Does every X-Men have a unique downside?

 

Mutants are the clear cut favorite child of AMG in terms of miniatures, building options and releases, which is understandable since they are Marvels overall best liked property after Spider-Man (and you could argue that the Web Warriors could be a favorite child of AMG in terms of rules, though OG Peter Porker certainly doesn't fall into that description). But all that currently doesn't really translate into great success for the mutant teams, expect for the Servants of the Apocalypse, at the moment. A reoccurring thing you hear in the community is, that every X-Men has a unique downside compared to similar characters in their threat level. Is that true? I don't know honestly, so let's check it out for ourselves today. 

(Click on the images to enlarge them)

Angel is fast, has displacement and can place allies with the very basic 3 threat profile of 3/3/3 5/5. He does have Healing Factor though which will not make a huge difference but in a team full of HF characters taking Instant Recovery becomes a more interesting option. Angel also comes with two personal TTCs. One Sacrifice like effect and one that turns him into 4 threat Archangel after he dazes. His closest comparable character in the game is Vulture and Angel has him pretty clearly beat in my opinion. 

Beast is a staple in X-Men, Servants of the Apocalypse, Avengers and Inhumans. It's pretty hard to argue that he has unique flaws when he's as popular as he is. 

His closest comparable character is probably Lizard. And there we see that Lizard is slower, but can displace size 3 models while being significantly tougher. Beasts speed is also a bit unreliable because the place is a must not a may. Is that bad? Yeah. Is it unique to Beast? No Squirrel Girl (4) and Werewolf by Night (5) have the same ability. 

So while Beast may not be the very best in class at what he does he's still very very good. 

Bishop does have a unique downside in taking damage for having 8 or more power. Luckily the May 25 updates fixed the timing on it where now he can't lose an activation with it or start his injured side round on 4 HP. 

Cable is one of the most reliable damage dealers at 5 threat. His now very close comparable character is Exodus, who is a lot harder to bring down. Cable has far more reach, has the bigger base (effectively increasing the range of everything on his card over Exodus') and his Shields aren't limited to once per turn. 

Where they differ the most is, that Cable has his own leadership (for X-Force, not X-Men of course). In terms of comparable leaderships Shadowland Daredevil has the closest. Here SLDDs rerolls aren't limited to once per turn but are conditional where Cables aren't and offer the unique advantage of ignoring cover when used in Ranger 3. I think pros and cons here are fairly even between the two. 

Colossus had his third stat card in the May Updates. He's now very fast with the combination of being size 3 (making a bunch of terrain easier to run over at full speed), medium move on a medium base and Big Brother now having a mode where he moves towards the Attacker. Nitpickers might point out that probably now closet competitor Beta Ray Bill has aggressive which is free but in reality the two effects are pretty different. And Colossus can't be pushed at all so him getting back on a point after being pushed off isn't even an issue (he can of course still be thrown, advanced or placed off). Colossus' only real downside is, that his displacement comes in form of wild triggers on his attacks instead of a superpower. But having listened to all the AMG podcast appearances after the May Updates it's very clear that the overall design philosophy changed to character throws basically always being tied to attacks nowadays (as we've seen with several of the more recent releases already). 

With Cyclops it's probably mostly a discussion about his leadership as he otherwise doesn't have any downsides on his card. He has good attacks, very good superpowers and average survivability for a 4 (maybe more on the lower end). And with his leadership I would agree that there is a restriction that seems unnecessary in limiting in to range 5. It's probably there for theme reasons but will sometimes bite you in games which feels unfair when not many other leaderships include a range. 

Domino definitely lacks action economy but that's not a unique downside and is counter balanced by her incredible damage output and unexpected toughness. 

Emma Frost has a little theme miss on her card that actually is there to counteract a weakness in Telekinetic Deflection. What really is a unique downside for Emma is, that she can't actively transform but only reactively and that it's very hard to get back into normal form once she does. That the Diamond Form isn't really something you want to use is a different story. 

Gambit needed help but absolutely got it with the May Update. He has no downside on his card now. What is a unique downside to him is that his great TTC Dark Past is excluded from being used in X-Men. I don't think any other TTC in the game specifically excludes an Affiliation where it's user is affiliated. (Dig in for Brock Rumlow is definitely not unaffiliated because of the potential to ruin the game in Kingpin, but is only Cabal because of it). 

Gabby can't score objectives which is definitely a big downside but not unique as it applies to Nebula, too. As Will Shick has explained several times now AMGs intent is for a 2 threat to be good at exactly one thing. For Honey Badger that is being able to "Taunt". Anklebiter and Lil Sis are only cherries on top. Now admittedly she doesn't really fit into the typical X-Men play style as is probably more valuable in her other two affiliations. And would be great in New Mutants if she had made that affiliation list. Servants of the Apocalypse also will almost always pick Toad over her. That's really more down to (even after his nerf) Toad being great though. 

Bobby has average 3 threat durability, a good beam, OK Spender and cool superpowers. He does have a unique downside though because he can't fly but only counts as size 5 during freeze and fade. Of course there's instances where not having flight is an advantage like being advanced by the enemy or being targeted by Bills Summon the Storm but overall the lower mobility makes it a downside for me. 

Jean is not considered an especially strong 5 threat but honestly she does have good attacks, a great throw and superb power generation. Dying easily is her biggest weakness but that's not really unique to her. Maximus the Mad now has a very similar superpower to Matter Transmutation and does get to advance the target rather than push which does give more control over the final destination. 

Logan's Get out of my Head is definitely a unique downside. He makes up for that by having incredible mobility, durability most of all damage Output. He is very much a specialist for holding down a flank on his own.

Magik has recently gotten a little boost in gaining a additional HP on the front side, immunity to Incinerate and (least impactful) a Hex double trigger on her gainer. She's just a good overall 3 threat. No unique downside. 

Nightcrawler sadly got a little nerf in the Updates, invalidating my foil stat card (1st world problems deluxe). He is still unique in his play style. There's basically no character that is comparable to him so it's hard to decide wether he has a real unique downside. He is unbelievably fast, decently tough and has good damage Output if you can place him a couple of times for his first Spender. Any Spender after the first is really just gravy. 

For Charles you could argue that his 1 cost Spender is a weaker copy of Cassandra Novas (who doesn't have to deal damage to trigger the advance) but Cassandra does cost a threat more so I don't think it's really a fitting comparison. And otherwise he falls very much in the same category like all the mind over matter characters in the game. 

Psylockes only fault is not being Shang-Chi, who is probably a bit over the curve. Betty is fast, durable (3/3/4 defenses get counter acted by the tried and tested combination of Stealth and Martial Artist), reliable and a great killer. No downsides to speak of. 

You could once again argue that Rogues downside is, that she can only throw characters on her spender but as seen above that's something we can expect to be the case for the majority of characters in the game. She's just really good otherwise. She needs a lot of power but luckily two leaderships help her with that in X-Men. 

Kitty has two very close companions: Viper, who is wrongly often regarded as bad and Black Cat who could've gotten toned down in May Updates and no one should have been upset or surprised (she was eligible as she re releases later in the year in the second Web Warriors affiliation pack). 

What the three have in common is a Long move, stealth and a range 2 place. Which makes all three of them excellent Extract Runners. 

The problem here is Black Cat: in comparison to Felica Kitty (and Viper) pales quite a bit. No guaranteed Stagger spender and more important no Extract Steal on her card. Where Viper has absolutely no way of stealing an Extract Kitty has her TTC Hold Still which is too unreliable to count on since it needs a wild in the attack roll to trigger the extract drop. 

Overall yes you could say that Kitty has a unique downside coming in the form of the only Steal TTC that needs a specific dice trigger. It's not the only conditional steal though: both Professionals and (more commonly seen) Can I borrow That? Aren't automatic either. 

Is it weird that Storm is only a 3 threat? Absolutely and I 100% expect there to be a higher threat version of her down the line. But is she a good 3 threat? Absolutely! And with a strong leadership on top of it, even if it was (rightfully) toned down in the 23 character updates. 

She even got to keep her super stealth in the 25 updates (where she wasn't included).

Classic Wolverine can't pick up Extracts or Interact with objectives on his injured side. But he does gain a lot of dice for his attacks on that side. That in combination is pretty unique but also just fits him thematically. 

3/3/2 Defenses are low for a 3 threat, but Laura makes up for it with Healing Factor 2. She is also one of the best offensive 3 threats in the game. 

(Not officially an X-Men yet:)

Phoenix is very much a theme first model. She definitely has a unique downside in being able to KO without ever attacking her once. Is the downside worth the upside? That remains to be seen. Incredible looking model at the very least. 

So I'd say 7 of the characters here really qualify for having a unique downside, with two of them (Gambit and Shadowcat) having the downside on their personal TTCs rather than on their stat cards. 

Speaking of TTCs, let's compare those to other teams as well: 

There has been a comparable card in crew of the Milano, which instead of giving the character power "proofed" them from gaining any conditions at all for the rest of the round and it also worked on every Guardians affiliated characters that payed 1 power to play it at once. That card was rotated because Guardians had gotten affiliated high threat models who could abuse the card (Cosmic Ghost Rider to be exact). With Phoenix coming out soon it could mean that this card isn't long for the world either. And there's another comparable card in Carbonadium Synthesizer, a personal TTC for Omega Red, that heal a wound per Condition taken off in addition to the gained power. 

So overall this card falls right in line I would say. 

The faction identity card that makes X-Men such a strong round 1 team and has many X-Men players favour Pay to Flips for their secures. 

I've included the card even though it's a personal one for Emma Frost as it is very strong in giving an M advance instead of the usual S. Not being allowed to carry an extract is a good counter balance here. I think the card is very strong but doesn't see much play because it is often hard to justify Emma under either of the leaders because she doubles down on the battlefield role of all three leaders which is Backpoint Sitter and you often don't want to spent 7 or 8 of your threat for that. 

Another faction defining card. Here the comparison is to Avengers Assemble which isn't as limited on the angles and doesn't require a leader to play and pay for everyone. So yes compared to that card it definitely has a couple of downsides. It's still an every game card. 

The closest comparable card might probably be Odins Blessing nowadays. And it compares pretty well against it. Will Shick has always stressed the point that from a design aspect X-Men are supposed to work as a team like they do in the comics and this card feels very thematic to that approach. Importantly it can also protect (and be paid for by) splash characters. 

So where does this leave us? 

Some characters certainly have a unique downside to them but overall no X-Men affiliated character sits well below the curve. On the other hand they also don't have a lot of models who sit well above either. They are all pretty balanced in the B- to A- tier. Which means it can't be the characters themselves that drag the stats down. 

My theory is, that their popularity can often be a hindrance rather than a boon for their overall stats. And the emergence of Apocalypse has hurt their win rate as well. X-Men aren't a very easy team to pilot well but will often be a players first pick to get into the game (there's a reason their single person starter set will be in the lineup indefinitely). So players still learning the game might have a hard time to figure out the optimal way to play them. And what had that to do with Apocalypse, arguably the most complex affiliation in the game? It's a bit of a self fulfilling prophecy: Apocalypse currently has by far the best win rate of any mutant faction. Probably leading to a lot of the strongest mutant players jumping on the bandwagon to give themselves the (perceived) best chance at winning an event while staying true to their mutant "identity". Which in turn drags down the stats of the other mutant faction again, when they "lose" their best players. 

Of course I could be absolutely wrong about this and would be happy to be proven wrong 🙂

And it's not like any other mutant team can't win an event in the hands of a good player. To quote Adepticon Winner Mike DeLuca: "the meta is good players". It's also exactly what Will Shick always stresses is the ultimate balance goal for the game: a strong player, playing a weaker team will beat a weaker player, playing a stronger team. 

If you'd like to support me you can do so at patreon.com/sgprotocol 

That's it for today!

Cheers from Germany 🍻