Today’s write up brought to you by by Ryan Millhollin.

Original Spoiler Article From UDE Can Be Found Here.

A Quick Look At Today’s Spoilers:

Rachel Summers

– Stats: 5/10
– Level up: 2/10
– Powers: 6/10
– Overall: 4/10

Nimrod

– Stats: 5/10
– Level up: 3.5/10
– Powers: 4.5/10
– Overall: 5/10

How I got there.

Let’s start with Rachel Summers Level 1 MC.


Stats rating: 5/10

2 attack, 4 defense, 5 health, flight and range. Flight and range is amazing, but these stats feel fragile. We have just a little bit of help in that you have about an 85% chance to have at least one power up for her in your opening hand (assuming we get four Rachel Summers power ups), so you can start most games at 3/5 with flight and range. Decent, not incredible. 5 health is always a concern.

Level up rating: 2/10

The level up condition is debilitating. Let’s take a look at the math. Again assuming we get four copies of Rachel Summers SC’s, here is a list of approximated probabilities on what turn you might level:

T1: 7%
T2: 13%
T3: 20%
T4: 27%
T5: 36%
T6: 44%
T7: 52%

Without help from additional card draw or Agent activations or something similar, you will be playing games where Dark Phoenix SC drops on the opponent’s board before you level up. But there is help out there. Any card that draws, or any agent, will help increase these numbers. Cypher seems like a great addition. I think the level up condition alone makes her unplayable competitively.

Powers rating: 4/10

Her level 1 MC keyword power allows her to get power ups from tons of different cards. A-Force Loki always plays well with these strategies, and we’ve seen MCs like Super Villains Magneto and Avengers Iron Man play decently with these sort of strategies. Note that she does not have AKA anywhere on either of the two cards of hers, meaning that you could actually have Phoenix or Dark Phoenix supporting characters on the board simultaneously with her.

Now onto Rachel Summers L2


Stats rating: 5/10

 

She gets to keep her flight and range and her stats bump up to 6/6. Historically, plenty of MCs have found enormous success at this level, but because I don’t think you are seeing her get here until turn 7 or later most games, it’s going to be so far behind that it will hardly be relevant to the game state, especially if she’s had her counters knocked off. Even worse, she stays at 5 health.

Powers rating: 7.5/10

 

Rachel’s Powerful Heritage has been replaced by Bound to the Phoenix Force, so while you no longer get to power her up with Phoenix and Dark Phoenix, you get to instead treat them as locations for Rachel’s super powers.

This works in conjunction with her second keyword power, Daughter of the Phoenix, which gives you a slew of powers. Specifically, so far we’ve seen these three yellow abilities: Teke Shield, which allows you to keep the defending character in a combat from being struck and is able to be used any number of times, Life Incarnate, which heals a wound on a supporting character, and What Was, What Is, What Will Be which is Dark Phoenix MC’s infamous ability to ramp by placing two cards from the top of your deck into your resource row. Because of the level up happening at turn 7 or later most games, the ramp ability is much too late to be impressive. Teke Shield is the next best option here, with the right deck likely being able to abuse this in some sort of degenerate looping fashion to stall out the game forever. All of these abilities can be tempered and mitigated by the ever present Jessica Jones.

Final Rating for Rachel Summers MC’s: 4/10

With a high ceiling and some creative work arounds, you might see some surprises from her at some point in the future, and she does mark herself as having the best ramp ability in the game AND the ability to play Dark Phoenix SC onto the board, but I fully expect her crippling level up condition to keep her from ever seeing a final table.

Onto Nimrod Level 1 MC


Stats Rating: 3.5/10

0/5, 6 health, no flight or range. Six health is acceptable, but power creep has lead to many MC’s being able to start hitting Nimrod turn 1. 0/6 would have been much better.

 

Level up rating: 3/10

I am not a fan of any level up power that the opponent can control. It means you have to warp the deck to punish opponent’s who refuse to play support characters, which can be done, but is always less than preferable. If an opponent curves out, you will be hitting level 2 and turn 4, which is an okay speed, but a bit slow. This is especially bad if the opponent is able to hit you right away without playing any characters.

 

Powers rating: 3/10

Passive is horrible and a drawback to any character. Regeneration is okay, but clearly the deck is establishing a control/defensive disposition. Normally I’m not a huge fan of this, but it actually might work decently with the way the Sentinel team is coming together. With Mutant Control Act and Inhibitor Collar both being on team with Nimrod, it might not hurt too much to sit back, play some shocks and control the board.

Nimrod L2 MC


Stats rating: 6.5/10

 

8/8, flight, range, 6 health. These are pretty good numbers. They have the downside of having no ability to control when they come out, but they are definitely able to impact the board well if they come out on turn 4 or so, and 8 can be hard for some decks to hit. 

 

Powers rating: 6/10

Air Superiority, Bulletproof, negating +1 counters, keywords, and super powers are all very good. Having it be a reaction power is very bad in a heavy Jessica Jones meta. But with Mutant Control Act and Inhibitor Collar definitely being in most Sentinel MC decks, it becomes okay. This is one I think will be meta and format dependent, and it’s hard to get a read on its value without playing, so I’ll give a generally good rating. Only getting those powers while attacking and simply sitting at an 8/8 for the opponent’s turn is a bit bad, so I’m inclined to decrease its usefulness a bit because of that.

 

Nimrod MC overall rating: 5/10 

He may at least be playable as an activator of a really good Sentinel team, but I’d be surprised to see him win an event. 

 

Let us know what you think of these two MC’s. Do you agree or disagree? Talk about it!!!!