Emma Frost (Astonishing X-Men) (7/23/18)

Asmodaeus

DarthDeVo said:

Will Emma be wearing a short skirt and looooooong jacket? 

Confirmed! She will also feature fingernails that shine like justice and a voice that is dark like tinted glass. I'm also confident (judging by her outfit) that she's already traded her MG for a white Chrysler LeBaron....

ammenell

HoundofShadow said:

One group of players prefers getting new covers through boss events and the other group through PvE. I think it's a fair deal to rotate between PvE and boss events to satisfy two sides. 

i wouldn't have a problem with either if I'd get 3 covers in pve. 

AlexR

I'm kinda glad-- I love the boss event character releases, but having a boss event every 2 weeks is way too much. That gets exhausting. I liked them a lot better when they were once-a-month things. So, releasing every second new character with a boss event would work for me, haha.

Warbringa

Meh....she doesn't look too impressive to me other than the match damage angle.  Looks like that is the new trend now with her and Ghost, 4* who can do more than normal match damage.  Ghost is way better though because Ghost doesn't have to use a power to then get the match damage plus Ghost has better damage dealing powers.  Emma just doesn't look like a must have 4*.  I would actually consider Emma a bottom tier 4* just based on her powers (actual play of course will determine that).  

If you want to buff or create strike tiles, you would always bring Captain Marvel over her hands down.  If you are worried about removing enemy tiles, why wouldn't you just bring Ant-Man over her.  Ant-Man steals the tiles which is directly better than destroying them.  Her fortify ability may be her best ability however Cage/Shuri/Panther are all much better characters who can fortify too.  As stated though, there may be a niche for her on a team with Shuri since she can pump out 6 Fortify tiles at a time.  

maguirenumber6

It's a shame about the characters they've chosen this time, especially as it seem's they've broken the order they were using. I've got two of the three required for the SHIELD Training champed (like many, only have a few covers for Iron Spidey), so I can at least get a few CP and event tokens. I'll have to get my Emma cover from the PvE. That's OK, but I have enjoyed the training when I can breeze through it in twenty minutes

purplemur

She has expensive (and with Scott - bad) taste but these are some seriously high cost powers:

4-Star Rarity (Legendary)
Heroes, X-Men
  

(Abilities listed at level 270, Power Level 5)
Psychic Meddling - 10  AP
Emma weaves her way through the enemy's mind, further destabilizing their psyche at every turn. Creates a 2-turn Purple Repeater tile that destroys 4 enemy Strike, Protect, or Attack tiles. If none exist, the Repeater tile destroys 2 AP in the enemy's strongest color instead. (Does not generate AP.)

Girl's Best Friend - 11  AP
When the pressure's on, Emma transforms into her powerful diamond form. Fortifies up to 6 friendly Special tiles and turns this power into Diamond Skin.

Diamond Skin -  Passive
Emma's diamond skin grants her super-strength, but limits her psychic powers. Emma's match damage is increased by 325%, but she cannot fire powers. When there are no Fortified friendly Special tiles on the board, this power becomes Girl's Best Friend.

Labor for Learning - 8  AP
Emma makes sure her team is fully-trained, battle-ready, and appreciative of the merits of lifelong education. Creates a 2-turn Yellow Repeater tile that places 2 strength 90 Strike tiles and improves up to 3 existing friendly Strike tiles by 58. 

Psychic Meddling: Vulture gets the AP, Ant-Man outright steals them so a 2 turn repeater= slow and fragile. Its one where language matters- If when activated it removes 4 "SPECIAL TILES" (instead of this limited scope slow response nonsense) it would have some immediate usage. But your looking at 7 turns before it affects the board-state. I guess with long wave nodes and symbiotes it gets value but again slowly. the AP steal destruction is also restricted, instead of highest or random it's strongest which doesn't always matter, I can see this doing nothing until a new special tile is created than 2 turns of being hit and it's removed and wait two turns and wait and wait ....
Also some text proofing: "at EVERY TURN" then immediately after its actually every other turn. Typical copy editing.

Girl's Best friend - If you have 6 special tiles on the board and you also need 4 black matches to try and get shuri cheaper there's something wrong with the order of operations. Alright so Shuri goes first, then panther puts specials out and then Emma refortifies them? She is just a Fortified battery then. So the best combo so far is that she works well with a non-mutant from Wakanda? SMH

Diamond Form: A support character who's being hyped because of match dam? but then no active powers and no passive triggers?  Leaning pretty heavy on cascades for usefulness.

Labor for Learning - "Makes sure they are ready" by having another turn 6 power that puts out really weak strikes and then buffs some of them a very little amount? This should have been a passive defensive power like Grocket that starts the match with high level Protects that get stronger if an X-men is on the team. Battle -Ready? more like snooze button and late for the bus. Lazy, uninspired and boring power. 

An Omega level mutant and she is trash. They made the leader of the X-Men/Hellfire a support character!  The art is terrible: her face is so ugly! she has a hoof-nose! and you release with a 4- Day HUNT!!!!! I guess my hopes were up after Ant-Man & Wasp that some sense of logic and thoughtfulness had returned to the dev's offices but this build and release vaults are back to garbage time. She should have at least one brutal high damage skill. She's a straight killer but this kit is kittenpaws. Little cute toebeans instead of melting your face- standing down anyone and being THE BOSS that she is. This is just the biggest wasting of potential. Honestly: Jubilee is better.
Conspiracy Theory: Same team that built 5Wasp.

Gold_Dragon

So by destroying the tiles with her purple repeater.... we’re getting the AP right?

Richyyy

Psychic Meddling seems like it could be useful as a counter to certain goon types that flood the board with special tiles (especially those occasionally annoying Ultron ones), or even against Grocket/Gamora teams at the 4* level - except that first you've got to get to 10 purple AP, and then you've ot to hope the repeater tile doesn't just get matched away almost immediately and therefore make the whole thing futile. A passive that just created that repeater tile would be potentially very useful (although perhaps too useful), but otherwise make it 6AP max, and/or let you place the tile, and/or make it fortified. As it is I just can't see the value being there.

qandols

I just played the trainer intro and watched her die three times. The boards were crazy bad but this did not wet my appetite for her in the least. 

broll

Didn't notice this till it was live, but not only does SHIELD Training require IW Spidey, but he's the only one not in the H4H offer.  Come on guys!  You take away our ability to cover new characters quicker, go back to throwing them into SHIELD Training (a major complaint with the system until it was fixed), and you don't even lets us buy our way to him...  I have no words...

I think I'll be able to get him to 209 assuming I top 10 in Simulator + the Hunt progression, but only just barely, many won't be so fortunate.  Why go back and break these systems that were satisfactorily fixed?

JHawkInc

I like Emma so far, but running her with Ant-Man and Iron Spider is so wonky that her demo battle is still pretty rough. Once I got a few repeaters out to chew up enemy tiles and throw out some strikes, I had a fun battle. The second time. Because I lost the first match. Still, I can't wait to run Emma alongside Shuri/Panther, get out one of each of her repeaters alongside Panther's yellow and the general Fortification Factory, looks like it'll be a fun group to play.

But if there was one glaring red mark on taking a ninety degree turn into a brick wall by screwing up the pattern of featured 4*s, there's a second glaring red mark for cherry picking some that don't work well with Emma.

qandols

I don't get why they arrange teams with such bad synergy to show off a new character?

Ionlymatch5s

She died in training before she ever had enough AP to fire a single power,  that's not a great first impression. 

Meh

thedarkphoenix

she's a slow burn and her powers are def meant to be used in a certain order for her to be most effective. However when she gets going she can be good.

Shes basically plays like and hybrid of ant man and blade 3*......so yeah.

lol

Sp denial of the strongest color isn't really that big of a deal in 4 land.. random ap destruction is way more valuable.

ZeroKarma

Richyyy said:

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GrimSkald said:

thedarkphoenix said:

In 4 land she seems like she can be ok, just slow. For 5 player she isn't remotely useful

Who is?

America Chavez. But, um, yeah, my list just kinda ran out.

There are a bunch of 4* that play well with 5* characters:

America Chavez of course

Valkyrie is one of my go-to's for the 5E in PvE. Thor will normally trigger the cd and you can build AP very quickly.

Black Widow can make Gambit's red 4AP, which is less of a deal in the future but a big deal now

This is from the new characters. There are a bunch that match the power of a 5* when boosted, even lesser characters like Agent Venom. 

But there is a trend with Wiccan, IW Spider-Man, Ghost where the powers seem to be tailored specifically for use with other 4* and that's that. As long as there is some balance in these releases, however, I don't think it's really a bad thing. Just means that a segment of the playerbase won't ever use them. 

ZeiramMR

Tried her out.

Unfortunately, the match damage buff in Diamond form does NOT raise her match damage for determining who owns a tile, which meant Ant-Man made purple/yellow matches.

I was expecting Ghost but got Vision's blue. :-(

ThaRoadWarrior

I thought the in-match art was great; I was concerned from the diamond form preview it would be weird, but I thought they were cool. As usual, this Shield Training team up had the effect of showing me how much I'd like a good Iron Spider lol.

Trilateralus

After trying her in SHIELD training I definitely think diamond skin should have a passive activation anytime there are friendly fortified tiles. Wouldn’t hurt to have an active component to explode/clear fortified tiles so you can control what State she’s in. 

Gold_Dragon

You don’t get the AP if she destroys the special tiles with Psychic Meddling. 

Jaedenkaal

So... it's probably a bad sign that she has trouble, on a team of 4*s, against Carnage, Beast, and 2* Torch, eh.

Not to mention that her powers basically do nothing the turn you fire them. I guess Ant-Man has this issue too, but his powers are a little cheaper, and he's not that amazing either.


And she doesn't have the health to tank, but you want her to tank to get the most out of Diamond Skin...

Yeah, seems pretty underwhelming.