The Monthly Venture Issue 1

Welcome to The OverPower Legion!
As the official publication of The OverPower Legion, The Monthly Venture will take you inside OverPower with helpful tips on playing, information about top OverPower players and their strategies for winning, plus inside information about the people who bring it all together.

Most of all, the Legion is about you -- the OverPower player. AS your forum for OverPower news and updates, we need your input to make it successful and keep it successful. After all, without you, none of this would be possible.

Tell us what we're doing right -- and doing wrong. What you want to see and what you don't want to see. Do you have a favorite deck that you think is unbeatable? Tell us what it is! Do you have a picture of you and your friends playing? Send it to us!

Send letters to: Address removed (Sorry but we won't be able to return anything you send us.)

Next month: The Galactus Hero Card!

Until then -- venture well!

9 Really Fine Facts About OverPower

 * 1) The original name of OverPower was Power Players.
 * 2) The original game mechanic was designed by brothers Michael and Theo Stern, both active in the gaming field for over nine years.
 * 3) The original hero cards had both offensive and defensive Power Grids as well as rating for movement and flight -- allowing them to "climb" onto Universe cards.
 * 4) Todd McFarlane (Spawn) did the pencils for the Web-Headed Wizard card. (The pencils were originally used for the cover of Wizard #50.)
 * 5) The art used on Mission Cards that were based on actual Marvel storylines (like The Infinity Gauntlet) was scanned into a computer right from the original art from the comic books. Computer coloring was used then to further enhance the images.
 * 6) Richard Garfield (creator and designer of Magic: The Gathering) play-tested OverPower at the Origins Convention in Philadelphia in July, 1995. He loved it!
 * 7) There were over 60 heroes scheduled to appear in the first release of OverPower. Due to odds of getting your favorite hero being low, the number was trimmed to 39 and most of the heroes later appeared in PowerSurge and soon, Mission Control.
 * 8) Two versions of the Wolverine Fighting 6 card exist. One was a promo card distributed at conventions that had Wolverine's name on it. The other, and final version, appears without Wolverine's name. The promo card is now highly collectible!
 * 9) There were no icons on the original OverPower cards.

OverPower Tournament News
We're here, we're there, we're everywhere! Fleer's first sanctioned OverPower Tournament was held this past November at the Kansas City ComicCon. Congratulations to our winners, Rockwell Green and Darren Fisher. They're now proud members of the OverPower Legion!

More recently, we visited the Philadelphia ComicCon the weekend of January 12-14. Congratulations to our winner, Anthony Winters. For his efforts, Anthony took home an uncut sheet of rare PowerSurge Specials. We try to get to every major convention we can. Unfortunately, not all of you live in a city nearby. But, we still want you to play in a sanctioned tournament! Tell the retailer where you buy OverPower that we're here to help them hold sanctioned tournaments in their store! all they need to do is call 1-800-OP-RULES. We'll send them all the information they need to do it!

So... What's It to Yue?
Get to know OverPower's #1 guy on the Internet, Frank Yue.

As our #1 voice of reason on the internet, Frank Yue (pronounced "you") seems to have more information about OverPower than Fleer does.

Asked how he got into the game, Frank replies, "Spider Man. I love Spider-Man" So much so, that he even has an "All Spider-Team" deck -- consisting of Spider-Man, Carnage, Venom and Spider-Woman (who may have since been replaced with Scarlet Spider from PowerSurge).

But, Frank's true killer tournament deck is what he called the "Hef Heh" deck. "The term Hef-Heh means 'Hit-Em-Fast-Hit-En-Hard.'" says Frank. "Originally my Hef-He deck came to life because I wanted to try to build a competitive deck with a balanced team. Up to this point I was using single skill decks. The Hef-Heh deck was build around a strong balanced team, using Teamwork cards to complement them. My original Hef-Heh deck has Professor X, Sabretooth, Thing and Iron Man in reserve. In the deck, I put 22(!) Teamwork cards and a lot of Power cards. There were no Universe items or Training cards and only 10 Specials. I hoped that I could play teamwork cards and high power cards with the teamwork bonus to KO a hero very fast. Since this team is essentially defenseless, I need to either concede or KO their heroes quickly."

Believe us, we've seen the Hef-Heh deck in action ... it's truely amazing! Make sure you check out Frank's super-cool web page! You can locate it at: Address removed

Commander's Corner
This month, we're talking Power cards and the Power Pack!

Assume you have selected your four Heroes; their Power Grids total less than 58. You've chosen the appropriate Specials, Universe, and Training cards that you deck will contain. Now you're ready to add some Power cards. How many should you put in? Which ones? How many MultiPower cards should you use? As a guideline, when selecting Power cards try to stick to about four of any given value Power card. Examine your Hero's Power Grids. Start with Energy and find the highest possible value one of your Heroes could use. Place one or two of that Power card in your deck. If more than one Hero can use that Power card value, place two. Continue to examine the different values in descending order. If only one Hero can use a particular Power card, select one or none at all. Repeat this process with Fighting and Strength Power cards. When you're done, you... continued on Page 3

Commander's Corner
should find that some rows have five to six cards. Analyze the Power Grids of your four heroes and keep cards that at least two or more can use. Total the amount of Power cards you have. Depending on how many Specials and Universe cards you put in your deck, a general rule is to have around 50% of your deck consist of Power cards.

What about MultiPower cards? Substitute some of the Power card values one through four with a couple of MultiPower cards. However, remember that once you have hit an opponent's hero with a MultiPower card, any subsequent MultiPower card hits against that Hero fuse for purposes of determining Spectrum K.O. Having a handful of MultiPower cards is not going to help you K.O. anyone. Some Special cards combine with other Power cards for a single attack. They cannot combine with MultiPower cards. Be aware of this and construct your Power Pack accordingly. You might want to keep two or three of a certain value and type depending on the character and the Special.

Throughout the game, be aware that Power cards can become unusable. Power cards that only certain Heroes can use will become unusable once that hero is K.O.'d. This is the one thing that is easy to forget when you're in the heat of battle.

Hopefully, this will help you in your efforts to build the best OverPower deck possible! Next month, get more expert advice on deck building. Venture well!

Meet the OverPower Team
This month, our fabulous Creative Services Manager, Ron Perazza

As the Creative Services Manager for OverPower, Ron has the tough job of not only developing the editorial direction of the cards, but also assigning the art to pencilers and computer-colorists, helping to create checklists, and making sure the art is received on time to make press dates. Plus, when he can, he assigns himself artwork and illustrates some of t he heroes found in OverPower. (Check out the Iceman and War Machine hero cards and the Elektra Special from PowerSurge.) And, when he's not in the office, he's off to conventions and tournaments on the weeke.

When he's at conventions, he likes to test out his Destruction Deck, a devastating deck crusher to those unfortunate few who dare play him. (At least he's disqualified for playing in any sanctioned tournaments!)

So what's in his Destruction Deck? Here's the inside scoop from Ron himself: "My heroes are Iron Man, Super Skrull, Blob, and in reserve, Jubilee. The contents of the deck are kept at absolute tournament minimums, meaning there are only 51 cards in my deck, not including the heroes. This lowers the odds of having to discard and increases the odds that I get my needed "one-per-deck" Specials. The Destruction Deck, quite simply, destroys my opponent's strategy. Since my deck is loaded with great offensive discarding Specials (Super Skurll's BW and CZ Specials, and Iron Man's BW Specials, to name a few), the possibility exists that my opponent could discard up to 19 of his cards. This usually blows his strategy and lets me finish him off with Power and Universe cards."

Just how success has Ron's deck-building strategy been?

"I've only lost once. And I've beaten some players who have never even come close to losing a game."

Rules To Play By!
Up-to-the-Minute Sanctioned OverPower Rule Changes


 *  Defeated Heroes Pile  -- To avoid any confusion with the playing of certain Specials, such as the "Web-Headed Wizard," all defeated heroes should be placed into a fourth pile, the Defeated Heroes Pile. Defeated Heroes should not go into the dead pile.
 *  Multi-Power Cards  -- A player using a Multi-Power Card or a Special with a Multi-Power symbol on it, must declare what single type of power type the attack is going to be as it goes in for a hit (before it hits or is defended). Once the attack is successful, then the card goes back to being a wild card and can be made to be whatever power type is needed to achieve a Spectrum KO. Multi-Power Power cards may not be used in conjunction with Special Cards that allow Power Cards to combine for a single attack. These Special Cards must either be paired with a pure Power Card of the type required or may be used alone, if the type of Power Card required is unavailable.
 *  Fusion Rule  -- Multiple Multi-Power Cards, whether part of the current hits for a battle or part of a hero's permanent record, will always act in unison when changing from one power type to the next during the game. For example, if a hero has only three Multi-Power Power Cards on his permanent record, the hero would not be Spectrum KO'd, since the cards would only represent one color. (Even though they can change color, all three would only represent one.)

Who Drew That?
We receive a great deal of mail from fans asking us what artists worked on the cards in OverPower. For the first time ever published, here's a list of some of the artists who penciled and colored (penciler is listed first, colorist second) some of the OverPower Hero cards:

MORE NEXT MONTH!