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So, this news is coming a little later than the actual news post itself, but a few teasers of all of the cards became available on Dicemasters.com in their Organized Play section! They seem oriented to not give us too much, so we can't expect all the information from the cards, I'm afraid. Dave already given is a peek at the full cards for the first month of Organized Play, but we only have low-res cropped images of the remaining cards. What can we learn about these cards from the little clues?
The Characters
We have 6 new versions of already released characters: Thor: The Mighty; Spider-Man: The Amazing; Wolverine: Walking His Own Path; Colossus: Phoenix Force; Iron Man: Phoenix Buster; and Cyclops: Phoenix Force! They feature all new art from the AvX comics event of 2012, and as there are no new dice being released with them, we are sure they will be using the same dice. We're unlikely to see a really cheap Colossus, or a really expensive Spider-Man, but we don't know the buy price for any of these characters save Thor. Everyone is still affiliated with the same energy type; this isn't a huge surprise, but deserves noting.
Thor, Spider-Man, and Iron Man are affiliated with the Avengers! This marks a change for Spider-Man, and means you can include him in your Avengers deck and he can take advantage of the various benefits that Nick Fury brings to the Avengers.
Wolverine is affiliated with no one! He's a free agent in this version of his card. This might be good, it might be bad, but it does mean he's not going to be affected by anything that might debuff X-Men, and he doesn't provide Magneto: Former Comrade with the +2A/+2D bonus he'd otherwise get when engaging X-Men characters.
Colossus and Cyclops are affiliated with... the Phoenix Force?! We see the premiere of a new affiliation symbol in this OP, a yellow phoenix outlined in red. It looks like the number of affiliations are going to start growing, sooner rather than later. We might even see a new one in the next Uncanny X-Men Starter Kit and Booster Packs.
I'll say that's a little disappointing, if only because the Fantastic Four remain the Fantastic Three at the moment, and the Villains could really use some low cost options beyond Green Goblin.
We can't evaluate these characters for their abilities yet, but we can at least know they are coming, and bring some slightly expanded (and limited) options with them.
The Actions
Teamwork (3) and Rally! (3) have already been fully previewed and mentioned in our blog and podcast, but we've added Deflection (3), Teleport (4), Collateral Damage (4), and Takedown (3). What jumps out at me as an avid Angel: Soaring user is no cost 2 actions. I'm very sad. We are going to continue the trend of these slightly higher cost Basic Actions, that are difficult, if not impossible to pick up in the early game while also building your character die reserve. It sounds like 3-cost actions are the official 'expected' price, with the occasional extra-expensive 4 cost ones. Invulnerability remains on its lonesome at 2.
For me this is a bit frustrating news, as I do love the concept of Basic Actions, but they continue to frustrate and thwart me by being a really poor early-game buy. By the time you're able to afford them, you really should have the game most of the way in the bag. There are only a few times when I make actions a part of my early game (the aforementioned Angel: Soaring, and Wolverine: Formerly Weapon Ten being the big ones; they pair well with Invulnerability and Distraction, respectively). These actions don't seem likely to buck the trend.
I'll live in hope that the next Starter Set will bring with it some new Basic Actions. Teamwork is a potentially very interesting card, as it offers bonuses to characters who share an affiliation, and Rally! is a dream come true when it comes to fielding sidekick dice. What wonders wait in store for us?
Teleport might be something related to withdrawing a character from the field back to your reserve, perhaps? I've speculated with my fellow Reserve Pool colleagues that this might be an interesting mechanic. Could Takedown be an assassination card? At 3 cost it seems unlikely. Collateral Damage might provide some directed splash damage, or something else to help you hit those characters your opponent stubbornly refuses to block with. This is all speculation, I have no sure knowledge on my side, but for now our imagination can run wild.
The Grand Prize
The Grand Prize of the OP is, of course, The Phoenix Force: Force of Nature! We don't know much about it yet, obviously, other than its cost: 10 bolt energy, wowza! There is absolutely no way this card (and corresponding die) is going to come out any time in the early game. The amount of churn you would need to generate to see this die at all is pretty incredible. You're very likely to need to get lots of your characters KOed and have a few characters that help you draw even more dice.
With the new information that Colossus and Cyclops are associated with the Phoenix Force, I'm going to guess that the Phoenix Force will do some extreme buffing of these two characters. Maybe it deals direct damage based on the number of affiliated characters you have on the field? Maybe it buffs them and gives them splash damage or trample damage? Who knows. All I know is this card better just win you the game. I'm not sure why anyone would bring this card to their sideboard if it wasn't an automatic win. There's also the open question of whether or not we'll need to bring Colossus and Cyclops to actually trigger the benefits of Phoenix Force. Is the Phoenix Force an action or a character? Could this finally prove a use for Professor X: Powerful Telepath, to try to block the Phoenix Force from coming out?
We seem to be getting Namor and Emma in the next expansion pack, so the question becomes will they come with a Phoenix Force aligned version, or will they be the prize in the next round of OP? Are we going to see more Fantastic Four, Avengers, or Villain oriented expansions or OP soon?
All these questions remain to be answered, and hopefully WizKids have something really great in store for us.
Does anyone know when the first tournaments are starting? Dates etc?
ReplyDeleteI have no idea. Two shops in my area are running month 1 in mid-May. WizKids had a press release that said they were moving the release to match the resupply. That's all I know, sadly.
DeleteChecking with the Wizkids Event System is a good start. I found 3 places with in 90miles of me that are scheduled to run events. The first event I will be attending is actually next Thursday.
ReplyDeleteYeah, I've been there multiple time.s No one within 100 miles of me has one, and I'm in a fairly densely populated area.
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