Sunspot has two glaring weaknesses that mostly keep him out of rosters.
1. His 3 physical defense with no defensive tech at all means he's pretty easy to get off the board
2. He is a four threat that isn't over the curve making it very hard to justify him over characters like Shang-Chi and Beta Ray Bill for competitive rosters
1. Is something we'll just have to live with or find some ways to protect him and while 2 is true, he is a lot more fun to play than those two in my experience.
The key to Sunspot carrying the weight of his 4 threat is getting to use High Energy Conversion as much as possible as it can be a very good throw. And how you achieve this is by a very careful management of Flare tokens. Don't sleep on the fact that any movement for Roberto caused by your opponent (pushes, throws, places and advances) also trigger the special rule.
He has two possible first turns that unlock his kit:
Either three movements (of any kind) or two movements and an attack. This way you either guarantee or at least have a high chance for 3 flare tokens going into round 2.
There's a few leaderships that can unlock these play patterns for Roberto, but he sadly isn't affiliated with any of them:
Blade Midnight Sons allows him to move, move, bump for three movements in turn 1 but it leaves him with no power for round 2. It's fine but not ideal.
Any kind of power giving or reducing leadership, like A-Force, Steve 1 Avengers and where I recently tried him, Professor X X-Men allows him to move, charge turn one which brings him to the midline and the attack has a 40% chance of generating the third flare token.
If you manage to hit the double trigger and got through at least one damage you'll be able to start round 2 with a Medium Base Long Move charge (so Namor Speed).
Roberto is a very dicey character, which makes him less interesting for more competitive players looking for reliability, but if you are willing to gamble with him the returns can be pretty great. In terms of spending Flare tokens for additional dice that is pretty much a tightrope to balance. Spending some increases your chance to get one back:
5 dice = 40% chance, 6 dice = 50% chance, 7 dice = 57% chance and 8 dice = 64% chance
Spending at least one token also automatically Incinerates the target which is obviously good for the second attack and any other attacks you can manage in the round.
My personal philosophy would be to spend 1 token on the first attack (when he has 3 to start the activation), hopefully build the power to throw and then spend 2 or 3 on the second attack, depending on if he got one back on the first attack and the board state. Importantly you can't be too precious with the Flare tokens. His damage output becomes very high using them and without that he pretty much isn't carrying the weight of his threat. Just be careful to use the throw before you spend the tokens.
Should you use Flare State explosion when Roberto dazes?
Only if it ends an enemy characters activation or gets an extract off of someone. Otherwise the incidental damage you deal isn't worth the trade off for starting the next activation without any flare tokens.
Is Sunspot worth it in any of his affiliated places?
While Will Shick and Ben Ransom said if you don't take Sunspot in New Mutants something went wrong I kind of don't think that's actually a good spot for him. The leadership does give him Flare tokens but being in the face of the enemy isn't exactly where he wants to be if it's not his own turn. He's also another very fragile character in an affiliation filled with those where you probably want to bring in a very tanky splash piece as your 4 threat instead.
X-Force makes him gaining back Flare tokens a little bit more likely with the reroll and Skull 💀 unlock but doesn't really help him otherwise. Him, Cable and potentially Bishop as well handing out pretty reliable Incinerates is fun though. Cat and Mouse can also be a cheeky way to get a Flare token early in the game. It does limit him to one movement action in round one but that should be enough to attack the midline with his medium base.
Hellfire Club, while not in the best place overall at the moment, is definitely Robertos best affiliated home currently. His biggest weakness is his fragility and he loves extra power. Both are things that the Rich Mutants Club helps him with.
Have you put Sunspot on the table yet? How did he perform for you and most importantly: was it fun to play him?
That's it for today.
Cheers from Germany 🍻
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