Over the past 17 years, thousands of us have grown to love this crazy little game with plastic super heroes, flying across a paper map and teaming up in ways that we never thought were possible. We’ve been to tournaments, local events, and even the grandest stage in the land, but over time the game has started to lose it’s grasp on the community. How do we as a player base work to overcome such hurdles?

Today, we are taking another deep dive into some US Nationals prep to hopefully assist some of you aspiring denizens who wish to take down the competition in a couple weeks. While my last article on preparations looked vaguely at a lot of elements you will more than likely see at the nation's second largest stage, this article is going to focus on a specific element and its importance. Today’s article will be covering the Mystics team ability.

Mystics is a bit of a loose cannon. Before the 2017 rules change, it was incredibly popular on several team archetypes. You might of found it on a wildcard spam, Mystical theme teams, or even a team that wanted to sport the Star Sapphire Power Battery. Fast forward to post 2017 rules change, and it has suddenly become a niche game element that was rarely used for nearly two years. The past several months have seen a slight resurgence of the feedback damage giving TA, but how important will it be going into Nationals? Let’s find out.

 

To start, what is the Mystics Team Ability? The Team Ability sheet on Heroclix.com under the rules section states the following:

 

“Each time this character would take damage from an opposing character’s attack, after resolutions deal the attacking character 1 penetrating damage. UNCOPYABLE.”

 

The most important thing to notice is that Mystics now does 1 penetrating instead of 1 unavoidable and the TA is now UNCOPYABLE. These were the two changes that many deemed damning and in turn stated that it was not worth the time and effort to build teams that sported Mystics as it would no longer be “Effective Enough” to be worth the risks associated with it. I wouldn’t be writing this article if I agreed with them.

 

With the advent of Hawkeye and Prime Vulture teams, many players have adjusted their building and playstyle to potentially prevent these vermin from wiping out an entire force with one costed action. There have been two ways that players have sought to accomplish this:

 

1.    Play figures that take more than just a couple attacks to wipe off the board.

  1. HAHA Joker

  2. Daredevil

  3. Lockjaw

  4. ETC

2.    Play figures that have a ton of rollouts like Shape Change and Super Senses to “hopefully” stop them in their tracks immediately and ensure retaliation would be swift and painful.

While the former is certainly effective, not everyone wants to play teams of that type, so the ladder is by far the more popular verdict. Figures such as Starfox, Unseen, Captain Marvel, Mister Oz, and many more are coming out of the woodwork in an effort to rely on rollouts vs raw damage reducing power. Unless the figure takes up a considerable amount of your total build, many figures that have Shape Change or Super Senses typically do not sport Invincible, and this is the important part. Since Mystics does penetrating, it is highly ineffective vs Invincible, or figures that reduce penetrating damage such as TMT Beta Ray Bill. Teams that have no Invincible available have to come to the reality that any damage they deal with any of their figures, will take feedback damage when successfully landing a hit against a figure that sports the Mystics Team Ability.

 

Mystics can be sported as both a blessing and a curse on a build. On one hand you happen to punish anyone who wishes to attack you. This could be a support figure, main attacker, or an ID character. Figures like XXS Jean Grey happen to lose some of their gusto as she will lose her ability to free TK herself off the map once she takes the feedback damage. The other hand, happens to make some people shy away from using figures that have Mystics entirely. Because damage is being dealt, characters that have Mystics will instantly trigger Colossal Retaliation after they are hit. The punisher has now become the punished if you know what i mean. Of course, no retaliation sports Invincible either, which means they will also be KO’d after a successful hit that deals damage. Most of the time, however, I find that knocking out your 100 point figure with my 25 point Surtur is usually a trade that I am willing to make.

 

There are other interactions with Colossal Retaliation that are important to keep in mind when facing someone who happens to have the Mystics Team Ability. Two figures in particular come to mind: AI Groot and TMT Carnage. Both of these monsters spawn bystanders upon retaliation. Groot has to land a hit (no damage has to be dealt) and Carnage simply has to have had a target which is still alive after the relation (No damage or even a successful hit has to be landed.) The important interaction with Mystics is that if you should hit and if damage should be dealt, you as the active player do get to chose to spawn your bystander before the big boy takes the feedback damage. This can prove incredibly useful in multiple situations, but the important thing is, DO NOT FORGET TO SPAWN YOUR POGS.

 

Having one figure on the squad that has Mystics can be a little annoying, but there are certainly ways to traverse the hurdle with callins, or invincible on dial. It is when we start to see 2, 3, 4 or even 5 figures on force where Mystics can start to actually turn the tide of a game against your opponent and leave them feeling helpless and gasping for air. When IDs and Colossals have been exhausted, there aren't many options when 3 figures with Mystics are still on the board. We saw a prime example of this in Matt Dunham's winning regional build last weekend. While myself and many others believe Matt probably had no business going 8-0 on the day (I will still commend him on his win don’t get all flustered) I can certainly see how his team may have thrown his opponents for a loop.

 

Chaos and Order, Sheriff Strange, and Zatanna all have the Mystics team ability. Unless utilizing a direct counter such as a Surtur Bomb or Green Arrow shot from downtown, my counting has showing that 3 hits for the twin heads, 2 hits for the sheriff, and 2 hits for the backwards magician will more than likely be required to KO all 3 of these figures at MINIMUM. This is not including any uses of Mastermind from Alex Wilder or uses of Regeneration from Chaos and Order. By my count, that means one way or another, your force is going to take at least 7 clicks of damage just for having the balls (see what I did there?) to attack the squad. Matt's full build is listed below.

My current favorite bearer of the Mystics TA is Sheriff Strange. While Mystics may not be the reason I play him as often as I do, it is nice to know that on average, my opponent will be taking at least 2 damage from having the audacity to strike him. All in all, I think Mystics is a good shift into a different dynamic of Heroclix. Players cannot blindly swing with 0 repercussion just because they deem it so. You are forced to play on your toes, or pay the price for it. Over the past few months Mystics has started to turn into my favorite team ability, and I wouldn’t be surprised if there are a few teams fielding the Silver TA at Nationals that catch their opponents off guard!

 

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my statements around the Mystics Team Ability? Do you feel like it is worth fielding or are their other options that should be built around? Should Matt Donham be aloud to win any more events? What should I write about next? Leave all your answers in the comments of this article or the Facebook post you clicked on!

 

 

Next week I will attempt to resume some Community Spotlight articles.

 

Until then, have a great week! And don’t you dare roll a crit miss!