The Game Time + Training package is extremely popular for X-Men decks, and for good reason. Every single Training card is already playable on it's own, so Game Time at a minimum turns 1 resource into 2 ATK or THW, and usually 3 ATK or THW. A fantastic rate, and at a cost of 1 card can almost always be packed into a fully efficient turn. You might have to wait a turn or two before you can keep an ally in play and attach a training to it, especially since each aspect only has access to one, but once you do it's off the races. Very powerful and worth building around as the core strategy of your entire deck.

X-23 is the card that caught my eye the most in Age of Apocalypse. Having 3 ATK for 1 consequential damage puts her well above rate for a 3-cost ally and plays extremely well with healing effects like First Aid and Reinforced Suit, turning every point of healing into 3 extra damage. X-23's readying ability is also excellent for an ally healing strategy, which tends to be highly efficient on a resource per damage basis but can otherwise be very slow to use up that ally's hp. Even if X-23 just attacks twice and blocks, you still get a great deal, and unlike many of the best allies in the game, that value is pretty agnostic to different scenarios that can vary in minion count, have a steady/stalwart villain, or require your deck to build around it somewhat. With a high floor and high ceiling, I expect X-23 to be a new staple ally for leadership!

Self-regen and insane versatility. 3 cost for a maximum of 9 damage or 9 threat removal over 3 turns without using self-regen. I'm surprised this card isn't over-costed garbage like most cards seem to want to be. Auto-include in any Magik deck I run.

Great voltron. Any deck that specializes in any resource could consider using Legion. Also another option that works for Domino and discard decks but doesn't work with wilds unfortunately. Work with multi-resource cards for characters like Rocket Racoon, Bishop, and the the upcoming Jubilee.

Similar to Adam Warlock who has to discard a card from hand instead of from the top of your deck.

So every X-Men hero now has a repeatable way to deal with the encounter deck regardless of his or her aspect? I’m not saying this is a mandatory play for any fully-charged X-deck. I AM saying if you own this card and it’s NOT in your X-deck, you need to have a very, very good reason to exclude it.

Phoenix players in particular should be excited to get a PSIONIC support that can counteract Shadows of the Past. Did I mention it’s PSIONIC so Power of the Mind can help fund it and it triggers Psimitar? Holy moly, Jean, getcha some.

This card and its sister card Side-by-Side are proof of a just and loving R&D team at FFG. Sidekick immediately takes several decks that are either dependent on or significantly improved by their signature allies up a full tier level or more.

Top allies to consider this for:

Captain Marvel: Spider-Woman wants to play multiple aspect cards in hand and Cap gets them to her hand. Probably the best part of playing the Sidekick package with Ms. Drew is that because of her two-aspect deckbuilding, doing so doesn’t even limit your remaining card pool thar much.

Wong: After all, didn’t Doctor Strange need yet another busted thing to do? Wong was already a major enough part of Doc’s strategy to send many players into blue to support him. Now he gets added survivability AND readies with Side-by-Side? Just disgusting.

Honey Badger: Sidekick is practically a love letter to X-23, a hero whose entire kit revolves around her little clone sister. Leadership isn’t currently a favored aspect for X-23, but between Sidekick shenanigans and Clarity of Purpose, more X-23 players should consider it.

Brawn: Young Mr. Cho takes care of a lot of early problems during Ironheart’s setup period with a hefty 2 THW/3 ATK stat line PLUS his ability to generate a Genius resource. Since Ironheart already frequently pairs with Leadership to get access to Beast, adding some support for the big green guy is neither difficult nor onerous.