Something I've always wanted to see an article done on the realms. Figured I'd finally do it myself. I've always found the idea of Unique fascinating. Some figures you can clearly see why they shouldn't be played multiples of, but for others it's not so clear. If the game were well developed enough, presumably no character with just standard powers should warrant being Unique. Still, I suppose you can make a character have a strong opening click, and have the downside be that you can't play more than one, but there are figures like that in the game which don't have Unique.
So considering this is mostly based around special powers and I got into the game with carded figures, I'm going to start with the Avengers set and look at each unique figure ever. Are they each worthy of their status? We're gonna be on this ride for awhile, but I'm going to take my time with it.
Let's dive right in.



The first unique ever, eh? Okay, maybe the earlier sets did have something similar, but that's before my time.
Iron Man's 10 range and heavy opening damage is a consideration for just why he should merit having no abuse being played in multiples. But I personally don't see that being enough to warrant it.
The b/f/c -esque special power may have been overestimated by the designers at the time with it's effectiveness. Today, we can see just how dated the power is considering how many bystanders get blades/claws/fangs and don't get penalized for doing so.
So let's get down to verdict. There's 3 possibilities. Deserved, Neutral, and no. Given the time this was made, neutral wouldn't be a bad call, but personally, I'm giving this a no. Sure, it was a strong piece on that opening click back in the day, but it's attack probably wasn't going to break the game if run in multiples.
No.



Anyone who's seen this dial knows just how overcosted it is. I get it, special powers were new and they didn't want to risk people breaking the game by replacing stats. Still, there's nothing in that special power that really does allow for broken shenanigans with one of these, let alone two.
Verdict: No.



One of my first ever clicks. The special power is pretty good if your lucky, I'll admit. Sadly he never gets Mastermind on any useful clicks, but I digress. The question comes down to- is it broken to run multiples. I'd say no, but given how annoying it might be to see a person run more than one figure with access to all those powers at the start of the game, I can see limiting it. So, with that in mind, I'm going with
Verdict: Neutral.



Remember that thing I said to start about the PAC only figures not needing to be unique? Yeah, no where is that more prominent to see than this dial. It doesn't even look to be that good in of itself let alone run in multiples. Keep in mind Leadership was kinda worthless at this juncture...
Verdict: heck no



This guy has a special power that was unlike any before. (mostly because there weren't many before). I can see why they went with unique here. Even if by today's understanding the power isn't so bad. Considering the fact that the power only comes upon being hit, ultimately I think the verdict is:
No.

Let's do the lighting round!




All these three get a no for me. Maybe they thought the modifiers were a bit too good, and they definitely thought the Masters of Evil TA was a lot better than it was back in the day (keep going each turn for 1 unavoidable damage), but none of these effects make the figures overly good. Certainly not the MoE TA.



Good ol' Cap and Bucky. First duo, I believe. I can see why they thought this might be better than it was, but the two attacks were very limited. Good amount of health, though, but I don't think this warranted unique overall.
No.


That 12 range is pretty incredible, right? This era also seemed to think more options should hyperinflate cost, but between the point cost and the stats, nothing screams can't be run in multiples here.
No.

And then there's the Herald of Galactus LE's. Most just have standard powers. I wonder if they were all made unique just to keep people from hoarding them. Though Stardust's opening 19 def at the time was considered nigh unhittable in it's day, I can't exactly say any of them warrant the unique limitation. So no, to all of them persoanlly.

Right then. that's my opening post here. Surprisingly, there hasn't been one "deserved" so far. If there's anything you thought I got wrong, let me know. There are figures who might be in the set that actually did warrant unique but didn't get it. I can think of one such figure that deserves it in the next set. Stay tuned.

An interesting look at the idea of pieces being unique. Before moving to the C/U/R system, unique figures were essentially the "super rare" of their sets, so it was very surprising to see a unique figure in the common slot. Especially one with such an awful special power. I think only Moon Knight as originally written and ruled was less useful.

I will disagree that I think this guy totally deserved to be unique.


Five damage at the time would make most figures essentially useless, especially coupled with a 13 attack. With a couple of good Impervious rolls, he could stay top dial for a while. B/C/F with a 3 damage was definitely a risk, but he could potentially take a hit and still KO a figure with his retaliation.

The Ultimate Hulk, though, is confusing to me. Ultimates TA on a zero-range giant didn't make any sense. He definitely didn't need to be unique.

I figured that there were some unique figures before... I thought maybe the archenemy gimmick kept you from playing more than one, but I don't remember much of that.
I guess you're right about 5 damage being that good.
Ultimates TA can at least be wildcarded via Hulk, so that's the reason.

Continuing on...



Let's be clear, playing 2 Jokers isn't gonna break anything. He took pushing damage back in the day. But those special powers might have been good enough on their own that I can see the designers taking caution with them. In today's game it's a clear no, but eh, I'll be a bit generous and have
Verdict: Neutral.



For it's day, I can see why they thought this would be abusable. Still, you would have to be pretty confident in your opponent having a good enough copyable powerset to run more than one of these guys. Even if he was costed well enough, I don't think you could gain much of an edge playing another. I suppose the unique limitation being there in the first place is a good way to make the player think twice on that investment. Though it leans towards neutral, I'm going to be generous and give out the first-
Verdict: deserved (unless you really want to count Ares being the first as stated above)



Low damage unhittable harasser is the name of the game.
Given what we see in Flash today, clearly this design was never the greatest.
A fun figure to play back in the day, but feats were needed to help him be viable. An armored target shut him down easily otherwise.
Verdict: no.



Uhg. Where do I start? Actually, I'm not going to. Given the win condition back in the day could be possessing all your opponents I could see giving this a limitation. Today, this type of design wouldn't fly.
Verdict: deserved.



No. Leadership today proves that token removal isn't busted.



Another duo. Cool, but verdict is no.



Dang. Everything about this dial is so disappointing for the cost. You'll be lucky to get that special attack power off.
But let's say he was significantly cheaper. They severely overestimated token giving in the game back then (still somewhat today).
Verdict: no.

I'm going with the lightning round now.
Power Ring: no, the special is just a worse perplex.
Lobo: Neutral. The bounty part might get confusing when played in multiples, but it wouldn't be broken.
Amazo: No. No specail powers. Rare Superman deserves Unique more for his reverse mastermind, but even then it's not broken.
Big Barda & Mr. Miracle: No



Basically the first STOP click character. I can see without dials being visible you'd want to limit this sort of design. In today's game we can play two spider hulks and that guy's got healing. Back in the day, making him unique was a good decision, but I'm gonna have to say overall-
Verdict: no.

And the last dial is Phantom Stranger. Who really is too inefficient to be considered good with one on the map, let alone 2. So no.

So, so far we see that over 90% of the dials don't actually need that Unique status. Let's see if the trend continues, next time.

I almost forgot. Also, I wanted to bring out a special point for the Justice League set.

This guy:


That top click was so good, the only way I got this guy back in the day was by pulling him. As people in my area hoarded this guy and played teams consisting of nothing but him. If there were ever a figure that needed unique but didn't get it, it would be this one.

Greatly enjoying this trip down memory lane.

One thing I noticed was giving unique rings to pieces of over 150 points when you could not play 2 of them in a 300 point game. I like to think it means WizKids was paying attention to the fact that many of us were playing teams of 400, 500, 600 points or more.

The other thing I noticed is that we have commons who are unique. When uniques were the equivelent of Super rares of today, it didn't matter if you pulled 2 of the same because they had some value and could be traded. Emperor Joker that you have listed is a common. What are you supposed to do with a duplicate common of a piece that you cannot play and no one wants because they also have pulled 3 of it? Uniques should be rare or higher in terms of rarity.

Are you taking into consideration that numerous powers have changed over the years and that could have impacted the decision? The biggest one might be that CCE and RCE could boost damage by +2. Perplex used to be able to boost damage as well. Pulse wave could hit a single target for full damage.

My thoughts exactly. I feel like as we get closer to the present, we will see more deserving Uniques, since the powers will creep forward, and the cost will go down. OOTS Batman is a good example. At 75 points he was one of the best in the game, and I played against 4 of them on a team more than once. If for some reason that same dial was costed at 100-120 (which is the point cost range of the Veteran versions from Icons, Legacy, and Hypertime) I wouldn't have the same desire to give him the silver ring.

I always felt that the original Unique designation (which was a "top tier" rarity in the REVU era) was supposed to do something like:

• encourage trading of duplicate uniques, and/or
• disallow players from playing two of the same "rare" figures on the same team for some esoteric reason unrelated to game balance, and/or
• provide an excuse to discount the point cost of a figure (although this could be hard to see, especially with all the Mind Control/Incapacitate figures that ended up as Uniques)

There always was a vocal contingent of players who called for an official rule to ban all duplicates from a force, but that ignored the realities of the blind distribution as well as a strategic element of force construction.

I don't want to hear about "but it makes no sense" when two players could end up facing each other in a game with identical builds (as often happened) and its not like some rule is going to make them both have to scrap their builds.

In the CURSR era, there were some figures that maybe (if reality was ignored) could make games lopsided or damage certain elements of the rules/gameplay if used on the same force... but realistically some of them were unlikely to ever be played. Granny Goodness, I am looking at you! There was hella much guessing at point values on certain figures, I suspect the unique ring was added to some of those just because the point cost was a WAG.

Didn't it let him ignore hindering for movement?

Giants already do that.

I know there is such a thing as over 300-point games but in a 300-point game any figure over 150 points is basically automatically unique.

Oh & regarding Ultimate's Hulk with 0 range. A) It's the team he was on. B) There's always throwing objects.

Ultimately that team ability never made sense for the character selection pun intended.

It was a DC can do this but Marvel doesn’t have an answer. Let’s pretend Samuel L Jackson gave them all X-Ray vision and the obscene stats for the time will cover for its lack of source accuracy. Still short on ideas they doubled up by creating Avengers Initiative. With the advent of Improved they’re oft times redundant unless wild carding and it’s still odd representation for a team ability of non-kryptonians.

I think part of it was because the big bad of the first series was the shape-shifting version of the Chitauri.

Marvel got a way better team ability in the form of Ultimates than DC got in the form of OG Kingdom Come (functionally Hypertime).

At least with Kingdom Come, the characters were actually overpowered (Superman had 20 years of yellow sunlight over his normal self, Green Lantern absorbed his battery, Batman had power armor, Hawkman became a deity or something, etc).

I get that Marvel could use a busted team to compete with DC, but they gave Marvel too big of an advantage with the team ability imo. KC Superman couldn’t see through stealth and Batman couldn’t use stealth but there’s a 1/3 chance they can’t be based by movement (but not placement)? Yeah totally fair.

Glad to see enjoyment.

Ares perplex threw me off a bit at first because of that. I am fully aware to keep an eye out for the Pulse Wave bit, thanks.

Moving on...


I dunno what more to tell ya. They must have really valued that special power.
Verdict: no.


Ah yes, that special is really good. I always liked this figure. Sad that those astral clicks at the end are kinda bad for someone who should be in pure god mode in that state.
The feat "brilliant tactician" had the same effect as that special for 20 points. So... you could slap it on this set's Beast and get that same effect twice. Would unique REALLY break this figure? Probably not. I can see why you really wouldn't want players playing more than one of that effect, but that's a feat problem. I'd normally go with yes, but since the feat exists I'll leave it at
Verdict: Neutral


10 attack and that opening 5 damage with the speed power was a lot more nasty back in the day then it is now.
Still, consider the fact there were other Hypersonic figures with Super Strength like Superman around the time...
A good figure for it's time. Maybe not too broken when played in multiples, I'm inclined to go no, but I'll be a tad generous and give it a
Verdict: Neutral


No. Duo's aren't that good, but this one was fair in it's day.


Nothing here gives me any reason to write anything but no.


Basically another Parasite situation.
Verdict: deserved


This one's shaky. Most mind controllers around the time rarely had such generous attack for the cost.
In today's game mind control has had a lot of it's limitations stripped. The only thing I hate about it is the time consuming part when a figure controls everything around it, but I digress...
In the game back then, he appears good. He's not doing anything too bad as of now.
Verdict: neutral

Sorta lightning round
Wolverine: no. No specials.
Maestro: Same as Gorgon, really, so no.



Another figure with lots of options. High range and all that. Nothing fancy today, but that Shape Change /Imperv combo was a lot scarier.
Yeah, at the time I can see why this dial was highly valued. It's a no toady with all the evasion, at the time it was a yes. I'll be fair and make it a:
Verdict: Neutral



I loved this Hulk. The special ain't that busted and there were feats like it. I think part of the Unique thing was the novelty factor. But...
Verdict: no.



This is... The first time I'm seeing this dial. I don't really know how to rate it. Again, that high range high attack mind control is probably valued a lot more than it really needed to be, even for the time with that cost. I'm just gonna take a leap here and go
Verdict: no



I really want to give this a no. Sure, the special is pretty dnag good, but penetrating can rip through it. To be fair, penetrating was a tad harder to get off in the day. That 10 range is pretty good, though. I'll go
Verdict: neutral.