Hey this thread is about us bashing the guy who hates Mutants dont turn it into a Marvel vs DC issue.

responses to your responses:

10. the queens are nice, but ariel olleviti has done better work. IMO, none of the usual artists have surpassed any of their previous work, with stuff in MXM. even the new alex garner and andrew robinson pieces seem like mere sketches compared to their previous works or art. suydam's pieces are consistently stunning throughout MXM, but they still dont compare to his earlier VS stuff either.

9. are spoor, marrow, shinobi good because of their mutant traits? thats the real point. they are good characters with good powers, but they dont display the new mechanic as worthwhile.

8. HC and morlocks are interesting teams, but feel more like the fifth team than a feature team.

7. UDE has always done a good job with this. following the comic universe to an utter precision is why we have such interesting characters and powers in the VS game.

6. sure

5. i still stand by my statement, the set would be more sealed-friendly if characters existed which could crossover traits or had dual-traits. maybe in 2008, they will revisit these teams and remedy this situation?

4. not really, willpower and traits are referenced by other cards and provide effects based on the stat they give.

3. the core of the 2 reservists strategys are still the same. bonuses based on what characters are in your row. how they give those bonuses is the only difference. b'hood likes to replace them, avengers like to reveal them.

2. again, a cop-out from UDE. you CAN put the trait elsewhere! maybe below the flight/range icons. theres plenty of real estate there!

1. agreed.

"Brotherhood = Avengers Reservists"

If your playing Brotherhood like the Avengers, you are playing the deck wrong ;)

i happen to love this set!

10. Unimpressive art.

i happen to think that this set looks really good. ok not every card is an oil painting but sebastion shaw looks well top, so does save killer and snkit looks great.

9. Unimpressive powers. Who is the Black Panther of MXM?

well theres that 2 drop for the brotherhood! as some one in another article has said before free= silly! ok there might not be that one person who breaks the mutant idea but there wasnt for green lanturn dr light was the silly card of that set because of the greatness of the supportcards such as kyle and willpower is great across the bord for all your guys.

8. Unimpressive teams.

both the morlocks and the hellfire club are good and fit in with the "fluff" of the set, they both appear in the x men stories and have a lot of carachacters and good enough to warrant a team.

7. Character and team-based deisgns that leaves me scratching my head. Magneto, a reservist?

sometimes you have to things ike that in a card game because otherwise the cards just dont work, how crap whould it be if you had to make him rubbish for the team just to fit his style or character, what would suck more is if savage killer wasnt a reservist cause then you would be like "wow sabertooth! shame you cant play him cause he is crap for the team, ill have to play this nobody"

6. The rich get richer and the poor just continue sucking.

some teams its just easier to make good cards for i mean its not hard to think that leader reservists esp at 4 and 5 are good for them, also its extrememly difficullt to save a team with 2 cards more so if there from an underpowered set with a bad theme (cough crime lords cough)

5. MXM fails in sealed play(and presumably draft as well?). The traits are horrendous in sealed play.

i happen to think that this set is great for sealed and draft as ive done both.
each team has some really good cards that make them shine for draft which mean its great to draft a team and not worry that everyone else is drafting the same thing (glee im loking at you)
every good plot twist has SOME trait stamped thingbut you still get the +2 atk at a pinch and the teams them selves can do very well if you know what plot twist your mutants can use (x men like energy morlocks like mental etc)
there also also psylink and a brave new world that team up traits making it easy to have two traits.

4. Recycled mechanic. Mutant trait is nothing more than willpower for Marvel Characters.

except that its not. for a start there is no number to mutant which makes all of the effects the cards use different, its also outside the text box making for new things such as mental loyaty and its still balanced.


3. Recycled themes. The new teams' strategies seem nothing more than an amalgamation of existing themes:

again i think think this was a good attempt on ude part to remake a theme and try to make it stronger evasion was jus a bit naff on the spiderfriends team and now its much better, also the new tutors in this set make it possible to go off team if you wat and still stay in theme, so now ppl are talking about spider morlocks and using some of those good cards from that bad set. this also makes it easier for everyone to remember and get some good use out of old themes and mechanics that did work (please no cosmic teams! it still sucks as a team theme)

2. Where are the dual-affiliation characters?

i think it was the first article on the new set that set they couldnt get the dual aff to fit all on one card so that explains that and ally, well maybe there was a good reason not to put too much in that as a lot of the cards allready had a mechanic (concealed , evaion, reservist)

1. Lack of focus for the "revisited," teams. Instead of focusing on more specific themes, UDE comes up with a new theme(traits) that further divide the older cards from the new ones.

not sure on this either, new brotherhood will love reservist as it means easier ways to get that extra copy of the new brotherhood in your deck shake rattle and role can make use of thse extra lost citys you draw and did you notice they gave the brotherhood a plot twist that power ups characters?! plus not to metion those love extra copys of guys at different drops meaning you might be able to run a better lost city with out koing all your guys jus to play the next bigger drop. as for the x-men bamf nightcrawler logan, children of the atom are all good cards that fit with the new ones and who cares if they dont have a trait there still good!

Except I don't bash sets for no reason. And he obviously favors DC. Mutant traits are just willpower?

Seconded. I can't speak with a lot of experience on the rest of the set yet, but the Acolytes do not play much at all like the Re-vengers. I'd be willing to throw down double money if you gave me an Avengers Reservist deck and was faced off by a 'mirror' build of the Brotherhood. The lack of easy access to off-init tricks, especially in MMA, requires the Brotherhood be played very differently.

While I liked the art of the three previous sets overall, as there are some pretty crappy art in there like the brotherhood Colossus, Immovable or Bevatron, I find the art anything but uninspired as there are plenty of different "styles" there such as Sean Galloway's work.

There are also plenty of cards that really look great like Kill or be Killed, Teamwork, Mutant Massacre among many others.

For me just seeing Havok, Gambit and Iceman (and playing with them at the sneak) made me want to build an Energy deck around them.

They might lack the support to be Tier 1 , but that does not make the cards themselves unimpressive.

I do not know what the name/recognizability of the teams has to do with the design being impressive. I like them both and to me they are more recognizable than the random X teams (x-force, x-factor, x-lax).
Probably has to do with the fact that I did not follow those comics.

I do not like Magneto being reservist either, but I find nothing wrong with a 1-drop Archangel. I mean the guy's mutant power is to fly really well (aside the secondary "his blood heals really well" mutation or something), it is not like he has cosmic level powers.

I agree. It might have been better if they pushed (only) the not yet used themes of the affiliations such as Squadron no breakthrough, or Avengers leader only, etc.

The MoE characters are pretty nice though.

I strongly disagree. I had a lot of fun at the sneak because of the traits, as I built my deck around Energy/Mental. The traits are essentially meta-teams that allow some pretty good plot twist and abilities to work and connect the teams together. Deciding around which team and/or trait to build around is a good challenge and a lot of fun.

There is also Brave New World as an affiliation team up, and the fact that almost every character has one mutant trait. It makes picking the right characters with the plot twist more challenging.

...that works on stunned characters too. While it looks similar, and I had the same fear about it before the sneak, I felt that in practice it is a lot different, mostly because there are 3 traits and almost every character in the set has one trait.

Mostly agreed although Morlocks no-reinforcement is a LOT different from Squardon Rush, and both the Reservist and the Hellfire concealed work differently than in previous implementations.

The real reason for this is the sets are coming out pretty fast after each other and they were probably pretty far with the design before ally was finalized.

They gave a good reason for this already in an article: the teams need to be strong in Silver and Modern but not too powerful in Golden. If they only expand on the older themes than they would either make the golden age decks too strong or the modern age decks too weak.

Giving the teams new themes while they feel like Brotherhood and Xmen is the way to go and they achieved that well in my opinion.

Let me start off by saying I am ALWAYS less enthusiastic about Marvel sets than DC sets. Let me also say I really don't like the Hellfire Club and I was DREADING the day VS would have a 'Morlocks' team. Okay. Now I'm ready to tell you what I have to say:

This set has me the most excited I have been in VS. Ever. In constructed, there are so many different ways to combine these new teams- and the Morlocks- something I loathed- are this incredible little puzzle to me that I love experimenting around with. I still don't like Hellfire, but that's okay, I actually have a reason to play (and like playing) Brotherhood now! And the art- its hit or miss- but overall I really do like it.

I guess you didn't see Mutant Massacare, or the Toad Hopalong

yea I forgot, cause DSM and MSM had some l33t powers. So before you say a set is unimpressive you should look at its predecessors

yea cause having 3 good guy teams in a set vs 1 bad guy team would make a whole ass load of sense huh. But having 1 good guy, 1 bad guy, and 2 neutral teams is an awful idea?

What the hell do you want, before Archangel got transformed by Apoc. he was crap..Whats his super power?? He flies, woopty doo. And your saying his ability doesn't represent his character, what do you want him to do??? The fact that he searches out the company that he owns makes pretty good sense to me

Underworld did get a nice 4-drop, and the Crime Lords character fits their theme well

I think someone is upset that he opened a bunch of energy characters, and a bunch of physical plot twists.

I couldn’t tell if you were joking or stupid…..so I went with stupid

First off, Squadrons theme wasn’t rush….It was 0 cards in hand, Equipment, and no breakthrough.

Second X-mens theme is recovery you idiot, could you not tell that from all those use only during recovery abilities. If you can’t see something as simple as that then you should quit VS

And did you not see the freedom force characters for Brotherhood, cause their theme has nothing to do with reservists, its all about breakthrough.

Name a few characters for me that would have required Dual-affiliation, because a lot of these characters were made with different versions, like Storm or Magneto.

And what character would you like to see with ally, and what ally ability would it be?

You said you wanted X-factor and X-Force in this set instead of X-men and Brotherhood, like I said earlier, how much logic would it make to have the good guys outweigh the bad guys so drastically?


In conclusion, when you make a million dollar card game that people love then you can critique how UDE makes their game

Wow, I couldn't possibly disagree with this point more. I think the artwork for this set totally pushes the artwork as a whole up a notch. There are lot of very impressive pieces of artwork compared to previous sets.

Quote

9. Unimpressive powers. Who is the Black Panther of MXM? Or the Katar Hol of MXM? The one character that really defines the new mechanic of the set. Though, the set is still new, I don't find a single character(or plot twist, location, etc)that makes a deck built around the mutant trait worth playing in golden age.

Again, utter disagreement. The mutant trait is like willpower. Entire decks of synergy are inherently built into the teams. There isn't supposed to be one specific card that "defines" the mechanic, since, first of all, it is three submechanics (each of the traits has different mechanics associated with it), and second, the traits are merely keywords to key off of. Emma Frost (X-Men), Thornn, Iceman and others make it worthwhile to focus a deck around a specific trait.

Quote

8. Unimpressive teams. If you're going to introduce only 2 new teams, they both better be amazing. Unfortunately, I finding them under-designed. I think either the Morlocks or the HC should have been cut in favor of a more recognized team like X-Force, X-Factor, or something along those lines.

Once again, I disagree. Morlocks are a great team, both thematically and mechanically. They do all sorts of things with the hidden area and evasion that hasn't really been done before. The Hellfire Club is also quite fun and capable, though require a bit more concentration and finesse. They are a thinking man's team, not so straightforward. But are most assuredly capable.

Quote

7. Character and team-based deisgns that leaves me scratching my head. Magneto, a reservist? A 1-drop archangel? Sure, Magneto has to support the brotherhood reservist theme, and 1 drop archangel makes searching out those X-corps on the first turn nice. But it's also nice when the the UDE guys do a good job of translating the comics into the VS universe. What happened guys?

Umm. Archangel is just a guy with wings. You shoot him, he dies. You cut him with a knife, he bleeds. This ain't Archangel, this is Angel, some rich fellow with white feathered wings. Also, the Reservist mechanic in the Brotherhood, if you didn't notice, is tied in to the Acolytes. All of the Acolytes and Magneto are reservists, because it represents the mutants living on Avalon who can teleport down bringing their own brand of justice. This represents a time when Magneto and his closest followers were often held in reserve on Avalon until needed, purposefully staying off-planet most of the time.

Quote

6. The rich get richer and the poor just continue sucking. Why Namor and Dr. Druid for Avengers, but not something nice for Underworld or Crime Lords? I know Namor and the Dr. are nice addtions to REVengers, but they didn't really need them. They were already competitive. Can you say the same for our Beloved Crime Lords?

Witch Woman is GREAT for Underworld. Dr. Sun is GREAT for Crime Lords (who needed a great 2-drop anyhow...the fact that he is a Heroic Sacrifice on that 2-drop 3/3 body is just great!). Man-Bull give the SS some badly needed protection from Roy Abuse and the like. Toxin gives evasion SF another 3-drop with Evasion, tightening the build up more. The new Kang is a stellar 4-drop for Kang Kontrol decks. Franklin Richards is much, much better in the Toys style decks than some people seem to think. The boy gets HUGE fast. Absorbing Man is a rock-solid 4-drop option for the Masters of Evil. Just about everyone got something good. Even CS gets a 1-of army character to crush mutant decks.

Quote

5. MXM fails in sealed play(and presumably draft as well?). The traits are horrendous in sealed play. EVERY good plot-twist seems to be trait-stamped. and not everyone will open a, "District X." They seem to hurt the playability of the set because none of the characters can crossover traits themselves(or have dual traits). That would've helped.

To a limited degree I agree with this, I would have liked to see slightly less trait-stamping on at least parts of the PTs for limited play.

Quote

4. Recycled mechanic. Mutant trait is nothing more than willpower for Marvel Characters.

Except that it stays active while stunned, in a deck or hand, etc. A very important difference that makes traits a better mechanic for the long-term life of the game.

Quote

3. Recycled themes. The new teams' strategies seem nothing more than an amalgamation of existing themes: Hellfire Club = Xstatic & MK concealed Brotherhood = Avengers Reservists Moorlocks = Squadron Rush & Spider-friends evasion X-men = what theme?

Hellfire plays nothing like X-Statix. Brotherhood is a grind-through-the-deck version of Reservists, again, playing nothing like Avengers. Morlocks are the team with the newest feel, doing things no other team can do. X-Men expanded BIG TIME on their recovery theme, now actually gaining benefits for characters surviving the turn. They left the discard theme alone to greatly focus on recovery. IMHO, that's a great choice on UDE's part.

Quote

2. Where are the dual-affiliation characters? Or Ally for that matter? I believe this is the first set that does NOT incoporate any mechanics that were introduced in the previous set. UDE was clever enough to squeeze willpower and contstruct into the MAV set. Ally and Dual-Affiliation seems so natural for alot of the characters in MXM. I see ALLY as a team-based mechanic for powerful teams with repeated characters(um, X-men?), and dual affilation fits for a lot of the mutant characters. Yet, they were inexplicably missing. Not enough room on the card is SUUUCH a cop-out!

They explained their reasoning before the set released, and said DA will be back, just not this time. Ally, I dunno. They could have, I suppose, slipped a card or two in with it, but their is not much in the way of power-up abilities in this set.

Quote

1. Lack of focus for the "revisited," teams. Instead of focusing on more specific themes, UDE comes up with a new theme(traits) that further divide the older cards from the new ones. Who is going to splash the old x-men cards with the new ones(or vice versa) when they lack the traits? Instead of refreshing older teams, they've effectively phased them out. It would've been better to introduce 2 NEW teams, than revising X-Men and Brotherhood with the new trait.

I disagree with this point most of all. X-Men have huge focus now. Good luck keeping the X-Men down for long, since they recover monstrously good now, and benefit from it more. My GA X-Deck doesn't focus on traits at all and got a huge boost from this set. When I do make a trait-based deck, it also will have plenty of focus, I am confident. Brotherhood have a different focus, but the stuff they get that helps out both TNB and BBH are fantastic. Just try out Freedom Force and Nth Metal with the massive redundancy in character names now available for BBH power-up madness.

A thousand people already responded. No reason to heap.

general responses:

- about the art. tell me with a straight face, that first time you saw, "X-treme Manuevers," you were thinking, "oh, this is new Alex Garner art!" That's what I'm talking about. The art is a notch below the usual, especially from the vets.

- everharm, i LOVE the muties, thats why im complaining. they deserved better.

- dummarg, MSM and DSM at least tried to empower their characters thru their respective mechanics(evasion and cosmic). strip most of these MXM characters(shinobi, spoor, marrow, etc) of their traits, and they'd still be good characters.

- are you sure the x-men's theme was recovery? i thought it was team attacking... oh wait, no... its energy burn... wait... its removing flight from opposing characters... wait...

- that's EXACTLY what happned. i opened a bunch of plots twists my characters couldn't use. how does that make sealed play fun?

- heres one:

sabretooh, savage killer
cost: 5
ATK: 11
DEF: 8

ALLY: whenever a brotherhood character you control becomes powered-up, instead, it gets +3 ATK. +3 DEF while attacking or defending against a lower-cost character.

- so archangel = lockheed?

- canamrock, i understand that brotherhood reservists do not play like avengers reservists. however, they are both themes based on being reservists. hence, its a recycling of the same theme. i dont mind a recycled theme or two per set. but not EVEN 1 new theme in MXM.

- mr. man, i DO have reasons for bashing. 10 to be precise.

I think angel was killed and alot of other mutants also then archangel hit the scene... I'd have to reread Mutant Masecre to find out.

Every set has its really good art and poor art. The Magneto is kinda' meh, but then cards like Sebastian Shaw have some really great art. I don't know what it's called but the way Sebastian Shaw was inked is really cool.

The new mechanic of the set is different and it will just take some time to figure out the synergies and for those of us not on teams it'll be more challenging but deal with it that's part of the game.

Angel was not killed, but his wings were destroyed.

Many, many other mutants (Morlocks) were killed.