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 X-Men Preview Card - Psylocke
by Scott Gerhardt
January 26, 2006

He’s Gone Mental!!!

Once again it’s preview time. It’s that time of the year that I actually care to write anymore. It’s not that I don’t like writing – quite the contrary. It’s just that between my time spent running the best source for Vs. System on the net (*cough* www.ShuffleAndCut.com *cough* cheap plug *cough*) and my time spent running Southern California’s premiere place to play (*cough* Shuffle & Cut Games, 8605 ½ Base Line Rd., Rancho Cucamonga, CA 91730 *cough*), I just don’t have the time to do this like I used to. Sad, I know, but that’s why I really’ enjoy preview time, because it gives me a chance to set it all aside and drop my own feelings into whatever cards I get. This time, we have two spectacular cards for you. One you get today, and the other will come next week. Wait. Okay, I need to stop for a second. I’m kinda lying to you. I said I have two spectacular cards. In truth, I’m only excited about one of them. I think my cards got pulled out of some random machine…

(Open Metagame Random Machine)

“For Scott over at Pojo, we’ll give him….#20 and #200.”

Now I don’t know if that’s quite how it went, but, those are the two I get to do. They’re not quite awesome and synergetic like Fire and Ice from JLA were, but it is still two cards and I’m grateful to even get to do these previews. It’s just easier to be excited about some more than others.

But, I digress. As a journalist, I will give you a strong take on both of the cards. Now mind you, both are solid cards. The one that I find rather unexciting is still a very, very good card – one I think will see a TON of play, especially in Modern Age environments. But that’s not our topic of discussion for today. Today, we start with #20. Well, if I’m gonna talk about it, I should show it to you first:

Here is Psylocke. The first thing you may notice about her is the text in the box above the artist’s name. This is known as a trait. It is something that (right now) is specific to the class of characters known as Mutants. Now this doesn’t make everything else printed in the past that should be a mutant into a mutant – just what has the box printed. Along with Mutant, you have a trait. In this case, the trait is “Mental”, but it can also be “Physical” or “Energy”. Now please note these words are in the picture, not the text box. Why is this important? Well, this means that when Psylocke gets stunned, she is still a Mutant with the trait of being Mental. She will still count when checking for things on the board being either Mutant, or Mental, just like she is still an X-Men character when stunned. That’s pretty neat.

Well now that we’ve described the whole Class/Trait thing a bit, let’s get into the card. Psylocke has some reasonable stats at an 8/7 with Range. Her ability in the right deck, can be quite strong, though. She is a walking, breathing Fizzle. Yes, you have to have Mental character attacking or defending, but the right deck can run enough Mental characters and most of the time when you are wanting to negate a plot twist, it is when someone is attacking or defending.

Now I don’t think she is this amazing character. Her ability is a bit limited with what she can discard and when she can discard it. That said, she can still really help make sure that your trick goes off, and your opponents does not when the time is right. Like most preview cards, she will be very dependant on who else is good in the set. One of the most important thing to note is that her abilities have to do with being Mental, not necessarily from being X-Men. Of course if you play a wide spectrum of teams, that can get you into problems with fundamental things like reinforcement and team attacking. If there was only a way we could be able to abuse the fact that she can use all the best Mental Mutants without having to really care what team they are one…..

You know, next week’s card might just be more exciting than I previously let on. It appears that in the midst of typing this article that the quandary I have outlined above can be solved by card #200. I’m gonna let you guys stew until next week (January 30th, to be exact) when I let you in on the secret card #200, and why it just might be what the doctor ordered to keep those mental headaches working for you, not against you.

Until next time, keep playing!