Welcome back to another installment of SGP and the Which… series. Today we’ll decide which version of Carol Danvers is the best for you to use in every game regardless of affiliation.
Let’s look at her cards:
As an original core set character (updated in the 21 cards update) original Capitan Marvel was long time an overlooked 4 threat. She’s sprung back up in popularity a lot recently, headed by Lukas Schieck and Kurtis O. most and foremost with Lukas hosting a Carol 1 “love cast” where the two along with Sooner and HyperNova discussed why she is a fantastic character for today’s meta (you can find the cast on Lukas’ Twitch). General point is that she can do a lot of stuff that the most used model in the game currently, named Beta Ray Bill, can do. And that she is good into meta boogyman #1 Cosmic Ghost Rider because of it.
These things are:
- 4 energy defense + “defensive pierce” against energy attacks
- The ability to binary form increasing the defense dice pool to 6 (and make all her attacks that much more scary)
- Immunity to Incinerate (and Poison)
- a size 4 character and terrain throw
- Stagger on the Spender
And while these things are all great and I do think 4 threat Carol here is a good character that could and should see the table more often I think she has two major weaknesses for the premise of this series:
- Her entire strength comes from getting into the (expensive) binary form here making it very important for her to be in an affiliation that helps her get there (Steve 1 and She-Hulk in her affiliated places do for example).
- Her play pattern is often sitting back, trying to blast people with Range 4 6 dice reroll any number of dice energy attacks and throwing away anyone that wants to get too close. Sometimes a move, move throw activation is what you need out of her and she can do it but she doesn’t feel particularly dynamic.
Sculpt: B-. Despite causing wild rages while building the finished model holds up as one of the best ones from the OG core set for me.
Cosmic Carol updates the whole concept of the binary form to a full scale transform mechanic and looks pretty awesome doing so. It’s also the first automatic transform. She just does it when she starts her activation with six or more power. Her normal form is pretty unexciting but very much focused on getting her the power she needs to transform at the start of her next activation.
Binary form CC is awesome. She gets her throw back and even has it at the Hulk discount 2 power. A 0 cost charge also means she has fantastic action economy in this. Charge attack, attack, throw can be done by spending just 4 of her min 6 power and if advantages at that point you could even transform back here (to reach a point you otherwise wouldn’t).
Adding immunities to Stun and Stagger are fantastic though Stun in normal form hurts her a lot.
Sculpt(s): A. One of the highlights of the new core set both models for her look very dynamic and capture the feel of the character very well.
Now which Carol do you choose for every game? It’s pretty much hands down Cosmic for me. OG Captain Marvel has her strengths and certainly isn’t a bad character but Cosmic Avenger just feels and plays much more like the Carol Danvers you know and love from the comics and movies.
Next time will have someone not many people are even aware of is the same alter ego: Frank Castle so Punisher vs. Cosmic Ghostrider.