The Age of Apocalypse

[justa]

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

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[justa]

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.

[DoktorSleepless]

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:


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:




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.

This art!

[SkittleDaddy]

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:


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:




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.

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.

[cyber0820]

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.

[DoktorSleepless]

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...




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.



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!




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?!










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.




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...
 




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!

[cyber0820]

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.

[MHC]

they [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). 

[DoktorSleepless]

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.


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!




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...


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*





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:





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?


Now, let's see why that matters.


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.





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.





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.





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.






I know I've done all the specials, so if I missed one it'll come up when I post revisions.

[cyber0820]

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.

[steve2275]

icon is 4

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


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

[justa]

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!

[DoktorSleepless]

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

Thanks guys, hopefully you enjoy the set so far!

[steve2275]

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

Thanks guys, hopefully you enjoy the set so far!

sweetness