You know things are bad in the CCG industry when Wizards of the Coast is struggling and don’t look now - Wizards of the Coast is struggling.
WotC announced yesterday it is “restructuring to focus on key growth strategies for core brands,” industry speak for “some of you should update your resume.” Some positions were eliminated as part of the “restructuring,” but WotC is still hiring for other positions. A company spokesperson said the layoffs amount to less than 5 percent of the company’s workforce.
| August 21st, 2008 | Tags: Author:
Brian |
2 Comments
Let me start by declaring my huge Green Lantern fanboyishness. I named my firstborn son Jordan for obvious reasons. When I heard preview cards for the new fan created DC set were going out, I knew I had to get on board. I’m well aware I could type a way to make your car run on wishes and dreams in the paragraphs before the preview and you wouldn’t bother to read it. So I’ll get to what you came for:
Yeah baby yeah! The Emerald Enemies are all about destruction of resources, mostly their own. An off-curve/short curve strategy needs to pump more before 9 a.m. than most decks do all day so universal pumps are very important.
This hooks up everybody that shares a team affiliation with his moustache-ness. While it fits the EE theme, it isn’t restricted to printed team affiliation. Imagine what a team like The Brotherhood could do with a +2/+2 to everyone. Qwardian Messiah allows little characters to get very big, very fast.
I’m picturing a kill turn with Major Force, slapping this puppy on there and then blowing up a couple resource for a 7-drop sized 5-drop. Thematically this card is dead on because the Sinestro Corps are all about drinking their leader’s Kool-Aid. That stubborn cultish cooperation shows itself in this card. Hey, even when you’re a diabolical supervillain it’s all about teamwork right?
New Card Smell will be keeping you posted on DC Universe and letting you know more about the hard working fans bringing it to you. No DC in VS future? Not on these guys’ watch!
I don’t get any additions to my beloved Secret Six Victorious deck. Given the choice between an established, winning archetype and a “Holy Grail” combo like S6V, I go for the Grail every time. And my record in major events shows as much.
Still, each new member of the Secret Six would make it easier to get six of them into play to key the win condition. And remember, this deck had Fiddler get hit with the ban hammer because of combos in decks that had nothing to do with the Secret Six. That’s tinged with irony since in the books, Fiddler got offed on the team’s first mission. Thankfully we at least got Mad Hatter to replace him. But I still want my Knockout and Harley Quinn.
Also, the Secret Six are supposed to be coming back in a new ongoing giving me more tasty card-flopping opportunities. Get it in gear, DC Licensing.
Upper Deck has announced that its World of Warcraft game will introduce blocks at Gencon August 14-17. For Block Constructed only the March of the Legion, Servants of the Betrayer and Hunt for Illidan expansions and their accompanying raid deck treasure packs are legal.
Block Constructed will join the North American Continental Championship, the beginning of the next round of Realm Championship Qualifiers and a Constructed Darkmoon Faire Championship as events on the Gencon schedule.
Another day, another popular anime makes the conversion to card game form. 4Kids Entertainment has announced that Upper Deck will bring the hit show Dinosaur King to tabletops this October.
The press materials for the game tout realistic dinosaur images, dino facts and more than 150 cards.
The game will launch with a 40-card Starter Set and 9-card Booster Packs. The starter set offers everything needed to play, including a Battle Mat, a Beginner’s Guide, a free five-card booster pack and one of three oversized Character Cards. Each of the 9-card booster packs, which are available separately, contains one rare foil card.
Several levels of premium cards will be available including Silver Rare and Gold Rare foil cards, and the rarest of all, Colossal Rare cards, which come with eye-catching patterned foil art.
Sega will release a Dinosaur King card collecting video game this fall, so the full scale media push is on for this property. Hey, kids like dinosaurs. It’s an eternal truth.
What sort of games do imaginary online horses play at baby showers? We’ve got until October to figure it out, as Hidden City Games is releasing the Bella Sara Baby Bella Expansion, the seventh release for the popular Bella Sara TCG. The horse collecting game that has a strong online presence as well This expansion brings three new card types including “Parent” (both mother and father)Offspring and “Teacher” cards. Collecting and activating each member in a family tree will give unique online rewards and there are also 12 magical toy inserts (1 per every six packs) used to activate magical online toys.
Each pack (MSRP $2.99) contains seven cards plus a checklist. Each Display Box (MSRP $107.64) includes 36 card packs and each case contains 20 boxes. The entire Bella Sara Baby Bella series contains 129 new cards including 22 parents, 48 offspring, 10 caretakers, 12 magical toy cards and 37 shiny foil horse cards.
The Baby Bella Expansion Card Packs are also available in a blister pack format (one pack per blister, MSRP $2.99) with 15 packs per Blister Pack Carton (MSRP $44.85), and a special Value Box (MSRP $9.99), which contains 4 Baby Bella card packs, 1 “Horseshoe” card (redeemable for 400 online horseshoes), and 1 exclusive online magical toy. The Value Boxes are packed 12 per case (MSRP $119.88 per case).
Yeah, this just in, right? But part of what makes VS System fun is that The Punisher can bust a cap in a being like Imperiex for the win. Brian Eugenio combined Punisher’s legend suite with the new Marvel Universe hot sauce of Carrying The Torch and The Captain for multiple Punishers. It carried him to decisive victory at this past weekend’s VS System World Championships, held at Origins.
This turned Sniper Shot from a “neat little card for Punisher” into pure bustedness. Here’s the blueprint for brilliance:
4 Captain America, The Patriot ○ Secret Avenger
4 Punisher, Suicide Run
4 Professor Emil Hamilton ◊ Ruin, Power Suit
4 The Captain, Can’t Remember His Real Name
1 Captain Atom, Quantum Energy
1 Scarecrow, Chiroptophobic
1 Air Walker, Herald
1 Black Manta, Underwater Marauder
1 Human Torch, Fiery Fiend
1 Spider-Man, Outlaw
1 Punisher, Angel of Death
1 Ghost Rider, Danny Ketch
Plot Twists
4 Carrying the Torch
4 Sniper Shot
3 Have a Blast!
4 Mobilize
4 Wild Ride
3 Pathetic Attempt
3 Superhuman Registration Act
3 Ominpotence
2 Neighborhood Watch
1 Stars and Stripes
1 My Name Is Peter Parker . . .
Equipment
4 Captain America’s Shield
Expect this powerhouse of a deck to be netdecked and played badly for the remainder of Silver Age VS System, folks.
Marvel Universe had a huge impact on the competitive scene the first day it was legal for tourney play. As many had predicted, the Hulk and his Warbound teammates were everywhere. There were 17 Warbound decks, only Marvel Knights KO making up more of the field with 18 players displaying their “Knight Moves.” Sorry, I had to.
Today is all draft with the new shiny Universe cards. A friend of mine and former Waco-area player Reid Cox got feature match treatment on VS System’s coverage. Also repping Texas was the man known as Michael “BigSpooky” Barnes. We’ll keep you posted on what goes down at Worlds and the new metagame that emerges in the aftermath.
Konami has picked up the rights to distribute the Blue Dragon TCG in North America. It’s based on the Xbox 360 roleplaying game from Final Fantasy creator Hironobu Sakaguchi with character designs by Dragon Ball Z creator Akira Toriyama.
In other words, it could be a huge hit as a TCG. An anime based on the Blue Dragon mythos airs on Cartoon Network. Konami’s well-known not just for video games like the Metal Gear Solid series but a little card game called Yu-Gi-Oh you might have heard of. If anybody can break Blue Dragon into this market, it’s Konami. New Card Smell will keep you posted.
According to a statement released by Wizkids President Lax Chandra, the company will be making changes to consolidate its corporate offices and focus on key brands.
The three key brands it’s touting are of course its HeroClix collectible miniatures game, the Star Wars PocketModel trading card game and the Pirates Pocketmodel Game. Wizkids is especially excited about cross promotional opportunities with the upcoming Clone Wars animated film in August and the TV show coming in October.
Wizkids will release a Clone Wars expansion in July and Clone Wars Tactics in October.
