Format: Golden Age Constructed.
This was the first week the new cards and dice from X-Men Forever, Dark X-Men and X-Force would be available for use in our group. (We’d wound up doing a TOA draft the week before, as one of our regulars had stumbled across a set of draft packs.)
What Did You Play?
The Team: Pryde and Teamwork.
Lots and lots of interesting cards in the new X-Men stuff, but there wasn’t really anything that cried out to me “This is the one you need to play first.”
So I went a familiar route for me – unblockable. Specifically, this card:
Buy two of her dice and attack with both, and neither can be blocked. The down side there is that’s two 4-cost dice with underwhelming A.
Of course, a single Kitty die is still unblockable if it attacks with any X-Man die, and 2-cost X-Men characters aren’t exactly hard to come by. Which suggested to me I could include the new/old Teamwork basic action as one of my BACs to boost Kitty’s attack.
But I decided the primary method of boosting the damage Kitty would do would be this old ‘friend’:
It had not escaped my attention that there were a lot of cards that dealt burn damage in the new releases, so I decided to include R Bishop to try and protect against that.
My next additions were Psylocke: Reforming X-Force and the new Counterstrike BAC. The latter was added primarily for the global. It and Psylocke’s Energize ability should allow me to field Sidekick dice, thinning my bag and reducing the cycle time on any Kitty Pryde dice I was able to send through unblocked.
Next came 
. Cheap X-Man that has a fifty per cent chance of dealing 2 damage and sending a blocking die to the Used Pile whenever it attacks. Given her low A an opponent will probably just let her through – unless she’s buffed by something like Teamwork. Good thing I’d already decided to run that.
In retrospect, I was overthinking the next two cards, which were R Danger Room and C Wrecker. The thinking there was to combine Danger Room with Teamwork, so all my characters (including Sidekicks) would have a common affiliation – Villains – when I used Teamwork, increasing the amount of the buff. Wrecker would then add his own +1A/+1D buff to all the other Villains.
That left one slot open, which I filled with Jubilee – Wondra. Relatively cheap X-man who deals 2 points of burn damage when fielded. Seemed like a decent fit.
So how did it work?
Game 1:
Sage that increases fielding costs, Hope Summers that copies X-Men cards, Domino with Energize. He was using the new Whoever Assemble action to give himself a bit of ramp.
He used Hope to copy several different X-Men cards over the course of the game. I let her through when he attacked with her several times given her low A.
I sent a Parasite supported Sidekick through an empty field for 4 damage, then got a Kitty Pryde out and attacked with her.
His sage was an annoyance, but I was wearing him down faster than he could manage to do with me, and I managed to finish him off with a double Kitty Pryde attack.
1-0
Game 2:
This was a mix of new and old Bolt characters. Wasp that deals damage when you use a global ability, the new Jubilee that deals damage when you field a bolt character, Techno with the spin Sidekick dice to their mask face global and a few others.
I pretty much spent the entire game trying and failing to buy Bishop. I could never get five energy with a shield. So many turns a character die I was hoping to use as energy stubbornly remained on a character face on the reroll. One turn where I finally got five energy there was no shield, so I wound up buying a Danger Room and a Teamwork.
I did eventually manage to buy Bishop and managed to do so immediately before a bag refill. The problem was said refill saw 12 dice going into my bag, only one of them Bishop.
I didn’t draw Bishop on the first turn following the refill. On his subsequent turn used a combination of direct damage, attackers and the Techno and Magic Missile globals to bring me down to 1 life. I only survived the turn because I had two bolts, and two of his attackers had only 1D. He had his Wasp active so I took the damage from her to bring we down to 1, but it allowed me to survive.
On my follow-up turn I drew Bishop – and couldn’t roll him. And that was the end of that game.
1-1
Game 3:
This was against Jourdo’s Tabaxi Rogue/Corrupt team.
I actually managed to buy Bishop early enough for it do some good this game, even though I whiffed on rolling him the first time I drew him in this game. Once he hit the field however, I pretty much had a stranglehold on the game.
I had seven Sidekick dice in the field by mid-game. Jourdo had used Instant War twice, which wound up putting five Sidekicks in my field, where they stayed. The last three or four turns just about the only dice I had cycling were one Kitty Pryde, one Teamwork, my last Sidekick and one other. One of those turns I missed rolling Kitty on a character face, and on another Jourdo managed to ping out a 6A/6D Kitty Pryde (after Teamwork) by creative use of the Techno and Magic Missile globals.
Eventually between a Teamwork buffed Kitty Pryde and the advantage in numbers, I was able to finish him off.
2-1
Post-Mortem:
I may need a more reliable way to get Bishop quickly when I need him. I wonder if it would be helpful to use Hope Summers to copy Bishop’s ability while I’m waiting to get an actual Bishop die out? Hope is easily removed, being 2D on all levels, but she’ll probably hit the field faster than he can.
I never bought Wrecker, and the only time I bought Danger Room it was because I didn’t have the correct energy type to buy what I actually wanted. So I think I’ll be replacing those should I ever revisit this team.
With what? Hope Summers for one of them. Maybe either the Common or Uncommon Professor X from X-men First Class – the former spins up all X-men character dice 1 level at the start of my turn, the latter gives my X-men a +1A/+1D buff.
The thinking on those is to use Hope Summers to copy those abilities rather than buy a 6-cost Professor X die.
This Kitty Pryde and Teamwork is a decent combination, but I find myself wondering if this Kitty Pryde card isn’t just a little too pricey to make this team truly workable.
What do you think are the best new X-Men (or Brotherhood of Hellfire Club) cards to build a team around? Let us know in the comments.
Thanks for reading, and Happy Rolling!
Son of L