The Age of Apocalypse

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[steve2275]

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?

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[steve2275]

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)

[MHC]

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. 

[teesaw]

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...

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[breadmaster]

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

[justa]

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.

[Tussin]

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



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



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



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.



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)



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?



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?

[steve2275]

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

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[breadmaster]

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? 

[DoktorSleepless]

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.

[cyber0820]

New & darker gray with normal lettering is bad ass!