Review Details

DC Comics Deck Building Game: Crossover Pack #1 Justice Society of America

Product Review (submitted on September 6, 2015):

At first, I was a little nervous since it didn't seem to have that many cards, but my group wanted more heroes so we could have actual choice when playing with four or five people so I went ahead and got it. There are 8 new Supervillains, 7 new oversized Superheroes, and ten new cards for the main deck. My base set is Heroes Unite, so keep that in mind.

The Supervillains are fun and go up to Gog, a 15 cost villain with an Ongoing that is always at the end. Some of them have very strong abilities, but no stronger than, say, Nekron or Black Adam from Heroes Unite. My main complaint is that the 12 cost Supervillain has a rather weak draw ability. Otherwise, they add some variety to the mix and help make flipping over new villains more unpredictable. Their attacks and abilities are definitely unique as well. Moreover, since it adds a new 12 cost, 13 cost, 14 cost, and 15 cost, the Supervillain deck is generally tougher, which I like. Furthermore, it has a new always-on-top Supervillain, so Vandal Savage isn't always a part of the game.

The Heroes are solid. Some of them seem significantly stronger than the others though. Wildcat in particular has an often devastating ability to draw cards and is reasonably easy to combo, though less easy to combo late game as he relies on Punches. I've played him and dominated and played him and been stomped. Doctor Fate is tougher to play with more than two people in the game as his combos require cards with consecutive costs, but in a two person game, once you get going, he has the potential to build insane amounts of power and draw. For instance, I played Doctor Fate in a two person game with a very strong deck and between him and good use of my Supervillains' abilities, I got so much power one turn that I stopped counting after 60 power since I bought everything on the table, including all the Kicks (admittedly, this was insanely good even for him!). He's balanced though since he's no help early game and only little help mid game. Meanwhile, Jay Garrick, Power Girl, and Stargirl are bit weak in most situations - although I've seen all of them use their abilities well. Stargirl relies on Defense cards, which are tough to come by in our group as they are so useful - otherwise she'd be great. Alan Scott and Mister Terrific seem the best balanced and have the most interesting abilities. Overall, I like the new heroes, even if I find myself avoiding Power Girl like the plague. They add a good element of choice and none of them are as weak as Booster Gold. One thing I should also note is that they make some marginal cards in Heroes Unite much better. Daughter of Gotham City in particular is an excellent card to use with them.

The cards for the main deck are where the set really shines for me. The Superheroes and Supervillains are solid and add variety, but the cards for the main deck are well done even though there are only ten of them. All of them have interesting abilities and work well with any Superhero but particularly the Superheroes from the JSA set. Some of them seemed to have little use initially (Hourglass in particular) but are in fact very powerful. There's no boring card among them, and this makes them seem more numerous than they are.

Overall, it's worth the ten bucks, and I am looking forward to buying Legion of Superheroes and Watchmen when they come out. I mean, I even started reading some JSA comic books after playing with them, and I'm not one to read comic books much - until now!