[EDITOR’S NOTE: Okay, lemme see if I can remember all this: Ahem! Once again (and this time, with feeling!), we are shamelessly unleashing the 12 Nights of Clix-Mas! Tonight is Night 5! If you missed The First Night of Clix-Mas, you can read what it’s all about right here! Night 2 was the nascent edition of a new holiday scenario we’ve been cooking up and can be found… here-ish! Night 3 took a brief look back at Horrorclix. Night 4 was the debut of a new feature called “Overlooked” which examined some pieces from World’s Finest that don’t see quite as much play as they seemingly should… . And Night 5 was Part 1 of a brief 3-part series that examines how Heroclix would look if there were a Core Set released every year or two… And Night 6 saw HypeFox Theory-craft his own Marvel Heroclix Core Set! Night 7 saw Ninwashui calling an audible and promising to throw his hat in the ring and finally write an article! Night 8 featured Ninwashui ACTUALLY writing an article, although, strangely, not the one he promised… Night 9 subverted our old “Simply the Best” gimmick!]

Why wait ’til sometime after Clix-Mas to finish this article when we can do it right now?!

Without further ado…

 

WORST SUB-THEME

The Nominees:

Court of Owls (Joker’s Wild)

“A Cadre of Characters of a Mystical Origin” (World’s Finest)

Morlocks (Uncanny X-Men)

AND THE CRIT MISS GOES TO…

The Court of Owls saga in the Batman books has drummed up a lot of interest in the Batman books since its inception a few years ago. Considering this, the Court gets surprisingly short shrift in Joker’s Wild.

For their first appearance in Heroclix, the Court gets… four figures (and only 3 different dials). To put that in perspective, Marvel’s jokey “Secret Empire” faction from Deadpool HAD THE SAME NUMBER OF DIALS!!

This seems like a wasted opportunity.

 

WORST FIGURE TO PULL IN SEALED (Rare, Super Rare, or Chase)

The Nominees:

WF043 Mercury — Rare — 25 Points

JW065 Bizarro Aquaman— Chase — 50 Points

UXM061 Colossus — Chase — 120 Points

AND THE CRIT MISS GOES TO…

At the end of the day, pulling a middling (for the points) close combat attacker WHO NEEDS ANOTHER CHASE TO USE HIS BEST ABILITY seems like it would be a tad bit disappointing, no?

Mercury is actually a solid piece for 25 Points, but he’s in a set where someone could potentially pull a World’s Finest Duo piece and play it at 300, if you pulled Mercury in your pack, good luck to you!

And we’ve already touched on why Bizarro Aquaman sucks so much.

 

WORST SET OF THE YEAR

The Nominees:

Joker’s Wild

Batman v Superman

Uncanny X-Men

AND THE CRIT MISS GOES TO…

Outside of the Target Exclusive Supes, which has recently seen Meta play with the Brainiac ship (altough that has come to an end via a recent Wizkids ruling that’s too odd to go into here), there was really nothing in the “must-have” department for this set. Which is unusual for a movie tie-in set.

Part of the problem is that it was designed with no original Chases, even though every Marvel Movie Set has had one. Big missed opportunity there.

Joker’s Wild is really top-heavy, but overall it’s a better set than BvS. Same thing with Uncanny X-Men.

 

Okay!! There you have it. Those were the initial Crit Misses for 2016! I look forward to putting this list together next year! Until then, Stay Safe, Watch Where You Draw Your Lines of Fire and meet me right here tomorrow night for more Clix-Mas goodness!