Confusing Card of the Week #67 – Captain Cold: Rogue Leader

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

 

During the month of December, I’m featuring a different cold/ice/snow related card each week to celebrate the winter holidays. Today, we’re going to take a look at Captain Cold: Rogue Leader from the DC Green Arrow and The Flash set.

I’m also adding a new Prime Rating to each of my Confusing Card of the Week articles. They will follow the same rating system as the Unlimited Competitive Rating, since Prime is also a competitive format. You can find a breakdown of how I choose my ratings on my sticky article, Helpful Sites and About this Blog.

Ruling – Ability

Captain Cold has a While Active ability. While Active abilities will work regardless of how many of that character’s dice are active in the Field Zone. Think of this ability like a light – it’s either on or it’s off.

Captain Cold’s ability involves the use of Action Dice. Action Dice are any dice that do not have attack and defense stats on them. There are Basic Action Dice that all have a Pow! symbol on them and then there are Non-Basic Action Dice that have symbols related to what the card is. Captain Cold’s ability will trigger when you use any type of Action Die, as long as he’s active. The image below shows the difference between Basic and Non-Basic Action Dice. There are many more Non-Basic Action Dice, but all Basic Action Dice have the same image in different colors.

While Captain Cold is active, when you use an Action Die, a target opposing Sidekick will lose the chance to attack or block for that turn. His ability is not optional and if your opponent has a legal target for Captain Cold’s ability, you must target that character.

Any die that is considered a Sidekick is a potential target for Captain Cold’s ability. Ally Characters count as Sidekicks while they’re active in the Field Zone, meaning they can be targeted by Captain Cold’s ability.

Action Dice normally can only be ‘used’ on your turn. When you use an action die, the die is moved from your Reserve Pool and either placed Out of Play or into the Field Zone depending on the type of Action Die you’re using. There are special abilities that allow you to use an Action Die on your opponent’s turn. One such example of this is Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension. His ability says:

“While Mr. Mxyzptlk is active, when an opponent uses a Basic Action Die, you may use a copy of that Basic Action Die.”

When you use a copy of a Basic Action Die with Mr. Mxyzptlk’s ability, it satisfies the requirements for Captain Cold’s ability allowing you to target an opposing Sidekick and prevent it from attacking or blocking. This is one way you can benefit from Captain Cold’s ability on your opponent’s turn to stop a Sidekick from attacking you.

As a side note, Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension only allows you to use a copy of a Basic Action Die and not a Non-Basic Action Die that your opponent uses. You need to pay very close attention to wording when playing characters like Mr. Mxyzptlk and Captain Cold.

You won’t benefit from using Captain Cold’s ability during the Attack Step because characters are already assigned to attack and block before you’re able to use Action Dice. You can still target the Sidekick, but the ability won’t have any effect on a character that’s already declared as a blocker.

Miscellaneous Card Information

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader is a Bolt Character and has the Villain affiliation. This card also has a Max Dice of four.

Examples

These examples are for information purposes only, to show what would happen in certain scenarios. I am not suggesting that these examples are the best outcomes for each scenario and each example only features relevant parts of the turn, not the entire turn.

Example One:
Using Captain Cold’s ability during your Main Step.

~ I have two Captain Cold dice active. I have a Kryptonite: Green Death die showing an action face in my Reserve Pool. My opponent has an Oracle: Master Investigator and an Alfred Pennyworth: MI-5 active in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) I use my Kryptonite (sending it Out of Play) and target Oracle.
~ (Main Step) I use Captain Cold’s ability to target Alfred, making Alfred unable to block.

Example Two:
Using Captain Cold’s ability during the Attack Step.

~ I have two Captain Cold dice active. I have a Kryptonite: Green Death die showing an action face in my Reserve Pool. My opponent has an Oracle: Master Investigator and an Alfred Pennyworth: MI-5 active in the Field Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Attackers) I assign one of my Captain Cold dice (3A/3D) as an attacker, moving it into the Attack Zone.
~ (Attack Step – Assign Blockers) My opponent assigns Alfred (1A/1D) as a blocker and places him in the Attack Zone in front of my Captain Cold.
~ (Attack Step – Actions and Globals) I use my Kryptonite and target Alfred. I target Alfred with Captain Cold’s ability, but he’s already blocking and can’t be removed as a blocker with Captain Cold’s ability. I don’t use any other Actions or Globals.
~ (Attack Step – Assign and Resolve Damage) Captain Cold assigns his three attack to Alfred and Alfred assigns his one attack to Captain Cold. Alfred is KO’d but since I used Kryptonite on his die, he doesn’t get his ability and will go to the Prep Area.

Example Three:
Using Captain Cold’s ability during your opponent’s Main Step.

~ I have a Mr. Mxyzptlk: 5th Dimension and a Captain Cold active. My opponent has a Sidekick in the Field Zone.
~ (Main Step) My opponent has a Power Bolt Action Die and uses it to deal two damage to me.
~ (Main Step) Mr. Mxyzptlk allows me to use a copy of Power Bolt and I choose to do so, dealing two damage to my opponent. Captain Cold’s ability triggers and I target the Sidekick my opponent has active in the Field Zone, making it unable to attack this turn.

Official Sources

WizKids Official Rules Forum (WORF) does not have an official ruling for this specific card.

You can find a ruling that relates to the interaction between Captain Cold and Mr. Mxyzptlk, here.

You can find a ruling that explains the interaction of abilities like Kryptonite’s on characters already declared as blockers, here.

Unlimited Competitive Play Rating

Captain Cold just doesn’t have what it takes to see major meta play. His ability, with the required use of an Action Die and being limited to only Sidekicks as targets, is definitely not suited for Unlimited. His TFC of six is expensive for what he does and his stats are not worth using this character over another with a more useful ability. There are other ways to accomplish what his ability does, but on a larger scale and more effective as well – Cloudkill. I don’t see this card making it out of any binder or box for a competitive event like WKO.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a Unlimited rating of zero out of five stars.

PDC Prime Play Rating

I have limited experience with Prime at the moment, so I could very possibly being missing something or have overlooked something. I don’t think Sidekicks – even Allies – will be a huge problem in Prime. If Captain Cold targeted any character, and not just a Sidekick, then he would be much better. Even then, he still wouldn’t hit the rogue team list for me because of his Action Die requirement. I bumped his rating up to a one star instead of zero stars for Prime because there are still many unknowns about the Prime format, but I still can’t recommend this card for Prime play. His TFC for the stats are not impressive and his ability just doesn’t cut it.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a Prime rating of one out of five stars.

Casual Play Rating

While I don’t think this card is particularly useful, it’s not overly complicated. I think if you paired Captain Cold with the right cards, he might be mildly useful. I could see him with Foot Ninja: Ninja Syndicate and White Tiger: Mystical Amulet. You could use White Tiger’s Global to make them add a Sidekick to the Field, which increases Foot Ninja’s attack and defense, then use an Action Die and make that Sidekick unable to block. That’s a lot of things going on, but most casual teams that I play and see played locally have many facets to them. But my casual ratings are based on the complexity of the card and how difficult the card is for a new player to use, and not only how good the card is. Captain Cold has complex uses with cards like Mr. Mxyzptlk, which may not be immediately noticed or even understood by a beginner. That combo is a great way to teach those particular uses to a player and help them to better understand card wording.

Captain Cold: Rogue Leader gets a casual play rating of three out of five stars.

Opinions on this card? Leave a comment!
Is there a card your confused on?
Is there a combo that seems too good to be true?
Leave me a comment here or message me on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Special thanks to The Reserve Pool for the use of their site.

Roll on, Dice Masters!

Tournament Report! November 26, 2016 – Fall Colors, Thanksgiving Event

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

We held a special event on the Saturday after Thanksgiving. It was original scheduled for the Saturday before, but since Deadpool released earlier that week, we had our draft that day. Players were limited to what characters they could use by the primary color of their dice. These were the colors that were available to use:

Brown/Tan
Black
White
Grey/Silver
Clear
Yellow
Red (including Cranberry color, like Lady Bullseye/Katana)
Orange
Green

For the dice that are split colored, like Batgirl from Green Arrow and The Flash, as long as one of the colors was on the list, the character was available to use.

My Team

You can find my team here, on DM Retrobox.

My utility cards for this team were Red Dragon for my Actions and a little extra damage when buying them, PXG, Bane for taunting troublesome characters, and Rip Global. My main goal is to Rip any Lady Bullseye dice or Hulk Out dice when I know I’m drawing the other. Black Bolt is on the team for a little added attack value or to pump up Lockjaw as my backup attacker if I need him. Lockjaw, other than backup, is there to help wipe the little dudes from the Field or get additional damage on the Field. Satchel was there for me to use on Hulk Out dice if I didn’t have anymore to buy and needed that one extra Overcrush ability. This team is built to be aggressive and put pressure on my opponent.

Round One

I was fortunate enough to face off against Mr. DDK in round one. He blew me up really quick with Ultraman and Kryptonite. It didn’t long for me to meet my demise with him having an Ultraman, Elf Thief, and Dwarf Wizard in the Field. He used his Kryptonite to blank one of my characters, then used my Magic Missile Global directly to me, Imprisoned my Field, Hulk Out didn’t help him but he put it on Ultraman, then used Front Line and that was all she wrote! I was only able to get one Lady Bullseye in for four damage before I was toast.

Record after Round One: 0-1-0

Round Two

My second round opponent and I had fun going back and forth for a few turns. He was trying to use Outlaw, but she didn’t want to cooperate with him at all. It took him an attack or two to realize that he shouldn’t be blocking my Lady Bullseye with the character that she targeted for her double damage ability, especially when she had Overcrush applied to her. It took several turns, but Lady Bullseye finally took down my opponent. Rip Global came in handy this game. I was able to Rip a Hulk Out once and then Rip a Lady Bullseye another time.

Record after Round Two: 1-1-0

Round Three

Apologies for the lack of an actual picture here. I completely forgot to snap a picture of my opponent’s team before we packed up. This game was another back and forth battle for the entire game. He used Dwarf Wizard on my Lockjaw, which didn’t bother me too much. I didn’t let Lockjaw leave the Field so that Dwarf Wizard would keep his target unless my opponent bought another. I didn’t want my Lady Bullseye becoming Dwarf Wizard’s new target. Magic Missile Global helped me keep Shannon Carter out of my way after she was hit with Lady Bullseye’s double damage ability. A couple of well placed attacks with pumped up Sidekicks took my life down fairly quickly, but several Lady Bullseye dice with Overcrush were more than enough to secure the game for me.

Record after Round Three: 2-1-0
Final Standing: 3rd

Final Thoughts

Something that two of my opponents didn’t do, or forgot to do, was use my Magic Missile Global against my Lady Bullseye. She only has one defense which I didn’t take into consideration when adding Magic Missile to my team. If I were to build a team around her and keep Magic Missile, I would need to increase her defense or just use Elf Thief to steal their energy. Magic Missile came in handy on more than a few occasions. I really like the Lady Bullseye with Overcrush combo and if you add a little control or defensive elements, there could be some potential for a lower tier competitive team. I really want to try and build a team utilizing her with Overcrush.

What are some changes you’d make without changing the spirit of the team?
Have a build you like better?
Leave me a comment here or on Facebook at Dice Dice Kitty and thanks for reading!

Roll on, Dice Masters!

News! Thanksgiving Holiday

Greetings Fellow Dice Fans!

 

If you live in the United States, then you might be among the many that are celebrating the Thanksgiving holiday on Thursday or this weekend. There is also this crazy thing folks do that’s called Black Friday shopping that happens on Thanksgiving now, instead of the Friday after Thanksgiving – which I think is silly. But, I will unfortunately be one of those folks out looking for deals. I don’t fight over towels and sheets. We don’t wait in lines for TVs or phones – we just like to pick over the leftovers. We do not sacrifice family time for Black Friday/Thanksgiving shopping. We go out and scavenge over the DVDs and try to grab an electronic or two if they’re still available.

We also decorate on Thanksgiving weekend, which takes up quite a bit of time. This article will likely be my last article until next Tuesday (Wednesday at the latest). I will also be absent from all my social media outlets for the weekend, so if you send me a message on Facebook or make an inquiry on Twitter, I likely won’t see it until next week.

I will be back next week with a fresh CCW article. I want everyone to have a wonderful Thanksgiving weekend. Eat your fill, be merry, enjoy your company, and recruit as many new Dice Masters as you can!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of you Dice Masters out there! May you be surrounded by loving family and friends with a table full of delicious food!

Roll on, Dice Masters!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays!

Greetings Fellow Dice Masters!

There won’t be a Confusing Card of the Week post this week. I sincerely hope that you all have a very Merry Christmas and a Happy Holiday! We will return next week with our CCW!