Hi All,

As threatened in my last column, I had a great time watching two action-packed days of Sneak Preview matches and writing down the rules questions that came up. So, I’ll start off this column with some of those and then finish up with some of yours!

Planet X, Team-Up

Play Planet X only if you control a Brotherhood character.

As an additional cost to play Planet X, choose a team affiliation among characters you control.

Ongoing: Crossover Brotherhood and the chosen affiliation.

Replace Planet X >>> Target attacker you control gets +2 ATK this attack.

You can choose the Brotherhood team affiliation as an additional cost to play Planet X. If you do, the Crossover will do nothing, but you can still use the payment power.

Mutopia, Team-Up

As an additional cost to play Mutopia, choose two or more different team affiliations among characters you control that share the same Mutant trait.

Like Hard-Traveling Heroes, Mutopia allows you to choose two or more affiliations.

Brave New World, Team-Up

As an additional cost to play Brave New World, choose two different team affiliations and a Mutant trait among characters you control.

Brave New World requires only that there are at least two affiliations and one trait among characters you control. However, Mutopia requires that there are at least two affiliations among characters you control that share the same trait.

So, if you control only Professor X, Headmaster (X-Men, Mental) and Magneto, Ruler of Avalon (Brotherhood, Energy), you can play Brave New World, but not Mutopia.

Storm, Gold Leader

Leader: Characters adjacent to Storm have flight.

Whenever a character with flight attacks or defends against a character adjacent to Storm, power-up that adjacent character.

Her power triggers whenever an adjacent character attacks or defends against an opponent-controlled character with flight. It doesn’t matter whether or not the adjacent character has flight.

If an adjacent character is team attacked by two characters with flight, Storm’s power triggers twice and the adjacent character becomes powered-up twice.

Polaris, Acolyte

Replace a reservist resource you control >>> Characters you control have flight this turn, and characters your opponents control lose flight this turn. Use this power only once per turn.

You control Polaris and your opponent recruits Storm, Gold Leader on turn 6. During the combat phase, you replace a reservist resource to play Polaris’s effect. After it resolves, do characters adjacent to Storm have flight this turn?

Neither modifier is dependent on the other (Polaris can’t change whether or not a character is adjacent to Storm, and Storm can’t change who controls a character), so we apply them in time-stamp order. Storm’s modifier is time stamped from when she came into play. Polaris’s modifier is time stamped from when her effect resolved.

Applying the two modifiers in order, characters adjacent to Storm have flight, and then lose flight this turn. The end result is those characters lose flight this turn.

Neutralized

Choose a stunned character.

Ongoing: The chosen character cannot be recovered.

The chosen character cannot be KO’d during the recovery phase.

Let’s say you control two stunned characters, one of which has been Neutralized. You can still choose either character as your one stunned character per turn to recover during the wrap-up. If you choose the Neutralized character, you KO the other character as usual, but the Neutralized character cannot recover, so it stays in play stunned. If you choose the other character, it recovers as usual, but the Neutralized character cannot be KO’d, so it stays in play stunned.

You cannot transfer equipment from a stunned character.

Healer, Life Giver

Pay 1 resource point >>> At the start of the recovery phase this turn, recover target character you control. Use this power only once per turn.

This effect creates a delayed triggered modifier when it resolves. That modifier triggers at the start of the recovery phase this turn, even if Healer is stunned at that time.

Sentinel Mark VI, Army

Sentinel Mark VI gets +2 ATK / +2 DEF while attacking a Mutant or defending against a Mutant.

Sentinel Mark VI only gets +2 ATK / +2 DEF while defending against two or more Mutants.

Just a quick ruling. Does Shinobi Shaw work the same way as Beast Boy?

Zac O.

Whenever Shinobi Shaw attacks or defends, if he is the only visible character you control, put a +1 ATK / +1 DEF counter on him.

Whenever Beast Boy attacks, put a +1 ATK/+1 DEF counter on him.

Whenever Beast Boy becomes a defender, put a +1 ATK/+1 DEF counter on him for each attacker.

Ignoring the obvious difference (Beast Boy’s powers don’t care whether or not he is the only visible character you control), Shinobi’s power is different from Beast Boy’s because Shinobi only gets a single counter when he defends against multiple attackers. The key difference is that Beast Boy’s power includes the text, “for each attacker.”

I control Storm, Leader of the Morlocks with an X-Men character and a Hellfire Club (HC) character both adjacent to her. All three characters have the Morlocks affiliation due to Storm’s power. I flip a Team-Up, choosing X-Men and Morlocks. Some time after the Team-Up resolves, Storm leaves play. What happens to the HC character’s affiliations?

Travis F.

Before Storm leaves play, there are two modifiers affecting the HC character—Storm’s (giving it the Morlocks affiliation) and the Team-Up’s (giving it the X-Men affiliation because it has the Morlocks affiliation from Storm).

After Storm leaves play, neither modifier affects the HC character because Storm is no longer in play, and the Team-Up no longer affects the HC character in the absence of Storm. As a result, the HC character has only its printed affiliation.

My question is about Backs Against the Wall. If you evade your Morlocks defender as well as one other character, can you prevent the attacker (or attackers) from readying?

Alex S.

Yep, that’s how it works. If a character loses the attacker characteristic before an attack concludes, it won’t be readied at the conclusion of that attack.

A reminder from the FAQ: If you want to evade the defender so that it counts as one of the “two or more characters” stunned this attack, you must do so after you play Backs Against the Wall but before it resolves. This is because Backs Against the Wall requires that you control a Morlocks defender to play it, and the defender characteristic is lost when a character becomes stunned.

I was wondering if you could help me out with a scenario that occurred at the Sneak Preview last weekend. My Emma Frost, Friend or Foe was attacking an opponent’s character, and I played SNIKT! from my resource row targeting Emma. Can I use Emma’s power to turn SNIKT! face down and then reuse it to get +8 ATK in total?

Chad

Yep! Sounds like a great play. (As long as you have enough cards in hand for all three discards—one for Emma’s power and one for each SNIKT!.)

In the last edition of Cerebro (XXVI), you said that John Henry Irons ◊ Steel, Steel-Drivin’ Man can KO equipment equipped to stunned characters. On the other hand, the Marvel Origins FAQ says that Mr. Fantastic, Stretch can’t transfer equipment from a stunned character. What makes the rule different between those cases?

Nuno L.

There is a rule (512.4b) that explicitly says you can’t transfer equipment from a stunned character. There’s no corresponding rule that says you can’t KO equipment attached to a stunned character.

Does a triggered effect go to the chain even if it requires a condition that is not satisfied at the time of the trigger? Example: Does Professor Xavier’s Mansion trigger if I have only one or two non-stunned characters, giving me the chance to use Muir Island and other recovery effects to have three non-stunned characters by the time Professor Xavier’s Mansion’s effect resolves?

Nuno L.

Professor Xavier’s Mansion has a conditional trigger, which means that the triggered effect doesn’t even go on the chain unless you control three or more non-stunned X-Men characters at the start of the recovery phase.

Is The Power Cosmic’s condition of controlling Dr. Doom checked before or after the “KO all resources you control?” More precisely, would a Doomstadt be enough to steal the initiative, or would I really need to have a Dr. Doom in play?

Nuno L.

An effect resolves in the order it’s written, so you KO all resources you control first. In the scenario you describe, Doomstadt gets KO’d along with all the other resources you control, and only then do you check whether you control Dr. Doom. If you don’t, nothing else happens.

The Power Cosmic’s “KO all resources you control” is part of the effect and not a cost, right? Meaning that if I KO one Genosha and four Kooey Kooey Kooeys in response so that I don’t control any resources when The Power Cosmic resolves, I don’t KO anything but still gain control of the initiative, right?

Nuno L.

Right, as long as you control Dr. Doom when it checks.

Thanks for all your questions! Please keep them coming to vsrules@gmail.com.