Yesterday Marvel officially announced the OP Month Three exclusives: the basic action Deflection (which we've known about, and have discussed a couple of times) as a participation reward, and Wolverine: Walking His Own Path as a prize for placing for the month. It'll be a bit before we have these cards in our hot little hands, but that doesn't mean we can't mercilessly pick them apart now!Deflecting Usefulness
As I mentioned before, we've already given Deflection a couple of looks, so I won't belabor the point: it's not a very good basic action. It's kind of like Vibranium Shield and Take Cover had a child; you've got a watered-down version of the Shield global, and the actual action gives a defensive boost (like Take Cover) but targets an energy type rather than all your guys (like Vibranium Shield).
As such, it inherits the problems of both cards. A defensive bonus isn't too great, considering that a lot of the time when you're attacking, you want your characters knocked out so that you can churn; exactly the same problem as Take Cover. It might be useful to deal with tramplers...if you could use it during your opponent's turn, which you can't. More to the point, since it targets all characters of a type, you can actually give your opponents' characters a boost, too. Maybe you can use this "offensively" to prevent them from getting KO'ed for churn's sake, but barring a very mono-colored squad, it'll be hard to leverage this without making it harder to KO your own guys.
Also, if you don't get the burst, it's a super-piddly +1D. We are not impressed.
...And It's A Holding Pattern
The reward card, thankfully, isn't quite as mediocre. Wolverine: Walking His Own Path has three notable things about him:
- He's not an X-Man - he's unaligned this go-around, which makes sense given his role in AvX
- His ability allows you to double your life, up to a maximum of 10, when he attacks alone
- He has a hefty seven cost - paired with his TFC 6 1-2-3 progression, he's about as expensive as it gets
Honestly, this seems pretty nice. Your opponent can merrily ping you a few times every turn with their Human Torch or whatever, dropping you to 5 or so, you attack with Wolverine and go back to 10, and the dance continues until you get your ducks in a row and beat him down, or grind him down with your own HT, or however you've determined your end-game strategy to work. Unless your opponent can find some serious burst - enough to drop you 10 in one turn, or close to ten and then a little more the following turn - WHOPverine seems like a waller team's new best friend.
Except...at seven cost, he's a pain to get out. Sure, he's intended for a style of play where you're getting to a point where you're just sitting around flicking damage at your opponent and probably aren't using chunks of energy, but if you're walling, you're likely needing to get guys back on the board as your opponent flails away trying to make a hole, and scraping together that seven energy might require sacrifices. But hey - he won't help you if you're not under ten life in the first place, right?
More than that, though, is that for a seven cost character...there's not a lot of "wow" to him. He will not explode the entire enemy team and let you punch through to the victory. He will not turn your characters into artillery. He will not let you blast your opponent for big damage (unless he gets through, which most opponents won't allow given his stats). He'll let you survive; that's what he's about. It's up to you to some up with a strategy to actually turn that into a win...which is novel, but doesn't feel right for what should wind up as a capstone to your team. 'Grind out your win' is not exactly a power that is super appealing, unless you're a big fan of drawn-out games.
Overall - is Wolverine WHOP good? Aside from my standard caveat of 'the meta doesn't really like seven cost characters', yes - he's a pricey but strong one-stop option for making a tough defense even tougher, as well as a rare life-gaining tool. That said - and Wolverine would probably hate this - I think most of the time if I've going to go for a seven-cost character, I'll still be going for Cyclops: If Looks Could Kill.
Final Thoughts
Overall, the exclusives for the month look, as with Month One, like a mixed bag. This time, though, it's the character that's good, and the action that's bad, so it'll be a little harder to end up with the good reward. On the bright side - next month brings us the tricksy Teleport, so if Colossus: Phoenix Force is a winner, we'll be looking at another month of two prime exclusives.
Would have been cool to see them utilize the bursts on the die, but I actually like this card if only because the theme is strong. Wolverine heals! Don't mind the 7 cost as much, especially seeing as he is made almost exclusively for late game when it should be easier to come up with the energy.
ReplyDeleteI wouldn't spend 7 on him. Like you, I would take Cyclops: ILCK over WHOPverine in the blink of an eye (pun only slightly intended).
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