Another Monday, another First Impressions! This time, Black Swan:
Admittedly Black Swan isn’t exactly on my comics lore radar. But from the descriptions I’ve seen she’s arguably the strongest Black Order member from the comics. Does she live up to the hype? Lets dig in!
12 stamina and 4/4/3 on a medium mover is pretty in line with 4 threats nowadays. Makes her an immediate standout on stats-based pay to flip secures which is nice.
I was whelmed by the builder until I re-read the push trigger – Size 4 pushes are MASSIVE. At the moment, Juggernaut Hulk and Hulkbuster basically don’t get moved right now unless you’ve got one of them, are playing Web Warriors, or you took Thanos. A 4 threat that can slot in for Panther/Vision/Rogue and actually move heavyweights can be a total game changer. For this alone she is worth taking.
Incinerate and pierce, what’s not to love? It feels like there’s been an ebb in the amount of Incinerate in the meta for the past couple months, which means adding it to your team is worth an all time high.
Two attacks and a throw for 4 power is a wonderful deal. Do notice the throw is size unlimited so you can give Dark Dimension players a LOT of grief by chain throwing Dormammu with Thanos’ builder and Black Swan’s spender.
The more I look at Black Swan the more analogous to Rogue she feels. Solid defensive stats, excellent attack suite, charge, incredible displacement but all tied to attacks. And I love Rogue so that is a good indicator for me that Black Swan could be an excellent splash.
As someone who played a LOT of M.O.D.O.K. in his heyday I can tell you that Wild Blanking is a hell of a thing. So many characters will struggle to damage or control her as long as she can afford to pay. Thankfully there is some counterplay by going after her on 0 power but I worry how annoying she can be when a good player doesn’t let that happen.
I won’t say no to having old Green Goblin leadership tacked on. It being usable more than once/turn can lead to some nasty value with your spender, and it basically always should be used on her builder as it’s power per damage and a reroll is a ⅝ chance of dealing another damage.
This has me intrigued. As a 4 threat I’ve compared her to Rogue. As a 5 threat with the Power Gem she doesn’t really have a peer to compare to. She has solid action economy and 3 power/round like Juggernaut. With her spender she can hit as hard as any 5 threat on the list (with the exception of Reality Corvus). And the crazy lines it opens up in the early game seem so flexible. Round 1 move charge + telepathic suggestion or guaranteed interact. Round 1 double move round 2 charge a spender. Round 1 move charge into an Eye Beam to incinerate a backline character to kill with first activation priority on round 2. Fuel tactics out of nowhere. Blank every wild thrown your way period.
If I were to rate Swan without Power Gem I’d aim for an A-, with the gem she looks to border on S. Perhaps I’m wrong and she’s easy enough to triage/kill for her cost but she looks like an absolute heavyweight. I feel like splash 5s aren’t super popular right now with the exception of Juggernaut and Corvus but if I wanted a 5 in my roster she would be at the top of the list.
Finally a shout-out to our last line of defense against overpriced hobby product, who always have the best deals on MCP online:
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https://www.discountgamesinc.com/
UK
https://blackgategames.co.uk/
That will wrap us up for this First Impressions article here on acrossthebifrost.com, make sure to check out the Roster Doctor on Facebook, and Youtube!
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