Let’s stray a little more from Deadpool and all his glory in this set and look at a piece that I think has some real potential. I’m talking about Dead Girl and her un…deadness?

We’ve taken a little break from Wade and all his shenanigans in this set for a little bit, so why not continue and cover some of the other interesting pieces in the set. Last week, I covered Hammer thanks to a rules clarification that made him secretly super strong, and today I want to talk about another piece that I think has a lot of potential.

I don’t really know much about Dead Girl as she’s one of the newer generations of mutants (from 2002), but I do know that Silver Surfer artist Mike Allred is responsible for her creation (along with writer Peter Milligan – see, you learn stuff here!). Anyways, Dead Girl is a fantastic piece that took me by surprise quite a bit and has already earned herself a spot in my display cabinet. Today I want to share a neat little plan I have for her and go over some cool tech with you guys. But first, let’s dive into her dial!

Dead Girl comes in at 75 points, has Flight, 0 range with a single target, and the X-Men Team Ability. She has the X-Force, X-Statix, Celebrity, and Mystical keywords, and has 6 clicks of health, roughly average for her point cost. She’s got two traits and one Special attack power.

Her dial is pretty decent. Movement starts with 8 Charge, drops to a 7 Sidestep on click two, and 6 Flurry on click four, finally dropping to a 5 on her last click. Her attack starts strong with an 11 with her Special which drops to a 10 on click two, but weakens to a 9 Precision Strike for her final three clicks. Defensive is her weakest stat with just 17 Toughness up front through click three, and dropping to 16 Super Senses on four through six. Damage-wise, She has 3 Exploit Weakness up top, dropping to a 2 on click two and three, losing Exploit on click four, and dropping to a 1 on her last two clicks. Overall, the dial is fairly average bordering on sub-par. Of course, with any super rare that has average numbers, her traits and Special make her a breakout star.

Let’s look at her traits first.

As Dead Girl is a member of X-Statix, she gets the same trait as all members that are in the Deadpool & X-Force set:

Headlines!: When Dead Girl hits one or more opposing characters, after actions resolve give her a Headline token.

Obviously those tokens are going to matter, so we need Dead Girl to be making attacks and hitting everything that she can. Let’s see just why she needs those tokens.

Living Dead Girl: At the beginning of your turn, if Dead Girl has at least one Headline token, heal her one click. If Dead Girl has at least 3 Headline tokens, when she would be KO’d, instead turn her dial to click #3 and remove all of the Headline tokens.

Ooooo boy, that’s a doozy. As long as Dead Girl hits, she’s got an automatic healing factor built into her kit, and if she manages to bite the big one and has hit three characters, she’s coming back to life on click three to start the whole process over again. The combination of these two traits and how they work mean that Dead Girl needs to get in and make stuff happen right away. She’s not a character you want sitting back, waiting for the right time to strike before someone comes and KO’s her. You want her up in people’s faces being a pest.

With her resurrection and auto-healing, she’s starting to become a much more playable character, but she’s still not really anything to write home about. Sure, she does the undying thing, but why not just play Deadman or Resurrection Man instead since they’re undying is a lot less conditional? Well, that would be where her Special attack comes into play:

Tombstone Talons, Coffin Nails: Dead Girl can use Blades/Claws/Fangs/. Until your next turn, characters hit by Dead Girl cannot use STOP.

Blades is fun, ignoring STOP is even better. Not only does Dead Girl get into the fight and stay there for as long as she can hit people, she’s not going to let them stop their dials. There’s so many pieces out there that STOP keeps them in the game or puts them on the cusp of competitive, and Dead Girl just says “nope, not today”. What I really like about this power is that it just happens. Unlike Nick Fury, she doesn’t need to wait for something to pop-up and stop her fun. It’s also worth mentioning that her power turns off STOP for the rest of the turn, meaning you can easily sweep up with big damage dealers once she gets her hit in.

Now with that power, Dead Girl feels like a much bigger threat in the game. With

Charge/Blades/Exploit up top, she can deal a massive amount of damage that goes through STOP clicks, and with Flurry and Precision Strike at the end of her dial, as long as she can actually hit, she’s going to deal damage. What makes her dial so strong is that with Exploit on clicks one through three, and Precision Strike on four through six, she’s always going to deal damage – always. Now she’s a much more appealing piece. Oh yeah, and she resurrects onto her last click of ‘no soup for you’.

So what does Dead Girl need to succeed? Flight is nice, but with her 8 movement, she’s not very mobile, and a lack of Willpower means that she desperately needs some help getting to her targets. Once she’s there, she’s golden. As usual, TK is a great option, especially with her because it can get her into the fight and out in case she gets outgunned and just wants to heal up for a few turns (although she should just be attacking whenever the hell she can). Perplex is also a really good idea because her values aren’t great as she ages through her dial. Sure, an 11 attack is high, but that drops quick and hard. I would also gun for some Probability Control since a lot of her dial will rely on Blades rolls to dish a lot of damage. A ranged attacker would also be a good idea to either wound her targets before she gets there, or finish them off once she digs her claws in.

I really wanted to use something like Quake with her to achieve multiple Headline tokens in a single turn, but then I re-read her Headlines! trait: “When Dead Girl hits one or more opposing characters…”. Lame. Anyway, let’s get to the builds!

300 Point Modern Dead Girl Team – No Resources

There’s an awful lot going on with this team build, but I’ll try and be brief.

You’ll notice that I’ve possessed Dead Girl, but I haven’t chosen Eclipso for the more melee-focused powers or Proteus for the bump in stats to help her across the board (although that’s a really great idea as well). I went with Brainiac because there’s some really neat synergy flowing here. Like Eclipso, we’re getting access to big defensive powers and decent numbers, but the real power comes from her resurrection. On click three, Dead Girl gets access to Brainiac’s special damage power World Running Like Clockwork which will help her regain her Headline tokens quickly since she lacks Willpower. However, the big reasoning here is that he provides Pulse Wave. Wait a minute, doesn’t she have 0 range? She sure does, but Brainiac can give her a +1 to that value, and remember what happens when Dead Girl hits someone while she has her special attack power; they can’t use STOP for the turn. This means that when Dead Girl resurrects, she can Pulse Wave anyone next to her for 2 damage ignoring everything in the game. It might seem counter-intuitive, but I think it’s a really neat form of synergy.

I opted for Fenris as the ranged, secondary attacker on this build because they can either further provide added penetrating damage (and lots of it with 4 damage each turn), or they can use their knockback to hit targets into place for Dead Girl to rage in on. At 60 points and a really great dial (you’ll see a build for them soon), they’re just about the perfect fit for a cheap ranged attacker.

Peggy Carter makes an appearance as she gets to do something that Dead Girl needs; countering powers. Rather than just using an Outwit piece, Peggy gives us the option to ‘can’t use’ any standard power we want within 3 squares of her, meaning she can counter powers from traits, or Invincible which Dead Girl can’t get through. Peggy can also hang out with Fenris to get a bump to her own damage thanks to Enhancement, and give them a +1 to range via the SHIELD team ability.

Green Lantern seemed like a natural fit as he can protect Dead Girl while she makes her approach, or wall off an attacker or line of fire once she goes in. He’s also another piece that benefits from Fenris’ enhancement since he actually has really solid values. Lastly, he gives whomever the wall is next to a -1 to defense, effectively Perplexing all your attack values up. This piece is probably the best you can get for under 40 points right now.

When it boiled down to it, I felt that TK was a better option than Overdrive as it doesn’t stop Dead Girl from acting, and with under 40 points remaining, I went with Mercury. Although he’s better when paired with other Metal Men, he’s still a great option for 25 points. For the remaining points, I knew I wanted Perplex to help DG’s numbers and ensure that she’s a threat at all times, so I went with Betty Brant. The pushing into Support is valuable for Fenris and Green Lantern, so she won out over the 20 point Harley that starts with Perplex.

With my remaining 5 points, I went with the Pym Particles to shrink down Peggy Carter and make her a more versatile piece.

Dead Girl has some awesome keywords, and Mystical seems like a natural fit, so let’s take a look at what that team would consist of.

300 Point Modern Dead Girl Theme Team – No Resources

Once again, I’m running the combo of Dead Girl and Brainiac as I illustrated that I dig the synergy. Although Proteus might be a little more aggressive on her (and I encourage you to try it out and report back), this saves us 10 points.

Zatara is pretty much the perfect option to run with Dead Girl. He’s got TK, Prob, and double Perplex (except damage) for any piece that shares a keyword with him. That’s a lot of utility in one package. I would love to have a 13 attack value and then have a re-roll for Blades to make sure she hits for a ton of damage.

Much like Green Lantern from Joker’s Wild, Klarion is a pretty big staple in the current environment. He adds another source of Probability Control and Perplex, and is a great dive partner with Dead Girl. With him and Zatara, we’re pretty much guaranteeing that Dead Girl is going to deal a lot of damage in a single turn.

For the last piece, I opted for KC Green Lantern on his isolated click. Now we’re getting a third source of Perplex, for a total of four number boosts. If you’re playing against a range-heavy team, get your guys up close to KCGL and barrier up, and spring your TK/Klarion phase trap. I think a lot of folks have kind of forgotten about how good the KC pieces are on their isolated dials.

With this team comp, there’s not as many pieces, but the team interacts really well with each other and I feel it’s honestly stronger than the last team. If you need to go on defense, take a +1 to defense from Brainic and have Zatara double Perplex DG’s defense to a 20, picking Impervious. With your remaining two Perplexes (or one if you don’t want to risk Teekl), you’re free to boost whomever you choose. Keep in mind that KCGL can Perplex his own defense up since he has the Kingdom Come Team Ability.

I think Dead Girl is a piece that a lot of people kind of talked about but no one has really tried her yet; she’s got some potential in my opinion. If you’re looking to play with resources, Pandora’s Box is an obvious choice for her as Combat Reflexes would be very strong since she wants to base people, and Plasticity will help them stick around. What other pieces have you thought of playing with her? How would you abuse Proteus with her?

See you guys next week. Good luck to those of you attending the Majestix ROC event this weekend. I wish I could go, but alas, I have a wedding to attend. Take care!