Matthew Wishart
10/17/2008
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Hello one and all it is that glorious time again. It is preview season once more! This time I have an interesting card to preview as well as a new mechanic called shift. The following is from TBS.
Pay 1 or more resource points >>> Remove this card from the game shifted with that many shift counters. Use only if this card is in your hand.
- Cards have two additional powers while shifted:
Pay 1 resource point >>> Put a shift counter on this card.
Remove X shift counters >>> Put this card into play if you control X or more resources, where X is its cost. Use only during your recruit step.
While this might seem a little complicated, in essence means you can choose to pay the cost of a Shift character over a few turns.
Now I know that is a lot to take in, but its effects can be amazing if used properly. I love the fact that I can use this and under-drop some characters to bring in a big gun a lot earlier than I should be able to. Or heck I can even skip a turn. Just think about a seven drop with shift. I skip my turn three play to put three shift counters on my card then on turn four I put on four more shift counters and bring out my seven drop on turn four! Now I'm completely speculating as to how this could work or if other cards will even allow this to happen. Shift can be a great mechanic to abuse to help you get your characters into play earlier than you should be able to. I do however get to show you a very aggressive and defensive form of shift:
Now that is a plot twist! This card is both amazing for very aggressive decks as well as for stall decks. If you are trying to be aggressive simply Warp Shards away their character who they can reinforce with. If you want to play defensive then you move away the character who has the biggest attack so you don't have to worry about that character.
Now I am writing this having seen a single copy of Blink :
But I will assume that she (as well as the rest of the Exiles) will rely heavily on the shift mechanic. This is simply because that is what the Exiles do. They jump from world to world doing what needs to be done. According to Wikipedia:
The Exiles are a group of fictional characters in Marvel Comics. The Exiles, created by writer Judd Winick and artist Mike McKone, consists of characters from different dimensions, or realities, which have been removed from time and space in order to correct problems (often called “hiccups") in various alternate worlds and divergent timelines in the multiverse. The team usually is made up of six members and each time a member is killed or returned to his or her home reality, a new member is introduced and joins the team.
I love the fact that this team is very similar to X-Statix (in the comics). They keep having members die off or leave the group and for the most part they don't come back. That is something that doesn't usually happen in either Marvel or DC. It is a nice aside about this team and something I hope they try to bring out with some of their support cards.
Blink has long been the leader of this group with those ever impressive Warp Shards of hers. She has become one of the most powerful teleporters to ever jump into the marvel universe as she uses her teleportation very aggressively.
One of the first things that struck me about this card, Warp Shards, is how well it combos with Cable, Secret Avenger. Simply paying his boost and playing a single copy of Warp Shards can completely decimate the other side of the field and either leave it wide open for a beat down or put you in perfect position to live that extra turn for you own late game fun to come and play.
So how are we to play Blink? Is she aggressive or is she defensive? Only time will tell. So far she looks to be very good at doing both. I personally really hope that she is very aggressive as the previews so far have shown us a ton of stall options. While I am the first person to sit up and rant about how great stall is I am also one of the first to talk about how bad a format dominated by stall is. I do not want to see games going into turn twenty.
So with that said let us hope that Gambit and Deadpool are keeping those stalling characters well in check with whatever it is that they bring to the table. Until next time thanks for reading and remember to go out and support your local hobby league.
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