Hello everyone,

I hope we are all having a good day. I ran into a scenario last night that we had a hard time answering due to the new mastermind wording.

2017 Mastermind
When this character would be hit by an opponent’s attack that deals
damage, you may choose an adjacent friendly character that wouldn’t be hit by this attack and
that is less points or shares a keyword. That friendly character instead becomes a hit target of
the attack, even if it’s already a target (or would be an illegal target)

SURROUNDED BY WILLING VICTIMS: Purple Man can use Mastermind. When he does, he may remove a Pheromone token from an opposing character to transfer damage to that character.


Scenario: My opponent targeted Lex Luthor and the Joker who then masterminded the damage to Purple Man who has his special mastermind. The question was, can Purple Man mastermind the damage an additional time to his pheromone targets?

After a long conversation, we ruled that he could mastermind the damage because new mastermind verbiage makes it sounds like he could but as usual with Heroclix we could be wrong!

I would say yes, because Joker makes Purple Man the hit target and then purple man makes the pheromone person the hit target.

Good question! Does "becomes hit" bypass the "would be hit" trigger? You used to be able to chain MM damage and I would think you still can from my best guess, but I've also been wrong and you may need to ask on WIN.

Yes, "Becomes" skips over Mastermind's "would be hit". See "Becomes" on page 15 of the rule book:

In other words, the scenario won't work, Purple Man could not use Mastermind to redirect the damage again.

When you run in to something in Modern Age like Purple Man that very clearly doesn't work quite right under the new rules, your first step should be to check for errata - http://win.wizkids.com/bb/viewtopic....eab19&start=10

You don't Mastermind damage at all anymore. People need to stop saying that. You Mastermind the attack itself, not the damage.

Thanks, I'll try to remember to reference attack from now on.

I'm not seeing why "becomes" overrides the "would be hit". It seems that "becomes" makes the character "would be hit". What am I missing here?

An entry in the rulebook.

You completely skip over "would be hit" and go straight to being "hit". It bypasses "would be hit" triggers entirely.

Alright thanks. I read that entry but it didn't make sense the way I was reading it until you explained it that way. I get it now.

Oh wow, they nerfed him a fair bit. That sucks.

How so? His functionality hasn't actually changed at all. He just had to be reworded to make sense with how MM works now. And MM didn't really get nerfed.

Maybe it looks like it is being nerfed because it added the word "adjacent" to his special power. But the full figure shows that isn't a nerf, since he treats pheromone tokened opponents as adjacent. I changed his defense power to be accurate.

Purple Man
Team: Minions of Doom
Range: 6
Points: 70
Keywords: Thunderbolts, Spy

7 9 16 1

7 8 16 1

6 8 16 1

6 7 15 1

5 7 15 1

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

KO KO KO KO

(Special) Once A Victim, Always Mine To Control: Purple Man considers opposing characters with Pheromone tokens to be adjacent and have a 0 point value for Mastermind purposes.

(Speed) Make You Do Whatever I Want: Purple Man can use Mind Control. When he does, modify his attack value by +3, he doesn't take feedback damage for using it and hit characters are given a Pheromone token.

(Defense) Surrounded By Willing Victims: Mastermind. When Purple Man uses it, he may remove a Pheromone token from an adjacent opposing character, to choose that character instead

Ah! When I played against him he was Masterminding to non-adjacent characters. I guess the standard rules of Mastermind should've still been applied.

That's potentially legal for him.

Looks like all they did was errata the one power to fall in line with new Mastermind and character card wording.

This power is still there:
So when Mastermind says adjacent, his trait says that opposing characters with pheromone tokens count even if not actually adjacent.