I would still like it clarified if an ATA is a team? I'm not worried about the whole force thing, I know it's not. But the ATA itself.

Thanks again.

Your question is unclear.

There are team symbols and team abilities. ATAs give the figures team abilities.

Not according to the team abilities lol. UX-men mentions team ability so i would guess that that it would work against ATAs. 2000 ad is archaic so i would use UX-man as a guideline

I believe what he was asking was if the Ultimate X-Men and 2000 AD team abilities should refer to "characters that can use the chosen team ability" or "characters that possess the chosen team symbol."

And I just noticed for the first time that the current player's guide does spell this out for the Ultimate X-Men.
And I imagine from this it would be reasonable to expect that the 2000 AD team ability would work the same way.
So yes, I believe that both of them would let you declare it against ATA's

Yes sorry, the problem was that it said team and not either team ability or team symbol in the description.

The problem is in the definition of "team". The rulebook defines a team symbol as follows:

TEAM SYMBOL: A symbol printed on a characters base that identifies it as a member of a group and possessing the associated team ability.

I think it is safe to say, "a member of a group" would be defined as "team".

TEAM ABILITIES: Special abilities that a character possesses due to its membership in a group, as indicated by a team symbol printed on the character's base.


As it stands, having a "team ability" granted by a special power, trait or ATA does not qualify those members as a "team".

Along the same lines, a force that shares a common keyword is a theme team....but it is not really a "team" even if the keyword they shared is a team name.

I think we all logically would call them a "team", but by the rules, a team is still defined by a team symbol.

Does this mean that if a wildcard is using the chosen team ability, that Ultimate X-Men works against them as well?

For example:

My V Ult. Cyclops chooses Superman Enemy TA as the target for his Ult. X-Men team ability. Currently, Dr.Sivana and Shimmer are next to each other and Shimmer is copying and using Superman Enemy TA to give Sivana Outwit. Does Cyclops get the +1 AV against Shimmer?

Sure. The wild card is using the TA, after all.

However, nothing prevents the wild card from choosing to not use the TA (or selecting a different TA) at the beginning of the action.

These team abilities have been updated with the latest Player's Guide. First, if it wasn't clear before, they will work against ATAs. (It has been made clear that they relate to team abilities, not team symbols.) Second...

From the Player's Guide:
Ultimate X-Men will work against wild cards using the chosen team ability.

From the Player's Guide:
2000 AD and Alpha Flight will not work against wild cards using the chosen team ability.

Follow up question: If a character using Ultimate X-Men declares Minions of Doom as it's target and attacks a character possessing the Minions of Doom team symbol that last used the Avengers team ability, will it get the bonus?

Indeed. The only reason it is using Avengers in the first place is because it is using its wild card TA.

So from a hypertechnical standpoint, wild cards are often actually using two team abilites at the same time -- their own and the one they are copying.

Sure, that's one way of phrasing it.

Put it another way: let's say a character is made with a special power that prevents characters near it from using wild card TAs (kind of like Immortus' anti-PC power, but for wild cards). If said character can within range/LOF of a wild card that had previously used a TA, would you let it keep using that copied TA?

To answer the question...no. I'm actually in agreement with your original answer. My follow up was just pontificating outloud.