Listeners for our last podcast might have noticed that I'm just a tiny bit excited about Mister Sinister - Nasty Boy. Actually, they probably noticed that I'm pretty crazy for it. While there's lots of interesting characters coming up that I'm sure will shake things up - not to even mention the change in the game flow we're expecting to take place from the shift in costs and draw aids - nothing has engaged me like the villain options we've seen so far.Long story short - I'm planning a villain team, in part because a few of them have some nice synergy that'll play well in the longer games we'll be seeing, and in part because it works nicely thematically. Winning with a largely believable team roster? Icing on the cake. That said - this is absolutely a work in progress, and obviously since UXM isn't out yet, it's untested; moreover, since we don't have the full breadth of what's in UXM yet, there may be some super obvious fields that aren't here yet because we don't know they're perfect! Expect a followup when that's been cleared up and I get to try it out in the wild.
The Core
Guess what: the team I'm building around Nasty Boy has Nasty Boy in it. While Mister Sinister has good, offensive-oriented stats - maybe a little on the pricey side with a TFC 5 progression - we really want him for his ability. That's going to dictate the theme of the team: "Damned if you do, damned if you don't". If your opponent lets your guys through, they take damage, if they knock them out, they take damage, so they have to walk a narrow line to keep themselves safe...and if they're not knocking out guys, you're likely attacking every turn, so that's a lot of pressure. It's even worse if they have villains, as even if their villains get KO'ed, they take the Nasty Boy damage...so now they've got characters they really don't want to block with.
Nasty Boy's global is also of some use. It's expensive at two bolts, but you can use it to injure or take out something on your opponent's field while also pinging them by taking out a weaker, less-needed villain on your side. Granted, they get to pick who on their side takes the damage, so they'll probably do it to whatever hurts the least (or, worse, actively hurts you instead), but there will be times when you can force them to take the best of several bad options.
The second no-brainer, at least to me, is Apocalypse - Time of Testing. Like that song from the late nineties, he gets knocked down, and gets up again...invoking the Nasty Boy damage every time. If we combine this with a spin up option, you can avoid having to pay his somewhat large fielding cost more than once ever. He's got fairly brutal stats on top of that, making him one of your late-game bruisers looking to punch a hole through the enemy line. As such, it can be a little tough to get him knocked out to take advantage of his ability, but it does ensure he'll be keeping the pressure on...and he doesn't quite reach the size of the big bruisers, so he'll probably be able to keep the Nasty fun going in the late game.
Another surefire picks is Pyro...but here our troubles start. Which Pyro do we want? Saint-John Allerdyce is an affordable four cost, and his ability, combined with Nasty Boy, is an almost guaranteed two damage every time he attacks. Uncontrolled's ability, though, is something to be considered given that we're already running with at least three bolt characters; a full used pile could result in a lot of hurt for your opponent. Regardless, his die is ideal for our purposes: he's an easy-to-KO, high-attack character with a cheap fielding cost curve. I personally lean towards his common; while Uncontrolled could provide a lot of damage, remember that Mister Sinister ideally shouldn't be in the used pile much, and Apocalypse will tend to keep himself out of there as well, so that surplus of bolts isn't quite as much of a thing as we might otherwise think. The two-damage-when-blocked-and-KO'd SJA seems safer to me, but I think both will merit trying.
My last core pick is one we actually haven't seen officially spoilered, but which came up for me while looking for images for this article - Mystique: Raven Darkholme, her uncommon. With Mystique's...less than stellar stats, even a three might seem like an expensive purchase cost...but the RD variant gets +1/+1 for every other villain on the field. I don't need to explain how awesome that can be for a team putting out exclusively villains...and again, if your opponent has villains, they'll only serve to make her stronger. Assuming you can keep a decent force out, she's a very affordable mid-to-large size lineshapechanger.
Evil Extras
With our four picks so far, we've got our main damage engine, a bruiser, a cheap attacker, and a semi-versatile cheap attacker/'big guy'. That's a pretty good core to start from, but we've got four more slots to choose!
The common Scarlet Witch: Wanda Maximoff catches my eye as one possibility. First off - three for a cheap, offensively-oriented die is quite a good deal for us. Secondly, there's a good number of X-Men with useful abilities this expansion, to absolutely no one's surprise, so with the number of other villains we're fielding, her ability could help to soften up the board. Also, if you're going the rare Pyro route, she's another bolt to rely on.
Sentinel: Achvillain also merits some consideration. At seven, he's very expensive, but if your opponent isn't playing with villains, or refuses to play them with Nasty Boy on the table, he will absolutely brutalize your opponent when fielded unless they're focusing largely on Avengers and unaffiliateds. Sadly, with a strong statline, it's a little hard to get him to be refielded, but the holes he can punch in your opponent's defenses, combined with a very offensively-heavy lineup, could mean you won't need to more than once. Again, he's another bolt for rare Pyro users (edit: Werekin points out, and I should have noticed from the picture, that no, he's not!), but you're unlikely to have many of them around so I'm not sure how much that matters.
While I haven't seen all of them, the Toads also sound like they have potential, with a theme of forcing opposing characters to attack. His rare, Mortimer Toynbee, specifically lets you force one character to attack every round, like a free Mr. Fantastic global every turn. This can help you ensure that your little guys get knocked out, and maybe even get your opponent's villains to come out and play so you can double your fun. He's also got pretty weak stats, so he's another likely source of easy Nasty Boy procs.
Magneto: Will to Live seems like he might also be worth a look. While he's not returning for free right away, like Apocalypse, he does guarantee that he will be back shortly after he leaves the field, so he's another character you can use to keep on the pressure. Again, he's got the problem of having a really nice stat block that makes it hard to get him knocked out, but he is fairly cheap to purchase for his size, and that speed advantage might be worth looking into.
We could - horror of horrors - also consider a non-villain. Looking at this team, what we're really lacking is an assassin of some sort. The Toads might act as a slow-form one by letting you pull something to be KOed at your leisure, but you might not want to even let them attack; Psylocke: Betsy Braddock might help with that, assuming it's referring to fielding cost and not purchase cost. Kwannon the Assassin is less ambiguous, but two mask is a lot of energy to spend. Psylocke's done some prety questionable stuff, so while this is poking the edges of our theme, it's not completely ridiculous. We could also use some sort of draw aid, which in this set will likely be the common or rare Professor X, for his fantastic global. This...doesn't make as much sense. Maybe it's just his brain, like how Red Skull has been running around with it in the comics for the last couple of years?
Basic Actions...for Evil!
The UXM basic actions are a pretty interesting bunch, in my opinion, and I think there's a few that could benefit this team. With its spin up, Enrage pairs naturally with Apocalypse, if you'd like to focus on keeping him a threat. Feedback, obviously, is nice for a team that's heavy on offense, inflicting extra pain to your opponent for each of their characters knocked out that turn, but given that we like to have our own dice get knocked out too, there's a definite risk of having it used against you. Transfer Power can get important characters back on the field, or at least back into your bag, which is pretty good for accelerating them, but we'll have to watch out for its global, which can allow our opponent to cause problems churning our low-defense characters. In a similar vein, Relentless can help get that clutch Sinister to try and roll a character again, and gives you energy no matter what, but at a four cost I wouldn't see myself buying many of them. That said, do note its global can help you get around abilities that force you to block - if a character can't block at all, they can't be forced to block, so you can safeguard Sinister from Cable and such. Alternatively Selective Shield's global can stop him from taking lethal damage when he is forced to block. Personally, I'm leaning towards Ambush and Feedback, but I think this is something I'll have to experiment with until I find a pair that works well.
More Badness to Come
So far, I'm looking at a lineup of Mister Sinister: Nasty Boy, Apocalypse: Time of Trials, Pyro: SJA, Mystique: Raven Darkholme, Scarlet Witch: Wanda Maximoff, a TBD Toad (but likely Mortimer Toynbee), and then possibly the common Psylocke and Professor X for utility that we can't get in the villain pool, or possibly Sentinel and/or Magneto if we feel we can skip that. The basic plan: get out Nasty Boy and fling characters every which way, building a bridge to victory via the bodies of your knocked out allies. With only a few weeks till the release of UXM, I'm really looking forward to getting to try this team out; once I do, I'll be following up on how it does, and talking about how and why I'll be adjusting it.
Until then - practice your maniacal laugh, and roll well!
This is great! So many Villians! Take a look at Mystique - Alias: You, the rare of the bunch. This one copies the attack stats (but not the defense!) and ALL ATTACKING ABILITIES (!!!) of an opposing character. Let her fly as Pyro or She-Hulk or Namor. If she gets through, great! If not she is sure to be koed and will hopefully take out a villain blocker herself. Which means 2 damage to your opponent. Raven Mystique is good, but harder to KO which is not so good. Also you might consider the IronMan with the Villain Global and someone like X-23 who will attack, become a villain, and probably get KOed when blocked. Raven is good too, but harder to KO which runs a bit counter to what you're trying to do here. Also very seriously consider the uncommon Pyro. Being able to fling an unavoidable 2 damage on your attack is pretty huge, considering all the bolts you'll have. I've played uncontrolled a bunch and he is too streaky for me. I like the guaranteed damage from the 2 bolts much better. Even better when you have Cyclops: Field Leader calling the shots from the field for 3 damage for 2 bolts. Cyke is kind of a baddie these days so why not.
ReplyDeleteInvulnerability is GREAT with this team since it make people afraid of letting guys through AND blocking them.
I'd actually not seen the IM global until now; it's essentially a must-have for this squad. Similarly, I'd not seen the uncommon Cyke till just now (someone sent me a link to a full set spoiler...so we'll be seeing set stat analysis in the next week or so, for people who like that sort of thing), and with the preponderance of bolts he could be a good pick too, like you said.
DeleteI'm not a super big fan of characters whose abilities are for-energy only, but you make a good point about the uncommon Pyro, especially if you take Field Leader. Thanks for making that decision even harder ;)
You will have more success fielding characters from both sets. And bear in mind Sentinel is a shield energy character, not bolt.
ReplyDeleteThe idea was that we'll probably be limited in tournament play to just this set, so I wanted to avoid using AvX...but there'd definitely be some AvX characters that'd work well here (hello, rare Doom). You're absolutely right about Sentinel, I must have been blind.
DeleteI went to the WizKids open over the weekend and won 2 rainbow drafts with this type of build in mind. The common ones I used were Mister Sinister: Nasty Boy, Pyro: Both (I used uncontrolled for one and JSA for the other), Quick Silver: Villainous, Scarlett Witch: Wanda Maximoff, Iron Man: Upright, Toad, and Apocalypse: Time of Testing. It changed a bit for each but that was the line-up I liked the best. And for those of you who may not understand why I used Iron Man, his global ability allows you to pay 1 shield to change 1 character into a villain. So if your opponent is choosing to block with a side kick and you have an extra sheid lying around, pop off that shield and make it a villain and boom another point of damage. Also don't forget that as far as we know, Mister Sinister stacks with himself do its never bad to purchase and field more than 1 cuz now your doing 2 or 3 damage for each villain knocked out. May take a little while to pull off but well worth the bigger damage to speed along the game. And if you do use professor x, he won't be all that hard to purchase. Well that's my 2 cents, I hope it helped some of you with your decisions. I'm really looking forward to playing this team at full power myself.
ReplyDeleteAs a while active effect, Nasty Boy wont stack.
DeleteWhile active has a clarification in the AvX rulebook already the defines it as "One or more" dice in the field. So like all the other While active abilities, no stacking, no +2/+2 from Cap, no 2 dmg from Human Torch.
Your comment about Nasty Boy is incorrect. His effect does not stack. As a rule of thumb, any time you see the word "active" on the card, that's almost a cue for "does not stack".
DeleteIf you were doing 2 and 3 damage for each KO, no wonder you did so well with that build!
DeleteFirst off i never actually pulled it off, I had it done to me. And second when I said the same thing, the judge ruled that it did, so all of you can shut up about me being a cheater.
DeleteRelax, bro!
DeleteI'm not the one going around call in people a cheater cuz of misinformation received by a judge.
DeleteThat wasn't Horatio. But in general, yeah guys, as I said below:
DeleteLet's be careful with the "cheater" talk, especially with how inconsistent the judges have been at these events. Keep it nice or we'll have to start curating the comment section, and I don't want that nor do I have the time for that.
Keep it easy, Nate, no one has ill will.
Who said "cheaters never prosper!"? It sounds like you duped a couple of other players out of the Rainbow Draft promo card prizes! That's quite a con job. :(
ReplyDeleteLet's be careful with the "cheater" talk folks, especially with how inconsistent the judges have been at these events. Keep it nice or we'll have to start curating the comment section, and I don't want that nor do I have the time for that.
ReplyDeleteSorry Dave, I get somewhat defensive.
ReplyDelete