Card Reviews · MarvelCDB

As a bit of a Cyclops fan (the character in general, as well as in Marvel Champions) I'd like to go over some of the criticism which this hero has faced, and why I don't (or at least, don't entirely) agree with it. A lot of the commentary seems to put him as a "low-mid tier hero". While I'm not going to say that he's an X-23-level monster, I'd also argue that he's not nearly as bad as portrayed. He's actually a pretty solid, dependable character; and a lot of fun to play.

So why does the field commander of the X-Men get so much grief? Let's have a look.

First, what seems to be a bugbear of many: his economy.

While it's true that he has no built-in resource generators, the cost curve of his hero kit is also relatively low. 9 of his 15 identity cards are zero- or one-cost. The only card that is higher than two-cost is his signature ally. He does love X-Gene, but basically every X-Men hero does.

Weapon X, Moira MacTaggert, The X-Jet etc. are all staples for a reason. Sure, you're going to want to take at least one or two of them for resource generation, in almost every deck - but that's true of most heroes. He's not a "rich hero" like some, but he's not a pauper. Quite a few heroes have more resource issues than Cyclops.

Then let's look at his deck-building ability.

One of the previous reviews said they didn't see that ability to be particularly beneficial or worth building around, which seems crazy to me. For a start, he can always take every two-cost X-Men ally - which is really powerful. He can always have Shark-Girl to take advantage of his enemy upgrades; Armor. to take a couple of hits from the villain; Sunfire to remove villain attachments; and Pixie to bring those cheap allies back to hand. He can always have Kid Omega in his deck, if he wants.

And if you're playing him in Leadership and have Uncanny X-Men out, all of those allies only cost ONE resource to play. If you don't think that's good, I don't know what to tell you.

On top of that, he can have whichever of the more expensive, powerful X-Men allies he wants as well - whether that's Rogue, Wolverine, Nightcrawler, or Monet. You can build him to take advantage of any ally interaction you want.

Playing in Aggression and worried about threat? Doesn't matter, you can still use the higher-thwart allies like Marvel Girl, and stack the encounter deck with Blindfold to prevent an unexpected Advance. Playing Justice and you need more heavy hitters? You can still take Wolverine and Goldballs for some muscle. That flexibility is strength.

And of course, you can always include Beast to help boost your economy.

Because he likes plenty of cheap allies, Cerebro is also a good idea. Sure, he isn't psionic and won't get the full-deck search... Unless one of the many psionic allies he can take is in play. Which includes his signature ally, of course.

The X-Men trait in general has a tonne of cards that help an ally-heavy team, so it's no surprise that the X-Men tactical leader wants to lean into those - cards like Danger Room, Utopia, X-Mansion; as well as the Training upgrades / Game Time package. This isn't a thematic miss; it's completely appropriate for the character. (I'd suggest more so than for some lone-wolf heroes, who suddenly have a big supporting cast of allies in-game because it's efficient).

Personally, I usually prefer to play ally-light decks. But Cyclops directing a team of X-Men is so thematic that I don't mind it for him... And it's definitely effective.

One of the comments talked about him not being "everyone's friend"... And he isn't. He's a leader who can wrangle disparate groups of mutants into a cohesive force. That's what his deck-building ability is about, and I actually think it works very well.

Finally, let's address the eye-beam elephant in the room: his hero ability, and the Ruby Quartz Visor.

His hero ability is a built-in attack which does 3 damage to an enemy with an upgrade attached. It also costs you a resource, although if you have the Ruby Quartz Visor it generates the resource for you, and it gains piercing and ranged. The argument is that he should start with the visor, like Wolverine's Claws or Captain America's Shield.

Given that the game often makes you "find" key parts of a hero's equipment, I don't think this is uniquely a Cyclops issue. Tigra doesn't start with her Sharp Claws in play, and they're a physical part of her body. Besides, "Cyclops needs to find his visor" is a recurring plot point in X-Men stories. So I have very few issues with the thematic side, or any hand-waving we need to do there.

Mechanically, is it an issue? Not really. Early game I tend to treat his hero ability as a more powerful version of Plan B: it's a resource sink to turn a left-over resource into damage. It's not the main focus of what you are doing. Late game it's very good, but you need to have built out for it. That's also pretty common; it's how you play the game.

Then there is the upgrade attachment requirement. Cyclops has several of these in his kit. Yes, they are temporary until you get Field Commander out. And they are always temporary on the villain.

But if they stayed on the villain they would be stupidly strong. All the aspect attachments in the game can only go on minions anyway, because they'd be too strong on the villain. Some other hero's attachments go on the villain; but these also fall off within a turn (e.g. Bamf!, Frostbite, Touched). It's one of the ways the game limits broken combos that would make it easy. Speaking of which, having a hero that adds those in the game makes Cyclops that much stronger - a lot of the criticism seems to be solo focused (which is fine, but it's not the only way the game is played). He's still good in solo, but he's even better when he has a teammate to collaborate with.

Yes, this game is a bit of a power fantasy - it's never going to be LOTR LCG levels of difficulty. But it still needs to provide some level of difficulty. Imagine if Cyclops could drop Practiced Defense and Pinned Down on the villain and give them a permanent -3 attack?

The question just needs to be whether Cyclops is strong enough for the game to be fun to play - and in my experience that's very much the case.

Is it a problem that the X-Men field commander does best when he has a team to, you know, command? YMMV, but I really don't think so.

1/12/26

TwoHands · 101

First of all, your argument about Cyclops's economy not being that bad becomes quite weak as soon as we compare Cyclops with other heroes. In fact, there's another hero who has 9 out of 15 identity cards that only cost zero to one: Captain America. Except he has not one but TWO identity resource generators, and even a discount on the cost of allies while in alter-ego form. Now, THIS is what I'd expect from a team leader who fields a lot of allies, and Cyclops should be for the X-men what Cap is for the Avengers. And yet, on the contrary, not only we don’t have any resource generators in his deck that we can spend on allies, his built-in ability forces us to SPEND extra resources to activate it. — Michebugio · 33 1/13/26

As for the deck-building: if your point is that Cyclops can field a lot of low-cost allies, taking advantage of Uncanny X-men... isn’t it something that all X-men heroes can do? Cyclops's only clear advantage over the other X-men is the ability to field the X-men’s lightweights - Armor, Shark-girl, Sunfire, and Tempus - in a Leadership deck. That’s it. But if I wanted to field a heavyweight like Wolverine, I'd much prefer an Aggression deck, to take advantage of The Power of Leadership. The same goes for Protection if I wanted to field Rogue and Nightcrawler. Cerebro, Danger Room, Utopia, X-Mansion, all Training cards... these are all cards that don't work any better with Cyclops than with any other X-Men hero. In fact, they actually work worse, precisely because Cyclops has fewer resources to spend on them. — Michebugio · 33 1/13/26

*The Power of Aggression/Protection — Michebugio · 33 1/13/26

And there’s more: 1) he has no cards to heal, defend, or otherwise soak damage (yes there is Practiced Defense, but come on! Only 2 copies for -1 ATK for one round?? Is that a joke?), so he's easily at risk of being defeated in rounds where you draw Assault or Gang-up. Your only option is to defend each round, but then… you’ll never thwart; 2) any round in which he doesn't draw upgrades is essentially a dead round for him; 3) one of his upgrades, Priority Target, is often wasted on the villain since there are no minions in play and you can’t afford to keep a 0-cost card in your hand when you can draw much better. And let's not even get started on his nemesis: Mister Sinister is one of the worst ass-burners you can ever encounter as a hero. — Michebugio · 33 1/13/26

Bottom line is: I'm sorry, but your post, as well-written as it is, hasn't changed my mind. After more than a dozen games with Cyclops under my belt, I still struggle against even the simplest villains; his playstyle feels clunky and too tight, strangled by scarcity of resources, and at the whim of the cards; and worst of all, you have no incentive or mechanical help to play allies whatsoever, which is the thing you'd most expect from a character like Cyclops. I really love him as a character in the comics, but I'm afraid they really didn't do him justice in this game. — Michebugio · 33 1/13/26

I think we may just have to agree to disagree on his ability to run an ally-based deck. Other X-Men characters can't do the same things he can, no. I ran a pretty basic Cyclops ally deck through several of the Next Evolution scenarios last night (inspired by writing that post) and breezed through them on Expert. And not in a way that others could do - e.g. using the Rogue Protection ally to attack for 5 per turn by touching Aggression Wolverine, then healing them with Triage who I was cycling with Pixie. I'll whack the deck up so you can see, but it's literally not able to work with any other hero. — TwoHands · 101 1/13/26

The deck is here, if you want to take a look: https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/58201/thundercyclops-ho-1.0 — TwoHands · 101 1/13/26

Not sure why the deck link doesn't work but I'll try again — TwoHands · 101 1/13/26

(https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/58201/thundercyclops-ho-1.0) — TwoHands · 101 1/13/26

Cyclops can run Mirage in Justice to take advantage of Befuddled, run Wolverine in Justice or Leadership to consistently thwart 2 a round when he doesn't need to slash things, grant Armor's activations some actual power, let Marvel Girl hit harder while leveraging her ability, use Effective Leadership to temporarily buff *any* X-Men ally, use Mutant Protectors to cheat M into play and insta-kill a minion during the villain phase for cheap, easily KO minions that've been Pinned Down on previous turns (for free with the Visor), give Rogue Attack/Mission/Danger Room Training before absorbing power... He can do all kinds of things that other heroes can't do. Cyclops can create unique toolboxes out of allies across aspects to make them better than they were, which is a thematically excellent expression of a leader. And those allies make *him* better, because they supplement his otherwise-average defenses and let him make game-ending callouts with Exploit Weakness. The way to make a Cyclops deck is to lean in to the (ridiculously potent) suite of X-Men allies, mixing and matching your chosen aspects perks with them to make them shine. — Leethus · 318 1/24/26

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