Full Metal EA Cards for VS 2PCG, Part 10 (Generics)

These first two cards are ones I think we all wish we could see as official EA's, but I doubt we ever will. It seems like every deck I build plays one or both of these cards, which makes it hard to build more than two decks at a time, even with two boxes of cards. In any case, I love, love, love this Deodato drawing of Cap and Havok. The Daniel Murray drawing is perfect for Open Fire.

These two cards are not nearly as good. Giving DEF to your attacker and ATK to your defender just isn't that useful, I don't think. Of the two, Savage Surprise is much better, though. And once again the Deodato art is amazing. One of my favorite drawings of Hulk at his savage best. Although the Jim Cheung art is almost equally fantastic.

I didn't find many good art choices for these two cards. The Academy art is kind of cartoonish. I like the Training Ground art well enough.

These two I like much better. The Greg Land drawing is quite good, although I wish Tony didn't look so much like Robert Downey, Jr. The Fortress art by Olivier Coipel, on the other hand, is gorgeous. It does work better as a single card than as a slider, though.

That's the whole set. 112 cards. This was a beast of a project, mainly because of all the work I put into designing, redesigning, and then redesigning again the MSE template. But I did learn a lot along the way, so it was a rewarding process. Hope you liked the art choices, if nothing else.

Full Metal EA Cards for VS 2PCG, Part 9 (More Avengers)

I like quite a few of the Avengers supporting characters. Ant Man isn't amazing, like the Dell'Otto art, but he's solid, as is Black Widow. I really like this art by Cris Delara.

Simone Bianchi's art is usually too dark for my tastes, but I do like this drawing of Black Panther. Daredevil is a staple in aggro decks, and this Neal Adams art if quite cool. I would like Hawkeye better if he could give +2/+0 to one of his teammates as well as himself. I'm surprised this my only card with Mike Mayhew art. I like a lot of his stuff.

I don't like the Cap card that much, but this is probably my favorite drawing of him. Nick Fury is a staple in ramp decks, and I quite like this art.

I really like this Greg Horn drawing of Ms. Marvel, far more than the card. Spider-Man is a solid card in the right deck, and this drawing by Justin Ponsor is terrific. I found it months ago, and forgot all about it until recently.

Dr. Strange is one of my favorite supporting characters at the higher drops. Yet another Deodato piece. It's awfully hard to find good artwork for Luke Cage but I do like this Brandon Peterson drawing.

Iron Man is another really strong card, and the Alex Ross piece is fantastic, although he tends to overuse this blinding flash effect. (There are a couple of Green Lantern pieces that look all too similar.) The Thor card is the only other one where I used Mike Mayhew. Probably my favorite drawing of Thor.

Last but not least, the Hulk. I can't decide if the card is really good or just OK, but I absolutely love this drawing by Carlo Pagulayan. I think it makes great card art.

That's it for all the characters and teams. Next up are the generic plot twists and locations.

Full Metal EA Cards for VS 2PCG, Part 8 (Avengers)

I confess I haven't built decks around any of these characters yet, although Hulk is next on my list to try. I do love the Hulk art I picked. This is one of my favorite Alex Ross pieces, and the Silvestri pencils for this drawing of Hulk have inspired a legion of colorists. There are several versions of it that I like, but this one looked the best with the gold frame of an L2 card.

Stegman is one of the better artists at drawing Spidey, and this is one of his best drawings of him. The Angel Medina drawing I used for the L2 card is awesome.

I think the Cap cards are kind of disappointing. The art is not. Joe Jusko's piece is a tribute to Jack Kirby. And the Alex Ross drawing of the Avengers, which you can see more of in the slider version, above, is a masterpiece.

Iron Man is also disappointing, but I do like this art by Joe Quesada, my favorite Iron Man artist.

Think Again is one of my favorite team-stamped plot twists, and Earth's Mightiest Heroes is really good too. More great art by Deodato and Ross. The Ross piece is another tribute to Kirby.

Stark Tech is an underwhelming card, but the art is cool. Surprisingly little good art for the Avengers Mansion. I'm happy with what I found, but I had no luck finding the artist.

Avengers supporting characters are next.

Full Metal EA Cards for VS 2PCG, Part 7 (More X-Men)

As much as I like the X-Men main characters, I find most of the supporting characters underwhelming. In my Wolverine and Storm decks, I only play 2-3 of them. At least the main characters are solid.

Iceman is an obvious exception. He's terrific, and so is this drawing of him. I like the art I picked for Magik more than the card.

Hope Summers is another solid card, and I do like Namor in aggro decks, but Cyclops is disappointing. I love the art I used for them, though, especially the Namor art. A real shame that Michael Turner died so young.

I play Deadpool in my Storm deck, but he's good rather than great. The art I picked for him is extremely flavorful, I think. Not crazy about Gambit, but I know some people like that card. I've yet to build a 2PCG deck where I thought I could afford to discard a character card and flip a location just to stun a character out of combat. I do like the Greg Land art, though.

I really like the art I picked for Storm and Beast, who indeed looks ferocious here. I'm not that keen on either card, although I do play Storm in my Wolverine deck.

Another Deodato piece, one I hadn't seen either until recently, and a fantastic drawing of Wolverine by Mike Choi. The Cable art seems especially flavorful.

Love this Dell'Otto drawing of Colossus. Gorgeous drawing of Emma by Stanley Lau (aka ArtGerm).

Besides Iceman and Hope, I think Professor X is the strongest of the X-Men supporting characters. And I've always loved this Deodato drawing of him. I've searched many times for good art for him, and it is always amazing to me how little there is.

That's it for X-Men. Next up are the Avengers.