Hello everyone and welcome back to our (new) regularly scheduled program! For our initial article in 2018, I figured that I would cover the recent watchlist changes and discuss an up-and-coming player from the new X-Men set. Let’s get this year started!



Before we dig into the content, I just wanted to address the lack of updates that have happened over the last 6 weeks or so. I talked about this at lengths on my personal site at Clix Fix, and made a post on our Facebook last Thursday, but those of you who only listen to the podcast and read this site may still be in the dark. The end of last year was very brutal for me personally, so I needed to take some time off. In fact, Aaron flat out told me not to post during December to get a handle on things, which meant a lot to me. Nevertheless, I’ve talked about this so much that I don’t want to go into details. If you’re curious, I have two posts about everything on my personal site, so you’re more than welcome to go take a look.

Those of you who didn’t know what was going on, you might also be surprised that I’m posting on a Tuesday. That’s because I’m moving to once-weekly articles split between Clix Fix and Two Clicks From KO. That means every Tuesday, there will be a new article from me, on a rotating schedule. So today is Two Clicks, next week on the 22nd will be Clix Fix, and then back and forth.

Okay, let’s get into the content!

All Along The Watchtower – What Do These Changes Mean?

First up on our list is HAHA Joker (JW#060). Let’s see his printed wording compared to his errata:

Current HOOHOOHOOHAAHAAHAA: At the beginning of your turn, you may roll a d6 and halve the result. When you do, either heal or damage The Joker that many clicks and he can heal past his starting line. Errata HOOHOOHOOHAAHAAHAA: At the beginning of your turn, [remove “you may”] roll a d6 and halve the result. When you do, either heal or damage The Joker that many clicks and he can heal past his starting line. The Joker can’t be chosen for Mastermind.

The first portion about him having to roll every turn is that you can no longer rely on the Joker to be your Outwit piece, and there’s a slightly easier chance for him to roll through starting lines since you’ll be pushing through his dial for your opponent, at least on turns where he starts on said starting line.

The bigger change here though is that Joker can no longer be a Mastermind target. That’s huge and really hurts his effectiveness. Pieces like Jakeem and Goblin King had some great tech with Joker, picking Mastermind when the opposing team had no real way to separate them with their cackling partner. God Lex was really looking forward to running around with a 30 point Joker and probably filling those other 20 points with equipment and ID cards. This really changes how Joker will play in the game, and makes him a lot less reliable (but a lot more like the true Joker in my honest opinion).

Will he continue to see play in competitive? Probably. The Joker still serves as what he did in the first place; he’s a wonderful tie-up piece that does a pretty great job at point denial. This errata didn’t gut him, but he won’t be the first pick when you need tie-up. I’d really like to see Bizarro Joker make a comeback instead.

Next we have the Boxing Ring. There was no change in how this terrain was played, just a clarification that multi-base characters can no longer partially occupy the ring, which makes a lot of sense from a logistical standpoint.

Will this continue to see play in competitive? Absolutely. This isn’t a big change at all, and the ring remains probably the best 5 points you can spend in the game. My personal opinion is that you gain WAY too many benefits from playing this than it should. In reality, a great errata would have been to make it count against theme teams so that you have to pick whether you get the ring, or you get your map.

I think everyone is sick of seeing the same 4 images that exist of Uni-Mind…

Back to normal figures! Now we approach the piece everyone was watching like a hawk; Uni-Mind. There’s a lot of verbiage change here, just a heads up.

Current FORGED IN BLUE FLAME: During force construction, you may include a number of different characters in your sideline with the Eternal keyword, adding 5 points to Uni-Mind’s point cost for each. If it starts at 150 points, you may include up to 3. If it starts at 275 points, you may include up to 5. If it starts at 370 points, you may include any number. The included characters must be used at their highest point value and be turned to their starting click. At the beginning of each turn and whenever Uni-Mind takes damage, you may choose one standard power a chosen character can use. Uni-Mind can use that power until it chooses again. When Uni-Mind would be KO’d, instead replace it with all the chosen characters on their last non-KO clicks, placing them within 4 squares of it. Those characters can’t be healed this game. Protected: Pulse Wave. CHANNEL VAST RESERVES OF COSMIC ENERGY: FREE: Until your next turn, Uni-Mind can’t use the Power Cosmic team ability, but can use Perplex and Willpower. When it uses Perplex, it may modify a combat value by +2 or -2 instead. This turn, it may use Perplex an additional time for every two characters with the Eternal keyword in your Sideline that it can choose powers from. Errata to CHANNEL VAST RESERVES OF COSMIC ENERGY CHANNEL VAST RESERVES OF COSMIC ENERGY: FREE: Until your next turn, Uni-Mind can’t use the Power Cosmic team ability, but can use Perplex and Willpower. When it uses Perplex targeting a character with the Eternals keyword, it may modify a combat value by +2 or -2 instead. This turn, it may use Perplex an additional time for every two characters with the Eternal keyword in your Sideline that it can choose powers from. Errata to FORGED IN BLUE FLAME FORGED IN BLUE FLAME: During force construction, you may include a number of different characters in your sideline with the Eternal keyword, adding 5 points to Uni-Mind’s point cost for each. If it starts at 150 points, you may include up to 3. If it starts at 275 points, you may include up to 5. If it starts at 370 points, you may include any number. The included characters must be used at their highest point value and be turned to their starting click. At the beginning of your turn [remove “and whenever Uni-Mind takes damage”], you may choose one standard power a chosen character can use. Uni-Mind can use that power until it chooses again. When Uni-Mind would be KO’d, instead replace it with all the chosen characters on their last non-KO clicks, placing them within 4 squares of it. Those characters can’t be healed this game. Protected: Pulse Wave.

Starting things off, we see a change to UM’s Perplex in that he can only target Eternals with the +2 or -2 now, which is a monumental change. This takes away his insane ID battery ability to call someone in, pump their stats stupid-high, and then pretty much win the game.

The bigger change in wording comes from the Forged in Blue Flame trait. What made Uni-Mind so broken for a pick-a-power figure was that he got to pick something new every single turn, meaning your opponent’s turns as well. That gave him the power to go total offense on your turn, and then shell up on your opponents’ turn. Because he has Protected: Pulse Wave, this meant you could grab Invincible and watch as your opponent couldn’t break through your defenses. He can still do that, but he has to commit to being more defensive rather than just doing whatever he wants. This brings Uni-Mind more in line with other pick-a-power figures rather than making him absurdly superior.

Will he still see play in competitive? Almost guaranteed. Uni-Mind is still a very good figure, and even though he can’t mega-Perplex other characters anymore, he can still beefcake his own dial. Limited will still be dominated by the piece most likely, and I have a feeling more players might look at his 275 point line now that he isn’t the ID battery he was a few months ago.

And now we’re down to one lone wolf; the guy who’s been through two watch lists and finally got hit. The king himself, Mr. Jakeem Thunder.

Current YOU KNOW WHAT I’M THINKING, JOHNNY?: At the beginning of your turn, choose 2 standard powers, but only one of those powers may be a defense power, Hypersonic Speed, Outwit, Perplex, or Pulse Wave. Jakeem Thunder can use the chosen powers until your next turn. Errata YOU KNOW WHAT I’M THINKING, JOHNNY?: At the beginning of your turn, choose 2 standard powers, but only one of those powers may be a defense power, Hypersonic Speed, Outwit, Perplex, Pulse Wave, or Shape Change. Jakeem Thunder can use the chosen powers until your next turn.

Jakeem got by relatively clean, with the only change being Shape Change added to the list of powers he can only pick one of. In reality, this is a good change for him. There were a lot of times where Jakeem players would pick Invincible and Shape Change on turns they couldn’t really do anything substantial and it was nearly impossible to hit him through the roll-out, the ESD, the Prob, and break through that Invincible. Now he’s slightly more risky to play, but just barely.

Will he still see play in competitive? Sure. The Symbiote was already a great option for Jakeem, and Eclipso is still legal for another few months outside of Limited, so he has options to pick from. However, Uni-Mind has done a great job of curbing Jakeem out of the spotlight, so it will be interesting to see if UM’s changes make way for Jakeem to retake his throne.

This Just In! Looking Over A Fancy New X-Men Piece And His Future

We’re full-steam ahead with X-Men: Xavier’s School spoilers, and one piece has been making a lot of commotion, more so than anyone else. His dial hasn’t been uploaded yet in the units, so I can’t really link it, but I can cover the gist of what he does.

Darwin is a rare, coming in at 35 points. He’s 4 clicks deep, has sub-par values with a 9 attack on most of his dial, 0 range, the X-Men team ability, and only two powers on his entire dial. Why would a piece like this have any merit whatsoever? Well, that would be his two traits.

Instant Adaptation: When Darwin is targeted with an attack choose a standard defense power, Darwin can use the chosen power for this attack

That’s a pretty neat trick that allows Darwin to survive pretty much any attack that comes his way, sans Pulse Wave. I love the theme here and although I don’t know the character, I’m very familiar with survival of the fittest. This is a great trait, but it still isn’t the reason why he’s already a meta candidate.

I Can Adapt So Much Faster Than You: Whenever another character uses an effect that allows it choose one or more standard powers to use, after resolutions deal that character one unavoidable damage.

There we go, that’s why! Darwin is your silver bullet to pick-a-power, handing out unavoidable damage to pieces like Jakeem Thunder, Uni-Mind, and a multitude of others (don’t even get me started on how much this guy destroys the once mighty Goblin King). Notice that is says unavoidable, not penetrating. There’s simply no way for these pieces to get around Darwin and his ability to ruin their day… from anywhere on the map, for 35 points.

Wait a minute, can’t one of those big pieces just come in and ruin Darwin’s day by KO’ing him into oblivion and only suffer 1 damage out of him? Well no, not exactly. See, that single power that’s on Darwin’s dial is pretty nifty:

Adapt To Survive: STOP. Regeneration

While these two clicks are only at the end of his dial (clicks 3 and 4), when you combine this with his ability to pick defense powers whenever he’s targeted with an attack, you get a very annoying piece to deal with. Jakeem really can’t Hypersonic in and take him out because at most, he’ll get him to his first STOP click, which Darwin can regenerate from while Jakeem ends up taking 1 damage. Uni-Mind is a little more adept at handling him because he doesn’t have to pick powers like Jakeem does. Uni already has a nice kit on his dial.

Will this completely gut Jakeem or other pick-a-power figures? No, professional players will find a way to get around Darwin or make sure that they squeeze every bit of value out of their figures they can before they take too much damage. The important thing to note though is that regardless of what they do to Darwin, be it trying to KO him or leaving him be, for a 35 point investment, you’re still controlling what that player picks for their powers. If they pick Steal Energy to combat the unavoidable damage, you’re taking away their ability to pick up something more deadly like one of the combat experts, Hypersonic Speed, or the dreaded Pulse Wave. Sure, Jakeem gets to pick two powers a turn, but it still forces that player to think about how they best utilize that power picking when they’ll be taking 1 damage afterwards. That’s a terribly good investment for such a low cost.

Perhaps the biggest weakness to Darwin is that he doesn’t really do anything else. His values are awful, he has no other powers to utilize, he doesn’t flight so he can’t be a taxi, and he doesn’t really support your team. It would seem the edge to his sword is that he’s a 35 point piece that becomes a brick and waste of space if you don’t play against the right opponent. One could argue that he’s a terribly good tie-up piece thanks to his ability to pick whatever defense power counters his attacker.

Will he see play in competitive? My guess is yes. Whether the players we all know run him or others trying to get the edge at their local ROC bring him, I think we’re bound to see Darwin pop up on at least a few top-8 teams. In a meta where pick-a-power is all the rage, this 35 point piece disrupts that tempo incredibly well.

That wraps up our first article of the new year! What are your thoughts on the watchlist changes? Do you think some of these were overboard or were they still left too powerful? How do you think Darwin will impact the meta, or do you think he will at all? Let us know in the comments section; we’re always eager to read your responses!

I’ll see everyone next Tuesday on Clix Fix, and again here in two weeks. Hope everyone is ready to make the transition to Limited and things are going well. Remember, the real fun begins when you’re Two Clicks From KO!