The Fantastic Four is the most adept team at utilizing equipment cards in Origins, and Mr. Fantastic in his various versions is likely to be the cornerstone figure in any deck built around an equipment theme.

You haven’t heard too much about equipment in the past few weeks. Equipment is a strong means of making your small characters a little more intimidating. It is also reassuring to play a low-costed equipment card on a newly recruited character when you haven’t drawn a character to play for a given turn that uses all of your resources points. Equipment can thus insure that you have a formidable character in play and that you make the most of your resource points each turn, even when you aren't drawing characters. If you are fortunate enough to be playing a character at exactly the cost of the number of resources you have each turn, there is a good chance that your better equipment will still be sitting in your hand later in the game. Both of the two larger versions of Mr. Fantastic enable you to unleash a load of good equipment onto the board the turn either version comes into play, since each reduces the cost to recruit equipment cards. Stretch, the mid-sized Mr. Fantastic, also has a nifty ability that lets you move your equipment around. The Scientific Genius featured here today reaches into your deck to pull out any equipment of your choice.

Since there are no equipment cards in Origins with a cost greater than 2, Mr. Fantastic’s recruit reducing ability will allow you to put any equipment from this set (that doesn’t have other requirements) into play directly onto the characters of your choice! For the most part, your options are only limited by what equipment cards you chose to put into your deck; it's simply a matter of deciding what equipment card is optimal on the turn he comes into play. If you drop the Scientific Genius on turn 7 and toss some Kevlar Body Armors onto your guys, there’s a good chance you won’t lose much endurance that turn. Personal Forcefield, Advanced Hardware, or taking a ride in the Fantasticar are also exciting options.

If you’ve incorporated a decent amount of equipment search into your deck, once Mr. Fantastic enters play you should easily be able to fit each of your characters with something handy. The Baxter Building, Reed Richards (the smallest version of Mr. Fantastic), and Tech Upgrade are powerhouses when it comes to getting equipment cards into your hand. There are also plenty of other cards out there that make an equipment-centered deck an exciting option.

When it comes to evaluating the Scientific Genius’s raw stats, don’t be fooled. His 14 ATK is the smallest of all the 7 cost characters, and his 14 DEF is worse than the norm. However, don’t forget that “free” equipment—if he’s selfish, it will provide him with stats much like those of the other big hitters.

Check in tomorrow for a character who’s already playing the Marvel TCG.