Ladies and Gents, Vs-blog.com is proud to present - Mandarin, Tem Borjigin!
The Background
I love this character. For those of you unfamiliar with Iron Man's nemesis from the East, let me bring you up to speed:
+ Mandarin was once a well-respected official for the Chinese government. He had it all - wealth, power, women. But then the Communist Revolution rolled in and he lost everything.
+ In order to get everything back, he ventured into the Valley of Spirits, found a busted up, century-old alien ship, studied their science, and helped himself to 10 rings he found on the ship. Once he realized how kick-ass these special rings of power were, he decided to take the next logical step - world domination. Fortunately for the world, Iron Man was there to stop him time and time again.
+ After countless confrontations between Mandarin and Iron Man, Mandarin finally "died" when his fortress exploded in a battle with Iron Man in the late 90's.
+ 10 years pass. In 2007, a group of bad guys finds our villain alive (gasp!), chained up in a prison. They free him, only to find that there is something different about him...something missing. Namely - his hands. Pretty hard to wear ONE ring, let alone ten, when you've got no digits. The solution? They plug the rings directly into M's back. Ouch!
+ Fake hands and a back full of rings in tow, Mandarin (under the alias "Tem Borjigin") plans to create and release a deadly virus - wiping out life as we know it. Shell-head steps in and the two arch rivals clash again. The battle is fierce, but it ends as one might expect...with Mandy losing his precious rings and, once again, his life (at least until Iron Man II comes out).
As you can see from our preview card, the art and version reflect the most recent incarnation of the ring(s)-bearer - the "Tem Borjigin" phase.
The Power
So we've got a 3-drop that can take out an 8 drop? And then, if fortune smiles upon your draw power (or "rally" power), you can immediately take out their 7-drop as well? During any phase? And your character can still attack afterwards? And he (hopefully) fetches you an equipment card each turn? Yeah - I'll take it!
I'd always wondered how UDE was going to pull this guy off. His 10 rings of power would each make killer equipment cards. But as we learned from the various gems in MTU, collecting powerful equipment cards isn't all it's cracked up to be. It's hard enough to dedicate your deck to three Fate Artifacts. Can you imagine what it would be like to play a Mandarin Legend deck? 4x Mandarin, 10 x rings, 4 x equipment recursion/search...that's over 1/4 of your deck right there! It would never work.
But leave it to the gang at UDE to come up with a solution. Instead of relying on finding 10 specific pieces of equipment to fuel Mandarin’s power, all you need is 10 cards in hand. While this may sound like a lot, don't forget:
1. It takes 10 cards to fuel a similar effect for Deadshot - Floyd Lawton. Sure, those are in the KO'd pile, but Secret Society's mechanics make it relatively painless to pull off. Will the Crime Lord mechanics do the same for Mandy here? Which brings me to my next point:
2. We haven't seen everything the Crime Lords can do yet.
The Bear
And now I'm passing the mic to everybody's favorite Bear to close this preview out by shedding some light on the proper ways to abuse this bad boy:
This card is incredibly well designed both in terms of game play and flavor.
First, his 6 DEF is helpful at keeping him alive to the later turns where his power is best. Admittedly, his stats are somewhat irrelevant since he works best as an under drop.
Then there's his triggered ability: It's very flavorful given that the Mandarin's power comes from his rings. In terms of game play, it helps enable his second ability, and is especially potent at that since there are many equipment related cards conducive to card drawing. His 6 DEF also translates into more triggers of this ability then normal.
Finally, we get to his last ability; discard ten cards to stun a guy.
Jeez.
My first impression of him was unreasonably negative; although discarding ten cards is very flavorful, that’s a good chunk of change you're dumping.
Still, stunning a character of any cost at any time is an effect that deserves a second examination.
When trying to guesttimate how good a preview is, I look to similar cards from the past. The Mandarin is somewhat unique but comparable to The Infinity Gauntlet - which required six cards to enable - and to a lesser extent the SNO - Savage Beatdown, Nasty Surprise and Overload - combo, both of which saw play.
The difference is that Mandarin's commitment in deckbuilding is quite small. While you can certainly build around him, this evil man doesn't ask you to play bad, narrow, or even situational cards to enable him. He doesn’t have to be your plan A – you could use the card drawing in your deck to build toward something else and have him as a contingency plan.
All Mandarin asks of you is to draw cards, something which you probably want to do in the first place. In return, this Crime Lord eagerly takes all the excess characters and locations you’ve drawn and converts them into something ridiculous.
This card is a perfect fit with Beside Myself and Certifiable. Another route is Ego Gem on Speed Queen or Quicksilver. If you natural the Ego Gem on a re-readier on turn two – playing four’s not that bad since we want to hit equips with our Rally – you can get this guy active very quick especially when in concert with New Baxter Building and Harvey Bullock - Bishop.
I also think he has potential in Spider-Heralds off the back of Empire State University, Black Cat, Elemental Converters and both the three and five drop Frankie Raye. Maybe throw in Moondragon for some extra fun?
There’s also a good amount of card drawing in Modern too, with Oracle, Evil Genius and Criminal Mastermind. Ironically, he’s also quite good against the Injustice Gang.
If you really want to be a jerk in casual play, I would steer you towards a combination of Avalon Space Station, Soul World, Secret Sanctuary, Mr. Mxyzptlk , The Phantom Stranger, and Harvey Bullock - all of which recycle cards so you only need to discard four cards to stun with the Mandarin.
As with all the previews as of late, I'm sure someone will point out that discarding ten cards to get Pathetic Attempted or negated by Batman - Cape and Cowl is pretty lame.
Yes, it is.
But you know what's even lamer? Having your opponent stun your largest drop - possibly even your two largest - without even attacking you.
Awesome review. What a great looking card to build a deck around. Who doesn't love stunning others?
Posted by: Cliff | May 13, 2008 at 06:40 AM
Nice preview!
Great background info too.
Posted by: Sean The Baldman | May 13, 2008 at 09:13 AM
His rings are only half of what makes him bad-ass. The other half is that he is Chi amping martial artist more powerful than old Iron Fist. It would be cool if his card design reflected this somehow.
Posted by: Michael | October 02, 2008 at 07:57 PM
His rings are only half of what makes him bad-ass. The other half is that he is Chi amping martial artist more powerful than old Iron Fist. It would be cool if his card design reflected this somehow.
Posted by: Michael | October 02, 2008 at 07:57 PM
His rings are only half of what makes him bad-ass. The other half is that he is Chi amping martial artist more powerful than old Iron Fist. It would be cool if his card design reflected this somehow.
Posted by: Michael | October 02, 2008 at 07:57 PM