In Marvel Origins, the Fantastic Four were defined by a few key traits. They were, and still are, the undisputed masters of equipment cards. They were also consistent to a lethal degree. In the first few months of the game, many powerful decks were based exclusively on the Fantastic Four. Depending on what kind of approach an FF deck took, staple cards included Mr. Fantastic, Scientific Genius; Thing, Heavy Hitter; Fantasticar; and Alicia Masters. However, one card was played in every Fantastic Four deck and came to symbolize the team more than any other card. That card is Signal Flare.

Signal Flare works easily enough. Play it, search your deck for a Fantastic Four character, then discard another from your hand. But its beauty lies in that simplicity. Discarding a character is an effect, not a cost, so if Signal Flare is negated, you won’t lose that character from your hand. And, it grabs any Fantastic Four character, from Johnny Storm to Sue Richards. It was the only card with that kind of search capability in Marvel Origins. It was, and still is, a card that defines an entire environment. The Fantastic Four’s deadly consistency is rooted in Signal Flare.

The player who hits all his or her drops often wins the game. Without over-simplifying a complex game, it’s undeniable that hitting your drops while your opponent doesn’t will give you a distinct advantage. For most experienced players, the primary goal of deckbuilding and tweaking is to ensure that every drop can be made each turn. A well-built deck should make its drop each turn, while one that isn’t built well may miss a few. There are definite exceptions, such as Wild Sentinel decks that don’t want to use every recruit point each turn. But for the most part, every player has certain recruitment goals, and by accomplishing them, he or she will be in the best possible position.

Cards that search for characters are some of the most powerful cards in the game. Anything that removes the challenge and luck involved in getting the characters you need into your hand and into play is extremely helpful. With the release of DC Origins, there are several cards that can pull characters from the deck. Though these cards might appear simple and similar, all of them have different characteristics. Knowing and understanding these differences can help you understand how entire teams play and how you should play against them. Today’s article focuses on character-search cards.

There are three types of character-search cards to consider. The first type can grab any character from a single team affiliation and send it to your hand. The second type provides a choice of characters to search for. The last type searches for specific versions of a character, putting it either into the hand or directly into play. This last category also includes cards that can search for characters, but aren’t necessarily required to find them.

There are five cards of the first type, one each for the Fantastic Four, the Gotham Knights, the Fearsome Five, the Teen Titans, and the League of Assassins.

As detailed above, Signal Flare is the best character-search card for the Fantastic Four. It’s a plot twist, and the associated drawback for the search requires the discard of any Fantastic Four character card from your hand. This discard is part of the effect of the card, not a cost, so if anything negates the Signal Flare, you will not have to discard a character. Signal Flare can be played relatively early in the game due to its threshold cost of 3, and it cannot be negated by Not So Fast.

Bat-Signal is the character-search plot twist for the Gotham Knights. Its drawback is a bit less significant than that of Signal Flare. In true Gotham Knights fashion, it actually nets you card advantage, as the attached cost just requires the exhausting of one Gotham Knights character you control. It can be played as early as the first turn due to its threshold cost of 1, but Not So Fast can negate it. If Bat-Signal does end up negated, you will have exhausted a character to accomplish very little.

The Underworld Star is a plot twist that’s very similar to Signal Flare. It searches the deck for a Fearsome Five character and demands the discard of another Fearsome Five character from the player’s hand. Like Bat-Signal, it has a threshold cost of 1, so it can be very handy when searching for Shimmer. However, The Underworld Star’s discard cost is just that, a formal cost, so if it’s negated, you’ll lose at least one card from your hand. If you played it from your hand instead of from your resource row, you’ll lose two cards. Additionally, it’s vulnerable to Not So Fast, which can be even more devastating when there’s a card in hand on the line.

Departing from the line-up of plot twists, Optitron is the Teen Titans’ primary character-search card. Unlike the character-search plot twists, Optitron can be reused. It has a threshold cost of 1, yet it can’t be touched with Not So Fast, which is quite an upside. Unfortunately, Optitron’s activation cost is huge. It requires a resource point and the discard of another Te