There is an series of moves that is becoming popular involving Quicksilver. He’s a quick insight in to what it is and some ideas of what to do about it.

The opening

This set up is a play with priority on an F shaped extract like Cosmic Cubes or Spider Infected. It uses the well established Angela-type (L move, 50mm base) play to grab a centre extract and retreat, but then it threatens to have quicksilver go and grab one of your the extracts on your opponent’s side of the board and still retreat, setting up a possible 4-1 lead on extracts that can set up the game to be uphill for your opponent from that point.

You deploy your Angela-type right in the middle as usual, with quicksilver just to one side – it doesn’t matter which side.

Your Angela-type does Angela-type things: move, grab the extract and move back, normally on to a secure. You opponent then activates. Typically they will do something like grab one of their closer extract and move on to a secure. That leaves one extract on their side of the board. With your second activation, quicksilver can get it and retreat back:

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Using his super power, Speedster, he can move L so long as he doesn’t have an extract. He still has two moves left, so he moves on the extract, grabs it and then moves back to safety and/or on to a secure. You’ve grabbed the middle and one of your opponent’s extracts, and your pieces you’ve used to do it are relatively safe. You have two more extracts on your side of the table that need to be grabbed, but if you do, you get a 4-1 VP lead on extracts that sets up the game very well.

Power issues

The only issue is getting Quicksilver the power he needs to pay for both his 2-cost super power and having one to interact with the extract. This is out of a typical Advanced R&D range, as that only puts him on two power. There are some affiliations that can help with that, though, and by happy coincidence (or not?), they are the three affiliations he is affiliated with.

In Brotherhood under Magento’s leadership, Angela uses two power to throw a size 2+ piece of terrain, either where she deploys or after her first move. Ideally you throw it in to another piece of terrain the same size or smaller to destroy both and spread power around the whole team, but the important thing is to give Angela one back so she can interact still and to give another to Quicksilver so he gets up to two. In the worst case scenario there might be no terrain or only size 1 and 5 in the areas Angela is starting and moving to, you have Magneto’s construct. This is the choice of last resort typically, as it hinder Magneto’s power generation in round 2, when he typically wants to do a lot of blowing things up, and wants as much power as he can get. Now that you are on two power, an Advanced R&D gets Quicksilver the third power that he needs to pull of the super power and interact. This sort of boxes you in to using Angela rather than, say, Amazing Spider-Man, but it does work.

In Avengers, under Cap’s leadership, his superpower only costs one power, so a simple Advanced R&D get him where he needs to be.

In Inhumans, a character can give Quicksilver a power during the first activation using Black Bolt’s leadership and then one your second activation another character can get him to the three you need. This has the upside that it doesn’t require the use of a tactics card, but it can leave characters a bit low on power. If it’s one power character that donates to Quicksilver, they won’t be able to grab an extract themselves, so making sure you have enough characters to get the 4 extracts you are planning on can be tricky. Again, running Angela rather than others L-move 50mm based characters is good as she starts with two power, so can happily hand one off before running to do her thing. Lockjaw also helps here with his excess of power, but that will typically mean leaving Medusa on the side-lines, and she is a star of Inhumans lists.

So is it good?

That’s a really tough question. Clearly a 4-1 lead on extract is good, but the costs in terms of team construction and possible tactics cards or round one power economy isn’t trivial. Quicksilver himself is noticeably sadder when he’s carrying an extract as he can’t use his Speedster superpower. I think the Avengers version is probably the worst, and the Inhumans is the best. There are few things it really doesn’t want to see: ways of “reeling in” either Angela or Quicksilver like Deception; Siren’s Call on Enchantress; Impact Webbing in to Web Line on Ghost Spider and any kind of Thanos (especially Time Mind Thanos).

Be aware of it. Have a plan. Otherwise 4-1 is heavy extract deficit to recover from.