Shiller took out all the cards and found the ga setup quite clever. Despite bearing the na of Three Kingdoms Kill, it actually resembled Hearthstone more closely, complete with dice rolling for checks and character summoning akin to Pokémon battles.
Every player had a Main Control Card, similar to the Lord in Three Kingdoms Kill or the Hero in Hearthstone. At the start, players would roll dice and summon characters onto the field based on their Investnt points.
The characters were mostly divided into several factions of superheroes, such as The Avengers, Young Avengers, The Sanctum, Kamar-Taj, S.H.I.E.L.D., New Warriors Team, Spider Legion, Asgard, and so on.
This was originally a Disney initiative to promote Arican superheroes, so it mainly featured Arican superheroes. Shiller had heard that there was a Chinese hero version, but it was a mobile ga, which they couldn't play outside the Great Wall.
Then there were the Event Cards, all of which could be summoned by dice rolls, such as a bat invasion in New York, the descent of Dark Elfs, or the grand wedding of the King of Asgard.
Shiller was very curious about the effect of his card.
The others were equally curious about theirs. Peter found his card first, and he had two of them: one was "Genius researcher Peter Parker," and the other was "Third Generation Spider-Man, Good Neighbor."
The Researcher card was clearly designed for technology decks and was in the sa vein as Iron Man. It could give all chas in play a positive effect, and it could also summon Flying Shuttles to bring characters from the draw pile onto the field.
The Good Neighbor set was designed for the Spider system, working in conjunction with the Spider Silk Launcher to control with web-slinging and using Spider-sense to forcibly exchange positions with the opponent to avoid an attack after they make a move.
Gwen did not find her own card but did co across Gwen Spiderman's, which, in addition to playing in the Spider system, also had a "Punk Band" tag, allowing it to be played in music-thed decks.
Harry's Green Goblin was part of the Monster Deck, capable of using Pumpkin Bombs and equipped with Chasing Skills. Both Doctor Lizard and The Hulk were also part of the Monster Deck.
Even Nick had his own card, clearly designed for summoning strategies, which could call upon SHIELD Agents from the draw pile.
After much searching, Shiller finally found his own card.
All the cards had a comic film portrait on the upper half, drawn quite realistically. Shiller's card showed him in a white lab coat, holding a dical record, apparently diagnosing a patient.
His faction was "S.H.I.E.L.D.," which didn't surprise Shiller since he was a SHIELD psychiatrist, after all.
However, the ability that followed was sowhat outrageous. His skill allowed him to make one person show their Action Card before playing it and reveal it only to him. This skill was nad "Mind Reading," and Professor X also possessed it.
Another skill was called "Hypnosis," which let him mix the opponent's Action Card among many others for replacent, then return it to the opponent facedown to decide whether or not to use it.
In other words, the opponent wouldn't know whether their card was swapped and could choose to use it or not.
If they used it, all numbers on the card would double. If they didn't, it would remove all bacterial and disease effects from the field.
Shiller could already imagine the chaos this card could cause.
The Action Cards themselves weren't complicated—still the old Kill, Flash, Peach set—but now transford into Attack, Defense, and Healing, along with so Unique Action Cards like Rebound, skip, and previous player's turn, among others.
But these cards had specific numbers on them, like a basic Attack card causing 5 damage—which would double to 10.
Shiller scanned the area and didn't see any card with health exceeding 10 points; one strike could sever the major arteries.
The thing was, if one chose to use the card, they wouldn't know if it had been swapped. If soone originally held a Healing card to restore their hero but it got switched with an increased value Attack card, it'd be like chopping themselves to death. Shiller feared one might tear up their card in a fit of rage.
And whoever drew this card would have bad news for those playing the bacteria strategy, as it could directly remove all bacterial effects from the field.
Talking about characters, the heroes themselves were quite distinctive, embodying the cosmos's great Abstract Entities—Eternity, Death, Infinity, Oblivion, and Star Eater.
Of course, these five weren't the limit to player count, as heroes could be repeated, each with their skills, usually providing buffs to certain tags.
Shiller found the ga interesting and wanted to give it a try. Wanda, too, was eager, saying, "Quickly, quickly, let's have a rehearsal to see how it works, so it can be even more exciting when we film the video tonight."
The others couldn't wait and imdiately set up the props to start playing.
First, they had to lay out the playing field—a tablecloth printed with an aerial view of New York City, marked with 6 points for placing Event Cards.
Then they arranged the heroes, drew their cards, rotating with each drawing 5 Character Cards and 10 Action Cards.
Afterward ca the dice rolling, but these dice were special, with numbers, colors, and suits—matching any would allow a character to enter the battlefield and act.
For example, rolling a black eight ant all cards with a black mark, peach blossom symbol, or even number could co into play.
After everyone had arranged their characters, they drew event cards, one at a ti, but the player with the most characters on the field could decide where to place the card. Once placed, it couldn't be moved.
After everything was set up, they started rolling dice to take turns acting.
Since they were superheroes, it was also possible to not attack each other, but to fight events instead. Resolving events gave points, which could be used to purchase special action cards or characters.
That is to say, the ga encouraged players to tackle events together because the action and character cards later in the ga could no longer be drawn and had to be bought with points. If you didn't fight events from the start, you'd run out of cards in hand.
The bad news was that Shiller didn't draw himself; the good news was that Shiller drew Iron Man and even got a corresponding special action card, "Place Nest."
While the others went off to fight events, he stayed in place to set up the nest. It wasn't that he didn't want points; the key was the sooner he placed it, the better, since it could produce small robots every turn.
Upon seeing Shiller whip out this gadget, Peter imdiately nudged him with his elbow and said, "Let's form an alliance, you see."
Peter pulled out a card for Shiller to see, and Shiller leaned in to discover that Peter had luckily drawn himself and even got Jarvis.
The card featuring the genius researcher not only boosted chas but also allowed free character acquisition. Jarvis could also boost chas and granted an extra turn of electronic life invasion. Their combined cards were simply the perfect setup for a spamming robot strategy.
So, the two ford an alliance. Peter didn't rush to fight events either. While Shiller waited for the small robots, Peter waited for the Flying Shuttle's cooldown. With the Flying Shuttle, he drew Hawkeye and used his cha piloting skill to greatly enhance the combat power of the front-row chas.
The others, playing for the first ti, didn't know how to handle the events, and unfortunately, their first event was "The Ten Commandnts' Invasion."
This kind of small fry that Wanda could casually drown by the dozen in the real world beat them up so badly in the ga, and the characters they drew were all nearly killed off by the Ten Commandnts' abilities.
Wanda was nearly frantic, swapping cards around, sotis pushing Captain Arica to the front, sotis asking to borrow Black Widow from others.
When their characters were nearly all dead, Shiller and Peter sent waves of small robots, strengthened several tis over and piloted by humans, to the battlefield. The Ten Commandnts were beaten into a retreat, and they barely defended against the event.
One should realize that if the event wasn't resolved within 10 turns, everyone would lose together, which was quite realistic since the fight had reached their ho turf of New York. If they didn't mobilize everything at this point, it would indeed an collective doom.
After the fight, the points weren't divided evenly but based on damage inflicted. Wanda, though bustling around like a tiger, didn't deal enough damage. Most of the damage was dealt by the chanical army, and she could only watch helplessly as Shiller and the others, who arrived last, walked away with most of the points, joyfully selecting cards in the market.
Naturally, choosing cards ant picking those that would complete the chanical deck. Shiller picked Ultron, then grabbed two chanical Repairs. Peter didn't choose himself but instead chose Wakanda King T'Challa, also known as Black Panther, who cos with a high-performance aircraft and can also boost chas.
Afterward, the others couldn't really play anymore. Shiller's burst of small robots clogged up the nest completely. The others' cards barely posed a threat to the nest without the flying tag. Whenever an event occurred, Shiller resolved it first, continued to accumulate points, and bought more cards, growing bigger and bigger.
Fortunately, later on, Jarvis drew Thor and, quite by chance, drew a special action card, Vault, using Squirrel Girl's luck skill to explode a Mjölnir card out of nowhere.
This item was heaven-sent against a chanical army; not only did it kill one robot with every lightning strike, but it could also conduct electricity for chain reactions. Shiller carelessly almost had his painstakingly amassed chanical army wiped out in one fell swoop.
Later, Wanda drew Loki, who could use Illusion Technique. Shiller didn't understand how robots could be affected by hallucinations, but he indeed had no cards capable of dispelling them. Had it not been for Peter switching to a Spider Stream later, the two could have ended up with egg on their faces.
In the end, Peter won. Shiller didn't even make it to second place, finishing third.
Shiller found that while the cha stream led by Iron Man was fierce in the early stages, it clearly lost montum later on. By that ti, everyone had large-scale damaging moves, all chainable, where one infection would spread to another. The small robots weren't up to par, and once dead, they took multitudes with them.
Iron Man could summon chas, but it required spending points, which were incredibly expensive. It's annoying enough that he didn't co with his own upon entering the ga, but even more so that it cost money to summon one. Wasn't this practically a life-or-death situation for Shiller?
But on second thought, it made sense. Which of Stark's suits didn't cost a fortune?
And within this deck, there was even what Stark called the "Ultimate Alloy cha," "Execution of Justice." This card looked powerful, but it required collecting all previous chas and gathering two types of alloy from both "Wakanda Crisis" and the "Androda Galaxy Disaster", then spending a large sum of money to summon it.
Of course, you could also play with Doctor Strange using the Magic cha Stream, but Shiller really had bad luck with cards in the middle and late stages; he couldn't even see a magic card, let alone upgrade to Iron Demon God.
It wouldn't have been such a problem if it had been weak from start to finish, but to have such an advantage in the beginning only to be gradually beaten back was frustrating.
Shiller was angry with the cha stream, but he knew that getting angry with a bunch of cards was pointless.
So he decided to get angry with the real Stark instead, whipping out his phone and unleashing a torrent of complaints at Stark.
Stark, who was still squabbling with Reed in the lab, was left dumbfounded by the tirade. What happened? Didn't I give the quarterly dical funds on ti?
A clueless Stark arrived in the hall to find a group of people playing heatedly.
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