X-MEN, ASSEMBLE 2: APOCA-BOOGALOO

THAT'S RIGHT, SHE'S BACK. THE BEST X-MEN LEADERSHIP HERO RETURNS WITH A VENGEANCE. In case you weren't aware, this isn't my first time cramming Rogue into Leadership and playing her with the X-Men. After my ADHD time blindness wore off and I remembered that the entire Apocalypse wave not only released but we're on SHIELD now, I decided it was a good time to upgrade the ol' gal. So, let's get into blue X-Men good stuff.

The plan is surprisingly simple: We play Uncanny X-Men and a bunch of ridiculous allies that benefit from it. That's pretty much it, which is great because I really don't like extravagant combo decks. Other than that, we have a small X-Mansion package featuring both Mutant Education and X-Men Instruction that allows us to recycle our events and allies. Normally, you'd kinda hyper focused on allies, but Anna gets some awesome events. As a bonus, both help us draw cards to replace themselves, keeping our resources up. Even though we have some banger events like Southern Cross and Bulletproof Belle they tend to really hog resources. That's virtually the only reason we're on X-Gene which I'd otherwise leave out.

Other than that, we got some incredible new cards in the Apocalypse wave. White Queen as well as Triage are stupendous support allies, while Beak is an all-star Thwart machine. Cyclops helps us finish off the villain or key minions, while Angel and Colossus are just all-star allies. Kid Omega may look like he costs 3, but realistically he's a 2/2/2 for just 2 which is CRAZY good. Finally, New Recruits gives us choices for a free ally, which you'd have to be crazy to not include. So yeah, you could say Rogue's buffs will....take your breath away. Like her if she touches you.

Now, we do have a funny little recursion package in the Mansion stuff and Pixie to help keep our powerful cards going, but what about Won't Stay Down you ask. I firmly believe the Mansion package is just a better overall idea, purely because it can draw you a card. Maybe WSD gets you the ally straight to your hand and can be used more on demand, but the synergy between our Mansion cards in my head sounds really solid. Feel free to trade an Instruction for a WSD, but personally I think the package is healthier because it kinda can combo with TMMXM to just bring back Professor X for one just to reuse.

So, is Rogue the best hero for X-Men? Probably not. Cyke and Ororo just reward you more for using them, while Bobby just generates utterly ballistic synergy and control. Does that mean you shouldn't run Rogue? Hell no, she has one of the best in-kit allies and also a really fun power. So don't let the more meta heroes fool you, Anna may have never lead them in the comics, but she's learned from the best and does a damn fine job at it in this game.