MEV Preview: Mimic, Team Leader

by Spud

Nobody reads the text before the preview card, so I feel safe admitting to my unclean thoughts regarding mackerel in tutus. They just look so elegant… so agile… so smooth.

Wow… it feels so good to finally get that off my chest. @_@

The Good Stuff

It lets you mimic the abilities of characters who aren’t even on the board.

Implications:

• Copy the powers of your missed drops
• Copy the powers of hard-to-recruit characters (ie, Loyalty 3s and 4s)
• Use Mimic to toolbox characters– make sure you hit Mimic, and then spend the game picking out the specific powers he needs at different times.

The Bad Stuff

There are, of course, some negatives to keep in mind:

• It only copies payment powers and keywords. No triggers, no modifiers.
• It costs you a discard to use, so in an average game, you can probably afford to fire this twice before it begins to force you to run card draw.
• The effects last for one turn only before needing to be refreshed– and if you want to renew the same powers, you’ll need to find another copy of the discarded card, or recur the old one.
• Once per turn, so you can’t overlap powers to create stupid combos.
• Unlike the 6-drop, this Mimic doesn’t coopt team-stamped powers.
• Can’t get the powers of larger characters.

Applications

Alrighty, so those are the nuts and bolts of the power… but what can you do with him? I’ve gone through every 4-drop and under ever printed that has a payment power, and I’ve identified eight key “areas” of abuse with Mimic. I then listed every card I could find that fits cleanly into that area, though I could of course have missed some.

Many thanks to TDB for helping brainstorm these.

1. Put a good power on a more useful large body

If you read my Balance article back in the day (who am I kidding… nobody read that article), you’d know that an important part of balancing any ability is “who to give it to”. You can put an awesome power in one of two places: on a very large character, because the player’s waited long enough to get it; or on a very small character, because the character’s not likely to survive very long. Mimic lets you take advantage of the latter category, using an effect that was balanced around a 1- or 2-drop using it, but with the beefy frame of a 7/7 4-drop to back it up.

1. Quicksilver, Inhuman by Marriage (Readying an 7/7 for free = not bad)
2. Slipstream, Qwardian Conglomerate (He has to be VISIBLE?! NOOOOOOOOoh, wait.)
3. Bart Allen <> Impulse, Hyper-Accelerated (Readying a 2/1 1-drop is useless. A 7/7, on the other hand…)
4. Speed Demon, Second Chance Speedster (Okay, I think I’ve covered the fact that there are a LOT of ways to ready him.)
5. Wiccan, William Kaplan * Young Avenger (On Wiccan this is for team attackers only… Mimic can get some use out of it on his own)
6. Natasha Romanoff <> Black Widow, Mighty Avenger (Tasha can use this to stun 5s. Mimic can use it to stun 6s.)
7. Barry Allen, Crimson Tornado (7DEF lets you waste even more of your opponent’s work)
8. Morph, Exile (Recovering your 4 > Recovering your 3)
9. Luke Cage, Steel-Hard Skin (This is a gamble on a 2-drop… less so on a 4)
10. Rex Tyler or Richard Tyler (The Hourmen get +4/+4, but start on crappy bodies. Starting on 7/7 is much more helpful)
11. Oliver Queen <> Green Arrow, Bullseye (Ollie was balanced off by his awful defense. Mimic doesn’t need to be)
12. Bart Allen <> Kid Flash, Generation Fourth (Now your additional team attacker doesn’t automatically stun when hitting things bigger than 1-drops!)
13. Alan Scott, Golden Age Engineer (Mimic, unlike Alan, doesn’t enter play exhausted. This one’s stamped, but it’s so good I’d start looking for ways to get around that…)
14. The Question, Victor Sage (MUCH more useful on a guy who doesn’t start small)
15. Punisher, Frank Castle (-4DEF is nice… -7 is better)
16. Mattie Franklin, Reserve Webhead (Having another 3ATK to work with is gold here. Three exhausts instead of two = win)
17. Crippler, Carl Striklan (Crippler needed to pump or team attack to get any use out of this. Mimic doesn’t.)
18. Adrian Chase <> Vigilante, Street Justice (I never found this ability useful on a hidden guy. It’s much more useful on a large visible one)
19. Valentina Vostok <> Negative Woman, Bishop (Same thing. Visible > Hidden when you’re creating an environment of rampant stunbacks)
20. Melter, Bruno Horgan (A 4/1 isn’t going to survive into turn 5 to use this… a 7/7 probably will)
21. Rocket Red #4, Dmitri Pushkin Gorki (Huge turn-length pump on a puny guy = useless. Huge turn-length pump on a standard-sized guy = more useful)
22. Manhunter Protector (Activate for 12/12 while defending)
23. Kiman, Chief Weaponer (Kiman rocks. It’s okay, you can admit it.)
24. Bloke, Mickey Tork (Hey look! A big buff on a useless character! Methinks I’ll help myself to that…)
25. Cloak, Child of Darkness (Stopping a 3-drop’s attack isn’t that great when their 4 gets a free swing to your face. Standing in the way with a solid 4 is much more helpful)
26. Silver Banshee, Siobhan McDougal (It’s easy to make preemptive throwaway attacks into KOing lowbies. Less so when the nuker is a full-size 4)
27. Jackal, Dr. Miles Warren (It’s hard to survive turn 4 as a 6/6. Is 7/7 big enough to pull it off?)
    
28. Roy Harper <> Arsenal, Sharpshooter (That’s right. I went there)
29. Dr. Tzin-Tzin, Master of Hypnosis (Fantastic ability on a pathetic body. On Mimic, as a surprise… this can swing an entire attack step. No, I’m not kidding)
30. Dazzler, Alison Blaire (This doesn’t specifically improve on a 4-drop, but it’s good enough that I’ll mention it anyway. )
31. Human Torch, Hotshot (Same great burn, no “Crap, his 2-drop stunned me” aftertaste)
32. Puppet Master, Philip Masters (PM was always a tradeoff– get an exhaust, but take tons of break in return. Mimic doesn’t have that problem.)
    

2. Work around conflicting drops (if you want to combo two different 3-drops, you can do it without losing size)

It’s really hard to come up with examples of this, but the theory’s sound: if you really need two 3s for a combo, Mimic lets you access both without underdropping.

I can’t think of a single example, though… it really depends on what you’re trying to combo around.

3. Getting two copies of a character out, again without underdropping.

1. Blade, Nightstalker (It expensive card-wise, but could completely lock an opponent down…)
2. Ahmed Samsarra (and Mimic doesn’t copy the King Kill part, only the good half!)
3. The Riddler, Riddle Me This (Poison Ivy has shown us how useful this effect is in multiples)
4. Brainiac 13, Mental Giant (-4DEF is hot. -4DEF twice is hotter)
5. Air-Walker, Gabriel Lan (More exhausts = less pain.)
6. Quicksilver, Pietro Maximoff (Get them both out and you almost guarantee you’ll fire one or the other!)

4. You only get the power for a turn, but some powers leave their trail behind.

This is, again, a fairly slim category of use, but MEV might present some more interesting options…

1. Atom Smasher (Get and keep a +1/+1 counter)
2. Sugar Man, Age of Apocalypse (Do it without tapping!)
3. Ogre, Weaponsmith (This way you can put it on ANYONE, not just Mimic)

5. Getting access to the powers of characters who are difficult to recruit or painful to maintain

Loyalty on a 1- or 2-drop is a pain in the ass, as it more or less demands that you swarm. Mimic lets you get around this– he tells you to ignore the costs and requirements of getting that character out, and just cut straight to using their powers.

Similarly, there a lot of characters who are given a great power, but with a painful drawback to keep it in check. Since Mimic only copies payment powers, and most of these drawbacks are continuous modifiers, Mimic gives you all the payoff with none of the risk.

1. Avalanche, Earthmover (Awesome power without nuking a resource? Yes please.)
2. Blackheart, Black King (Loyalty’s for chumps. Chumps, I tells ya!)
3. Punisher, Judge (This ability was never worth underdropping for. On-curve, it has uses)
4. Oberon (Hey, a power-up’s a power-up. )
5. Professor X, Mutant Mentor (If you’re playing Mimic in an X-Men deck, the recursion might be helpful)
6. Black Thorn, Elizabeth Thorne
7. Masked Marauder, Frank Farnum (Same as Ahmed above– get the good part without the drawback)
8. Alicia Masters, Blind Sculptress and Franklin Richards, Child Prodigy (Mimic doesn’t come out exhausted and doesn’t run away when attacked. Combine this with Mimic’s easily-acquired readying (see above), and you could easily bring out something several drops above the curve)

6. Toolbox your silver bullets

In recent sets, UDE’s started putting some of the most effective “tech” effects on characters– if you want hidden hate, or equipment hate, or resource hate, many of the best options will cost you resource points. Mimic makes the best of this situation, giving you access to whichever hate you need on a given turn. Mimic’s often better at using these powers than their actual owners would be, as you can surprise your opponent by picking up these usually-telegraphed powers in the middle of a crucial attack.

1. Jared Stevens (unique equipment)
2. Commissioner Gordon, James Gordon (equipment)
3. Harvey Bullock, White Bishop (equipment)
4. Dr. Psycho, Demented Dwarf (weenies)
5. Merlyn, Direct Hit Man (weenies)
6. Rose Wilson <> The Ravager, Titans Tomorrow East (weenies)
7. Hawkeye, Clinton Barton (weenies)
8. Batman, Earth 2 (resources)
9. Quakemaster, Robert Coleman (resources)
10. Faust, Sebastian Faust (hidden characters)
11. Kate Spencer <> Manhunter, Fearless Renegade (hidden characters)
12. Rot Lop Fan, F-Sharp Bell of the Obsidian Deeps (hidden characters)
13. Luke Cage, Street Enforcer (hidden characters)

7. Putting an affiliation on an X-Men body

This was TDB’s idea: being an X-Men character is actually a very useful thing, because X-Men characters are very easy to recover. If you have a character who wants their power to fire after some combats have already been resolved, Mimic may be a safer way to ensure that happens.

1. Abyss (Attack their 4 for a dual, then recover and remove their 5)
2. Vykin, Forever People (Lock down all 2-drops? Yes please)
3. Atomic Skull, Joe Martin (This guy never survives an opposing attack step unstunned)
4. Bernadeth, Leader of Female Furies (Much more useful during recovery!)
5. Katana, Tatsu Yamashiro (How often does Katana survive a team attack? If only she was an X-Man…)

And of course, there are about a billion characters who’d love easy access to To Me My X-Men…

8. Oddballs

1. Spider-Man, Zombie (How’s this for fun? Pitch Spidey <> Zombie to exhaust an opposing guy… leave the board, and come back during recovery, where Mimic is a new object and can copy another power!)
2. Masters of Evil (Just a general thing– Shift lets you pre-pay for larger drops, which on its most simple level allows you to have a couple resource points left over after you recruit a turn drop. The Exiles encourage you to use these to pre-pay even more Shifters, but you could just as easily mimic some old Masters of Evil characters. Pay a resource to be unstunnable or KO whatever you touch? Yes please!)

Conclusion

To be honest, I wasn’t that thrilled with Mimic when I first saw him, but I can definitely respect after running through this excercise that he enables some interesting combos. And that’s just my inner jankmaster thinking; the #1 application of Mimic’s power will likely be “using the crap you have in your hand that you missed the chance to recruit”. And even if that’s all you use him for, that’s still pretty damn good.

So, yeah. That’s all I could come up with to do with him. What can the rest of you lunatics think of?

Get crackin’, folks. I want this card errataed by sundown.

-Spud