Welcome to another installment of Week in Review. This past week has been a fairly busy one, with the aftermath of $10K San Francisco leading directly into the excitement of the X-Men Sneak Previews. There’s been a lot of discussion about the results of the $10K—many people wonder if the strength of the Anti-Green Lantern deck will carry over to Silver Age—but for the moment, the pressing concern for most players is the new X-Men expansion.

By the time you read this, I will have already stopped by my local Sneak Preview event. If you took my advice from last week, you will have done the same. Even if you didn’t (and if you didn’t, you missed out on tons of free swag), you’ve probably heard about a ton of cards from the grapevine of people who did show up. Still, that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t check out all the X-Men previews that have been featured on Metagame.com in the past week. Not only could there be cards that you’ve missed, but our writers also have a lot of insight into the design and playability of any given card.

Now that I’ve told you why you should check out the X-Men previews, let’s jump right into talking about them.

On Monday, R&D overlord and proud new father Mike Hummel previewed Mindtap Mechanism, the first equipment with a new keyword. Well, not a new keyword, exactly. Concealed—optional has been around since Green Lantern. This is the first time the keyword has appeared on an equipment, though. What it means, in a nutshell, is that it can be equipped to either a hidden or visible character, and it doesn’t fall off when a character moves between areas. Mike covers these new rules, in addition to the history of the concealed mechanic, in this excellent preview.

Tuesday began with Michael Barnes’s preview of Gambit, Ragin’ Cajun. The last incarnation of Gambit was all the way back in Marvel Origins, a solid little 4-drop that can exhaust to stun opposing 3-drops. The old version is so solid, in fact, that it last saw play just this past weekend. The new Gambit has several advantages over the first, including better stats, no required exhaust, and the best art in the history of the game. Michael covers these points at length as he explores the card’s viability in Constructed.

On Wednesday, yours truly covered Spiral, Freedom Force. It’s a card that’s much better than it looks, especially when looked at in conjunction with some of the other Brotherhood cards we were introduced to this weekend. I’m not one to toot my own horn, so I’ll just say that it would be a good idea to check out my article. Really. Go. Read it now.

On Thursday, Toby gave you guys a breakdown of the swag you got (or didn’t get) for showing up to the Sneak Preview. If you decided not to go, I would strongly recommend not reading this article—you won’t be happy when you see what you missed out on.

Also on Thursday came a preview from David Taylor Marks. He wrote in detail about Marrow, who looks to be one of the strongest new characters from the Morlocks team. She has the potential to be absolutely gigantic in any deck that keys off of the Morlocks’ use of the evasion mechanic. Incidentally, this is David’s inaugural article for Metagame.com, so I recommend checking it out for that reason alone.

Thursday continued to deliver with the latest installment of Tim Willoughby’s Two Turns Ahead series, this time covering the excitement leading up to the X-Men Sneak Previews. Those of you who showed up will be able to relate, and those of you who didn’t . . . I hate to keep rubbing salt in your wounds, but hey, you really should have gone.

The previews continued on Friday with the last preview you’ll see until Infinite Crisis comes out in a few months. Antonino De Rosa covered Join the Club!, one of several new search effects in the set. While not as impressive as the recently revealed Enemy of My Enemy, it’s still quite the excellent card. Antonino gives us a rundown of the history of search effects, as well as some ideas for how to make the best use of this one.

Also on Friday, Tim came back to provide some valuable trading tips. This article is an excellent guide for trading in general, and was a great resource for players who brought their trade binders with them to the Sneak Preview this past weekend.

The week closed out on Saturday with a feature from Ben Kalman on the history of the Hellfire Club. What better way to augment the Sneak Preview than an article delving into the details of one of the teams you were just introduced to?

That’s it for this week’s Week in Review. Up next on the event schedule is . . . testing. That’s right—you guys have a solid month to test the new expansion before any premier events come along. So, get busy! $10K Los Angeles, PC Atlanta, and local PCQs are coming up faster than you think. As for me, I have to go back to breaking Marvel Modern Age. Until next week . . .