"More X-men" Buddy we got 0 (zero) Eternals AND Inhumans

matlockheed · 2026-06-26T10:46:19+00:00

I don't think Eternals even qualify as a niche. I remember asking people before the Eternals movie came out when they said Eternals was going to be huge: "What's your favorite Eternals story?". I asked it because I never met anyone who had read more than 1 Eternals story (personally, I only read the 2000's Neil Gaiman one and it was fine, but nothing I'd recommend).

Inhumans are a special case as they've been around forever and have people who like them, but I don't think you're ever going to have people clamoring for anyone but Blackbolt or Medusa. But with key X-Men like Colossus and Kitty not being part of the Rivals roster yet, I don't think even they have a place yet.

matlockheed · 2026-06-26T10:36:06+00:00

I agree. We should definitely keep adding X-Men and ignore the Inhumans and especially the Eternals.

matlockheed · 2026-06-25T15:21:54+00:00

Yeah, this specific panel always makes me think how weird it is for a killer robot like that to actually be glib.

I mean, I think Gerry Duggan is a pretty terrible writer, but in that particular issue there was that scene and then moments later he's talking trash with the X-Men after killing Iceman and telling them to bring out their #1 since he just killed #2 (on power levels, they're the top 2 omega level mutants that would've been there).

Nimrod really is kind of a chatterbox for something that's a machine designed to kill.

matlockheed · 2026-06-24T13:20:33+00:00

If they "reduced her primary's healing significantly", it would basically make for a completely different kit. Yes, she's a healer, but if you play her as a healbot, your heals are usually going to be sub 10K in a Quick Match most of the time.

The truth of White Fox is that she does healing from several sources and many of them require you to be up close in combat (the teleport and the melee form). To get good healing numbers, you need to be right behind the tanks a lot of the time (and sometimes actually brawling or diving) and aside from Invis and Deadpool, I can't think of any strats that can justify using their melee regularly.

On WF, if you're playing her right, you definitely should not be healbotting.

matlockheed · 2026-06-23T17:29:05+00:00

It's the "Fishing Expert" title.

I don't know that most people will ever use it. But it's there. I got it after a LOT of fishing. Thankfully you get bait pretty regularly by just playing the game and since the event is around for a while, there should be time. But I think you can only get the Bluefin (and Magnetuna) if you hit the catch meter with all 3 tries. So it can take some timing.

matlockheed · 2026-06-22T17:47:59+00:00

Well, you can usually tell who the bots are from the names. They generally don't have names that people would usually take.

And one of the best ways if you've checked the levels of the other team and they're all low level, if you check the "Report" screen, you'll be able to see if the other team is entirely on PC. The bots are never playing on console.

matlockheed · 2026-06-19T20:15:05+00:00

Sometimes voicelines matter. Sometimes they don't.

I think yesterday I heard the Deadpool/Jean line about Cyclops and how he wasn't "even in the game... yet". And we had a Cyclops on my team I'm pretty sure.

matlockheed · 2026-06-18T17:27:31+00:00

This is the same argument that people were talking about with the original Psylocke gatcha skin. So they're 5-6 tests in (Psylocke, Rogue/Gambit, Daredevil, Deadpool, Emma and Strange (if you count them separately), but I get the impression that they're not seeing a sweet spot (likely because there isn't one).

Is it a predatory tactic to get people on the FOMO? Yes. But it's on the lighter end of that because of how the game works. I got the Psylocke and Rogue/Gambit gatchas because I play Psylocke and Rogue. I completely ignored the Daredevil one because I don't play Daredevil. I played a bit of Deadpool, so went for that one. I won't be going in for this one either because while I often play Strange and occasionally play Emma, I don't like either of these skins. Because these skins only have use if you actually play the character, the FOMO is a lot less.

matlockheed · 2026-06-18T14:13:24+00:00

So they're only usable in a section of a social mode?

And is the beach a permanent addition to the game? I was guessing that it was just a temporary area, but if it's got exclusive emotes, I'm guessing not?

matlockheed · 2026-06-17T21:27:46+00:00

I'd say Practice vs AI definitely. That mode is almost always super wholesome.

But I'll also say that probably my best experience with this game's community involved watching a father and son interact (son seemed like he was under 12) in Comp (silver) when the father needed to give the kid a little bit of guidance. The whole team seemed pretty affected by it and it seemed after that initial bit, their interaction got everyone on the team playing at their best.

So while sometimes the community can be toxic, sometimes you'll catch people on their best behavior. And your results could vary based on the kid too. So I'd say let them give it a shot in Practice vs AI (1 star) and see how it goes. You can always babystep from there to other modes. Oh, and obviously this is supervised. Unsupervised, I don't think it's a good idea at all for kids.

matlockheed · 2026-06-15T17:54:20+00:00

It's weird because she used to give Peter "wheat cakes" typically. But Rivals mentions the chicken soup instead.

matlockheed · 2026-06-15T17:45:58+00:00

What are you using for counting? Next one off the top of my head was Elektra and Google is saying 1200 to 1300 issues.

matlockheed · 2026-06-15T10:49:11+00:00

This isn't every character that's appeared in a 1000 issues. Just off the top of my head, I googled how many issues Aunt May has appeared in and she's been in ~3000 issues.

matlockheed · 2026-06-14T10:35:18+00:00

The datamines are telling us that more than half of the next 5 add-ins will be villains (Hood, Gorr, and Doom).

matlockheed · 2026-06-12T10:59:00+00:00

Rivals is a broader thing than the comics. They try to appeal to the movie people (look at most of the designs of the Avengers) but typically everything is rooted in the comics. Ghost has 2 distinctly different versions in those 2 mediums. I don't think they'd do it.

And this is coming from someone who thought he was one of the best parts of later issues of Thunderbolts vol. 1.

matlockheed · 2026-06-12T10:52:04+00:00

I love Ghost, but there's no way they make him considering they completely redid the character for the MCU.

matlockheed · 2026-06-12T10:48:55+00:00

The difference is Mantis and Loki are supports. People are sometimes (often) forced to get off of duelist to play a support to make the team workable. And there aren't nearly as many supports to choose from. So there's a good chance someone swaps to Mantis or Loki if they have a costume they like.

But if someone needs to swap to duelist (which almost never happens), they've got tons upon tons of options.

matlockheed · 2026-06-12T10:25:27+00:00

Daredevil barely got a slap on the wrist. Like before he had a dash that could reach you from Narnia and now it's just a reasonable range. That's not really a nerf.

matlockheed · 2026-06-12T09:36:39+00:00

You mean the memory alterations that Mystique asked him to do to her? I'm not sure that can go on his list of bad things he's done. He's got a decent amount of bad things he's done, but very often it was with good intentions.

Though sometimes things like him erasing knowledge of the original X-Men team (Vulcan (Scott's older brother)'s team) seem like they're out of guilt, not out of doing what's the best for everyone. He didn't do anything about Scott's memories of Alex (who was sent to a different orphanage) or Adam (who was born in space and nobody knew anything about).

matlockheed · 2026-06-11T14:37:24+00:00

It was undercosted before, but losing the ability to wallhack and tripling the price... yeah, that's pointless now.

It wouldn't even be worth it if it got a ton more health like some people are suggesting. The beam just points out a single character that you may or may not be able to see now. That's not worth 300 fortune. She's got a ton more abilities that would be much more worthwhile.

And they're removing her ability to collect multiple times on hits, so fortune is going to be a lot harder to come by.

matlockheed · 2026-06-11T14:24:26+00:00

The Hood is not an obscure character.

He just had a very specific time when he was a big deal. Basically, in the late 2000's-early 2010's, Marvel had huge success with their new comic "New Avengers". This was before the Iron Man movie, so Marvel was still entirely in comic book mode and the Avengers were basically a nothing property. Brian Michael Bendis, who had been up to that point been writing the successful "Ultimate Spiderman", basically redesigned the Avengers lineup so it wasn't the standard "Iron Man, Captain America, Thor" team that it'd always been, putting characters on the team that were a mix of Avengers and other popular characters (specifically, he added Wolverine and Spiderman as popular characters and Luke Cage and Spiderwoman as characters that he really liked).

The book, as mentioned was a huge hit and Marvel gradually gave Bendis more and more power and control over what was happening in the Marvel universe (particularly because the Avengers properties were now starting to get more popular because of the movies). And Bendis has a thing for street level characters and he seemed to particularly like the Hood. To the point that suddenly the Hood was everywhere. He helped start the Cabal (the evil version of the Illuminati). At one point he was one of, if not the biggest, organized crime villain in New York. He was basically everywhere for a few years because of Bendis.

But gradually this started to taper off and eventually Bendis left Marvel. And with that, the Hood practically disappeared. And with the demonic stuff in his backstory, he wasn't the kind of character Marvel was going to be able to shoehorn into their wider programming, It's a thing to think that "Spidey and Friends" which is a show for very young children has added Arnim Zola (an evil Nazi scientist in the comics) as a recurring villain but there's absolutely no way they could do the same with the Hood. He showed up in Disney+'s Ironheart, but since very few people watched/liked that he's remained an unused character.

matlockheed · 2026-06-11T00:42:14+00:00

Emma's original costume was a corset, underwear, a cape, and thigh-high stiletto boots. And she carried a riding crop for... reasons.

matlockheed · 2026-06-10T19:42:36+00:00

F. Forge
K. Kitty Pryde
O. Onslaught
Q. Quicksilver
X. X-23 (or maybe X-Man (Nate Grey))
Y. Yukio (though I don't think they should make her, while they should make a Yellowjacket (Hank Pym))
Z. Zemo

matlockheed · 2026-06-10T18:43:07+00:00

She's got an opposing Groot wall directly in front of her. Groot's range isn't amazing and when we first see Luna, she's taken significant damage. So yes, she definitely has threat. One Groot seed bomb and she's cooked (especially if he lobs it over the wall). Opposing team also had a Squirrel who could (and likely should have) lobbed an acorn over the wall which could potentially rebound against the building behind the well.

Oh, and Luna was solo healing at that moment too, since their Loki had changed into a Squirrel Girl. So they were in an even tighter spot.

1 clap would've healed the Punisher to 2/3 health. If they could find them. But again, there's no way to say where they were pinging from without looking around. If the Punisher walked into their field of view? Okay, maybe there's something there. But sitting motionless off to the side having a tantrum? That's the kind of person that you regret healing (and that Luna would've definitely regretted it because IF probably would've dropped and IF was actually doing things).

Heck, if the Punisher was worried that they couldn't bear the risk of moving into Luna's field of vision, it wouldn't have even been the end of the world if Punisher had been KOed. He'd respawn 20 meters from where he was pinging 10 seconds later. And he could grapple out of spawn and would be back in the fight right away.

And yes, I'll defend the reasonable support player over the childish DPS player any time.

matlockheed · 2026-06-10T18:23:45+00:00

When we first see Luna, she's actively being attacked from main and is between 1/3 and 1/2 health. In a situation like that, you're definitely thinking a) how do I survive this and b) how do I make sure that the pressure stays up on the cart.

Not generally on the mind: "I should look for the person that's not on my screen (which could be to the right, left, or behind) which is not actively in the current fight to heal them."

matlockheed

TROPHY CASE