[{"text":"Date Updated: "},{"sql":"SELECT `descriptionTwo` AS value1 FROM `dcdb_rules_management` WHERE `id` = 2"},{"text":"Next Scheduled Update:"},{"sql":"SELECT `descriptionTwo` AS value1 FROM `dcdb_rules_management` WHERE `id` = 3"},{"header":"rules change: teamwork"},{"text":"Teamwork abilities no longer allow you to choose a particular opponent to be Teamworked.&nbsp; All&nbsp;Teamwork effects now require you to randomly determine the player who is Teamworked.&nbsp; You can read the full rules change in the Keywords section (section&nbsp;five) here:<\/p>http:\/\/www.dcdeckbuilding.com\/rules\/<\/p>"},{"header":"THE FOLLOWING MAIN CHARACTER TIERS HAVE decreased:"},{"text":"Booster Gold (Heroes Unite) -&gt; Now Tier 2<\/p>Martian Manhunter (Promo)&nbsp;-&gt; Now Tier 3<\/p>Nightwing (Heroes Unite)-&gt; Now Tier 2<\/p>Phantom Girl (Crossover 3)&nbsp;-&gt; Now Tier 1<\/p>The Comedian (Crossover 4) -&gt; Now Tier 2<\/p>The Joker (Promo) -&gt; Now Tier 2 <\/p>"},{"double":[{"src":"boo238132boo22367.jpg"},{"src":"mar147509mar87127.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"nig650383nig54934.jpg"},{"src":"pha673803pha40580.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"the574385the56496.jpg"},{"src":"the135184the21758.jpg"}]},{"header":"the following main character tiers have increased:"},{"text":"Black Adam (Forever Evil) -&gt; Now Tier 3<\/p>Golden Glider (Crossover 5) -&gt; Now Tier 6<\/p>"},{"double":[{"src":"bla450466black-ad.jpg"},{"src":"gol997316golden-g.jpg"}]},{"header":"THE FOLLOWING&nbsp;MAIN deck CARDS ARE NOW BANNED:"},{"sql":"SELECT quantityInCube as value1, name as value3, setFrom as value2 FROM dcdbdb WHERE bannedInGroup = 5 AND type NOT LIKE 'supervillain' ORDER BY name ASC"},{"text":"Total number of main deck cards banned in this update:"},{"sql":"SELECT sum(quantityInCube) as value1 FROM dcdbdb WHERE type NOT LIKE 'supervillain' AND bannedInGroup = 5"},{"double":[{"src":"ark412847arkham-a.jpg"},{"src":"cin359859cinderbl.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"clo649906clocktow.jpg"},{"src":"fol50722follywoo.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"haw937359hawkfire.jpg"},{"src":"iri774754iris-wes.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"loo448762loot-4.jpg"},{"src":"rog660469rogues-s.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"rou142779rou43664.jpg"},{"src":"sal299592sal42522.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"sou470496sou11369.jpg"},{"src":"way172353way56143.jpg"}]},{"header":"the following super villains are now banned:"},{"sql":"SELECT quantityInCube as value1, name as value3, setFrom as value2 FROM dcdbdb WHERE bannedInGroup = 5 AND type LIKE 'supervillain' ORDER BY name ASC"},{"text":"Total number of Super Villains banned in this update:"},{"sql":"SELECT sum(quantityInCube) as value1 FROM dcdbdb WHERE type LIKE 'supervillain' AND bannedInGroup = 5"},{"double":[{"src":"bli396141blight.jpg"},{"src":"edw275671edward-f.jpg"}]},{"double":[{"src":"ici298657icicle-1.jpg"},{"src":"car40371card-bac.jpg"}]},{"header":"B&amp;T Update notes: main characters"},{"text":"For a long time, Phantom Girl has been a Tier-2 Main Character, mostly due to her chemistry with Chameleon Boy.&nbsp; When Chameleon Boy was&nbsp;a Tier-1 character, the team existed as a healthy combination.&nbsp;When we changed Chameleon Boy to a Tier-2, we should have moved Phantom Girl down to a Tier-1 to maintain this duo.&nbsp; Moving Phantom Girl down should restore the bond they once shared.<\/p>We always try to reasonably evaluate player requests, so if there is a team you'd like to be able to play together, feel free to message us.&nbsp; Unfortunately, some requests create an unhealthy environment, so don't take it personally if your request to play Heatwave + Bane doesn't get our stamp of approval.<\/p>Booster Gold, Martian Manhunter, Nightwing, The Comedian, and The Joker all previously used to put up good results, but have been sidelined a bit by new, more powerful Main Characters which have come out in recent sets.&nbsp; In order to give them a chance to see play again, we have lowered each of them by one tier point.&nbsp; This should allow those characters a better chance of seeing tournament play going forward.<\/p>Another goal of ours is to balance the tiers so that&nbsp;no particular team becomes too dominate to the point where players feel they lose the game during Main Character selection.&nbsp; To that end, we are raising the tier values of Black Adam and Golden Glider.<\/p>Black Adam can execute his plan solely off the 'always available' Kick stack, compared to other Main Characters that are more line-up dependent (i.e. Batman, Wonder Woman, etc).&nbsp; To compensate for the Kick stack being readily available (at least during early game), we are raising Black Adam a tier point.<\/p>Lastly, Golden Glider becomes our first ever Tier-6 character.&nbsp; Although the Teamwork rules have changed (see new rules below), which will have a slight impact on her play-style, we continue seeing strong results from her when played as a Tier-5 character.&nbsp; Through our tournament statistics, Golden Glider saw an unhealthy amount of play at competitive events. Glider was played nearly every match. We believe Bizarro was not the particular reason for this, so moving Golden Glider to a 6 is necessary. Allowing her to play&nbsp;alongside Bizarro gives her an unnecessary shield which we feel she&nbsp;doesn't deserve.&nbsp; With her ability to team up with Bizarro gone, she can now be meaningfully attacked.&nbsp; However, we believe she is worthy of being played as an individual Main Character and should not gain the benefit of any other Main Character; hence the Tier-6 status.<\/p>"},{"header":"b&amp;t update notes: main deck cards"},{"text":"While going on a vacation to Follywood is supposed to be fun and exciting, players who paid admission often found themselves leaving bad reviews of it online.&nbsp; Although the thought of buying it out the Line-Up sounds fun and exciting, in reality this rarely happens.&nbsp; Rather than having to turn off comments for it online, we've removed it from the cube to prevent the whole incident from happening again.<\/p>Likewise, hanging out with Cinderblock isn't all its cracked to up be.&nbsp; Even early game when you have the highest chance of cycling through Starters, players have elected to pass the turn and to 'waste' two power, rather than to add him to their deck.&nbsp; Once we realized that players flying around in a T-Wing were passing him up, we decided it was time for him to hit the road.<\/p>As for Sally and all her Loot, these cards have proved to be unhealthy for competitive play.&nbsp; Well-played games are often decided by tie-breakers (we had multiple matches decided by tie-breakers at our recent events), and these cards can lead to an unexpected surge of VP for a lucky player.&nbsp; We are trying to minimize luck as an aspect of the game, and have therefore removed two of the greatest sources of it from the game.<\/p>With the text change&nbsp;to Roulette, she went from being a cheap Kick to an expensive Punch; you can read more about this here: https:\/\/boardgamegeek.com\/thread\/1851134\/whip-and-roulette.&nbsp; It's a rare occasion when someone actually wants to rotate something, so she has been removed from the cube.&nbsp; Likewise, Clocktower, one of the few cards worth rotating with Roulette became harder to&nbsp;rotate all the way around, so we also saying goodbye to it. Without assistance,&nbsp; Clocktower would need to be in play before the first Super Villain was defeated. Two other often neglected rotate cards are also leaving the cube, so we are saying goodbye to Hawkfire and Soultaker Sword (both also from &#34;Birds of Prey&#34;) in this update as well.<\/p>With the inclusion of the new random Teamwork rule, knowing the top card of an opponent's deck has become less sought after information.&nbsp; This has led to Iris West being passed over&nbsp;game after game, so she too is departing the cube with this update. Additionally, Rogues Safe House is also banned as there are only three&nbsp; teamwork cards left in the main deck (excluding Main Characters).<\/p>Arkham Asylum and Wayne Manor round out the main deck cards leaving the cube. Although both have their uses, the fact that they provide only a single VP means they often sit dormant in the line-up with players opting to buy two Kicks instead of these, otherwise powerful, Locations.<\/p>"},{"header":"B&amp;T update notes: super villains"},{"text":"Icicle has proven to be unhealthy for competitive play due to his unavoidable 'attack' whereby he forces someone to play without their Main Characters. Blight has also proven to have the most brutal First Appearance Attack in the game, occasionally wiping out 30+ VP from a single player and has therefore had the banhammer dropped on him. Edward Fyers has long since berated players with his lackluster Ongoing ability.&nbsp; Because his ability is restricted to only the owner's turn, Edward Fyers doesn't trigger if used to defend an opponent's attack with something like Super Speed, etc. Because of this lackluster ability, many players skip defeating this Super Villain, preferring to buy from the line-up and Kick stack instead. Defeating a Super Villain should gain the players something more worthwhile, and for that reason, we have removed him from the cube. With the upcoming release of numerous sets this year, we hope to add more 8-cost 'starter' Super Villains to the cube. With the proliferation of Teamwork Main Characters being played competitively in DCDB, we noticed that King Shark teams were no longer able to maintain parity with them. This is largely due to the fact that players can effectively nullify King Shark's ability to generate VP every turn by repeatedly teamworking them. To give King Shark players a better chance, any time someone chooses to Teamwork a player, the Teamworked player will be chosen at random (see new rules change to Teamwork below)."},{"header":"Why Was Teamwork Changed to BE Random?"},{"text":"For some players, this change to the Teamwork mechanic may seem odd.&nbsp; However, many competitive players agree that Teamwork is an extremely powerful mechanic that has potential to ruin the competitive scene if not handled correctly, so one reason for this change is to lower the power level of the Teamwork mechanic as a whole.&nbsp;&nbsp; Another more daunting problem is problem of potential collaboration between players. By &#34;collaboration&#34; we mean the coordination, or the formation of an alliance, between two or more players which would allow for one of those players to have a nearly-guaranteed victory and\/or for the allied players to shut out another un-allied player. During testing and tournaments, we have seen the strong effect caused by collaboration, and, while completely eliminating collaboration is an impossible task, we hope to stifle this type of unfair advantage as best as we can. We look forward to bringing you more tournament results along with a new Ban &amp; Tier change list for the next season. Thanks to the DCDB community for making this all possible!&nbsp; - DCDeckBuilding.com Staff "}]