***** Iceman (Bobby Drake) *****

Pantera236

So if you take +2 blue and+1 all (at 5 covers) does he place the CD's at start of the battle?

HoundofShadow

I'm sure it doesn't because start of the turn is different from the start of the battle. It will trigger on the player's second turn though.

Warbringa

He might be decent.  He might not but I am leaning towards mid tier, ok third pairing option but really seems more support driven character.  Seems like a much less useful PvE character and more useful for PvP. 

Yellow:  A strange power, defense is nice in a way but tough to actually make work as seen in several previous deve abilities.  Could be a sleeper power people are overlooking I guess but it is one we will have to see in action to really see if it works.  You need to actively go for some team up matches or get lucky on getting them on cascades.  I assume it only protects allies not himself? He eventually takes the damage too most of the time. If he can also block his own damage temporarily, then it is more interesting.  

Green:  Seems like a decent repeater tile power however it is somewhat lacking in the sense that you can simply just target him quickly to knock him out if the AI gets these out.  It also takes some time to have that damage add up and as we know, the problem with repeaters is that you can simply use direct damage to do fast damage to maybe get the match over quicker.  It is also just worse than firing off Thor 5* green, a problem that most repeater powers face.  5* Thor deals 39,000 some damage when fired?  It will take you at least, six turns to do that much damage, in which time you probably have already gathered 12 more green AP for Thor. You will have lost that match or Iceman will be dead before those six turns are up.  Once again randomness takes something away from this power.  7 AP is a quick power though, but it still just seems directly worse than 5* Thor green.  You could argue that his yellow block that Thor AoE however that also means Iceman will be dead very fast and you won't get the repeater tiles to go off very much anyway, so still doesn't seem like a good trade-off.  He also doesn't pair well with Thor if you plan on using Iceman's green because the repeater tiles will prevent you from gathering as much green AP from Thor's passive.

Blue:  I don't think this one is as good as it may seem at first glance. It is very random in that you don't get to choose who you stun or when.  You will also have a drained blue AP pool and run out of blue tiles on the board very quickly, it is only a one turn stun too.  I think I would take Bishop or Strange's stun power over this one all day long.  It also only triggers when you match the tile, not the AI.  It provides no real damage potential (unless paired with 5* DD perhaps?).  Will be an annoying power in the AI hands but not nearly as great as a player power since it isn't a lockdown stun unlike Bishop or Strange.  Why would I spend time matching blue AP if this is my best blue power that I am fielding?  I should be matching other AP colors for more effective powers rather than blue.  Think about it, if I was playing him with Thorkoye, why would I ever match blue when I can choose green, red, team-up AP, yellow or black first? 

There is one pairing I think that might work very well with him.   I think he may be a good pair with 5* Daredevil. If those repeaters each deal the extra stun damage from DD, then that would be my pairing choice.  His blue random stun is more valuable since you can be doing more damage with DD.  

If his green and blue powers only trigger on destruction and not just matching tiles, then his build and powers are even worse.

JHawkInc

I like him.

I think it's interesting that the joke has been that the devs over-value board shake (at least compared to the players), and this is a character that benefits from a teammate with board shake.

jamesh

His yellow looks like it would work pretty well against Kitty: first Iceman converts damage into a countdown, then the enemy kitty deletes the countdown before it resolves.  All you'd need to do is keep your team-up AP high enough, and you should keep creating countdowns as fast as Kitty deletes them.

sinnerjfl

Warbringa said:

Blue:  I don't think this one is as good as it may seem at first glance. It is very random in that you don't get to choose who you stun or when.  You will also have a drained blue AP pool and run out of blue tiles on the board very quickly, it is only a one turn stun too.  

The stun isnt random, you stun whoever you're currently targeting. That makes it at least somewhat usable, and I guess matching multiple CD's is entirely possible since they all spawn on the same color, so you can get bonus stun as well.

jp1

3/5/5

Strange kit. I’m not super excited to chase him, but glad to see another 5* X-Men character. 

abenness

I think he looks pretty awesome, and I’ll be trying to use my limited resources to cover him. 

At high covers of yellow you get a 4-turn countdown to match away.  Many times vs Thorkoye I’ve eaten the green nuke just before killing him, this will give me the chance to mitigate that damage, let alone the potential of stunning Thor before he gets to half health battery mode in the first place.

I don’t necessarily see big hoards being broken for Rescue/Storm/Iceman, but he would be a solid contributor for anyone planning for 550s

Daredevil217

Brigby said:

“With his Omega-level powers...”

Nah.

Yellow could have been amazing (which is saying a lot given it’s a defensive power) with a slight tweak. Should have been able to transfer ALL damage to a countdown if it is over a certain threshold. Since it drains AP and you need to chase the countdown to keep Bobby from getting hit, I think that’s fair. As it is, MAYBE negating only 9K isn’t a lot in 5* land. Could have been great but is honestly pretty weak. If an AOE creates 3 countdowns, that’d be pretty sweet though. 

Green is interesting. Seems it’ll pair well with Okoye (as was mentioned). Like everyone else, I’d like to see it in action before judging. The worst part of the power is it is in fact green.  Make this power his yellow or blue (or even purple) and it gets a lot more play, instead of competing with Thor or even Daredevil who he could pair well with. 

Blue seems like a trash power only because it’s a one turn stun. Why they are afraid to give us a great multi-turn stun like his 4* counterpart in 5* land is beyond me. I said long ago that if you want to shake up the 5* meta without going into power creep, a stun like 4* Gamora/Bobby in 5-land would do it. We get this instead. It’ll be nice to add on to existing stuns I guess (again, Daredevil)

Black Panther seems to be the best counter to Bobby. Let him match blue and have panther return from a 1-turn stun with 12K damage. Seems like a fun COTT type matchup. 

Bobby stuns panther!
Wait, Panther hits back for 12K!
Wait, Bobby drains 3 TU AP and negates 9K of it!

ThaRoadWarrior

I have a feeling he is going to be a real problem, and is a little better than many of these predictions are making out. His green is very cheap, and will do damage all over the place.

spidyjedi84

AlexNapalm said:

Such a nightmare with Bishop.

That was my thought, too. Hope you like Bishop stun locks, because that's what this 5-star is geared to give us more of... As if his 4-star variant pairing with Bishop wasn't bad enough on that regard, I see a lot of 3-5-5 builds on him coming to PVP and Simulators...

HoundofShadow

Everyone, it's "destroy" and  not "match". 
And you need to be the one destroying the tiles to trigger the stun or AoE.

kennn712

HoundofShadow said:

Everyone, it's "destroy" and  not "match". 
And you need to be the one destroying the tiles to trigger the stun or AoE.

Is matching the tile not counted as destroying it?

ammenell

i like how 5*s are debuting who have a waaay better 4* counterpart.
4* Bobby would stunlock 5* Bobby to death

HoundofShadow

I think you are right. Matching is the same as destroying. DPXF's countdown triggers on a match even though it stated "if destroyed…"  

But I think matching fortified tiles is not the same as destroying?

Momo988

5/4/4

HoundofShadow said:

I think you are right. Matching is the same as destroying. DPXF's countdown triggers on a match even though it stated "if destroyed…"  

But I think matching fortified tiles is not the same as destroying?

It should be. As evidenced by Medusa’s CD creating attacks when it is matched even if fortified. 

Zeofar

5/5/3

Momo988 said:

HoundofShadow said:

I think you are right. Matching is the same as destroying. DPXF's countdown triggers on a match even though it stated "if destroyed…"  

But I think matching fortified tiles is not the same as destroying?

It should be. As evidenced by Medusa’s CD creating attacks when it is matched even if fortified. 

Medusa's red is explicitly triggered by matches AND destruction. On other hand, 5* CM's Red (Passive) and Green (Active) require destruction and do not trigger off fortified tiles. But, again, XFDP breaks the rule so I don't think we can take ability descriptions alone as definitive.

Yepyep

TPF Alexis said:

That...is a weird power set. I have no idea what to think about it, except that I like that you get something when you're stuck matching your own Repeaters away, and that it spams them, so some might actually activate. And at least the art is a vast improvement over his 4* version.

I actually guessed pretty close! June 6

Tony_Foot

Warbringa said:

  5* Thor deals 39,000 some damage when fired?  It will take you at least, six turns to do that much damage, in which time you probably have already gathered 12 more green AP for Thor. You will have lost that match or Iceman will be dead before those six turns are up.

Great post but where are you getting 39k for thor?

I see Iceman as being under rated really. That green is going to be a nightmare for halfthor users. You will find yourself dipping into health packs more often and having to mid climb do that annoying retreat to half health. I think Ice and Okoye could be a pain and skipped because of the risk to thor.

Sure not meta but I can already see I will look for less risky fights if only to avoid heal/retreat.

himatako

I'm not sure what I think about him. His green is cheap and spammable, so it helps solving the issue of survivability of Repeater Tiles. The same goes with his blue for being as cheap as 3AP and creates 6 CD tiles at once. However, the writing suggests that "you" have to be the one who destroy those tiles, which limits its usefulness. It would have been more annoying if it activates the same way 4* Deadpool's Count Down For What does. But I guess they're afraid that might be too OP?

Cable's power has already shown that these kind of stun-on-match doesn't really work unless you build a team around it, so 5* Iceman would need a blue tiles creator or a tiles destroyer to help. 5* Storm is probably the best character for that, since she can destroy a specific color or creates a specific color. With her, you can either spend 17 green for a guarantee board shake + 10.8k team damage or 10 green + 3 blue for a board shake + 6 turn stun. Or if the board is right, you can go with a cheaper route of using Auora Totalis instead.

From the descriptions, seems like his green doesn't necessarily create green repeaters, but we'll have to see.