Annihilus is the higher-costed team member of two characters who call the Negative Zone home. Both of the Negative Zone characters provide situationally devastating effects, but if you don’t have Negative Zone, a location card in Origins, in play, you’re in for a wild ride. Sure, Annihilus is a formidable character with flight, range, and an exciting power, but the possibility of losing fifteen endurance each turn should be a serious deterrent from playing Annihilus without several copies of  Negative Zone in your deck. Luckily for fans of this antimatter universe, Negative Zone itself can pose some problems of its own for an opponent. Aside from drawing, playing, and flipping up Negative Zone, you will still have to worry about an opponent going after Negative Zone with some effect. There are a few cards that can take Negative Zone out of commission, including Avalanche, Ka-Boom!, and Relocation—so be wary. Hopefully, your opponents will fill their decks with cards geared towards forwarding their own goals rather than thwarting the benefits of your locations. However, if you start dominating your local scene with this little team, don’t be surprised to see anti-location cards suddenly making an appearance.

Annihilus’s power is very exciting since there are not many effects in Marvel that outright stun a character of any size. The likely consequences of Annihilus’s appearance are different depending on whether or not you have the initiative. If you have the initiative, it means you have played Annihilus before your opponent has played his or her characters and gone through the formation step. Consequently, your opponent can choose not to put any characters in his or her front row at all. On the bright side, this means that barring any other effects, your opponent will not be able to protect any of his or her characters or attack with any characters that don’t have range. Alternatively, your opponent may choose to go with any formation but suffer the consequences. The bottom line is that if you have the initiative your opponent is going to be even less happy about not having it than usual.

If you don’t have the initiative, Annihilus must survive your opponent’s attack step before his power even has a chance to trigger. In general, your opponent is always trying to unleash quite a pounding when he or she has the initiative, so he or she will not want to keep non-ranged characters in the support row on those turns. Also, there is a reasonable chance that your opponent will think that Annihilus can be taken down before your attack step. This means that Annihilus will have an enormous bulls-eye on his head, and that your opponent may be forced to take measures that could only be deemed overkill in order to take him down. If your opponent doesn’t take adequate care, and you are able to save Annihilus in combat with plot twists or other tricks, then your subsequent attack step will in all likelihood be devastating.

Beware the Negative Zone team of two characters, and beware using them without their home in play. Aside from the prominent five teams in Origins, keep your eyes out for another team of super characters.

Check in Monday for a discussion of different character versions and a preview of a prominent X-Man who can be very challenging to stun.