Face the Past

This feels like a worse version of Looking for Trouble, but I'm curious what interesting interactions other people will come up with. Drawing 3 cards and readying is nice, but might not be worth it depending on the hero. Nemesis minion can range from mildly annoying ones without a When Revealed ability Chimera to the really bad Enchantress. At first I thought Cable would not like using this card, but Stryfe is not so bad himself, it's his encounter cards, like Telekinetic Blast that can be brutal.

Which leads into the other curious point about this card: it only reveals the nemesis minion, not their side scheme, and you don't have to shuffle in their encounter cards.

EDIT The following interaction doesn't work, per the comments, but would've been cool if it did! I guess what you could do in a multiplayer game with Magneto is, if you're teammate's nemesis is non-Elite (it can't be Magneto himself since his nemesis is elite), have your teammate bring out their nemesis with Face the Past, use Wrapped in Metal to permanently disable them, and then any future Shadow of the Past you're teammate reveals will just surge instead of revealing the nemesis and the rest of their cards.

It would've been nice if this card gave an additional reward for defeating the nemesis within the same turn as revealing them.

erikw1984 · 8
Shadows of the Past would still reveal the nemesis side scheme and shuffle the rest of their set and ALSO Surge because it didn't put the Nemesis minion into play. — Death by Chocolate · 4
Darn, you’re right. I had misremembered the exact wording on that card. — erikw1984 · 8
It seems like this can still work OK in Standard III; I'd say you still have to flip the card if there aren't nemesis minions that can activate against you, but you still prevent something like M.O.R.B.I.U.S. coming out alongside Giant Monster Attack. — Tensuun · 27
Directed Force

There aren’t very many Aggression decks utilizing Cable that I’ve really gravitated to but I can see some real potential for this card. Focusing on the Lock’n’Load side-scheme, you can probably get Cable’s Plasma Gun out in 1 or 2 turns. While you are waiting to clear the other 3 side-schemes to max out Plasma Gun(for a total of 4 damage per activation), Directed Force will make sure that for the cost of 1 resource you’re always doing 3 damage for 1 energy activation of Plasma Gun. This will eventually max out at about 6 damage if you can clear all 4 side-schemes. For that reason I’d probably want side-schemes with low-threat so I can max out ASAP. Throwing in a few copies of Fusillade will keep your Plasma gun useful(5 damage for 2 resources) as you wait to max out your gun’s full potential. Slap on Jarnbjorn or Psimitar and you’ve got yourself a nice “double-barrel” shotgun build. Just something to think about!

lightninlad · 12
Field Agent

With the new expansion on the road (Agents of Shield) this card can upgrade a SHIELD ally archetype to whole new level. There are many cards (I hope) to came along in the this expansion, but voltron ally without taking consequential damage (for 3 turns) refresh many old cards for example Black Widow can thwart for 2 for the entire game.

For effectivness this card is above the average (2 ER per 3 activations).

Rank (A-C): B (November 2024) potenially A (in Febrauary 2025)

nosiak · 67
"Come Get Me, Bub!"

One obvious home for this card is Thor, who draws two cards after engaging a minion. Because this ability triggers once each phase, Thor benefits tremendously from having another card that can pull a minion in the player phase besides Defender of the Nine Realms. Aggression has long had an option with Looking for Trouble, but now Protection is a more viable choice for Thor too. The new Change of Fortune archetype can also benefit from "Come Get Me, Bub", ensuring a minion will be in play to defeat during the next villain phase.

Outside of a minion-focused strategy, some heroes may simply value the heal and tough status in hero form and are fine to handle a minion as an extra cost. Drax is an example of a hero who wants to stay in hero form as much as possible once his vengeance counters are built up. An extra way to heal him in hero form goes a long way to keeping his damage train rolling. Just remember that the effective cost of "Come Get Me, Bub" is the card from hand plus the resources needed to kill the minion, so it's not always an efficient play for the average deck.

I'm posting a bit before Magneto's release, but I'm sure he will enjoy this card to find targets for Wrapped in Metal, which in turn fuels the highly efficient Magnetic Missile. One last shout-out I have to give is for Psionic heroes who can use Psychic Misdirection to redirect a villain attack towards a minion, a powerful but usually hard to pull off effect. This deck by journeyman2 is the most-liked deck currently on marvelcdb using "Come Get Me, Bub": marvelcdb.com

Stretch22 · 746
None Shall Pass

Fun fact: if you play this as printed, you can add in any modular set with environment cards in it and it will break the scenario. So my suggestion is to use a house rule that this main scheme only discards environments from the Absorbing Man encounter set and only does so if the new environment is also from the Absorbing Man encounter set.

I have done that before, and it was very funny how ridiculously easy it was. — tunicv · 577