Welcome back to Chase or Pass, a series that talks about the expensive pieces from sets and whether or not you should chase these pieces down or pass them up. Today is all about those gifted by Eternity with the cosmic Avengers chases from Avengers: Infinity!

Before I delve into team builds for this set, which honestly I’m sort of dreading because there’s just so many options with all these colossal, I figured it would be good to talk about these chases. There’s a lot of discussion on these, more so than most sets I’ve seen since I’ve been writing about Heroclix for the last 2 years. It’s a pretty unique theme since a lot of these characters share the same construction in terms of dial design and traits, so it makes it very tough to say which are truly worth tracking down since they accomplish somewhat of the same goal.

What I really dig about these chases is that WizKids has gone back to giving us bases that are translucent with some nice touch; this set we got glitter that makes them look like they’re in space. It’s a really nice touch and makes them easy to identify as chases which is a great idea in my opinion since a newer player that cracks one of these will instantly know it’s special.

Like the previous Chase or Pass articles, I’ll chat about each of the pieces in depth and highlight their strengths and weaknesses, and lastly whether you should get them for casual and competitive. I’m also introducing something new; whether they’re worth the current monetary value they’re currently going for online (as of this writing of course, and only in-stock pieces).

Like X-Men: Xavier’s School, we got 6 chases which helps those who like to collect the entire set. Unlike Xavier’s School, these chases are somewhat off-hand as they aren’t part of a beloved story line for most comic fans. I’ll admit that I haven’t read this comic, so there’s no attachment, meaning their value will be lower than something like Age of Apocalypse or Kingdom Come.

One last thing before I get started: these chases are a bit different because they all end with at least one STOP click, so the dial lengths tend to be rather shallow for the points. Keep that in mind when you’re reading the brief synopsis of their build under each character.

100 Points, 6 Clicks, 8 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Asgardian, Avengers, Cosmic, and Deity Keywords.

Thor is absolutely the bruiser of the bunch with big attack and damage numbers and Super Strength. Like all the chases, he starts with Phasing on his top click before moving into Sidestep (as well as Super Senses on most of his dial), but the Flight ability does elevate him a bit since he can carry someone around with that 12 Phasing on his top click so that his first movement isn’t just positioning for himself. Flurry is very welcoming on the god of thunder since he wants to close the gap anyway and has huge attack values to make good on those strikes. His virtue power is among the strongest as it basically grants your allies PROTECTED: Outwit and Willpower, something that shouldn’t be taken lightly. Anytime you can give your characters another go without taking pushing damage AND protecting their powers is a sign that this is a good piece. Thor’s special damage power also synchs up nicely with his Virtue which will make him even more frightening if he manages to miss his attacks. Thor gets two STOP’s as opposed to one, and the Precision Strike/Close Combat Expert combination is really nice make him peel through any defense power in the game.

Thor isn’t all flowers and rainbows though. At 100 points, he’s the most expensive of the chases, which means the 18 Super Senses isn’t as valuable as the lower costing chases. Playing into this, the Phasing is rather disappointing since Thor really wants to get up close. Yes, he can absolutely snipe characters out with his 8 range, 12 attack, and 4 damage, but he wants to close the gap as you can easily double your damage. His Super Strength is also rather disappointing because 9/10 times, you’ll want to go with Flurry for more damage, or hitting two characters. The healing aspect of his Virtue also isn’t that good because you have to plan that your wounded characters will have 2 tokens, so that portion is misleading and should almost never be utilized; it’s much better if you read it as just granting Power Cosmic. Finally, Thor’s damage power really isn’t that exciting. It might work well with his Virtue, but with a 12 attack, he’s probably not missing anything making it somewhat of a useless power that could have been much better with something like Empower or Enhancement.

Like all the chases, Thor will greatly benefit from Mjolnir, and I think the Super Strength is misleading. He’s very capable of taking shots, and the Flight is a big deal with a 12 Phasing. In my opinion, Thor is in the top half of these chases, and with certain equipment he’ll be very good.

Casual: Yeah, he’s totally worth getting. He packs a lot of firepower, but with all these chases rocking just Super Senses for defense, a Precision Strike piece can easily take them down to their last clicks. If they don’t, he’ll punish them hard.

Competitive: Thor most likely won’t see the big scene. He doesn’t have enough teeth to really cut through and pay for his 100 point cost. ROC age might be different as resources or possession could really make him devastating.

For the Price: For $45 on CoolStuff, he’s not worth it in my opinion. Wait for him to drop a bit more. I wouldn’t pick him up for anything more than $30, and that’s pushing it.

80 Points, 5 Clicks, 8 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Avengers, Cosmic, and Infinity Watch Keywords.

Heather is practically the opposite of Thor; she’s all about staying far away and taking shots with her glass cannon thanks to 12 attack with Pen/Psy and 3 damage. Like Thor, she has Flight which makes her a bit better than others since she can help reposition your force while she sets up for damage. While Flurry doesn’t seem like a good option for a range-heavy piece, it gives Moondragon some fantastic damage no matter where she is on the board, whereas someone like Thor really wants to make use of that Flurry since he can’t get through reducers that easily with range. Also unlike Thor, Moondragon’s damage power is fantastic and can easily be abused with things like Bystanders or characters that automatically heal like Prime Deadpool (or even herself). On her STOP clicks, she has access to the best power in Pulse Wave along with Probability Control making her incredibly efficient and powerful on every click of her dial. While she’ll only chip for 2 damage, sometimes that’s all you need when you get to ignore everything.

Notice I didn’t cover Heather’s Virtue trait at all. In yet another reverse from Thor, her Virtue trait really isn’t that good and gates Moondragon from being the best chase. Protection from certain powers is very good, but these are so selective, so there’s a very decent change that your opponent isn’t even using them, and even if they are, you have to land a 2 in an attack roll to even benefit from it. The other big argument for Moondragon is that her Pulse Wave isn’t very good since she has Mastermind as her only defensive power. However, you can easily play around this. With only 2 damage, it’s not a big deal if she has to reduce it to 1 for hitting multiple characters. If you have Mastermind Fodder with Sidestep, you can easily move them around a wall, Pulse Wave, and then Sidestep back to Moondragon (or just use Overdrive to cart people to her after the action). It’s really not a huge negative.

Moondragon is perhaps the most offensively strong of the chases because of the options she has at her disposal. There’s no bad click on this dial, as the two STOP clicks with Mastermind and Prob are worth her points alone, let alone the gigantic numbers she can put out.

Casual: You’re pushing it with her. Chances are you’ll get some reaction when you reveal your force with her, and even more if you position her well. She’s a prime candidate of “spend all your time focusing me and the rest of my team will eat you alive. If not, I’ll do it myself”.

Competitive: I honestly believe that Moondragon has the highest hopes of being played on the competitive level as a standalone figure (you’ll see what I mean). Like Thor, equipment will really help her, and if nothing else, she’s an incredibly strong ID summoner thanks to Prob on the end of her dial.

For the Price: For $30 on TrollandToad, she’s 100% worth it. I would snatch her up before the Summer events take place with the new Modern Age.

50 points, 4 Clicks, 0 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Animal, Avengers, and Cosmic Keywords.

Most Tigra dials we see are very similar: Blades, Super Senses, and very cheap. This dial is no exception, and comes complete with the same huge attack values as the other chases. While 4 clicks is a very shallow dial, the single STOP at the end and her low cost of 50 points makes her worthwhile. Empower is on every click making Tigra a very good character to carry around, using a Charge piece with Flight to get her into position for an attack next turn, or making her strong in a swarm team since her cost is so low. Super Senses as her defense isn’t seen as a negative in her dial because of that cost as well. You could look at Tigra as your typical 5 clicks for 50 points thanks to the STOP click, but with a lot more firepower thanks to Power Cosmic, immunity from attacks with multiple targets, and traited Flurry. Theoretically Tigra has the highest damage potential of all 6 chases because of her Flurry/Blades combo. Her Virtue trait also had the potential to be incredibly overpowering, granting your entire team Charge and Blades for the turn, which can really turn a game if she lands it.

Her biggest weakness is that Tigra is a piece all about chance. If you roll low on Blades, or you’re like me and you always roll low on Blades, she’s overcosted even with her Flurry thanks to no way to engage in fights. If you miss your Super Senses roll and the attack is from anyone over 30 points she most likely becomes a very sub-par piece since her STOP click is easily the worst of the bunch. You have to throw a lot of lady luck into a 50 point piece, and that’s a big issue for me as a chase with chase prices. My beef with Tigra is that her Virtue trait makes her seem like a competitive piece when in reality it’s a path you probably shouldn’t travel down. In order to make this trait work, you need some way to either make free attacks to get more changes to trigger it, or someone like Trelane who can tweak with your dice rolls (and even then, you have to make sure you land a 3). All of that value could be better spent on characters that don’t need something to happen in order to work properly (in a competitive setting of course). If you’re devoting 75-100 points of your 300 point build to making this Virtue work, are you really ahead? Even if you trigger this trait 2-3 times a game, I would much rather just run some pieces that can do what they need to do out of the gate.

Tigra has a lot of potential, and the overall jury is out on whether she’ll be a big deal or not even if I don’t believe she is. The best way to summarize her is do you feel lucky? If you do, she’s amazing. If you don’t, she’s a bomb.

Casual: This is where Tigra will thrive; when players aren’t crossing the map in a single turn, when she has some time to setup or you have the room to build around her Virtue. Hell, if you play her as just a fantastic Blades piece on an Avengers team, she’s worth it.

Competitive: There’s a decent chance that fringe players will try and make her work, but most likely she’ll end up being a bum experiment. I feel pretty confident saying she won’t be a staple.

For the Price: For $35 on TrollandToad, I would pass. A piece like this in my eyes is only worth around $20-$25. However, if you really think she’s a competitive staple, that’s a pretty decent price.

80 Points, 5 Clicks, 8 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Avengers, Cosmic, and Eternal (!!!) Keywords.

Right off the bat, I will tell you that Starfox will be the most competitive of the chases because of his Eternal Keyword since he brings Flurry to Uni-Mind. But let’s just look at him as a character. His opening click isn’t the best since he lacks any sort of attack power and only has 3 damage, but the real value of Starfox comes once he hits his second click as every one of those clicks has Steal Energy. With his STOP click and traited Flurry, that makes Starfox extremely difficult to KO, and will push him into the realm of toughest characters to KO in Modern. His Virtue power is actually very good as a 4 is a high enough number that you need in order to hit most attacks, and it rewards you for grouping your characters up. It really doesn’t require a setup and is pure bonus if you land it. His special damage power, while not quite as good as Moondragon, is also very good with a +2 Perplex to anything but damage, meaning Starfox can easily Phase up to his target, and then sit on a 20 defense that they can’t do anything about, or drop a defense value for a big assault. Prob on his last two clicks is fantastic and just adds to how difficult it is to actually put this guy down.

Starfox is absolutely the most delicate for the points though; since he’s 80 points and only has one STOP click and 5 overall clicks, it’s not too difficult to double tap him in a single turn before he has a chance to monstrously heal. While his Virtue is very strong, it does offer some counter play opportunity as you’ll want to keep your characters grouped together just in case you get some free healing, meaning attacks like Quake and Energy Explosion automatically become better against your team. Realistically though, that’s about all the negative aspects to this dial. It’s quite strong.

This is a hell of a dial, and he’ll probably be used the most of the chases whether it be in home or LGS games on the field, or sidelined in competitive. With a shiny Mjolnir, Starfox will be an absolute nightmare to deal with.

Casual: I would probably shy away from him since he’ll generate some looks of aggravation, especially if played with equipment. Still, he’s not nearly as brutal as something like Flash, God of Death.

Competitive: If you plan on playing Uni-Mind ever, then get him. There’s no reason not to.

For the Price: $70 is a lot to pay for this guy, but with rotation we don’t know if Uni-Mind is going to be unstoppable or not. If so, chances are he’ll shoot up even higher in price as the most expensive piece to sideline.

90 Points, 6 Clicks, 8 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Avengers, Cosmic, and Police Keywords.

Moondragon was sort of a reverse Thor while Photon is more like a happy medium between the two. She likes the range game a bit more than Moondragon, and she has the same dial length as Thor, but she’s in the middle in terms of cost at 90 points. Photon has an extremely powerful Virtue trait with a gigantic buff to your teams’ defense values and requires nothing to really be effective other than having 2 or more printed Keywords, meaning like Thor, she doesn’t need anything special for it to just kick in and work when she rolls her number. Perhaps the best part about Photon is that after just once click of damage which can easily be achieved via pushing, she gets Pulse Wave with an 11 attack, 3 damage, and 4 range with Sidestep. Whenever there’s a piece with Pulse Wave and STOP clicks, you should probably take notice, because that inevitably will lead to players looking for ways to get that piece back into Pulse Wave on their turn. Monica also has my favorite of the STOP clicks; Precision Strike with Ranged Combat Expert while still having Flurry means that every single click is very dangerous no matter where she is on the board. Whether you close the gap or keep a distance, she’s going to hit you for 4 and you’ll have to burn through her with multiple attacks to do anything about it. It’s also the most conducive to Mastermind as a sniper is easy to keep pieces around. Oh yeah, and she has Flight!

Having Pulse Wave on her second click is really good, but it does inherently give her 1 less click of health as you’ll most likely want to get there as quickly as possible, making her an activation piece. It kind of sucks to trade in that 12 attack and a click of health to get access to the meat of her dial. Her special damage power isn’t anything to write home about either. While it’s very good against Bystander teams, there’s always a chance that you whiff on an attack against them and now you’ve based your frail ranged attacker (then again, she can just Flurry them). It’s not bad, but it’s not nearly as good as something like Moondragon or Stargox.

I really dig this dial, and I have a gut feeling that the Pulse Wave with STOP clicks will find its way into competitive in some way or another. Monica is very efficient at all aspects of the game and is one of the more well-rounded chases.

Casual: I think Photon will be a secret strength figure that will take people by surprise, so you’ll probably be okay the first time you play her. Once people see how strong she is though, you might get some guff.

Competitive: It’s a tough call. We’re in the Wild West right now with Modern like every June, and we don’t know what non-Uni-Mind teams are going to run. I think she’s a safe bet, but not as safe as Moondragon.

For the Price: $31 on TrollandToad isn’t too shabby. I might wait for her to drop those couple bucks to hit under $30, but that’s not a huge deal if you like her.

100 Points, 6 Clicks, 8 Range (Single Target). Power Cosmic Team Ability. Avengers, Cosmic, and S.H.I.E.L.D. Keywords.

You know how there’s always one chase that’s just not good and you really hope you don’t pull them? Welcome to Quasar. This guy is honestly a dumpster fire of a dial and has pretty much no positive aspects to him. Flight is great, but you can play Thor for the same cost, or a few others for less. TK, another great positioning tool, but not very welcoming on 1/3 of your force when he needs to use his own actions to get himself into position to fight. Once he loses TK, he picks up a lackluster Incap. It’s not that Incap is bad, it’s just that getting in on your third click on a 100 point piece is. He also picks up Leadership on his third click, which is very odd since you’ll mainly want that in the beginning of the game rather than when he inevitably gets knocked for some damage. It’s very odd to have your action pool spike rather than just starting at +1. This leads to the most lackluster of the STOP clicks with those same powers of Incap and Leadership making him the most passive of the punch. Flurry does help him deal some damage like the rest, but there’s nothing to follow up on that or anything that makes him worth those 100 points.

The topping to this cake are his special damage power and his Virtue. The damage power might seem extremely good since he can place a friendly character with the Power Cosmic team ability next to him, which he can then TK them out, but they can’t have been given an action of any kind before-hand, and can’t do so afterwards either. You’re basically plucking a character and making sure they do absolutely nothing in the turn, including Perplex or Outwit. This makes Quasar a decent piece to pull someone out of the fight for healing, but that’s another thing you don’t want 1/3rd of your team doing. As for his Virtue trait, it’s so insanely difficult to gain any kind of value out of it that it’s just not worth it at all. In order to really abuse this, you would need to make sure you roll a 6 to even activate the trait, then critically hit a character (which you could technically boost with something like Jarnbjorn), and your reward is that you get +1 damage on an attack. That’s horrible.

Quasar is frankly terrible, and I feel bad for anyone that pulls him. If you were unlucky and happened to be one of those folks that pulled him and you now feel terrible about him, I sincerely apologize. I don’t think I’ve seen a chase this bad since Nick Fury, Agent of S.H.I.E.L.D. (which is funny because he has the S.H.I.E.L.D. Keyword).

Casual: The only setting Quasar will ever maybe see play. What will most likely happen is your opponent will see how little he does and then proclaim “that’s a chase?!”

Competitive: Not a snowball’s chance in hell.

For the Price: He’s the cheapest of the bunch at $30 on TrollandToad, but that’s still WAY too high to buy him. If for some reason you want him, wait until he’s around $15 at most.

What are your thoughts on this rather unique chase series? Do you think I hit the mark or did I make a complete goof? Are you fuming that I don’t like Tigra and think she’s a waste of time? Let us know in the comments section!

I hope rotation treated you decently and wish everyone luck who is competing in Nationals soon, as well as any ROC’s you may be attending in the near future. See you all next week over on Clix Fix and remember, the real fun begins when you’re Two Clicks From KO!