Spider-Tingle

I don't get this card. You have to deal 1 damage to a Spider-warrior before you reveal the card and then check if it is a treachery. If it's not, you just lost 1 HP. It doesn't even play into it's theme, I don't remember the spider sense causing Spider-Man any damage in any of the films or comics, so that's basically made-up, and it doesn't even work, because the tingle is going off even if the card is not a treachery. Poorly designed, if you ask me.

EDIT: After further research, it seems that it is indded useful for characters with high health and perfect defense -SP//dr-, though the extent to which one should consider including it in any deck is still a bit unclear to me. I'll keep using it a bit more to be sure.

Keep in mind it's an upgrade - so you can keep using it until you do hit a treachery. Cancelling certain treacheries can be well worth 2 resources and a few damage, but it is a risk if you keep missing. It combos well with Spider-Ham too — Stretch22 · 266
Psychic Assault

Right now it's only playable in Phoenix decks (although Psylocke will be available soon), but MAN is it a workhorse there. Confuse effects are especially important to aggression decks, and having a turn where you can safely flip to Alter-Ego mode without worrying about scheme getting out of control makes singleplayer aggression so much more forgiving. I confidently play three-of and I don't expect to take any copies out any time soon.

DaLucaray · 3
White Hot Room

To my mind this is the grease that keeps Phoenix moving. I've noticed most characters get an Alter-Ego Action support card, and this doesn't look like much but it gets the numbers JUST high enough- and Phoenix wants to Recover just often enough- that you always play it if you draw it, if you ask me. (Unless you can confidently close out the game in 1-2 turns of course). Heck, I'd say this is a card worth mulliganing to dig for. Phoenix is fragile, with only 9 health, and power counters to squeeze and extra resource out of every turn lets you just play more.

The most important thing about playing this card is remembering that you're always getting two activations per flip, meaning you can heal seven damage with just this card and Phoenix's recovery. Imo Phoenix also wants Down Time, which frees up White Hot Room to give you a total of three power counters (two plus the Recover) with only a single turn of, well, down time.

If Phoenix has one support/upgrade card on the field, I want it to be this one.

DaLucaray · 3
Cyclops

Scott here serves as basically a fast way to "leash" Phoenix once she's been unleashed, especially if you have White-Hot Room out (which you should, bonus healing and bonus power counters are two things Jean wants desperately). This is useful if you really need to thwart, and once he's at 1hp you can kill him to probably unleash Phoenix again, which is cute. He's also just got a very solid stat spread.

That said, I end up spending him as a resource more often than not, especially once Phoenix is unleashed- there's just more powerful things you can do, and if you're on 3 power counters you're pretty much SOL. Not the best personal ally.

DaLucaray · 3
With Phoenix you want to Unleash as fast as possible, so wait to play Cyclops until then. Then use up the 2 extra power counters before he dies so you never lose them. Very efficient in the ideal case — Stretch22 · 266
The "enter play" half of this card is a Response, not a Forced Response, so you can play Cyclops without gaining power counters if you so choose. That can be helpful for unleashing a little faster, or staying unleashed in the example given in the review above. Only the "leaves play" effect is forced. — RainYupa · 1
Stinger

At the time of writing this review we have exactly two 1 Cost allies in the game's pool of ally options. Blade is the other one, and both of these cards are incredible as long as you can meet their requirements. This small pool of options however makes it hard to compare Stinger/Cassie Lang directly to other identical cost allies.

That written; we can see from the 2 cost allies that for an effective card cost of 3 the typical statline you get for your ally is 1THW, 1ATT, 2HP and some other upside. There are some exceptions to that, like Ironheart's refund or Hulk's incredible statline but on the whole it is fair to say that Stinger is on par with an average 2 cost Ally for any Leadership based deck for an Avenger traited hero. The absolute floor for her is; she can enter play, attack or thwart for a point and then chump an attack. However, when you start to utilise her specific strengths you'll notice the ceiling for this card is very high.

Stinger not counting against the ally limit is a bonus that's as large as she can sometime grow; and we can highlight just how massive that is by looking at her ability through an alternative lens. Cassie Lang is effectively an ally with a copy of The Triskelion printed right there on her text box. Except it's not actually The Triskelion at all; so you can use both her alongside the support card to reach five allies for Avengers tribal decks. In short, Cassie comes bundled with approximately 2.5 cost worth of value. She is not strictly better than any other ally, but not counting against your Ally Limit is a huge deal, especially for ally swarm style Leadership decks.

I would not categorise Cassie as a staple for all Leadership aspect decks, but for tribal swarm decks using the Avenger trait and looking to use cards like Strength In Numbers, Team Training, Mighty Avengers, Avengers Assemble!, Lead from the Front, Mass Attack, All for One and Band Together this card is an automatic inclusion even if she will rarely be used as a chump blocker in decks that are looking to go wide because of that innate The Triskelion makes it worth keeping her around if you care about having as many allies as possible in play.

fen · 3