Hello and welcome to a new column! I've recently decided to try a more freeform and write a column with my opinion and perspective on things like models, changes to the game and what I'm currently trying and playing. The idea is to share something more subjective than the usual strategy articles and give my impression about things related to the Uncanny X-Men in MCP.
In this particular edition, I'll be going over my perspective on the recent Tactic Cards changes and rotations and how X-Men fares in this new metagame.
First, the gains; With the restriction of My Hellfire Club, change to This is a Robbery the rotation of Deception and Eyes on the Prize, I think X-Men had some surprising gains.
For the more scenario centeric versions of X-Men, having Hellfire Club, one of the most dominant scenario teams at that time seeing their leadership restricted means they get to play one fewer restricted card. Is that enough to make it a favorable match-up? I don't think so but in conjunction with some of the other changes, I think it does level the playing field somewhat. The increase in the cost of This is a Robbery means it comes online a lot slower, and one of the things scenario-based X-Men teams often struggle with is to be able to keep scoring at a fast enough pace before they run out of steam, so this alleviates some of that pressure.
The rotation of Eyes on the Prize also means the opportunity cost for safe grabs in sevral of affiliations has become higher and more restrictive, while X-Men keeps being one of the affiliations with the most safe extract options in the game. By virtue of not losing as much as the others, they end up in a better position than they were previously. The disappearance of Deception also makes X-Men safer against some of the very powerful attrition teams featuring Thanos and Mystique, which could pull models holding extracts from safety.
Now the losses. Some of the more popular X-Men Gold teams were playing a fair amount of Ultron, Metal Tyrant alongside the Age of Ultron tactics card. Its rotation affects the inclusion of Ultron, Metal Tyrant, a lot because its combination with Age of Ultron and X-Ceptional Healing made X-Men have a solid match up into a lot of the attrition-focused teams of the metagame. Losing not only one, but both of them, means all the Healing Factor models in the affiliation are significantly more fragile than they were previously.
On X-Ceptional Healing itself, with X-23 and Logan being very popular and reliable affiliated models, X-Ceptional Healing was often included in most X-Men lists. I think out of the affiliated models with Healing Factor, X-23 is the one that is least impacted by that change. By virtue of being a 3 threat with average defenses and a reroll, she can still hold her own but having her daze is not as impactful as losing a 4 threat's activation like Logan or Wolverine's. As for Honey Badger, with her ability to redirect attacks, losing access to X-Ceptional Healing I think hurts her ability to effectively take hits for her teammates.
With all these changes, in addition to the newly released models and affiliations, where does the Uncanny X-Men stand in the metagame?
I think they're overall in a better spot than they were, by virtue of having an important part of their play patterns not hit as hard as the other affiliations even if they lost some of their tools against more attrition-focused plans. In my opinion, X-Men has now pretty even match-ups into most affiliations and strategies, making their wins and losses fall a lot more on player skill than previously. This puts them in an interesting spot, where I think a lot of their games become more dynamic and interesting and positions them well in the current game, where I think they can pretty safely play into most affiliations and game plans in interesting and dynamic ways by adapting to what is popular or dominant either with their crisis or choice of splash models. This puts them in a flexible position where they are not too dominant of a team but can fight for the top spots in most tournaments.
Thanks for taking the time to read this piece, and as always, don't forget to have fun!
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