"Passives" or Fake Passives if you will.

Sabintribal

Part of why I like playing this game is strategy and control, blah blah blah.  But the 2 newest characters have "passive" abilities that eat AP when it gets high enough.  How about, oh i don't know, when the AP gets high enough I can choose to fire the power?  I don't like the direction this is going, especially since it's the latest characters.  It seems to indicate that characters will probably have this moving forward.  At that point, why would anyone use them?  But you guys have been doing what you've wanted for years so who am I to stop you.  I just feel like someone needs to say it.

On a completely separate and personal note I've waited almost 5 years for a usable Beast in 4/5 star land, and I get an Iceman after his 4star that came out many months after 3 star Beast? Really?  Granted this can be said about *many* characters...but Beast has been and always will be my favorite Marvel character, and it *kills* me I can't use him.

abmoraz

the passive triggering and costing AP isn't a new concept:

- 4* Blade

- Agent Venom

- Agent Coulson

- Mysterio (whom you refer to)

- Hela

- and, of course, Bobby Drake (whom you also refer to)

also, I too am appalled at how little they used Kelsey Grammar in the X-Men Cinematic Universe

ErikPeter

In Iceman's case it's because it's a particularly strong (and inexpensive power) that encourages you to match away your own tiles (and destroy them). It triggers at the start of your turn so that it can combo with other passives.

 CL9 is all about lots of board shuffle and battles taking 3-5 rounds, total. Iceman is great; you probably don't want to team him with someone who wants to save up Blue AP, but there aren't many good ones, and one of them is Bishop who doesn't need any more help. Only 10 5s have active blues by my count, and many of them provide similar benefits (e.g. cheap stun). 

Notice that "saving Blue AP" is actually the mechanism you're bothered by; I think it's fine since it's a consistent theme, and allows devs to create interesting power combinations and avoid degenerate ones (It's probably too good if you could save up 12 blue, or reliably trigger it otherwise. Maybe it'd be too good against a future character who triggers off of enemy CDs resolving. Maybe it just mixes it up by not teaming that well with Bishop.

Anyway I am guessing the passive drain nature of Iceman's blue adds more fun than it would as an active. 

As for Mysterio's, if that's what you were referring to, it just simplifies "blue matches generate yellow AP" and adds a damage component to combo with other effects. In particular it lets you generate blue with a different character (say, Bishop), and turn it into yellow, without even matching that AP color. 

If every color starts getting passive activation I'll get on your bandwagon, but right now I don't really see a problem, beyond the hyperspeed slot-machine grind that is CL9. MPQ is a lot more strategic and compelling at lower CLs --say, defeating Galactus by the skin of my teeth with a multi-tier roster, compared to beating him 6 times in 9 total turns--but that ship has sailed.

Instead, let's hope CL10 slows things down a lot by making different types of powers shine... like, say, powers that encourage you to match away your own tiles...

ErikPeter

I can totally get behind a new 4- or 5-star Beast. "Passive: When a friendly CD triggers, give your team a burst of 1500 Health" "Active: If an enemy has more Blue AP than your team, destroy 3 Blue tiles and deal minor damage. Repeat this process for every other color."