Thanks! Rep!

ignoring Drax and Gamora? Adam Strange? or are you just being really strict with 'current'?

Both groups of the Guardians of the Galaxy are thematically appropriate for this feat. It features artwork of the old Guardians, and was introduced in a set that contains the new Guardians. It is clearly intended for both.

Considering that the new Guardians travelled into the future and teamed up with the old Guardians (with the exception of Aleta, I guess), I have no problem mixing these two teams.

It original Guardians are perfectly thematic for the feat.

Statements like that undermine your argument like whoa.

While it does make Phyla-Vell seem a little broken-ish on her own, when you factor in the keyword bonus your team receives, PLUS your entire force being impossible to Outwit, it definitely seems like a conscious game-balance decision. It's not like they retroactively removed the figure's Willpower: they've simply made it not apply when she is used on a specific keyword-based team with a specific Feat card.

And on a purely comic-accurate level, Phyla-Vell has never wielded The Power Cosmic anyway. Having a big old Galactus-head on her base doesn't make sense for the character in the first place.

He asked about characters that he missed. He already mentioned those three.

FYI, it is Adam Warlock

I'm sorry if this is a silly question (if it is then feel free to give me a silly answer in return) but has Wizkids ever gone back and given characters keywords that they did not have before? Is it possible that they could update the keyword list such that Gamora and Drax (and others) get the Guardians of the Galaxy keyword?

Any set before Avengers was given retroactive keywords.

Also, Seth Johnson (the game designer before the break and recently revealed re-hire) stated with the advent of keywords that the keywords on the card were meant for official tournament play only and he in fact encouraged Judges to make changes/allow exceptions/house rule stuff in local events.

Unfortunately, that was never added into the official documentation. It didn't really need to be as it was not covered by the section of those documents covering what cannot be house-ruled. However, it was shortly after that that house-rules were not allowed in organized play.

But today, the position is to PLAY PLAY PLAY. Venues should do whatever they feel serves the needs of their Heroclix players. Obviously, it is recommended that where your rules may differ from what a player might expect that you make it available in some way, but that's just good sense.

Regarding the current trend in the thread, I really like the allowance of a judge to freely allow Keywords to be applied where deemed appropriate, pretty much across the board... except in cases like this [also the Runaways ATA], where actual, quantifiable and probably expensive effects trigger off of keywords. Maybe that's why I'm not a huge fan of ATAs working off of Keywords... it sort of serves to undermine the whole "keywords are essentially free, do with them as you will" vibe I was hoping would take prevalence. Although you're still paying for the ATA, so I guess it's a wash.

the way I do it is to say "yeah, that is a theme team." I don't assign keywords to characters outside of the lists, but I do give out theme team status to teams that do not have a common keyword... if I have good cause.

In regards to this, I don't have much of a problem with ATAs (as you pointed out, you pay the feat cost). However, other feats like Inside Information could be problematic.

Say, for example, I've got Inside Info on Wolverine and let's say I want to make a current X-Force theme team with X-23, Archangel, Wolfsbane, and Warpath. The Judge allows it. Now, we can assume that Inside Info would work okay against Shatterstar and Cable and the like, but what happens I play against a team that has another version of Angel or Wolverine? Maybe you could make an argument that depending on other keywords, one version of the character is clearly not applicable. Fair enough, but it also seems kind of silly to have to go through each opposing team and say, "And how about this one? Any exceptions?"


I guess what I am trying to say is if you are going to allow alternative keywords as a Judge, you should probably make some kind of list ahead of time with any changes/additions and have this list freely available for your players to access. Avoid making on the spot additions to the list as it could potentially play havoc with another player's team build or strategy.

That's fine, then perhaps they shouldn't have given her the very expensive Power Cosmic TA in the first place. Again, in my eyes, a blunder by GD or play test (if that even exists anymore) or whomever.

I agree with this. The only exception to this that I really liked was one judge who offered any keywords (even ones that don't exist) so long as you could bring the comic that proved the team worked together (not appeared together - actually worked together).