WARNING: The following contains major spoilers for Marauders #15 by Gerry Duggan, Benjamin Percy, Stefano Caselli, Edgar Delgado, VC's Cory Petit, and Tom Muller, on sale now.
While Marvel's X of Swords has unfolded in several unexpected ways, one of the crossover's first truly surprising moments still appears to have been its most decisive, and it came at the hands of Wolverine.
Before the competition started in earnest, Logan tried to kill Saturnyne, the omnipotent host behind the proceedings, in his mind, at least. As he thought, this could've prevented the tournament from ever taking place. But as Marauders #15 revealed, this plan didn't exactly go as Logan intended. And instead, Wolverine got a vision of the dark future that awaits the X-Men if they fail.
As buildings burn, smoldering down on top of their own wreckage, a crucified Wolverine comes into view. Saturnyne herself plunges Wolverine's own claws, housed on her fists, through the X-Men's chest, ensuring him that if he fails his people, this vision is all that he will ever have to look forward to.
Once they have snapped out of their shared psychic vision, Wolverine is enraged, while Saturnyne is characteristically casual as royalty can get. Storm tries to talk to Logan, but all he can tell her is to forget it. Walking back to the table, Logan is lightly chided by Cypher, right after he's been poisoned by the First Horseman, War.
Although the White Sword healed Cypher, this blatant did not go unnoticed by Saturnyne. During the commotion, Saturnyne forms a private, psychic link with Braddock to discuss what has happened. Braddock pleads with Saturnyne to call off the tournament and declare Krakoa the rightful champions in light of what has transpired at the dinner. It seems like an easy decision to make, but things don't go as well as Braddock had hoped. While Saturnyne explains that she would gladly rule in favor of Krakoa, but Arakko wasn't the only realm to play dirty.
While Wolverine's plans understandably upset an already angry Braddock, they also, in retrospect, put Krakoa at a disadvantage throughout the entire tournament. While a winner has yet to be decided, Logan seemingly the X-Men in a position where they were fighting in unfair competitions throughout the tournament. In a system where one point was given to whichever side won a match, Krakoa had a serious numerical disadvantage that took a cruel act of mercy from Saturnyne to finally catch up to. This may have very well cost the lives of some of the X-Men's most noteworthy leaders, too.
While X of Swords was always going to come down to its final duels, Logan's actions almost certainly put the X-Men at a disadvantage that has already cost them dearly and could cost them even more.