My first thought when I saw this card - "Ahh, something to help keep Victor Mancha around!"
For those of you living under a rock (Part 1)
The Runaways' main theme is "Decking" your opponent - getting them to deplete their deck and winning through an alternate win condition. Until now, that theme belonged to Arkham Inmates and the deliciously insane "Emperor Joker." But with Marvel Evolutions we've got Old Lace, another character that can ruin your opponent's day by taking them out when they've got no cards left to draw. (The nice thing about Old Lace is, she comes a turn earlier than Joker!)
As you can see, The Leapfrog helps Runaway fans capitalize on the team's theme. Not only do opponents now pay a penalty when they stun one of your characters, but The Leapfrog gives you the option to stun your ready Runaways characters yourself.
And whose to say you won't have multiple 'frogs in play? With a zero cost, it shouldn't be too hard to get multiples on the board. Getting 3 copies out on 3 characters means that 6 cards (or 1/10 the average deck) go into the KO'd pile if your board gets stunned. So think about it - if this happens on turn 4, your opponent likely drew 12 cards already anyway. That's nearly 1/3 of his deck gone by mid-game without factoring in any of the other Runaways tricks.
Granted, you'll be paying a cost for this too - it's not like you get to absorb the stun damage (where's Storm when you need her?). And a stunned character is a vulnerable one (where's The Alley when you need it?). Still, equipping The Leapfrog can be a viable strategy for keeping key Runaways around.
For those of you living under a rock (Part 2)
So what the heck is "The Leapfrog" anyway? And, if it's "The" Leapfrog, why isn't it unique?
I'll take these one at a time.
When you're a team of unregistered super-kids roaming the streets of Los Angeles, you can expect trouble to come looking for you. And if you can't outrun it, you'll need a rugged set of "wheels" that can hold about 8 people comfortably and comes stocked with dozens of evasive features (and some weapons to boot). This would be The Leapfrog. (Notice how I said it has "evasive" features? "Evasive" -> "Evasion". Get it?)
So how do you pick up one of these sweet machines? Well, it helps if your parents were part of an evil, super-powered cult and you found their secret hideout. That's how the Runaways did it. And once they figured out how to make The Leapfrog work, they were off and...well...running.
And while there is only one Leapfrog (that we know about anyway), readers of the Runaways will be quick to point out that time-traveling is a semi-regular theme in the book. Not only do the kids go as far back as 1907, but they are also visited by "early" versions of their parents, who come to lay down some whoop-ass. So it's not really a stretch to think the kids could come across multiple versions of this tank.
I can't wait to see how MEV rounds this team out. Will I finally have the viable "decking" deck I've been looking for since DSM came out? I certainly hope so.
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Today's other preview:
The Jank Has Chosen - http://jankhaschosen.com/
Tomorrow's Previews:
Planet Kalee - http://casualvs.wordpress.com/
It's A VS Life - http://onyxweaponvs.blogspot.com/
Don't forget to come back tomorrow for a few very interesting MEV-related offers...
This card is really hard to evaluate in the abstract, since how good it is is dependent on the quality of whatever it is returning. Don't get me wrong: It has a good effect, but the only thing that I can say about it is that it does what it does, and if you need to do what it does you'll play it. If not, you won't.































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