"That's why I am a leader. The blind leading the blind, maybe... but a leader nonetheless. A leader because I'm prepared to take the fall, and because I'm prepared to make the hard decisions. Such as the one you made, Mom, that day you pushed Alex and I out into the sky with a single parachute between us. Because a leader knows, it's not so hard to die for your people. It's hard to order your people to die for you. And leading with certainty into an uncertain future doesn't require sight. It requires vision. It requires holding on. And no matter what happens, never letting go." - Scott Summers (X-Men: Prelude to Schism Vol 1 #3)

Cyclops is one of the Original X-Men appearing first in X-Men #1, is also one of the primary team leaders of the X-Men that now has finally come to VS2PCG. How well does his character represent him in VS2PCG? Let's find out!

Leveling

Level up (5) Homo Superior: When an X-Men supporting character appears on your side, Cyclops gains an XP.

His leveling ability almost dictates that when playing him you need to play a heavy X-Men deck. This makes him fairly one dimensional as a character team build wise, though I'm sure higher cost characters from other teams or on certain drops could be splashed in.

Super Powers

Cyclops has Range and Leader.

Having Leader is huge, esecially in a deck that based on his level up power needs to be pretty X-Men team based. I think it is very flavorful and very powerful. I think people underestimate the power of Leader overall, but having it on a Main Character will be stronger as I beleive as it will always be present.

Level 1 Power: Battle Tactics - Main : Move a character on your side to your front or back row.

This is the same ability that the Cyclops SC from The Marvel Battles had. Cyclops SC was often overlooked because it didn't directly create an advantage of board state and with the X-Men decks out there, often positioning didn't matter as much. I think positioning has been starting to matter a little more recently and it could be a strong tactic that a Cyclops deck could work around if we get something that needs to be mobile.

Level 2 Power: Optic Blast - Main : Stun an unprotected supporting character other than Cyclops or Havok.

Super Powers requiring multiple resources are hard to pull off consistently. I think stunning an unsupporting character for 2 resources is a little underwhelming. Wounding a charcter like Bullseye would often be better, because then you can at least attack and possiblye get 2 wounds on a supporting character in one turn. For two of the same resource which is harder to pull off than two of another resource, I would expect it to KO a supporting character or stun 2 unprotected supporting character. I find the ability a little lackluster sadly.

What I mean by two of the same resource is that they are the same type. You can have 4 's and 4 Wilds making 8 sources for a possible count of 4 total times in your deck, not counting in Build a Better World or Iron Man effects. If they were two different resource types it would be 4 's, 4 Wilds, and 4 of another resource type giving you 6 total times in your deck not including Build a Better World or Iron Man effects. This makes it much harder to pull off overall. If you look at Infinity Gauntlet, with 4 of each type and a vault, technically you can Infinity Gauntlet 5 times in a game without any other effects. The ability requires more pieces to connect, but through the course of the deck it could possibly happen more than Optic Blast without other factors considered in.

Cyclops can also bounce his Optic blast and it is very strong, so stunning a character is fairly weak considering those factors. He does have great stats overall and leader so those are things to keep in mind. A 5/8 range with leader is fantastic. I think they hit Cyclops flavor wise pretty well, though

Deck Construction

You need to recruit X-Men to level, so put X-Men in your deck. I think Ghost Rider is one of the best finishers and you should be leveled up by then so I'd likely add him too.

Magik is very interesting because you can turn 2 play Magik and Iceman, team attack for 7, and redirect the strike to Cyclops, return Iceman and Magik to hand for another 2 XP next turn. You will have to decide if it is worth running that, while you get XP, you will lose board presence, though often those characters would likely be quickly dispatched anyways.

Cyclops will be an interesting deck and a card or two could make him pretty playable. What limits Cyclops as a character is the fact that he is very dependent on X-Men and as more sets come out, he could get overshadowed if X-Men fall behind the power creep.