Welcome to the first Card of the Day.
Now this mini-article probably won’t happen every single day (so the name is a little sucky), but every now and then when the awesomeness or sheer suckyness of a card strikes me, I may feel compelled to share those emotions with you whilst simultaneously trying to drag some kind of comment out of your good selves.
Today I will kick things off with one of the new guys from the Marvel Universe expansion:
The Captain, Can’t remember his own name.
For those who can’t see the image, the details are as follows:
Card Type: Character
Cost: 4
ATK/DEF: 7/6
Flight/Range: Yes/Yes
Keywords: Reservist
Ability:
At the start of the combat phase, choose a name that The Captain doesn’t have. He gains that name, and then say all his names. If you do so correctly, draw a card.
The way I see this initially is like a larger version of Barbara Gordon <> Oracle. Card draw is aphenominal ability for any deck, and this truth has seen the Gotham Knights three-drop shoehorned into all manner of decks. Both cards essential allow you to draw an additional card each turn for no cost.
Barbara can draw her card at any time, whereas The Captain is restricted. However, Bab effect is a payment effect and there are far more options out there to negate it than there are for our COTD.
Although his stats are low for a four-drop, they are not as crippiling as that of the Gotham Knights character. Cap has reservist, where Babs has Substitute, so she wins that battle, but then the Cap comes through and steals the show with the remainder of his text-box.
Basically, he becomes whoever you want, giving you access to all sorts of legend abilities and effects. As Brian Eugenio recently demonstrated, you could quite happily have Captain America, Patriot, Secret Avenger using his Shield and The Captain getting a shot at it as well. Throw him in a World’s Finest deck and he improves the tricks available to them. He also cheats uniqueness in a clever way. After recruiting him and giving him an additional name, you’re free to recruit another copy of the Captain without loosing the first guy. Like wise if you decide to give him the name Dr. Doom, you can quite happily recruit another Dr. Doom and still keep your Captain. I like the idea of using a single copy Mystical Paralysis twice in a turn (Diabolical Genius to flip it face down after the Captain uses it.)
All in all, I think The Captain is one of my favourite cards in the set. He’s got proven tier one potential and the jank-doors this guy can open are limitless. I give him a score of:
4/5
So what are your thoughts, comments or combos? How would you rate him on a scale out of X/5? I look forward to reading your comments.
Steve
Not only does he break uniqueness, but with the legend stamping of cards, he is amazing. Without getting into any of the crazy rares or combos, a team up with FF4 to plop a cosmic conrtol rod and extremis upgrade can be game breaking. Get a few bathtubs/bumpercars/fantasticar2.0s and he seems even more ridiculous.
The first (of many abuse decks featuring him to come, I’m sure), you could see from Worlds in that punisher deck.
[...] http://kamiza.wordpress.com/2008/07/07/card-of-the-day-1-the-captain-cant-remember-his-own-name/ [...]
I would personally give him a 4.5/5
Purely because he is on a totally unplayable team, so multiple team ups are probably needed.
He’s definitely a combo piece and as such, dependant on a lot of supplimentary cards. But what fun can be had with him. I like the restriction that you can’t use him to cheat the “if you recruited a character called X”, but you can use him for the other stuff.
Any janky thoughts as to best use? Galactus for the MCG stuff maybe?