Shellhead wrote: My second game of X-Men vs Klaw and the Masters of Evil was another loss. By the end of the game, there were 8 acceleration icons in play, so +12 threat to the main scheme at the beginning of each turn. On a good turn, I was thwarting more than that, but on a bad turn, not enough. Also, we ended up getting three of the four nemesis villains in play: Mr. Sinister, White Queen, and Juggernaut. Both Sinister and Juggernaut brought side schemes that had that bonus boost icon, so at the end of the game, every boost card was getting two boost icons added to it.
The true underlying problem is that these precons aren't focused enough to take Klaw down while managing the threat. The 15-card hero package is fine for each of these heroes, but the aspect and basic cards lacked focus. So Phoenix wasn't thwarting consistently, and Shadowcat wasn't attacking consistently. Colossus works pretty well, but could benefit from the newer basic cards (the ones designed to patch the Hulk) that help the small-hand brawlers like him. Cyclops has a decent design concept, but it seems to overreach in the same way that the Spectrum deck overreaches, with combos that don't easily come together.
There are some good things about these decks. Each X-Men has cards that buff X-men allies, and it was handy to have them buff each other's allies. Storm and Wolverine are not cheap allies, but they are worth every point and should be buffed after entering play. This last game, I had Wolverine buffed to the point where he had 7 hit points and was hitting for 5 piercing damage.
yea looking at them and hearing other people talk about them i think this batch of precons is just kinda bad. and need help from the rest of the card pool. the heroes are great and fun, the precons... yea.
The Colossus precon is fine. The Phoenix and Shadowcat precons are okay but occasionally inefficient. The Cyclops precon is not good, and I fear that even serious tuning can't salvage him. The Cyclops hero cards want to bring out allies, buff them, play tactical cards that make the allies (and Cyclops and other heroes) more effective against minions and maybe the villain, and also help Cyclops do some blasting. But none of this works well until Cyclops gets both Field Commander and Ruby Quartz Visor into play.
And even then, his deck sputters if the card types come out in clumps. Sometimes I would draw 3 allies, but could only afford one of them. Sometimes I would draw a handful of buffs but had no allies to play them on. Sometimes I would draw a handful of tactics, but half of them only worked against minions and there were no minions in play. Making those tactics non-temporary would help, and Cyke really needs a discount on allies. And for you Magic players, Cyclops could really use a Demonic Tutor type effect to more easily retrieve his Field Commander card.
Cut all the minion tactics and most of the ally tactics (personally I left a few danger room training in in case I get danger room in play), they're too situational to clutter up your decks with. Add in team training, team building exercise, clarity of purpose, make the call and Rapid Response to keep your allies up and running. Recur Phoenix as much as possible to grab whatever cards you need. He's good and fun in my experience, but you really do want to find Field Commander and his Visor asap.
I was just looking at how to improve Cyclops and came up with similar cards: Make the Call, Rapid Response, Leadership Training, and Team-Building Exercise. I might take out Utopia for a smaller game, but it is too useful in multi-hero games. Maybe trim one or two of his minion-oriented tactic cards and one or two training cards. I am also not super-impressed by the four new aspect-based resource cards. like Effective Leadership.
Yea I forgot those new resource cards, I cut those first . They're better than the first batch but I still think they're bad. I don't think you would ever want them over the plain Power of cards if you're running aspect resources.
I like that they are trying to give each team a different feel. The Avengers had discounts to get Avengers out and could make non-Avenger allies into Avengers. The Web Warriors have a variety of effects that only work for Web Warriors. The X-Men have more more buffs for mutants/X-Men and Cerebro works like a tutor card to get a mutant ally. I skipped most of the Guardians and Champions stuff, but the Guardians seemed to have more tech upgrades and the Champions allies tend to only work for Champion heroes.
Tried to tune my X-men precons last night. I ended up needing to trade cards with other decks to get crucial cards like Team-Building Exercise, Make the Call, and Rapid Response. I couldn't even do much for the Phoenix deck, because all of my good thwarting cards are already in other decks that need them. Best I could do was to give her a couple each of Power of Justice and Lay Down the Law. She needs more cards like Clear the Area, Crisis Averted, and Multi-Tasking. Looks like it's time to buy some more singles.
Magneto is officially A Spicy Meatball. doesnt feel as messed up as some of the final bosses, but he really throws a lot of gnarly business at you.
upon a little reflection, i think hes probably the most fun big boss since red skull. theres nothing as unfair feeling as Advanced Glider or Fanatacism, and hes not just a brutal slog like Loki. thats not to say that he cant put an absolutely crazy amount of garbage out for you to deal with, but it felt different i guess.
I went to Jackalope and Asgard sites in search of singles for my mutant decks, but the only good thwarting cards available were Lay Down the Law, and Crisis Averted. No available singles of For Justice, Clear the Area, or Multi-Tasking. Hopefully Phoenix can get by with 2x Lay Down the Law and 2x Crisis Averted.
I'm pretty sure I recommended proxies before, but I will again... just grab some off aspect cards that are the same price as the cards you're proxying and roll with it
tried shadowcat and phoenix vs expert klaw w/ brotherhood backup, crushed him handily. we did end up with an 8hp tough Armored Guard and a 7hp tough Arms Runner running around, which was funny. both heroes felt solid but neither of them blew me away (like yr boy colossus did). Shadowcat is Vision 2, and i didnt really love vision in the first place. she has some fun stuff in her kit but none of it really popped and made me want to play her a bunch more right now i dunno. Phoenix has weird stuff in her kit... i need to play her more i guess. i like playing control until you lose control and play for burst damage, thematically. have to see how well it plays out for her mechanically. its a good gimmick if you can make it work consistently.
man a guy has been making really nice customt playmat art for each of the campaigns in the style of the Red Skull playmat FFG released, and you can order custom playmats with it on there... so shiny and nice. its like $70 for a the full sized campaign one though and that is WAY more than i want to drop on it
Edit: swapped Phoenix to aggression and shadowcat to Justice and had a way better time with them. Phoenix uses her 3thw to help maintain the board while she sets up and spends her counters, then guess HAM when she unleashes. Shadowcat has a ton of great control options in get kit and thwarting doesn't flip her form so you have more control over where you want to be at any given time.
Phoenix dropping back to back 25+ dmg turns to close things out... Yea we're cookin now
Alright last post in my excited X-Men wall of posts but what X-men scenarios would y'all like to see? I'm hoping the Brood show up, and I would LOOOOOOVE some Savage Lands dinosaur shit.
Ah_Pook wrote: Alright last post in my excited X-Men wall of posts but what X-men scenarios would y'all like to see? I'm hoping the Brood show up, and I would LOOOOOOVE some Savage Lands dinosaur shit.
The Brood always felt like discount imitations of the Alien xenomorphs, but Savage Land would be great. They could do a mini-campaign like Green Goblin or Kang, with Sauron, dinosaurs, and Magneto's Savage Land Mutates. I would also love to see a minion-heavy scenario with the Imperial Guard, and a scenario where the first stage of the villain is Living Pharaoh and the second stage is Living Monolith.
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. They're better than the first batch but I still think they're bad. I don't think you would ever want them over the plain Power of cards if you're running aspect resources. 
