It was recently brought up by a new player to our group that he thought you could use the regular use of Perplex (targeting only 1 friendly character) in addition to the use of Perplex/Brilliant Tactician (targeting like keywords/TA). My understanding of the wording on the card was that Brilliant Tactician IS your use of Perplex. Could someone confirm or deny this, please?

that's right - you can either use regular perplex, or Brilliant Tactician everyone - but not BOTH at the same time. you can't raise everyone's DV up, then perplex someone's AV. You can only do one or the other. I can think of few occasions where you would only want to affect one character, though.

Brilliant Tactician

Prerequisites: Outwit and Perplex

Choose a character.

Outwit does not need to show in the character's stat slot in order for the character to use this feat.

When the character uses Perplex, the character can affect every target friendly character that shares a team symbol or keyword with it. The character must have a clear line of fire to each target.

So, when you use Perplex, that activates the rest of the description. However, the FAQ does go in to a bit more detail:

Q: Can a character with Brilliant Tactician use Perplex on a target friendly character to increase a combat value and then affect that same combat value on the same target character using Brilliant Tactician?
A: No. The use of Brilliant Tactician is all one instance of Perplex. Brilliant Tactician modifies the use of Perplex so that it can affect multiple characters that share a team ability with the character that is assigned Brilliant Tactician.

What this means is that the most effective use of BT is to target a character with Perplex that wouldn't normally be targettable by the umbrella that is Brilliant Tactician, using that Perplex to activate the rest of the BT description.

For example, your team really needs to hit KC Flash and his monster 20 DV. You could use Perplex on one of your character's AVs, activating BT and Perplexing up all other qualified character's AVs... or you could target Flash with Perplex, decreasing his DV to 19, and use BT to increase the AV of all the qualified characters (essentially gaining a +2 to try and hit Flash). Keep in mind that BT is still Perplex, so the first character that actually hits and damages the Flash (thus turning his dial) will cause the Perplex on Flash to end (sometimes that first hit is all you need, though ).

This is what I thought.

But this confuses me. Can the same character use Perplex twice, one targeting an opposing character and once using BT on friendly charcters.
(Best Travolta imitation) I'm so CONFUSED!

No. At least, not quite the way you are describing it.

Per the FAQ, that first usage of Perplex and all subsequent uses allowed by BT are all the same use of Perplex. You don't ever use it twice.

However, since you need to use Perplex in the first place to even activate the feat, you can use Perplex (which activates the feat) on an opposing character (or friendly character that does not share a TA or keyword) and then allow BT to cover the rest of your applicable characters. This is still that one usage, but clever application of that activating Perplex essentially lets you squeeze an extra target out of BT.

But since it is all still one usage, there is no double-dipping (as your new player tried to do). Only one Perplex per character.

That's clearer. Thanks, NV