by Jay Solomon
Hello, and welcome to another iteration of Why Don’t I Play This Piece?. This week, I’ll be talking about a figure that inspired a lot of discussion as it was previewed, but hasn’t seen much play yet, XXS Darwin.
Darwin has several traits, a special Defense power, and one team ability, X-Men, which reads:
X-MEN – POWER: Choose an adjacent friendly character that can use this team ability and heal that character 1 click and roll a d6. [1-4]: This character is dealt 1 unavoidable damage.
This team ability will be used to heal others more often than it will to heal Darwin himself, but it’s generally a useful ability to have.
(Trait) X-STUDENT: When this character’s or an adjacent friendly character’s attack roll includes exactly one 5, modify one target’s defense -1.
This trait is not something you can really rely on (outside of playing a character like Trelane), but it could be randomly useful, especially on a team where Darwin will basically only be using Theme Team Probability Control, so he can make it even more likely that the trait will matter.
(Trait) INSTANT ADAPTATION: When Darwin is targeted with an attack choose a standard defense power, Darwin can use the chosen power for this attack.
This trait is one of two powers/abilities that make Darwin difficult to KO for the points. Being able to choose a Defense power every time that Darwin is attacked can make him surprisingly annoying at the very least, if he chooses something like Super Senses or Energy Shield/Deflection against characters dealing penetrating damage, to disproportionately hard to deal with, if he picks reducers against characters that don’t deal penetrating damage.
(Trait) I CAN ADAPT SO MUCH FASTER THAN YOU: Whenever another character uses an effect that allows it choose one or more standard powers to use, after resolutions deal that character one unavoidable damage.
This trait is the main (only) reason to play Darwin. The ability to punish Pick-a-Power characters can be huge, depending on how much of the team they make up, and how important the Pick-a-Power is to the character’s overall efficacy. The fact that the damage also bypasses First Round Immunity is also important, especially for the character(s) that choose once and keep the power until they choose again, such as Uni-Mind, who would otherwise choose once and keep the power indefinitely with no drawback. To demonstrate why playing Darwin could be quite useful, below is the list of viable (or close to it) characters with pick a power (which does include vehicles when they pick powers from their pilots, which is why they are on the list). Some of them are well known, and others are less so, but still present in the competitive environment.
35 SFSM029 Overdrive
55 WKMP18-001 Blackbird
50 WKMP18-002B Thanos-Copter
75 WKMP18-005 Lockjaw
25 SWB031 Alex Wilder
275/150 TMT058 Uni-Mind
275 WI040 Goblin King
165 ADW053 Iron Man
30 BTAS063 Batman (as a Troubalert)
90 EW040 Al Jhor Dan
140 JW053B Jakeem Thunder
The soon to be legal Exospex are also a major reason to consider Darwin, although there is the possibility that when the Exospex become legal, there is a higher chance that players will anticipate Darwin seeing more play, and will therefore react accordingly.
(Special Defense Power) ADAPT TO SURVIVE: STOP. Regeneration.
This special power, appearing twice on the dial, makes Darwin quite annoying to deal with, especially in conjunction with the choosing a Defense power trait. While Regeneration on a STOP click is less effective, having the option is nice if Darwin isn’t doing anything else that turn. Between this special power and the trait, I could see Darwin having a place on a point denial, or “Don’t Die” team.
While there are ways to deal with Darwin, and KO him easily, such as Surtur, I don’t necessarily think that argument invalidates Darwin entirely. Firstly, I don’t know of Surtur seeing much play to begin with these days, and even so, I don’t mind trading 35 points for 25, as that’s theoretically close enough to not worry about. It’s obviously not good or ideal, but it’s not as if Darwin is (hypothetically) as much 50 points, compared to Surtur’s 25. Also, with the teams that Darwin sees play with (X-Men) there are characters who can make free “revenge attacks”, so taking out Surtur in that situation will not even cost as much as an action token.
Overall, while Darwin has little in the way of direct offense, and doesn’t appear to be a major threat on the surface (outside of the anti-Pick a Power trait), he does have some other value, including calling in some decent to useful modern ID card characters, in addition to possibly being used to call in Troubalerts, with his likely to miss 9-Attack. His X-Student trait can make some attacks hit, and he’s just annoying to kill, so he can serve as decent tie-up. Some modern ID characters that Darwin can call-in include:
25 FFXXS005 Rusty
30 XXS024 Leech
30 XXS047 Prodigy
30 BTAS003 The Joker
25 JW002 Harley Quinn
35 JW018 Harley Quinn
30 JW060 The Joker
For this article, while there are many hypothetical possibilities for X-Men teams, I elected to showcase an established team with good results, courtesy of Patricia Lam. She used this team to place in the top 4 at this year’s Canadian Nationals, losing only to the winner, PJ:
50 XXS053 Wolverine
50 XXS053 Wolverine
50 XXS052 Cyclops
35 XXS035 Darwin
25 WKM17-015 Lila Cheney
75 DXF034a Deadpool
5 WKDP17-008 Boxing Ring
ID cards: Faculty Professor X and Wolverine; Jean, Chamber, Jubilee Student IDs
Sideline: 037a and 037b Prof X, XXS053 Wolverine, XXS065 Jean Grey, XXS Chamber, XXS Jubilee, DXF001/033/037a Deadpool
The team can be surprisingly hard to kill, thanks to a lot of STOP clicks, as well as lots of healing via the X-Men team ability. There were a number of Pick-a-Power characters played at the event, including the winning Blackbird, Lockjaw, and Uni-Mind, which Darwin can deal with. The team mainly uses Darwin for Theme Team Probability Control, but Darwin can also serve as tie-up that can trigger the X-Men “revenge attacks” on Wolverine and Cyclops.
That’s all I have for this week. To everyone playing at Worlds this year, good luck, and remember that whether you’re playing an established competitive figure or a Fringe Figure, practice will make your team better.
