that's accurate, but you CAN use it against the opposing fig's defense to keep it from rising, correct?

Eh, at least you can keep them from getting the +1 to defense every time...

IIRC, The Outsiders does not prevent In Contact with Oracle from being used to raise a figure's stats, since ICwO is a feat, not a power or Team Ability.

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Outsider

For the record, I find this incredibly lame. I'd play Outsider's teams every week if it could negate ICwO.

The reason it doesn't include feats is that so you cannot nullify the negative modifiers from some feats on your own figures. Sure, it sucks that it doesn't effect ICWO, but on the whole, it balances...

Remind me: which feats have negative modifiers that do not also provide a positive modifer? The only ones that come to mind are feats that have both.

Off the top of my head, Divebomb and Homing Device.

Divebomb especially, could be a real pain if you could easily drop the -2 modifier to attack.

Both Divebomb and Homing Device are from sets produced after the introduction of the Outsiders Team Ability...doesn't it make more sense that those cards could have had text on them to take Outsiders into effect?

I'll freely admit my bias here, and stake my claim on the fact that the Outsiders TA was not proof-read or thought out. It could easily be restircted to use against unfriendly figuresonly,and be expanded to cover feats as well. IMO feats are far less important to the game than Team Abilities, there is no reason for feats to trump team abilities, or fules for tournements (hello Thunderbolts)

I vaugly remember a conversation some time ago that I (and others) had with (I believe) BM, and one point that came up was the fact that Outsiders did not affect Feats. The response was that this was intentional for the very reason I stated. Remember, these sets are under developement for up to a year before release, so it is possible that they considered the effects of Outsiders on feats like Divebomb long before we ever saw Divebomb.

Course, I could be high and this conversation was a figment of my imagination....

But the modifiers for Homing Device or Divebomb aren't optional, are they? Seems like that player who declared Outsiders on his Arcangel wouldn't be able to use Divebomb that turn (if the TA could affect feats). The player would just have to be judicious in declaring the ability on his own figures, for which there's not a whole lot of strategic purpose. Well, besides protecting your figures from your opponent's Perplex, but that's kinda spitting into the wind if you don't have enough Outsiders to prevent Perplex from being used on his own figures as well (as Perplex usually is).

Haymaker. +2 damage with no -1 in attack is very nice.

I'm sure you realized this, but if Outsiders would have prevented the -1 AV, it would also have prevented the +2 damage

I frimly believe that PS had that very conversation...I simply refuse to believe that "playtesting" had anything to do with it. Seriously, this is the same group that claims Fastball Special went through the same "playtesting" as In Contact with Oracle.

darn selective logic on my part.