What’cha Playin? X-Force with Dyzard

TseungTsu here with episode 2 of “What’cha Playin?”. Today I’m joined by a man who’s squats are deeper than human emotions, Dyzard. Dyzard is part of the Danger Room Podcast and currently is writing articles for us as well. Today we’ll be talking about the latest list he’s been working on for MCP, X-Force!

Dyzard thanks for taking the time, this is a no frills kind of article so let’s just jump right in, What’cha Playin?

That is an eclectic group of characters, I love it. What made you interested in playing this list?

         I’ve always loved X-Force, it is probably the comics I own of any one series, and X-Men being a close second. They were that Badass ( can I say that?) team of X-Men that got stuff done and were just super cool when I was a kid. So then they come out in the game and have amazing sculpts, but get left feeling slightly lackluster if you’re looking competitively. Nonetheless, I am a glutton for punishment, as I am with any game system and always tend to play an underdog as my main faction to try and solve that puzzle. I really enjoy that aspect of things when something is considered unplayable or not so good or anything like that. I just gravitate towards it and see what I can do to leave my mark on them and if I can make something of it. For instance back in WMH days, I LOVED Darius when he first came out and I loved Nemo 2 before he had all his cool toys and theme lists. If you come from a Guild Ball background I loved the Hunters and Falcons, I just love teams that don’t get a lot of praises I suppose. So I play them to solve the puzzle, to show people that just because a community can say they’re not competitive or great there is still always something there.

You said when they came out they felt lackluster competitively. Why do you think that is?

A lot of times this comes down to a question of why are you playing X-Force. There are multiple teams that just do what they do but better. You want re-rolls? GotG has 2 rerolls on 3 characters, like that’s basically the same if not more dice getting re-rolled over a round. Okay, you want to play the X-Force characters, why not play X-Men? It is typically better leadership and more worthwhile team tactics cards when playing competitively. So it really just comes down to enjoying the puzzle and the theme of the team. So they struggle in the fact that they get outshined for what they do and what they bring by other teams usually is the short answer here. If they got some better tactics or maybe a slight buff to the leadership then theres some fire power to play them other than its a puzzle or it is X-Force.

You said something interesting that sometimes I feel people can lose track of. What makes them so fun to play?

For me it’s the puzzle. Nothing is more satisfying than having someone say why are you playing this faction and then beat them with it lol. Plus I kind of just have this personal mission now to put X-Force on the map before they get to be popular. That and there’s just fun characters. Then re rolls and fun aggressive play, this is where I think X-Force really just is the most fun is being hyper aggressive and just enjoying the game!

I can appreciate and love and underdog, after all who doesn’t! So how are you making this roster work? What’s the plan?

           What game plan? I jest, in all seriousness I truly believe X-Force are a different archetype that isn’t talked about in MCP and that being aggro. We can look at Butchers for your GB converts. It is a team that all of its affiliated members have the potential to really pump out damage, not really any control aspects to the team, and most of them can die to a stiff breeze. So they’re not a control, nor really an attrition team, so I think they’re more of an aggro team. They want to get in there to do damage, take VP to parity as Roster Dr. says all the time, sometimes they get to edge it out because the opportunity is there, so maybe aggro with a slice of opportunism. That’s really it though, high damage spikes, expect some to go down, and an uphill battle of a game. But man I tell you what anytime I am playing X-Force they’re truly a blast to play.

What things are you unsure about in the list moving forward?

    What models to bring, I have a lot of theories going around of what to bring as I have been talking about in my X-Force series of articles, but it’s not easy, it really isn’t. There truly are a lot of options that are good options but to try and take it competitively it’s just hard to choose. One thing I really wish is Omega Red if he was affiliated. I keep joking about this but actually serious about it, if Sabretooth can be X-Force, Omega red can as well in my opinion and I truly think that would help the team out a lot. But Moving forward it really comes down to the direction of the team, will we get a secondary leader? What will that do to the shape of how you build it? Will that secondary leader push Cable out of the roster? There really are so many questions that could come from this one addition.

What’s your favorite thing about the list?

             Honestly the unknown. Having your opponent look at your list for the first time and scratch their head wondering what the heck you’re doing is actually extremely amusing for me. You get the “why are you playing X-Force?” or “ Why is that character in there?” or even better yet the “I wasn’t expecting that” and then the comments of the after game and how surprising X-Force can be sometimes just because not enough people play them. This is probably my favorite thing. That or the constant changing of the roster really fine tuning it to where I want it to be and how it plays. Since Honey Badger and X-23 were spoiled I have probably worked through a good 20+ renditions of what it is currently just testing and trying different things out from how to employ them to just who’s in the roster. I love the puzzle of the affiliation like I said earlier.

That does sound fun. So I confess, Space Gem Loki is my favorite thing about the list. I feel like that’s a very specific piece, what’s he in there for?

So some cool things about Space Gem Loki (I will thank Jacob for this one) Loki is generally a good Counter Black order piece as well within X-Force you’re essentially getting two Cat and Mouse’ off the bat due to the space gem, and one think X-Force really doesn’t like is being repositioned so the Space Gem helps out a little bit here. He also is rather strong into Convocation, it really comes down to anytime I feel Loki will be more impactful than SS Strange he comes in. or even potentially at 20 where I can run Cable, 23 Badger, SS Strange and Space Loki. There’s a lot of really cool combos you can get going with it and Space can help out X-Force and make Cat and Mouse better than it actually is, You can also if you really want to Space Gem the person who Cat and Mouse to play EXTREMELY aggressive but I haven’t really found this to be that beneficial to where it is worth it. 

Well Dyzard I told you the goal of this was going to be a 5 minute read, and I we’ve gone on too long! I do want to thank you for taking the time. We both hope you enjoyed it. Remember you can listen to Dyzard on the Danger Room Podcast and read all his writing here on Across the Bifrost.

If you have a list you want to talk about shoot me an email at TT@Acrossthebifrost.com in addition if you’d like to support my content creation and this site check out https://www.patreon.com/acrossthebifrost

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Till next time everyone, Cheers and Happy Gaming,

TT