State of the meta-game by Adam Friedman majestix insiders
With the results having come out, and sunk in, I think everyone is asking the same question. Is Uni-Mind really that good?
There’s a short answer and a long answer to this question. The short answer is yes.
The long answer is yyyyyyeeeeeeeessssssss.
*crickets*
Tough crowd.
In this article I’m first going to look at what the top builds had in common, look at why I think the top builds succeeded over other builds, and then finally look at places players who want to try and take advantage of the ‘stale’ meta might try to do going into the WKO season.
Of the Top 8 teams, 6 of them played Uni-mind. Of those teams all but one also played Nighthawk Prime, Level 7 (Hawkeye), Nightwing ID (Zuccowing), Green Arrow ID (Chase Arrow). Added to Uni’s 165 for himself and 3 Forged in Flame uses this means that 5 of the top 8 teams shared a whopping 240 points out of 300 possible. Of the top-5, all five played all of these elements. 6th and 7th were non-Uni teams (one MissDeath, one Jakeem), and 8th was Uni without Nighthawk Prime.
Of the remaining 60 points we saw basically 3 things that people added 
to their teams at the top tables. Retaliators, a resource, and/or a utility piece. Two of the top versions had double-Carnage with teleporter, two had Carnage+Atom and Supreme Intelligence, Issac [sic] had Supreme, Carnage, and Mercury, and I had Teleporter with Green Lantern.
Kyle Cooney was the odd Uni out and played Joker, FF Jean, and Teleporter.
While it might be more interesting to talk about the two non-Uni teams, I’m not actually entirely sure what lessons to draw from them other than good players can go far with basically anything. Both Kennie and Dustin have U.S. Nats wins, so it’s hard to attack their bona-fides. Without seeing other players go similarly far with similar teams I can’t actually be sure whether it was actually that their teams are solid enough to keep things going, or if it is just that they are that good to compete despite a handicap. What I will talk about shortly is why I think Uni actually is the best idea in the format, and in particular why I think the Nighthawk Prime version is the best version, and how my actual games tended to show this.
Take away everything else for the moment, and look at Uni-Mind himself. For 165 points you get a solid Point-denial strategy. With starting invincible and a STOP click, Uni represents a huge portion of your team that is difficult (and often impossible) to score within the time limit, or at least to do so profitably. Even if you get him to touch his KO click, you actually don’t score any points until you also force one of the characters he replaces as to touch theirs as well. This means it is not actually possible to score points off a live Uni-mind off a single attack, often not even off a single action. His STOP click has printed Steal Energy, and Regeneration, allowing him to heal off of it and use it again. And having Protected Impervious on that click is icing on the cake, making it difficult to actually damage him there as well.
With just this and solid stats, Uni-mind would already be a solid consideration in the format as a hard-to-score-off-of brick. But he’s actually better than just that. Uni is also a Pick a Power figure, with the most common setups giving him access to Stealth, Mind Control, Telekinesis, Precision Strike, Psychic Blast, Willpower, Barrier, Invulnerability, Invincible, Super Senses, Probability Control, and Shape Change. In addition to this whatever he picks is Pulse-wave proof. In addition to thathe gets to re-pick his power on each player’s turn, and on top ofthat he gets to re-pick his power after taking any damage. This gives him a huge versatility in terms of what power he has access to at any given time.
But even that isn’t all. He is also an absurdly strong supporting piece due to his trait that will allow him 4 points of modification via multiple Perplexes that he can use every turn. Additionally, the particular way PROTECTED: Outwit works means that he is essentially guaranteed to get to use it every turn as well, and there’s more. His point cost is high enough that he is very capable as a Call-in source, and his access to modifiers and Probability Control makes him amongst the best characters to do it. Additionally each and every one of his Eternals is a reasonably high-costed piece who can themselves call in threats, and each of whom will have access to Perplex as well.
Lastly, the later part of his dial has Outwit (all 3 of his last clicks to be exact), giving him more utility. And two of the last three clicks has Runningshot with Pulse Wave to start it off. It is all of these things together that truly make him the threat that he is, and honestly there is enough there that even removing multiple parts of him still leaves you with an immensely playable and powerful piece, together he is probably the single best figure in Heroclix that doesn’t fundamentally break some principle of the game (such as Faust giving extra turns, or Spiral bypassing the map, or Multiattack characters getting to take more than one ‘costed’ type effect each turn).
Assuming you are playing against anything relatively normal or traditional, Uni-mind is going to have even random supporting-role figures on his force able to attack with top-of-the-line damage and attack values (Nighthawk Prime was regularly capable of hitting with 12 attack 5 damage in non-mirror scenarios for me).
Additionally, the ability to both increase your own attack by two, and then decrease the target’s defense by two means that in a large number of situations you need exceedingly small numbers to hit (the most common value needed to hit opposing characters outside of the Nighthawk Prime version of the mirror was a 3 for me. Because 14 on a 17, or 13 on a 16 both require just a 3 to hit). Heroclix is a dice game, and characters that can nearly make misses from attacks a non-consideration are going to be very powerful indeed.
Taking a look at other top-ideas this is the fundamental issue.
Versus Jakeem:
In a Uni v. Jakeem scenario, Jakeem has three advantages over Uni. Jakeem’s has 8 actual clicks of life so effects like Green Arrow aren’t as good against him, he has access to Sidestep which makes him better at repositioning, and he has access to Mastermind which is extremely powerful after the rules change.
With HAHA Joker in the format this makes Jakeem with Joker one of the most difficult to deal with combinations in Heroclix History. Unfortunately the build is actually kind of slow, and is susceptible to having potshots taken at it by other teams that can essentially out-range it.
This is where Uni-mind comes in. Uni can safely and easily take offensive effects like 
Hypersonic on his own turn to get in and put attacks down-field to try and either chip at Jakeem, or take tokens off Joker. Additionally with consistent 6 damage 13 attack himself, the attacks are likely to hit barring a rollout and are going to put serious pressure even on Jakeem or Joker’s dials. Additionally, his ability to put out this pressure while keeping up a full defensive suite gives Uni a lot of room to play with in playing a hit-and-run type strategy. Finally, because of his high movement that he can happily increase, as well as his high range, the minor repositioning advantage Jakeem has ends up mattering very little since it is not typically practical to escape Uni with the minor benefit Sidestep provides, and there are few occasions where Jakeem can leverage that extra two squares to sneak in a major hit on Uni. Finally, even when Jakeemmanages the hit, it can often just mean that a crew of Eternals are being placed optimally to respond by taking Jakeem out himself.
In this way, Jakeem is good, but Uni is just actually better. The ability to just take lots of low-risk medium-reward attacks ends up giving Uni an edge in the long grindy games Jakeem wishes to force.
Against MissDeath:
I actually don’t have much to say about this matchup. I won against Kennie despite some fairly egregious misplays on my part, but a lucky Senses roll helped rather tremendously in that regard. I think if I were to run it back I would actually perform substantially better, as well. Uni has very powerful tools at his disposal in terms of reach, and it isn’t that hard to pick off a substantial part of Mistress’s support and other assets in the early game with Hawkeye, and then ride that to victory by playing keep-away with Uni’s high mobility and reach.
Versus other stuff:
Basically the only other teams I think reasonably stand a chance are teams that 1. Play inherently powerful effects. 2. Have some substantial amount of disruption for Uni’s plan. And 3. Don’t randomly lose or get put far behind due to a Hawkeye Call-In. The problem here, as it turns out, is that the best way to do this in modern appears to be using Uni for 1, Nighthawk Prime for 2, and avoid playing too much else that gives up points for 3. Without those three things, other teams just get rather out-valued by the high stats, versatility, and other benefits Uni provides.
Breaking Down The Mirror:
So, since other stuff looks to be disfavored, what is the best way to win
the mirror? Afterall, just because everyone is playing Uni-mind doesn’t mean everyone is playing justUni-mind. In this regard we can see what separated the top 5 players from the 8thplace player and consider the impact Nighthawk has on the matchup. If only one Uni has Nighthawk, then they create a huge asymmetry as the Nighthawk player can use their Perplexes to full effect and the opponent cannot. Further, Nighthawk gives inherent Green Arrow protection since the prime prevents Arrow from getting his damage up to lethal range, even when Uni doesn’t pick an off-dial reducer.
This allows the Nighthawk Uni to play like the opponent is a Jakeem-type build, take out whatever loose pieces are lying around, and then play hit-and-run with the rest. This simultaneously leverages the safety Nighthawk provides alongside the benefit having modifiers when your opponent does not. Additionally, the non-Hawk Uni player is going to need to dedicate their defensive power to a reducer, or else risk getting one-shotted by an opposing Arrow. The Uni-Hawk player doesn’t need to do the same, since Hawk can be his protection, allowing Uni-Hawk to pick rollouts instead of reducers, giving them an additional percentage-advantage in the long-run in terms of damage output (since the rollouts will mean some number of opposing attacks will miss even if the attack roll succeeds).
While I did not see Lane’s game against Kyle, I suspect these kinds of considerations are why Lane won that game, and by enough of a margin to put Kyle in the 8th slot rather than higher ranked. So when looking at the Uni mirror, it seems rather straightforward that Nighthawk variants have the edge against non-Nighthawk variants, but what about the remaining 70 or so points?
ID cards are a rather obvious pick, since they have proven to be both versatile and powerful. At the top tables we see some recurring favorites and for relatively straightforward reasons. Level 7 for Hawkeye is not exactly a complicated pick. Hawkeye can be brought in with Nighthawk prime, and can mow down swaths of low-health figures or just put some chip damage on bigger threats as well. In non-mirror matches Hawkeye can consistently be dealing 4 damage to the opponent’s entire build, and even in the mirror he is exceedingly useful at wiping out the opponent’s retaliator suite.
Nightwing is also obvious as potentially the single most inherently powerful call-in of all time. Charge and Flurry by itself is a solid reason to play him, but leaving behind a bystander that both Supports and Perplexes (and even occasionally attacks) puts him way over the top.
Green Arrow is a new addition, but nobody took very long to see him as extremely powerful. His use against STOP clicks is probably the best in Modern, and his high attack value with IT: nearly everything makes it difficult and often impossible to stop him from getting the shot off.
With Uni and Nighthawk adding in these three IDs brings us up to 245, leaving just 55 points of other stuff to consider. At this point in the build I actually don’t think there are too many wrongdecisions, merely preferences, and decisions relating to what other builds you expect.
Supreme Intelligence versus Teleporter.
One of the biggest decisions for the build is which of the two resources you want to pursue. I definitely think playingnoresource is wrong, but there are advantages to both sides of this coin. Supreme Intelligence nets an extra free power or two for Uni 
to use (typically you just stay on Sidestep, but occasionally it may be right to click and try for Prob Control or Super Senses), and does soconsistently. The teleporter on the other hand gets you access to more inspirations, and also gives you extra value to using ID cards, and also some minor value when your pieces are attacked. Getting to power 2 on the resource is not the easiest thing, but also not thatdifficult to do, and having an extra “pick a power” for your whole team at that point can be a godsend. Additionally even on power 1, there are many situations where random Invincible on Nighthawk can be absolutely huge. The Teleporter also lets you play more ID cards with fewer characters, which can help tremendously in expanding your options without adding vulnerability to the build. If I were to play the event again I would still choose to play the teleporter over Supreme, but I certainly couldn’t say anyone doing the opposite was making a bad call.
Retaliators.
This is a place where I actually think many of the other Uni players made a mistake (though obviously not one that cost them very much). One of the biggest vulnerabilities of Uni builds is the ability to lose random games on low-points to opposing Hawkeyes taking out stuff, and then not being able to convert afterwards. Carnage in particular is very soft to Hawkeye due to his low defense, and even with the Boxing Ring it does not solve the risk that an opposing team will get ahead and press their advantage.
I was able to do this against Tiago in top 16, and even with a miss from Hawkeye on the second Carnage, the free retaliator-kill early helped tremendously in reducing his team’s effectiveness and letting me put myself in a winning position. This kind of setup was one of the few ways I found Jakeem winning somewhat regularly against various Uni builds in testing, set up KOs on the retaliators, and then go full-turtle and deny points.
Still, the retaliators are immensely powerful, and add a lot of value to the build. Additionally, for Supreme Intelligence variants they are likely the best things to play to up your ID count and get some more versatility that way. They represent a rather high-risk high-reward decision, since when they help you they are great, and they nearly always get you at least one taxi each game. But they are also often just free points the opponent can pick off, which can be a problem.
Other support.
The other pieces seen were various pieces of equipment, and various utility effects. Again, I don’t think there is a definitively correct call here, just tradeoffs. Mercury, as played by Issac [sic], is a solid choice. With 4 clicks he is not going to just randomly die to Hawkeyes on the other side, and having the ability to TK Uni around is very strong with the new ID card timing changes.
Support Group!
Hulkbuster Torso, as played by Easton, is a very strong defensive effect to give to Nighthawk prime. It can protect him from getting one-shotted by basically everything that isn’t Hulk. It can even be useful to give to Uni-mind on occasion, letting you have an off-dial reducer while still taking a rollout or Prob Control during opposing turns.
Symbiote, as used by Tiago, Dan, and Lane, is obviously good. Allowing Uni to automatically break away and giving him a free rollout has basically no downsides. The extra Plasticity is great as well.
Haha Joker, as used by Kyle, while I don’t think dropping Nighthawk was a great idea, using Haha is a solid consideration. He is hard to get points off of even when he gets up in the opponent’s face, has starting Outwit to help remove problematic effects like Nighthawk’s Shape Change, and has a solid attack value which lets him throw Light Objects to pick off retaliators or try and force some chip-damage through.
Overdrive, while not played at any of the top tables, I don’t see any reason it isn’t worth considering. Still somewhat soft to Hawkeye, much like retaliators, but the ability to move 13 squares while carrying both Nighthawk and Uni-mind is rather powerful.
Green Lantern, played by me. This is an option that took me a long time to realize actually existed and for me at least was much less obvious than the others. Green Lantern doesn’t die to Hawkeye, can carry around Nighthawk Prime, and gets you a consistent Barrier effect. In the mirror the ability to give minuses to the opponent is actually very strong, since your access to plusses is reduced from opposing Nighthawk Primes. My thought process was that even if I can’t increase my values, so long as I can decrease my opponent’s then that is good enough, and Green Lantern does that quite well.
Additionally, the rules changes on Flurry and Improved Targeting make Barrier the strongest it has been in recent memory. The ability to close off part of a map indoors is huge, and Lantern played a huge role in my win against Tiago. Uni lacks Sidestep and often lacks Phasing, together this means that if you win the 50-50 map roll and can take the opposing Uni indoors, it becomes possible to lock them in place using Green Lantern + Uni-mind (since Uni can take Barrier off of Sersi). Anyone who played during Faust’s reign knows how big a deal it is to get free turns, and Green Lantern can do effectively that in the mirror at least some of the time thanks to the indoor-blocking rules and the particular powers Uni has available.
In addition to this offensive use, Barrier is great defensively. If you can manage to get ahead early, it is entirely possible to hole up behind alternating Barrier with GL and Uni-mind and either force a loss if the opposing Uni can’t crack it, or force them to approach you and get close enough that you can punish them. Very few Unis played Cosmic Spidey, so it is unlikely they are going to have a ranged option to bust through the wall. And Hulk requires them to get very close before they can bring him to bear on you. Even the versions with Supreme Intelligence will need to end a turn within 8 squares of the character they want to hit with Hulk, which is certainly close enough for you to get an attack on them at a minimum. The wall marker can also be used to block an angle Hulk can attack from potentially, since he would have to move through the edge of the square the wall is on, rather than into the square adjacent to the target (or try for a diagonal, which is admittedly often available).
Sub-conclusion:
There really isn’t that much room to innovate left, it seems pretty clear that Nighthawk variants are better than the others, and the universe of relevant support effects for the last 55 or so points is rather small. Most things are either too expensive to play in addition (Goblin King), or just aren’t anywhere near as good as the well-known options given what they do. Because of this, I suspect we will have a rather stale meta going into the November WKOs, with Uni-minds piloted by good players being the top performers. And really, I don’t think there’s anythingwrong with that. Uni just released, and we have the Harley set coming out fairly soon which could very well shake things up yet again. And even if Uni is good right now, rotation is neverthat far away. We can be expecting that nearly all the tools Uni is currently using will rotate next May (or whenever it is WK plans on doing rotation), and that will definitely shake things up.
However, assuming you absolutely hate the idea of playing good things, there are some ways to try and combat the menace that I think might work.
Barrier-Abuse:
The limited formats had what I found was a very unsurprising spread of teams at the top tables. Basically you had Uni-mind builds, and Barrier abuse builds (primarily leveraging SR Lantern). Some of Uni-mind’s only weaknesses are his lack of IM: Blocking, and his lack of initiative bonus.This means that a team that can ensure map roll, and has sufficiently good Barrier options can actually grind out Uni-mind by locking him down with terrain markers. While it isn’t obvious to me what the best possible method of doing this is, I see no reason that it isn’t possible to get the edge against many or all of the Uni variants by abusing 35 Lantern in multiples and a handful of other solid pieces to go along with him.
Something like 90 Al jor, 90 Al jor, 35 Lantern, 35 Lantern, 35 Lantern, 15 3x ID card could actually take games off Uni consistently. With a +5 to map you should be able to choose something indoor consistently at which point you can keep 2 rows of Barrier up as you approach with Sidestep (taking giant size will let you carry Lanterns), once you’re close enough you can surround key figures and lock them in place using Wall markers and Barrier squares, with 5 characters able to pick barrier at any given time it shouldn’t be hard to find two of them to keep it up while one of the remaining pieces puts in an attack. Altogether this combination of effects could be enough to force through wins and grind out opposing Unis. The main downside to a team like this is that non-Uni teams can potentially get the edge on you, various people playing an animal theme or Sinister Syndicate, or whatever other actually fun stuff they are looking at all poses a serious risk of getting knocked out since your plan really doesn’t work well outdoors. Additionally, there is still some chance of losing map to Uni even with the modifier, at which point you are going to have a hard time beating them without the ability to lock Uni in place.
Still, if you actually think you will play against nothing but Uni every round, your odds of winning should be very high with something like this since you can take advantage of his few vulnerabilities and attack from a direction he can do very little against.
Puerto Rico Heroclix League 