darklogos
03/23/2010, 06:48
Living life after cardboard: A competitive dialogue.
By Edward Shelton AKA darklogos
While the rest of the heroclix world is celebrating or mourning in madness about the upcoming changes to how the game is played, we the tactile, are plotting our next move and evolution of the game. The fact that change has always been a part of the game. I remember changes to HSS which made it easier to defend against Vet Icons Supes. Remember the reduction of movement by 2 if you are carrying another figure. Heck remember the ruling that nerfed energy explosion so it could no longer work with enhancement. All these changes come and it makes and breaks champions.
So lets get started.
It would be easy to look at figures and pick out what figures that will be stronger but that is jumping the gun. Lets look at how the existing mechanics of the game are going to be affected. The obvious issue is outwit. Fortitude and feats in general were introduced to due to the reality that outwit made costly figures a waste of points and time. Exploit weakness protection was added on to fortitude due to 1 brick busting figure…Magog. As apocalyptic as his name is what he was doing to big figs with perplex and a coke machine. Now with fortitude gone we are briefly going to see a rise in outwit. But not just outwit but stealth and outwit. The combination is as good as peanut butter and jelly. I speculate that either fortitude will return, outwit being nerfed either by range or point cost limitation, or a range reduction to outwit equal to that of tk or barrier. With more outwit in play ways of negating outwit will become a priority. The focus of pieces that are decent but not outwit able will be popular. Quint and power cosmic get a boost to this change.
Another power that will rear its ugly head more will be pulse wave. Psyblast will still be the range sniper’s weapon of choice but those days of psyblast and heavy damage may be coming to an end. Pulsewave will be needed to negate any special powers that protect against outwit or utilize some sort of defensive effect. Pulsewave will rear its head on every cheap piece it is on.
Prob will be even more needed. The thing that most of feats being used are stat manipulation elements that mainly focused on attack value modification. With perplex and a hand full of figures and team abilities that modify attack values prob will show up in multiples.
Tk yo-yo’s will be a craze for a bit. 80 pts gets you 2 marvel girls to tk your attacker in and out without retribution. You have probably about 2-3 turns of attacking before your opponent makes up the distance to start a serious fight. This may be the future tent poles.
I think we will see more people saving perplex merely for defense and not attack and damage. With the loss of brilliant tactician and other feats like it we will see people turning their 18 defenses into 20’s and 21 at range using perplex and hindering terrain. It seems that other measures will have to be taken to stop one from being hit. Perplex has a bullseye on it the size of the moon. Something will be done to this power. The rule of 3 was its last nerf. Worse case scenario the stats go away at the end of your turn so you can’t have carry over defense.
Barrier may just be a requirement like it was in the old days. Barrier will no longer be a place to hide behind with SIF. But I think it can be used as a means of entrapping or forcing your opponent to waste actions to get a possible shot in on your team. With no warbound this means double barrier teams will be even more fierce problems to overcome. This is another way for tent poles to survive.
Whenever high defense values come into play poison always rears its head. The problem is without armor piercing poison pieces pose less threat unless paired with outwit. First outwit then let poison take its effect. The problem with this is that it requires a 2 person positioning maneuver where armor piercing did not force you to possibly expose your outwiter.
Exploit weakness will be a requirement for any serious brick being played. We will see another Magog like piece. The question is at what point value and how much will the team need to be focused around it.
Natural 12 ranges will be more of a problem then before. With less stops in the form of feats most twelve range characters will utilize tk yo-yoing to do all sorts of nastiness.
Mind Control in my opinion got worse. Without mental shields feedback damage becomes an issue again. With no more compel certain offensive options are gone. Mind control while strong is not as strong of a general option.
Shape change is a mixed back. Shape change is great if there is supersenses or impervious. Without either outwit has a clear focus. The loss of camouflage makes certain figures just fodder for the meta. It can not be depended on as much as it was before by itself. Now it must be combod with several options.
Incap takes several steps down without stunning blow. The rules to incap have to change if it is going to be viable. Using incap is not a bad thing. Incap will always be a tempo control power. But it only now becomes valuable on ranged figures with 2-3 targets.
With the changes to theme team this hurts “Golden Age” more then modern age. Not being able to cancel BFC’s is going to suck. But in “Modern Age” map choice will still be essential if and only if there are maps that have effects on them or best suit certain teams. The problem is that a min/max non-theme team could be far more flexible then a generic or even a comic theme team. The only way I see that theme teams become a Con consider is if the keyword has enough point and power diversity. The second is that there is a figure or power that is so strong that it almost is a must have. Then the theme team would be built to counter the popular trend so map choice become essential. Don’t let people tell you that map choice is not important anymore.
With all this being said here are some key pieces that I think we are going to see more of.
ha003 Hand Ninja: A free attack action and blades claws fangs at a decent price.
ha011 Enchantress one of the better mindcontrollers after the change.
ha012 Valkyrie x2 or paired up with an asgradian attacker or ha015 Fire Demon gives you a 10 av support character with toughness.
ha019 Chase Stein she is going to be delivery system to be abused by the teen keyword somehow.
ha037 Songbird one form of anti-barrier tech.
ha038 Venom shapechange supersenses combo.
ha040 Captain America stealth buster and overall decent attacker.
ha047 Nico Minoru getting any power in the game is worth it. But she will get replaced with figures like Chief who can do multiple free actions at once.
ha049 Ultron only for a little bit but he will fade away fast. Without novablast and running shot he is a liability in the new world of clix.
ha041 Molly Hayes You may laugh now but she will be a brick of choice to either tie figures up and slowly wail on them or as a nice piece for mastermind fodder.
aa004 The Question full dial stealth and 3 clicks of outwit. Willpower on her first 2 clicks to get where she needs to be. That is great piece.
aa008 Street Thug cheap fodder that will be used for filler or exploited some how yet unforeseen.
aa019 Lashina at first you may think this is a joke. But this piece hits its stride on click 3. Once she gets hss, ss, and exploit weakness its going to get dangerous for the other team.
aa020 Anarky outwit and prob accessible with batman TA for 70 points
aa026 Nightshade cheap barrier and damage dealing smoke cloud. All topped off with a mystics team ability. For creative minds only.
aa028 Arkillo maybe the new Magog or maybe I’m wrong. Here is why. First off he can use charge flurry. Well you may say so can Hercules. True but Herc doesn’t have an 8 range and later on he doesn’t get to place barrier pieces out as a free action. Akrillo also has exploit weakness and super strength to go along with his charge flurry. 126pts puts him at the boarder of acceptable point wise to risk fielding him. He can be built around and provided with decent backup. I think that this piece may usher back in feats. Perplex is required but it was required with Magog as well.
aa033 Thinker only playable with ultimates or supes ta to outwit stealthers.
aa036 Zoom he will be played because he is safe. But outwit cripples him more so then before. He will soon find that without decent backup his price is two high in the current meta not have range.
aa043 Calculator behold your perplex and outwit king.
si004 Iron Fist another possible Magog. He is cheap. He has flurry and exploit weakness. He has high Attack and very good damage values. He is a decent price so you could fit 2 on a team. Having no range does suck.
si008b Ms Marvel the skrull queen isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
si016 Hercules to much damage to be done. He will show up less and less though as outwit just takes him to worse clicks faster.
si029 Morbius a monster of a fig. No pun intended. He was hosed by keywords and feats. But without them he is one powerful fig.
si033 Dr. Strange stealth killer and super perplex.
si054 Gamora if you saw less of her prepared to see more of her.
si056 Annihilus great overall stats with a cheap cost.
si060 Super-Skrull: Avengers some will try to turn to him for a cheap Skrull Ms Marvel substitute. This will fail. This piece will fade out of the 300pt scene.
si101 Mr. Fantastic be prepared to see him more often then before. His super perplex is no longer Brilliant tactianable but that doesn’t stop him much.
si111 Reed Richards for those that have him he will be weapon of choice of neutering figures.
si102 Invisible Woman she is questionable because she forces outwit and probers to come within 7 of her to use their effects. Maybe played by the more brave of us.
si104 The Thing full move charge and good values. Yeah he is going to be around.
cr002 Kid Flash his future is questionable with Kid Zoom on the way.
cr005 Speedy cheap anti barrier piece. Filler attacker.
cr008 Mercury when played right he is a tie up piece who can put smoke cloud down under enemies to slow them up or hide your favorite stealth piece. He does a lot of 25 points.
cr021 Rip Hunter he will make a comeback for a bit but then disappear due to cost. He will be a desperate man’s fortitude. Then people will wise up and forget the figure again.
cr022 Dawnstar attack value boost, hss, and wildcard for 60 pts. You will see this figure a lot.
cr029 Nightwing he only has to fear outwiters that can see through stealth. Other then that he is golden.
cr048 Darkseid people will turn to him as a crutch. He will protect himself with barrier and prob and maybe even some sort of healing in bigger games.
cr101 Wally West forceblast as a free action after a hss attack may be more useful now.
cr104 Roy Harper running shot and stealth with pd ability. 53 points
mu001 Marvel Girl current tk queen for tent poles and other teams.
mu030 X-23 stealth and cce. She is a cheap filler piece to finish figures off.
mu035 Ahab he can be played in multiple and used to kill both stealthers and damage reducers. He will be more popular.
mu031 Professor X mass perplex, 12 range, decent stats, and decent keywords. He will see some play maybe if someone can figure out how to make x-men overcome their inability to deal with stealth.
mu039 Danger she can’t be outwitted for her first 4 clicks. Opposing within 10 she can draw lines of fire two can’t have modifiers like, rce, cce, combat reflexes, energy shield deflection, perplexed, or enhanced. That is money. Expect to see her in play.
mu043 Black Tom Cassidy some will forget there are better outwitters out there and return to this guy for outwit and barrier. Let them think they are right in playing him.
mu051 Silver Savage screw M-11. For his points Silver Savage has a ton clicks for his sub 100 pts. This can be used to your advantage somehow.
mu056 Wolverine some may see this a future cheap tentpole. Ignore them and move on.
mu061 Dark Beast cruel experiment has a lot to give in this new format. Dark Beast might be worth it here and there to shake up generic swarm teams or those who try to beat outwit through numbers and fodder.
jl001 Batman he can never go away fast enough for some people.
jl014 Green Arrow he will be a nice piece to deal with visable figures. He seems like a good support killer piece.
jl019 Merlyn 55 points of death. Play him.
jl032 Bronze Tiger he may have a tickle charge but his follow up is going to be nasty. Keep your eye out for this figure.
jl037 Wonder Woman she got forgotten due to her bad keywords and starting click of battle fury. But when you look at the dial it is pretty solid. Worth a try.
jl038 Batman and Robin the only duo figure to make this list. With some perplex and prob this piece could be very competitive with in a no feat world.
jl043 Dr. Polaris 5 clicks of running shot, 4 clicks of support 2 clicks of ranged combat expert, tk, and energy shield deflection. That is an awesome price for 111 points.
jl057 The Flash his stats and powers are just awesome for his point cost.
jl058 Batman built in trickshot. Maybe exploitable in the future.
jl104 Green Lantern willpower, tk, perplex, under 100 points.
av002 Iron Man stealthbuster with decent powers and stats. The problem is his cost he will get quickly replaced by Iron Widow for the players that have her.
av017 Living Laser expect to see some experiments with him here and there to see if he can work in the new format. Sadly to much perplex is needed for him to be good. If you can overcome his attack value you have a massacre in your hands.
av022 Iron Widow all the stuff needed to keep in the game of heroclix in this non-cardboard reality. This is probably going to be the most abused figure around.
av025 Quicksilver a hss that ignores hindering as he runs. Yeah that will work.
av050 Winter Soldier he is still going to be abused but he will get hurt by not having trickshot and he will be quickly targeted by everyone’s anti stealth.
av100 Silver Surfer power cosmic, hss, great stats, but sadly frontloaded. Some players will play Surfer until they find something that works. He is a safe bet to see for the next few months.
av103 Stardust while not as frontloaded as Surfer and a lot less point Stardust may be one of the new poster children for tentpole teams. Without Nova Blast there are few pulswavers that could hurt her team straight up. Not only that the defense values are crazy on this figure. All one needs is tk and position for the first few clix until hss kicks in.
Please note that this is not the be all and end all and that other figures will be added and removed as new sets come out. But as it stands I think we have a good point to talk from and start planning from. While people worry and complain about something they can and will not control, we the tacticians will move forward to plan our future victories.
By Edward Shelton AKA darklogos
While the rest of the heroclix world is celebrating or mourning in madness about the upcoming changes to how the game is played, we the tactile, are plotting our next move and evolution of the game. The fact that change has always been a part of the game. I remember changes to HSS which made it easier to defend against Vet Icons Supes. Remember the reduction of movement by 2 if you are carrying another figure. Heck remember the ruling that nerfed energy explosion so it could no longer work with enhancement. All these changes come and it makes and breaks champions.
So lets get started.
It would be easy to look at figures and pick out what figures that will be stronger but that is jumping the gun. Lets look at how the existing mechanics of the game are going to be affected. The obvious issue is outwit. Fortitude and feats in general were introduced to due to the reality that outwit made costly figures a waste of points and time. Exploit weakness protection was added on to fortitude due to 1 brick busting figure…Magog. As apocalyptic as his name is what he was doing to big figs with perplex and a coke machine. Now with fortitude gone we are briefly going to see a rise in outwit. But not just outwit but stealth and outwit. The combination is as good as peanut butter and jelly. I speculate that either fortitude will return, outwit being nerfed either by range or point cost limitation, or a range reduction to outwit equal to that of tk or barrier. With more outwit in play ways of negating outwit will become a priority. The focus of pieces that are decent but not outwit able will be popular. Quint and power cosmic get a boost to this change.
Another power that will rear its ugly head more will be pulse wave. Psyblast will still be the range sniper’s weapon of choice but those days of psyblast and heavy damage may be coming to an end. Pulsewave will be needed to negate any special powers that protect against outwit or utilize some sort of defensive effect. Pulsewave will rear its head on every cheap piece it is on.
Prob will be even more needed. The thing that most of feats being used are stat manipulation elements that mainly focused on attack value modification. With perplex and a hand full of figures and team abilities that modify attack values prob will show up in multiples.
Tk yo-yo’s will be a craze for a bit. 80 pts gets you 2 marvel girls to tk your attacker in and out without retribution. You have probably about 2-3 turns of attacking before your opponent makes up the distance to start a serious fight. This may be the future tent poles.
I think we will see more people saving perplex merely for defense and not attack and damage. With the loss of brilliant tactician and other feats like it we will see people turning their 18 defenses into 20’s and 21 at range using perplex and hindering terrain. It seems that other measures will have to be taken to stop one from being hit. Perplex has a bullseye on it the size of the moon. Something will be done to this power. The rule of 3 was its last nerf. Worse case scenario the stats go away at the end of your turn so you can’t have carry over defense.
Barrier may just be a requirement like it was in the old days. Barrier will no longer be a place to hide behind with SIF. But I think it can be used as a means of entrapping or forcing your opponent to waste actions to get a possible shot in on your team. With no warbound this means double barrier teams will be even more fierce problems to overcome. This is another way for tent poles to survive.
Whenever high defense values come into play poison always rears its head. The problem is without armor piercing poison pieces pose less threat unless paired with outwit. First outwit then let poison take its effect. The problem with this is that it requires a 2 person positioning maneuver where armor piercing did not force you to possibly expose your outwiter.
Exploit weakness will be a requirement for any serious brick being played. We will see another Magog like piece. The question is at what point value and how much will the team need to be focused around it.
Natural 12 ranges will be more of a problem then before. With less stops in the form of feats most twelve range characters will utilize tk yo-yoing to do all sorts of nastiness.
Mind Control in my opinion got worse. Without mental shields feedback damage becomes an issue again. With no more compel certain offensive options are gone. Mind control while strong is not as strong of a general option.
Shape change is a mixed back. Shape change is great if there is supersenses or impervious. Without either outwit has a clear focus. The loss of camouflage makes certain figures just fodder for the meta. It can not be depended on as much as it was before by itself. Now it must be combod with several options.
Incap takes several steps down without stunning blow. The rules to incap have to change if it is going to be viable. Using incap is not a bad thing. Incap will always be a tempo control power. But it only now becomes valuable on ranged figures with 2-3 targets.
With the changes to theme team this hurts “Golden Age” more then modern age. Not being able to cancel BFC’s is going to suck. But in “Modern Age” map choice will still be essential if and only if there are maps that have effects on them or best suit certain teams. The problem is that a min/max non-theme team could be far more flexible then a generic or even a comic theme team. The only way I see that theme teams become a Con consider is if the keyword has enough point and power diversity. The second is that there is a figure or power that is so strong that it almost is a must have. Then the theme team would be built to counter the popular trend so map choice become essential. Don’t let people tell you that map choice is not important anymore.
With all this being said here are some key pieces that I think we are going to see more of.
ha003 Hand Ninja: A free attack action and blades claws fangs at a decent price.
ha011 Enchantress one of the better mindcontrollers after the change.
ha012 Valkyrie x2 or paired up with an asgradian attacker or ha015 Fire Demon gives you a 10 av support character with toughness.
ha019 Chase Stein she is going to be delivery system to be abused by the teen keyword somehow.
ha037 Songbird one form of anti-barrier tech.
ha038 Venom shapechange supersenses combo.
ha040 Captain America stealth buster and overall decent attacker.
ha047 Nico Minoru getting any power in the game is worth it. But she will get replaced with figures like Chief who can do multiple free actions at once.
ha049 Ultron only for a little bit but he will fade away fast. Without novablast and running shot he is a liability in the new world of clix.
ha041 Molly Hayes You may laugh now but she will be a brick of choice to either tie figures up and slowly wail on them or as a nice piece for mastermind fodder.
aa004 The Question full dial stealth and 3 clicks of outwit. Willpower on her first 2 clicks to get where she needs to be. That is great piece.
aa008 Street Thug cheap fodder that will be used for filler or exploited some how yet unforeseen.
aa019 Lashina at first you may think this is a joke. But this piece hits its stride on click 3. Once she gets hss, ss, and exploit weakness its going to get dangerous for the other team.
aa020 Anarky outwit and prob accessible with batman TA for 70 points
aa026 Nightshade cheap barrier and damage dealing smoke cloud. All topped off with a mystics team ability. For creative minds only.
aa028 Arkillo maybe the new Magog or maybe I’m wrong. Here is why. First off he can use charge flurry. Well you may say so can Hercules. True but Herc doesn’t have an 8 range and later on he doesn’t get to place barrier pieces out as a free action. Akrillo also has exploit weakness and super strength to go along with his charge flurry. 126pts puts him at the boarder of acceptable point wise to risk fielding him. He can be built around and provided with decent backup. I think that this piece may usher back in feats. Perplex is required but it was required with Magog as well.
aa033 Thinker only playable with ultimates or supes ta to outwit stealthers.
aa036 Zoom he will be played because he is safe. But outwit cripples him more so then before. He will soon find that without decent backup his price is two high in the current meta not have range.
aa043 Calculator behold your perplex and outwit king.
si004 Iron Fist another possible Magog. He is cheap. He has flurry and exploit weakness. He has high Attack and very good damage values. He is a decent price so you could fit 2 on a team. Having no range does suck.
si008b Ms Marvel the skrull queen isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
si016 Hercules to much damage to be done. He will show up less and less though as outwit just takes him to worse clicks faster.
si029 Morbius a monster of a fig. No pun intended. He was hosed by keywords and feats. But without them he is one powerful fig.
si033 Dr. Strange stealth killer and super perplex.
si054 Gamora if you saw less of her prepared to see more of her.
si056 Annihilus great overall stats with a cheap cost.
si060 Super-Skrull: Avengers some will try to turn to him for a cheap Skrull Ms Marvel substitute. This will fail. This piece will fade out of the 300pt scene.
si101 Mr. Fantastic be prepared to see him more often then before. His super perplex is no longer Brilliant tactianable but that doesn’t stop him much.
si111 Reed Richards for those that have him he will be weapon of choice of neutering figures.
si102 Invisible Woman she is questionable because she forces outwit and probers to come within 7 of her to use their effects. Maybe played by the more brave of us.
si104 The Thing full move charge and good values. Yeah he is going to be around.
cr002 Kid Flash his future is questionable with Kid Zoom on the way.
cr005 Speedy cheap anti barrier piece. Filler attacker.
cr008 Mercury when played right he is a tie up piece who can put smoke cloud down under enemies to slow them up or hide your favorite stealth piece. He does a lot of 25 points.
cr021 Rip Hunter he will make a comeback for a bit but then disappear due to cost. He will be a desperate man’s fortitude. Then people will wise up and forget the figure again.
cr022 Dawnstar attack value boost, hss, and wildcard for 60 pts. You will see this figure a lot.
cr029 Nightwing he only has to fear outwiters that can see through stealth. Other then that he is golden.
cr048 Darkseid people will turn to him as a crutch. He will protect himself with barrier and prob and maybe even some sort of healing in bigger games.
cr101 Wally West forceblast as a free action after a hss attack may be more useful now.
cr104 Roy Harper running shot and stealth with pd ability. 53 points
mu001 Marvel Girl current tk queen for tent poles and other teams.
mu030 X-23 stealth and cce. She is a cheap filler piece to finish figures off.
mu035 Ahab he can be played in multiple and used to kill both stealthers and damage reducers. He will be more popular.
mu031 Professor X mass perplex, 12 range, decent stats, and decent keywords. He will see some play maybe if someone can figure out how to make x-men overcome their inability to deal with stealth.
mu039 Danger she can’t be outwitted for her first 4 clicks. Opposing within 10 she can draw lines of fire two can’t have modifiers like, rce, cce, combat reflexes, energy shield deflection, perplexed, or enhanced. That is money. Expect to see her in play.
mu043 Black Tom Cassidy some will forget there are better outwitters out there and return to this guy for outwit and barrier. Let them think they are right in playing him.
mu051 Silver Savage screw M-11. For his points Silver Savage has a ton clicks for his sub 100 pts. This can be used to your advantage somehow.
mu056 Wolverine some may see this a future cheap tentpole. Ignore them and move on.
mu061 Dark Beast cruel experiment has a lot to give in this new format. Dark Beast might be worth it here and there to shake up generic swarm teams or those who try to beat outwit through numbers and fodder.
jl001 Batman he can never go away fast enough for some people.
jl014 Green Arrow he will be a nice piece to deal with visable figures. He seems like a good support killer piece.
jl019 Merlyn 55 points of death. Play him.
jl032 Bronze Tiger he may have a tickle charge but his follow up is going to be nasty. Keep your eye out for this figure.
jl037 Wonder Woman she got forgotten due to her bad keywords and starting click of battle fury. But when you look at the dial it is pretty solid. Worth a try.
jl038 Batman and Robin the only duo figure to make this list. With some perplex and prob this piece could be very competitive with in a no feat world.
jl043 Dr. Polaris 5 clicks of running shot, 4 clicks of support 2 clicks of ranged combat expert, tk, and energy shield deflection. That is an awesome price for 111 points.
jl057 The Flash his stats and powers are just awesome for his point cost.
jl058 Batman built in trickshot. Maybe exploitable in the future.
jl104 Green Lantern willpower, tk, perplex, under 100 points.
av002 Iron Man stealthbuster with decent powers and stats. The problem is his cost he will get quickly replaced by Iron Widow for the players that have her.
av017 Living Laser expect to see some experiments with him here and there to see if he can work in the new format. Sadly to much perplex is needed for him to be good. If you can overcome his attack value you have a massacre in your hands.
av022 Iron Widow all the stuff needed to keep in the game of heroclix in this non-cardboard reality. This is probably going to be the most abused figure around.
av025 Quicksilver a hss that ignores hindering as he runs. Yeah that will work.
av050 Winter Soldier he is still going to be abused but he will get hurt by not having trickshot and he will be quickly targeted by everyone’s anti stealth.
av100 Silver Surfer power cosmic, hss, great stats, but sadly frontloaded. Some players will play Surfer until they find something that works. He is a safe bet to see for the next few months.
av103 Stardust while not as frontloaded as Surfer and a lot less point Stardust may be one of the new poster children for tentpole teams. Without Nova Blast there are few pulswavers that could hurt her team straight up. Not only that the defense values are crazy on this figure. All one needs is tk and position for the first few clix until hss kicks in.
Please note that this is not the be all and end all and that other figures will be added and removed as new sets come out. But as it stands I think we have a good point to talk from and start planning from. While people worry and complain about something they can and will not control, we the tacticians will move forward to plan our future victories.