Hi All,

As threatened in my last column, I have the pleasure today of unveiling Cerebro’s preview card for the Avengers expansion, and appropriately, it’s an X-Men character! The plan is to take a quick look at the character’s background and then shoot the breeze with a local X-fan. The last section will delve into a related but relatively little-known area of the rules.

1. Background

First, a confession. I’m a little lacking in the comic geek department. There’s little doubt that I’m a geek, but I’m first and foremost a gamer geek. (Some of the less charitable members of my play group would say I’m first and foremost a judge geek and then a gamer geek only using the most generous definition of the term. But I digress.)

Cutting a long story short, nearly everything I know about the X-Men has come from repeated viewings of the movies, so I didn’t have the first clue about who Polaris was. But sharing some quality time with Google soon changed all that! If the name’s not ringing any bells with you, either, here’s a (very) brief heads up.

Having been raised by adoptive parents, Lorna Dane was first discovered by Mesmero, who was using a Cerebro-like device to identify mutants with latent powers. The name Polaris came from her ability to manipulate electromagnetic energies (and this is reflected in her power to disrupt the flight and range of her enemies prior to attacking them).

Her mastery of magnetism is similar to Magneto’s, only not as strong. Perhaps because of this similarity, Mesmero was able to hypnotize Polaris into believing she was the daughter of a robot duplicate of Magneto.

She was rescued by the X-Men, who revealed Mesmero’s deception for what it was, and became a member of their team. She later joined X-Factor. However, she was destined not only to meet the real Magneto, but eventually to join forces with him, perhaps most notably when they were both amongst The Twelve mutants captured by Apocalypse.

After they defeated Apocalypse, Polaris accompanied Magneto to the island of Genosha, and while running genetic tests there, she was stunned to learn that Magneto was her natural father after all!

Not long after, a Sentinel attack launched by Cassandra Nova devastated the island’s population. Polaris was one of the few survivors, but for many months she was burdened with the electromagnetic “memories” of the countless dead.

Once again she was rescued by the X-Men, but the trauma of her ordeal, together with the still-recent shock of her paternal discovery, drove her to the brink of insanity.

2. Tech

(Note: tongue very much in cheek. However, for some real tech, you should definitely sink your teeth into anything written by Metagame.com’s newest recruit, Alex Brown. Here’s his first effort if you missed it.)

After drinking from the deep font of wisdom that is Kieren Otton in my last preview column, I now have the pleasure of introducing his arch-nemesis Paul Van Der Werk, co-owner of internet mecca www.vsparadise.com and All ’Round Top Bloke™. By a happy coincidence, Paul is Australia’s staunchest supporter of the X-Men affiliation, and the annual Arkham vs. X-Men grudge match he contests with Kieren is already the stuff of legends. The following is paraphrased from a chat with Paul.

The X-Men curve currently lacks powerhouses in both the 4-drop and 5-drop departments, so a solid 4-drop body is a great start. Having 7 ATK/7 DEF with flight and range puts Polaris well and truly on curve, and her uncommon rarity means that she’ll often be a tempting off-affiliation choice in Sealed Pack formats.

In addition, Archangel, Angel of Death has the best stats of the X-Men 5-drops, and Polaris is obviously designed to work in conjunction with him. Dropping Polaris on turn 4 and then Archangel on your turn 5 initiative will effectively transform each of your flyers into an “auto-Bamf!”

Storm, Ororo Munroe is the incumbent in the Archangel support role, and Polaris improves on her DEF and arguably her power—she removes both flight and range without an endurance cost, but only does so reliably on your own initiative.

How about some of the other contenders for the 4-drop slot in an X-curve deck? Only John Proudstar ◊ Thunderbird has more muscle, but Polaris avoids all that mucking around with recovery tricks. She also trumps the identically-sized Nightcrawler, Fuzzy Elf by replacing its pseudo-flight with actual flight, which again is synergistic with Archangel (as well as the similarly worded plot twist Aerial Supremacy).

Final thoughts? Robbing your opponents’ characters of flight and range at least every second turn will rarely be a Bad Thing, and if nothing else, will hose any Sentinel decks still running Cover Fire!

All in all, it may take more than this new 4-drop to catapult an X-curve deck into Tier one competition, but this is definitely a step in the right direction and a welcome addition to the X-Men arsenal.

3. Qualities

Which brings us to the rules section of this rules column, and today I’d like to try something a little different. Rather than answer a handful of questions in the space remaining, I’d like to explore a little-known area of the rules inspired by today’s preview card. And that area is “qualities.”

Before I do, I’ll warn you that some of the going could get pretty heavy, so if you just wandered in here for the preview card, I won’t be offended if you bail before your head starts to hurt. That being said, any judges should try to make it to the end, especially those aspiring to Level 2 certification.

First of all, what exactly am I talking about? Qualities are simply “things” that an object might have. Some are characteristics (like flight, range, or reinforcement) and others are not (like ATK, DEF, or willpower). If you’d like to impress people at parties, the full list can be found under the Qualities heading in the glossary at the back of the comprehensive rules, but the six examples above are a useful starting point.

Why are they important? Because they’re the basis for classifying continuous modifiers from effects. There are two types of continuous modifiers from effects: those that modify qualities of objects and those that don't. Note that if any part of a modifier modifies qualities, then the whole modifier is considered to do so.

A continuous modifier from an effect that modifies qualities “flags” affected objects when the effect resolves, and only flagged objects are affected by the modifier for its duration. Let’s start by using Polaris as an example. The modifier created by her triggered effect modifies qualities (flight and range). As a result, affected characters are flagged on resolution (namely, characters your opponents control) and the modifier applies only to those flagged characters this turn (whether or not they remain characters your opponents control).

So let’s say you control Polaris and Dracula, Vlad Dracula on your initiative, and your opponent controls Ch’p. At the start of your attack step, Polaris’s triggered effect resolves and Ch’p gets flagged (and loses flight and range for the turn). If you subsequently attack with Dracula and gain control of Ch’p, he stays flagged (and without flight and range) this turn. Similarly, if your opponent somehow manages to gain control of Polaris before the end of the turn, she stays unflagged (and keeps flight and range).

How about an example with a few more moving parts? You control G’Nort and Dr. Light when you boost Guy Gardner, Strong Arm of the Corps on your initiative. The modifier created by Guy’s triggered effect modifies a quality (ATK). As a result, affected characters are “flagged” on resolution (namely, G’Nort and Dr. Light), and the modifier applies only to those flagged characters this turn (whether or not they remain characters you control).

Now let’s run through some scenarios that could take place later that turn (after Guy’s triggered effect resolves). If you recruit another character, that character will be unflagged. If you use Dr. Light’s power to retrieve a 2-drop from your KO’d pile, that 2-drop will be unflagged. If your opponent gains control of G’Nort (using, say, Lilith, Mad Hatter, Owl, or, for style points, Professor X, Mental Master), then G’Nort will stay flagged. Flagged characters get +2 ATK while attacking this turn; unflagged characters do not.

We’ll finish with a couple examples of the other type of continuous modifier from an effect. Let’s keep G’Nort and Dr. Light from the previous example, but this time add Natasha Romanoff ◊ Black Widow into the mix and pay 1 endurance so that characters you control can attack hidden characters this turn.

Natasha’s modifier does not modify qualities. As a result, the modifier will affect any characters you control this turn, whether or not you controlled them on resolution of her payment effect. In other words, this type of modifier does not flag objects.

Let’s run through the same scenarios as before, but this time after Natasha’s payment effect resolves. If you recruit another character, that character can attack hidden characters this turn. If you use Dr. Light’s power to retrieve a 2-drop from your KO’d pile, that 2-drop can attack hidden characters this turn. If your opponent gains control of G’Nort, then G’Nort will no longer be able to attack hidden characters this turn.

Here’s one final example that I shamelessly lifted from a previous column:

You control a single character (Shang Chi) but want to recruit a character with double loyalty (Elektra, Agent of the Hand), so you first exhaust Shang Chi to play Made Men’s effect. The question is: can Elektra attack as though she has flight this turn? And the answer is yes.

Again, the key is that Made Men’s modifier does not modify qualities. It does mention one (flight), but it doesn’t actually change whether or not affected objects have that quality. It’s a subtle but important distinction. As a result, the modifier will affect any affiliated characters you control this turn, whether or not they were affiliated characters you controlled on resolution of Made Men’s effect.