At out the rares, I'm looking at Ulik and Black Knight as potential game changers.

Unlike with the Leadership/Mastermind combo. Having the Asgardian KW means he can use both on the majority of the set. Get him up into the frey with a taxi and just start wrescking house.

Black Knight having Outwit upfront let's him be useful even when not able to attack, and can help offset a bad blades role.

Moonknight will be a figure you will have to play with a little more strategy then just throwing him into the battle and hoping he survives. Force your opponent to deal with him, but with the figures you want attacking him.

I am struck by Thunderstrike(*drum snare)'s design. Decent powers and values, but nothing at all exciting or synergistic.

FYI, we are planning to release SRs on Monday.

Well, that won't be helpful for our two pre-releases this weekend



(That said, seriously, thanks for all the work you guys put into these things )

Ah, rares. I have comments.

The dull-as-dishwater dial design choice of "stitch two different powersets together" really bothers me, especially since the choices of powers themselves typically don't make me think of the characters... that is, remove the keywords and names and it would be hard to guess what character the dial was supposed to represent. This set's Baron Zemo looks particularly unimaginative compared to Zemo's of the past.

I don't want to be completely negative on this point, as there is an inherent issue with a dial-turning/power-revealing design that any given character might never see "the cool stuff", but the alternate choice of "never including cool stuff" is not the fix.

A tried-and-true strategy for me in sealed events (using 5-figure boosters) was always to give the rare figures (from 2 boosters) serious consideration... for long stretches of the game, it was usually the rares that did a better job of both dishing out and taking damage, with occasional (misfires ?) of rare figures that were niche support pieces. For good or for bad: the rare dials (as a group) don't appear to be significantly better that commons or uncommons... I don't intend to make this all about "rarity = playability", it's just that what I see as a general lack of imaginative dial design across the board has worked against variety in team-building. I've got a bias, and what I see is pushing me further into the corner of "we get too many figures in a set, if this is what we are going to get." (see also dull, reused sculpts)

I won't be playing any sealed events with this set, so I find myself looking at the characters first and then studying the dials.

Characters I'm interested in because I play certain teams and new costed figures will help, or because I imagine myself building teams with certain characters: Wrecker, Wrecker, Throg, Frog Thor, Valkyrie, Thunderstrike. To a minor extent some sneak in because I am interested in the Asgardians of the Galaxy, but let's be honest that the time for that team has long past, no matter how much fun it was.

There are a handful of characters that might fit "easier" on teams with the new low-budget dials, but I'm not in a big hurry to build teams with: Thor (Jane), Moon Knight, Black Knight.

There are a couple of characters that just look like their purpose for existing is to be a meta PITA: Mary Jane, possibly King Ulik. I especially think the 40-point Mary Jane is going to bring all sorts of insanity, especially in "Silver Age" events. She has a mechanism for turning teams that otherwise wouldn't qualify for a theme team bonus into theme teams (ehem, Horsemen of HoX Apocalypse, because why wouldn't Apocalypse recruit Q to his team?)

Everything else is in the *shrug* category for me, with some sinking to the bottom. 031 Thor is basically a double-niche dial for me. Shifting Focus always struck me as being adjacent to surrendering the concept of worthwhile dials, and a (low cost, low offense) Baron Zemo with Telekinesis and Mastermind seems like such a poor combination of powers. The character deserves better than to be a Modern version of "Rookie Jean Grey". I'm supposed to believe this is a rare-worthy piece? The Wasp and Captain Marvel dials just bore me.

With my luck in pulls, I can already sense that I will end up with multiples of Baron Zemo and (unique) Thor... while missing a piece like Mary Jane, which I absolutely would try to abuse for keyword purposes. I'll also be getting broken sculpts of Valkyrie. If I end up with multiples of King Ulik, I'll pretty much just treat them all as Rock Troll 'generics' for swarm purposes.

Got to actually play a pre-release today and put all this theory-crafting to practice.

Ended up going with R Captain Marvel despite my reservations. She was an all-star game 1, unceremoniously dropped in the first turn of combat game 2, and turned in a decent performance game 3. All-in-all I feel reasonably justified in the 3/5 Too Dangerous to Live assessment.

Adding to the discussion, in that same prerelease I pulled Exiles Valkyrie and was very pleased with her performance against everyone except chase She-Hulk backed by dark blue Cap, common Widow, and Black Knight. Many enemies once next to her couldn't hurt her without a crit hit, especially if I could position well against outwit/penetrating damage, which was made easier with SR Daredevil. But this is about Valkyrie. She's great and I look forward to using her on Exiles and Asgardian teams.

The Rares hold some possibilities for my collection.

I think Moon Knight is a solid candidate and like the chances with other pulls.

Wasp intrigues me in so far as she is the same dial we always get and yet the small / medium / large is something I kinda want to play with.

Pretty much agree with all the other suggestions. I don't think I'd ever run Zemo at 75 - even in constructed which kinda bums me out.