Palatinus' OverPower Forum

Enter Now... The Age of Apocalypse!   RE - EDIT: Updated characters after revisions, added new characters

EDIT NOTES: Colossus and X-Man are "reprints" with art updates. Domino's ability is the reflection of her normal IA (this time it's for attack, not defense). Jubilee is obviously going to raise some concerns. I am not sure the ability is too powerful, but obviously I pushed it very hard. She just seems like such a bad character most of the time, but in AoA she's actually able to use her abilities at the molecular level; still, she spends most of the series distracting others from herself or teammates (or blinding them, etc). So I tweaked her to allow dupes of everything instead of just Blinding Flare. Yes, it's extreme. I expect I may have to rein it in. But I want community input. I looked at her specials, and except dupe "teammate avoids" and "avoid teamwork attacks" and that 4E attack, I can't see anything too concerning. If any or all of those are too good, they can be removed from her ability. Let me know your thoughts, people.

FURTHER EDITS: I pushed some of the IA's in this group very hard. I'm particularly curious what the community's thoughts on Nightcrawler's IA, but also Banshee, Havok, and Rogue's as well. I also bumped some characters that took a more central role in the series up by 1 point on their power grid.


XMAS UPDATE! More info on these later. Happy Holidays!

These are what I've done so far. I really feel like Abyss should have an IA, but can't figure out what it should be. Something that makes it feel like he absorbs attacks. Maybe "opponents' Power Cards are -1 to Attack against Abyss". Maybe it should be "attack and defense". I don't know. Also, I'm happy with Cyclops, but Gambit was done that was as a filler. I don't like the idea of filling in every character I can't find a great image of with the AoA map and a cleaned up version of them on top of it, but good art is hard to find. Also, I took Abyss's stats from the marvel U page for the main reality character on the 7 point scale, added a point to each to make it out of 8, and then tweaked the numbers very slightly (pretty standard for AoA characters to have the same total points but slightly different distributions, usually around strength and intellect unless the story line altered their energy or fighting ability).

Constructive input is, as always, welcome.

Magneto's inherent ability is far too strong.  He can play 4 different teamworks, all of which give a +3/+4 bonus or better.  Every teamwork that he plays can result in one or two attacks that are greater than a 9 (6s, 7s, and 8s all allow for this). No character should be able to repeatedly allow teammates to make multiple power card attacks that can only be stopped by strong avoids (i.e., cards that say Avoid 1 attack or avoid 1 power card attack). 

Edit:  I should point out that Magneto's IA is far better than a normal character with an 8-stat that can play teamworks with an 8-to-use requirement.  First, the 8-to-use teamworks only grant a +2/+3 bonus.  Second, Magento can play 4 unique teamworks.  A deck with characters that have an 8-stat in one skill can only get one +2/+3 teamwork without the chance for duplicates.  A deck with characters that have an 8-stat in two different skills can only play two +2/+3 teamworks without the chance for duplicates. 

Edit 2: Since you wanted some constructive criticism, I have a suggestion for an IA that would still be strong, but not break the game.  Something like: Teammates' first follow up attacks to Universe: Teamwork cards receives an extra +1 bonus.  This would turn +1/+2 bonuses into +2/+2 and turn +2/+2 bonuses into +3/+2.  The effect is still quite strong since you are upgrading all of the teamworks, but it doesn't make it easy to make attacks that are higher than a 9.

I won't argue the strength too much, I haven't actually played the card. It's distinctly possible it is too strong. If there's a general agreement that's the case, I could see dropping it to +1. But I'm a little confused on part of your reasoning.

Are you comparing him to an 8-stat to show how much stronger his ability makes his teamwork cards than an 8-stat character's teamworks would be? Because obviously he doesn't have an 8-stat. And the whole point of his ability is that working alone, he likely will not beat Apocalypse:AoA (or even any of his Horsemen, if I've statted them well) head-on. But add in his team, it's a different story. From a flavor perspective, it makes sense to me that the leader of the X-Men in a world where they are constantly battling to survive would give a strong teamwork bonus. Whereas your average 8-stat character doesn't necessarily have any sort of strong team-leaning characteristic that might make them have more powerful teamwork (strongest guys don't always make the strongest team players). Conversely, your point on the bonuses is well reasoned, so maybe flavor takes a backseat here. But, a couple of questions come to mind:

1) How many different teamwork cards are reasonably expected to be in a deck? Given that they decrease in usefulness as teammates get KO'd, and that duplicates are discarded, is it really concerning that decks would get stacked with teamworks to exploit the bonuses?  Again, this is an actual question. I've literally never attended an OP tournament, so I'm not sure whether this should be a concern.

[Also, my teesaw-inspired dream for AoA is that the set reaches a size and level of playability such that it could be printed for use in sealed-tournament play, so I am VERY interested in making sure that these cards are fun and playable, not broken. I take input like this very seriously, as an unbalanced character absolutely cannot slip through the cracks on this set in my opinion]

2) Would the bonus be less heinous if he wasn't 6 or higher in 3 stats? because his intellect could easily be dropped to 5 (and strength pushed to 3, if the total needs to be kept static). That would give him access to only 3 distinct teamwork cards. Again, I'm not sure where the lines are here. I saw Forge's ability (teamwork bonuses +1) and given that he can access at least 2 Teamworks where the bonus would be +2 and +3 or +3 and +3 (again, this means that a 6 through 8 allows for the apparently dreaded 9-attack), I knew I wanted Magneto to have a stronger one.

3) Again, give me some slack for this question, I have no tournament history: Since teamwork cards require power cards to apply the bonus to, is it really such a concern? I just have difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea that you could stuff a bunch of Teamwork in your deck but then manage to draw 1 teamwork (no duplicate), a 6 or higher power card and another 6 or higher power card (no duplicates), and then that the same/similar draw could happen again the next turn. It seems far more likely that even if you do draw that hand, you aren't going to have high-power cards with every teamwork you get, and many will get spent turning 1-5 attacks into 3-7 attacks.

Like I said, I don't actually know. No one has hit me up telling me to come play in CO, and it was hard enough to get my wife to learn to play MtG. She's not learning OP any time soon. So I don't have any way to effectively play-test these cards in design (that's why I try to use pre-existing cards as models). But if there's a general agreement that +2 is too strong, I can certainly alter the ability. I'm not trying to make broken cards that are terrible and no fun, just trying to push cards to find the edges of design space in the game.

There's even room to argue that Magneto's Energy rating should be lower (they make a BIG point out of how he lost "half" his mutant gift destroying Apocalypse's ship, and I generously only lowered his Energy rating by 1), so it's possible again that the IA might not be the broken bit, but his stats. Between the Energy rating loss, and a potential 1-point IQ drop (shifted to Strength), maybe Magneto should have that strong a teamwork bonus because he'd only have access to 1 or 2 teamwork. Say, if he was 6-6-3-5. Yes, that would reduce him from 21 to 19 points, but that might be totally appropriate given the context of the character.

Still, good food for thought. I would love to hear any other input on Magneto, so I can potentially return to the drawing board and re-work him.

And of course, still looking for IA input on Abyss.


*SAW YOUR 2nd EDIT*
So it seems like the crux of your argument revolves around the +2 bonus, as your suggestion still sticks to +1. I'm curious how you would feel about this:
Magneto: AoA
6-6-3-5
Teammates' first follow-up attack to Universe: Teamwork cards receives an additional +2 bonus

At that point, he's significantly weaker than the version I posted originally, but (I think) still gives a potent boost to teamwork cards. Thoughts?

Quote(again, this means that a 6 through 8 allows for the apparently dreaded 9-attack)

Quick clarification: level 9 attacks are not my concern. Level 10 and higher are.  Those are the attacks that are harder to stop because they can't be blocked by cards that say "avoid one attack of nine or less"

QuoteAre you comparing him to an 8-stat to show how much stronger his ability makes his teamwork cards than an 8-stat character's teamworks would be?

Yes, that was my intention.  His current IA makes any teamwork he plays as good or better than an 8-to-use teamwork.  He also has the advantage that he can use 5 teamworks  (I forgot about the any power teamwork) that won't be duplicates.

QuoteHow many different teamwork cards are reasonably expected to be in a deck?

The answer to this definitely depends on the strategy of the deck, but decks normally range between having  2 to 6 teamworks.  Because they are level six attacks, teamworks are one of the easiest ways to increase the average venture value of the cards in your deck without adding duplicates or cards only usable by one character.  Given his current AI, I would think that any one playing Magneto would try to max out the number of teamworks in their deck. 

QuoteGiven that they decrease in usefulness as teammates get KO'd, and that duplicates are discarded, is it really concerning that decks would get stacked with teamworks to exploit the bonuses?

QuoteSince teamwork cards require power cards to apply the bonus to, is it really such a concern?  I just have difficulty wrapping my mind around the idea that you could stuff a bunch of Teamwork in your deck but then manage to draw 1 teamwork (no duplicate), a 6 or higher power card and another 6 or higher power card (no duplicates), and then that the same/similar draw could happen again the next turn.

My answer to both of these questions is 'yes'.  I'll address both together:

First, because Magneto can play 5 unique teamworks, there is no chance that those cards will be duplicates.  There is a chance that only he can play one of the teamworks, but it is not hard to build a deck where all of his stats are backed up.  Thus, because of the advantage his IA grants your team, there is a very large incentive to maximize the number of teamworks in your deck, and it is easy to do so without adding duplicates.   

Second, my major concern with his AI is that it turns him into an offensive character who enables large attacks with very little effort.  It is true that you won't always have back-to-back battles every game where you draw a teamwork card and two power cards with a value greater than 5.  However, if you build your deck to maximize the usefulness of his AI (e.g., three 8s, three 7s, three 6s, and maybe one more 6 or 7), it is going to be relatively common for you to have multiple battles in each game where you do draw at least one teamwork and one high level power card.  It is also going to be common for you to draw a teamwork and multiple high level power cards.  Finally, in the games where you do draw well in back-to-back battles, you are going to easily KO one, if not more, characters.  In total, this means that you have  character who makes it relatively easy to KO other characters by making attacks (and in some cases, multiple attacks) that are 10 or greater.

QuoteIt seems far more likely that even if you do draw that hand, you aren't going to have high-power cards with every teamwork you get, and many will get spent turning 1-5 attacks into 3-7 attacks.

His AI actually turns 1-5 attacks into 4-8 attacks at the worst (first follow up to a +1/+2 teamwork).  For the second follow up you are guaranteed to turn a 1-5 into a 5-9.  This is really strong, particularly when you start to follow up teamwork attacks with multipower cards.  Turning a 4 multi into a 7 or 8 multi makes it really easy to spectrum KO characters. 

QuoteWould the bonus be less heinous if he wasn't 6 or higher in 3 stats?

This would definitely make him less powerful, but I suspect it would not be a big enough drop in power to matter.  Making his IA the same as Forge's IA would be a safer bet.  (I forgot that Forge had that IA, so I take back my original suggestion and instead suggest that the +2 be changed to a +1). 

Quote*SAW YOUR 2nd EDIT*
So it seems like the crux of your argument revolves around the +2 bonus, as your suggestion still sticks to +1. I'm curious how you would feel about this:
Magneto: AoA
6-6-3-5
Teammates' first follow-up attack to Universe: Teamwork cards receives an additional +2 bonus

At that point, he's significantly weaker than the version I posted originally, but (I think) still gives a potent boost to teamwork cards. Thoughts?

This is also an interesting change. Reducing him to a max 6 definitely makes him an easier target to kill.  Having only two six stats also makes it harder to abuse his IA.  This is probably an adequate change from a power-level perspective.  From a flavor perspective, his stats are a bit disappointing. 

for Abyss you could make his innate... Abyss has 8 Strength Rating for defense.

I think Holocaust could use either a grid tweak or an IA to make something different from the legacy card.  Unless you really want to just remake the legacy card, I which case the picture is slightly better.
Gambit with no IA is interesting.
Mikhail has a "sup" where he needs a "spu" on the character card.  At that level, I sure hope he gets better specials than they gave Deathlok, Hydra, and GCPD.
For Abyss's (try pronouncing that 10 times) IA, from a mainstream prospective, you use use his ribbon/coil effect.  That seems to kick in highest when he's angry or scared, so maybe a variation of Crux would work - "If Abyss has at least 1 hit on his PR, he may avoid any attack with a level 1 Energy power card".  From the AoA prospective, he was also able to sense the fear of others. Maybe something along the lines of "Energy power cards are +1 to attack (defend) if target (attacker) has a hit on their PR".  Can't think of an example that is similar to that one.
justa thought

Obviously Magneto needs some adjustment, although I'm not sure how hard to nerf him. I'll wait and see if anyone else chimes in, then revisit him in a few days.

I am hesitant to redo Holocaust for 2 reasons:
1) The version first produced in OP was the AoA version.
2) Genocide was introduced in 616-continuity, and appears to be the main continuity version (Beast to his Dark Beast, as it were). By all rights HE should be the one with an altered stat set from Holocaust.

So my intent with this set was to "reprint" any AoA character that's been done, with different art, including:
Dark Beast
X-Man
Holocaust
Wolverine: AoA (Might try to rejigger his name to be appropriate)
Colossus: AoA
Shadowcat: AoA
Anyone else I may have missed in my perusal

And of course, I am torn over Morph. They printed (apparently) the AoA version the first time, and all his art was amazing and perfectly AoA all the way through. But I feel obligated to try and find new art.

I couldn't figure out an IA for Gambit, and didn't want to copy. So I thought maybe NOT having one would make this version stand out.

As far as Mikhail, you're right! Not only does he need a fix on the name, but he needs some strong specials. He's largely absent from the comics, but I'm planning on at least a few of his specials being strong. "Handler Murdock" or whatever Matt Murdock's name was in AoA, will be one of them, though I haven't nailed down what it will be.

I could revisit his stats if you think they need work though. He had very little in the MU, and I wasn't sure if fan ratings for an Earth-616 version on a 7 point scale were a good reference point. I know that he seems like he ought to be rather fearsome, but kind of isn't.


I like the Abyss ideas. I'd personally lean towards the aggressive version of "E. Power cards are +1 to attack if target has a hit on their PR". That's just a personal preference, largely because I feel like the Horsemen and Apocalypse should all be very aggressive. They're trying to conquer a world, after all.

Really stoked that you made these up!  I've always been a fan of AoA and in recent discussions, a few of my students have taken a big interest in it.

Can't say too much about the mechanics you chosen as I'm slowly easing back into it, but if you're open to suggestions for characters, the AoA version of Sabretooth was always a favourite of mine.  I'd imagine his stats to be even better than the current 'Tooth character, and can't you just picture a Wildchild special to go along with it!?  A bit surprised they never made him back in the day.

if anyone needs a  good i a its gambit

up give Gambit oomph i would give this for his innate...

May Draw 1 card from draw pile after playing "Charge Object", discard duplicates.

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/471.png)

power up teamwork cards and don't take a minus one, you can still possibly can with a duplicate, but it gives the card some use and gives him a much needed boost

and not as powerful as Magneto's innate :)

and for Magneto... i would rework his innate... he has a few unusable specials... so if you want to boost teamworks from Magneto, lets incorporate it with a special... hmm what about this?

Universe: Teamwork cards are +2 Bonus when Magnetic Shield is in play.

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/773.png)

thoughts? :)

Jean Grey i would follow her previous style... give her this for innate... nothing major but it gives the option.

May play "Telekinesis" from reserve.

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/674.png)

@Tussin your suggestions are, as always, insightful and helpful!

The Magneto tweak is exactly the kind of clause I was looking for to make his Teamwork boost conditional but extremely strong at times. I've reviewed Mag's other specials, and I identified 3 that are obviously kind of weak and could work as the "clause card" in question. I don't want to encourage playing "Evil Genius" with AOA Mags, so Gravity Alteration and Magnetic Shield are the others. I'm inclined to think you got it right on the first try with Magnetic Shield. If that's too good, we could always try 'Teamwork bonus is +2 for remainder of battle if Magneto:AoA has played "Gravity Alteration" Special Card this battle.'

Gambit's IA is good, and helps to cope with the fact every time you play Charge Object you're dumping 3 cards from your hand at a minimum (as I've always understood and played the card). How much stronger is drawing 2 cards than 1, I wonder? I'm not saying it should be 2 cards, just curious if the 2 cards would feel strong and team-leaderish or overly strong and unfair.

Jean's TK from reserve seems fine. I really don't have anything clever to add on that one.

@MHC, if you're reading this, what do you think on Magneto's tweak? Does the conditional clause bring it down enough to make it strong but fair without changing his stats?

I'll hopefully do some more AoA and 2099 stuff (still haven't updated that thread yet) this weekend.

Quote@MHC, if you're reading this, what do you think on Magneto's tweak? Does the conditional clause bring it down enough to make it strong but fair without changing his stats?

I think altering Magneto's IA so that the bonus is active only when Magnetic Shield is in play would be fine.  If that change were made, it would be nice if Magnetic Shield could be played offensively with a teamwork card (like Professor X's Telepathic Coordination).  While there is always the chance that this gets your teamwork negated (because the special is played with it), allowing the special to be played offensively with a teamwork would avoid the issue of having to spend a turn playing Magnetic Shield. It would also make Magnetic Shield + Magneto's IA function like non-OPD but restricted version of Telepathic Coordination. 

with everyone working hard on creating new sets, i can help with analytical suggestions to throw back to the creators :)

for Cyclops i was thinking of giving him reserve love... what if he could play this from reserve? (http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/316.png)

Cyclops :AOA may play X-Men Strategy from reserve.

the characters in AOA are more battle experienced, it gives him the same style and flair, and an option for reserve. nothing strong, just a nice touch.

just fine tune a few things.. more than just an art upgrade and stat switch, a new way for them to play in the game

i think Gambit is fine at 1 card, its just to replenish his special use, a teamwork does damage, but a basic universe or training card doesn't. but if you want to tweak it... say you can draw 1 card on a teamwork, 2 cards with a basic/training universe.

i think Apocalypse innate is a little beef without a cost...

i suggest tethering it to Enhance Strength or Instant Evolution or both?

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/74.png) (http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/76.png)

7S+2 bonus runs over every 8 stat character out there in a straight up power card match. i would make it equivalent or better with a card cost.

i am thinking it would be better to leave his stats as is... but give a +1 bonus to power cards per card in effect from (AY) and (CL) specials... totaling up to a +2 to power card bonus

it fits the theme of apocalypse as well, trying to balance it out :)

I like the idea of X-Men Strategy from Reserve, but not the title of the card (it sits wrong in AOA to have cyclops' pushed special be X-Men Strategy). I would propose one of the following:

1) "Functional Reprint" - Change the title on the card, maybe alter it to be only a Cyclops:AoA special.
This option feels awkward to me, so I stand behind option

2) May play Visual Sweep (AA) from reserve. (Level 4 E attack, may make 1 additional attack against a different target)
I really feel like that's a better fit than X-Men Strategy for flavor purposes, and might be a lot stronger too.

I hadn't considered the Power Card head to head for Apocalypse (except insofar as "he probably just wins" was on my mind), and had just figured you could still play most Avoids. You're probably right to tie it to specials; I would lean towards both. Keep in mind, he ought to be winning most head-to-head fights if he connects. Until the end of AoA, you see him pretty well stomp the most powerful characters around him (let's see... he murders Rictor by snapping his neck, he shows up with some infinites and pounds Magneto and Bishop into submission, flashbacks show him nearly drowning Sunfire IN BLOOD). So I'd support the +1 to power cards for each special in effect, up to +2. That way, if he plays either special, he's boosted. If he plays both, he's insanely powerful.

As far as Magneto, I like the idea of Magnetic Shield functioning as a sort of lower-power Telepathic Coordination. I'm not sure how to word it so that while it's in play his teamwork bonuses are +2 and that he can play it offensively with a teamwork. Maybe:

Universe: Teamwork cards are +2 bonus when "Magnetic Shield" is in play.
May play "Magnetic Shield" with Universe: Teamwork cards.

I don't know. I'm not feeling extremely sharp with regards to phrasing today. But that makes Magnetic Shield pretty legit. You can play it with a Teamwork, and Mags gets in his attack, both his teammates get in strong attacks, and their defense is boosted for the battle. Of course, to MHC's point, it also opens up the possibility that a negate shuts down the whole thing. Which actually feels good. Yeah. If this IA language can get phrased a little better, I'm on board with this.

Cool IA for Cyke.  Additional attack could be Remove Visor, or Wide Beam, even Focused Force.  Quite the attack ability from reserve.

hmm yeah i would probably be in more of favor for AA or AR from reserve, a 9 non opd from reserve is very strong :)

and i just brought it up with Apocalypse because with the Witchblade artifact as well he can jack up his attacks past 9 way too easily.

* 6F 6A THE WITCHBLADE <IM> {VR} [OPD] Teammate may play any Power card currently usable by Front Line to attack.

play him in a Strength deck and he can use 8 Strength power cards and with a +2 bonus without any cost jumps over every basic wall and unblockable by regular means..

even with Rasputin, yes he has 6 Energy, but artifact can boost it to 8 for use of power cards... and boosting it to 10 via innate

to bring in more in line we should tweak it slightly... what if you gave Rasputin 7-4-4-4 with a +1, so if he does get boosted, it still hits with a 9 max.. maybe even change Rasputin to get a +1 bonus to all power cards for attack and defense?

what about wording it like this?

Universe: Teamwork cards are +2 bonus when "Magnetic Shield" is in play.
May may 1 additional attack after "Magnetic Shield" is played.

I agree with Tussin. The original Magneto IA is ridiculously overpowered. 10+ attacks need to be very rare and done with card combos, or as an OPD, not easily done twice in a row potentially on every teamwork followup per battle.

Just posted revisions based on discussion here.

Immediately saw that I need to redistribute the text in Magneto's IA. That second line looks awful.

I am unsure whether Mikhail's ability should have defense removed from it. I added it on suggestion, and removed the Energy restriction. Now I'm not sure how the power level compares to the original ability. Thoughts?

nothing major.. maybe just a little text cleanup?

(http://overpower.ca/cards/characters/122.png)

you don't really need to include the word special imho after its already named

Magneto is a wall of text... thinking of how to simplify and get the point across hmm...

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/eelK1uzzlp3c2Pmzi_xNdnoKCeXhgQeX4cG7GBn-kR4=w285-h207-p-no)
May Make 1 Additional Attack After "Magnetic Shield" Is Played.
Universe: Teamwork Cards Bonuses Are +2 With "Magnetic Shield" In Play.

could this work? if you flip them in spots? so i can run longer in a line for the extra text?

looks sexy so far tho

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/eelK1uzzlp3c2Pmzi_xNdnoKCeXhgQeX4cG7GBn-kR4=w285-h207-p-no)
looks great

Thanks guys. Real quick:

I can easily flip the text lines, it's no problem. But I think (at least to my eyes) the biggest issue is the distribution of text. Lines are distributed based on the text box size, so I can actually clean this up rather easily. I'll put a line break before "when" or "Magnetic Shield" in the current first line. That'll make it look like this:

Universe: Teamwork cards are +2 bonus
when "Magnetic Shield is in play.
May make 1 additional attack after "Magnetic Shield" is played.

But of course right justified and such. Looking at that, I think Tussin is probably right on the order reversal. Put the single line ability on top, the 2-line ability underneath. It flows more smoothly visually that way, in my opinion.

I wasn't sure if "Special" or "Special Card" was needed in IA's. If the general agreement is that it's not, it would really help clean up/shorten some of these IAs.

I have the following on my short list of characters that need an AoA version, but I was hoping y'all would chime in about teams. I feel like a group such as The Outcasts, though possessed of both Forge and X-Man, deserve a team card that can't play their OPD cards. By that logic, I could also make a Generation Next team. Or, if you guys think teams are a good idea (I'll be honest, I'm not totally sold on them, but they do offer a good way to fit characters not worth a full card onto both a Character card and a Special card. I'm looking at Toad and Soaron (yes, that's how they spelled it in AoA) in particular. Anyway, the character list:

Mr.Sinister  (PRIORITY - LAST REMAINING UNCARDED HORSEMAN)
Sabretooth
Rogue
Banshee
Dazzler
Quicksilver
Storm
Iceman
Shadow King
Havok
[Jubilee]  -  There's obviously room to fit in characters like Strong Guy and Jubilee, but not only would I need to find art for them and their specials, but it makes the idea of teams less enticing. The X-Ternals is another team where I could see doing a team card. Sunspot/Lila Cheney make it hard to do characters for the whole team, so maybe I just hit the team leader for a single character card?

"Reprints" (new art, no card changes as yet):
Wolverine: AoA (name change: Weapon X. Fits it back to the storyline properly. Including Variant IA)
Shadowcat: AoA
Colossus: AoA
Dark Beast
X-Man

That list already has me at 23 characters by my count. If we take the teams route, I can add:
The Outcasts (X-Man/Forge's Team)
The X-Ternals (Gambit/Jubilee's team)

Which would put the total at 25. Of course, there are other options for characters, like a Factor-X team card. Once I have the complete character list nailed down, I can start working on recording my art sources (I have a lot recorded already. Figured I might need them in the future) and working on updating Specials with new art (as I said, 6 per character, which should let me drop some flavor-undesirables like Cyclops' X-Men Strategy while still keeping every character on relatively even footing).

Now, one other line of questioning:
I've never played an OP sealed event. Only MtG. I'm assuming the basic principles remain the same. For sealed deck purposes (remember, one of my goals in set design is that with a set of power cards, this set could stand alone for sealed play), I assume that packs are collated ahead of time. I would probably push for the following set-up, but I really want to hear input:

Power cards are distributed in sealed packs of fixed-distribution. Probably 2 each of 1-8 for all 4.

Each pack:
1 Character
6 Specials (random, of course)
1 Universe: Teamwork
1 Universe: Basic (yup, gonna make some AoA ones...)
1 Event  (currently planning 4-5 new ones for AoA Mission)
1 Location (I've gotten 2 good suggestions so far, and have some in mind as well)
1 Artifact (I have 3-4 planned so far)

So 12 cards per pack. Each player is issued 6 packs (72 cards) and their Power Pack (64 cards) and needs to build their deck from what they have (so roughly 55/136 cards, or a little more than 1/3 of your cards).

Thoughts? Does that format sound viable? Do I need to tweak pack composition, Power Pack composition, etc?

Obviously regardless of answers, the AoA marches on. If I contribute nothing else to OP in my lifetime (unlikely, as you guys are a very supportive community and I love card creation), I will see to it that both 2099 and AoA get their sets. 12-year-old me from 1996 is demanding it.

sounds awesome...

i just suggested the text swap because the second line could fit easier with more text in a full line because it can sneak under the intellect icon which kind of stops how much text you can add, it would just make it look more pro with just 2 lines no breaks in the text :)

i would enjoy seeing more team cards... and even Team-X like versions that feature a few character specials but without OPD's

probably easiest to include ones for characters already created in overpower, so you just need to combine art, create stats for a new team

i am not saying you have to follow suit for innates stating "special cards" or not, i was just showing you what was done previously :)

The X-Ternals 7-4-6-4 (May Play any non-one-per-deck Gambit, Jubilee, Strong Guy special cards.)

if you do a team art, you could include pictures of the other members, just utilize the three for stats/specials, you already have lots of work to do.. just saying you don't have to create the other characters, and 3 is a good number just like Team-X

The Outcasts 6-4-3-8 (May Play any non-one-per-deck X-Man, Mr. Sinister, Forge and Sauron special cards.)

i included Sauron because Power Balance and OP Legion both created characters and some specials, it could save you the trouble of making specials/character or you can create your own version too.

PB went 6-5-5-5 on Sauron, OP L went 6-2-6-6 if you want your own unique AOA Soaron i would go something like... 7-3-6-3

i think Wolverine getting an innate would make up for his drop from 8 to 7 Fighting :)

i thought for sealed MtG tournaments they supplied the mana cards? you just worry about the main cards for your deck... then they hand out the proper mana cards to finish your deck?

i wouldn't worry about the power card distribution... for a sealed tournament just focus on the main cards for this set imho... everyone can supply the power cards easily from previous sets, i would just include your power cards for collection purposes, and use but not restricted by a sealed tournament format :)

i love your work ethic, i am down to continue to help out in your process and i guarantee i will support this project by buying many sets from you :)

For Magneto's IA, maybe you could change the 1st line to read "Teamwork card bonuses are +2 when", to shorten the text.

So many good suggestions!

Unfortunately, the time of the holidays is upon me, and OP stuff take a back seat for a few days. But I hope to post up some team cards soon; and maybe get cracking on specials. But until then, a few other things occurred to me:

1) One of Apocalypse's teams (Factor-X, The Pale Riders, whatever Domino's crew was called) should get a team card too.
2) If Domino's team doesn't, I'll have to do a card for her. She's pretty awesome in AoA before X-Man strips her of her mind.
3) Definitely taking "Special Cards" off of IA text. It's superfluous and takes up space.
4) What kind of Wolverine innate should I aim for? My goal was to incorporate the original printed AoA characters unaltered except for artwork, but their original version of Wolverine is just so miserable... it's not even named properly. I should probably be "Weapon X", with at least the IA of "May play Wolverine Specials" a la Dark Beast's formatting. I'd like to add something that makes him stronger (although I'm not sure, did he actually drop to 7 or are you recommending that he drops to 7) but reflects his missing hand and/or connection with Jean. Maybe keep him 8, but make Fighting grid is 6 for defense (unless he's on a team with Jean? that might be going too deep).
5) I like the shortened Magneto text suggestion. I'm going to mockup 2 versions and post them side by side here so everyone can weigh in with an actual view of the two options; democracy will rule the day.
6) My foil printing process is getting pretty tight. With the thickness issue solved, and my linen stock on the way, all I need to do is work out the sealing issue (it's so cold here right now that spray sealant beads up in the air on the recommended 10-inch journey from spray can to card face and causes a speckling pattern.) and I'll be ready to do some sweet foil printing. I was thinking I'd have a contest to give some sweet foils away. I'm struggling to find a good, clean textless image of two AoA characters fighting to use as the card back image. Best so far is the Sabretooth vs. Holocaust cover from (I think Astonishing? Amazing? I'll check my issues) X-Men, second best is Weapon X punching Magneto from the 2006 mini-series which I used while test printing cards. Unless there's some reason I shouldn't have a contest for some reason, I figured the contest would be "users have until X date to submit pictures for consideration, pictures will be put up with a voting widget, community votes until X date, winning image gets turned into card back and used on AoA foils [winner gets a set of Apocalypse+Horsemen or X-Men foils, whichever I decide to do as the print run... probably A+Horsemen, because home production of foils is time-consuming]"   Is that legit?

#1 i am not very fluent with comics... if you give me the names of the group she was in maybe i can get work to the stats for the group... do you mean X-Factor? i am not finding much information on any of those groups involving Domino

was it Six Pack? X-Force? X-Corporation? 198? NSA? The Underground?

#4 for Wolverine... i thought AOA version was the 7 Fighting, but that was the Golden Age, forget i said anything about it haha

i love the current weapon x vs magneto card backing so far... very legit. i would be interesting in seeing the sabretooth/holocaust too :)

Not sure if they actually had a name, but check this link: http://marvel.com/universe/Domino_(Age_of_Apocalypse) (http://marvel.com/universe/Domino_(Age_of_Apocalypse)) for information on AoA Domino and her team. It was:

Domino
Grizzly
Caliban

As I think about it, probably she just gets her own card. She already has specials etc. and neither Caliban nor Grizzly lasted long or contributed much in the fight. Mostly it was Domino murdering everyone but Nate Grey, who then peeled her mind apart.


EDITS:
None of us noticed Magneto currently says "May may", not "May make". Gotta fix that.
Sinister says "May not", Colossus "Cannot". Need to bring Sinister in line with Colossus.
Weapon X is going to get Dark Beast'd, so he has the proper name and his IA allows proper functionality, but otherwise no changes right now.
X-Man's art was a beast to edit. Check out the panel in X-Man #3 if you want to see how much text I had to edit out and/or completely re-draw/color. Color matcher might be the best tool in GIMP.
I'll try to get my Sabretooth vs. Holocaust back done, but the image is http://nomoremutants.com/sabretooth-and-blink-vs-holocaust/ (http://nomoremutants.com/sabretooth-and-blink-vs-holocaust/)

Blink probably gets cropped out if that image gets used.

New Characters
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/vD6GJ1vLh6hn_SUZ0biHyS6sBlvifK2vrsyPC-sHHpU=w175)	ABYSS Art & Aesthetics: This card art is amazing - probably one of the best card images I've seen.  Great find. Grid: I'm not super familiar with the character, but it seems right. Inherent Ability: From what I've read, Abyss has a portal to another universe inside him.  I think something that allows abyss to negate special cards would be nice, and if you balance with the specials, it shouldn't be too powerful.  Another idea could be a built in shift, maybe specific to a certain type of card.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/IhO_nZ05UCfO-Qc9Tj5fGawLuJ3d54SQiiyBtdPE3T8=w175)	MIKHAIL RASPUTIN Art & Aesthetics: Again - and I promise, this will not be a trend throughout the review - AWESOME art choice. Grid: Same as the original Human Torch from IQ - pretty strong. Inherent Ability: Very strong - I like it a lot.
AOA Variants
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/O6F7c6_3I09gMIlFLJ0IxZyO_TODKmbG5eGAZnIMzfg=w175)	APOCALYPSE Art & Aesthetics: Only comment here is the "OF" is not caps-locked.  It doesn't look bad, but its not consistent with the rest of the cards. Grid: It's ironic to say the least, that Apocalypse still doesn't have an 8.  I know he's got the "Enhance Strength" card, which is critical to your inherent ability, but I would personally give him 8S from the jump, and cut Enhance Strength when you cut down to six specials per hero.  Also (this will be discussed below) he would be the only 8S in your set. Inherent Ability:Maximum Bonus of +2?  I'm not sure that this is necessary - I think if someone builds a crazy draw deck where they can pull 5x "Enhance Strength," let them go for it.  Neither one of those are FROG, so I think you're fine...I designed an APOC:AOA card that had the inherent "Power cards are +1 to attack and defense if all other teammates are K.O.'d"  I'm not suggesting that you completely overhaul the card, but it's just an option.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Y-n1tVuWqCeOE9C9AH3cRuSGksyfLKUyPs8A5o-xFNI=w175)	BANSHEE Art & Aesthetics: Nice Grid: Very good improvement over the original. Inherent Ability: Great throwback to the original, but equally useless in my opinion.  <=5 Ally cards pretty much replaced Training cards, and I think in any limited release format the training cards should be eliminated entirely from anyone's memory.  If you want to make Banshee sort of a niche card, maybe consider "Teammates' follow-up attacks to Universe: Ally Cards played by Banshee are +1" or even "+2"...He has access to 2 of them in a normal deck and another 3 if you wanted to use that as a build-around...
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/edDFRJbQ0hUW5poTjoh5sA0mF-VOYvkwfywBNVLcWFc=w175)	CYCLOPS Art & Aesthetics: I'm going to say that this is one of my favorites, and then I'm going to say that I hate the Gambit card, or vice versa.  I like the idea of using a similar background for two cards (lord knows I have done it in my own sets!) but Maybe show them from the waist up on both of these, to make them look different.  Another idea is to tweak or invert the colors on the map on one of them, so when the cards are down on the table you can tell them apart.  Also - The character name is moved over a little bit too far left on this.  Last, someone else mentioned this (and I need to go back through my own customs and fix this) i dont think you need "Special card" in the inherent text. Grid: I think this is great - does Cyc have a cybernetic arm in AOA?  maybe his strength gets pumped a point, but I think it's good. Inherent Ability:I like the idea of this, but I'd like to understand: is the follow-up attack limited to power cards?  I don't think that it would be appropriate for Cyclops to play a follow-up special from reserve, that normally couldn't be played from reserve.  I think someone mentioned "X-Men Strategy", which might be a good alternative.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/ym7mQVTxbHGvpR5KypcGTwM6TVUDgGH_hjgXVD0GdMQ=w175)	DOMINO Art & Aesthetics: Awesome art choice.  I think the character name is over to the left too far, and the "TM" looks blurry to me, but it could just be my eyes Grid: Looks great. Inherent Ability:I like it.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/j2bZLD4-KJD7293WxxnxeRfawSs-3u0P0KJJp-ls1W0=w175)	GAMBIT Art & Aesthetics: See cyclops above.  Also - there's some kind of border on this card, it looks like maybe Magneto's art behind it?  Is that to differentiate the cards from a distance?  Also, it looks like the character name and the TM got in an argument - i think they need to move closer to each other. Grid: Solid. Inherent Ability:This is awesome!  Any time an inherent can make a less useful card more useful, I love it (see Juggernaut:Colossus).
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/w9CcJAqhkM9wKuWiCj3F85yC0o9pCu-lBkPY94saFbs=w175)	HAVOK Art & Aesthetics: Missing the drop shadow on Havok's character name?  Also, I don't think you need to say the character name in the inherent. Grid: Great grid - I wonder if you could get away with 6E - you've got a few 7's already in the set, and Havok coming in under 19 would be great card economy, but I also think it's great as is. Inherent Ability:I don't think you need the character name here.  If you decide you want to keep it, I think you can get away with just saying "Havok".
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/64hzalb7EoiRrB0DrG59Zp1ce-HwYhzBsFbbod2xo9o=w175)	JEAN GREY Art & Aesthetics: I've always had a crush on Jean, so I'll tell you that I think there's a better Jean pic out there somewhere....if it was rogue or Jubilee i'd say it's perfect - LOL...Also, I think we moved the character name left a smidge. Grid: I like it. Inherent Ability: I think making an AS playable from reserve doesn't really do much to help a character that you won't put in the reserve, in the first place.  I also think a OPD is murky water... Without the 8E (dark phoenix) I have a hard time using Jean in the front line.  Does Jean have a relationship with Cyclops/Wolverine in the AOA reality?  I have an inherent ability mechanic that I haven't been able to find a good spot for in my series, but something like "Energy power cards are +1 if Cyclops or Wolverine is a teammate".
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/Go-Bd4Zg7HyZLW3mo77YsShnghkeAqboomKfvGJSqvs=w175)	JUBILEE Art & Aesthetics: Nothing says "1990's" like Jubilee - I love it.  Is the TM hiding?  Grid: Great card economy for a max 6.  I'd love to see her at 16, with a 1S or 4F, but great grid. Inherent Ability:I don't think this is too powerful at all.  Her specials are mostly defensive, anyway.  You could win with 51 AR'S or something, but I think her cardset is fine for that.  I don't think you need the clause "non One-Per-Deck" since she couldnt have duplicates of those, anyway.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/eelK1uzzlp3c2Pmzi_xNdnoKCeXhgQeX4cG7GBn-kR4=w175)	MAGNETO Art & Aesthetics: Another EXCELLENT card art choice - might be my favorite from your whole set - what's going on with the bottom edge of the card, though?  Might just need a good crop.  also - the TM is at the edge of the card. Grid: I like what you did here.  It's tough for me to stomach Mags not being an 8E, but I get it. Inherent Ability: First, I have tried and tried and tried to come up with a way to make 3-line IA's look good on a card, and I can say with confidence that you haven't solved my problem.  With that being said, I think the second line of the IA is very weak.  I'm very rarely going to play Magnetic Shield offensively, not because it costs me an offensive turn, but also because it's a combat trick against your opponent who drops an 8 on you.  If you're married to these IA's, I think the following text fits on 2 lines, and still gets the point across.  "May make 1 follow-up attack to "Magnetic Shield". Universe: Teamwork bonuses are +2 when "Magnetic Shield" is in play."
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/aC36-PbtVKqYdtfoSmPzCVbLdZuJ7WjU_EtvH0a9lfc=w175)	NIGHTCRAWLER Art & Aesthetics: Awesome!  I've been waiting for this card. The name is too far right and the trademark symbol is cut off the page, but the art selection is awesome! Grid: 6E?  I'm probably comics-illiterate here, but I would have put NC at a lower E rating... Inherent Ability: I think this is tough.  What about if it was "...may return two special cards to the draw pile and retrieve one OPD...reshuffle draw pile." or something?  I think it's more managable that way. Another direction you could go would be something related to follow-up attacks.  NC is certainly the king of the combo, which is one of the most comics-true things in the game...maybe let "Nightcrawler may draw 1 card instead of playing an additional attack from specials" or something...
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/24_OiK6M-DH2lPX0a_p_52ck6Ux3BJLiRe4XyJ-FKUg=w175)	QUICKSILVER Art & Aesthetics: Like it.  I think Quicksilver's name is too far right... Grid: Double-7?  Sign me up.  In terms of grid, he's one of the stronger characters in the set. Inherent Ability: Seems pretty tame, but reasonable.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/FzRAIS1Fg66qlEuBGHaXgYP0aJj5PV4BNYVWDmD0ELA=w175)	ROGUE Art & Aesthetics: I like this - it almost seems manga style..I would erase the speech bubble over her right shoulder. Grid: Sounds great Inherent Ability:This also came up with Havok - I don't think you need the second part of the character's name (or any of it, for that matter) in the IA.  You can just say "Rogue" because that's what her name is.  I thinnk it's a great IA, but I'm not sure that I see how it relates to Rogue.  Any thought to doing something similar to Halloween Jack's?  Maybe that would be too strong, I'm not sure.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/SMX9LNX5Zi1W1gjnBTQHvRHve1p-L351Hjd9PUo-d1E=w175)	SINISTER Art & Aesthetics: Is this sinister as horseman of the apocalypse?  If so, I think you could change the sub-title of his character name to reflect that, similar to Angel. Grid: Strong.  8i is well deserved, and fits nicely with the set. Inherent Ability: For an 8-grid character, I think you're fine.  You also have the option of going no inherent if you want, since you've got the 86.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/RIv9Ck1KLz_q2_gPIx_Owbgr7n4MoSBXccuU9nMB0Ic=w175)	STORM Art & Aesthetics: Beautiful - definitely in the top 4 with Magneto, Abyss, Mikhail - Grid: Strong and solid. Inherent Ability: I'd rather give Storm another defensive weapon than another offensive weapon.  But I don't think this mandates a change - maybe consider giving a +F and +S to different characters so you can have the quadrifecta, as it were.
Reprints
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/J09MK0V4HWalBF_wp8VDBO56-mV9HC49hnEmyK7YPtc=w175)	COLOSSUS Art & Aesthetics: Nicely done. Grid: N/A Inherent Ability:N/A
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/mEQuOJtiHnOcVSVihw5V03wY4rD5Ea9Zv6jylHZz19s=w175)	DARK BEAST Art & Aesthetics: Not my favorite - he's a little more "Blue" than I would have liked.  Maybe you can mess with the color balance to darken him without distorting the background image Grid: N/A Inherent Ability:N/A
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/s4t6ATDzQ1frxoCIHVUSHB82X9c_J2wIj1hNb6f8okQ=w175)	HOLOCAUST Art & Aesthetics: There's something about this art that doesn't sit right with me.  I'm not sure if it's zoomed too much and the resolution is failing, or it got stretched funny, or maybe it's that art thing where a horizontal-flip doesn't play as well as the original...I love the idea of a badass flame onslaught, but this card's art seems a level beneath the art for the other 20+ cards you've done in this set.  I've seen several comments that say how wonderful this one is, so maybe I'm crazy on this one. Grid: N/A Inherent Ability: N/A - I saw someone say that he needs an IA, but I think it's intended to be a reprint.  Onslaught plays fine in Overpower as is - if anything, he's on the strong side as is.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/6ADBJi08C69qGO7B6HC3XopEjhhFgUXqY9hkIsAPmD0=w175)	WEAPON X Art & Aesthetics: There's so much good Weapon X art out there, I think this was a good choice.  Personally, I think you should still subtitle this card "AGE OF APOCALYPSE", because to me "Weapon X" wears a silver fishtank over his head with wires coming out of it, and has bone claws.  I also really like the idea of "Dark Beasting" him. Grid: N/A Inherent Ability:N/A
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/67KWvLSViTFhhpuZ9b3kk2yDxljWR6vzMzTGXoxELmE=w175)	X-MAN Art & Aesthetics: Great work - I checked out the original and I can see you did a lot. Grid: N/A Inherent Ability:N/A

Overall, I think this set is gangbusters.  I absolutely love it.  We've spoken separately about closed AOA play, and I love the idea.

I think I would have an 8S character, since you've got 1 8 in each of the other stats...also I'd consider AOA sabertooth and a Morph Reprint...maybe one other to round you out at 25.

I can't say enough, I think this is an excellent set.  I hope this feedback is organized in a way that is helpful for you, and everybody understands that this is intended to be positive and constructive.

i cant see what the i a's say

Quote from: steve2275 on December 23, 2014, 11:41:09 AM
i cant see what the i a's say

Check the OP - I just did that to keep it organized

ah yes
thank you

EXCELLENT FEEDBACK!

Breakdowns like this are the most useful for card by card revisions later on. Here's a few thoughts/responses (i'm going to start from the end of your comments and work backwards):

Colossus is the 8S, as a reprint. Not sure if you missed that, but here's my 8's:
X-Man - E
Weapon X - F
Colossus - S
Sinister - I

Sabretooth and Morph are both still "work-in-progress" but will definitely make it in the set. So will Blink. And probably Dazzler. And at least 2 teams.

Thank you for the praise and set love! I'm excited to be working on this, hopefully by the time this (estimated final count) 175-card set is finished, everyone in the community will be stoked to try playing it!

Ok, now individual character discussion. I'll start at Abyss and move down.

Abyss: Good call on the IA. You're correct on his ability, and while I was rolling around ideas about avoiding low E power cards (from a previous suggestion) yours seem more appropriate. I'm going to try and work out two possibilities and post them up here.

Mikhail: Should have mentioned earlier, but the Horsemen are Abyss, Mikhail, Holocaust, and Sinister in this reality. I think since Sinister is the only one titled "AoA", I could drop it and just put the subtitle "Horseman of Apocalypse" under them. What do you think? Also, the art for Abyss/Mikhail/Holocaust is from the X-Men Legends II: Rise of Apocalypse promotional artwork. Sinister was the only one who didn't match his AoA character, so I couldn't use it. Frustrating, because I liked the idea of the Horsemen having matching art. More on this at Holocaust.

Apocalypse: Editing errors are the hardest for me to spot. Gotta jump on that "OF", because consistency across cards is extremely important if these are going to look good. As for the grid, I actually kept Enhance Strength in the set, because of some of the art from his fight with Magneto and Bishop. He actually DOES Enhance Strength and Megamorph during the battle. My card images are pretty sweet. Text bubbles are the bane of my existence. I'll post them soon. Anyway, the point is, I'm pretty sure even in AoA he shouldn't be a base 8-strength. As for the IA, I'd actually be fine with no limit. The initial addition of the clause was because +2 to attack across the board was deemed too powerful by other commentors (and, taking into account cards outside the scope of limited play, I can see how it would interact very strongly with The Witchblade).

Banshee: Yeah, I felt the same way. Literally. I looked at his first one and said "that looks terrible". I changed it to +2, but then thought about all the commentary on Magneto and Apocalypse, and thought "+2 might be too strong with no conditional clause". So I reined it in. Maybe I'll try taking off the conditional clause. Because you're right, even with his grid alter he is still a little miserable.

Cyclops: Well, have no worries. I hate Gambit's art, and love Cyke's. I did Gambit as a filler piece while I search for better art. I think I finally found one, but it needs cropping and text bubble fills and such. DEFINITELY going to change the Gambit art though. I really hate it. Cyclops got the pass because his image cleaned up better around the edges, and looks nicer. I'll get the character name moved, you're right. There's a few I didn't shift far enough right (mostly very short names) and a few I didn't move far enough left (mostly long names). TM's are an issue on some too. I'll catch all those in this round of revisions. As for the arm, it's just a gauntlet. No strength enhancements there. The IA is an issue. I actually think X-Men Strategy makes fewer issues than his current IA, but the name doesn't work at all. I'm not even including it as a "reprinted special", because in AoA he isn't an X-Men Strategist. He spends a good portion of the series acting as hunting/enforcement for rogue mutants, some of which would have been fellow X-Men or X-allies in 616 reality. I guess I could include the "power card only" follow-up clause on the IA for Visual Sweep. Otherwise I may have to do a "functional reprint" of X-Men Strategy, change the name, and then double IA him "May not play XMen Strategy" and "May play [XMen Strategy with different name] from reserve".

Domino: Yup, gotta adjust that name. Not sure why the TM is blurry-looking. I'll check it when I do revisions.

Gambit: New art, adjust the name and TM to correct positions, and then I think everyone will be pretty happy with it.

Havok: Good call. I needed a place to cut a point to keep him in line with 616-Havok's total points, but he had 7E across versions (probably to keep him on par with Cyclops). This version's IA should make him able to go toe-to-toe with his bro anyway, so that's a logical cut. I'll check the shadow drop. I might have missed re-doing it (on the 2-line character name in the template, I have to edit a manipulated layer and it always resets it to off the screen, after name changes and shifting it into place sometimes I forget to add the shadow or move the TM to the right spot). I'll pull the AoA from character IA's where it references the character. You're right, it's probably superfluous.

Jean: I'll check it out, maybe I can find better art. That's a clean-up from her section of the "Weapon X and Jean Grey" section of AoA: The Chosen. It's likely the Weapon X series has some good pieces. As for the IA, that was based on community suggestion, but I like your idea. In my previous comments, I had talked about tweaking Weapon X's fighting and then giving it a conditional boost on the presence of Jean Grey (they were involved in AoA). I think I'll do it the opposite, and put a defense-boosting IA on Jean if they're on the same team together.

Jubilee: I'm fine with a 1S. And thinking about it, that minor tweak plus her IA might actually make this Jubilee playable because of the combo of efficient grid and useful IA. I'll take the OPD clause off, you're right that it's unnecessary. But yeah, when doing the IA I looked at her largely defensive specials. The only one that truly gave me pause was the "teammate avoid" because 2 or more of those placed could actually be pretty strong (I'm guessing). But that's the whole point. AoA Jubilee is tougher and more savvy than her 616 counterpart. No idea where that TM is. Might have accidentally turned off visibility? Otherwise, I'll just duplicate it from another card and paste it in.

Magneto: Yeah, like cyclops and a couple others, I never trimmed the bottom off the image after I got it sized, adjusted, and placed. That's easy, I'll hit it with the crop tool on the next revision round. As for the E rating, yeah, it hurts me too. But realistically, 7 was generous. He probably should be 6, or even 5. Between Apocalypse referencing him "losing half his impressive mutant gift" and the scene in the 2006 mini-series where he's struggling with his control over a bunch of metal objects that shouldn't be difficult for him, it's obvious AoA Magneto really DID lose a lot of his power when he crashed Ship. You're not wrong about 3-line IA's. I'm no closer to a solution than you. They just look like garbage. As for the IA, I'll probably leave it. MHC, Tussin, and Justa all gave pretty good contributions towards that, and I think they were well reasoned and fit flavor-wise (see MHC's breakdown on how Magnetic Shield with the IA functions as a sort of weak "Telepathic Unity", a la Prof X).

Nightcrawler: Believe it or not, this is his original grid with +1S. I couldn't think of a flavor-based reason to drop his ratings in E or F, so it was either drop his I to boost S (which makes no sense, this Kurt is much more experienced than 616 Kurt) or just give him an increase. I'll definitely consider the card-draw replacing additional attacks mechanic. I hit upon the initial one because he routinely does the equivalent of "Vicious Teleport" or "Blindside" in AoA. In the Uncanny X-Force revisit from 2012-13, the first thing he does when he sees Deadpool (Dead Man Wade, to him) is to teleport his head off of his body (Vicious Teleport). Then, IIRC, he follows it up with Blindside ('porting between 3 different opponents to strike them). So I was trying to come up with a mechanic that would allow him to access those very quickly, but at a significant cost. I'm going to hold off revising him until I've gotten more input, but I do very much like the idea of the card draw IA...

Quicksilver: Yup, another name adjustment. As for the Grid/IA, he is team leader in this reality and his base grid is already 7-6-3-2. I figured his fighting improved in AoA (I assumed that for most characters), and a double-7 pretty much dictated a double-2. I didn't push his IA because 7-7 seemed pretty good already, but it's a very reasonable IA (I think).

Rogue: Glad you like that art. I avoided X-Men:Alpha as an art source because of that Manga feel. But it was the only clear front-shot of Rogue I could find. Seeing that there're only two shades of blue in the background near the text bubble, I can probably eliminate it. As for the AoA in the IA, that'll go just like Havok's. Any suggestion that shortens IA's is going to get strong consideration from me. As for her actual IA, here's how I came up with it: Her other versions are "cannot be spectrum" and "cannot be cumulative" KO'd by special cards. I wanted to include her resistance to specials, but with her grid it was very obvious she wasn't going to get KO protection from specials on both spectrum and cumulative. Then I remembered the scene in Astonishing X-Men #4, where she gets knocked down while beating on Holocaust and then Morph copies her son to get her to keep fighting. I figured the "phoenix ability" with regards to specials was a decent way to capture that moment and also to relate her previous IA's to her current one. I'm totally open to suggestions for alternate abilities though. But I do worry a Halloween Jack-style ability would be too strong, especially if she ends up on a team with someone like Magneto: AoA.

Sinister: I thought about no IA. But then I thought about Colossus: AoA, and I wanted a dichotomy between the two sides (Apocalypse and Magneto). If Magneto's side gets an 8S with the non-shift, I wanted Apocalypse's side to have an 8E or 8I with the non-shift. Sinister fit the bill perfectly. I personally am very fond of this card, in spite of the fact he doesn't match the other Horsemen's art.

Storm: Her original version has a defensive IA. I believe that just like Domino, all I did was reverse it so that in AoA she was offensive-oriented instead of defensive-oriented. If I alter it, I might at least make it so that she kept her original defensive IA but also had an offensive one for (as an example) Fighting Power Cards. That's a bad example, she's a 6F. Strength Power Cards, I guess. Thoughts?

Colossus: Think we're all fine with this.

Dark Beast: I was so focused on trying to get his monstrosity visible (the raised spinal cord with spines on it, the elbow-bones that are curved and pointed like Doomsday from DC, which I couldn't even fit in) that I didn't look closely at colors. I'm personally ok with it, but I can throw a color-adjusted version up too and see if it gets better reception. He is Dark Beast, after all. Makes sense to make him dark.

Holocaust: Yup, I prefer not to make adjustments to "reprints" if it can be avoided. I don't want to rewrite OP history if I can avoid it, even if they did phone it in for some of this character design. As for the art, I had another piece that was beautiful, but didn't scale well. I can think of several other scenes he has great artwork in, so maybe I'll post a second version with different art and put a polling widget next to it. I tend to agree with you. In spite of no stretching or manipulation, flipping horizontally really made that image look kind of funky (not in a good way).

Weapon X: I have no problem adding AoA to this. I was surprised not to see a version of silver fishtank helmet already in existence, and I think it's inevitable the community will produce one eventually. Adding AoA preemptively solves the nomenclature issue.

X-Man: THANK YOU. No, seriously, thank you. If you've seen the original, you know how much I had to do to clean up that text bubble behind his name. Obviously things aren't quite perfect, but I didn't save the cleaned art (or if I did, I forgot to change the name and now it's a number hidden amongst hundreds of other numbered images). I'm not really keen on trying to go back and clean it all again just to try and fix that slightly-too-thick black line on the word bubble. Honestly the end of the exclamation point in that second bubble was the hardest, as it abutted to his psionic energy tendrils and I didn't want to mess those up. I wanted to color over the text boxes on the bottom, but that red isn't a solid color and it has lines through it. Wasn't gonna happen.

Anyway, thanks to everyone for the responses so far! I've had to make some alterations in my set composition, which I'll lay out here:
1) Characters are going to be over 25-count. Maybe as high as 30.
2) Alt-art "reprints" of specials and new specials will be limited to 5-per-character. See the character count for the reason why.
3) I will be including a set of 8 to use teamworks with powerful bonuses, as well as a set of 5 to use training and a small set of Universe cards. There (currently) will also be a set of Power Cards, but that's going to take a while. 32 pieces of previously-unused AoA art with no text bubbles or other obstructions isn't going to be easy to find.
4) Assuming that I do finish a Power-Card set, this will be a 200+ card set. Just putting that out there.

I've started doing some new-art "reprints", as I needed a break from characters before I do the final push to finish out the rough drafts for characters. All 5 Apocalypse Specials are finished, and will go up soon. I'll be doing reprints as I brainstorm specials for Abyss and Mikhail.

Please, don't hold back your thoughts people! Even negative feedback (that's well conceived) is useful!

Also, at teesaw's suggestion, I'm going to re-organize the pics in the original post. Scrolling will get ugly as more images are loaded, I'll try to help out but putting images side-by-side.

what about having banshee play his OPD's from reserve instead?
you know what about cyclops (he already has visual sweep playble (can he still make the additional attack?) and jean as well
can kurt choose anybody's special or just his? discarding 1 seems better too

havok is good as is
and what about holocaust being able to have 1 additional horrifying image special?

That's not a bad idea.

Shatter Shriek is a little concerning. Otherwise, I don't see a problem with that. And Super Scream from reserve is MUCH more aggressive (so in my mind, more AoA) than the teamwork IA (a throwback to 616-Banshee anyway).

Cyclops I'm still a little hesitant about. Remove Visor from Reserve could get out of hand, especially if he either has a 5+ Energy card or if he's wearing something like The Witchblade when he does it (and has an 8E). But I'd like to hear more feedback on that, because it does seem strong. And since there's very legitimate concern about the follow-up to Visual Sweep already, I'm open to IA ideas.

Jean I'd like to see lose her current one and gain one that relates to a bonus for having Wolverine on her team (or maybe even cyclops, at the end of the first AoA they were definitely kind-of getting together).

Good ideas though. Especially Banshee. I could be very into him playing OPD's from reserve if the community agrees it's not too insane.

what about holocaust being able to have 1 additional horrifying image special? or his impervious crystal (AG) consume life force (AL)(which seems more likely to be)

I have one question about intention of this set: Is this meant to be a stand-alone set or a set that can be played with the cards from the other set (Monumental, Image, etc)?

I ask this because the power level of some cards could be too powerful if played with other sets.  The first example that comes to mind is Jubilee.  When paired with Beyonder, her IA is ridiculous.  Her teammate avoid (AG?) gives that deck virtually unlimited strong avoids. 

Quote from: MHC on December 23, 2014, 04:04:59 PM
I have one question about intention of this set: Is this meant to be a stand-alone set or a set that can be played with the cards from the other set (Monumental, Image, etc)?

I ask this because the power level of some cards could be too powerful if played with other sets.  The first example that comes to mind is Jubilee.  When paired with Beyonder, her IA is ridiculous.  Her teammate avoid (AG?) gives that deck virtually unlimited strong avoids.

I think it would be tough, but not impossible.  If you made a deck of 40+ AA's and AG's and AC's....you think it would really be unbeatable?  I think an opponent with a solid deck could take you down...

This set has the unenviable position of being intended for both stand-alone and integrated gameplay.

I have to agree with teesaw about Jubilee though. I think a deck like that would be extremely linear, and therefore easy to dismantle. To my point over in the 2099 thread (why I hate putting IA's that say: May play [X] Special Cards), there are NG specials that would neutralize this. Does it have to hit? Yes, but if you have the avoid for Jubilee and unending avoids for Beyonder, isn't your deck basically all avoids? Wouldn't you be worried that your opponent might have some way to increase their venture, decrease yours, and win the game without having to actually battle (thus rendering avoids useless)? There are also MC specials, so if you relied on placing your deck would come undone. Or, depending on the situation, Adam Warlock's Discard Three comes to mind as well.

Don't get me wrong, if there's concern about the power level of specific cards in consideration of the larger body of cards, I welcome input. I'm just not completely sold on Jubilee being too strong. Lots of avoids is very good, but if you rely on it too heavily I think it becomes an Achilles' Heel.

The other item to take into consideration is that I have not yet done Events, Any Heroes, or Artifacts for this set. If there's a specific negative interaction that needs to be shut down, "safety valve" effects can always be built in. For example, an Any Hero that functions similarly to an NG special but without needing to hit (and maybe just for the duration of the battle) is a possibility. Or even just a special for a character, with the assumption Activator decks will use it.

In fact, I had been thinking about The M'Kraan Fragment all day (you know, the one Apocalypse ends up with after Strong Guy betrays Gambit?), and I see no reason why it shouldn't be able to affect game play in a major way, such as by removing IA's from your opponent's characters or something equally absurd. That's just a thought, obviously.

Please, don't let this discourage commentary. If I keep hearing "everything is too strong" from different sources, I'll take a chainsaw to some of these IA's and grids, and scale back the power level of the set. Or if particular problem cards appear. Magneto is a great example. It was obvious very quickly he was far too strong, but I think we've dialed him back to a solid power level through community collaboration.

the magneto and abyss cards look especially awesome!

the apocalypse one...not so much.  I think the image is too 'busy' to use as a character card.  too many colours, maybe

I think Jubilee's IA is cool the way it is.  If you feel you do have to nerf it somewhat, you could make it 1 duplicate.  That gives you 1 placed & 1 in hand, or 2 in hand.  Limits abuse.  But it does work the way it is.  Except for Wolvie Style (the dreaded NG), she really has nothing to break the bank.  And I agree with other's analyses, that excessive defense in a deck prevents effective offense.  It will get a few extra cards for Jubles cards into a deck and improve her usage, even without Beyonder.  I wouldn't have a problem with dropping her grid total to 16 or even 15, though that would make her a lock on Beyonder decks, so I won't argue "for" that idea.

Apocalypse i just gave an example for a change, i would be fine with having no maximum bonus, if someone wants to build a deck around combos and more chances for dupes for a slight bonus go for it. i could live with Apocalypse getting an 8 Strength, take one point from Fighting and just make his other special (CL) instant evolution boost him up instead

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/76.png)

Cyclops i guess i never thought of the AA and the ruling issue, lets go with AR from reserve Wide Beam

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/315.png)

Jean Grey i can deal with innate change, i just thought to try her 9S OPD as a way to make her more offensive and flex in reserve. for her i would say like above... increase Energy power card bonus +1 to defense with Cyclops Professor X or Wolverine on team, maximum of +3 bonus.

with Jubilee i would agree with a slight tweak to innate, maybe have up to 1 duplicate for non opd specials... i wouldnt be against letting her be with a little testing.. but i think this may be fair because of beyonder decks.

Banshee's innate is terrible, nobody uses training cards as they are, they as is do nothing useful in the game...
i would give let his innate be allow OPD's like steve2275 said or Luck of the irish to be played from reserve

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/108.png)

Rogue i would remove the special cards restriction and just put it to KO... its too situation otherwise i would also switch her stats to 4-6-7-2 or 3-6-7-2

Quicksilver Hit and Run from reserve? seems useless, you can't really attack or get hit back there anyway... its a waste. i don't see him as much of a backline type..  what about...this?
Quicksilver may make 1 additional attack after playing a OPD? minus his 11S of course.
if you are set on having an attack from reserve, i would go with this because it would be a great tech to punish them on concedes.

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/1082.png)

Nightcrawler great idea on the innate its fresh. i cant think of how to tweak it however. for stats i would go 7-7-3-3 or 6-7-3-4

Storm i would go with +1 bonus to attack with her specials instead of a +2 to intellect on power cards... more useful synergy and if you exploit her in an intellect deck... an artifact can make her attack with 10's

Domino i would go with another innate because of the same above...+2 Energy bonus to power cards plus access to her fall into place special would be way over the top to people that would exploit it

what about this? Double Down can make 2 additional attacks (instead of just 1 fighting)

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/395.png)

Abyss maybe this for an innate?

Opponent is -2 to venture total every battle?
Opponent is -1 to venture for each hit in current battle (teamwide)
when Abyss is ko'd opponent must draw 1 card from draw pile. drawn card and any duplicate of it, placed or in hand, must be discarded?

for Magneto we could change it to his AI instead of AM to reduce issues? Gravity Alteration... break their teamwork, then boost yours up? win win? :)or just link teamwork bonus for the battle to after a OPD is played?

(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/771.png)

i cosign the idea to write in the text horsemen of apocalypse on his 4... it keeps it going with angel going that way :) minor touch but it keeps the continuity imo

for Morph AoA i feel his stats would sit around 3-7-3-6...

with Sabretooth AoA i feel he would stay close to his stats 2-8-6-3... but upgrade his innate to

after Sabretooth plays his "rabid beast" special he may play offensive specials face down? opponent must guess defense? :)
(http://overpower.ca/cards/specials/1167.png)

im cool with wide beam from reserve
heck
why not all non OPD specials for cyclops? LOL
the opposite of banshee

I've got updates to post later tonight for 2099 and AoA, but I've been toying with the idea of altering background patterns to differentiate my sets.

Below you can see the current border I'm using, and the proposed new one for AoA. I had to change the color of the character name so it wasn't lost against the background. Thoughts? Is this better or worse than what I've got currently? I'm flexible on the color scheme, and can switch to white text or another color for character name or other card text.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-R6dQ_WLlId0/VL1w1IP7l5I/AAAAAAAABIA/GE8EL3EkWQA/w365-h510-no/APOCALYPSESPECIAL04draft.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-oXdAmUj50K0/VL1wvy-37rI/AAAAAAAABH4/zMxHI67Jtpw/w365-h510-no/APOCALYPSESPECIAL04draftALTCOLORS.png)

i think the new border looks fantastic.  as you said, the problem is now the text; is it possible to lighten the backround to make the black pop more? 

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8rLBn0XmELw/VL2HvJuGeGI/AAAAAAAABIs/vEkGDc9zwqo/w365-h510-no/APOCALYPSESPECIAL04draftALTCOLORSBRIGHT33.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-bwTeL8WS1Lc/VL2HvDzoXlI/AAAAAAAABIw/_PHBIZaw9sM/w365-h510-no/APOCALYPSESPECIAL04draftALTCOLORSBRIGHT65.png)

I pulled the brightness of the background from 0 (baseline) to 33 and 65 here, respectively. I tend to lean to the 65 side, but I have templates saved for both depending on what people think.

New & darker gray with normal lettering is bad ass!

yeah i definately love the update of the set color scheme. the medium or light grey is the best

the dark is awesome, but it makes it harder to read some text, so i would be in favor of reducing darkness to help out :)

I agree with Tussin, since I am one of those who do not have the greatest of eyes.  (Sounds almost like the "daring young man..." - I'm not.)  The lighter gray makes both the red and black more readable.  On the darker gray, the red could go to an orange/yellow, but I don't know what you could do with the black.  So I definitely vote for the lighter gray.

What?! Old people play overpower?! Where were they in the promotional videos??

I don't play anymore - my son moved across the country a few years ago.  But he & his sister & their friends liked playing with me back in '95 when it all started.  It was me that got hooked instead of them!
And nobody talked to me 'bout no video.... :(

Gambit's AK changed to OPD?

Cyclops innate change to AR? instead of AA? to avoid complaints and confusion with extra attack

Banshee innate still needs work

Quicksilver innate needs changing

Abyss' innate?

Opponent is -2 to venture total every battle?
Opponent is -1 to venture for each hit in current battle (teamwide)
when Abyss is ko'd opponent must draw 1 card from draw pile. drawn card and any duplicate of it, placed or in hand, must be discarded?

This may be a day late & a dollar short, but for Abyss, Sinister, Mikhail, & Holocaust, why not name them War AoA, Famine AoA, Pestilence AoA, and Death AoA?  It shouldn't affect the base character specials, and would keep them consistent with each other.  There aren't that many NGs that the IA would be cancelled, and they can always be negated.
justa thought.....

Interesting thought, but let me ask you this:

Did you ever see Apocalypse refer to any of the AoA horsemen by those titles? I've basically re-read the entire series doing art sweeps, and the answer is no. He once refers to Sinister obliquely as Death, but that's it. The "roles" of the other 3 are never truly defined. They're just the Four Horsemen (even in AoA: The Chosen). So I wouldn't actually know who to call what, other than Sinister is Death.

For whatever reason (I assume a not-fully-developed mythos), Apocalypse's standard nomenclature for the horsemen wasn't applied in AoA. In our (616) reality, they make it clear (Uncanny X-Force, the Dark Angel Saga) that Death is the title for Apocalypse's successor amongst the Horsemen, and that Death's selection is a priority. The others appear to simply be, as Dark Beast puts it, "selected during one of Apocalypse's many opium binges". So their titles aren't identifiers in a true sense, just appellatives Apocalypse assigned on a whim.

As for other character revisions, I promise I'm going to come back to them. Right now I'm just trying to get the bulk of the initial work done on the specials for each character, as the amount of text in Specials makes them take longer to put together on a per-card basis. Once every pre-existing character has at least 3 specials done with AoA artwork, frame, colors, etc, I'll go back and revise character cards again. In the end, nomenclature is just going to be ugly. Marvel OP really screwed the pooch with naming, making it difficult to produce alternate versions or other individuals with the same heroic name without things getting messed up. I'll do my best to get things internally consistent within my set and (relatively) consistent within the larger body of naming, insofar as that is possible.

Right as rain, Dok.  Guess I didn't think it through.

Hey, no problem. I had approached naming from every angle I could think of, and I WANT to find some name to fit in the designations of Apocalypse's horsemen. Fortunately Angel: Horseman of Apocalypse made sure that there is no answer that won't result in some ugly naming designations.

EDIT:
I have lots of new specials that I will be posting (Jubilee, X-Man, etc) later today, but I just finished doing Abyss specials and a 1st-draft of his IA. I'd be curious for thoughts about his IA (which seems strong but reasonable to me), and the specials themselves. If anyone is curious, when doing specials I typically look for characters with similar power-sets, then look through their specials for roughly analogous attacks/abilities. When it comes to a little more "free-range" sets (like 2099), I'm happy to flex my design chops trying to create new cards. But AoA is a much-beloved alterniverse, and nothing in it calls for new cards per se, beyond the new characters (which are technically Abyss, Mikhail, and Blink at the moment). Since I'm trying to create a set that is compatible with already-existing OP, the last thing I want to do is design really unique specials which have had no play-testing. It's (likely) much safer to use already-coded specials to create the special sets for new characters.
Also, again, thank you to everyone for all the support and encouragement! There's been quite a bit of interest in seeing these printed up, and I will keep everyone informed as the set progresses.

Now, without further ado, the current Abyss:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-f3cnkZ6Wtn8/VMPgWjj8y_I/AAAAAAAABP0/UhRsqg39WvM/w712-h510-no/ABYSSCHARACTERAOAdraft.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-EQ-o-kBZMIM/VMPgUVyo8AI/AAAAAAAABPU/ArWjx3-X43U/w365-h510-no/ABYSSAOASPECIAL01.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-7Z3RP2cqAzk/VMPgUc8phCI/AAAAAAAABPc/smNr6yZ9F-U/w365-h510-no/ABYSSAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--lII9QYdx6c/VMPgUUTUY-I/AAAAAAAABPY/NTYnm8h_gB4/w365-h510-no/ABYSSAOASPECIAL03.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Qmem--HV0fk/VMPgVqvZyEI/AAAAAAAABPo/pzzPm7TVS8A/w365-h510-no/ABYSSAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-lFByABntGgw/VMPgWBbgK9I/AAAAAAAABPw/LAO64gRKweg/w365-h510-no/ABYSSAOASPECIAL05.png)

For reference -

Special 1 is equivalent to "Rebuild Form" from Absorbing Man. See Amazing X-Men#4 for Abyss's Rebuild Form (after being shoved into his own internal abyss by Quicksilver in Amz X-Men#2)
Special 2 is equivalent "Kinetic Absorption" from Parasite. See Amazing X-Men#2 (battle with Banshee) for an example of his power absorption.
Special 3 is equivalent to Holocaust's "Consume Lifeforce". See Amazing X-Men#2 (discussion with Quicksilver, and why humans are "gum" to Abyss)
Special 4 is equivalent to Blob's "Bottomless Belly". See Amazing X-Men#2 and 4 for multiple examples of Abyss's bottomless depths.
Special 5 is equivalent to the Inhuman's "Medusa". See Amazing X-Men#4 for example of this ability in action (the art I used on the card).

Gotta get them printed, I'm game for several sets so count me in! Nice work man, I tried rereading my collection after seeing the post originally & was wondering how you would pull of Abyss.. He really isn't big or main focus on most pages. Love what you did! I could give you a character that would be a challenge as a request :) 

Arkady Rossovich, I'd love to see if you could pull him off! Though I think he would be even harder than Abyss due to lack of material.

i agree with your method and approach to AoA specials.

i would upgrade Abyss' AH because you gotta make it playable

(http://oneperdeck.com/cards/specials/373.png)

all AH's should have that upgraded or altered into errata imho.

his innate is cool, but i'm not sure how balanced it will be :)

Quote from: cyber0820 on January 25, 2015, 06:07:57 AM
Gotta get them printed, I'm game for several sets so count me in! Nice work man, I tried rereading my collection after seeing the post originally & was wondering how you would pull of Abyss.. He really isn't big or main focus on most pages. Love what you did! I could give you a character that would be a challenge as a request :) 

Arkady Rossovich, I'd love to see if you could pull him off! Though I think he would be even harder than Abyss due to lack of material.

You and I clearly have some similar thinking, because I totally thought about Omega Red too! He was such a major character in the original OP, at a time when he was seeing a lot of appearances in X-Titles. Plus, in the most recent (Uncanny X-Force) AoA sojourn, you find out he survived Domino's assassination attempt and went on to consolidate the entire Russian bloc into an empire to rival Weapon Omega's. Too bad there is so little art... I think you see him in maybe 5 frames of issue 1 of X-Man. I might give it a try though!

Quote from: Tussin on January 25, 2015, 02:39:10 PM
i agree with your method and approach to AoA specials.

i would upgrade Abyss' AH because you gotta make it playable

(http://oneperdeck.com/cards/specials/373.png)

all AH's should have that upgraded or altered into errata imho.

his innate is cool, but i'm not sure how balanced it will be :)

Agreed to the AH. It hits the sweet spot in terms of flavor (I mean, it shuts down attacks in a way that evokes the attack being useless against a guy with no insides) but is really, really bad in terms of game play. How bad? Well, to teach my wife OP basics I cracked open a couple of sealed starter decks, Lethal Allies for me and Clobberin Time for her. After half a dozen games, I had played Doctor Doom's AH in literally every game, and it had never done anything. Not once. The one time she did have an energy card that was playable, she aimed it at Omega Red anyway.

I hate messing with already-printed cards, because I'm trying to integrate a set into an existing framework, not rebuild/fix the framework. OP3 is doing that, and I don't blame him. Like a lot of CCG's in the first wave in the early 90's, there was a steep learning curve for the game designers that ended up creating a lot of ugly templating and weird conundrums. The only real solution is to take all the useful bits of the game and reintegrate in a top-down redesign for the game. Again, OP3 is taking that route, and doing a pretty top-notch job IMHO.

However given that there isn't an over-riding OP governing body to make "official" rulings an errata, and how truly miserable AH specials are (along with enough other existing issues that had to be fixed and required some tweaks to already-existing cards) I'm game in this case to pump it up a little. Suggestions are welcome. My initial thought is to either expand it to a 2nd type of power card, or make it "No Power cards of X or less" or something else that covers a broader swath of cards. As it is, the elimination of a single card type is so narrow it's basically unplayable. You can't put a card in your deck that could easily be blank (against a Strength/Intellect deck, for example) in some matches. Again, input is appreciated. I have a tendency to push past the ok point and then have to rein cards in, as opposed to starting with a weak card and then trying to push it more.

I also worried about Abyss's special being balanced. I considered making it 1 or less, since as a 2 it already eliminates every 1-2 E power card, quite a few specials, and 1-2 Multi cards.  I like the idea that it cares about the icon, not power cards, so it can eat specials too. I noticed that there didn't seem to be many level 1 special attacks though, so I defaulted to 2 and figured I'd wait to hear back from the community.

Also, I forgot to get the other specials posted! I've got 3 or 4 Jubilee specials done, as well as a few each of Colossus and Domino specials.

FYI, characters that have fewer than 5 specials, it's because artwork is difficult to find or requires a LOT of editing. Cleaning up text bubbles is one thing, but once you have to start filling in backgrounds and such, it takes a while to get a single piece done. I've tagged art which I need to go back and clean to finish character special sets, my intention is to power through the rest of the "bulk" specials with easy-to-use art in the next month, and then to split my time between finishing art/specials and revising Character cards. Ideally by the end of March that will put me on Universe, Artifact, and Teamwork cards. I'm dreading the Artifacts and Teamwork, because I'll have to produce templates for them (I don't currently have one) before I can start on the cards. Universe I just haven't figured out what to do, other than Sentinel Hands. I'm so excited to do Sentinel Hands as a card, you don't even know. If you're curious why, check out Weapon X #1. There's an awesome scene where Sentinel hands detach with rocket boosters, grab Havok, and then teleport with him. The scene after involves Dark Beast, a bone saw, and statements regarding how objects in a teleporter fuse together.

Oh man, before I forget:
Blink and Morph are still on deck for creation. I am struggling with both; Morph because he was done as the AoA version originally, with AoA artwork. It feels pointless and stupid to redo both his character card and his specials when, with the exception of the border, they're already exactly what I would ask for in a perfect world. Blink because I know that Power Balance did her already, and while I have a copy of his Blink card (I held onto it when I got it in that auction, he really did a bang-up job on the stuff I've seen) I don't have her specials. I'd really like to see his specials/their coding/their naming before diving in. My goal is not to create more inconsistency across the game of OP if I can avoid it.

I also have not forgotten the other characters that remain undone. Unfortunately, Iceman is proving incredibly challenging for art (the coolness of his AoA version is slightly overridden by the fact he's always spread across multiple frames with tons of other characters in them), as are the teams other than Gambit+the X-Ternals. It also occurs to me that Sentinels are a playable character, and there's probably enough art of the AoA version to make it worth doing them. No promises though. Continually adding more characters/specials is not a way to ever get anything finished.

EDIT:
I went back to post the new specials with the appropriate characters, and things are getting ugly there. I don't feel like putting in the effort to rearrange and resize images, so in the future I'm going to post updates at the end of the thread. Like these:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JaSdXsyM0_4/VMV8aSKa3JI/AAAAAAAABQU/_g00StRLdrI/w396-h553-no/COLOSSUSAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XwIyRYX9Wjo/VMV8aWq91mI/AAAAAAAABQc/32fQB8Kli-8/w396-h553-no/COLOSSUSAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-_FY605k5WIg/VMV8afBReuI/AAAAAAAABQY/7TgtBKPU6qU/w396-h553-no/COLOSSUSAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-KteTqY-ZdQQ/VMV8bpdYGJI/AAAAAAAABQk/FvxmBZLGvjc/w396-h553-no/COLOSSUSAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--4Ar33f616c/VMV8l1WIgdI/AAAAAAAABQ8/Fi473-wux6w/w396-h553-no/DOMINOAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-TqKhiLEVgCc/VMV8lg6kBTI/AAAAAAAABQ0/isNeW_V7xWE/w396-h553-no/DOMINOAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-nmr8ovwKZm8/VMV8l2dbgVI/AAAAAAAABQ4/AMxNqys0wm4/w396-h553-no/DOMINOAOASPECIAL03.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-BhXtBDB9Qhc/VMV8vf6vSKI/AAAAAAAABRU/M-nmdTjmykw/w396-h553-no/JUBILEEAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8rYCg2NjXD0/VMV8u7UVCMI/AAAAAAAABRM/zSUeurIbBao/w396-h553-no/JUBILEEAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-1h_m2Mm9Edg/VMV8vT5M9zI/AAAAAAAABRQ/r90XMaNnTHY/w396-h553-no/JUBILEEAOASPECIAL03.png)

As soon as I got these uploaded, I saw all sorts of issues with Jubilee. Jubilee's 7 attack OPD is off-position for the number, and the art is messed up. I have no idea what happened to the art. I'll go back and re-edit it later, if I have to I'll stop using the web-lifted image and pull the original (which has a different background) from the actual issue of Gambit & the X-Ternals. I think there were others, but now the images aren't in front of me I can't see them offhand.

Also, @cyber0820: I'm totally going to try and do Omega Red. I'm not sure there are even enough images of him to do a set of specials, but why not try? I'm having the same problem with other, more "major" characters that are slotted for the set. But I want your input on naming. I can post images, but in the opening of X-Man where we see him, he's only referred to as Arkady Rossovich. In the Uncanny X-Force revisit more recently, he is referred to as Omega Red, in spite of his clearly blue costume from the original AoA (nearly 20 years earlier). Should I go with Omega Red, or Arkady Rossovich? It's tempting to call him Omega Blue, but there's no basis for that other than the look of his costume. Anyway, I'm going to do a mockup tonight under the "Omega Red: AoA" name structure, and see how many specials I can find art pieces to fulfill.

Humm.. I'm not familiar with this new reappearance of Rossovich!  I'll find it next weekend when I run to the city.

I was thinking to request him in your set for him because... Well for the same reasons as you stated.
1. He was there...
2. He was in the OP starter decks off launch.
But... my more personal reason... Because Red has always been a favorite.  I like villains more i guess. But I wanted to do him but I didn't because I didn't have enough source material, you already had started AOA, hoping he'd make the cut I didn't want to step around your work with another AOA..

As for the name.... Old school says Rossovich... But does this new aoa "Omega Red" have the 2 tendrils in his arms or 4 in the abdomen? I'd use that as your guide or for which version you are looking for. I'll go see if images have been posted somewhere yet. I know that when Red faced off with spider... They put the tendrils on top of his arm??.. Still don't know why other than my guess of the artist maybe not knowing reference material... but that doesn't make since ether. I'll go try to find art from the old made new Rossovich while your working on cards.

Sadly, they never show him in the Uncanny X-Force issues! He's just mentioned. Anyway, in original AoA he appears in 8 frames of X-Man #2. These cards use 6 of them. Needless to say, the art is a stretch.

(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Pij5kn1NNnQ/VMW2PC7ROYI/AAAAAAAABR8/leWwdMWsbM8/w772-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOACHARACTER.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-cx2-Oox7L6g/VMW2Oy8kYGI/AAAAAAAABR4/HKsactz7qsM/w396-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-RLGffwDLyho/VMW2OzGvzMI/AAAAAAAABR0/Hd5Md8v_ycM/w396-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LgRdoVvbSOQ/VMW2Qc6RUxI/AAAAAAAABSE/N7THTT-bvBw/w396-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-pWbb8HOtfno/VMW2R8GnliI/AAAAAAAABSQ/NEITJPrSZqw/w396-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-nUtjt_c7dI8/VMW2RxivXtI/AAAAAAAABSU/hblhcrqfPd0/w396-h553-no/OMEGAREDAOASPECIAL05.png)

great work. on Omega's AU it says ust, not must :)

a massive project you are undertaking... take your time and keep plugging away 1 step at a time :)

we will be here to help with what we can

Good catch! This is why I need other eyes... after 3 or 4 cards in a sitting, mistakes start slipping through.

I appreciate all the support and feedback on this project, and I would love if people would try proxying and playing these to give feedback on suspect IA's (like Jubilee's or Apocalypse's or Nightcrawler's... can anyone break these? I'd love to have good answers on some of these IA's) and the general playability of them. Although obviously the Specials are well tested, so it's mostly the new character grids and IA's that are unknowns. Regardless, I'm glad people are enjoying what I'm putting out.

So earlier in the thread, someone mentioned not caring much for the Apocalypse art. I needed to take a break from Specials for a bit, and I knew he needed revision anyway, so I took another crack at it. Revisions present here:
OF is now capitalized
Removed the +2 restriction on IA, per a suggestion from the thread
Altered art, per a suggestion from the thread
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-dvr3yeHy01Q/VMXDIKFO7WI/AAAAAAAABSs/TWlVBUowKdU/w772-h553-no/APOCALYPSEAOACHARACTERdraft02.png)

I'm comfortable with either artwork, so I guess just post your votes up here and I'll stick with the most popular one. We'll call the original the "old" and this card the "new" artwork for the purposes of weighing in on this.

Tonight I'll continue on with more Specials. Always more Specials.

really like the new abyss

new

If you send me the original apocalypse image I'll remove the speech bubble for you...that's one I won't allow...lol. speech bubbles in hero cards..

PM sent, I'd love to have the art cleaned better!

Here's more specials!
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-2JpblGwLezU/VMXRWUPWVuI/AAAAAAAABTQ/GQE0tPFEzBM/w365-h510-no/DARKBEASTAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-DLzggVaMSSY/VMXRWauAsII/AAAAAAAABTM/w5-BpNtHlf0/w365-h510-no/DARKBEASTAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-WbHthq6y3jU/VMXRWedg-qI/AAAAAAAABTU/vRyWF3c_46U/w365-h510-no/DARKBEASTAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E2RLKMM69ok/VMXRhUkxdYI/AAAAAAAABTc/ZVUVNPcNuX0/w365-h510-no/DARKBEASTAOASPECIAL03.png)

I have yet to find Drop Kick art for Dark Beast that isn't the art where he's drop kicking Beast. Seems dubious... but it may be the one.

both Apocalypse artwork are great... but i think the new one is more badass :)

Quote from: DoktorSleepless on January 25, 2015, 10:39:37 PM
Sadly, they never show him in the Uncanny X-Force issues! He's just mentioned. Anyway, in original AoA he appears in 8 frames of X-Man #2. These cards use 6 of them. Needless to say, the art is a stretch.

I cant beleive you got that much, looks good. & only being mentioned would explain why I couldn't find anything lol. There is supposed to be a AOA 2015 this summer I guess? I think I need to frequent comic shops more often... I think if its gonna have four tendrils & original art with no stat change. If it were me making it, Id go with Rossovitch & maybe a stat rearrange? Idk. Its hard to gauge the stats with only 6 frames to work with & as much as I like him as a character... There is one other image of him that might help.. I think it was on the 95 fleer untra as a alternate x card. Good pic of him there & it would give you one more image to work with.

I'm guessing his energy is all but gone with no "death spores" used or energy drain from tendrils used in the fight. Maybe a 2?

Fighting wise.. He got shanked & left for dead by Domino in like 10 min, not to take anything away from Domino but I was shocked by that so maybe he isn't as good as he once was. Maybe 4-5?

Strength- same maybe, didn't see anything really different except the 4 tendrils might boost him, So maybe 6-7?

Intellect- Same from what I seen in the book but if he was a big Russian boss like Kingpin or something like what you were talking about.. Maybe higher up like a 5-6 ish. Maybe like what the IQ version of Dr. Oc is minus a point in the intellect department.

I just didn't see anything to keep the 6/7/5/2 original I would think a reversal would look just as good 2/5/7/6... Just a thought having him in the mix is more that I thought possible or was able to do on my own.

As for Abyss..... Mannnnn... Sexy!

Apocalypse second hero- I like both, but agree with chuu.. No bubbles on hero but he offered to splice that out for you, so I'd say second hero. His stats are good for balance & his innate is bad ass & helpful with his specials! I love it.

Specials for the the others characters look great!

I'm really glad I've got an Omega Red fan to help on this one! I don't have a ton of backstory on Omega Red, I vaguely recall reading him in X-Men around issue 22 or so back in the mid-90's, but I was around 12 years old and it's been almost 2 decades. I suppose I should read the Marvel wiki on him.

I'm not sure whether or not his death spores are gone (I'd forgotten entirely about that, until you mentioned it), though as you said, circumstantial information indicates they are not present. It actually does appear he might have energy drain abilities though, as the image I used in "Drain Lifeforce" has associated text in the image where he tells Grizzly "We eat bears like you for breakfast (in Russia? I forget how the sentence ends)" and it does genuinely appear that Grizzly goes limp and becomes useless (and not because he's been crushed). That's when the battle moves to only Domino vs. Omega Red. So I could potentially see lowering his Energy rating a point or 2, more if I can find reliable information about his power set. I'll have to re-read the Uncanny X-Force issues to see if I can glean any more information (Weapon Omega talks about Omega Red several times).

As for strength, I'd tend to agree. There's not much indicating he's weaker, and he does lift Grizzly with his tentacles.

For Fighting, I'd actually council a little perspective. Remember that 1) Domino was Apocalypse's best assassin, and her mutant power causes situations to bend to her favor, and 2) She didn't kill him with that blow, which she (a trained assassin) thought was lethal and walked away after, and 3) This happened after a pitched battle in which Omega Red was also battling Grizzly (one of the two frames I couldn't use was Grizzly knocking him through the air backward). I reigned in Domino's Fighting to a 7, because I didn't think the set needed another 8 fighter and because she does get beaten by X-Man (in fairness, how do you physically defend having your mind torn apart? You don't). But she didn't beat Omega Red on her own, she had help. So while I can definitely see how you might argue his Fighting should be reduced a point or two, I'd argue that successfully beating Grizzly while fighting Domino, then surviving what should have been a lethal blow (and after that, apparently going on to crush your opposition beneath your heel and conquer the Eastern Hemisphere) probably qualifies him for at least a 6 Fighting still, if not the full 7 (the implication being he might have been Domino's equal or better as he claims in the frame I used for his character, but we'll never know because it was 2-on-1).

Intellect I ended up increasing 1 point. He's obviously already a threat to Apocalypse, so I'm assuming on this world Omega Red was already moving to consolidate power in Russia. I could easily see the argument for making him a 5, as he definitely is mentioned as the big boss later on. If that change was made, it would further justify his drop in Energy, and maybe the fighting too.

How about a grid of
4-6-5-5  or 3-7-5-5

Either of which actually drops him a point from where he is and back to the 20-point character he was in IQ, while still leaving him more AoA appropriate (the IA reflects how hard it is to kill him and the stat grid changes reflect the differences in AoA reality). Personally I REALLY like the look of 3-7-5-5. It gives him a pretty solid grid, actually makes him pretty good in the game outside AoA (I'm thinking of decks utilizing the Serpent Crown or the Witchblade, which make his stats very appealing either for boosting himself or for making the Witchblade more effective... IIRC the Serpent Crown boosts E rating to 7, and a 7-7-5-5 with that IA seems like a bruiser). Another option might be 3-7-6-4, which could also be good (though I personally think the 5-5 is better than the 6-4).

I sent Chuu the image this morning, so whenever he gets it back to me (no rush) I'll slap it in the Apocalypse card.

It just occurred to me that I might be able to sweet talk Chuu into cleaning up the Gambit image for the Gambit character card too. That would be awesome, as I think we can all agree that Gambit's art sucks right now.

I hope to start work on Mikhail Rasputin Specials tonight as well, as I work on other character specials. 

I'm not compelled strongly other than slightly differ from the original ratings. Of the 20 total goal I'd say 3-7-6-4 makes the most sense to me but as a rewrite or 2-7-6-5 (this one puts him right on par with AOA Wolverine hero intellect wise) or using the numbers from the original. But you offer a valid counter to my points.

In the end, its your creation & unlike most others, their is little to make a precise judgement for me at least. Seemingly lack of "death spores" but Grizzly passing out, must still have a healing factor if he lived from that shot by Domino but took them both on. So its hard to say...

I sent you a email containing 3 additional pics for him that are uncomplicated adds for more cards, links & info for him since you said you were a bit hazy on him overall. Anyways, great work!

Obviously I have been thinking a LOT about Omega Red/Rossovich and this set. I've come to some conclusions, and I'd love to get feedback.

The grid on the previous page is wrong. The correct grid is most likely 2-7-6-5, for the following reasons:

1) While there may be room to argue a slight decrease in fighting skill, taking the character in the larger context of the AoA mythos as expanded upon in Uncanny X-Force, Omega Red is obviously skilled/intelligent enough to be one of the most powerful on a planet full of fighters. (can I just say really quick, I HATE the Black Legion. They don't make any sense. The characters are obvious pulls from other universes. This implies Weapon Omega has access to other dimensions, in which case it's absurd that he is spending so much time fighting over the ruined dirt-ball of his earth simply to achieve some kind of ascension, and doubly absurd that he would fixate so much on his Jean when he has access to other Jeans. Plus, it completely defies AoA logic. Either he's obsessed with culling his planet for the fittest like Apocalypse was, or he's willing to pull in outside talent. I mean, otherwise why wouldn't you just cherry-pick all the "fittest" from various dimensions like Weapon Omega clearly did to form the Black Legion. Sorry, rant over.)

2) Building on that, it's obvious he needs a higher Intellect rating. Since he basically needs to be on par with Wolverine:AoA (which ignores that Weapon Omega likely had a much higher Intellect rating due to all that Celestial tech and knowledge) 5 seems like the sweet spot.

3) Given no evidence of his Death Spores, Energy is the logical place to pull from. This has an unexpected benefit: Carbonadium Synthesizer (EZ) suddenly goes from being good to awesome. Instead of increasing 1 point in Energy and 2 points in Strength, he gains 5 points in Energy and 1 point in Strength. For 1 turn (and off of a OPD, so at most you recur it once with Web-Headed Wizard), you basically get a 26-point character with a strong IA. I could see that (outside AoA) being totally bonkers in a "combo" deck where you use your other characters' card draw to set up a turn of Carbonadium Synthesizer, a "Soul Gem" effect where only Omega Red and one other character can attack, and a pile of high-point attacks and specials to guarantee you win your (7 card) venture and the game. I don't think it's unfair, because Negate effects exist, it's a narrow and linear path to victory, and it runs the very real risk of losing an important card to something like Iron Man's Industrial Waste or Adam Warlock's Detachment. But it is kind of sweet.

(can I also just say how much I hated the way they ended the AoA? Seriously, you let the whole dimension fill with crazy eradicator things, turn Jean Grey into Apocalypse, then let her go on a guns-blazing suicide run into things while they seal the dimension off? Ugh. Thanks for ruining AoA, David Lapham. This will sit nicely next to Caligula on your shelf of "things I've written that turn people's stomachs.")

Anyway, I'm going to go back with the new art I've received and do revisions/additions. But not right away.

As a die hard Omega Red fan I can say that from what I seen in the AOA in the 90's... 2-7-6-5 for Rossovich is great & you make a great point on the C-Synth. I didn't think of how much of a bad ass card that will actually be now. I think you did full justice to the character based on what was illustrated & to the overall balance of the game. Well played!

Thanks, I feel like the character is developing nicely.

Now, Chuu just sent me the cleaned up image of Apocalypse. He did an amazing job, and deserves every prop I can give him (PROPS TO CHUU!). In fact, he did so well I was able to readjust the image in the frame because I wasn't trying to cover up word bubbles with Power Grid. Check this out, and then everyone tell Chuu how totally boss he is for making this possible:
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-z3E8inn2lwE/VMhmRf7YkbI/AAAAAAAABT4/PrMF8GAxhJY/w712-h510-no/APOCALYPSEAOACHARACTERdraft02.png)
That looks totally amazingly sweet. THANK YOU CHUU!!!!

That's f-ing amazing, props chuu!

Very nice...this is shaping up to be a pretty cool set.

thanks for the props guys, i'm just helping the community :)

Update time! After a couple of days of not doing anything, I did a big push today. Also, after doing Weapon X, I've decided to go back and label Dark Beast specials as Dark Beast. Otherwise Weapon X was going to have Wolverine written all over his specials.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-1D7LJlxXiSI/VMsZAAzzOwI/AAAAAAAABU4/J7mOcoXroWA/w365-h510-no/BISHOPAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-C0fUKg3rQlQ/VMsY_4QETVI/AAAAAAAABU0/0KxqW_agDpo/w365-h510-no/BISHOPAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-vXghOX8ezdQ/VMsY_phy8_I/AAAAAAAABUw/2yaRB7QP81Q/w365-h510-no/BISHOPAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-LyvBrf2lHnE/VMsZLENZi6I/AAAAAAAABVA/iEmpsQyOUgk/w365-h510-no/BISHOPAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-wVbyyMwc0kY/VMsZM5f9OlI/AAAAAAAABVI/HvAnpoyVATc/w365-h510-no/BISHOPAOASPECIAL05.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-lilPdVz1mlE/VMsZlM1uRVI/AAAAAAAABVc/CFnJ8G9xwqI/w365-h510-no/NIGHTCRAWLERAOASPECIAL01.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Tz0uWt3UuEM/VMsZlFn69cI/AAAAAAAABVY/nIVfug6j9u0/w365-h510-no/NIGHTCRAWLERAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-eaUWNf3hSs0/VMsZlZrEfKI/AAAAAAAABVg/BSUXjfQfwic/w365-h510-no/NIGHTCRAWLERAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-hDhclI9Ezw4/VMsZsePLOaI/AAAAAAAABVo/p-ZEjJrhnoU/w365-h510-no/NIGHTCRAWLERAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-1ksZrIK-JJk/VMsZuwJe1II/AAAAAAAABVw/dStWRj-RK8o/w365-h510-no/NIGHTCRAWLERAOASPECIAL05.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3_4bxgUOR0U/VMsZ4ankw5I/AAAAAAAABWM/bXyZC-BqbxU/w365-h510-no/ROGUEAOASPECIAL01.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-iRiZegdhdNQ/VMsZ4XvodzI/AAAAAAAABWA/fYUZ1Yfdf_s/w365-h510-no/ROGUEAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Rt2PUJrVhJc/VMsZ4fvJDHI/AAAAAAAABWE/x3htP9hPX0o/w365-h510-no/ROGUEAOASPECIAL03.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Lujs_hD1e2Y/VMsZ5X9O3vI/AAAAAAAABWU/JPFq3YXYlbw/w365-h510-no/ROGUEAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-mzxHUJ2KzFo/VMsZ5sO04SI/AAAAAAAABWY/jJA3-bGpGLk/w365-h510-no/ROGUEAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-98IZkATUK1s/VMsaC9YtmGI/AAAAAAAABW0/jvha5qwMpIw/w365-h510-no/STORMAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-79gegNCGMdI/VMsaCjZt1LI/AAAAAAAABWo/60Shh9gYErQ/w365-h510-no/STORMAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8claFs-eOPI/VMsaCy0OAxI/AAAAAAAABWs/_d4X8J45zWk/w365-h510-no/STORMAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ii2IEFj1tu0/VMsaDl6IdUI/AAAAAAAABW8/fKRz-BUHPTA/w365-h510-no/STORMAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-e8Oj8p1EHVY/VMsaEOOSWmI/AAAAAAAABXA/omsAw_fIdKc/w365-h510-no/STORMAOASPECIAL05.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-H8BATReppMA/VMsaLUROZVI/AAAAAAAABXI/UrPtrDpHDDc/w365-h510-no/WEAPONXAOASPECIAL01.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/--F5yQOeGWPo/VMsaMYp8wJI/AAAAAAAABXc/kfOFThGlm0o/w365-h510-no/WEAPONXAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-rliem8ZlPpA/VMsaMWanXpI/AAAAAAAABXY/doemZfv4ETo/w365-h510-no/WEAPONXAOASPECIAL03.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Z8WHKwMrt68/VMsaMowlNEI/AAAAAAAABXk/b00sNfbQOW4/w365-h510-no/WEAPONXAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Ffwbru5qNd8/VMsaNUFKkEI/AAAAAAAABXo/5VxwaCIDGgw/w365-h510-no/WEAPONXAOASPECIAL05.png)

And yeah, as I was uploading, I saw that somehow I turned off the text on Bishop's AA special. It's late, I'll fix it tomorrow.

A side benefit to renaming the Specials for Dark Beast & Weapon X is that you can remove the IA from the character card.

Yeah, that occurred to me too. Plus, I started doing Weapon X's specials, and almost every card uses the word "Wolverine", some twice. It just felt like it ruined the flavor of the set.

My intention in the rules update for Age of Apocalypse is to address the previously printed AoA characters and any alterations that occurred in the "reprint", and how they interact with normal OP. For example, Weapon X and Dark Beast's specials are considered duplicates of Wolverine or Beast's. Therefore any OPD is still just that (no doubling down on "Wounded Animal" just because you have the Wolverine printing and the Weapon X printing), and if you somehow lose your AoA version of a card then the original printing will still be admissible for deckbuilding purposes (just as it would be for say, Apocalypse). This also means if you want 2 or more copies of a card in your deck, you can use your collection to supplement the AoA expansion. That's probably the most important, because the AoA run will likely be 1-each of every card; not the greatest if you want more than 1-each of "Fighting Instinct" for Weapon X.  Don't worry, I promise that when I put my mind to it, I'm capable of elucidating rules updates without sounding amateur. I'll also address the updates to the clone/variant list (hint: like DB, almost all characters are clones. Bishop is a variant. Several characters are original to AoA, and their 616/core OP version will/would be the variant if/when produced. Examples: Holocaust [recently debuted as Genocide in 616], Morph [has a 616 version, but it was an old villain IIRC who will probably never be an OP character], Blink [616 version died during the Phalanx invasion, right after her debut]).

Finally, after a lot of careful thought, I have decided on the following course of action for Morph:

Using the internet or (if available) any high-res scans forum members have of his cards, I'm going to do all of his specials with the original art placed in the AoA frame, if possible. His character card may get new art, if I find a piece I really like. But I've reviewed his cards quite a bit, and they're just too perfectly AoA to throw aside and try to do new ones.

This also clears up an issue I was having, personally. I had noticed that a large number of characters had IA's, to the point that it was becoming difficult to find ones which did not. While lots of IA's certainly is pleasing to game players and allows for the injection of some creativity, the removal of "vanilla" characters was becoming concerning. Moving Dark Beast and Weapon X to no IA seems awesome from that perspective. I really don't want either of them to have IA's, since they didn't originally other than DB being allowed to play specials (w/o that IA, the dude has no specials. Makes no sense to me). Plus, it takes an IA off of my 8F, which is good. This way only half my 8's have IA's, and they're non-move/non-shift IA's.

Other bonuses: for AoA limited play, the removal of the IA makes things less confusing. You'll open Dark Beast and Weapon X Specials, and that's what the character will play. It also means if I assign an NG to either remaining new character (Mikhail or Blink), it won't turn off the ability to play specials. That's very important to me, as an NG seems amazing in this set (turn off Jubilee/Gambit/Magneto/Apocalypse/Abyss's IA's? seems very very good). I'm ALMOST tempted to build a combo into the character that makes it easy to hit with the NG. It wouldn't be hard, one character's able to create portals and the other bends reality. Like I said, ALMOST. I'd be concerned about the possible external-to-AoA repercussions of such a decision.

Anyway, that's all I've got for now. I hope to knock out at least one or two sets of specials tonight if I can.

One last thing: 2099 production is very slow right now, as I'm focused on AoA. But it hasn't stopped. I have a new frame and text proposal over in that thread (which in spite of the work it took to get a circuit pattern that tiles well, I'm still on the fence about), as well as new specials for Halloween Jack, and I think I put an update for Vulture or Tyler Stone specials. If not, those should be forthcoming soon enough. Just wanted to throw that out there for anyone who's been following both projects and is worried I'd forgotten about the 2099 set as AoA has really gotten rolling.

Oh, one thing at a time, dok!  Don't push yourself too hard.  We've been waiting all this time for Absolute Evil, I think we all understand it takes time to do these things right.  And you've been doing a bang up job on both.

Tonight's update is a cool one, but I want to talk a bit about process before the unveiling.

Tonight I did Iceman: Age of Apocalypse. In the process of design, I settled on a power grid 1 point higher than any other incarnation. The reasons for it are what I'd like to elucidate. I also included an inherent ability which I think is strong but balanced and flavorful. First, our character card:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qq10zGJn82M/VM292VRBq3I/AAAAAAAABYM/gf6AiL249dA/w712-h510-no/ICEMANAOACHARACTER.png)

Now before everyone rushes off to check, this represents a 2 point jump from Iceman baseline in terms of Fighting. It's also a strong grid, with a strong IA. So how did Iceman get here?

To begin with, Iceman is a 7-4-4-3. Now, in X World we see him as Iceman: the Iceman with a Fighting 5 grid (7-5-3-3). In X World he was forced into his ice form full time, which is actually much stronger from a fighting perspective (more on that in a moment) and he still didn't push his powers as far as he could. It was mentioned way back in the X-Men run preceding AoA that Iceman had barely tapped his potential (we see him mention it in a scene where he grows defensive spikes). This is fully borne out in AoA, where several completely insane abilities are demonstrated:
1) He is able to affect a form of teleportation (Magneto and Banshee both mention it in Amazing X-Men issues #1 and 3)
2) He is blasted full on by a Sentinel, and his ice form is destroyed. Quicksilver brushes it off, saying "he'll re-form himself". THEN HE DOES. Poof! Just puts himself back together, a la Wolverine/Deadpool/Sabretooth/etc.
3) Later in AoA (the recent series) we discover Iceman is capable of moving his mind between his ice constructs as well. In this sequence he proceeds to make short work of Deadpool, a Fighting 7 character.

With all that in mind, I think a significantly higher fighting skill is justified.
In light of the regenerative and teleportation abilities he clearly has in AoA, his duplicate avoid IA seems very reasonable.

What this creates is a character at 19 points who is actually very much a bruiser. The combination of his low grid, high distribution on E and F, and his IA making him hard to hit mean you have someone who will be quite the powerhouse. I believe this to be in line with AoA Iceman based on everything I've read in AoA and about Iceman in other Marvel Earths.

Well, I welcome thoughts and feedback (I expect at least one "this dude is too strong" response. That person might be right.) but in the meantime, here's some specials:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vuJ4xw8Q1Fw/VM292RW2wLI/AAAAAAAABYY/TMAL6S37XHE/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r3BNZzO1vSk/VM292Gmj0sI/AAAAAAAABYc/pbgsEVMB3_0/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kJXAZXOIUSs/VM293W67oZI/AAAAAAAABYo/ggUE7wmziRs/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NJXVmnysTP0/VM293-EmCJI/AAAAAAAABYs/5X5T3E_ZBCQ/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KDwlMXW68qU/VM294Xg7RZI/AAAAAAAABYw/67Arx1nRyUs/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL05.png)

One last thing: I am debating whether or not to use the sequence of Unus having his blood frozen by Iceman in AoA: Alpha as the art piece for Blood Chill. It's a flavor knockout, but Iceman is not actually in the frame. I dislike using art where the character is not in the frame. For those unfamiliar, I'll post a version with the other art I'm considering shortly.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-i25QbcRDj3E/VM3Eyr9MrfI/AAAAAAAABZE/QbDZGQm-HCo/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL01ALTART.png)
This art!

Quote from: DoktorSleepless on February 01, 2015, 01:09:49 AM
Tonight's update is a cool one, but I want to talk a bit about process before the unveiling.

Tonight I did Iceman: Age of Apocalypse. In the process of design, I settled on a power grid 1 point higher than any other incarnation. The reasons for it are what I'd like to elucidate. I also included an inherent ability which I think is strong but balanced and flavorful. First, our character card:
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-qq10zGJn82M/VM292VRBq3I/AAAAAAAABYM/gf6AiL249dA/w712-h510-no/ICEMANAOACHARACTER.png)

Now before everyone rushes off to check, this represents a 2 point jump from Iceman baseline in terms of Fighting. It's also a strong grid, with a strong IA. So how did Iceman get here?

To begin with, Iceman is a 7-4-4-3. Now, in X World we see him as Iceman: the Iceman with a Fighting 5 grid (7-5-3-3). In X World he was forced into his ice form full time, which is actually much stronger from a fighting perspective (more on that in a moment) and he still didn't push his powers as far as he could. It was mentioned way back in the X-Men run preceding AoA that Iceman had barely tapped his potential (we see him mention it in a scene where he grows defensive spikes). This is fully borne out in AoA, where several completely insane abilities are demonstrated:
1) He is able to affect a form of teleportation (Magneto and Banshee both mention it in Amazing X-Men issues #1 and 3)
2) He is blasted full on by a Sentinel, and his ice form is destroyed. Quicksilver brushes it off, saying "he'll re-form himself". THEN HE DOES. Poof! Just puts himself back together, a la Wolverine/Deadpool/Sabretooth/etc.
3) Later in AoA (the recent series) we discover Iceman is capable of moving his mind between his ice constructs as well. In this sequence he proceeds to make short work of Deadpool, a Fighting 7 character.

With all that in mind, I think a significantly higher fighting skill is justified.
In light of the regenerative and teleportation abilities he clearly has in AoA, his duplicate avoid IA seems very reasonable.

What this creates is a character at 19 points who is actually very much a bruiser. The combination of his low grid, high distribution on E and F, and his IA making him hard to hit mean you have someone who will be quite the powerhouse. I believe this to be in line with AoA Iceman based on everything I've read in AoA and about Iceman in other Marvel Earths.

Well, I welcome thoughts and feedback (I expect at least one "this dude is too strong" response. That person might be right.) but in the meantime, here's some specials:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vuJ4xw8Q1Fw/VM292RW2wLI/AAAAAAAABYY/TMAL6S37XHE/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r3BNZzO1vSk/VM292Gmj0sI/AAAAAAAABYc/pbgsEVMB3_0/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kJXAZXOIUSs/VM293W67oZI/AAAAAAAABYo/ggUE7wmziRs/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-NJXVmnysTP0/VM293-EmCJI/AAAAAAAABYs/5X5T3E_ZBCQ/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-KDwlMXW68qU/VM294Xg7RZI/AAAAAAAABYw/67Arx1nRyUs/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL05.png)

One last thing: I am debating whether or not to use the sequence of Unus having his blood frozen by Iceman in AoA: Alpha as the art piece for Blood Chill. It's a flavor knockout, but Iceman is not actually in the frame. I dislike using art where the character is not in the frame. For those unfamiliar, I'll post a version with the other art I'm considering shortly.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-i25QbcRDj3E/VM3Eyr9MrfI/AAAAAAAABZE/QbDZGQm-HCo/w365-h510-no/ICEMANAOASPECIAL01ALTART.png)
This art!

Iceman has always been my favorite character from comic books. I also include him in my OP deck whenever it makes sense (though that "making sense" is a little biased sometimes).
The stronger anyone can make him the better in my humble opinion.
Artwork looks great! go with the Unus-art Blood Chill.

I think you are spot on. & while I agree most times on the character being in the art... I think showing the effect on target is just as good in a OPD's case. So I'd say Unus art for the win.

Thanks, 2 votes is enough to have me convinced that the Unus art is definitely better. I thought about trying to pull a double-frame piece like the Nightcrawler Vicious Teleport special (the 2nd frame on this is Unus shattering) but there were too many word bubbles. (In my defense I have been trying to emulate Chuu, who has mad custom skills, and eliminate text bubbles. If you check out the original Iceman art I used from Amazing X-Men #1, you can see I spent a decent amount of time eliminating word bubbles and fixing the ice shards coming off of Iceman... then I got tired and wanted to see some progress, so I did a bunch of "blank the word bubble out and call it done").

Anyway! I had a brief but good discussion last night with Cyber0820 about why there are "bad" specials in this set. For those curious: the bulk of my formative education in CCG design comes from reading/listening to Mark Rosewater articles and Podcasts. You may know him by his shorthand MaRo if you play MtG. He has been responsible for a truly prodigious amount of design and development for that game, and in spite of some bad decisions and a bit of an ego, he's an excellent source of learning. One of the many subjects he covers frequently is the need and place for "vanilla" and "bad" cards in sets. In addition to providing a way for newer players to learn to evaluate cards, they fill an important role by providing contrast to the "good" cards and by creating valuable filler material in the limited environment, where you don't want every single pick to be an insanely good card (or everyone's deck is too good, and not only does it feel like a constructed event but your rounds are proceeding much faster than they ought). I've been particularly concerned with limited with this set, generating Special sub-sets of Character's Specials so that certain characters should be intentionally powered-up in their AoA version.

That long ramble aside, I was working the whole time, but finally got tired and went to bed before uploading everything. So here we go...
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-x30VYJEfUrc/VM5VhRFmoyI/AAAAAAAABZo/zaa4Wgf6Euc/w365-h510-no/DAZZLERAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-RQPrXwKeae0/VM5VhQMziqI/AAAAAAAABZs/vMEqtzRcmwc/w365-h510-no/DAZZLERAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-4GpN2T3Sm0c/VM5VhQw5BmI/AAAAAAAABZk/zK8AQsZ5WIA/w365-h510-no/DAZZLERAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Y__ntv9L1pk/VM5VjG_63xI/AAAAAAAABZ8/BLbK5UalznY/w365-h510-no/DAZZLERAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-sthuWxKlizk/VM5VjdQnlKI/AAAAAAAABZ4/UlB3Fnf3EJ8/w365-h510-no/DAZZLERAOASPECIAL05.png)

Just noticed while uploading that I positioned the art badly on Special number 5. This is what happens when you custom at 2 a.m., kids.

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-U8rDzEhm8F8/VM5VsAyM11I/AAAAAAAABaQ/YQCKVqzu4I8/w712-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOACHARACTER.png)

You knew he was coming from the Gambit&the X-Ternals team card! And yeah, he's lame. No IA, no grid improvement (well, a minor one due to redistribution. Now he doesn't completely suck in F/S decks), and no OPD specials. This is one of those "bad" characters included for Limited purposes. More on that in the future. Now, more specials!
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-rBNHEVHmEDs/VM5VrxqFRVI/AAAAAAAABaM/kHkTnLLu9bo/w365-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-swekzq1dADw/VM5VsCColeI/AAAAAAAABaU/EjX7iWtCJ68/w365-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-72wVO_4PR9g/VM5VtelwELI/AAAAAAAABak/SOZiA2nOxG4/w365-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-ZJESPJ7k1vw/VM5VuB-TL7I/AAAAAAAABao/SZGE9mACmDM/w365-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-zysAOivizlg/VM5VuFTAl7I/AAAAAAAABas/v_9GsJSlspM/w365-h510-no/STRONGGUYAOASPECIAL05.png)

So that's the rest of last night's update. I'll have another up tonight, which I hope will be either/or/both Banshee and Quicksilver. Then there'll be some more rambling about why I need terrible characters, and some rambling about how I envision this playing out as a limited format. Woohoo, rambling!

EDIT: Are you ready for the update?!

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-paIqEBfjV2Q/VM7qxpvB5ZI/AAAAAAAABbM/iQ0_InCVw0s/w396-h553-no/BANSHEEAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-9OX76pI-KkA/VM7qyRKH2LI/AAAAAAAABbY/A1WGIP8NTjM/w396-h553-no/BANSHEEAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-roORl-Ph74o/VM7qybRs3wI/AAAAAAAABbk/Sx3NyEBpD_o/w396-h553-no/BANSHEEAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-wAkDsv4TQ9g/VM7qyhNCW3I/AAAAAAAABbc/TeAg-bvAlL4/w396-h553-no/BANSHEEAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-N2yfwxq4SqA/VM7qzEKuPaI/AAAAAAAABbg/lhIDbq9B8w8/w396-h553-no/BANSHEEAOASPECIAL05.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-bZyY541nXNY/VM7q5-Rwo0I/AAAAAAAABbs/j79cdRyQUKw/w396-h553-no/HAVOKAOASPECIAL01.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-E_ebp_Pj_r4/VM7q6NKf-dI/AAAAAAAABcI/k0Z2sR3ekO8/w396-h553-no/HAVOKAOASPECIAL02.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-v48-Lq1IxD0/VM7q6D25cBI/AAAAAAAABcM/mgPatAbjsaI/w396-h553-no/HAVOKAOASPECIAL03.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-4WKbhx0k91g/VM7q65Vh6SI/AAAAAAAABb0/V5XGLkSA5Vg/w396-h553-no/HAVOKAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8w9EPPmRVuQ/VM7q8AgpOAI/AAAAAAAABcE/0o_OUBsSO60/w396-h553-no/HAVOKAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-UCtFFkLnjsk/VM7rDsvDTgI/AAAAAAAABco/bS_hMsxwWJ8/w396-h553-no/QUICKSILVERAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-52zZZzvAfco/VM7rDOjvfTI/AAAAAAAABck/w1C1Oe9VEj4/w396-h553-no/QUICKSILVERAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nfx-XBV40qA/VM7rC29F8MI/AAAAAAAABcc/7B98B5kMH64/w396-h553-no/QUICKSILVERAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-g1hXejw06P0/VM7rDxrvsgI/AAAAAAAABcw/z1aKl1V7Exc/w396-h553-no/QUICKSILVERAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-jqsOVQ0NKQM/VM7rEaLonVI/AAAAAAAABc0/O-K0Npq957c/w396-h553-no/QUICKSILVERAOASPECIAL05.png)

I thought I had already done X-Man Specials, but apparently not. So I have the following Specials left:
5 Mikhail Rasputin Specials
5 Sabretooth Specials
5 Shadowcat Specials (Ugh, new art for the character too)
5 X-Man Specials
2 Gambit Specials
1 Magneto Special
1 Mr. Sinister Special
1 Jean Grey Special
5 Specials and Blink Character card

Or 30 Specials and 1 character left. Then I get to address the Morph issue, decide whether or not Forge is going to be a character (if he is, it's most likely so that I can also make a team card with him, X-Man, Soaron, Toad, and Mastermind which uses his and X-Man's specials).

The point is, the revision phase draws near. Plus, I need to get cracking on an Artifact template and a Teamwork template. I don't suppose anyone has templates for either they are willing to share?

Anyway, I think I've covered everything, but if I'm missing someone's favorite character or some critical piece of AoA awesomeness then let me know! I mean heck, I managed to work out Omega Red/Rossovich, and after I get to revisions his Specials art will actually be pretty sweet (thanks again cyber0820!!!).

RE-EDIT:
OK, are you ready for this? Let's look at Mikhail Rasputin, whose specials were pulled from Onslaught, Darkseid, and X-Man.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2NborgMhcfg/VM76Z1KHJdI/AAAAAAAABdQ/qmeMzYo0z5Q/w365-h510-no/MIKHAILRASPUTINAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-vgroKruPBAE/VM76Z2PPY7I/AAAAAAAABdU/eSOyun51KLw/w365-h510-no/MIKHAILRASPUTINAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-BmjdBal3qSs/VM76a9BfWqI/AAAAAAAABdg/ce9tVawZ0ds/w365-h510-no/MIKHAILRASPUTINAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-5i_rKhcadtE/VM76bW7UvHI/AAAAAAAABdk/QfuvTbiAJQ4/w365-h510-no/MIKHAILRASPUTINAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-aj0q3qkIKLA/VM76zkKVVBI/AAAAAAAABds/IpEzL_B9ZhE/w365-h510-no/MIKHAILRASPUTINAOASPECIAL03.png)

I think these were reasonably well-selected, although the AR+BM double up is slightly troublesome. Still, BM is realistically just an upgraded AR that you only get one copy of, so I'm not going to sweat it too much. We have here:
Darkseid's BM Special, which was selected for being in power-range and within what I consider the reasonable sphere of Mikhail's powers
Onslaught's EI, CT, and AR specials (I knew Mikhail would get an AR from the moment I made him, the connection to another powerful reality-warping high E character [Onslaught] just occurred to me tonight while trying to figure out his other specials). EI and CT seem obvious, given that the only issues we really see Mikhail in he is scheming upon schemes and using humans as cannon and research fodder.
I chose X-Man's CW because as I was looking for specials which referenced altering, warping, reality, etc, I saw it. It just felt right.

Phew! Tons of cards getting pumped out. The set's really starting to come along and look like an expansion set instead of a few cards.

RE-RE-EDIT:
IT'S TIME FOR BLINK! I frikkin love Blink. Her powers are awesome, she's incredible in combat, she's easy on the eyes and has purple hair and tattoos... what's not to love? Blink's specials are a cross section of Psylocke, Elektra, and Nightcrawler. I love the art on her avoid, I was psyched to find it. Not so much a fan of her card art right now. I may have to work on the image and try again. As far as her stats, I used Power Balance (they're quite well balanced and appropriate. Baseline human strength and intellect, high energy b/c she's a teleporter, high fighting reflects her Sabretooth-taught skill). I also used the Power Balance special, because I want people to feel comfortable with these cards in terms of power level and playability (plus the slight familiarity some people may have helps). Here we go...
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-h7JjP1AD7ak/VM8Njqlof8I/AAAAAAAABeQ/tfos-PLihDA/w712-h510-no/BLINKAOACHARACTER.png) 
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-xG2FhogyqXs/VM8Njl-99MI/AAAAAAAABeM/OZrbd_ICtxs/w365-h510-no/BLINKAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ShV8ZMG1CF4/VM8NjrTXlKI/AAAAAAAABeU/5OVIDpANf3E/w365-h510-no/BLINKAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1FM8WGauxnA/VM8Nk0ATIKI/AAAAAAAABek/bnEcnEW7rvE/w365-h510-no/BLINKAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-YGg5DgHYj7s/VM8Nlhw8RTI/AAAAAAAABes/Hil3OIyTF2U/w365-h510-no/BLINKAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sYob4hpdjHg/VM8NlnjSzJI/AAAAAAAABeo/pEhRvFjPVBQ/w365-h510-no/BLINKAOASPECIAL05.png)

RE-RE-RE-EDIT:
Ok last one today. Here's some alternate art for Sabretooth, because the original was pretty bad, and also specials. BOOM!
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-2ZalqvtbpjM/VM8f0--xpeI/AAAAAAAABfQ/fuJMh_B7EuU/w712-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOACHARACTERdraftALTART.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-WfON735U6tE/VM8f09qM8GI/AAAAAAAABfM/Xnx5Oo608ZY/w365-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-tF4RNq9_fV8/VM8f0_vn3RI/AAAAAAAABfU/U80mO6lKoEw/w365-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ITEonJr1aRw/VM8f2y6m4gI/AAAAAAAABfk/pRqoht39F8w/w365-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Q6LzDNKBudM/VM8f3dTMDbI/AAAAAAAABfs/jLrVUcTUhOw/w365-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-hTK5EtFH4eE/VM8f3AGizYI/AAAAAAAABfo/TZwXsiY86gE/w365-h510-no/SABRETOOTHAOASPECIAL05.png)

Holy crap! You've been busy... Nice work man. Whole set looking like a true expansion. & your philosophy of vanilla gorillas makes sense. Esp in terms of spectrum.

Quotethey [vanilla characters] fill an important role by providing contrast to the "good" cards and by creating valuable filler material in the limited environment, where you don't want every single pick to be an insanely good card (or everyone's deck is too good, and not only does it feel like a constructed event but your rounds are proceeding much faster than they ought).

This is an important point that I think a lot of people overlook when designing cards and sets (for any game, not just this one).  The game really wouldn't be that fun if every character looks like Spawn, H4H, Starjammers, etc. 

That being said, I think another important point to keep in mind is that you don't want to design too many characters that are both bad and  useless, e.g., no one wants to play with characters like Nightwing.  It is necessary to have a few bad characters, but I think that can be minimized by either (1) giving them specials that can be useful in some situations (e.g., Huntress can play a special from reserve, which isn't great, but is something other characters don't have) or (2) creating new strategies that they can contribute to (e.g., Beast's Brilliant Deduction). 

Agreed. You'll notice a lot of the more important characters (the ones that are popular and logically people are going to want to build decks with) had their specials cherry-picked to focus on hits + avoids. While it's not good for the depth of the game, it guarantees those characters will see action in limited decks and will be great there.

Meanwhile, less important/secondary characters are getting a bit more flexibility. You'll notice that Havok still picks up Geo-Knowledge, a nod to what will (hopefully) be the viability of Battlesites as a limited strategy. Otherwise I think we can all agree that card is pretty awful as draft pick (when you know the dude next to you is drafting every Sabretooth and Mikhail AR or other Special he can get, for example). Yes, I do plan to do some locations in this set; when I talk more about pack construction and drat mechanics I'll revisit this (and the other limited strategies in the set as well, which will be Any Hero and Homebase if my set works out well). But the mention of Beast - Brilliant Deduction is another one. I included it in the set. Why? Because the strategy it enables seems pretty strong in a limited format. You could potentially draft 4-5 of these plus the equivalent to "Web-Headed Wizard", and pretty much ruin someone's ability to have an endgame of any kind. "Oh, you've been fruitlessly throwing Power Cards into my avoids and/or negates for a while? Let's try a Brilliant Deduction, Web-Headed Wizard, Brilliant Deduction, btw when I do another Brilliant Deduction either next battle or off of a draw effect, I'll have pretty much wrecked your Power Pack. Oh, our decks are gone, we're down to Power Pack only? Guess you lose." That is most likely a terrible strategy in constructed. Your deck durdles and does nothing while your opponent is using battlesite activators and other heinous things to destroy you. But in limited, you are likely to face at least one or two decks that are nothing but Specials and Power Pack (and some random Universe or Tactic cards), where such a strategy seems especially vicious. If your two decks are essentially even, it will come down to Power Packs at the end, and Brilliant Deduction can be a powerhouse strategy. Or, to use Havok as an example, let's say that we're on a battlesite strategy and the opponent is on a standard beatdown deck. If you can protect Havok, he can help protect your battlesite from being KO'd, and theoretically you'll have more game time to try and find the activators for whatever Special sold you on the Battlesite strategy.

In general though, you should notice a distinct trend of mostly good or great characters/specials, with a few stinkers. Trust me, the stinkers should be very obvious. One of those final draft picks, that are only early picks if you got the amazing card(s) that turn the stinkers into a strategy. As an example: Team X is playable with all three characters on the team. I intend the X-Ternals to function the same way. Yes, Strong Guy is pretty bad, but if you already drafted the X-Ternals and Jubilee (I'm prematurely guessing Gambit is a high draft pick, his IA makes drafting multiple Charge Object really awesome) then having Strong Guy suddenly seems pretty good. Since you know everyone else will value him low, you can cherry-pick the best cards you need and snag him when he comes by again. Of course, that means potentially signaling when you draft Strong Guy specials, but that's draft strategy talk. It also runs the risk of seeing a Battlesite player snatch him up...

Oh, what the heck, here's some draft info:
Tentatively, drafts will involve 3 packs
Pack distribution will be 2 characters (1 Common[maybe uncommon as a possibility too], 1 Any Rarity)
This means that at an 8-man draft, there will be 16 excess characters while still allowing each player to build a traditional 4-character team. The excess will hopefully be enough to convince at least one or two players to attempt to draft a battlesite deck, prioritizing extra character picks over Specials or Any Heroes. I'm still tinkering with whether or not Character selection is mandatory until you've got the 4-character team minimum; the issue is, if people prioritize characters too low in the draft for some reason and a savvy Battlesite drafter notices tons of Activators passing by, the battlesite drafter could cut off every other player who hasn't finished a team yet. But don't worry, I will have a complete breakdown of card distribution, draft mechanics, etc. to post up here once the set has moved farther into production.

Anyway, here's what's left:
5 Stragglers, single specials for certain characters (new Gambit character art)
5 Shadowcat Specials (new art for the character)
5 X-Man Specials
The Morph Issue  (If anyone has a high-resolution scanner or high-res scans of Morph and any/all of his Specials, please let me know. I am very resistant to the idea of doing a new-art Morph character and Specials if I can avoid it. I mean, frikkin look at all of his art! It's all amazing original AoA artwork.)

Then I'll do a quick set of Any Hero cards (new names, with the text line that says "counts as a duplicate of XX special" like it says on New Universe so you can't double down with (IIRC) Fortress of Solitude.

Then I'll work on some Locations. The European High Council, the Sea Wall, Apocalypse's Citadel are all on my mind, as is the Seattle Core.

Then some Basic Universe cards.

Then, revision on Characters/Specials/Any Hero/Locations/Universe starts while I work on making Teamwork/Double Shot/Artifact templates. As I said before, I'd be thrilled to start revisions in March.

Hopefully everyone's enjoying the set so far!



Also - I'm going to eliminate the text bubble from Sabretooth's "Healing Factor". That looks awful and is an easy fix.

EDIT:

I am a glutton for punishment. I know this to be true, because today I did some Locations "for fun". Now, I have 4 characters that are listed and do not yet exist. So I have 24 more cards to make (4 Characters and 20 specials), but on the plus side they'll probably be sweet. At least 1 is a brand-new Character.

I also did some Any Character Specials, so let's start with those.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Sf-vzQjzJkQ/VNBiVvt9o4I/AAAAAAAABgI/XpemSSAUcbo/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CEhcQEv0wHc/VNBiWLTC4BI/AAAAAAAABgM/KBb2_qSbkqg/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER02.png)

Now, here's the locations. I pushed the abilities, because I want homebases to be good if you can draft the team. I also applied a combination of the AoA Character Name color and the standard text transform to give a cool look to the location names. Check out the 4 sweet new Characters!
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PbhVCXKm7uM/VNBiigQ7WCI/AAAAAAAABgc/QL-zl8yI8ns/w712-h510-no/AOALOCATION01APOCALYPSESCITADEL.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-CzailAk5LFw/VNBii1CV7bI/AAAAAAAABgg/rUoLkmmiF3o/w712-h510-no/AOALOCATION02THESEATTLECORE.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-qJddh7rwHzk/VNBii4LpZ-I/AAAAAAAABgk/5xdX_cn89wY/w712-h510-no/AOALOCATION03THEEURASIANCOUNCIL.png)

Yes, that's right, we'll be seeing Sugarman, Generation Next (team), The Marauders (team), and Sentinels in the future! Also, I noticed the other day that the 4 Horsemen are 1 point too high to be a 76-point team. I am thinking I should drop a point from Abyss or Mikhail (I lean towards Abyss strongly) so that they can be a valid choice. I was thinking either Mikhail to 3 Strength or Abyss to 3 Intellect. I think 3 Intellect on Abyss is totally appropriate.

Here's some Shadowcat:AoA alternate art, which is probably better than her current. I gotta get back to this expansion set creation now, or it'll never be done...
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-pK_BlLuEQ-s/VNBipFIjmDI/AAAAAAAABg0/zWEQUM8kdGY/w711-h510-no/SHADOWCATAOACHARACTERdraftALTART.png)

Re-Edit:
How about some Any Character specials? I had to change "Bastion" because he doesn't exist in AoA. So it got that funny clause, and now it has lots of text. *sigh*

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Vk2yyzuNfFc/VNFPYRB_JLI/AAAAAAAABhQ/O6fhecDdZ6U/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER03.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ddXyhh02bno/VNFPYT4Z4wI/AAAAAAAABho/aL8u9TJ5vVE/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER04.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ku15-ekIefA/VNFPYTwCloI/AAAAAAAABhU/7ED1HS5xveg/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER05.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-OZBtwjL8Fjw/VNFPZ7bsenI/AAAAAAAABhg/tUZ1jgXRdmc/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER06.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Kr94GC1iwt4/VNFPZ2RprmI/AAAAAAAABhk/OmqLa2KiAzU/w365-h510-no/AOAANYCHARACTER07.png)

Probably more updates tonight. I've started hunting down Sugar Man artwork (there seems to be some alternation between "Sugarman" and "Sugar Man" spellings), and I hope to knock out Shadowcat, X-Man, and the last individual specials for characters like Magneto and Jean Grey. I'll be tickled pink if I can knock out those specials and Character cards for the 4 new characters + half of their specials by Friday. Further locations will be coming as well, including:
The Breeding Pens (Havok, Cyclops, Sinister, Dark Beast, Jean Grey, probably Weapon X and/or Holocaust)
The Sea Wall (Havok, Weapon X, Jean Grey, Apocalypse, Sinister, Dark Beast, Abyss, Holocaust)
X-Mansion (I need to double check what the sign says, it might be "Xavier's Boarding School", Magneto, Rogue, Sabretooth, Iceman, Quicksilver, Dazzler)
Deep Space (or, Shi'ar Empire. This is a maybe. Gambit, Jubilee, Strong Guy, Gambit&the X-Ternals, possibly the Starjammers if I make them... some locations are struggling for characters, forcing me into making characters I'd hoped to avoid)
Avalon (This is also a maybe, but would include Nightcrawler and Mystique if I make her...)

RE-RE-EDIT:
Surely there's a better way to upload new stuff... oh well.

Hopefully this gets people fired up. Discussions happen. Sensibilities are offended. Etc. Below you will find the first 14-point 4-stat character in OverPower, as far as I'm aware. His stats are directly based on his grid under the 1-7 marvel system (you know the one, it includes Stamina etc). I even got to bump his Intellect up higher. His IA is based on the fact that in the comics, he is left for dead or placed in a life-ending inescapable situation, but he keeps surviving and popping up later. I wanted it to be extremely costly to do so, but to basically have it be guaranteed to happen once in a game. Before anyone asks, yes, I am concerned about the potential interaction with the NEW LEASE ON LIFE Event card. But I feel that it is unlikely to present an overall issue with the game, and certainly not in Limited play (where the only Mission will be the Age of Apocalypse, because obviously). I am open to suggestions. Without further ado, Sugar Man:
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/--aLPVw-QGIE/VNF0LmazxhI/AAAAAAAABiU/L5LVC1chpRU/w712-h510-no/SUGARMANAOACHARACTER.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-thdnltd1tW4/VNF0LsGRB8I/AAAAAAAABiM/h64s9RMo0RI/w365-h510-no/SUGARMANAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-2nQrjxMfNqg/VNF0LteRsgI/AAAAAAAABiI/VuPChX6Adl8/w365-h510-no/SUGARMANAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-6xbEvKGUTmM/VNF0M2IKzAI/AAAAAAAABig/MX6to7jJG8Y/w365-h510-no/SUGARMANAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-h-rBLCFaIZs/VNF0NlyyplI/AAAAAAAABio/b5O-6nIDvyY/w365-h510-no/SUGARMANAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xUifrpFT8Gw/VNF0NmFevfI/AAAAAAAABik/AB32-O-mB2c/w365-h510-no/SUGARMANAOASPECIAL05.png)

So, what do you think? Obviously Sugar Man is meant to be more of a support character, controlling your opponent's actions and systematically attacking their best cards (notice the play-nice with Dark Beast in the overlap of "Brilliant Deduction" Specials, which I hope will encourage people to play Beast/Sugar Man in a deck that attempts to stall games and attack late game resources).

RE-RE-RE-EDIT:
First, let's finish off Colossus Specials, yeah?
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-JLwafDpesLk/VNHEjRdmQhI/AAAAAAAABjA/Z7-h_pdwGkI/w365-h510-no/COLOSSUSAOASPECIAL05.png)

Now, let's see why that matters.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-OPvaVtOKWJo/VNHEu55P28I/AAAAAAAABjI/z7CSdR96_kQ/w712-h510-no/GENERATIONNEXTAOACHARACTER.png)

Not a lot to say here. I think I got the stats right for a team of
Colossus
Shadowcat
Chamber
Husk
Skin
Mondo
Vincente (I forget his code name)
And I want to create tension in draft over picks, so non-OPD was an easy choice for the IA.
Of course, I suppose now I should show this new art X-Man hero and some specials... Let me know which X-Man art you like better.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JRK3_9gKAuU/VNHFLbx3zcI/AAAAAAAABjU/T-qoO7ncnqc/w712-h510-no/XMANAOACHARACTERdraftALTART.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-xfaSBJ0bfe0/VNHFXEzaIfI/AAAAAAAABj4/9ahEYBEIA04/w365-h510-no/XMANAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gH3C7JaiEcY/VNHFL90ZoKI/AAAAAAAABjc/f51LD4vfH0k/w365-h510-no/XMANAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-t63xCUDpkpI/VNHFMatxyQI/AAAAAAAABjk/jMjo2bGWgo8/w365-h510-no/XMANAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-SBcAw-WdlPc/VNHFMwmhPJI/AAAAAAAABjo/AV9BLRJSo5Q/w365-h510-no/XMANAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-1DTrKfNtKQ0/VNHFNWklCKI/AAAAAAAABjw/hNYi3TN9qiQ/w365-h510-no/XMANAOASPECIAL05.png)

Then of course we have this terrible team, who I had to rename every Special for (I will address that in the rules update for AoA, but they count as the equivalent-coded specials for The Marauders). Pleasingly, I got to make them worse for this expansion. They suck in AoA. The live 3 pages, and Gwen Stacy kills most of them herself.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-rvroQy6ohbU/VNHFjH9kCsI/AAAAAAAABkU/AstMIYEgM4M/w712-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOACHARACTER.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-YpJBCPN0WjY/VNHFjQEwlEI/AAAAAAAABkQ/mF55MxHQvzI/w365-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-E4FKLlRYI_A/VNHFjOL85cI/AAAAAAAABkI/1-PVUbim4uQ/w365-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ce3GtSINJY0/VNHFjwz3pGI/AAAAAAAABkg/vb9pecU8kGc/w365-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-PbwGfOkpcAc/VNHFkRDrqxI/AAAAAAAABkk/1eCMAP8hQe4/w365-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ns18YNOpoJA/VNHFknieCEI/AAAAAAAABko/uh3Ne1QyuqM/w365-h510-no/MARAUDERSAOASPECIAL05.png)

And that concludes this update. Hopefully I will force myself to finish Shadowcat, make 2-3 specials for each team with an IA that overlaps to other character specials, and then finish Sentinels and specials soon.

RE-RE-RE-RE-EDIT:
I did Sentinels last night before bed. A rarity, there is no stat change from normal MU. I couldn't justify it. BUT, they have an IA. Check it out.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AeSD6J-sssM/VNJQ_iAQWOI/AAAAAAAABlM/VblA4jqFLZQ/w712-h510-no/SENTINELSAOACHARACTER.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-_RxJJQRUKYw/VNJQ_3JziaI/AAAAAAAABlQ/4oD9YntU8Vw/w365-h510-no/SENTINELSAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/--sKOUtFOS54/VNJQ_pR1UvI/AAAAAAAABlI/qHRGKifO_OQ/w365-h510-no/SENTINELSAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-U7vazMo8mF0/VNJRBUvrfCI/AAAAAAAABlg/BkMnO44mv0w/w365-h510-no/SENTINELSAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-AuPfUtk0j48/VNJRBwIhUzI/AAAAAAAABlk/kwzoyvcQZuU/w365-h510-no/SENTINELSAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-S-CZ3XY7VPg/VNJRB0RNDII/AAAAAAAABlo/9cmCRspZDLI/w365-h510-no/SENTINELSAOASPECIAL05.png)

I'm a fan of this. I was trying to work out a way you could have multiple Sentinels on your team (you should be allowed to play a team of Bastion and 3 Sentinels if you want, IMHO) by virtue of an IA, but it got too ugly. So I put on the IA you see, which actually gives them quite a boost, I think.

FINAL RE-EDIT:
Would someone please comment on this thread for me? I can't post replies, and continuously updating the last post is making for a post of unholy length.

Here are the remaining Specials. I am planning to begin revision later this week, moving alphabetically through characters.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-sW9jpL3APN8/VNKjpD6_FVI/AAAAAAAABmE/uCX64WDHsR8/w365-h510-no/DOMINOAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-rGOFPeicSik/VNKjpQ2rN-I/AAAAAAAABmI/2-Vd104azjk/w365-h510-no/DOMINOAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Z5h0Gyps3oA/VNKjspnhfzI/AAAAAAAABmY/T7hEhqyHSpM/w365-h510-no/JUBILEEAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-r8txlP-TJfA/VNKjsqb22TI/AAAAAAAABmU/nrVAA85iyaI/w365-h510-no/JUBILEEAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-CNcJSSFzm60/VNKjw1prpdI/AAAAAAAABmg/PufUbd_Gb3A/w365-h510-no/MAGNETOAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-nSqHmk5NKSg/VNKj_YlsECI/AAAAAAAABms/ZZK0D9T0Z-Y/w365-h510-no/GAMBITAOASPECIAL04.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-TbJgThUEk_Y/VNKj_pzPFaI/AAAAAAAABmw/nWncW48JJag/w365-h510-no/GAMBITAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-zDwOiEGl-WE/VNKkDoh43DI/AAAAAAAABm4/8nUZZo2sQ-Q/w365-h510-no/SINISTERAOASPECIAL05.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ngAS8fEljNw/VNKls3KLblI/AAAAAAAABnQ/nj-FD2_u8z0/w365-h510-no/JEANGREYSPECIAL05.png)
I know I've done all the specials, so if I missed one it'll come up when I post revisions.

First Ill say that I'm still impressed that you are able to pull so many images for the characters. I know it was a decent timeline run but still not as common images as others. The set looks great, I cant really pick it apart... I'm not a fan of text in cards but seeing as I cant correct it on some images I have, I cant critique you on it. Ironically, they (written words in the special images) give them a comic aesthetics I like actually. I think the amount of thought you have put into the functionality of the changes is mind boggling, like with the Sentinels concept... That would be bad ass to have 3 Sentinels & Bastion on the roster. I would totally do something like that in my set if I had them but seldom do I think about the "what if's?" & I'm impressed you do. Your AOA offers a nice peace offering to the traditional OP style with your in depth thought but not a re-image for every card. Its a nice mix with new twists with a little flavor for everyone.... except one... lol

Sugar Man... I hate that 4 armed test tube freak. However... That is a very interesting innate. I would play him at least once with Onslaught. With cannon fodder on sugar... humm.. that one could be fun & funny... Unless the opponent has a NG card like Goblyn Queen & you have no avoid in that off chance.

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-TbJgThUEk_Y/VNKj_pzPFaI/AAAAAAAABmw/nWncW48JJag/w365-h510-no/GAMBITAOASPECIAL05.png)
icon is 4

iceman finally get a proper I A
i mean he's made of ice!!!!
they way his IQ card shoulda been

(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-AeSD6J-sssM/VNJQ_iAQWOI/AAAAAAAABlM/VblA4jqFLZQ/w712-h510-no/SENTINELSAOACHARACTER.png)
the up to isnt needed  as its already implied by "one duplicate"
sorry to be that guy

and i think mikhail's AR 7 should be a HF 6 (or HR 9) since AR has always been one icon
and that BM art looks funny as hell (and should prolly just be energy)
and where is strong guy's HN ? (i need his 12 point 2 hit combo AA to HN)

and blink is edge and christian approved because she reeks of awesomness

Did you intentionally give the Eurasian Council only 5 characters instead of the usual 6?

While the new X-Man art is nice, it doesn't seem to mesh with the other cards for me.  I would vote for the older card you posted.

If you have an in-process list of editing notes, and they're not already on it, add remakes of DB & Weapon X without IA, and rename DB specials.

Slow & steady, Dok!  Mucho impressive so far; we'd hate to see you stress/burn out before reaching the tape!

Oh thank god, a reply! Re-Editing the posts here was turning them into impossibly long and difficult to navigate posts, and I've been on revisions for 2 days.

First off, the Eurasian Council: I literally could not come up with a 6th character. I am wracking my brain for someone who fits, but unfortunately there aren't many. I hate to stick a 6th character on who is meaningless and has no association, but if the general agreement is that 6 is the minimum (with a 4-man team, it makes sense) then I'll figure out someone to slap on there. As it was I had to make characters for The Marauders and Sentinels (Sentinels I'm glad I had to do, they came out pretty well and are one of my personal favorites to play in OP).

I'll dump the new X-Man art in favor of the old for the master file if no one else chimes in on that front; I like the new art but I can't find a high-resolution version (it's a screen cap from XMen Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse). Plus I did do a decent amount of work on that other piece.

I haven't cobbled together a full list of notes, mostly because I'm lazy and it would take card-making time. Instead, I've been reviewing this thread, 1 page at a time, and making adjustments as I see fit (I don't often exploit the "buck stops here" fact, but some things have demanded it...)

As it stands, I have finished round 1 of revisions. The primary input for these comes from commentary on pages 2-4 of this thread (teesaw's breakdown was particularly helpful, but Tussin, Justa, MHC etc have all added helpful commentary that was incorporated in these).

New revisions include everything from new art for Gambit, Omega Red, Jean Grey (they were also requested, wait til you see Jean! It's an interesting CGI piece) as well as new art for some specials, fixed art for characters like Magneto, Cyclops, etc (where art was extending below the frame), text fixes (like the "ust" on Omega Red), re-alignment of text or other elements (in some cards, the image/text was so impossible to manipulate, I ended up re-doing the card from the ground up), new nomenclature for Dark Beast and Weapon X specials (plus dropping their IA), and more.

I also realized that I was a bold-faced liar. I had no 8S, even though I kept saying Colossus was and no one called me out. Because of that, Strong Guy got the nod for the sake of balance, and now he's jumped from "terrible" to "pretty playable, maybe even good". Low grid with a 5F and 8S is good, I hear. I may have to rein him in with a negative IA (something like, May not use Strength cards to defend, although that's a flavor fail from the comics so it'd probably have to be something else). Hopefully you guys get a kick out of this, as at this point my post is going to look more like a spoiler for an upcoming set than a random collection of homemade cards.

Before I finish this post, let me be delineate what I believe to be the current numbers:
There are 34 Characters so far (2 teams have no specials yet but an IA that lets them use other specials. 2-3 Specials will be done for teams)
There are (by my count) 160 specials completed so far; 5 for each of the 32 and none for the other 2
There are 7 Any Character Specials completed so far
There are 3 Locations completed so far

By my count, the set is at 204 cards already, and I still have several locations left, a few artifacts, some universe cards, and either teamwork or doubleshot cards. I expect that the final set will end in the 250ish neighborhood.

I'm going to ATTEMPT to post images here. But, as I was copying back-ups from my master file, I discovered that between manipulatable .xcf files and exported .png images, I have over 1 GB of data already. I'm incredulous I'll be able to post that many images, and I'm having trouble with google photos handling a photo album of (roughly half) that size.

Ok, so this isn't working. I'm exceeding maximum post size. I'm not the most tech savvy in all respects, but I've got everything from the master file loaded into a google photos album. I keep trying to get it to generate a link to the album (I won't even pretend I understand Google's sharing settings) and it keeps generating an https link, which is a little concerning.

I'm going to go out on a limb and post the link, trusting that someone here will let me know if it's possible to backdoor into my Google account from it (in which case it comes down and I figure out some other way to share the set, probably through sequential postings or a new thread).

https://plus.google.com/photos/118306127510872064140/albums/6112785556046919393?authkey=CJfY4OjDg9X63wE (https://plus.google.com/photos/118306127510872064140/albums/6112785556046919393?authkey=CJfY4OjDg9X63wE)

Thanks guys, hopefully you enjoy the set so far!

Quote from: DoktorSleepless on February 06, 2015, 12:48:33 PM
I'm going to go out on a limb and post the link, trusting that someone here will let me know if it's possible to backdoor into my Google account from it (in which case it comes down and I figure out some other way to share the set, probably through sequential postings or a new thread).

https://plus.google.com/photos/118306127510872064140/albums/6112785556046919393?authkey=CJfY4OjDg9X63wE (https://plus.google.com/photos/118306127510872064140/albums/6112785556046919393?authkey=CJfY4OjDg9X63wE)

Thanks guys, hopefully you enjoy the set so far!

sweetness

Well, I have nothing important to do right now; my father-in-law is in town for a visit and I expect him to be over in about an hour and a half, after that the rest of my day is pretty much shot.

The upside? 90 more minutes of card creation. I just spent an hour or so cleaning up the image on this card
*pause*
Let's take a moment again to thank chuu for the Apocalypse artwork, and just to appreciate how hard he really works on this stuff. I did a pretty mediocre job cleaning The Breeding Pens artwork, but it's passable. There were multiple text bubbles and narration boxes. Chuu did a spectacular job on Apocalypse. Seriously, this stuff isn't easy (well, not for me), and he does a really high-quality job while still putting stuff out at a good pace. Chuu, you're totally boss.
*end pause*
and now that I'm finished, I can post actual new stuff that I've started on!

EDIT: Isn't it the worst when you see a problem on a card? I forgot to adjust the first 1 to the right size font. I guess I really do need to make a comprehensive edit sheet.

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-jQV3VdhjlI0/VNUZnfw2EPI/AAAAAAAACbs/f7Uy7HRJ6Ws/w772-h553-no/AOALOCATION04THEBREEDINGPENS.png)

There's at least one more location coming, though if I'm honest I feel like to support Homebases and Battlesites there probably need to be 7 or more Locations (since they'll be at a higher "rarity" compared to most other cards and I'm pushing them pretty hard so that people will actually be incentivized to Homebase). Right now I have 4 "done", and I haven't done The Sea Wall or The Shi'ar Empire yet.

Hopefully you guys are liking this stuff, and it looks almost like an actual set. I've started to tinker with template creation for the two types I don't have (Teamwork and Artifact), but it looks like that will take a while. Give me a little credit, before I started this project I'd never used photo manipulation software before. In the meantime, I'm going to work on Locations and Universe Cards.

Yeah, I'm including Universe Cards. I need them for Gambit, if nothing else, but I also want to have some "filler" cards that are the kind of thing you'd never play in constructed but in draft are awesome. 8E +3 Universe? Probably not so much in a tournament deck. 8E+3 Universe in your draft deck featuring X-Man? Probably better in your deck than some of the worse Specials or other cards you drafted.

I also started the rules insert!

Site connection looks great.  I'll have to take some time to read through for changes from the older versions.
I actually had noticed the Colossus lack of an 8, but I figured you'd get to it during the edit phase.  (Didn't think it would be that fast!)
As far a "back-dooring", someone else will have to chime in.  I point & click, and very little else.  (old dog, new tricks kind of thing)
I have no problems personally with a location having less than 6 characters, it just makes it a little weaker if used as a battlesite.  I've seen them with all kinds of numbers of characters.  Usually the larger ones (8 or greater) have a caveat that they cannot be used as a battlesite.  So it fine as is unless someone else has a beef.

thanks for the recognition DoktorSleepless...I think you truly are sleepless at the rate that you are pumping out these cards. As for my work, I've been using Photoshop for a long time (self taught) before this I was using it to make artwork for custom arcade sticks and that was A LOT more involved than fixing art for cards is.  That's because the area that the art was on was usually 8 x 11 inches or bigger, (biggest area i've done is 10 x 48 inches) so it was harder to hide imperfections :) Sometimes I would spend up to an hour and a half to remove unwanted images where as now the most I ever spend cleaning up an image is about 20 minutes.

yeah excellent work... keep it up :)

i think changing Storm's innate would make her more selectable in a deck...

drop the +1 bonus to intellect attacks, i would add a +1 attack bonus to her specials, its a capped boost and you don't need anything to take advantage of it :)

she has a 4E, 4S/I, and an 8 E/F/S. special so it would bump them to a 5 and 9, a good bonus

i agree

Fantastic suggestion. As soon as I removed the perfect-parallel ability from her and Domino (in spite of my desires for symmetry, it was obvious that you can't in fact have a +2 bonus to attacks and expect it to be functional in a world of 9-is-the-magic-number and the Witchblade). I'll make that change on the next roll-through of edits (read:tonight. I do a lot of OP stuff between 8 p.m. and 1-2 a.m.).

@chuu: It's obvious you've got experience/skills at photoshop, so that makes it all the more impressive you're self taught! Like I said, I spent at least an hour to 90 minutes cleaning up the breeding pens, and realistically it only involved straight lines, color fills, and some shading. It gave me a much deeper appreciation and respect for your skills (which is not to say I didn't appreciate or respect them before!). Still, I think it's important to recognize people doing good work who are an asset to their community, so I gotta toss you props whenever I get an opportunity.

As far as the 5-character issue on The Eurasian Council, I may end up leaving it as-is. I refuse to modify locations with characters who have no association to the location, and I can't come up with anyone else for it. For now, I'm going to set it aside and let the issue roll around the back of my head while I work on other cards. I'm a little concerned about a small sub-section of characters getting all the Location love, so I'm going to try and focus on Locations like Deep Space/Shi'ar Empire and X-Mansion/Whatever it's called in AoA next, so I can get Gambit/Jubilee/Strong Guy/Dazzler/etc onto some locations.

Anyhoo, I'll post any new stuff tonight up in this reply as an edit, but all the new stuff is being saved into my OP AOA Expansion Master File, so it ought to show up in the photo album of the set at the same time I load it here. Which is good, because the set is already way too big to post here in its entirety (well, for me. Probably there's some easy way to do it that I don't know about).

Thanks for all the support and positive feedback guys!

EDIT:
How long were you guys going to let me go before someone mentioned that Sunfire has a character card (and therefore based on his presence in AoA should have an AoA one as well)?

Well, no worries, I caught that today while trying to finish out a character list for the Infinite Processing Plant. He's now on the Location, and is on my short list of stuff to do.

Unfortunately, I can't fill out the Shi'ar Empire to 6 characters even if I do Starjammers. I'll only have Gambit, Jubilee, X-Ternals, and Starjammers. 4 isn't nearly close enough, especially if one doesn't exist yet. So that is probably out.

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-W3qqhc2h06Y/VNWvT_ppgRI/AAAAAAAACcU/q1sOtgMoYFg/w772-h553-no/AOALOCATION05XAVIERESTATE.png)

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-XtD7PxEOB2E/VNWvT8qFQGI/AAAAAAAACcQ/28zSFcxrtXE/w772-h553-no/AOALOCATION06INFINITEPROCESSINGPLANT.png)

Anyway, I'm going to try and get Morph and Sunfire taken care of soon, now that I've got 2 "loose end" characters. That'll put the set at 36 Characters (plus 10 more specials in addition to the 2-3 each for the 2 teams).

i can try to do some research if you want to help find characters to fit in location cards, just give me some detail :)

Well, I'm certainly not going to say no! Sunfire is done, I'll post him up in a second.

At this point though, I'm not sure how many locations are left.

Amazing X-Men - Mostly dealt with the east coast, near Apocalypse's Citadel/The Sea Wall (Sea Wall is being worked on soon).
Astonishing X-Men - Mostly dealt with Chicago and Indianapolis (the Infinite Processing Plant)
Factor X - Mostly dealt with The Breeding Pens and Apocalypse's Citadel
Gambit and the X-Ternals - Mostly dealt with the Shi'ar Empire
Generation Next - Mostly dealt with the Seattle Core
X-Calibre - Mostly dealt with Avalon. I MIGHT be able to do Avalon if I made characters of Juggernaut/Mystique/Callisto/Dead Man Wade(deadpool), to which Nightcrawler could be added. But I'm not planning to do that right now. Juggernaut and Callisto get very little face-time in the comics and Mystique never really uses her powers. Plus, I fear running out of steam if I push myself hard trying to fill out 5 specials for a bunch more characters who barely appear 5 times.
X-Man - They were traveling, I forget where they stop. Now I need to re-read X-Man. But given that only X-Man and Sinister have cards, I would have to make at least a Forge and a team card for Outcasts and a Soaron card to have the minimum characters.

Anyway, I'll keep brainstorming locations. In the meantime, enjoy this!
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-JsIkP_-fnY0/VNY5fTvry3I/AAAAAAAACcs/vXqsYjJRsaQ/w772-h553-no/SUNFIREAOACHARACTER.png)

I am torn over this, so please chime in. Of course (because they have to make life hard) OP put him at 7E for his base version.

REALLY OP? The AoA version is clearly an increase in his powers/abilities, and they even make mention of it (how the genocide of Japan caused his powers to flare out of control... this was before they had introduced the idea of a "secondary mutation" like Emma Frost's diamond skin, but I assume this would be ret-conned to that). So I feel obligated to make him an 8E. But now his grid is disturbingly similar to Dark Phoenix (thanks for that, by the way, OP. Because I'm sure a world-eating cosmic being dwelling in the corrupted mind of Jean Grey is a 21 point character. Because that sounds about right if Apocalypse and Onslaught are 23 point characters, doesn't it? Sure.)

The point is, though I feel he should be 8E, I don't want to force his stats lower but he seems to compare too favorably to objectively much stronger 8E characters from comics. I could probably see an argument for 7E-6F instead of his current grid.

RE-EDIT:
Sweet, I get some card making time for a little bit this morning. Here's Morph, who makes me sad I have to redo all his art because I don't have scans of the original.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-mhm98u_dcCQ/VNZIlP4RuLI/AAAAAAAACdM/IRkpanpuOgY/w772-h553-no/MORPHAOACHARACTER.png)

Nothing too exciting here, just a "reprint".

Are any of the downloadable scans from overpower.ca of high enough quality to suit your purposes?

Well, like a bonehead I had no idea there were downloadable scans!

I'll check them out tonight when I get from the day out with the in-laws. I really hope they are! I love Morph's original art pieces!

In the meantime, I'm about to run out of card making time for the day. So here's all of Sunfire's Specials.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Qls2T4dfblo/VNZShCnNYGI/AAAAAAAACd4/4mfhXmSOkmk/w365-h510-no/SUNFIREAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-nsGnzP_9_zo/VNZShDhzEQI/AAAAAAAACdw/4t5BYtaowt4/w365-h510-no/SUNFIREAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-9FmG1EHQ8Sc/VNZShQPGfvI/AAAAAAAACd8/MQYX9XwiAbk/w365-h510-no/SUNFIREAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-qvUUKWMZ-Z0/VNZSiOrMjaI/AAAAAAAACeE/LEBZWm9GkUk/w365-h510-no/SUNFIREAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-8sc7lF8quro/VNZSiXF8iuI/AAAAAAAACeI/1g693ZB_hg4/w365-h510-no/SUNFIREAOASPECIAL05.png)

After I get home and have some time, I'll check the downloadable scans and hopefully get Morph taken care of. Then I believe it's time to do at least one round of 4 Universe cards, if not 3 rounds (I should probably have a decent number of Universe cards in the set, to be honest... there needs to be enough other filler to dilute the the Specials for drafting and sealed).

looks great, if any of the previous Morph special art works, use it again :)

Just got home and checked out the Downloads at Overpower.ca.... GAME CHANGER! I got exactly the art I wanted with minimal alteration (just the OPD being on the art in the cards, which I only had to half-erase before I could cover it with the OPD I use). The cards flew together because I could just click to the next frame over in my GIMP window to reference the appropriate code, text, name etc.

Morph specials are finished, I may or may not go back and use the character art as well (I kind of like the art I ended up with).

What do you think? I used the 500x700 scans to do these.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-WV9dKMzAuSI/VNaYB_iJHmI/AAAAAAAACek/jqIoVE--Id0/w365-h510-no/MORPHAOASPECIAL01.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-vg3wV9uyY0M/VNaYCIOo1MI/AAAAAAAACew/6MHmWAHdFsI/w365-h510-no/MORPHAOASPECIAL02.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-8NdPeVLTCP4/VNaYCC4S2eI/AAAAAAAACeo/mHOfc0RTHWk/w365-h510-no/MORPHAOASPECIAL03.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-8ZgbZ6XYSzw/VNaYDDZ_QTI/AAAAAAAACe4/RhxZSxoUJTA/w365-h510-no/MORPHAOASPECIAL04.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-S5FkVL7Cg88/VNaYDYw-KGI/AAAAAAAACe8/7x2KP9UvQfU/w365-h510-no/MORPHAOASPECIAL05.png)

Chuu, being totally awesome, has offered me the use of his teamwork template. This is my public thanks... THANK YOU CHUU!!!

Since I have a good universe template and now Teamwork incoming, I should see a lot less slowdown in card production while I keep working on the Artifact template. This set is coming together incredibly quickly, for which I can only thank everyone in this forum. Particular thanks to Chuu and teesaw (come back buddy, we miss your customs!) for their enormous assistance with this.

Does anyone know who runs OverPower.ca? I would like to donate the .png files of the entire AoA set to them once it is complete, so that anyone who would like access to the set will have it. I noticed they had a homemade downloads section with 3 different versions of The Marvels; maybe I'm off base but there seems to be lots of people who dig Power Balance, but his stuff isn't up there. I'm assuming it's because he needs to recoup costs on printing, so he doesn't want people to just print their own copies. I have no such issue. I'll happily order multiple sets from a printer when I get mine, so that others can chip in and we get them all at once for a cheaper rate. But if other people want to use AoA on their own terms, I would be tickled pink for them to be able to download and print it themselves.

Hopefully more cards will come later tonight, but we're headed to Golden for pizza later so I'm thinking this may be it for today. 

Overpower.ca is Jack's Baby, send him a message :)

Cool, I will.

Check out the fruits of your template! I might end up having to switch the text to black for it to show up better.

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-KjtzETQXUQw/VNauPPD-l3I/AAAAAAAACfU/B4YmL7Z6tw0/w364-h510-no/AOATEAMWORK01.png)

for Sunfire i would keep his stats... i would change his innate to energy power cards instead of just energy cards, or give his (NJ) code special useable from reserve :)

I like the stats as is as well.  The IA, well, director's choice.

I thought about making Power cards, but hadn't checked pre-existing characters to see which would be more in line. Given that Morph is Power cards, I like Sunfire's IA moving to Power cards as well.

i am just saying an 8 with an innate to block out power cards and specials is a little strong i think.

every other character in overpower is mostly power cards, or specials not both

I totally agree. Like I said, I hadn't actually checked whether that was in line with most IA's or not.

Ok, so I'm working on my Artifact template. I've used the layer mask from the special (I wasn't a huge fan of the weird spilled-liquid border look on the original Artifacts, and I'm not a photoshop guru, so it was the easiest way to get a similar framing) and shifted it in order to produce the proper amount of space above and beside the card image. The Any-Power symbols are the guides; like most templates, I'll disable their visibility and stack the other icons on top (that way anyone can turn on or off the relevant symbols). The # symbols are just indicators of the text layers, they are editable to insert the correct numbers.

The issue I'm having is, I think (know) at least some of my fonts are wrong. Can anyone identify the correct fonts for "Tactic" and "Artifact Name"? I probably already have them, since I have most of the fonts... anyway, the ability text box will go on the top, obviously. Ignore the blue crater texture, I just have that put on to see the layer mask more easily. Eventually I'll choose or make a texture for it that complements the AoA frame.

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-BzZJqMcZRtU/VNcUN7ZfDNI/AAAAAAAACfs/KEp4aisfrcQ/w365-h510-no/ARTIFACT_TEMPLATE_draft.png)

EDIT: Almost forgot to mention, but once this template is finished it will be available to anyone who would like to use it, as well as any other templates I have.

RE-EDIT:
I'm still working on the template. I think I'll be "finished" tonight. However, in addition to not knowing what fonts should be used for "Tactic" and "Artifact Name", I also don't know what the shadow filter settings are. I've come sort-of close with a blur radius of 10, an X-offset of 5 and a Y-offset of 5, and opacity at 85%. I can tell it isn't correct, but it's the closest I've come on short notice. For now, because I'm devoted to moving forward, I'm calling it ready. When I get to the point of revisions on Universe/Teamwork/Artifact cards, I'll spend a day working on just the shadows and correcting the fonts. In the meantime, here's a look at the base template (I turned on the Any Power again, but rest assured there are 16 new layers composed of the other symbols and their shadows (plus the text layer, the shadow on the artifact text, etc). The pattern is what I've chosen for AoA artifacts, though the text colors are not set in stone.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-46_9awpBcBQ/VNemFoJziuI/AAAAAAAACgU/qWk8wAQe1KE/w365-h510-no/ARTIFACT_TEMPLATE_draft.png)

RE-RE-EDIT: Just did a test run with the template. Behold the first artifact produced for AoA, and see how not-at-all-accurate my shadow is on the icons.
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-EHbYAaDUW3g/VNep6fAvogI/AAAAAAAACgk/PGTu5AvIrDI/w365-h510-no/AOAARTIFACT01TELEPATHICGATEKEEPER.png)

What do you think? Am I pretty close to what an Artifact ought to look like?

Doesn't look bad at all, Dok.  I think the ability text is a little hard to read where the darker brown blotch appears, but I'm the one with the bad eyes.
I know you're trying for ultra-realism, but personally the fonts look fine to me as-is.  I do see what you mean on the shadowing problem.  (I'm no help there.)

Thanks, I'm still new to creating templates but all this stuff is getting easier the more I do it. Here's some more of the Artifacts:
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-mMQ1UJXIDgs/VNgylRAZUGI/AAAAAAAAChY/Zl8spEeWkQg/w365-h510-no/AOAARTIFACT02THEBRAINTRUST.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-31JB96-75wY/VNgylqsYGLI/AAAAAAAAChU/OA6JU8gJqQk/w365-h510-no/AOAARTIFACT03MKRANNFRAGMENT.png)

I'm going to do a reprint of Adamantium as well, but with different art (probably Weapon X art). I know the Brain Trust is strong, but it should be from the comic sourcing (they use it to keep the prisoners in the breeding pens in line, and to keep enemies from being able to fully gather their faculties).

Teamworks are taking a bit not because of the template, which is sweet and totally helpful, but because art is taking a while to find and/or clean up.

Universe cards are coming soon...

EDIT:
More Artifacts.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Ix9wauGuqfw/VNhHeXolx4I/AAAAAAAACh4/9lZnUquRaT0/w365-h510-no/AOAARTIFACT04ADAMANTIUM.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-Nw1foDQCIXU/VNhHef_XPuI/AAAAAAAACh8/B1js2Hw19rg/w365-h510-no/AOAARTIFACT05TRANSPORTSHIP.png)

M'Krann Fragement is missing text "penalty that battle".

An observation & a question (NOT a complaint!) on M'Krann & Adamantium:
     The observation:  You said these were "reprints", but your new versions have "or less" to use, where the legacy versions have "or greater" to use.
     The question:  Was this intentional, or just an oversight from going too fast?

I really like the 'to use" mechanic of "Transport Ship".  A "6-any or less" could be played on anybody, making it much more usable/useful for inclusion in a deck.

Extra:  Bishop's XSE Tactics is still missing text.

It absolutely is from going to fast. I was so pleased with myself for creating a template I tried to tear through things too quickly on the "reprints". I'll clean it in the next round of edits (mid-week this week if I finish 4-12 more cards by Wednesday). I noticed the missing text on M'krann Fragment after the fact. Good news: the text is there, but ran below the text box window. All I have to do is extend the text box and shift it up a little. The other change is easy too, just changing the text (fortunately, that's extremely easy to do on horizontal text).

The 6-Any or less to use was intentional. I want almost every character to be able to use it, because they show up everywhere.
1) The X-Men use one in Amazing X-Men (every issue, I believe), as does Abyss and his cohorts in the same series
2) The Pale Riders use one in X-Calibre (that's where I lifted the image)
3) I forget who is using one in X-Universe, but it's in one of Mikhail's armada scenes
4) If IIRC, there's also one in X-Men Alpha and in X-Men Omega and Gambit & the X-Ternals (in issue 4 I believe)


Point is, it's how everyone seems to get around, and I thought the combination of the Any Power with the Or Less to Use should pretty much open it up to anyone. Also, I didn't put it as a OPD, so that you can run enough copies in a draft deck to reasonably expect to see it pretty early (plus, how bad is it to draw a 2nd one after you've played the first? Pretty bad. I love that kind of tension in a card. You really want the first one, and early in the game, but then no more after that).

Damn! I meant to fix that Bishop error. I just started an edits sheet.

I kinda like the "or less".  I don't think either way really makes a difference, flavor wise.  (Why does strength activate the M'krann?  I get that you need energy to control it.)  (Adamantium should work regardless of teammates' skill level.)
With Transport Ship, is Adamantium really needed?
Also noticed "Intellect" next to the M'Krann strength icon.
Not nit picking, justa trying to help where I can.

Nit-picking is great! I need that. There are 220 cards in the set already, and it isn't finished. At this point, I'm too detached from the individual cards to catch errors that are slipping through.

I actually like the "or less" as well. But I'm trying to stick as close to actual printings as possible, so I'll be changing it.

Also, you might be reading Transport Ship incorrectly, as it is pretty different from Adamantium.

Adamantium allows the character to attack the reserve with Power cards.

Transport Ship allows your Reserve character to attack as though it was a front line character (May attack FROM Reserve for remainder of the game).

Hence Transport Ship not needing a OPD; run too few, your Reserve won't be in Reserve any more. Too many, and after the first one all the rest are blank cards that are terrible to draw. Now, it is possible I'm wrong about the power level of it. It alters a fundamental game rule (Reserve rules RE: attacks), so it may be much stronger than I believe it to be on paper. But I don't believe so. In trying to capture the flavor of a ship, I knew it either needed to involve avoids, another character following-up attacks (like they both arrived together) or the Reserve being able to participate in a battle. I couldn't find anything that didn't seem completely broken for the first 2.

I misread Transport.  Didn't see "from".  I withdraw the comment.  :)
I like the gimmick of possibly being able to attack indiscriminately from reserve.  Adds some excitement.  Yes, purists may feel its too strong.  But keep in mind that there's only 1 card (that I know of) like The Ultimate Nullifier that negates aspects in play, so aspects can't have been considered a major part of the game, just something to supplement characters.  (Witchblade be damned!)
I would use a couple of Transport Ships is a JB style deck, or with a Hell's Kitchen gimmick where you are changing out the reserve more often.

That's right along the lines of non-AoA play that I saw for it!

I mean, yes, it would be very strong in those decks. A crucial card, almost. But as soon as KO's start occurring, Transport Ship should lose a lot of what makes it awesome. Unless I misunderstand the rules, after the Reserve advances no one moves back there again (if I'm mistaken and you can use a Special etc to move a Character to the Reserve when you are at 3 or less Characters, then it is much stronger than I had thought it would be and I may need to attach a limiting clause).

I had noticed enough "may attack from Reserve" or "may play from Reserve" Specials that I thought it would be cool if there were a Tactic that allowed your Reserve hero blanket permission to just be awesome sauce from the Reserve.

It's also possible that it encourages an alternate strategy of protect-the-queen, where the crucial character starts in Reserve and attacks via Transport Ship while the front line takes the beats. [If you caught my statement about other formats over in "How Would You Amend OP?", this is the kind of card that also becomes totally amazing when the basic game objective is slightly altered for something like the "Protect" rules variant I'm working on.]

We always played JBs so that if there was no one in reserve, the character switched with nobody, and they rode out the rest of the battle in reserve.  Dazzler's Rebel Defense also puts people back there.
I saw none of these type cards in your AOA set, so its use for that should be as you intended.
Yeah, I've been reading the other thread, but I can't find much to contribute that others haven't already chimed in on.

I am making a conscious effort in this set to filter out negative interactions; as far as outside interactions in the larger context of the game, I'm fine with anything that doesn't greatly impede future design by radically altering key components of the game in a negative way (I'm looking at you, Witchblade/Myrlu Symbiote... the game is much less interesting and fun when every character is a Galactus or baby Galactus). So while I think there is room for mild concern about some kind of sniper-cycle deck where you can JB any character into reserve for the battle and sniper your opponent's characters thanks to Transport Ship, I'm confident that the existence of cards like Adamantium (and possible future creation of other cards with similar effects) will help balance it somewhat.


Because of chuu's awesomeness, I didn't have to work on a Teamwork template. If someone has photoshop and GIMP, I want to give him this artifact template as a thank you, but apparently GIMP's .xcf extension isn't readable by photoshop (which is unfortunate, because GIMP can read .psd), so I need someone to convert it (probably).

But in the meantime, that freed me up, and I've started an Ally template as well. I noticed in the X-Men set that the Ally used the same frame as the Special but in a different color, but I wanted mine more distinct, so for now it's the same frame but a different pattern. It may end up being the same as X-Men, where I'll take the AoA pattern and color it something else. I don't know, maybe black. The important thing to note here is that I now have a way to represent Nanny, Gwen Stacy, Tony Stark, Clint Barton, etc. without butchering the set's adherence to storyline (there's no making a Hawkeye or Bullseye character, but I can do sweet Ally cards to show them as non-costumed people in AoA). That's exciting because Nanny and Gwen Stacy were both important non-Character worthy individuals from the comics. Also, it's an opportunity to make Ally cards that don't suck! That's really exciting.

EDIT:

I "finished" the template, in the sense that things are basically in place and everything is still all one font (I'll go back later and change things, I have the fonts and chuu gave me pointers for artifacts, I think I can recognize the correct ones now). So I've created the first AoA Ally, and I have a question before I put him out there:

Where it says "Teammate must play 1 Special card" does that mean that if Mikhail Rasputin uses the Handler Murdock Ally card, one of Mikhail's teammates must follow up? Say, Abyss or Holocaust if they were on Mikhail's team?

Because if that is the case, I'm about to make the first MAJOR departure from OP tradition. Some of these will say "Character must play 1 Special card [to follow-up] (or) Character may make 1 follow-up attack" or other similar things. There's no reason allies have to suck or require multiple characters to use, in my opinion.  And in my mind, that clause (plus the low power of the ally attacks... are your allies that awful? I would ally with useful people) is why Ally cards have always seemed so bad.

Now check out this ally, and imagine if he said either of the things I had said above instead of the standard text. Would that not be an eminently playable card?
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-KChwjNu05Wg/VNlGAQR3L9I/AAAAAAAACiY/Xv71ChGXiEA/w365-h510-no/AOAALLY01HANDLERMURDOCK.png)


Please bear in mind that the frame/fonts for text/etc are not yet finalized. These are still extremely raw, unlike characters and specials which have already had some movement towards finished product.

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-yKGR0SfcPmM/VNmsD7H3ZoI/AAAAAAAACjE/HHlVxYkGKMY/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY03TONYSTARK.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Fw-0auZsM1Y/VNmsDkRnIkI/AAAAAAAACjA/FnNS070GKEg/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY02BENGRIMMANDSUESTORM.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-3Fu200CANzc/VNmsDkOcxiI/AAAAAAAACi8/21cnt-xtRRw/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY04CAINMARKO.png)

More to check out...

Not really sure on the new mechanic for Allies.  While flavor-wise they should not need the follow up attack, it seems wrong to just give a higher powered character a high off-color attack.  I guess it would depend on how many allies, the spread of to-use requirements, etc.  Certainly a subject for "amending the game" on the other thread.
As for defensive universe cards, did you check out the Bystander cards on justabgkid's site?  Only the one card required to use, & they force a choice between PR hit or counting for VT.  Who chooses depends on how/when the card is played.
The text on the left hand side of the cards is horrible for me to read.

Yeah, I'm still tweaking the mechanics so they're not unbalanced (CAIN MARKO is a good example, because an 8S out of a 4E would be bonkers as an attack, but as a defense and a OPD it's both flavor-correct and reasonably balanced (I tried it last night against my wife in 2 games, and both times it was awesome when I used it to block a 7S from 3-Stat Thor/Thing).

It's likely that the numbers come down a touch (Handler Murdock as a 4-5F, for example), and I may try to tweak the language so the Character makes a follow-up (so the flavor is more like "Handler Murdock shows up to help Mikhail, does a 5F attack, and then Mikhail follows it up. Right now, we have "Handler Murdock shows up to help Mikhail, does a 5F attack, and then a random other Character on Mikhail's team does a Special attack because apparently he was hanging out and we want to include him in this whole Ally schtick").

I started posting the set to Deviant Art (I fixed the noted errors on Bishop's XSE Tactics and on the Artifacts, though I saw a few things slipped past editing, like Strong Guy's special saying "Might Mutant" not "Mighty Mutant"). Once I've gotten a little more feedback on Ally cards, I'll start another round of revisions.

Also, the colors/scheme for this are going to get an overhaul. I am very likely going to take the X-Men standard of matching patterned background in different colors (X-Men used Yellow for Special, Red for Artifact, Blue for Ally, etc. I'll probably do Gray for specials, Black for Ally, White for Artifact, etc. and then use the same sort-of wine red text I've used on character names. I'll drop shadows in White or Black, as appropriate, for contrast. For the sections that use another color on text (like Tactic on Ally cards) I'll have to pull up a color wheel and find a roughly corresponding Yellow or Blue to match the red I'm using.

It's taking a little adjustment to the new pace. I can't tear through cards anymore (except Universe cards). Revision requires a slower, more measured approach. But I'll probably hold off on posting anything new here for a bit; there's a noticeable correlation between the frequency of my posts and a drop-off in feedback. Since I'm desperate for feedback (yours has been awesome justa, but I was hoping to hear from MHC and Tussin as well, since both are also good at picking out negative interactions and making suggestions for changes), I'm going to go ahead and just try to knock out all the universe cards before I post any more up here, and hopefully the thread going quiet will get people to come sniffing around again.

Dropping the attack to a 4 or 5 sounds much more comfortable to me.  And having the character using the Ally make the follow-up makes much more sense than a different teammate.
I guess it boils down to "how many do you want to do?".  Where you've been trying to fully balance your set, you probable want 1 for each color type of the same effect.  Multiply that for the number of desired effects.  For offensive cards right now, you've got a 5 triggering a 5 & a 7, and a 7 triggering a 6.  I would think you'd have to decide on a method that makes sense to you to do the math.  (i.e., does attack/defense value go up or down for higher or lower skill types)

After looking carefully, the course of action is probably going to be following the "Ben Grimm and Sue Storm" template. It'll be an equivalent to the required value (so 5I making a 5F), and I'm going to require the Character make a follow up attack. These will all be X-Universe characters: Gwen Stacy, Tony Stark, Ben Grimm and Sue Storm, Clint Barton, Victor Von Doom, (total will be 9, as each Power type will have 3 corresponding Ally cards). Then there will be a few special One-Per-Deck that are defensive Ally cards, like Cain Marko or Nanny (I'm working on her today), probably 4 (1 for each type that is a 4X and makes an 8Y, such as Cain's 4E makes an 8S). That gives me 13 Ally in total. I'm assuming right now I'll do at least 8 Universe cards.

That's less flavor-tastic than Mikhail's 7E being required to use Handler Murdock and him making a 6F, but it will balance better as a 5E that acts as a 5F and requires a follow-up. That will make the average Ally card like a moderately stronger AA Special. It's possible they'll all be coded OPD. I have no problem with that if I think it needs to happen to keep them from having a negative impact through overuse/abuse.

You DO need to slow down, dude!  The Sleepless part is showing through.  :)

3 Allies X 4 power types = 12 cards

or did I miss something again?  (its not unusual... shut up Tom!)

I actually have been sleepless lately... I normally go to bed between 1-4, get up around 9-930. Lately I've had responsibilities getting me out of bed at like 730-8. *sigh*

But, I've got good news. I took the liberty of re-working the cards to a uniform pattern and adjusted the levels to make each distinct. I also cleaned up M'Krann, Transport Ship (the Any Power on top had red text in it, I noticed when I uploaded to Deviant Art), matched all the current Ally cards, and altered them to "Character must play 1 Special".

BOOM.
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-287oGIzE1Qw/VNqYFIz0BLI/AAAAAAAACkU/FMivUt4Ot_M/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY01HANDLERMURDOCK.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-ioM88obOAEg/VNqYFDTP0YI/AAAAAAAACkM/WbDXQnrJ0pQ/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY02BENGRIMMANDSUESTORM.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-ANEnCLx4440/VNqYFBShPBI/AAAAAAAACkQ/va8NbYoXgZg/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY03TONYSTARK.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-Yre0Y6g1BX8/VNqYGDiMJYI/AAAAAAAACkc/oH3NmwTycIk/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY04CAINMARKO.png)

In line with the original Ally format from X-Men (which for flavor reasons makes sense to follow in Age of Apocalypse), I've made both Universe and Ally Name the same color text. I think it's a good look, but I can see how it might be hard to read.

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-UyWeWIm4Sks/VNqYLx5Wg0I/AAAAAAAACks/UO8NGk680ZE/w396-h553-no/AOAARTIFACT01TELEPATHICGATEKEEPER.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7RLvCX4lAtA/VNqYMVra57I/AAAAAAAACkw/z-HeJFa-EBM/w396-h553-no/AOAARTIFACT02THEBRAINTRUST.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-ZIxLfzV1mtg/VNqYMajb9eI/AAAAAAAACk4/7yvrN8FIvpo/w396-h553-no/AOAARTIFACT03MKRANNFRAGMENT.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-Tf8r4OidCYw/VNqYM2uR_QI/AAAAAAAAClA/U3sgdv9hiw8/w396-h553-no/AOAARTIFACT04ADAMANTIUM.png)
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-8iAp2bAkox0/VNqYNcB8ZsI/AAAAAAAAClE/8rZWfMX3xtY/w396-h553-no/AOAARTIFACT05TRANSPORTSHIP.png)

Here I took the pattern to the opposite extreme color aspect.

EDIT:
Here's the rest of the 5-5 Ally cards. The remaining 4-8 Defensive cards will be coming soon, it'll be one 8S defense for each other possible grid options (so 4E-8S, 4F-8S, 4I-8S). That should give 15 Ally cards.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-oNYOTRTTttg/VNrQpBdLLlI/AAAAAAAAClk/eljPooCQrXo/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY05DOCTORROBERTBRUCEBANNER.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-s7DXhfOwhjY/VNrQpHTov6I/AAAAAAAAClo/3WbIPzbpj8Y/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY06GWENSTACY.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gV10KYHx0Jk/VNrQpP-M0bI/AAAAAAAAClw/CnW2fcSZBRE/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY07YETI.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-uhMPKc3LsCk/VNrQqPW6X0I/AAAAAAAACl8/qKYb8CbXbiw/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY08VICTORVONDOOM.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-gtA6m5f5pdw/VNrQrKcSQYI/AAAAAAAACmI/M72VpfzQQOE/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY09BOX.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-zrmiMuYLxD0/VNrQq4eaRUI/AAAAAAAACmE/L2pwKke3cQU/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY10COPYCAT.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-O_7rDHrdX0A/VNrQrfyaAXI/AAAAAAAACmQ/Ggk0se6lo_Y/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY11ELIZABETHANDSAMUELGUTHRIE.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-UwtcLtRrlcA/VNrQsAe5jjI/AAAAAAAACmY/Lw9L3usKh7s/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY12NORTHSTARANDAURORA.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-T53Vompc9Yc/VNrQsT4lWfI/AAAAAAAACmc/Z-axNsw4JbI/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY13THEBEDLAMBROTHERS.png)

RE-EDIT:
The final 2 Ally cards.
(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-hb-XrTBEAf4/VNrZUGNForI/AAAAAAAACm4/xt4SzEOv-1w/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY14NANNY.png)
(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0h7YRULpk3w/VNrZUGa0ozI/AAAAAAAACm0/Hq3GxBrqGUY/w396-h553-no/AOAALLY15THESTARJAMMERS.png)

RE-RE-EDIT: I'm such a liar. I'm posting tons more up here. Oh well. I'm about to do the Strength Universe cards. Here's the other 6 so far.
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-7ulcHIBinns/VNr1fUm-dQI/AAAAAAAACng/QEx-ozId_H4/w396-h553-no/AOAENERGYUNIVERSE7PLUS2UPSCALEPROGRAM.png)(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Q4y0oQvcF9g/VNr1feYUEsI/AAAAAAAACnY/Wv6faTXaffw/w396-h553-no/AOAENERGYUNIVERSE7PLUS3EMPATH.png)
(https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-Q4y0oQvcF9g/VNr1feYUEsI/AAAAAAAACnY/Wv6faTXaffw/w396-h553-no/AOAENERGYUNIVERSE7PLUS3EMPATH.png)(https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-4pXGSSrA4A4/VNr1gPZ-shI/AAAAAAAACns/7hgG31o5hMo/w396-h553-no/AOAFIGHTINGUNIVERSE7PLUS3HEAVYARMAMENT.png)
(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/--DA0hb9ZT68/VNr1hFeqJfI/AAAAAAAACn0/hNG_L6MWFHA/w396-h553-no/AOAINTELLECTUNIVERSE7PLUS2EUROPEANDEFENSEGRID.png)(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-OPXr9uQsWm4/VNr1g67CxCI/AAAAAAAACnw/QOgPFloIcz8/w396-h553-no/AOAINTELLECTUNIVERSE7PLUS3SEAWALLCONTROLROOM.png)


...aaaaannnnddd I just saw that I don't have a layer mask with curved corners applied to any of these. This is why expansion sets for games in production get a whole team. The raw creation process nears the end, with less than a dozen cards to go as far as I know. Then revisions begin in earnest, as I move alphabetically through every card and ask for final critiques.

Am I the only one excited to see this project get this far along?

(https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-PUeTNYQtbTw/VNr9FM3ZXUI/AAAAAAAACoU/IrpC2slcZd0/w396-h553-no/AOASTRENGTHUNIVERSE7PLUS2CYBERNETICUPGRADES.png)(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-QROfW4RC3Lk/VNr87hz-DZI/AAAAAAAACoM/lzYQIfC63Hk/w396-h553-no/AOASTRENGTHUNIVERSE7PLUS3MAKESHIFTARMOR.png)

(https://lh5.googleusercontent.com/-rxsZlStnjpk/VNsEbztADCI/AAAAAAAACoo/A6Wi6u_nAfY/w772-h553-no/AOALOCATION07THESEAWALL.png)

Quote from: DoktorSleepless on February 10, 2015, 06:51:57 PM

...aaaaannnnddd I just saw that I don't have a layer mask with curved corners applied to any of these.

As I discussed with chuu over in his thread, I actually think the computer files look more professional with the square corners.  You can always round them off during the cutting process.

Quote from: DoktorSleepless on February 10, 2015, 06:51:57 PM

Am I the only one excited to see this project get this far along?

Granted I'm a one-man cheering section, but the answer to thet is a resounding "HELL NO!"  I'm also surprised you've been burning through them so fast without making more errors.

Question - Will there be a 4S-8defensive Ally too?

You know, I hadn't been intending to do one, but I am not quite pleased with the set composition yet. So it could easily happen. My intention had been to leave the on-power one undone, but that seems silly in the cold light of day.

With regards to the set composition statement:
Currently, I have a card count in the master file of 249 cards, with the following breakdown:

43 non-character, non-special cards broken down as follows:
7 Any Character
7 Location
15 Ally
8 Universe
1 Teamwork (FINDING AOA TEAMWORK ART IS A NIGHTMARE)
5 Artifact

36 Character cards, 34 with a full set of Specials and 2 with none (currently) but IA's allowing use of 2 or more character's specials.

170 Specials (5 per character times 34).

That means that for pack construction, the ratio is 170:79 for Specials to all other cards. I'd like it to end up being about 175:84, if possible. The reason is simply for pack construction; I want to make sure there are enough distinct non-Special cards to allow for a truly dynamic draft environment.

I'm currently devising pack construction (I've thought about it a lot lately), and here's the set-up so far:

2 Characters - I went over the logic for this before, but basically the breakdown is that it gives all players a team of 4 and leaves 16 Activators at an 8 man table for people to try to draft Battlesite decks.

1 Location - Every pack needs a location, so that an 8-man table has enough that potentially every person could TRY to draft a Homebase or Battlesite deck. This probably means 1 more location. FYI, locations always need art cleanup. No one at Marvel likes to show off sprawling panoramic views unimpeded, apparently.

1 Basic Universe - They should be kind of filler cards, but there should be enough that at least one person drafts them. Also helps produce artificial scarcity for desired cards by occupying a slot.

1 Artifact or Teamwork - Because the power level of these cards is actually quite high in the draft environment (I've been building bad decks that are similar to the construction I expect of draft decks, and Teamworks are actually quite potent when you have to run 1 or 2 and your opponent's cards are occasionally sub-optimal), I want these to be more scarce and therefore compete for the same slot. Still means I need 2 more Teamwork just to have at least 8 cards here, and really I need 3 for aesthetic balance. Damn.

1 Any Character - This provides the first 8 Any Character (more on that in a moment). 8 is a good base, it ensures at least one player goes Any Character with their deck choice. I feel like we'll actually need 12-16 at the table to encourage more than 1 player to try for building Any Character, so this will also be one of the options for the flex slot coming up.

1 Ally - Should provide enough injection of Ally cards. If not, I could see going to a 16 card pack and putting in 2 Ally cards.

1 Flex-Slot - This holds either an Any Character, A Location, or an Activator. The additional influx of a couple of cards of each type should be enough to guarantee that people try for draft decks with Homebases or Battlesites or Any Characters.

7 Specials - This should give each player roughly 21 specials to choose from. That ought to be more than enough.

How do I reason that it's more than enough? Quite simply: In MtG, you draft 45 cards to build a 40 card deck, at a composition of 17 land:23 cards drafted. Basically, you need about half the cards you drafted.

Now, that number is actually quite close how many cards you should need to make an OP deck. Assuming 4 of your cards are characters on your team, you have 41 left to work with. If we assume a Power Pack is 2-3 copies of levels 1-8 Power cards, we would use 16-24 cards in the Power Pack. I'm going with 20 for safety.

That gives an average deck composition of 20 power cards to 35 non-power cards. If you have 41 cards, it means you basically eliminate the 6-10 cards from your pool as unplayable. These are likely your worst Specials, maybe an extra location, etc. Otherwise you should have a pretty well constructed deck, but not a tournament-level amazement machine of crazy stuff like Spawn+X-Babies and Morlocks cards off of Storm:Neutralized activators or whatever insane things happen in tournament decks.

Instead, it will most likely be an artifact or two, either Any Character or Activators (or a Homebase), a pile of specials playable by your characters, a couple of Universe and maybe some teamwork and Ally cards. You know, a solid and fun deck of cards to play, with enough variation that games won't play out exactly the same and you could have a crazy blowout where an attack with a basic universe card wins the day.

Anyway, I'm going to look for art for Teamworks later on today (I have one sitting in my file unused, which means I still need to figure out 2 more to have a set of 4). Past that, I'll probably try to work out 1 or 2 more cards. Then begins the alphabetical run-through for revisions.

Now your getting into a part of the process that I have very little knowledge of, and not a whole lot of interest, either.  I'll never be a part of your tournament.  (Financial & geographical reasons.)  :(

I think you misposted on the Universe cards.  Empath (7E+3) came up twice, and the 7F+2 is missing.

Hey guys, I know it's been a while since I have posted new progress here, but I want you to know that the Age of Apocalypse continues. Art selection has been all I've been able to work on recently, having been putting most of my time and energy into work and an RV-rehabbing project with my wife. But I'm planning to do some art updates, color scheme editing, and other revision this week. Then I'd like to the final push on the card set itself over the month of June.

A final, completed set should hopefully be posted to this thread by July. I spoke to Jack a while back, and he generously agreed to post the Master File which I send him to Overpower.ca, from which anyone will be able to download it for printing and home play.

Thanks to everyone who offered critiques, support, and assistance!

Is gambit and the xternals a gambit variant or plays alongside gambit sorta like team x does with wolvie?  This all looks great. I like the new ally cards!  Telepathic gatekeeper reads like original EB special.  Should it be the text from stars and garters?  If gatekeeper is played, it could be attacked by power leech special and it would be effective and UNSTOPPABLE (defended against)

I intended Gambit and the X-Ternals (and actually all team cards in this set) to play alongside team characters (such as Gambit) like Team X does with Wolverine or Maverick. The idea is basically that in a draft, those characters will create tension for specials if people draft them separately, or will create an unusually consistent and powerful deck if you snatch up both the team card and the individual characters.

Obviously I need to go back and review Telepathic Gatekeeper. Overall I'm focused more on creating a set with strong internal play, a good draft/sealed environment, and great flavor from the comics than I am with keeping cards playable amongst the larger body of cards. That said, I'm not interested in making completely broken, no one likes this because it's unstoppable so why would we print these and play them garbage cards. That's pretty much the definition of Gatekeeper if you're correct about Power Leech (I assume you are, I gotta double check to be sure though). So in that case, yes, I'll probably alter it to fall in line with Stars and Garters.

Good catch! It's always helpful to have other sets of eyes on this stuff.