Keep in mind that this information derives from some slightly blurry screenshots (care of Crit to Hit) and me working off of some assumptions that I have taken from the numbers that we had from Avengers vs. X-Men. I'll drag you kicking and screaming through my work, and at the end I'll give you my best guesses for who our stand out cards are for the set.
The Starters
We've already seen a sneak peek of the box, and based on some other information I believe this is an actual packed Starter Kit, and not a mockup that is stuffed with any sort of die that someone in marketing felt like putting there. Why? Because all the numbers add up just right.
I'd previously said we can definitely make out Wolverine, Quicksilver, Angel, Juggernaut, and Iceman, but I'm now very sure that we definitely know at least 2 of the final 3 cards that will be shipping in the Starter Kit.
Come down the rabbit hole with me and watch as we put together ALL the numbers.
Starting off our starter kit we have Angel. His 'Superhero' card is numbered 3 of 126. That means the first three cards of the set will be Angel! Easy enough.
I will also note that this 'Superhero' subheading is shared by Marvel Girl's uncommon in some promotional materials we've seen earlier, and she also had a 'Heroic' ability. Could be related! I'm looking forward to finding out a bit more about this new mechanic.
Next up we have Cyclops: Optic Blast. He's number 4 of 126, meaning that our second three cards in the set will be Cyclops! If you zoom in very tight to the dice just above Juggernaut, you can get the slight impression of Cyclops's new brown-and-red die. This means Optic Blast will also be shipping in the starter kit.
Next up, we have both Iceman: Too Cool for Words and Iceman: Robert Louis Drake. They came from the table and one from the side of the booster box. RLD is 8 of 126 and TCFW is 9 of 126, so our third include in the Starter Kit will be Iceman.
Moving on, the lovable Kitty Pryde: Shadowcat is number 15 of 126, and this means she will be shipping in the starter as well. Based on bad lighting and a number of other factors, I'm inclined to believe that the die on the far right of the box will be a Kitty Pryde die, and if you squint very hard and sort of pretend you know what you're doing I can see a bit of a shadow that might be the wall bricks in that die. With the die's translucency it's probably very susceptible to the lack of backlighting that will make it a bit tricky to get the full effect of the translucent die.Here, however, is where we enter into a bit of speculation. We have Juggernaut, Quicksilver, and Wolverine in this pack, and.... someone else. We'll come back to that later. We have previously seen a card from Quicksilver, 'Thanks to the Isotope E' that looks like a Gobby clearer, and I have a feeling that will be shipping with the Starter Kit. It was striped as a common.
The Basic Actions would take up 25 through 34 of the 126 cards in the deck, meaning that our first common would start at 35 and we'd go from there.
The Hunt Continues
But how can we figure out our super rares, that was the question that was really on my mind, and how would we figure out who that final character in the starter pack was without someone to go to SDCC and actually tell me?! Whatever, I like staring at pictures of dice on the internet, gosh darn it, and I was going to earn my non-existent salary!
Now, we know that Starter Kit cards do not have a common or rare, and we know Super Rares do not have an uncommon. So... which remaining character doesn't have a common? That information would let me know who the last Starter Kit card is.
The first common card we've seen that is not part of the Starter Kit is Red Hulk: Thunderbolt Ross, and he's 52 of 126. In between him and the last basic action we need to fit: Ant-Man, Apocalypse, Bishop, Black Panther, Cable, Captain America, Emma Frost, Falcon, Iron Man, Magik, Magneto, Marvel Girl, Mister Sinister, Mystique, Namor, Professor X, Psylocke, and Pyro. That's 17 spaces to fit 18 cards. DING DING DING, one of those characters is in the Starter Kit, but who?
We have an unbroken accounting of the early alphabet starters from Angel to Kitty Pryde, so our missing Starter character's name comes after Kitty. This means our choices are down to: Magik, Magneto, Marvel Girl, Mister Sinister, Mystique, Namor, Professor X, Psylocke, and Pyro. It's not Marvel Girl, Mystique, or Pyro - they have a rare displayed on the side of box; and it's not Psylocke or Namor - the two of their uncommons only have a max dice of 4, which would go against the established pattern of the uncommon having a max dice of 5.
Down to Magik, Magneto, Mister Sinister, and Professor X. One of those is in the Starter Kit.
Marvel Girl - Telepath and Mystique - Alias You (rare cards, both featured on the side of the booster box) are numbers 105 and 107 of 126 respectively, the only character that goes between them is Mister Sinister, boom he's knocked out of the running.
Mystique and Pyro - Uncontrolled are 107 and 111 of 126 respectively. The only characters who go between them are Namor, Professor X, and Psylocke, boom they are again knocked out of the running.
Last mutants standing: Magik and Magneto are the only characters remaining. We've seen 1 version of Magneto (an uncommon) and no versions of Magik. We've narrowed it down to two potentials.
My guess is Magneto, since his die is very purple while Magik's die is much more red. I could be mistaken, but it fits the rest of my numbers.
The Super Rares
So, where do we go from here? To the uncommons, this is where we are going to find 4 characters missing, those 4 characters are our contenders for Super Rare. I didn't have high hopes that I would be able to narrow it down exactly, but I came very, very close, and I have a strong guess based on all of our available information.
On to the guessing. Bring your magnifying glasses and your detective hats.
The last (alphabetical) common card we've had a look at is X-23: Scent of Murder. She's 61 of 126, and there's only one card that should come after her in the common set, and that would be the Action Card of Cerebro. The first uncommon card we have is Apocalypse: Archvillain, he's 65 of 126. We fill the gaps with Cerebro, Angel, and Ant-Man. No Super Rare for you Hank!
Next we have Captain America: "Follow Me" on the display floor. He clocks in at 69 of 126, knocking himself, Bishop, Black Panther, and Cable out of the running for a Super Rare.
After that, we find Magneto: Hellfire Club on the side of the booster box, he's 76 of 126. We expect to fit Cyclops, Emma Frost, Falcon, Iceman, Iron Man, Juggernaut, Kitty Pryde, and Magik in the gap. This gives us 8 characters to fit into 6 slots, and we're obviously on the right track! Cyclops, Iceman, Juggernaut, and Kitty are in the Starter Kit, and we've seen a peek of Falcon's uncommon (Recon) in previous promotional material. Emma Frost, Iron Man, and Magik remain, 3 characters to go into 1 slot.
Magneto: Hellfire Club through Psylocke: Ninjitsu knock Marvel Girl, Mister Sinister, Mystique, Namor, and Professor X out of the running (as well as themselves). We've seen Marvel Girl: Superhero before as well (and now we know that two characters, Angel and Marvel Girl, have the 'Superhero' subheading and they are both 'Heroic' characters, so keep an eye on that!)
We run through Psylocke (82 of 126) to Sentinel: Archvillain (the second character with the 'Archvillain' subheading as well!) who comes in at 87 of 126. Pyro, Quicksilver, Red Hulk, Sabertooth, and Scarlet Witch must come between them. Again we have 4 characters and 5 slots. Quicksilver is out of the running as he appears in the Starter Kit. So, again we add four characters to the Super Rare contenders pile: Pyro, Red Hulk, Sabertooth, and Scarlet Witch.
I wish I could trim it up more, but we have one Super Rare that comes from everything that comes after Sentinel. That's a pretty hefty list of She-Hulk, Spiderman, Storm, Toad, Vision, Wolverine, X-23, and Cerebro. I eliminate Wolverine because he's in the Starter Kit, but that's still a chunk of characters.
WHEW! Are you as exhausted as I am?
Who Are They?
So we've put together a lot of clues:
- Two Super Rares will come from: Emma Frost, Iron Man, and Magik
- One Super Rare will come from: Pyro, Red Hulk, Sabertooth, and Scarlet Witch
- One Super Rare will come from: She-Hulk, Spiderman, Storm, Toad, Vision, X-23, and Cerebro
Alright. So, we're definitely settled on this, and this is, admittedly, as far as we can go with the information that we have, but when have you known me not to rampantly speculate?
I'm just flat out dismissing the possibility of Iron Man being a Super Rare. No offense to the Golden Avenger, but he's had his time in the sun, and I don't like the idea of WizKids recycling characters and making one of them the Super Rare in the next set. So, Emma Frost and Magik, both of them have a certain amount of 'dibs' on both the Villains and the X-Men, but, again, best guess is Emma Frost for the Villains Super Rare and Magik for the X-Men Super Rare.
Pryo and Sabertooth are Villains, and that probably dismisses them out of hand, Red Hulk is unaffiliated, at least as far as we've seen, soooo Scarlet Witch. She can't be an X-Men affiliated character if Magik is, and she has far more history as an Avenger anyway, so our Avengers affiliated Super Rare is very likely to be Scarlet Witch.
Spiderman and Storm are repeats, and while I could see a justification for Spiderman to be affiliated with the Fantastic Four I really doubt they would go there. Toad is a Villain, I'm pretty sure people would roll their eyes terribly if Cerebro were a Super Rare or affiliated with the Fantastic Four. Vision and X-23 seem unlikely since Vision is an Avenger and X-23 is unaffiliated... you can see where this is going. She-Hulk has spent the last few years as a member of the Fantastic Four, she's awesome, and badass, and I think she might be our final Super Rare. I do think there's a possibility it will be Spider-Man though, but I will grit my teeth if it is.
So, there you go. Super Rares are likely to be: Emma Frost, Magik, Scarlet Witch, and She-Hulk. Don't disappoint me, WizKids!
Great write-up! Speculation is awesome! As to the 8th starter, from the look of the die in the picture next to the Wolverine die, it does sort of look like Psylocke though.
ReplyDeleteThanks! And I did originally think it was Psylocke, but the numbers don't lie. She's knocked out of the running on two fronts. I know there is wiggle room on the SRs but the starter is almost definitely Mags or Magik.
DeleteI'd go with Mags myself. Magik's yellow on red would of been viewable like wolvies yellow on blue. Mags purple on purple on the other hand not so much.
DeleteYeah, that was a huge part if my guess logic.
DeleteI suppose Magneto is the better thematic choice in an Uncanny X-Men set seeing as he's been there from the very beginning. I'm still sad to see so many good female characters get left out - Sue Storm, Polaris, Jubilee, Domino, Wasp, Dazzler...I can't we can't have it all...grrrr why so many dupes!
DeleteI don't know if they would take this into account but I wouldn't expect 4 female SRs. I am admittedly sexist though, in the fact that I have never been a big fan of female characters. Men, more often then not, gravitate towards male characters and women, vice versa. I would expect at least one male SR, and would not be surprised to see the same distribution as AvX (3 M - 1 F). I wouldn't eliminate the unaffiliated characters right off the bat. Great article and thanks for doing all the work to figure out what we have to work with. I know this is just speculation and opinion. Just my 2 cents.
ReplyDeletePart of me understands your reluctance on the female Super Rares, but I think it would be really great, especially considering how unbalanced the gender divide was in the AvX pack, and to be honest a lot of these characters are pretty popular (and really only Wolverine was a popular character in his own right in the last set of Super Rares. Natasha has experienced a resurgence but no one would mistake Green Goblin and Reed Richards for popular characters in the face of other options like Magneto or Human Torch).
DeleteHonestly I've tried to figure out several possibilities, and I'm at a loss as how to make too many fewer female Super Rares. If the Fantastic Four get a Super Rare, it is absolutely going to be She-Hulk or Spiderman, there's just no other way in my mind. I thought it might be Scott Lang/Ant-Man but the numbers rule him out.
Once you lock that one in, it's either {Pyro or Sabertooth, Magik, and Iron Man} or {Scarlet Witch, Emma Frost, and Magik}. I really doubt they will make Super Rares out of two returning heroes (and would indeed be upset if they did this). I also don't think Pyro and Sabertooth are... 'Super Rare material', and with Sabertooth that might be a bit too close to the Wolverine of the last pack.
The only problem I really see with this is I would be incredibly surprised if Emma Frost, Magik, and Namor don't get Phoenix Force aligned OP prize outfits, and it would be pretty silly to make two Super Rares who also got OP rewards...
As far as the OP prize concerns, I thought that this first 6 month OP set was Phoenix Force and then the next 6 months they would do a different storyline. On the Dice Masters site it says that it used the Phoenix Force theme to go with the AvX set, because it was an Avengers/X-Men crossover event in the comics. So I was assuming that the next 6 month OP event will be based on a X-Men storyline.
DeleteProbably Apocalypse from... I think it was Uncanny X-Force, but id be disappointed to see no P5 outfit for Emma, Namor, and Magik when we have them for Cyclops, Colossus, and Phoenix
DeleteI just thought of an arguement for Spider-Man and Ironman to get SRs as well. In AvX they only had 3 commons and an uncommon, since they were starter set characters. Maybe they want to give a couple of them SRs, to make up for their lack of "rare" cards in AvX. With that said, I would definitely not want Ironman to have one.
DeleteI guess another theory is that the designers could have change the rarity distribution for each character. What if this time around the characters that get SRs don't get a Rare card? Instead they get a Common and Uncommon to go along with the SR.
My new wacky theory that is almost 100% wrong - maybe the Super Rares are new different characters?
DeleteAlthough I couldn't account for every possibility, there was definitely only one missing common (Mags or Magik) and 4 missing uncommons, so based on that I'm very much certain we are going to have the exact same rarity distribution again. I don't think they had enough time to really consider changing the rarity distribution like that.
DeleteI'd also be surprised if they were totally new, we would have seen the new dice by now.
If the SRs in any given set were unique characters, they'd have to be somewhere (way) above the power level of the Phoenix Force OP reward, with a die limit of 1 to match.
DeletePhoenix force affiliation seems to be under represented, perhaps Emma Frost or Magik. I'd love to see Iron Man get the spot for Super Rare out of the three.
ReplyDeleteI really hope we get Emma, Magik, and Namor P5 affiliations, either in OP or as 'regular' cards in the set.
DeleteI'm leaning towards OP rewards for PF affiliation, since it would have made more sense for there to be Phoenix Force characters in AvX's main set.
DeleteI'll be interested to see what sort of SRs and OP rewards pop up for the other Dice Masters licenses, to be honest. Drizzt the Unpronounceable is almost guaranteed to get an SR in the D&D set; if he doesn't, I'll eat my metaphorical hat.
Why does everyone assume Cyclops is P5 version? The black and red represents his current costume colors in the title: "Uncanny X-Men", which is also indicated on the card art. If it was a P5 version, wouldn't they use an image of when he was possessed by the Phoenix Force?
ReplyDeleteStephen, P5 Cyclops is one of the AvX OP rewards so people are discussing if Emma, Namor, and Magik will get them like Cyke and Colossus did in OP. I don't think anyone suggested the UX Cyke would be P5 affiliated. If I did that was my mistake.
DeleteOkay, I guess I missed that somewhere, thanks.
Delete