Magneto – Heir to the Dream
While active, if your opponent has no active Villain characters, draw an additional die during the clear and draw step.
How to use this card: Since there is no action phase during the clear and draw step, this ability cannot be disabled by turning a character into a Villain with Iron-Man’s or Takedown’s global ability. Your opponent must have a true villain in order to keep you from drawing an extra die.
How to maximize this card: Play him against a team with no villains. If they do have villains, bring ways to remove those villains from the field. Since Magneto – Heir to the Dream is not a villain himself, basic actions that target villains like Takedown or Take That Villain! cannot be used against him. Try and buy Magneto as early as you can safely do so! If you can field Magneto early enough, the extra die roll will result in a general increase in the quality of your bag. It’s as simple as imagining all your 4 cost cards as 5 cost cards. The impact of this extra die is more pronounced when your opponent is not rolling a lot of extra dice themselves. For that reason, to really build an advantage, you’re going to want to try and buy Magneto without the help of Professor X.
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Where this card belongs: This card works best with a traditional control ramp team that does not run Professor X. That means blocking with Beast – Mutate #666 will be the primary way you will manage to accumulate enough energy to buy Magneto. Over time, the extra energy will hopefully translate into a critical mass of high cost and high impact dice in your bag. Without PXG, it should not be easy for your opponent to match this bag development. Therefore you will need a lot of powerful control cards like Storm and Distraction in order to buy time. Transfer Power is another control card to consider because a player with more energy will be able to use its global ability much better. A rock solid 6 or 7 cost closer like Cyclops – If Looks Could Kill is the best way to turn all that built up energy into a decisive victory. This Magneto doesn’t just have an X-Men affiliation. He does some of his best work alongside X-Men.
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Apocalypse – Earth-295
When fielded, reroll all other non- Apocalypse characters.
Your opponent takes 2 damage for each of his or her dice that rolled energy.
How to use this card: When you field Apocalypse, all characters that don’t have Apocalypse in their names are rerolled, including your own. Each character that rolls a character side stays on the field. The ones that roll energy will go to their owner’s reserve pool. Your opponent only takes damage for each of his own dice that rolled energy.
How to maximize this card: Since this card sends dice that roll energy to the reserve pool, it’s best to not bring too many global abilities. Your characters that roll into energy can be spent on character purchases while your opponent can only spend them on abilities. If there aren’t any to be used, your opponent’s energy is wasted. Sidekicks only have one energy side, so your strategy should not be overly dependent on them if you want to use Apocalypse. This card is a good way to get characters with strong “when fielded” abilities back in your bag though. This is especially important if those characters have high defensive stats like Doctor Doom – Victor. Lastly, you’ll want to use this Apocalypse ability again as soon as possible. The turn you field Apocalypse is actually the best turn to try and get him back in your bag. Your opponent’s field should be thin, so cards like Relentless, Spider-Man – Hero for Hire, and Black Panther – Diversion are great ways to help keep him unblocked in his path back into your bag. Magneto is as always, still a pretty good way of taking villains off the field too.
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Where this card belongs: Apocalypse – Earth-295 can go in any team that can afford his hefty 7 energy cost. The direct damage is potentially game winning. This card benefits largely from your opponent having a lot of characters fielded, particularly sidekicks. Control teams that use low attack characters like Loki, Professor X, and Beast are typically very good at keeping your opponent’s characters on the field. They don’t necessarily force your opponent to field sidekicks though. Emma Frost from the Phoenix Force OP prizes might help in that respect. I find that the most effective way to pressure your opponent into fielding a lot of characters is fielding loads of characters yourself. Following Apocalypse’s fielding, you should have an immense amount of energy from your rerolled characters. If your bag and used pile were empty at the start of the turn, the expensive dice you buy with this energy can be instantly drawn and rolled with Gambit or Gearing Up. Most of a control team’s characters are mask energy, so if fielding Apocalypse drops your opponent’s life low enough, all those masks can be used to render what remains of their field unable to block with Relentless. This card truly lives up to the name Apocalypse.
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Beast – Nefarious Geneticist
When Beast blocks, you may purchase a die with a cost 2 or lower for free.
* You may purchase a die with a cost three or lower instead.
How to use this card: When you declare Beast as a blocker, you may add a qualifying die to your used pile. This is currently the only way to buy a die outside of your own main phase.
How to maximize this card: The first limitation this card has is the characters it can buy. If you want to use Beast – Nefarious Geneticist, you will first need to bring loads of cheap characters to buy. The second limitation is that Beast needs to block. Luckily, this ability will trigger regardless of how many Beasts block the same character, all you need a single attacker. Mr. Fantastic, Phoenix, and Toad are all terrific ways to make sure you have something attacking you each turn. Smash, Selective Shield and Distraction are great ways to keep Beast from getting KO’d while blocking.
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Where this card belongs: This card opens up possibilities for teams that use a huge number of cheap characters in order to overwhelm your opponents. This would typically be a fast and aggressive team. The characters that are best to buy are the ones with low fielding cost. This way, when you roll a lot of these characters, you won’t end up unable to field them. This card does not want to be playing with PXG, because that immense ramp will lessen the impact of being able to buy so many dice for free. Instead, you’ll want to use cards that give one sided ramp like Nova – Quasar. Beast might eventually cycle low cost characters into your bag faster than you can field and use them, so it’s important to have a good number of dice that will help pump characters out of your bag. Gambit and Gearing Up are good for this. One special mention goes to Pyro – Uncontrolled. If the 2 and 3 cost character dice you fill your bag with are Bolt characters, Pyro can deal a lot of damage. Phoenix can use Bolt energy to force attackers into Beast and excess bolt energy can be used on Pyro’s global ability in order to mill dice into the used pile before attacking the next turn. Beast’s nefarious sciences will probably end up creating some of the heaviest bags of dice we’ve seen in Marvel Dice Masters.
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