The thing to remember about globals is that they are, in general, a double-edged sword. You can use them, but so can your opponent; if you want a Mr. Fantastic (or Phoenix) around to pull those pesky Human Torches and Lokis out from the backline, keep in mind your opponent is equally able to do the same to your artillery and effect characters. The only advantage you may have is that you got to choose to bring it, so you may have tailored the rest of your deck to make sure you have the right flavor of energy available to make use of it. That said - if you feel a global is vital to the success of your deck, don't shy away from taking it because your opponent might use it too; knowing how a global fits into your plan will make it a lot more valuable to you than it would just shooting from the hip with it, so to speak. It might be a good thought exercise to look at the list of globals and think how you would - or would not - use each of them to support your deck, just so that if your opponent brings one, you can best use it to your advantage.Anyway, enough preface - on to the abilities!
Mr. Fantastic (Brilliant Scientist, The Invincible Man) and Phoenix (all)
This is a pretty fantastic ability, and probably one of the most straightforward ways of dealing with all those annoying backline guys that sit around doing something horrible and never attack - spend one mask (or bolt) during your opponent's turn, and now they have to, so you can block them and knock them out. Added bonus: you can use this to mess with the various Wolverines, too. Kind of a pain if you're fielding your own backline guys, though - consider bringing Distraction along to null it out, if that's going to be a problem, but of course it lets your opponent do the same. Otherwise, there's not a lot of guile involved in using the ability; if there's a thing you want off the table and you have a spare mask/bolt, go forth! You don't need to block them, though - guys like Loki and Professor X, with relatively low offense, might be better off unblocked, to get them off the table longer.
An important note, one we've mentioned on the podcast but bears repeating: you must use this global before the attack step begins. You, and your opponent, should ideally be indicating when you're done fielding and buying stuff, and are going to attack or look to move to the end of the turn. If you don't, and declare what you're attacking without letting them have the chance to use the global before you start, you may be letting them have a better idea what to pull to mess up that attack you're planning...so be very clear about when you're done doing other things and are ready to move on in the turn.
Assuming you aren't interested in fielding either of the characters - I'm not really a fan of any of them, but Brilliant Scientist is decent if you need a big blocker, though his global can mess him up there - which of the two characters you'll want to take is dependent on which flavor of energy you see yourself having more of. I will say that Beast and Storm are both masks, so that would make Mr. Fantastic a better choice for the (many) decks that use them. The rare Phoenix might be able to use it to get her ability to activate, but you'll need to hope your opponent has something really tanky, like Deadpool or the level 2 Doc Ock or similar, and you'll need to scrape together the seven energy needed to actually buy her - not conducive to using the global!
Mjolnir (all)
This is a pretty expensive way to do one damage to a character. That said, it's always available, and you don't need to do anything outside of pay energy to use it, so if you expect to be swimming in bolt energy, it might be useful. Overall? Not so useful, and with the Mjolnirs being pretty niche to begin with, not something you expect to have to work with often.
Venom (all)
A great example of a double-edged sword; Venom, a fist character, has a global that will let you, or your opponent, spin him down. Would be interesting in enabling a Tsarina-focused deck, where you don't really care if she gets spun down, but unfortunately outside of Black Widow a lot of the really common dice in the meta aren't fists. Synergizes sort of nicely with the common Venom, hopefully letting him bash through your opponent's fist characters, but unhelpful for both the uncommon and rare, who would prefer to be higher level (to ensure knockouts, and to have a burst, respectively). Personally I feel it's not that helpful now, but may gain in value with UXM.
Vibranium Shield (all)
Very straightforward, and a nice defensive ability. Honestly seems like a decent reason to bring the card if you happen to pull it in a hybrid game, and feel you'll have energy to burn, especially if you're favoring the good Shield characters like Angel Soaring and such. Seems like it'd be nice for a deck that wants to hide behind a wall of guys and plink away at your opponent with effects, but keep in mind they can use it to negate your plinking, too.
Silver Surfer (all)
I've talked about this ability at some length in my article about draw accelerators, but I'll reiterate - two life is pretty steep for one die. On the other hand, early in a game, you may find two life a bargain for making sure you can buy that 4- or 5-cost character while still fielding something, or pulling a character to block an early Wolverine, or something. Like Vibranium Shield, it feels like a good choice for hybrid deck filler, and may be a good, if risky, pick for any deck that feels like it needs a boost in buying power early on.
War Machine (all)
Kind of a weird ability, but one of the very few ways to gain life in the game. The problem I see with it is that, with the exception of Nick Fury and Angel, most shield characters are fairly punchy. This means your opponent is going to be doing their best to make sure that they don't get through; if they do, you've probably cracked their defense, which is usually a sign that the game is swinging in your favor, and you probably won't care too much about your life for long. That said, could combo very well with the often-unblocakble, and very cheap, Soaring Angel.*
Magneto (Holocaust Survivor, Sonderkommando)
Another double-edged sword, and cripplingly so for Magneto - I can't see someone wanting to drop that much energy on a die their opponent can potentially wipe off the board for one energy. A potential strategy for dealing with pesky Gobbys, Reed Richard's Rivals, or Angelo Fortunatos, but in the former case, not necessarily the best one, and the latter two are usually not enough of a worry to justify it. Still, assuming you're not using Gobby, potential hybrid deck filler.
I will note that the upcoming basic action Takedown (which I'll get to in a bit) has a global that allows you to make any character a Villain for one mask energy. Combined with Magneto, that lets you potentially get rid of any die for two mask energy, without needing to field a character or even buy a die; it also lets your opponent do the same. Possibly worth it for a mask-heavy deck, but with Beast and Storm as popular as they are, I'd be worried about my opponent using it to mess me up as much as I'd use it to do the same to them.
Human Torch (Flame On!)
Another sort of niche ability, and the topic of one of our FAQ talks. I'm still not totally sure if this lets you pick new targets or just does more damage to the same target, but I sort of lean towards the latter nowadays. Regardless, I think it's situationally useful, and nice for an endgame involving hiding behind a wall of characters and relying on Human Torch damage and Power Bolts to take your opponent out. If it worked with all abilities rather than just globals and action dice, it'd be fantastic.
Iron Man (Inventor)
This is a pretty cool ability, with a lot of practical applications besides the obvious one of protecting your life points. It's fairly tailor-made to work with that version of Iron Man; you shunt the damage to him, he ignores it, everyone is happy. You can also use it to trigger on-damage effects, like that of Quasar Nova, or the assorted Hulks, or to pop your low-health characters so you can churn them. Paired with the Mr. Fantastic/Phoenix global and a handful of energy, you can use it to send annoying but low-offense characters like Storm, Black Widow, and Loki to the used pile without a serious, possibly any, loss of life.
Green Goblin (Norman Osborne)
I've harped about NOGG plenty already, but it bears repeating: assuming you can keep it fed with sidekicks, this is a nice, versatile ability, both putting energy in your prep area for next turn, and letting you throw a bit of damage around at a character. The utility of throwing damage around is pretty high, honestly, especially with how rife the meta is with smaller characters that could be knocked out with two damage; targeting one of your own characters to churn them if an opponent is being uncooperative might be just as strong a play as blasting an annoyance as soon as it hits the fielding area.
Doctor Doom (Nemesis)
Potentially interesting; certainly a cheaper way than Mjolnir's global if you're looking to knock out a character, and has in-combat applications for monkeying around with who gets KOed after blockers are set, for your churn-denying, or enabling, needs. The real flaw here is that you need to have a villain out to use it, and given that it's 6-cost, Nemesis itself is probably not going to be that villain; with virtually every non-Green Goblin villain costing 5 or more, that limits when you'll be able to use it fairly severely. The upcoming Takedown (no, seriously, I'll get to it) will let us do an end run around this limitation, and once it becomes available I think Nemesis will be of practical use instead of the curiosity it is at present.
Distraction
Another really nice global that we've highlighted a few times, on the podcast and in articles, and the counterpoint to that Mr. Fantastic/Phoenix global. Its defensive use is pretty obvious - if your opponent attacks with something you don't want to deal with, a mask makes it go away. You can also use it offensively, though that requires bringing the right characters; there's a lot of cards with 'on attack' abilities that you can attack with to trigger the ability, then retreat, keeping the die safe (or maybe just preventing your opponent from churning). Similarly, you can block an enemy to proc a 'on blocking' effect - Mutate #666 is the most obvious example - and then retreat the attacker to reap the rewards without losing your die, if for some reason you don't want to churn. Your opponent gets this utility too, but most of the time I've brought Distraction to a game I feel like I gain more having it than I lose.
Invulnerability
Another fairly versatile global; an extra damage when your character hits something can be pretty useful, from gouging a little extra life out of your opponent to pushing yourself to knock out a die that's a little tougher than you could normally handle. Do note that you don't have to limit yourself to targeting your own characters with this global - it's perfectly legal to buff your opponent's characters, which can wipe that smug look off their face when they've finally arranged their blockers just so in order to maximally prevent you from churning.
Smash!
Continuing the 'basic actions have useful globals' trend, preventing a blocked character from doing damage has its uses. Obviously, you can keep your blockers from getting knocked out, if that's what you need - maybe an all-out attack from your opponent has forced you to block with your Human Torch, and you'd really rather he wasn't knocked out. You can also prevent your own blocked attackers from doing damage, to stop your opponent from churning, or prevent an 'when damaged' effect from going off. It's a little more situational than Distraction or Invulnerability's globals are, in my experience, but I do find that it comes into play once or twice per game that I bring the card along.
Take Cover
The counterpart to the Invulnerability global, and honestly, not as good. I find myself wanting dice to get knocked out more often than I want them to stay on the board, so it's rare I'd want to use this on my own characters; primarily I'd try to use it on my opponent's characters to stop them from being churned. Really, what puts it under the Invulnerability global is that you can't use it to squeak out extra damage from characters can get through; given how blah the Take Cover effect is itself, it's a pretty convincing argument to just take Invulnerability instead most of the time.
Deflection
Vibranium Shield Lite. Losing the ability to prevent damage to a player definitely hurts it, but if you need the character slot it could make for a decent replacement for the shield. If you like the effect of the common variant of Vibranium Shield, Deflection's action die itself isn't so different.
Takedown
See, I said I'd get to it! As you can guess from its mentions earlier, Takedown has some potential; there's a decent number of cards, including Takedown itself, geared at helping, or hindering, villains, and being able to temporarily turn a character into a villain might breathe some new life into cards like Mjolnir Fist of the Righteous or Doctor Doom Victor, to say nothing of the Magneto and Nemesis globals. It could also pair well with Teamwork - with enough mask energy, you could induce it to give your whole team a pretty massive bonus. One mechanics note - it does say that it makes the character a villain, so I'd imagine that you'd only need to pay one mask to affect all dice for that character, for slight savings if you find yourself needing to Magneto Reroll that swarm of Tsarinas or something.
Well, there you have it - a rundown of all the globals we presently know about (including some we've seen, but don't have yet). Don't let their coming under the other abilities of the card they're on fool you - they can absolutely be the best reason to bring that card along, if they fit the tactics of your deck. Till next time, choose wisely, and keep a mask in reserve for Distraction...just in case.
*: I think I'll actually be looking into this in the near future, trip report to come if it's any good!
Awesome article Evan. The content you guys have been providing, be it articles and/or podcasts have helped me greatly with building teams, understand cards and combos. I much appreciate the work all of you have been doing for the DM community.
ReplyDeleteI don't have many games under my belt, both my cousin and I, just found our starters a few days ago after searching nearly 20 stores in a 50mile radius. But I can comment on a few of these abilities and some Combos we have been using
My cousin uses Iron Man (Inventor) and Nova (The Human Rocket) to great effect as a wall. Blocking with Nova, dealing two damage back to me. And if present with a Shield Energy Resource for Iron Mans global, he will also redirect any damage to play to Nova to send two more damage my way for the possibility of 4 direct damage if I recklessly attack. And with Nova's die stats, he has been a very problematic character for me to deal with. To the point, I am having to use Loki (Gem-Keeper) to have a chance against him.
Also, we are both big Magic players, so I am use to paying life to gain an advantage in cards. I have yet to try him in action, but how effective has Silver Surfers global been? I understand you can't go super crazy with paying for it. But I am thinking of running a Churn Engine that utilizes Beast (#666), Green Goblin (Norman Osborn) and Silver Surfer (Sky-Rider) to gain possibly a turn 3 or turn 4 big character dice that can give me good tempo through the early game forcing my opponent to play from behind. Possibly an early game Professor X (CFX or Powerful Telepath).
Guess I have rambled on long enough, just wanted to send me support to all three of you and figured I'd share our known combo(s). Thanks!
I'm glad you're finding our articles useful! I do like that there's a lot of damage redirection combos, with Iron Man and Nova and others; it's something I hope they build on in UXM.
DeleteI do think the SS global is best used once or twice early on to get yourself a little extra push early on when that can mean getting the bigger die when juggling fielding and purchases is more slanted towards the latter. After that the two life is probably a little dire much of the time. I've not used him much, but I'd probably target turn 3 and four as 'the best' time to use him, especially if you like to pick up 2 2-cost characters on your first two turns.
I'd like to add that Magneto is seeing some use at our local events as a way to get rid of Loki's and getting your Gobby's etc back into your prep area to bring back out.
ReplyDeleteNice point, Magneto has a really cool Global. I imagine we'll be seeing him frequently.
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