Where in the wildcard team ability does it say that they need to have a keyword in common with the character they're copying from? It doesn't, they can copy any team ability unless it says otherwise. The ATAs (as they stand now) do not say they cannot be copied. Thus, they can be copied with the WC team ability as of the 12th of this month.

In fact, it would be silly for them to copy the ability if they had the keyword prerequisite....

Because if they had the keyword prerequisite...

they'd alread have the team ability from the ATA card. (All ATA cards apply to all characters with the keyword - you cannot pick and choose who gets the new TA and who does not)

From ATA rules discussion:
Mechanically, ATAs will no longer replace existing team abilities – they will be additional abilities that the qualifying characters can use.

Is there an example of this using what we already have/know? All of the ATA's I've seen say to use this (ATA) ability INSTEAD of the original TA.

No, I am pretty sure all the ATAs are replacement team abilities now. But when the BN rules take effect, OOTS Batman will be able to have his own TA and the JLI TA, which could make taking OOTS Batman down all the tougher.

IIRC, the popular hypothesis is that all of the existing ATAs will most likely receive new wording and/or point values to accomodate the new rules regarding them.

How so?

Justice League International

All characters on your force w/ at least one of the prereq keywords are assigned this feat and have the following team ability instead of any other TA:
When a character that possesses this team ability would be dealt damage, you can instead choose to reduce damage dealt by 1 if you deal 1 unavoidable damage to a friendly character that possesses this team ability and is adjacent to the first character.

Interesting. So until rewording of said feats, this change (which may be significant) is beyond discussion/evaluation?

So can Batman TA no longer be copied? It sounds like you're saying it can't be copied at all, because it makes any ranged attacks on my character illegal. When would I have to declare Batman TA to give my character stealth, but not make their action illegal?

When your WC performs an action of its own, it can copy the Batman TA, e.g., when given a move action (intending to move into hindering) you'd copy the Batman TA to benefit from Stealth when you arrive in hindering terrain.

No that is not the case. You would just need to declare the TA is copied with an action before the action targeting that character. Say another character on your team is targeted. Your wild card that is not targeted may change to batman TA at that time.

From page 16 of the new rules:

"A wild card may change the team ability it is using (or choose not to use a team ability) to any team ability possessed by a friendly character when an action is declared by any player but before the action begins."

"A wild card retains its most recently used team ability until it uses another team ability, chooses not to use a team ability, or until after the resolution of an action during which all characters whose team ability the wild card is using are defeated or removed from the battlefield."

You could declare that your wildcards are adopting the Batman TA during your own turn, or you could declare that your characters are adopting the Batman TA during one of your opponent's actions (even a free action!) so long as it would not render the action illegal.

Example: Your opponent is using Perplex to modify another member of his force. You could adopt the Batman TA when your opponent declares he's using Perplex. The TA would then be in effect when your opponent declares his next action, so he couldn't target your wildcards with a ranged attack.

-J

They are stronger and always have been. If you have multiple team abilities on your force, any wildcard will be able to use any of them and, thus, better than any one of them.

Not all team abilities are created equally. Power Cosmic is a better team ability than Batman Ally or Mystics, both of which are relatively powerful, desirable team abilities. Meanwhile, Injustice League is a joke. I've been playing Heroclix since Cosmic Justice and I have never, NEVER seen Injustice League actually used. JLA/Avengers used to be good, but has slowly become less useful as the average piece cost rose and the point builds of the game did likewise.

We may not actually know how WK creates costs for these pieces, but I think it's generally recognized that Wildcard is an expensive team ability, with wildcard pieces generally being a little weaker than other figures in their price range, when you don't count team abilities. This is an ongoing source of frustration for me as I'm a huge Legion fan and that team being stuck with wildcard, and the lack of possibilities for giving them something to copy, drives me nuts. The ATA for Legion doesn't nearly make up for the expense of the wildcard ability on the piece that I can't use. (I'm deeply afraid that when they rework for print-and-play the old ATAs, they'll stick a cost on the Legion ATA and make the team even-more-screwed-than-it-currently-is. Maybe if they gave it a negative cost...)

There is no reason to expect all team abilities to be created equally. If WK was flatly assigning, so, ten points to the cost of any figure that has a team ability, then that would be the case, but it's pretty clear they are not and never have been.

The Legion of Super-Heroes is a good example; without the wildcard, many of those figures are laughably weak when compared to others in their point range. Not every wildcard is as capable as Dr. Doom.

Long time lurker? Welcome to HCR.

In my last tournament, though, I played an undefeated Legion team with the ATA. The ironic thing here is, I never used the ATA once during the tournament either. Nobody took Vet Origins M'onel out the entire time. This means that I might as well have left them as wildcards with nothing to copy. This is the first time in years of trying that I've ever had a LSH team do well at a tournament.

Sort of. I tried signing up for HCRealms many, many years ago, about the same time I got started judging... I don't remember when that was, but I still have my complete set of City of Heroes/Villains pieces they gave out for Judge support, so that should give you some hint. But when I tried to sign in and do the "we'll send you an email, click the link or give us the code or whatever" rigmarole, something went off and the effort crashed. Since then, whenever I tried to sign up again, the machine told me I couldn't because my email address was already a member. But when I tried to use my "already a member" account, it told me I couldn't because I hadn't set a password or something. I sent several emails, but never got any response, and eventually gave up, except to try again every six months or so. I gave that up eventually as well.

When I heard that the rules arbitrator was posting here, I tried again, and it let me in with no problem. *shrug* But you can't get rid of me now!

I never really lurked here. Reading conversations I can't participate in? GAAAA! Couldn't you just beat me up or something less painful?

It does seem a bit random occasionally - some people join with zero problems, other people can never get it to work and take out their rage on Facebook.