The Power of (Plus) One

Yesterday, Matt talked about character versions and the uniqueness rule. To recap, if you have a character with a specific name in play (let’s say Wolverine), and you recruit another character with the same name, regardless of version, (perhaps a larger, more powerful Wolverine) the first one goes to the KO’d pile. This means that if you put lots of copies of the same character (let’s say twelve Wolverines) in your deck, you run the risk of having useless, or "dead," cards in your hand.

But there is a silver lining: power-ups!

When one of your characters is an attacker or a defender, you can discard a card with the same name, again regardless of version, to power-up that character. When a character becomes powered-up, it gets +1 ATK and +1 DEF for the duration of the attack. It might not seem like much of a bonus for the cost of a card, but you’ll be surprised how often that little bit of extra oomph matters. And don’t forget, you can power-up a character as many times as you want for that extra extra oomph.

So that’s power-ups. A nice little bonus you can give a character of which you’ve happened to drawn multiples. But while often useful, let’s be honest—power-ups aren’t really all that exciting. Which brings us to today’s preview.


Get Lost

That’s right—when the members of Magneto’s gang power-up, they really power-up. Lost City turns an extra copy of a character in your hand into a huge combat trick that can take down an unsuspecting attacker or help one of your smaller attackers take down one of your opponent’s big guns. But before you go rushing off to put Lost Cities in all of your Brotherhood decks, here are a few things to keep in mind.

If you’re planning on powering-up a lot, make sure you put lots of copies of the same character in your deck. Some Brotherhood characters that have multiple versions (and are therefore easier to stock your deck with) are Sabretooth, Mystique, Quicksilver, and of course the big guy himself, Magneto. Just remember the uniqueness rule—it never feels good to send your own characters to the KO’d pile.

Another great way to support a Lost City strategy is to use cards that can return cards from your KO’d pile to your hand, allowing you to power-up again and again. I’m not going to name names, but there are a few cards you might want to check out in the Origins set that can keep your Brotherhood perpetually powered-up.

Finally, there are some cool combos you can make by using the “team-up” cards I spoke about in my last preview. Don’t limit Lost City’s use to just the Brotherhood, when Mutant Nation will let you boost your X-Men (like Wolverine) as well. Or play Marvel Team-Up to combine the Brotherhood and Fantastic Four—each of the major FF characters has three versions. With Lost City and the FF, It’s Clobberin’ Time all the time!


Lost in Transition

In my last preview (two Fridays ago) I challenged readers to try to figure out which of the aforementioned Team-Up cards fit with each team combination. I had planned on posting who had e-mailed me the correct answers on the following Monday, but several wacky things happened over that weekend which I’ll explain here.

First of all, here are the card names with their respective team combinations:

Common Enemy: Doom and Fantastic Four
Heroes United: Fantastic Four and X-Men (this one was actually the preview card)
Mutant Nation: Brotherhood and X-Men
Unlikely Allies: Doom and X-Men
Marvel Team-Up: Any two teams.

I was hoping the contest would be kind of tricky. Four of the cards let two teams work together as one, while the fifth, Marvel Team-Up lets any two teams work together, the drawback being that you don’t draw the card like you do with the others. I figured some people would figure out the four specific combinations (three really, because one was actually the preview card), and some people would figure out that Marvel Team-Up was generic. But I also figured that only a few, if any, would figure out everything. As it turned out, things got all screwy.

First, even though Heroes United was the preview card, Marvel Team-Up’s card image was pictured instead. That kind of ruined some of the trickiness. Then, over the weekend, the entire spoiler hit, rendering the rest of the challenge moot.

The good news is that when I checked my email there were a bunch of replies that must have been sent before the spoiler hit. How do I know it was before? Well, to be blunt, it’s because no one got it right. (Actually, one person nailed it, but he came clean at the end of his email and revealed that he had seen the spoiler.)

Interestingly, while everyone got Mutant Nation correct, most people thought Unlikely Allies teamed Doom with the FF. And several people tried to fit the Sentinels in somewhere, usually putting them under Marvel Team-Up (and often with Doom).

I also asked if people were more excited about building pure team decks or mixtures, and predictably, the answers varied. You guys seem to like the aesthetics of a thematic team, but the mechanical game play freedom of combining different factions. All in all, the responses were great. To everyone who participated—thank you and enjoy your no-prizes.

Tune in tomorrow when we take a close look at the smallest of the five major teams in Origins. Or, as I like to call them, "Big Stompy Robots."