Marvel Reveals Official Betting Line for X of Swords Tournament

Marvel's X of Swords crossover event across the X-Men line of titles continues and with this week's batch of issues the titular tournament has FINALLY begun. As was previously established the X of Swords tournament sees ten X-Men acting as the champions of Krakoa while ten more swordsmen from Otherworld will fight against them as the champions of Arakko, naturally all of them have swords too. Marauders #15 served as the first chapter in this week's offering of comics and with it came the reveal of not only what the first match-up would be in the tournament but also what the official betting lines are for each of the champion's odds of survival.

None other than Mad Jim Jaspers is credited with constructing these betting lines, which gives the best odds of survival to Isca the Unbeaten (2-1), plus Apocalypse (5-1), his wife Annihilation (3-1), and The White Sword of the Celestial Spire (6-1). From there things go from the reasonable to the completely foolish in terms of betting. Arakko's Bei the Blood Moon has 10-1 odds while Pogg Ur-Pogg, Gorgon, and Wolverine all have 20-1. Both Brian and Betsy Braddock sit at 30-1 odds with Arakko's Solem and Summoner at 40 -1.

Two of the Four Horsemen and two of the X-Men have 50-1 odds including Death & War and Storm & Magik. On the far end sits Cable and Redroot the Forest, both with 100-1 odds, and finally the person that no one thinks is going to survive this whole affair apparently, Cypher. The betting line for your favorite New Mutant? 5000-1. For those not clear on how betting odds works, this means that if the events of X of Swords happened 5001 times, Cypher would live just once.

The bad news as we know is that anyone who dies in the tournament in Otherworld cannot be resurrected back on Krakoa, at least not as themselves as we know them. As revealed in X of Swords: Creation #1, Rockslide was killed while in Otherworld with the group of mutants that went to investigate. After he was resurrected though, he began to change and turned into a different version of himself.

This is because Otherworld isn't so much a place itself, but is described as "a convergence of possibilities," as a result anyone that dies on the other side and has their resurrection attempted will be rewritten into a new amalgamation of who they are, drawn from the infinite possibilities of who they could have become in any given universe. So whoever dies on the other side will be changed forever, assuming they're resurrected at all.

The crossover continues on from now through the end of the month with just six issues remaining after this week's offering of titles. November 18th sees the release of X-Force #14, Hellions #6, and Cable #6 and it all wraps up on November 25 with X-Men #15, Excalibur #15, and the final chapter, X of Swords: Destruction #1. You can find the full checklist for the 22 part event below.