Great analysis as always! Here's my take: Cyclops is my absolute favorite hero, so I'm a bit mixed on two new leadership allies I can't use with him. But I'm also pretty happy, because with Magneto I'm definitely going to play Leadership and always thought there are only a few great X-Men leadership allies (there aren't many of them to begin with), so this is a very nice boost. Both of them seem very powerful. Won't Stay Down: Won't ever use it. I actively hate cards that gets me in the minus range, even if it has decent utility. Noble Sacrifice: I'm actually going to try this with Cap and Magneto. As far as cost/value is, this seems decent. 2 effective cost and an ally, I get to heal probably 3-4, which is a basic recovery and a tough. And losing that ally probably won't be a big deal, because I can just keep spamming them, Cap has ways to get the cost down, so does Magneto with Uncanny X-Men. I wouldn't use 3 copies though, 2 max, but even just as a 1-of seems decent. This also seems decent with Web-Warrior allies. New Recruits: I'm very intrigued. I need to see the other 3 allies first, but 0 cost and a 2/player threat seems very enticing.
I did notice that neither Cyke nor Phoenix can play those new allies. A small shame but they will at least be great allies for *everyone* else. Cool takes, thanks for the comment!
Really like how Cyclops isn't trait locked. It's been the one drawback of the X-Men/Mutant waves for me, there doesn't seem to be much thematic synergy with the previous teams. It's my main hope for the Fantastic Four wave that they don't trait lock so many of the cards, especially allies. Other games (United and Legendary especially) made that mistake, and the Fantastic Four feel like a separate piece of content.
There's definitely some trait-locked stuff that wasn't great for older teams here, especially in the Mutant Genesis expansion and those heroes around it. Cyclops looks fun for a variety of decks which is excellent!
I don’t really understand what Won’t Stay Down offers that Make The Call doesn’t. It’s trait locked and more expensive version of what is mostly a weaker effect. And whatever differences they have don’t really make it any more appealing
I see it as a faux 4th copy of Make the Call. With the slight distinction/ advantage of putting an ally into your hand to trigger 'when played from hand' effects vs 'when this card enters play.'
@@dlm9090 I think your point is notable - that a number of cards do need to be played from hand and this fuels that whereas Make the Call does not. It also overcomes the opportunity cost - it's never a dead card in your hand (as long as you are in Hero form), even if you don't have a target in your discard pile.
Noble Sacrifice is the most interesting. Cyclops is one I'm preemptively bored of as "do lots of damage fast" is too straightforward for my taste. I don't think Won't Stay Down is much use for Honey Badger - you'll have Suit Up already, Make the Call unless you are being wilfully difficult plus Sisterhood if you want an inefficient way to grab her. On that note on the turn you actually discard Won't Stay Down you are a card up, which can be helpful. It might also synergise with Danger Room with the AE requirement. I've found that pretty awkward to use to date. It's good Noble Sacrifice lets us "bank" the chump block from ProfX, and Nick - those two cards could do with a bit of a boost. I'm keen to try out Colossus with it.
I will Cyclops does require some setup to really get big damage fast, but that's fair. Noble Sacrifice is super interesting. Also yes, Prof and Nick really needed the help huh! Haha!
Noble sacrifice is a more situational, but stronger* first aid, which is already a playable card. The only odd thing is if you are chumping, you shouldn’t be taking much damage… so situational, but very strong. Especially good for specific scenarios like mentioned.
The advantage that First Aid does have is it can heal an ally, which is potentially two extra uses of said ally - while Noble Sacrifice is only healing the player. But it's still very good, being stronger in the right situation as you say! Thanks for the comment :)
Imagine Magik with a leadership deck and stepping disk to incur cyclops from discard pile to a discount card at top of the deck. That’s some Krakoa War captains action there!
Love the idea! Sadly doesn't quite work out as guarism0 says but I bet there's some deck/discard pile swapping antics we can do with Domino! And her two pistols go pew pew with extra damage.
I'm totally with you on this one. I'm so excited about the aspect cards coming with Magneto. Wolverine recursion was my first thought as well. But as you pointed out, there are a ton of great options with what we are getting.
I would also point out that Cyclops is until the end of the phase. And it says each attack. So that would include events, allys, and other players. If you are going first or have Make The Call in hand. Which means his potential impact is huge. Even just playing him once in the right circumstances could net double-digit damage. Not to mention heroes like Gambit, Psylocke and Black Widow that have multi-attack events. He really opens up so many opportunities.
Great vid! I want to rewatch just to process all the possibilities. I’m probably also more excited for the aspect cards than Magneto right now too. Looking forward to what Storm Leadership can do with it all!😁 This is an excellent pack to cap off the Mutant waves.
By all means, a few people actually tell me they watch my videos 2-3 times! It's very exciting. There's a lot of stuff I cut from including too, so many possibilities. Can't wait!
Noble sacrifice is going to be real nice against Juggernaut. Most of his cards do damage so the healing is very useful and he has overkill so trading a chump block for a toughness is perfect.
War Machine: "Sorry Float Like a Butterfly, Cyclops is my new best friend". I'm excited to go back to leadership with War Machine. I think the Call for Aid discard archetype has enough tools for him now to make him very good.
I would probably never use Won’t Stay Down in an X-23 deck. I am still firmly of the mind that X-23 decks (and X-23 decks in general) are best off and most consistent when you don’t build towards Honey Badger and just view her as an extra bonus when she’s around. So even if I was to play it I’d say you’re mostly better off bringing Professor X back to your hand for the confuse since you’re in alter ego and shuffling Honey Badger back in for a card.
Totally fair. Have you tried Sidekick Honey Badger at all? That thing is one of the craziest things I've ever seen in this game. And I've seen a lot haha. I think it's definitely worth the investment in a 2-player+ game where you can more easily go alter-ego for Suit Up, and the insane damage combos are really meaningful
@@VillainTheory I have tried Sidekick, I’m extremely low on it in X-23. I think it can be fine in a lot of characters, but those characters also don’t have an obligation that tears it all apart, which will also cycle through more often in higher player counts. The first time I tested Suit Up I decided to really go for it, flipped down, played it, next turn played Honey Badger and Sidekick, this is nice, one turn later I draw obligation. Bummer, but it’ll happen, I’ll just keep going and easily win the game just because I’m X-23 and I decided not to cede tempo trying to set up a combo again that game. Next game I draw obligation early, so I’m free and clear to set up the combo, had it the rest of the game and it was….fine. It’s good but didn’t feel worth the effort. Sure, you can always wait until after you see your obligation, but then you just have so many dead cards in your hand. X-23’s biggest strength in my opinion is the fact that more than any other hero in the game, she’s ready to go from turn one. If I start having turn ones where my hand is like, “Side-By-Side, double resource, Make the Call, Danger Room Training, and two copies of Command Team”, I’ve significantly hurt myself in my decisions. I would say the ceiling of power level of a Sidekick X-23 deck is a bit higher than without it, but the floor is way lower. If there’s one thing I try to avoid in Marvel Champions, it’s drawing dead cards, which Voltron decks do way too much. I don’t even like playing a training or a Reinforced Suit in my deck for Honey Badger, I generally play 1-2 X-Force Recruits instead, because I can always just throw one on X-23, and if I can get it on Honey Badger to make First Aid math work well that’s a bonus. Leadership just has access to so many ways to get use out of Honey Badger without making your deck weaker overall. You have Make the Call, Rapid Response, Regroup, but these can all work on any ally in your deck. When I first started my X-23 testing I wanted my leadership deck to focus on Honey Badger, and was having fine results, but once I started dropping situational cards for her and started putting in general purpose cards like Morale Boost my win percentage went up significantly. I think the “right” choice is always to focus on X-23 herself. I think you can have insane turns with Sidekick once you get all your pieces set up, but I also think by the time you get all that assembled a regular X-23 deck could have already won the game haha. Plus the cost of a lot of these cards is prohibitive to me, 2 resources for Suit Up is a lot for X-23, who I think wants to run extremely close to the ground resource wise. Honey Badger is a good card, and you do often have your best turns when she’s around. But I feel like if most heroes had a 2 cost event that read “deal 1 damage or remove 1 threat from a scheme and ready your hero. Cancel an attack”, we would be pretty high on that event, especially if other things you have in your deck could occasionally recur it. That’s just how I view Honey Badger.
Noble Sacrifice is great for Zero Tolerance, Gene Pool, etc. that hurt. Hump blocking. Makes it so your ally can still chump block, just not officially.
Great analysis as always! Here's my take:
Cyclops is my absolute favorite hero, so I'm a bit mixed on two new leadership allies I can't use with him. But I'm also pretty happy, because with Magneto I'm definitely going to play Leadership and always thought there are only a few great X-Men leadership allies (there aren't many of them to begin with), so this is a very nice boost. Both of them seem very powerful.
Won't Stay Down: Won't ever use it. I actively hate cards that gets me in the minus range, even if it has decent utility.
Noble Sacrifice: I'm actually going to try this with Cap and Magneto. As far as cost/value is, this seems decent. 2 effective cost and an ally, I get to heal probably 3-4, which is a basic recovery and a tough. And losing that ally probably won't be a big deal, because I can just keep spamming them, Cap has ways to get the cost down, so does Magneto with Uncanny X-Men. I wouldn't use 3 copies though, 2 max, but even just as a 1-of seems decent. This also seems decent with Web-Warrior allies.
New Recruits: I'm very intrigued. I need to see the other 3 allies first, but 0 cost and a 2/player threat seems very enticing.
I did notice that neither Cyke nor Phoenix can play those new allies. A small shame but they will at least be great allies for *everyone* else.
Cool takes, thanks for the comment!
Really like how Cyclops isn't trait locked. It's been the one drawback of the X-Men/Mutant waves for me, there doesn't seem to be much thematic synergy with the previous teams. It's my main hope for the Fantastic Four wave that they don't trait lock so many of the cards, especially allies. Other games (United and Legendary especially) made that mistake, and the Fantastic Four feel like a separate piece of content.
There's definitely some trait-locked stuff that wasn't great for older teams here, especially in the Mutant Genesis expansion and those heroes around it. Cyclops looks fun for a variety of decks which is excellent!
I don’t really understand what Won’t Stay Down offers that Make The Call doesn’t. It’s trait locked and more expensive version of what is mostly a weaker effect. And whatever differences they have don’t really make it any more appealing
Totally fair, Make the Call is definitely overall stronger.
I see it as a faux 4th copy of Make the Call. With the slight distinction/ advantage of putting an ally into your hand to trigger 'when played from hand' effects vs 'when this card enters play.'
@@dlm9090 I think your point is notable - that a number of cards do need to be played from hand and this fuels that whereas Make the Call does not. It also overcomes the opportunity cost - it's never a dead card in your hand (as long as you are in Hero form), even if you don't have a target in your discard pile.
Noble Sacrifice is the most interesting. Cyclops is one I'm preemptively bored of as "do lots of damage fast" is too straightforward for my taste.
I don't think Won't Stay Down is much use for Honey Badger - you'll have Suit Up already, Make the Call unless you are being wilfully difficult plus Sisterhood if you want an inefficient way to grab her.
On that note on the turn you actually discard Won't Stay Down you are a card up, which can be helpful. It might also synergise with Danger Room with the AE requirement. I've found that pretty awkward to use to date.
It's good Noble Sacrifice lets us "bank" the chump block from ProfX, and Nick - those two cards could do with a bit of a boost. I'm keen to try out Colossus with it.
I will Cyclops does require some setup to really get big damage fast, but that's fair. Noble Sacrifice is super interesting.
Also yes, Prof and Nick really needed the help huh! Haha!
I love X-23. Can't wait to get these cards!
Attack, ready, attack, attack with Honey Badger, ready, attack, ready Honey Badger, attack with... Oops, Cyclops accidentally added on 10 damage!
Noble sacrifice is a more situational, but stronger* first aid, which is already a playable card. The only odd thing is if you are chumping, you shouldn’t be taking much damage… so situational, but very strong. Especially good for specific scenarios like mentioned.
The advantage that First Aid does have is it can heal an ally, which is potentially two extra uses of said ally - while Noble Sacrifice is only healing the player. But it's still very good, being stronger in the right situation as you say! Thanks for the comment :)
I really like the phoenix card…. Readying and healing an ally sounds like it could get some good value out of some previously expensive allies.
Definitely! Also any allies you beef up with upgrades too.
We must protect the allies...
Imagine Magik with a leadership deck and stepping disk to incur cyclops from discard pile to a discount card at top of the deck. That’s some Krakoa War captains action there!
Doesn't Stepping Disk get Identity cards only to the top of the deck?
@@guarism0 oh true, just wishful thinking then
Love the idea! Sadly doesn't quite work out as guarism0 says but I bet there's some deck/discard pile swapping antics we can do with Domino! And her two pistols go pew pew with extra damage.
I'm totally with you on this one. I'm so excited about the aspect cards coming with Magneto. Wolverine recursion was my first thought as well.
But as you pointed out, there are a ton of great options with what we are getting.
I would also point out that Cyclops is until the end of the phase. And it says each attack. So that would include events, allys, and other players. If you are going first or have Make The Call in hand. Which means his potential impact is huge. Even just playing him once in the right circumstances could net double-digit damage. Not to mention heroes like Gambit, Psylocke and Black Widow that have multi-attack events. He really opens up so many opportunities.
Suffice to say Cyclops is going to be VERY popular!
Agreed.
I wish you mentioned how Cyclops and To Me My X-Men works so well to cheat his cost. On brand I say with his Flavor Text.
Haha, if only it was more predictable when you'd find him with TMMX
Great vid! I want to rewatch just to process all the possibilities. I’m probably also more excited for the aspect cards than Magneto right now too. Looking forward to what Storm Leadership can do with it all!😁
This is an excellent pack to cap off the Mutant waves.
By all means, a few people actually tell me they watch my videos 2-3 times! It's very exciting. There's a lot of stuff I cut from including too, so many possibilities. Can't wait!
Ciclops + warmachine ❤
A beautiful pairing
Noble sacrifice is going to be real nice against Juggernaut. Most of his cards do damage so the healing is very useful and he has overkill so trading a chump block for a toughness is perfect.
Oh yeah! Juggernaut is another great scenario to use Noble Sacrifice against. Good shout
I might buy this pack just to play Noble Sacrifice with Drax. Love Drax!
Drax is super fun! And I think this pack will be great anyway. Honestly Drax even wants the Cyclops ally to add to his damage too haha!
War Machine: "Sorry Float Like a Butterfly, Cyclops is my new best friend". I'm excited to go back to leadership with War Machine. I think the Call for Aid discard archetype has enough tools for him now to make him very good.
I love this so much, the War Machine thing is a great Marvel Champions meme
I would probably never use Won’t Stay Down in an X-23 deck. I am still firmly of the mind that X-23 decks (and X-23 decks in general) are best off and most consistent when you don’t build towards Honey Badger and just view her as an extra bonus when she’s around. So even if I was to play it I’d say you’re mostly better off bringing Professor X back to your hand for the confuse since you’re in alter ego and shuffling Honey Badger back in for a card.
Totally fair. Have you tried Sidekick Honey Badger at all? That thing is one of the craziest things I've ever seen in this game. And I've seen a lot haha. I think it's definitely worth the investment in a 2-player+ game where you can more easily go alter-ego for Suit Up, and the insane damage combos are really meaningful
@@VillainTheory I have tried Sidekick, I’m extremely low on it in X-23. I think it can be fine in a lot of characters, but those characters also don’t have an obligation that tears it all apart, which will also cycle through more often in higher player counts. The first time I tested Suit Up I decided to really go for it, flipped down, played it, next turn played Honey Badger and Sidekick, this is nice, one turn later I draw obligation. Bummer, but it’ll happen, I’ll just keep going and easily win the game just because I’m X-23 and I decided not to cede tempo trying to set up a combo again that game. Next game I draw obligation early, so I’m free and clear to set up the combo, had it the rest of the game and it was….fine. It’s good but didn’t feel worth the effort. Sure, you can always wait until after you see your obligation, but then you just have so many dead cards in your hand. X-23’s biggest strength in my opinion is the fact that more than any other hero in the game, she’s ready to go from turn one. If I start having turn ones where my hand is like, “Side-By-Side, double resource, Make the Call, Danger Room Training, and two copies of Command Team”, I’ve significantly hurt myself in my decisions.
I would say the ceiling of power level of a Sidekick X-23 deck is a bit higher than without it, but the floor is way lower. If there’s one thing I try to avoid in Marvel Champions, it’s drawing dead cards, which Voltron decks do way too much. I don’t even like playing a training or a Reinforced Suit in my deck for Honey Badger, I generally play 1-2 X-Force Recruits instead, because I can always just throw one on X-23, and if I can get it on Honey Badger to make First Aid math work well that’s a bonus.
Leadership just has access to so many ways to get use out of Honey Badger without making your deck weaker overall. You have Make the Call, Rapid Response, Regroup, but these can all work on any ally in your deck. When I first started my X-23 testing I wanted my leadership deck to focus on Honey Badger, and was having fine results, but once I started dropping situational cards for her and started putting in general purpose cards like Morale Boost my win percentage went up significantly. I think the “right” choice is always to focus on X-23 herself. I think you can have insane turns with Sidekick once you get all your pieces set up, but I also think by the time you get all that assembled a regular X-23 deck could have already won the game haha. Plus the cost of a lot of these cards is prohibitive to me, 2 resources for Suit Up is a lot for X-23, who I think wants to run extremely close to the ground resource wise.
Honey Badger is a good card, and you do often have your best turns when she’s around. But I feel like if most heroes had a 2 cost event that read “deal 1 damage or remove 1 threat from a scheme and ready your hero. Cancel an attack”, we would be pretty high on that event, especially if other things you have in your deck could occasionally recur it. That’s just how I view Honey Badger.
Noble Sacrifice is great for Zero Tolerance, Gene Pool, etc. that hurt. Hump blocking. Makes it so your ally can still chump block, just not officially.
Those New Recruits look like nice chump blockers
Fresh meat for the grinder
Imagine flooding the board with allies then dropping cyclops. Super long set up for the pay offs that I like
Yeah! That's going to be a lot of fun