Look, Cyclops is awesome for what he is. He steps up to deal with the details so his teammates can just take huge swings, and this hero deck is attuned directly to that frequency.

His stats are solid. 2, 1, 2 with 3 REC and a standard hand size.

His alter-ego ability nets him a tactic card, which is the bread and butter of his strategy. Cyclops slaps debuffs on minions like Nintendo issues Cease and Desist orders. No one is safe.

But that effusiveness has limited use against villains that aren't rampant with minion flu.

The first problem is that the debuffs aren't permanent unless Field Commander is in play. Sure, a debuff lasting a single round can cripple most minions...so long as you or your teammates also have the means to exploit the debuff the same turn. But there's only a single copy of Field Commander, so these Tactic cards aren't reaching full potential until that is in play.

The second problem is that Cyclops' second best upgrade is his Ruby Quartz Visor, which generates a resource to pay for his optic blast and gives it Piercing and Ranged. But unlike so many other heroes in Marvel Champions, this iconic and essential upgrade is not tracked down during setup or as part of an alter-ego action. So you have to wander though your deck hoping to encounter the only piece of kit that Cyclops is known for. Are we also going to have to play through our decks for Wolverine's claws when that hero is released? Seriously, Cyclops can't control his optic blasts without the ruby visor. Why is it not part of the setup?

But you know what? It's not a big deal, because you can't even use his optic blast unless the target has an upgrade on it.

Okay, I know what you're going to say: Villains can have upgrades, and Cyclops has a bunch of debuff/upgrades he can slap on enemies, all of which let him take 3 point stabs each turn. And you're right. Except that Cyclops' debuffs only last one round when applied to the villain, even when his Field Commander upgrade is active, which means Cyclops needs every hero in play to capitalize on his upgrade once he plays it. That requires a lot of moving pieces, and becomes much less viable in the mid-to-late game.

All of which is to say that Cyclops is excellent at handling minions. So long as you can put a debuff on them. And have spare resources. Or have come across his visor. And hopefully found his Field Commander upgrade. FInally, once all of those pieces are in play, then maybe you can settle in to the business of decimating the underlings you may or may not encounter.

If it wasn't clear already, I'm trying to point out that Cyclops is a very situational hero. When it's the right situation, he...eventually gets things done.

Still, you have the benefit of stacking his deck with any and all X-Men allies, which is pretty cool. And before the end of the year, there will very likely be enough X-men to make that an awesome ability. But as it stands now, all of Cyclops' effectiveness relies on specific enemy cards being in play. Rocket Beam only reaches its potential with a debuff (and is actually a 'Ricochet Beam', wtf?) and the same is true with Cyclops' innate Optic Blast.

I'm also disappointed that there is only one copy of Full Blast, as it seems like a signature ability. Looking at Cyclops' innate 15 cards, there is limited damage and threat mitigation. Furthermore, I really feel like his visor should give him a +1 ATK, particularly since he doesn't get to start the game with it. It's odd that Cyclops has no buffs to his own stats in his deck.

Speaking plainly, Cyclops feels a lot like Black Widow did two years ago. A very technical hero that leans hard into a specific keyword, and when crucial cards are in play, they shine.

But Widow at least dished out damage and used the keyword cards to manipulate encounter deck cards, which are always present. Cyclops relies on 'infecting' other cards that aren't guaranteed to be present in order to reach his potential.

I guess I am worried that Cyclops is poised to succumb to the same fate as Widow: Keyword Starvation. Widow needed Preparation cards, and Cyclops needs Tactic Cards.

In my opinion, FFG should have just made Cyclops use Preparation cards. There would have been an existing pool, which means he would have revitalized a stagnant hero while also benefitting from those older cards. Instead, we will probably get to watch Tactic cards die on the vine like Prep cards did.

It all hurts because there was an obvious opportunity to give new life to long-dormant cards, as well as supercharge a new hero who frankly needed it. This Cyclops feels like he was created by people who only ever saw the crappy 90's cartoon of the X-men where they were all unaccountably 'shiny' and overwrought with angst.

Oh well, I always preferred Iceman anyway. He had better be one of the final X-men revealed for this cycle.

He REALLY wants you to focus on his enemy upgrades, which consequently drains your hand when you do (-1 for 0 cost, -2 for 1 cost), and EVEN MORE to Optic Blast. Which leaves you 2-3 cards to other stuff like play events or actually field precious allies. Of course, FIELD COMMANDER and RUBY QUARTZ VISOR are built to counter this, but (1) you may or may not draw them, (2) they take up precious rounds to build out if found mid-game and in solo, and (3) Field Commander doesn't stick with Villains.

In short... multiple resource generator options seem to be necessary when building him.

I like the ideas here. Making him a master tactician for the X-Men makes a lot of sense. Unfortunately, between wanting to run tactic cards, but also having access to all X-Men allies pulls him in too many directions. A lot of the good tactic cards like Ready for Action are about sparing a few good allies instead of running like 13 because you have access to so much. And while a true leader, I never saw Cyclops as "everybody's friend". If they ever make a Prof. X, that's where this ability would belong. What I think would have made more sense is either allow him to play Training cards from any aspect (but the Danger Room card kind of wants multiplayer decks to actually work together to use those) OR I would have loved to allow Cyclops to be able to play Team-up cards for others. So if the table has like a Wolverine (hero or ally) and a Colossus (hero or ally), a Cyclops player can play Fastball Special, as if the brilliant tactician recognizes the combos of his teammates and calls for the maneuver. Since already we see 5 different team-up cards for the X-Men alone and they are always basic heroes and even most of their ally versions are basic too, this would have been awesome. But instead we kind of just got a watered down version of Adam Warlock's ability. It'll become more valuable as more X-Men allies get printed, but at the end of the day, if I wanted a bunch of allies, which are unique cards anyways, from various aspects, I'd just play Warlock.

In my opinion, the key to playing Cyclops is realizing that he is starved for resources. Having no resource generators among his identity-specific cards, The X-Jet is almost mandatory (well, it is for most X-Men decks), but I'd also consider cards like X-Gene (even if Cyclops only has 6 identity-specific events), Clarity of Purpose if you're playing Leadership, and the recent Organizational Support. Once you've taken care of resource generation, you can focus on building the rest of the deck.

I don't consider Cyclops' ability to include X-men allies from any aspect to be particularly interesting, beneficial, or worth building around. Typically, you'll want to focus on your aspect's allies anyway to get the most out of your aspect's specific resource generators (The Power of...). Yes, a handful of X-men allies are so powerful that you'll want to include them even if from a different aspect (Polaris, Wolverine, Psylocke, Beast), but nothing unmissable.

Unfortunately, I think Cyclops remains a relatively mediocre hero, and I also think he's much better suited for Aggression decks than Leadership (as one might - and should - expect). Cards like Take That! are what really make Cyclops shine, and having a large number of allies is only beneficial with one of his signature offensive upgrades, Exploit Weakness and/or when using his Constant Training ability in combination with cards like "To me, my X-men!" to fish for allies. Clunky - and expensive - mechanics, although sometimes rewarding with the right draw.

Personally, I house-rule Cyclops in a way that makes his Ruby Quartz Visor much more relevant, a true signature item like Wolverine's Adamantium Claws or Captain America's Shield. As Scott Summers, instead of searching for a Tactic upgrade, his Constant Training reads as follows: "Action: Search your deck and discard pile for the Ruby Quartz Visor upgrade and add it to your hand. Shuffle your deck. (Limit once per round)."