Hey everyone, sorry for the incredibly late-to-the-punch update, I’ve had a pretty crazy August/September, but I’m going to work harder to insure I get more time to work on the blog. Keep your eyes open during October because there’s a ton of new stuff coming!

033 Beetle

As a first showing for Janice Lincoln’s Beetle, this is exceptional. She might be the best 75 point figure in the game now, with solid values, useful powers and a killer trait for Sinister Syndicate teams. Playing two Beetle’s together gives them both the ability to hand out action tokens to every character hit in their Energy Explosion, though only one Beetle can activate the trait each turn. Beetle’s very simple, a strong, consistent ranged attacker, with enough mobility to threaten her opponents across the board, and enough support for other Sinister Syndicate members to be a team player.

Constructed: 4/5

Sealed: 4/5

034 Tiger Shark

Tiger Shark is overcosted and really disappointing. For over 100 points he starts with Sidestep and 2 damage. Now, you might be thinking “well he has Blades/Claws/Fangs, so that 2 damage really isn’t a big deal” and usually I’d agree with you, but when a figure that’s 1/3 of your team is relying on a dice roll to insure they’re doing damage it’s just not good enough. Tiger Shark’s lack of mobility only furthers the fact that he has no Willpower, leaving him treading water while being picked off by ranged attackers. Even with his two traits, one which boosts his average attack, and the other that grants an extra Sidestep in water terrain, his point cost just doesn’t make sense. He’s only a click longer than most of the powerful 100 point figures in the Super Rare slot, and he has less mobility than Mr. Hyde, why are you paying so much for him?

Constructed: 1/5

Sealed: 2/5

035 Puff Adder

Puff Adder is a really strange figure that deserves to see some play due to his attack power, which allows him to deal penetrating damage without needing to roll any dice. If you do want to roll some dice though, Puff Adder’s ability to take Giant Size and Super Strength gives him a leg up against other close attackers, and gives him a 6 range swing with that object. His values remain consistant down his dial, and he’s pretty great at either point value. He’s no Cottonmouth, but he can hold his own, and deal consistent damage. Solid figure.

Constructed: 3/5

Sealed: 4/5

036 Cloak

Cloak is part of a niche of characters designed to carry, and in that niche it’s hard to suggest he’s the best choice. For 35 points you’re getting a figure that can carry 1 other character. When 35 point Overdrive and 45 point Vanisher are both functioning members of the game, and both can carry more than a single character, Cloak becomes way less viable. In his defense, he does offer two notable things of value. The first is his 18 defend. For 35 points you can insure that your character’s are never going to be caught unprotected. A unified 18 defense makes your entire team hard to deal with, and Cloak is great at getting into position to utilize it. He also benefits from his partnership with Dagger. Being able to pull Dagger up to 10 spaces, and then have her heal can be a life saver when a character takes an unexpected hit, the only issue here is that you’re paying 70 points for that combination and it takes 2 actions to pull off. In the end, Cloak functions as a great taxi for a single character, especially if he can wildcard the S.H.I.E.L.D or Police team ability, but when you’re more worried about transporting your entire team, he’s only good for defending.

Constructed: 2/5

Sealed: 3/5

037 Moon Knight

Moon Knight’s goal in the game is to get 2 tribute tokens as fast as humanly possible, making him a very straight-forward offensive figure. As often as possible Moon Knight wants to be dealing damage, and luckily, he makes it pretty easy with his attack power giving him at minimum, an 11 attack. Moon Knight benefits from a really strong dial, with solid values throughout and basic, but useful powers. Moon Knight is going to be an incredible threat when paired with an Entity. Even Proteus gives him a huge increase, pushing his damage to 4 and his defense to a minimum 18, and with his trait, he has a way to minimize the damage he would be taking. I believe he’ll have a chance to be competitive with his high values, low cost, psuedo stop clicks and useful powers.

Constructed: 4/5

Sealed: 5/5- With the low point values in this set, Moon Knight is almost guarenteed to be able to get the +3 to his attack, giving him a 13, against the average 17-18 defenses.

038 Vulture

Vulture is a pretty straight-forward close-combat figure, with a few things that make him noteworthy. With an unusually long Charge range of 6, the Wing Symbol and his trait that reduces the attack values of walking characters trying to hit him with close attacks, giving him an 18 defense up close and a 19 from range. For only 50 points, Vulture is one of the best Blades/Claws/Fangs figures, and that’s all well and good, but do we really need another Blades/Claws/Fangs piece? In sealed he’s one of the few transporters, making him much more useful, but in constructed I don’t see Vulture being much more than a point filler on a Sinister Syndicate team. Thankfully he’s not a terrible option for a point filler.

Constructed: 3/5

Sealed: 4/5

039 Mysterio

Mysterio lives and dies by his trait and it offers some unique defensive potential regardless if it’s attached to Mysterio, or an opposing character. When it’s attached to Mysterio it’s allowing him to activate his Stealth without needing to stay in hindering terrain, which also happens to make him nearly impossible to hit. When he’s done hiding, he’s putting his Mist marker on the most threatening opponent, giving all characters that they target Shape Change, and potentially Super Senses. If you’re not interested in Mysterio planting his token, then he acts as a hard to deal with Probability Control machine, able to support his allies from the front lines with little fear of retaliation. Mysterio isn’t much of an offensive figure, but he’s an annoyance unlike any other.

Constructed: 4/5

Sealed: 4/5

040 Speed Demon

If Speed Demon had been released before Uncanny X-Men, he would be concidered an incredibly solid and cheap Hypersonic Figure, with an upside for other Sinister Syndicate members; but after Quicksilver, Speed Demon just seems a little slow to the punch. For 5 points more you’re trading the Flurry/Hypersonic combination from the first clicks to the last, leaving regular Hypersonic in the front. Now, Speed Demon isn’t bad, he does have Willpower, an incredibly 20 Defense on his top dial, and Probability Control coming up in his later clicks, but these don’t make up for the fact that top dial, Quicksilver is dealing 6 damage and Speed Demon is dealing 3. In sealed, watch out for Anaconda, and the Symbiotes with Plasticity, and Speed Demon can really wreck house against the slower, less mobility forward style of team in this set.

Constructed: 3/5

Sealed: 4/5

041 Sandman

This might be my favourite Sandman ever printed, even just thinking about him I was sure that for all those goodies, he must be over 100. Sandman instead, comes in at a slim 90 points, and offers a lot of great options for those points. Sandman’s powers are represented in his trait, and gives him the ability to put up walls, and then make free attacks through those walls. It’s a cool power, but it’s not entirely that useful. Being able to make a free attack is great, but it requires an opponent to stand next to the wall for an entire turn in order for it to work. The one thing it’s helpful for is if someone has based Sandman, as he can put up a wall to escape from them, use his Sidestep away and then make a free attack against that character. Even without that trait, Sandman brings a lot to the table for less than 100 points. With solid reducers and values, and a host of useful powers, Sandman can be pretty threatening up close, but without any way to get there, he’s going to be stuck behind your team, unable to use his trait or powers. With all these cool elements, Sandman is just let down by the fact that he isn’t specialized enough. He can function on a lot of teams because he doesn’t really do anything unique, and because of that, he’s not good enough to field competitively.

Constructed: 2/5

Sealed: 3/5

041b Hydro-Man

Where Sandman was too much of a jack-of-all-trades, Hydro-Man brings a very specific set of skills to the battlefield. The most important tool in his belt is his Submerged marker trait, forcing opponents he gets close to break away to move, and to take damage if they fail. Utilizing this ability, Hydro-Man becomes a figure focused on dealing chip damage to opponents, slowly wearing them away. His other traits focus on him placing, consuming and standing on water terrain markers, giving him some tricks to heal and deal more damage. This would be good, but Hydro-Man suffers from a lack of reducers on his lower dial, and a slightly inflated price on his higher point value. There’s something there to make Hydro-Man amazing, and for 60 points there’s not a lot of reasons to not field him. It’s just hard to justify a 60 point offensive figure that can easily be K.O’d before doing anything.

Constructed: 3/5

Sealed: 3/5

042 Boomerang

Boomerang is one of my favourite characters in modern comics, being a player in both the Thunderbolts and the Superior Foes of Spider-Man. In clix form Boomerang comes in a little bit overpriced for what he actually does. He’s a secondary attacker with 6 range, good to average values and not a ton of interesting standard powers, but he does have access to one really interesting power. His special Leadership allows him to take tokens off of himself if he fails, making it a much more useful power than most other special Leaderships, and keeps Boomerang going indefinitely, or until he takes one hit. Sadly, it’s not exactly hard to hit him as he has no reducers, and only Energy Shield/Deflection and the potential for Super-Senses if you give him a token. For 110 points, he’s just too expensive to recommend, and even at his lower 75 point value he has to compete with World’s Finest for secondary attackers, and they will almost assuredly beat him out.

Constructed: 2/5

Sealed: 3/5

043 Electro

Electro is the definition of a glass cannon. With the ability to hit for huge damage when targeting multiple characters, Electro can devastate entire teams with a single attack. This comes with two big downsides. The first is that Electro himself doesn’t have a lot going for him. His values are average, and his only defensive power is Energy Shield/Deflection, leaving him really vulnerable to basically anything with a decent attack value or the ability to get close. At 70 you’re not investing so much that this is a huge problem, but it’s definitely a risk associated with fielding Electro. The second is that, in order to accomplish his most powerful attacks he needs to get into a position to hit 3 targets at the same time. This is often easier said than done, and with a fairly average 6 range, and a limited 4 movement Running Shot, Electro doesn’t have the mobility to easily target multiple characters. With the right support Electro will be a devastating secondary attacker, but he’s not as easy to use as he might at first seem. With proper positioning and careful planning, Electro can be a key member of your team, and could potentially fill the chair that Living Lightning currently sits in.

Constructed: 4/5- Even with all his flaws, I still see a lot of potential in Electro

Sealed: 4/5

044 Carnage

Carnage is the figure to look out for come the next rotation. With the move to smaller point values, Carnage’s trait that allows him to not take action tokens when attacking lower point figures is going to be triggered a lot. Carnage also has the wonderful cocktail of powers granted to him by the Alien Symbiote shared trait, allowing him fairly unrestricted movement, while holding enemies close to him. The biggest flaw with Carnage is his reliance on Blades/Claws/Fangs. For a 100 point character, it’s just too risky betting 1/3 of your damage output on a d6 roll. Otherwise, he’s a pretty devastating attacker, perfect for Eclipso or Brainiac to possess.

Constructed: 3/5 – (4/5 after rotation)

Sealed: 5/5

045 Lizard

I really, really think Lizard has potential, and it all comes down to his damage power. With a better reducer from a relic or possessor, Lizard can be really hard to deal with. With his ability to heal after taking damage, and free Regeneration when he has 2 tokens, Lizard needs to be taken out in short order . This also pairs well with Proteus, giving Lizard much more reliable values and without any worry about taking damage from Proteus. Lizard isn’t the most offensively coordinated figure, but with the right support he’s going to be nearly impossible to take down without concentrated firepower. He’s not going to be a major player in the competitive scene, but when rotation circles around, someones going to find a way for him to see play

Constructed: 2/5 (4/5 after rotation)

Sealed: 4/5

046 Mephisto

Have you ever wanted to give you entire team (and the opposing team by extension) Probability Control? Mephisto is the figure for you. Mephisto offers two options for his point value, 45 or 130. Both offer a lot of interesting opportunities to you, and both have a few issues. At 45 points he’s a supporting figure with Sidestep, Perplex and a completely unique ability to force opposing characters to move, screwing up carrying, adjacency bonuses and getting characters with Stealth out of hindering. This is all on top of giving every character the potential for Probability Control in a trade for -1 defense, and having Mystics. Of course, he also heals when a character with one of those tokens dies, but that doesn’t help a ton when he’s only 2 clicks.

On his longer dial, Mephisto will gain a lot of use out of that healing, especially if you’re playing a lot of smaller point figures, or bystanders, who can easily be killed to heal him. He also has a stop-click, making it easy to heal past it to force its activation multiple times per game, each time activating his Mystics team ability as well. After those first clicks, Mephisto gets nasty. Running Shot, Pulse Wave and Probability Control, finally followed by a huge 19 Defense, Shape Change and Regeneration. The only let-down on this amazing figure is the 17 defense on his offensive clicks. It just leaves him a little vulnerable when he’s the most offensive, and when those offensive clicks only take up 3 clicks of his dial, he needs to be able to reliable stay on them. Mephisto just has so much going for him, you need to have him. He’s going to be the perfect figure to pair with KC Chases, who can use his Prob without fear of the -1 Defense or with token generators like Devil Dinosaur or Ant-Man, who’s tokens can now use Probability Control and heal Mephisto when they die, and lets not forget ID Card Call-In’s who’s now all have Probability Control.

Constructed: 5/5

Sealed: 5/5

047 Black Cat

Black Cat is lacking. Her entire set-up is to steal objects from characters she hits, which as far as I can tell, does not include Entities. Even if she could steal Entities, for 50 points, she doesn’t do enough else to justify that cost over the 5 points needed for a Firestorm ID. Her super Probability Control gives her some more survivability and offense, but she’s not doing enough. Black Cat is very disappointing.

Constructed: 1/5

Sealed: 2/5- It’s very hard to hit her, and with the lack of reducers in the set, she can pick away at opponents.

048 Frog-Man

Frog-Man is the new, slightly higher priced, Blind Al, who can push friendly figures into walls to get them to better clicks on their dial. This, of course, has already been a huge strategy in the competitive scene, especially when paired with Mr. Mxyzptlk, so I’m going to cover Frog-Man’s other uses. The first use for him as a support figure is giving friendly characters a sort of pseudo Side Step. By knocking back his allies, he can re-position them up to two spaces away, allowing for a little more mobility on a lot of figures that struggle with that. The last use for Frog-Man is as a support killer against opposing teams. For 35 points Frog-Man is great at aggressive disruption, where he can push enemies into walls, off buildings, or sometimes more importantly, out of adjacency. When Frog-Man does manage to kill one of your cheaper supporting figures (like a KC Green Lantern) all of your opponents nearby figures are given action tokens on top of that, which is pretty big coming from a 35 point figure.

Constructed: 4/5

Sealed:3/5