becauseof it. But at the same time,
it's cool to have such a massiveamount of power to combat what's going
on in the meta. And it'sfunny too with them doing what they did
to what's his name Leach, butalso can't it prevents from stopping this guy
too, So it's interesting how beforethey did these changes and release these cards,

(37:30):
they were kind of setting up tobe like, let's let's see what
we can do with this guy.It's been fun watching him again. I
employ him at all because I wasrolling with the Phoenix. But now that
I'm off, I built one deck. I'm trying to fix it up and
see what I like about, youknow, the one that Dawn made,
and I want, you know,if we can show that one that looks

(37:52):
awesome, And I was kind ofthinking of just copying that and giving it
a try because it looked like afun deck to run with. Right,
Yeah, I'm all about cool Andit's the same thing where from the comics
he always absorbs power. That's kindof his thing, So it's cool that
that's how this card is moving.I like it. It is comically based
and yeah, I'm pumped about it. I like it. Okay, how

(38:14):
about yourself done? Have you playedwith this at all and how do you
like the card? Yeah, I'vebeen messing around with this card. I
think it's a really cool card.It might be overtuned, the plus four
might be a little bit much forthe energy, but I also don't feel
like it's that crazy because unlike withlike the Hulk, right, you don't

(38:35):
know if that's in their deck orin their hand, this card you typically
know if it's sitting in their handbecause you can see the energy pop off
right, which is kind of nicewhen you're facing against it because you could
be like, oh, I gota plan for a red hole coming up,
or if they're playing that deck thatyou know they played in, you
could be like, hey, theydon't have the red hole yet, they
don't have that big, massive powersitting there to do something. So I

(39:00):
think it's probably a little bit toomuch power per energy. It'd be go
down to three. But I thinkit's a really really cool card. Okay,
Yeah, because I feel like,of course this card is supposed to
rival the Hulk right, and notonly the Hulk itself, but Evo Hulk,

(39:20):
because the Hulk alone is just asix twelve vanilla card, but only
when you pair it with High Evodoes it actually start to begin to be
a good card that can rival this. So if they both get power the
Hulk, say, one turn,the Hulk goes to six fourteen, This
goes to six fifteen. Right,turn two, Hulk goes to six sixteen,

(39:45):
This goes to six nineteen. Likeevery every turn is just like it's
gonna beat the Hulk. So itkinda it doesn't leave High Evo a chance
to fight back if if if youask me, right, because it if
you're floating that energy, of courseit's going to a sun spot hopefully,
and of course it's uh, youhave your what is it your your who's

(40:09):
the chick with the metal arm?What was it misty night? Yeah,
hopefully you have the misty Night that'sfiring up. Who did you say?
Okay? So and then so itkinda it kind of puts High Evo decks

(40:31):
in its place entirely just with onecard, which is kind of kind of
sad to think about. I mean, you don't want a whole archetype to
be destroyed because of one card anduh a good card nonetheless, right,
you could play this and instantly wina lane. If you're playing against high

(40:51):
evo, you just have to worryabout another lane. So it's kind of
unfortunate. But like like Don said, I hope uh it is overtuned,
so I'm thinking for me, Iwould personally say bring it down to like
a six ten and then plus threeevery turn so at least it becomes manageable
because nobody wants to test to seeif their opponent has the red Hulk.

(41:15):
Right, you skip a turn andyou're like, please, don't have it,
and then they have it and you'rejust like, well, I gotta
try and play on curve now,you know, I just can't float energy
because if I do, I lose. So it's it's nice that it's it's
a nice card to pick up rightnow because it's pretty good card. But
I feel like them them kind ofbecause I think it started out a six

(41:40):
ten still with the same effect theplus four, but they buffed it.
So maybe they're doing something to tolet people like, hey, if you
bite now, it's pretty good.You know, it's don't wait until later
because later, No, we're nervingit. Don't do it. The fomo
tactics are real in this game,I swear. So the next card we're

(42:07):
gonna talk about is this week's card. Oh sorry, let's go back a
bit. How many polls did ittake you guys to get Red Hulk?
It took me three three keys,all right, Don's doing the dance.
It took me a full deuce.Yeah, so it took you three Dakota

(42:30):
all right, So yeah, ittook me for this time. So it
took it took four for the RedHulk, and I was just like,
oh well, I got the variants. Whatever. Now, this week's card
is a US agent and just apublic announcement. They there is something wrong

(42:50):
with getting the spotlight. Cash isat the moment. So if you guys
are watching this and that's happened toyou, like it happened to our buddy
Don here, make sure you sendin your ticket so you can be reimbursed
or else or else. You know, we don't want you to lose out
on you know, your hard earnedkeys. Keys are very expensive, so

(43:15):
we don't want those to go towaste. So with talking about that US
agent, let's bring up us agent. So his effect so he's a two
cost three power ongoing card and hiseffect is four, five and six cost
cards here here in the lane haveminus three power. Tell us your thoughts

(43:38):
on this, don man. Ithink that this is a really cool card,
right, So think about this.Right, Let's say they're playing their
iron Man in a lane, right, this one card playing it is a
nine point swing, right because yougive it minus three, but then it

(44:02):
also doubles that minus three. Thiscard has some really cool effects that I
think we need. I don't thinkwe always look at right. So this
card is gonna be great against thoseongoing tributal tribunal builds, right, they're

(44:22):
just building up that lane. Youdrop this in there, and that's a
pretty rough change for just two costs. Right. Yeah, it's a fun
little tech card that I think hasmore use than maybe we're looking at right
now, because you can either aplay it in a lane and be like,
hey, that power card, they'regoing to avoid that lane, or

(44:46):
you save it for a little bitlater and just start taking them down a
couple of notches. So I reallylike this card. I think it has
some really interesting play lines. Haven'tfully throughpped through it yet, but because
unfortunately all my keys are locked upin this stupid, you know, broken
system. But hopefully, hopefully I'llget reimbursed and we'll be good to go.

(45:13):
All right, how about you togo to How do you feel this
card is going to do? It'sgonna be a key player with Toxic.
I can definitely see there's a lotof potential with that. And what Don
said, like, that's that's abig answer to Tribune. I mean,
you're shutting it down right off therid. They're feeling cocky, they're snapping
I and you throw this guy out. They're like, ah, shoot,
like there's there's some stuff you canreally mess with with that. It goes

(45:36):
together really well with man thing onone lane, this guy on the other
goes good with Hasmad. You gotLuke Cage already, You're starting to do
so much negative to them, likeit's good. You know, how are
you going to try to even comeback from all this? Granted, there's
there's a lot of areas for me. I never get my hands, so
I don't know how how we workout together. You could even you know,

(46:00):
onslaught this stuff and bully her ifyou wanted, So yeah, I
added two three. Like Don said, that's for sure a lot of potential
with it. I know more aboutit because I was just like, ah,
I don't know this is It isjust not not something I would be
playing. But I can't just buyto get it, Okay, Yeah,
I feel like this card is,uh, it has its niche uses,

(46:23):
right. It's not a card that'sgoing to be splashable in every deck,
but it is. It is anice car a tech card that probably if
you notice a lot of like youguys are mentioning the tribunal, uh,
if you notice a lot of thatin your your you know your group,

(46:43):
or you know where the level you'replaying at, it's it's probably a good
splash card. But other than that, I feel like it's a very very
niche don't because I mean, ifyou think about it, four five,
six, right, very rarely aperson's going to play a fore cost on
for a five cost on five anda six cost on six, and very

(47:07):
rarely are they going to play itin the same lane. So it becomes
like when do I play this,right? Do I want to play it
early? If I play it early, then I'm giving away that don't play
there, right unless that's your youryour motive. Now, if you play
it late, then it takes awayyour ability to play a five cost a

(47:30):
fore cost or you know, ahigher cost card where you have to match.
You know, you have to usetwo energy just to play this.
So on turn six you play this, you can only play a four cost.
So it's like it's very weird rightnow, but I feel like it
still has more use than Captain America. Yeah, his counterpart, right,

(47:55):
Like, I feel like him beinga better card than happenin in America is
kind of like a slap in theface. Now, Like I said,
I like this card. You knowwhat I would like more about this card
if there's a three thousand costs exactly. Okay, Like this feels like a
three thousand costs but I think ithas some interesting play lines. But again,

(48:22):
I'd be much more interested at threethousand. I'm just trying to,
you know, put lipstick on thepig here, all right. So,
uh, before we end, Iwant to just delve into that just a
little bit. I know we've talkedabout it before. So this month there,

(48:43):
it's another month of only pull fivecards. So for those are the
you that don't know. Pull fivecards cost six thousand tokens to purchase straight
up, or you could use akey to take your chances. You have
a twenty five percent chance of gettingit. Now. Pull four costs three

(49:05):
thousand tokens, very much more affordablenow when they continuously release Pull five cards.
Uh, because they're releasing cards everyweek and double on the first weeks
of every season. It's another wayto have players not be able to catch

(49:30):
up. So I want to hearyour thoughts on this, and you know,
because I always ramble on because I, like I said, I want
the game to have longevity. Andfor a game to have longevity, you
need the players to be able tospend a reasonable amount of time money and

(49:54):
time and money, yeah, timeand money on the game that they don't
have to go, you know,break the or try and make this their
their their livelihood in order for themto continuously progress in the game. So
how do you how do you feelabout you know, all that stuff?
This are what you don't you know? Here's the thing, Like I do

(50:21):
think that they are starting to pinchthe pennies a little bit. I'm on
the flip side of that. Ido want to give them credit for the
fact that, like, you couldspend a fairly minimal amount of Water money
and still get all your cards,right, Like, because we've all been
playing a little over a year,Water, and we've all been playing a

(50:47):
little over year, right, andyou know, like we've spent okay amount
of money, right, But butI don't feel like for myself, I've
spent a ridiculous amount of money,right, I've gotten all the cards,
right, I literally have every cardabout a year into the game, which
you can't necessarily say with any cardgames out there, like, that's not

(51:12):
typically how it works, right,So for that, there's some credit there.
On the flip side, it doesseem like the last couple of months,
it's just been a little bit more, right, the prices have gotten
a little bit more expensive for everything, and now there's a little bit more
things to buy, and they're makingit a little more difficult to get these

(51:35):
and oh, you know what,let's just make all the cards six thousand
as soon as they come out,without ever reducing the cost on any of
the cards, right, Like,it'd be one thing if they would have
moved some of the cards from pullforward to Pool three right, and start
moving those prices down for some ofthe older cards, But they haven't done
a single thing as far as thatgoes, so you know what, Like
again, you can pull it offin a year, but they definitely seem

(52:01):
to be chipping away at the bankaccount. To add on what you were
saying, I feel like the longerthe game goes, the longer it's gonna
take for you to finish. Yeah, it took us about a year and
we're trying to do it weekly,right, But for somebody just starting out,
I feel like if you put in, if you put in a reasonabout

(52:24):
reasonable amount of money, you know, reasonable is like the ten dollars for
the season pass and the five dollarsprobably for the Gold pass. You know,
then fifteen dollars a month, you'llprobably be done year, year and
a half. And that's not terribleif you ask me, it's not terrible.

(52:45):
But the longer this thing the gamegoes, and the way that they're
releasing cards every week, it's gonnabe at the point where it's just it's
gonna take two years for you toplay with the people that you admire that's
streaming, right, or if youwant to be a new player in the
game, and you you want tobe that person that, oh, you

(53:06):
know, I feel like I havegood ideas for the game and I want
people to watch me. Well,I'm going to spend two years to get
all the cards before I get peoplethat can watch me, right, because
you want to be that person withthe card so you could tell other people
about the card, you know.And it's hard. It's hard to be
a content creator when you can't talkabout a card that's been out for you

(53:30):
know, a couple of months.So it does it does kind of put
the uh, the entertainment end ofthis game behind a paywall. So how
about yourself to go to How doyou feel about stuff like this? It's
getting frustrating, Like at this pointthey really need to start throwing this decka
bone, especially with all the bundlesthat are coming out. Then you be

(53:53):
like, Okay, this is worthbecause this money actually equates to listen,
we're getting a cool variant on topof it along with this. This is
awesome. Now, man, everythingcome out with the last month alone has
been a joke. Who's spending muchmoney for a long variant? I'm sorry,
there's there was delicious things about it. Don't get me wrong, it

(54:15):
was realistic and the ding ding thatwas all the things I wanted, But
that gun it. Man. Iwas like, that's a hundred bucks for
that? What are we doing?I said, my life changes and all
the stuff that I got married.We ordered a king sized mattress ala Amazon
that was three hundred bucks. ButI got the notification for the bundles Earth

(54:35):
that said one hundred dollars for this. I was like, what the heck
has gone on? Man? Ihad to stay down. Okay, Look,
I started looking back. The amountof credits that we used to get
for the money has dropped big time. The amount of gold that we got
for the money has dropped big time, tokens, all of it. And
now that we're not getting our threethousand cost cards, you know, our

(54:57):
pool with a pool fours. Well, I'm really looking at this game going
all right, so you don't wantme to have every card unless I'm spending
this much money? I understand,Like we already agreed. Yeah, that's
what they're doing. It's getting frustrating. They need to start realizing that they're
starting to lose their player base withthat action. So when the original you
see the commercials all the time.They're like, what if you could play

(55:21):
games? You don't. You're notable to even spend enough money to actually
get all the cards, you know, they're all proud about that. It's
like, all right, well,how about you start going back to your
roots there, brother, because it'sgetting frustrating for sure. Yeah. I
agree with that because I mean,if you make this game purely about the
you know, to pay is justpurely cosmetic and it's affordable, way more

(55:45):
people would purchase it. So,I mean, if you think about that
one hundred dollars bundle, that Wongbundle where you know, of course these
are these are cosmetic, but tosome people, they don't own Wong yet,
so it'd be nice. Oh hey, look I get to play Long.
Yeah, it's a variant, andI still have to unlock the OG

(56:06):
card, but I could still useit if I purchase it. Now,
if you put that behind like atwenty to thirty dollars paywall, that's not
bad. You know. Then you'reyou're paying like thirty bucks a card,
right, you know, quote unquotebecause the cards typically have no value because
you're gonna unlock all of them anyways, it's just the variant that you want,

(56:30):
right, and it was. Itwas a really nice variant. You
know, I'm still heartbroken that Iwasn't able to purchase it because it's an
absurd price for what you're getting.Yeah, I could say, okay,
whatever came with it, it's waymore than what you I think it came
with, Like I forgot what itcame with. But let's go with the
most recent one, right, theGhostwriter, the Robbie Ray's Ghostwriter and the

(56:53):
black Cat, the in Huck Leeones. It was one hundred dollars,
came with two keys and I thinksix thousand tokens or something like that.
Now, if you equate the tokensto what you're spending like on token Tuesdays,
and then you equate the keys andyou revert how many upgrades or credits

(57:17):
does it take to get one key, and you convert that to gold,
and then you convert the gold tomoney, then it's like, Okay,
it's worth it. But in thatsense, it's kind of not right because
I could do without the keys becauseI could earn those keys on my own
time. Now, if you purelyput it in cosmetic, if you just

(57:40):
sold the variants as is like variantsalone, if you sold them for like
ten twenty bucks, people would buyit now because you're putting it for one
hundred dollars, and for one hundreddollars if you're like okay, six thousand
tokens, which like again equates toone unlocked card, and then the keys

(58:02):
equates to two chances of unlocking onecard, right, So it doesn't make
sense. I mean a lot ofpeople are saying that it's it's insane because
I bought hell Divers for forty dollars. You know, I bought the the

(58:22):
the other pack, the extension pack, for like twenty more bucks. So
it's like you're buying a whole gamewhere this car like that one card does
not change the game at all.Yeah, it promotes the game and makes
the fun the game fun, butit's not worth what they're trying to do.

(58:45):
Like I feel like they would getmore micro transactions instead of bigger transactions.
So I don't know who's buying it. I know there's people with they
say, oh, I have expendableincome, that's great, all all all
the you know, blessings for you, but not everybody has that expendable income.

(59:07):
So I think if they if theywanted to do that, they should
kind of create a tier kind ofuh what is it like like a bundle?
Right? So I know that theyallow the four US now and it's
kind of tailor made to to youraccount, right, but say if you

(59:27):
wanted that in yuckily uh bundle,right, I would say like there should
be like if you want the maximumbenefits, right, for one hundred dollars,
you could get these two variants andthis much gold and this much credits
and this much tokens. But ifyou want the variants a mid tier,

(59:52):
you'll get less tokens less, youknow, I feel like there should be
a tear system. How much doI want to support the game? Right?
I want to support the game,but not one hundred dollars every time?
Right, I could go for thetwenty dollars. Or it's like,
okay, you buy one one ofthe variants, right, Oh, I
just wanted to purchase the Ghostwriter variant. Okay, So it's like it halfs

(01:00:15):
the cost and then or you know, if it's twenty dollars, you get
the variant, the the boosters,and probably like five hundred gold or something,
right, So it makes it morelike, Okay, I could afford
one of them because I like oneof them. I don't want both of
them because there's there's all. There'sa lot of those times where you see

(01:00:39):
the bundle and you're like, Ireally like that one, not so much
the other one, but you know, I have to buy the bundle because
it has both. Where if theykind of made tear systems for their bundles,
I feel like they would sell morebecause they're you know, oh,
I want to spend this much notthat much, right, So I don't

(01:01:01):
know anything. I just feel like, you know, I want them to
succeed, you know, and II do enjoy the game, so I
enjoy promoting and what is it buyingstuff to to? I don't know what
I'm saying. I don't know whatam I trying to say. I get

(01:01:23):
you, Yeah, you want tosupport support the game, support the game.
I feel like you're being you know, nickeled and dimed all the way
through where it's like, well,guess what, you have to buy all
these extra things just to get theone thing that you actually want, you
know it is, and then likeagain, the prices keep going up and

(01:01:44):
up and up, you know,before too long, there'll be the next
pro bundle, which will be likefive hundred dollars. You know, the
pro bundles were worth it. Ibelieve the pro bundles were worth it for
the work. Yeah, for theexactly yea for the one hundred bucks.
Oh my god, you got and The first time it was one hundred

(01:02:04):
and twenty five thousand credits, Iwas just like, what do I do
with these credits? But now thehundred dollars gets like two thousand credits and
then two variants, and I'm justlike, where did we go? I
to remember the Girl days and that'scrazy. It was like just a year

(01:02:29):
ago, and it's just like,hey, I understand that they're kind of
losing their uh, their benefactor inNew Verse, but I mean for you,
I don't know. I wonder what'sthe cost benefit. I don't know
if they would ever share that.Like, if they're selling these bundles at
one hundred, I wonder how muchcompared to the twenty dollars bundles that are

(01:02:52):
good that people are buying, Like, is it equal? Are they making
the same amount of money or arethey making more with the ten twenty dollars
ones? Are they actually catching thosepeople with the fomo that are spending one
hundred dollars, you know, becauselike I said, it was such a
hard thing to not buy that Wongvariant because you like the variant. I

(01:03:14):
have the card, you know,so the card does the same thing.
It looks nicer. I would upgradeit more, but you know, I'm
not going to spend that one hundreddollars on something that's not worth it anymore.
You know, I've done it beforeI could say they did get me
like, because it's like, oh, when am I going to ever get
this variant again? You know.And I know they're talking about bringing back

(01:03:36):
Spotlight variants a year later for youto purchase them. So will they do
that in the future. I meanthere are variants that came and went when
I didn't start the game, youknow, so I have no chance of
getting it unless they re release it. So they they really play into that
fomo And I'm kind of over thefomo part of it now where I'm just

(01:04:02):
like, I'm trying to get asmany resources so if I do see something
I see, I will get it. But there's going to come a point
in time where it's like, oh, I just have to skip out.
Mm hmm. So second Dinner.I hope you know, if you don't
watch this, I hope someone watchesthis and spreads the word, just like

(01:04:25):
Second Dinner. Come on, welove the game. Just just be more
affordable, cause you know, youdon't have to spend money on this,
but we do. We do,and we love we love it. It's
just we love it more if itwas more affordable. Correct. So anything

(01:04:45):
else you guys want to close with, No, I don't think so.
I think, like I said,it's been a good start to a season
for all of us. I knowyou both have made it already and I'm
on the cuffs, so let's getthis done. And I think it would
be the first time all of thiswill be this early in the season.

(01:05:06):
Yes, yes, and I knowunfortunately you guys didn't make it last season,
but we're hoping that this season isa turnaround and we could do something
like this every season. We allmake infinite because I feel like infinite is
something all players can reach as longas you have the time, as long
as you learn the game, youhave the patience. So well, I

(01:05:30):
have one of those things. ButI will say the reason why I didn't
make infinite last season was because Isaid, if I made it, I
would have bought the Wong. Andso God said no, and I told
him, I said, if youmake it to infinite and you get the

(01:05:50):
wrong I will get it with you. And it didn't happen. You know,
they the system knew, so I'mnot buying it. That's all they
were trying to make. Make apoint, stick it to the man,
you know. So on that note, I bid you guys farewell for now,

(01:06:11):
and I will see you guys thenext episode of Cube. The Marvels