Last Wednesday my local venue held a tournament that combined two of the weirdest formats known to clixkind; the Reverse Dial and the Team Swap. For those unfamiliar, Team Swap is where you build the worst possible team and trade it for your opponents at the start of each match. In Reverse Dial, each character begins on their final click and takes damage clockwise. Also, they wear hats on their feet and hamburgers eat people!
I'm not sure why they chose to fuse both formats as either makes for an interesting team-building challenge, but thankfully we made it Modern Age, 400 points. There was no lmiitation on how close you had to build to the total; while someone could conceivably field a lone Stingray, it is tough to beat a second 3-0 player with 87 total victory points. I eventually settled on this:
Mr. Mxyzptlk 107
GSX Iceman 104
WL Ice 94
MU Cyclops (AoA) 75
Violet Lantern 5
385
I had no words the first time I opened Iceman back in the days of Xplosion. It was incredible, the first sculpt molded entirely of clear plastic, and all the miniscule details from his shade, to his facial expression, to the icicles clinging to his ice trail were perfect. Then I put him on the table and despite his Vet designation one hit from Colossus took him out. Since then all icemen have known the inner torment of a tier 1 sculpt shackled to an unplayable dial.
Who is to blame for this conundrum? The writers? The designers? And why aren't characters with fire powers cursed as badly? Well, both, and neither, and fire pretty much does one thing. Ice powers are troubling from a design standpoint because they Do everything. Bobby simulates flight by leaving a trail of ice, carrying groundpounders into the fray. He puts up walls. He freezes Burglers in place. Using the moisture in the surrounding air he crafts a frozen rose, passing it surrepititiously to the attractive power-stealing classmate while the teacher isn't looking. And when you add up the point costs for all these minor abilities the result is the overstuffed ice bag that is GSX Iceman.
Fortunately, there is a simple fix: The next time Bobby's card comes up don't design him as if he were Iceman. Design him as you would a Green Lantern. Lanterns also suffer from a vague deus ex machina power spread, yet DC75 proved the versatility of the design team across the entire spectrum. But, here and now we have GSX Iceman, and while we all have a general idea about how lackluster his dial is, I set out to prove this empirically.
The other three figures on the team don't require much explanation, although I enjoy the fact that Mr. M- costs three point more than the only other potential Superman Enemy. I actually respect WL Ice, but there is a reason her Live! click is one turn away from death. AoA Cyclops is bad at all times, in all formats, in perpetuity. Most of the other players brought teams of 12+ characters. Muggers, Researchers, Thugs, etc. This is not how you win a Team Swap tournament. Given that all characters are terrible you have to build with action advantage in mind. Yeah, Mr. M- has that click of 18DV/SS/PC, but if I'm out-actioning you 4:1 each turn he's going down eventually. I wanted to cut it to three characters, but I had foolishly traded away my Abominations, Parasites, and Super-Adaptoids for a Shazam!/Black Adam duo.
I sweep the first round on the back of BaB Ra's Al Ghul, who it turns out is a monster on the back half of his dial. The second round I was unfortunately paired up against my roomate, Zach, who had built a pretty great mind control team (Mad Hatter, JL Deadman, Jackal, a single Cuckoo, and Vigilante and Black Hand for extra hilarity). I landed an early double-target mind control with Mad Hatter, walking Mr. M- back to his starting area and Cyclops into punching range. While I was struggling to hit his 13DV, Vigilante and Black Hand based the rest of his team while the rest took shots, and I only end up losing Vigilante and Mad Hatter.
Third round I played against Liam, one of our better players and all-around good dude. He had a swarm team with people like Knot Top, Lilah, and the entire Power Pack. He had been playing on Krakoa all all evening, and although I won the map roll I eventually chose to stay there. Now, I loathe Krakoa. Despite only playing on it twice the Island has always sided with my opponents, but between five Power Pack FF TA heals I knew that I could ignore Mr. M-, deal a few clicks to the other figures, and let Earthquake do the rest.
Liam advanced up the middle with Mr. M- and Cyclops, while I shuffled my team up in waves. We roll a few earthquakes as well as a five that does nothing, and my Cave Carson and Dominator miss slam-dunk rolls against Cyclops. Liam rolls a six and takes out a minor character, but my big break comes when he advances Ice and Iceman onto the elevated terrain on my side of the board. After an earthquake, Liam didn't notice that Gee had been damaged onto TK until he tossed Mass Master adjacent to Ice. The ensuing Critical Hit with CCE shattered that most fragile of White Lanterns.
From there it was all downhill. Liam immediately rolls the six he needs for Krakoa to take out Gee, and I hit Iceman and Cyclops once each for the rest of the game. Mr. M- dies to the same earthquake that takes out every other character on my team except for Energizer, who is on her second to last click. Cyclops and Iceman are each at the green line when the latter caps Energizer for three, ending it.
Therefore GSX Iceman is good when he's on his top click, attacking Energizer on her second to last click. If you ever find yourself in that situation, Bobby's the man.
