Fluid Psionics 101

Fluid Psionics 101

7749 Fluid Psionics 1 - 3.00 Credits

Prerequisites: Innate skill with psionics, 6869 Introduction to Mutant Ethics

The interaction of Psionics with the laws of conservation of mass, momentum, and energy in fluid systems, fluid statics, and dimensional analysis. The exercise and training of your psionic skills will allow you to bend these laws, turning even the most basic actions into high-energy fluid motion and mitigate energy-loss while affecting external systems.*

*Mouse-over each linked word...

My (early) review of Psylocke

Since her announcement I've been building a Honed Technique deck for her in my head! I'll talk about why I DON'T include Honed Technique in the Deck and Play Notes section below! After 6 or 7 games trying to get HT to work consistently, I started working on this deck.

Psylocke plays very similarly to SP//dr! There is a lot of decision making with regards to A) when you flip the resources to their other side, and B) when you use or don't use resources.

For the former (A), I like to keep one on Knife and the other on Katana until a situation arises to change the mix. If I can fire off Flurry of Blades and Psychic Assault, I'll want both on the Katana side. If I have a LOT of threat on the board I'll want both on Knife for THW 3, plus a 5 thwart with Mental Detection. If I don't have a lot of threat, I'll keep them mixed so I can get a card draw off of Mental Detection. With all that said, in a scenario with lots of Tough floating around on the villain side, I want to ALWAYS keep one on Katana for the piercing, and even if you plan to never have both on Katana side, your Obligation can force it, so Side Holster is important for keeping Psimitar in play!

As to the latter (B), if you want to maximize your "psionic shuffle" in Alter-Ego, you won't use the resources in hero form the turn you want to flip down (shuffle two) and also not the following turn (shuffle two more before flipping up). So the question becomes "do you want to shuffle four psionic cards back in or fewer?", and of course that decision is easier with fewer than four Psionic cards in discard.

So you end up with a weird (but fun) decision about when to spend those resources, which are crucial with a hand size of 4!

Deck and Play Notes

Why Honed Technique didn't make the cut:

Honed Technique didn't make the cut because of Psimitar!

Honed Technique costs 3 (2 of which must be which isn't a big deal in Psylocke), but can only hit on 8 cards in the deck (sometimes multiples of them though):

• 2X Press the Advantage for 1 extra damage
• 3X Psi-Bow Attack for 2 extra damage
• 3X Psychic Assault for 2 extra damage

Psimitar only costs 2 with no resource restriction, can hit on 17 cards and deal 2 damage with each of them (but only once per round):

• 1X Professor X
• EVERY event but Press the Advantage

As mentioned in the previous section, Side Holster is crucial to keeping Psimitar in play, because your Obligation causes both of your Psi-Energy Weapons to flip to Katana, which are Restricted!

Deadpool:

Deadpool is here because he's an X-Force ally, and can be reduced to 2-cost with Team-Building Exercise. He's a well-costed ally even without his Forced Interrupt, and better with the reduction. I activate him twice and block (I've never been Forced to use the Interrupt).

Press the Advantage:

Psylocke deals Confuse easily, so Press the Advantage becomes the damage equivalent of Clear the Area. Since it's an ATTACK event it triggers Fluid Motion.

Team-Building Exercise:

Two copies of Team-Building Exercise can discount 2 cards on a turn, and exactly half of this deck shares either the Psionic or X-Force trait with Psylocke.

Fluid Motion:

I'm running two Fluid Motion and no Combat Training because of the cost difference. It doesn't seem that like much of a difference but when deciding to play a 1-cost or 2-cost card with a small hand size, I'll go with the cheaper every time. I've also only been able to trigger two of them in any given turn anyway, so I don't feel I need a third copy.

Recovery:

With all of the Confuse Psylocke can throw around, I never have a problem flipping down to Recover, so I didn't include Endurance.

My favorite cards

Psylocke three cards which I feel are fantastic:

• Telepathic Suggestion: Any card which lets you cancel When Revealed effects are cake, and getting "extra" effects while doing so is the icing!
• Training Regimen: Tutor Skill cards! Since I flip to Alter-Ego pretty often, the "Hero-side discard" rarely comes into play.
• Psionic Training: The ability to ignore Guard and Patrol comes in clutch. This card would be my number one favorite if it also ignored Crisis icons, but it's still a great card. With the amount of Confuse Psylocke can dish out, I've never discarded it for the confuse effect!