So every X-Men hero now has a repeatable way to deal with the encounter deck regardless of his or her aspect? I’m not saying this is a mandatory play for any fully-charged X-deck. I AM saying if you own this card and it’s NOT in your X-deck, you need to have a very, very good reason to exclude it.

Phoenix players in particular should be excited to get a PSIONIC support that can counteract Shadows of the Past. Did I mention it’s PSIONIC so Power of the Mind can help fund it and it triggers Psimitar? Holy moly, Jean, getcha some.

This card and its sister card Side-by-Side are proof of a just and loving R&D team at FFG. Sidekick immediately takes several decks that are either dependent on or significantly improved by their signature allies up a full tier level or more.

Top allies to consider this for:

Captain Marvel: Spider-Woman wants to play multiple aspect cards in hand and Cap gets them to her hand. Probably the best part of playing the Sidekick package with Ms. Drew is that because of her two-aspect deckbuilding, doing so doesn’t even limit your remaining card pool thar much.

Wong: After all, didn’t Doctor Strange need yet another busted thing to do? Wong was already a major enough part of Doc’s strategy to send many players into blue to support him. Now he gets added survivability AND readies with Side-by-Side? Just disgusting.

Honey Badger: Sidekick is practically a love letter to X-23, a hero whose entire kit revolves around her little clone sister. Leadership isn’t currently a favored aspect for X-23, but between Sidekick shenanigans and Clarity of Purpose, more X-23 players should consider it.

Brawn: Young Mr. Cho takes care of a lot of early problems during Ironheart’s setup period with a hefty 2 THW/3 ATK stat line PLUS his ability to generate a Genius resource. Since Ironheart already frequently pairs with Leadership to get access to Beast, adding some support for the big green guy is neither difficult nor onerous.

This card, very plainly, is a piece of crap. Tenacity is known as one of the worst cards that is very well known, because it is in the core set. To start, it takes 3 ER (effective resources) to get out on the table, and then another specific resource () to activate once, get discarded, and ready your hero. To top it off, the art is just meh with a picture of Spider-Man fixing some buildings. I would erase this card's text, "Spend a resources...", and then I would probably still not use it, but it wouldn't be as bad. This card works well with Friction Resistance in Quicksilver's kit, but that is one card in a hero-specific kit. On MCDB most people only put this in decks with Quicksilver or Iron Man. I just like Stick-To-Itiveness (the 'Pool version) better.

Rating: (A+:C-) C

Lady Deadpool and Headpool have my vote for the best 'Pool allies because the Amplify icon is generally the easiest to mitigate, at least in solo (stun, confuse, ally block). It does get worse with more players since the villain has more activations per round. You can thwart or attack effectively with Lady Deadpool for as long as she remains in play, and then when you draw a problematic minion, block with her in the next villain phase before the minion even has a chance to activate. A solid card in an aspect with not many options

Kidpool has a strong enough activation that I'm fine leaving him in play for a while, unlike some other 'Pool allies. Trading 2 pierce damage for an acceleration icon is generally in your favor, though it does take many turns to earn back the initial 3-resource investment. If your collection is large enough, there are still probably some basic allies that would be more powerful to play. If you want to lean harder into the 'Pool aspect or are going for the "bad icon" archetype, Kidpool is definitely fine to include.