***** Cable (Nathan Summers) *****

Brigby

5-Star Rarity (Epic)
Heroes, X-Men
    

"Cable traveled across millennia to lead the X-Men in the fight for peace. Born to Cyclops and a clone of Jean Grey, the young, techno-virus-infected mutant was sent far into the future and raised as a 39th-century boy.

His life in the war-torn future hardened him into a peerless soldier and tactician, and when he finally returned to the present, he lent these talents to the X-Men. Along with guns. So, so many guns."

(Abilities, Match Damage, and Health listed at level 450)
57,701 Health
 713 |  634 |  555 |  353 |  91 |  84 |  77 |  4.3x

(Abilities listed at level 450, Power Level 5)
Cyborg Strategist - 9  AP
Cable uses his cybernetics and future tech to get the drop on his enemy. Choose a basic tile to become a 3-turn Blue Countdown tile. Whenever you make a Green match while one of these tiles is on the board, stun the enemy for 2 turns and create up to 2 Green Charged tiles.

• Level 2: ...create up to 3 Green Charged tiles.
• Level 3: ...create up to 4 Green Charged tiles.
• Level 4: ...become a 4-turn Blue Countdown tile.
• Level 5: ...become a 5-turn Blue Countdown tile....create 5 Green Charged tiles.

Plasma Barrage - 12  AP
Cable lets loose a blast from his massive future-tech plasma rifle. Deals 12,092 damage to the target. Any damage beyond the target's remaining health is dealt to each of their allies.

• Level 2: Deals 13,301 damage to the target.
• Level 3: Deals 14,510 damage to the target.
• Level 4: Deals 16,929 damage to the target.
• Level 5: Deals 21,766 damage to the target.

Veteran Instincts - 9  AP
Years of battle-hardened experience allow Cable to make his team into true soldiers. Create 1 strength 380 Yellow Strike tiles, plus 1 additional Strike tile for each of Cable's allies still in the fight.

(PASSIVE) When you make a Yellow match, fortify 1 random friendly Countdown or Repeater tile.

• Level 2: Create 2 strength 380 Yellow Strike tiles...
• Level 3: Create 2 strength 412 Yellow Strike tiles...
• Level 4: Create 2 strength 475 Yellow Strike tiles...
• Level 5: Create 3 strength 507 Yellow Strike tiles...

What do you think is Cable's best build? Vote down below!

RickOShay

Can't wait for Cyclops baby to enter Tokens!

Cool mechanics on paper at least, I hope he is able to hang with the current top 5* characters. I need his blue in my roster badly, which will work well for Cable himself, or Thor, DD, Bolt, even Gambit, etc.

Debating on a 5/5/3 or 4/5/4 build.  Can't see green lower than level 5 though. 
  

Thanos

My Cable is 4/1/1 and I'm finding his blue is kinda disappointing to down right useless at times. I'm not as big on Cable as I was when I first saw his preview. I'd put hm at upper mid-tier, he's not going to unseat Thor unfortunately.

RickOShay

Thanos said:

My Cable is 4/1/1 and I'm finding his blue is kinda disappointing to down right useless at times. I'm not as big on Cable as I was when I first saw his preview. I'd put hm at upper mid-tier, he's not going to unseat Thor unfortunately.

That is unfortunate. Could you describe more about why his blue can be near useless at times? I was hoping that if you time it right, you will get an immediate enemy stun on that turn, then more potentially as you try to get other green matches (including the charged tiles). Also, if you need to match yellow, his CD should often get fortified. 

And about Thor, I think it will be a long time before he is unseated by anyone, so that's probably not a fair hope (not that is what you were expecting, just needs to be stated for others reading this). 
@Thanos

Thanos

RickOShay said:

Thanos said:

My Cable is 4/1/1 and I'm finding his blue is kinda disappointing to down right useless at times. I'm not as big on Cable as I was when I first saw his preview. I'd put hm at upper mid-tier, he's not going to unseat Thor unfortunately.

That is unfortunate. Could you describe more about why his blue can be near useless at times? I was hoping that if you time it right, you will get an immediate enemy stun on that turn, then more potentially as you try to get other green matches (including the charged tiles). Also, if you need to match yellow, his CD should often get fortified. 

And about Thor, I think it will be a long time before he is unseated by anyone, so that's probably not a fair hope (not that is what you were expecting, just needs to be stated for others reading this). 
@Thanos

His blue becomes useless when the green tiles are sparse. I had several games when there was no point in even
playing his blue. I don't see why it can't make new tiles instead of just converting existing ones. I know there are times when it could cause some craziness at times but so what, that's part of what makes the game fun. When TA Hulks blue cd goes off how often does it cause cascades? Not very often, besides Thor's god mode causes cascades all the time and costs nothing to setup.

Also, I'm aware Thor will probably never be unseated unless they make a very deliberate and specific counter to him.

Dormammu

Thanos said:
Also, I'm aware Thor will probably never be unseated unless they make a very deliberate and specific counter to him. 

No one sits on the throne forever.

Jaedenkaal

Blue seems like it could be fun when combined with tile-swapping powers (Coulson probably the best here) or green tile generators, so as to obtain green matches without giving up the turn.

RickOShay

Jaedenkaal said:

Blue seems like it could be fun when combined with tile-swapping powers (Coulson probably the best here) or green tile generators, so as to obtain green matches without giving up the turn.

Got some great matches and stuns from Cable's blue in action with TA Hulk's CD in the Domino PvP.
Hulk doesn't do much here due to the color overlap, but his black does speed up your blue AP accumulation due to charging them as well as green. Coulson might be a fun 3rd to run with Cable in Sim (as you mentioned), along with a good red-black like Jessica Jones.

One side point that I found interesting: If you have Cable's blue CD out, and a green match happens to take out an enemy, the stun takes affect on the next enemy in line. That's good.

BlackBoltRocks

5/5/3

I've come across a few champed Cables recently in PvP, and all of them are sporting 3/5/5. Wish I could change my vote to that; his Blue is near-rubbish, relying heavily on a Green-heavy board, and even then it gives your opponent first dibs on the Green Charged tiles and is effectively a 1-turn Stun, unless you make a Green match-5. Whereas 5 in Yellow gives you an extra 2535 damage, compared to 1648 at 3 Yellow (assuming both allies are still alive).

RickOShay

With just a 3-turn CD you are missing out on a 2nd opportunity for a stun, which I get very often with the 5-turn CD at cover level 5.  Even at 4/5/4 a 2nd stun opportunity happens quite often, but at 3/5/5 I've almost never been able to do it. Sure I'd like the level 5 strike tiles, but getting another stun on half dead Thor is very handy, for example.

BlackBoltRocks

5/5/3

RickOShay said:

With just a 3-turn CD you are missing out on a 2nd opportunity for a stun, which I get very often with the 5-turn CD at cover level 5.  Even at 4/5/4 a 2nd stun opportunity happens quite often, but at 3/5/5 I've almost never been able to do it. Sure I'd like the level 5 strike tiles, but getting another stun on half dead Thor is very handy, for example.

Cable’s Blue is heavily dependent on the board in order to trigger that Stun. Compare that to other stuns like Archangel, Strange, DD etc: the instant you fire that power, you know the opponent is getting stunned, regardless of the board. Plus, halfThor removes Green tiles, thereby lowering your chances of activating Cable’s stun. I’d rather go with BSSM’s stun - which costs 6AP - than Cable’s, which costs 9AP AND a Green match. Cable is just a tad too unreliable for me (in terms of stunning).

Jaedenkaal

RickOShay said:

With just a 3-turn CD you are missing out on a 2nd opportunity for a stun, which I get very often with the 5-turn CD at cover level 5.  Even at 4/5/4 a 2nd stun opportunity happens quite often, but at 3/5/5 I've almost never been able to do it. Sure I'd like the level 5 strike tiles, but getting another stun on half dead Thor is very handy, for example.

You'd definitely want to kill him before that stun wears off or he'll just nuke all your green Charged tiles and take all the AP for himself, though.

HoundofShadow

I thought Starlord would pair up nicely with Cable. 

Sequence of powers:

1. Cable's blue

2. Starlord's yellow to convert 5 basic tiles in enemy's strongest colour to green charged tiles. If you time it right, you will stun whomever you want to be stunned, unless their strongest colour is green.

3. Starlord's green. It doesn't destroy friendly created charged tiles, so all your green charged tiles will fall to the bottom or even cascades off each other. That could create another free stun and 5 charged green tiles.

4. Cable's green to down non-stunned character, or maybe Starlord's green.

Gambit can be used to round things off as a rainbow team. Use his red to destroy both green charged tiles for an extra 4 green aps if necessary.

RickOShay

HoundofShadow said:

I thought Starlord would pair up nicely with Cable. 

Sequence of powers:

1. Cable's blue

2. Starlord's yellow to convert 5 basic tiles in enemy's strongest colour to green charged tiles. If you time it right, you will stun whomever you want to be stunned, unless their strongest colour is green.

3. Starlord's green. It doesn't destroy friendly created charged tiles, so all your green charged tiles will fall to the bottom or even cascades off each other. That could create another free stun and 5 charged green tiles.

4. Cable's green to down non-stunned character, or maybe Starlord's green.

Gambit can be used to round things off as a rainbow team. Use his red to destroy both green charged tiles for an extra 4 green aps if necessary.

I've run that exact team in Sim last season and it is very fun. I agree that timing is very important on SL's yellow, but throughout the match I was able to often fire off 3 green powers, Cable, SL, Cable. Got 3 stuns often, but stunned someone who was already stunned too, ha. 
If you time it right, Gambit's purple can get an enemy to very low health, so that Cable's green has maximum effect on the other 2 enemies. Gambit's red becomes quite effective when you have a way to charge tiles for him. He consumes the green charged tiles you'd prefer to match, but he can effectively gather the ones that aren't matchable anyway. You also get the added benefit of any yellow match fortifying your repeater or CD's, which can be very important.