Well, being I rambled on about the Legion cards I thought I'd go ahead and muse a bit about their opposite number as well. This time though instead of placing the characters alphabetically, I think I'm going to try grouping them by drops.

1-DROPS:

*Daxamites: Okay, I'll just get it out of the way - will someone please explain to me how individuals that are the physical equivalent of Superman are 1/1? They are Army and I guess there are a few non-Future Foe decks where they might pop up plus there's the potential fun of using them with the Fatal Five, but, overall, I'm not terribly impressed with them.

*Emerald Eye: In a similar vein to the Daxamites, we have one of the most powerful sentient artifacts in the DCU...as a 1-drop. :) It fares better though as a 2/3 flier. It does have the standard Fatal Five clause but as we'll discuss later that's not necessarily as bad as it first seems. Considering the Eye can pound through pretty much any 1-drop and fare well against a few 2-drops, it can lend its weight where needed. Just remember - if you use it, you have to build the deck around the Fatal Five clause or you will die horribly to board control.

*Ra's<>Leland McCauley: Concealed 1-drop with an alternate recruit cost means this guy may see some play in most Future Foes builds. Where he can really shine is with the Fatal Five - bounce him to your hand and if your opponent can't discard, get ready to watch that breakthrough start building up. It also works nicely with some of the other breakthrough themes of the Future Foes - such as Dominated - meaning I can easily see this as a staple

*The Blight: Well, its' power is likely to only come into play on the first turn or two but that may be some of the most crucial time, especially against the Toolbox builds that are out there. In a way, removing cards from a deck is very much like the Future Foes discard theme - it prevents the opponent from having access to needed cards. Taking out a win-condition card on turn one may not be a bad thing. May have to experiment with these guys a bit. Just remember though that the breakthrough has to be on a character - not just straight to the opponent's noggin which is a bit of a drawback.

2-DROPS:

*Computer<>Mr. Venge: Concealed so you can get multiple uses of his ability. It's an ability that definitely is only going to be appropriate in certain decks as you are handing a type of board control to your opponent. On the other hand, it does work somewhat nicely with Fatal Five gang-beatdown to start wracking up the endurance loss. Still, I can think of more important cards to fit into such a deck.

*Emerald Empress: Become one of the most famous mass-murderers and serial killers in the 31st century and get yourself relegated to a 2-drop. Ah well, such is life. :) Standard Fatal Five clause on her and her stats - 4/4 - aren't too much above average for a 2-drop (though the Range helps). If you don't mind waiting 'til turn 3, she does go and recruit the Eye as well for you.

*Saturn Queen: If you're going to be playing Fatal Five Bullies, Saturn Queen might, oddly, be a better choice than Emerald Empress. She sits back in her nice concealed corner and prevents that character that just got repeatedly pounded on from getting up off the pavement. Sure, your opponent may not have lost a character but that character is useless the next turn unless the opponent discards. Eventually your opponent does run out of cards to discard. She also works nicely with, well, most any other Future Foes build. Probably my 2-drop of choice for the team.

*Tarik the Mute: The reverse of Joystick - he's likely going to start out with an average sized body for a 2-drop but it's not long before he gets up to 4-drop size. Futue Foes have the means to do it and in some builds he might be better than Eve (Saturn Queen) but I'm still tending towards her as the better 2-drop.

3-DROP:

*Brainiac-4: Ah, Brainy's mother - while he's out helping a team to gain cards, she's ensuring opponents will be discarding. Her 6 ATK is just fine for a 3-drop and while some might balk at her low DEF of 3, it works nicely for her as it allows her to trigger that Vengeance on either attack or defense. Go ahead, try swinging up the curve into her or watch as she collides with your 2-drop - you'll pay the price for it. Not altogether bad but, unfortunately for her, there are a few Future Foes that might be better choices.

*Cosmic King: Speak of the devil. A concealed attacker is always nice (and if you decide to make him Visible, he's got range). 5/4 aren't bad stats for a 3-drop and here's the kicker: as long as you can keep a cosmic counter on him (which oddly means he might work better with the LSH than the LSV), he gives your opponent a nice Catch-22: turn the King into a 7/6 or chuck a card. There are only so many times that can happen and if you play things right, you can keep that counter on him for awhile (namely by keeping him Concealed and using him appropriately).

*Dominators: Interestingly, they're not Army. The effect is very nice - if they breakthrough, it freezes the character for the next turn. Fairly vanilla in a lot of ways compared to other Future Foes though but it does help ensure you causing some continued breakthrough as it wrecks havoc on reinforcement possibilities.

*Tharok: Standard Fatal Five clause but a nice 6/6 ranged body on the 3-drop; these days there are worse drawbacks than the Fatal Five clause just to get a character like that. More importantly, he's particularly vicious if you decide to play Fatal Five Bullies and you use his boost - each time that character recovers (which means every time a Fatal Five member stuns it), it's getting another -2 DEF. Can you say BEL build-up? If you're going to try the Bully build, he's key to it.

*Time Trapper: A cosmic level entity - and also the First and Last Legionnaire (hi Rokk!) - and he ends up a 3-drop...seeing a trend here? :) That said, his ability is cruel to anyone who tries to tutor which is, oh, most top tier decks these days. True, you have to keep him Visible for that to work which means you may not get to use him a lot of turns but while he's out, he makes your opponent pay for searching their deck. Interestingly, he's also protection against cards like Pan, Atrophos and the Blight - notice it doesn't say whose deck the opponent searches. :)

4-DROP:

*Glorith: The prodigy of the Time Trapper and Mordru so it's appropriate that her powers are related to aging effects, in this case rejuvenation. Typical stats for a 4/4 - though Flight is always nice - and she gets Willpower...lesse, Willpower plus Life Gain...there might be a deck out there that likes her. ;) Even teamed with the other Future Foes she's a nice Catch-22 for your opponent (as long as she has her cosmic counter): either you gain 4 Endurance or they pitch a card. When every drop so far has made them force to choose whether or not to pitch a card, eventually they run out of choices.

*Lightning Lad: The last of the LSV core and the elder brother of Live Wire and Spark, Mekt is a straight-forward type an it shows in his card: you have a choice - either you outright pitch a card or his 7/7 Ranged Flying form is 9/9. Combines very nicely with his compatriots.

*Mano: Fatal Five clause. 8/8 for a 4-drop so just a bit above average (and still stunnable by an opposing 4-drop...but Fatal Five shouldn't be going after the biggest drop on your opponent's side of the field). If you drop him turn five via boost, he cuts Eve (Saturn Queen) some slack for the turn. Again, only use him if you're trying Bullies.

*Starfinger: A whopping 10 ATK (and average 8 DEF) on this 4-drop, Char does come with a bit of what seems like a drawback at first: when he hits the field, if your opponent has a character of 3-drop or less in hand, your opponent can plunk down the character for free. Now initially that seems bad - more board presence for your opponent. Here's the deal though: Future Foes have already been whittling down your opponent's hand, so he may very well not have that extra character handy. If he does have it handy, he has to choose whether he puts it down - and knowing that Char can blow straight through it - and be down a card that could be pitched to stop a Future Foe effect, or keep the card for future discard and thus allowing you to put a rather nasty ranged attacker into play. Drawback doesn't seem so bad now does it?

5-DROP:

*Atrophos: Everything I said earlier about the Blight more-or-less pertains to Atrophos here: he starts making choices harder for your opponent (if he gets breakthrough on a character) by limiting what cards they'll be drawing. An 11-ATK has a decent chance of doing some breakthrough. Normally turn 5 means you may be running out of chances to stop your opponent from plunking down a good PT/Location/etc. that he needs for some important turn as by that point there's a good chance he has one in hand already - at least against normal decks; Future Foes may very well mean your opponent is nearing top-deck mode to try and get an important card and Atrophos can stop that from happening.

*Computo: Standard body - though 10 ATK is just fine for a 5-drop - but his ability works rather nicely. If he causes breakthrough - and by now I think we've learned the Future Foes need to work their synergy to make that happen - your opponent is down a card and you're up a card. Probably my 5-drop of choice in most Future Foe builds though pretty closely tied with the next card.

*Ra's-al-Ghul: 9/9 for 5 is fairly average these days and there's no Flight or Range but Ra's does offer one rather nasty Catch-22: Opponent chucks a card - if they have extras available by this point - or suddenly all that breakthrough you were hoping to do with your Future Foes becomes much much easier.

*Validus: Here comes my gripe again - a being that is physically impossible to beat (immune to magical attacks, immune to mental attacks, immune to physical attack) and is capable of absolutely beatsticking Andromeda, Mon-el and Ultra Boy into the ground simultaneously...and he's a 5-drop. Now, he's a 5-drop with a decent 12/10 body (but where's the Range?!?) but I think most people familiar with Validus expected more from him. Standard Fatal Five clause but he does come with a rather nasty Boost that helps make up for his disappointing stats: remember all those repeated recoveries the Fatal Five are causing? A boosted Validus means each time that bullied character recovers, it cause endurance loss equal to the character's cost. So if a 3-drop recovers, say, 4-5 times in a turn from the Bullies that's an extra 12-15 pts dmg on turn 6 (plus the 12-15 that happened each time the character was stunned plus whatever breakthrough you've been causing). That's how the Fatal Five works: they gang-up and bully the beejeezus out of some poor shmuck. Now, is it appropriate that the five most dangerous killers in the galaxy - Validus alone has single-handedly destroyed planets - all pick on one guy together? Eh, maybe not...but it does mean once they start in on some guy it becomes...well, Fatal.

6-DROPS:

*Mordru: Last time you'll hear this complaint but again, I'm surprised that a cosmic-level being is so low in capability (on the bright side it at least means I get to see these guys in play and maybe that's just as important). Decent body of 13/12 and Flight/Range plus willpower. Cosmic effect may or may not be handy at that point of the game based on how much endurance you have (and the fact that the opponent may not really have the cards for you to snag anyway). Remember you can always just pay 0 for a free look (and maybe snag a 0-cost card).

*Ol-Vir: 13/11 Flying Ranged body so not quite as good as Mordru. Also his ability is the one time your opponent may not care so much about the discard effect as it just means Ol-Vir becomes Invulnerable. True, that saves you 6 SEL each time they decide not to discard and depending on how close the game is that may be pertinent but it's certainly not as nasty a choice as some of the other Catch-22's from the Future Foes.

*Persuader: Standard Fatal Five clause and I babbled back with Validus about how that works. Persuader is the biggest of the five - inappropriately enough (though an Axe that does cut -anything- is rather handy) - and is even capable of swinging up the curve or being moderately safe swinging into a fellow 6-drop. He's more likely to be seen swinging into a lower drop (that just keeps getting stuck recovering from the Bullies) for some vicious breakthrough damage.

7-DROPS:

*Shrinking Violet: I like her. It's quite possible that by turn 7 you've wrecked enough damage on your opponent that they may end up being without a hand in which case she's a ranged flying 19/17 body which is just downright cruel. If you've been drawing Emerald Eyes it gets even worse - you can help enforce them having that empty hand. An excellent 7-drop for the Catch-22 build.

*Universo: 16/15 Ranged with Willpower isn't half bad (there are enough Willpower users in Future Foes it's well worth taking a look at some Willpower support for them). His ability is for the Future Foes breakthrough theme in that if he breaksthrough, he's taking out two characters with one swipe. It's not an unfamiliar ability to the game but that doesn't mean it's a bad ability.

8-DROP:

*The Composite Man: Well, I guess as someone who got a custom Heroclix mod of the Composite Superman I shouldn't complain at the inclusion, even if it's the Durlan version here. 20/20 Flight and Range is fair for an 8-drop (bigger than some and not really smaller than most any other) and his ability is definitely meant for the breakthrough build. Here's the thing though - if you've been playing a heavy Breakthrough theme should you really be hitting Turn 8? Chances of this guy seeing play seem fairly minimal.

PT's, Locations, and Equipment will have to wait until another post - you're all spared for now :) - but a few thoughts on the Future Foes. Initially the Fatal Five seems bad, and they might very well be, but I feel there's potential for what I'm calling the Bully build. There are some rather nasty PT's out there that help the Fatal Five pull that off even better. The breakthrough theme is nice but it seems like it has to combine with one of the other two themes - Bully or Catch-22 - to really be at its' best or, rather, help them be at their best. Catch-22 is definitely the one that strikes me as the funnest to play and can get downright vicious, especially if supported by the breakthrough antics. There's some strong potential with this team and it should be interesting to see where it goes.

I think EvilDave said it the best: They would of been SO much better if they had a bit of grave manipulation.

Soulworld and Swamp make a mess of the deck, as well as Myx and Phantom. If they had a couple of cards that removed stuff from the grave, then I could say they are great.

The only way to make them better is to add Mephisto (5). He <3's Future foes.

First of all, quit griping about the Fatal Five not all being 8-drops. Yeah, it's not reflective of their actual power level. Then again, I wanted to build a Teen Titans West deck after this set, but, unfortunately, they're almost all between 5-8 drops, making the early game kinda rough. I'd much rather have misrepresented characters that spread across the board then characters correctly represented but all at the higher costs.

Second of all, on Atrophos, you say they may already have the key card "in hand", but I believe he lets you search their hand, too. Not to mention the fact that he's got a higher attack, so, compared to Computo, I'd prefer him. Maybe that's just me, though.

Otherwise good review of the characters.

One thing I can definately say ...

The Legion of the Damned and more importantly, the location that gives you a benefit for having more cards in hand than your opponent [-1 Def to opposing defenders and flight for your characters] is probably one of the keys to the Bully build. Lacking flight is a BIG pain in the butt, especially when you can't attack THROUGH certain characters.

I'd have to check, but if a character exhausts to reinforce a character can an effect be chained to make it so that character can't reinforce other characters [or to strip the team affiliation of the defender?]

Flight helps the bully build a lot. You can make one character unable to reinforce [a support row guy] then be able to attack a character next to it, stunning [and exhausting it] stun a character in front of it, and finally a character in front of the first support row character you stunned. That's quite a bit of breakthrough.

Empress is definately a bad drop, both Computo and Saturn Queen are better in the Fatal Five build than the actual Fatal Five character [although if you can get some copies of Ravaged, that could obviously change things]. The funniest part is if you can pull off something like Ravaged or Fugit, etc to stonewall attacks with teh Fatal Five ... as you get to basically 'use up' their drawback while defending, giving you good options to swing back with and maybe even cause their characters to die.

There's not much in the set, but it would be interesting to get some of the Darkseid cards which remove stunned characters be chained to those effects.

I did mention - though it was under Mordru - that it probably is a good thing that the "high-powered characters" are lower-drops so I can at least see them in a game as opposed to being unusable 8-drops. :) It just seems a bit silly to me some of the things that aren't on the characters (e.g. - no range on Validus, no Flight on Empress) or that the Daxamites are 1/1 army while the Dominators aren't Army. Still, I appreciate you pointing it out to me that it does sound too much like whining/griping than thoughts and your criticism was asked for and noted - so thank you. :)

One thing in particular, I made a comment on the Daxamites during the Sneak Peak.

No flight?

So they are just falling out of the sky there? Someone is carpet bombing with the Daximites?

But yeah, I think that it may have been a balance issue that prevented some of the Foes that probably should have flight from getting it. Lacking flight is a bit of a pain, one of the things that when playing them in sealed/draft you need to be aware of [and thus a card like say ... High Society ... could end up being a good card for them in spite of being a very minor attack boost]

Well, I've finally reconciled myself by deciding it's the Daxamites on their own planet. :) They're known for medical brilliance - ergo the endurance gain :) - but we'll say it's the White Triangle xenophobic/genocidal faction that places them on the Future Foes. The range is just weaponry and that's why they can't fly. Hey, it's the easiest way for me to wrap my mind around 1/1 Supermen without flight. ;)

I still haven't figured out how Andromeda and Jo Nah lost their heat vision though...

you could chain the "cannot reinforce" effects... but the loss of a team affiliation wouldn't effect it since the check of the affilaition is in the cost.

Maybe they figure whoever they're attacking has bullets, hence the 1 DEF?

Oh wait! Unbeknownst to the Daxamites we've switched their Folgers with deadly lead based paint!!