I like it. Sort of. It’s different, I kinda like the kit.
But I almost feel like you could have released a 4* Valeria Richards with this kit (based on her in the current F4 run), themed all the powers names/text based on her intelligence, and then just left Reed alone. But I understand he had some busted interactions with Bishop, so I’ll accept it was necessary and that the other changes were meant to even out the parts that were forced to change.
We’ll start from the bottom up. I like Imaginaut. Feels like a good representation of Mr. Fantastic building some new gadget to solve whatever problem is at hand. Shame the effect is random, though (Reed would clearly choose the right gadget for the right situation, but I guess getting to pick an effect is a little too powerful, as it would bring this power more in line with Goblin’s purple). Shame the bonus damage is gone, but not having to rely on other colors is nice, and not having to keep the tile alive is nice. Power is expensive, but it triggers every other turn, and it’s fortified. Solid black power to run with 4* Panther/Shuri. Locking tiles is solid for helping IW. Making special tiles in general kinda buffs/augments other F4 members (either adding variety, like Reed making Protects for Human Torch, or by reinforcing what they already do, like making those Protects for Thing).
Yellow… Used to trigger when the enemy matched your tiles, now that you can make more of your own tiles… it doesn’t anymore. It triggers when you match enemy tiles, which makes it more aggressive, and more targeted (you can actually choose to chase down enemy tiles to match, rather than waiting on the AI to match yours). Less healing, no bonus F4 AP (which never really worked anyway). But every 4th match you get a free friendly power? That could be rad, and sets him up to have some benefit against Medusa and Carnage and Rocket & Groot.
Blue. No swap. No protects. Keeps the stun. Gains damage, but it scales differently than others (high damage per 4 friendly tiles, where other characters always measure it per individual tile). Loses the utility, loses what made it work with Bishop, gains damage potential that can theoretically work with all other F4 members (and will work better with them than that green AP from his old yellow ever did). Imaginaut would need to fire twice (and make special tiles both times) to start doing damage at all, but with special tile users the damage could be pretty… Fantastic. Keeping the stun is nice.
Looks like the Reed vs Doom crash will be more interesting, looking forward to that.
I think I like it. It didn’t really need to change, but making his black not rely on matching non-Reed colors, and removing the useless green AP generation from his yellow, neither are bad changes. He’s more suited to both working in and against the special tile users we’ve got, and seems better suited to combo-ing with other F4 members.
Definitely need to playtest this some to get a feel for it. I think it’ll be good in the long run, but it’ll be a rough transition, because it’s more of a lateral move to keep him useful while nerfing the Bishop thing, instead of a straight buff (like many earlier reworks were), so it means we’re losing good stuff to get new good stuff, instead of losing garbage to get good stuff, you know?
