The most significant difference to me, is if you pay 120/80/75 points for a figure, you are then tasked with the challenge of keeping them safe until they are useful, and keeping them safe after that as well so they don't return all their own points back to the opponent. These are characters that have (arguably) been balanced and made a significant sacrifice in defense to boost their offense to extremes.

With the ID cards, you don't have to keep them safe until they are useful, and you only need to keep them safe for 1 turn after they are. Which is easy if the opponent is pushed and/or they kill/devastate him.

And then you can use the other 115/75/70 points for a character that hasn't traded all their defensive value for offense.

Their only real drawback is the guaranteed loss of 5 points, but since these amazing figs can with near certainty kill or completely ruin figures that are over 150 points in a single shot,(and their owner presumably knows not to summon them until then) then who really cares.

So you get all of the offense of a full point fig, all of the defense of only existing for 1 turn, and at a point cost that is a pitiful fraction of actually playing the figure.

The value of this is telling in the fact that all of the most overpowered ones, are long ranged snipers, that get past extreme defense, don't have any kind of move/attack, and ignore all but 1 thing for line of fire.
They are silver bullets for everyone, who don't have to be kept alive, and get summoned in position.

Playing Nick Fury/Cosmic Spider-man/Green Arrow/Atom at 120/75/80/15 points would be a strategic choice. Playing them at 5 points is a no-brainer. They would still be present on teams to be sure, but wouldn't be nearly as ubiquitous as the present. And few if any teams would have them all.

If I'm actually playing Nick Fury himself he does have certain weaknesses. He's not especially mobile, not nearly as stout defensively and with knowledge of his dial you can take him off his special damage power.

As an ID call in though those weaknesses are minimized or eliminated. Mobility is not an issue, he isn't getting called in until a character is already in his sites and about to get lit up. Can't really try and hit him off his power before he gets to use it when he's not on the map until your opponents turn and uses it immediately.

Once again I would reiterate they are nowhere near the problem most resources or teambases were in my eyes. But by letting players run meta staples for the bare minimum cost/risk they do rob the game of a great deal of diversity. I wish they weren't setting up for another round of them in the next X-men set and I especially wish they hadn't removed the beginning of turn restriction on them.

Random thought.

Remember when flier could carry fliers... and then be given an action the same turn?

Thats what ID is close to. But with less risk. Fewer cost. And you can safely do it almost any time you want.

Power action to bring in someone who can then be given an action to do anything.
Move action to carry someone who can then be given an action to do anything.

one was deemed bad for the game. the other is deemed okay for 1/60th of the build

But my idea has a problem: nick fury and green arrow aren't so good to be prime when they aren't id card.
So an idea could be create a new category of character, drawing a ring on them (for example orange ring) that says: you can't have more than 1 orange ring character in your sideline as id character.
orange ring shouldn't be a rarity, but just a limitation(as unique and title character)

I think the best choice would be to specifically name the ID card call ins.

ie: "Batman ID" can ONLY call in BM001 Batman.

Not TW, not WkD016, not anything except that one specific numbered character.

Says who???

If Nick Fury isn't good enough to be a prime I'm not really sure who is

If nick fury was so strong when he isn't an id character, we would see him on the field, in a lot of team. but we see him on all the team only as an id character.
so he isn't so strong when he starting the game on the field.

I don't think the fact that people would rather pay 5 points for a figure instead of 120 is at all a knock against the figure itself. Nor is the standard for being a prime completely overturning the highest level of competition. We've got 32 modern primes right now and only 1 is really throwing his weight around at the highest level of competition

*And for the record I've seen a Nick Fury played one the field sans ID card make top 8 twice now just at the events I've been at

I feel this is a false correlation.

Just because he is X doesnt mean can't also be Y.

Because of the ability to use him as a 5 point character that carries no risk and can be used almost any time does not mean he is bad at full value. It means you get a character that good at 5, but can still use equally good characters that you can't call in.

Like this.
(going to make up numberes)

I can make a team with Nick and 2 others at 285 and get 3 ID cards.

Or

I can use characters that are either harder to use as ID or can't but are just as good.
So instead i choose to use 2 of the equally good, and one of the ID is Nick in addition to other ID cards that still let me use him offensively when I want.

The obvious answer would be to use him as an ID so I can still use him, but now for 5 points instead of normal price

No, that's not right. Using an ID card is now a power action, which is non-free, which means that someone cannot be carried in, then on the same turn be given a power action to use an ID card. Also, the called-in character cannot be carried.

The big changes to the ID card rules are:
- it's no longer at the beginning of the turn
- the caller-in doesn't need to have zero action tokens.

Those are significant, but they're still not as bad as you're thinking they are. Certainly not "flyers carrying flyers who are then given non-free actions".

... Maybe i didn't explain my point well enough...

I was saying the cost to use the ID character for 5 points is similar to how it used to be with fliers carrying fliers and action after carrying.

The cost for both is a single action token.

In the flier scenario you carried someone in, then they could do something

In the ID cards... you give the same power action and drop in someone who can do anything. One was determined bad for the game and change.

ID cards work in a similar method. A power action to bring in someone who can do anything.

...not that you should call in then carry

Maybe id card should work as before
At the beginning of the turn
Zero token on id caller.
Both Or only one of these

I agree that the ID card mechanic is very powerful for very low cost. I'm fine with it, though, in the context of all the other low-cost, very powerful non-figure elements.

The key difference I'm seeing, and where I'm disagreeing, is that the ID card mechanic is a static action. The flyers-carrying-flyers thing is a move across the map and attack action. This one, to me, is nowhere near as potent. Everything with the ID card has to be done in place, in one turn. That's potent, but manageable.

The real problem I have, which seems to be the real crux of the issue, are the handful of over-powered and under-costed figures used with ID cards (Balls of Fury, Green Arrow, etc) Aside from those particular abusive figures, I don't know that the ID card mechanic has caused any real heartburn.

Another thing that's part of my thinking on this, is that most ID card-eligible characters aren't game-breaking. Some are effective, yes, like A-Bomb (Rick Jones ID), Nightwing, Black Canary, or certain Iron Man, but they're rarely effective to where it destroys the game's balance. Potent for the cost, yes certainly. But in my experience, not many call-in figures are that potent. They're typically support figures, or they give a ranged fighter a one-turn melee option, or vice-versa. Also, we can all do it. We can all spend five points to have an ID card on our teams, so in that sense it's easily balanced.

And there's also the point that those particular call-ins (Balls of Fury, Iron Man, etc) have high point costs, which means you're either unable to call them in at all, or your high point cost characters are spending an action using an ID card, not using their own powers. Plus, that character often can't move to safety, or use Regen, or something important like that. So if your call-in attack isn't effective, then they're both vulnerable to counterattack. So it's generally a trade off that has to be carefully considered.

Another side to fuel the abusive pieces called in, I challenge anyone to name 1 Colossus worth bringing into the fight. Or really any past X-men for a single turn.

Sure, we won't know what the new set holds for quite a while, but honestly, was anyone seriously wishing this entire time that we could call in professor x?

Yes, for one turn, especially if this guy shares a keyword, which he quite possibly will, given the kinds of figures I like to play. Granted, he has to be in your starting area, but still.



Then there are these guys, to name a few:





She's not an X-Man, but close enough. She's a mutant: