Marvel Champions

Standard III looks like a good solution for players who complain that they rarely face their nemesis. Those are probably players who play true solo and have highly-tuned decks, which are both ways to keep the game short and swingy and nemesis-free.

I have only moderate enthusiasm for the upcoming wave. Apocalypse tends to look like a big clown, and has just never impressed me as a quality villain. His Four Horsemen look excessively brutal in the preview cards, which contributes to my ongoing concern of power creep in this game making some of the Avenger decks obsolete. Magik is an interesting character, and hopefully she will have a lot more than two spells in her deck. Bishop doesn't interest me, as he always just seemed like a shouty exposition guy with a big gun fetish and a mullet. Unus the Untouchable is more like Unus the Unrecognizable.

These campaign sets always get launched with a silhouette promo image previewing the individual hero decks that will be in the same product wave. It appears that we will be getting Iceman, Jubilee, Nightcrawler, and um, some guy. In terms of popularity, given that this is the last X-wave for the forseeable future, it should be Beast or Emma Frost. But the silhouette doesn't match either character. Maybe it's Havok. Anyway, Iceman and Nightcrawler are certainly popular characters who could inspire a deck worth of cards. Jubilee? Not so much. She fires flashy energy blasts and is immune to telepathy or mutant-tracking tech, and that's it. I realize she has a fan base, mostly from the X-Men cartoon of the early '90s, but I just think she is too thin of a character to deserve more than an ally card in this game. However, Beast would have been a difficult design, since he is just a genius with superhuman strength and agility. I think that the relatively new hero side schemes are a great to thematically express comic-book genius, with an investment of thwarting paying off with a powerful upgrade or event effect. Emma Frost would have been a really easy deck to do. In MC terms, she would have three forms: alter-ego, psychic, and diamond form. But maybe it would have been like a diluted cross between the Phoenix and Colossus decks in implementation.

Shellhead wrote: Standard III looks like a good solution for players who complain that they rarely face their nemesis. Those are probably players who play true solo and have highly-tuned decks, which are both ways to keep the game short and swingy and nemesis-free.

I think it's more a solution to Standard 2 being really bad than anything else. A different set of Standard cards to shake up the baseline, without them all having Surge for literally no reason.

I only tried Standard II a couple of times. Once I used it because I couldn't find my Standard I cards. Looking at those cards again, via the Hall of Heroes website, I notice that several of the cards used the Peril keyword. IIRC, Peril means that only the current player can potentially respond with interrupt or reaction effects. Seems like the game designers have since lost interest in Peril.

A recent though slightly blurry picture of the back cover of the upcoming campaign reveals that Dark Beast will be one of the villains. So we will probably not get a Beast hero deck anytime soon. Yes, I realize that there Nebula appears as a hero, a villain, an ally, and even a nemesis minion, but I don't think that Beast will get the same treatment. At least there is a Beast ally card.

I have been experiencing malaise about this game lately. I think that the fundamentals are still very solid, but I am just not enjoying three consecutive waves of mutant sets. I went all in on Cycle 6, because they were mostly favorites, though I only recently finally got Mojo. But all that I really want from Cycle 7 is Angel, Deadpool, and the Juggernaut scenario. The rest of the characters are from a '90s grim-dark phase that I didn't enjoy. I'm not even a Deadpool fan, but I did like his movies and the cards in his set are both outrageous and thematic. Cycle 8? I just want Magik, Iceman, and Nightcrawler, and maybe the scenario pack depending on who is in it.

But I am still looking forward to a Fantastic Four wave and some kind of street-level wave. This game won't be a full Marvel experience to me unless we get the Fantastic Four, Namor, Silver Surfer, Dr. Doom, and Daredevil. There are custom fan decks for all of those characters, but they all feel a bit off except maybe the Namor deck and the Rainy version of the Daredevil deck. Historically, Marvel has had nine specific titles that have constantly been in print, though sometimes dropping to bi-monthly and/or reprint status (X-Men): Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men, Spider-man, Daredevil, Hulk, Captain America, Thor, and Iron Man. And since around 1990, Wolverine. We have gotten hero decks for all of these major heroes except for Daredevil and the Fantastic Four.

I've never had a problem with nemesis frequency myself but I like the idea of bringing in new standard sets. It's another way to keep the game fresh.

I'm slowly playing through NeXt Evolution using the bundled heroes of Cable and Domino. Only on the second scenario but I dig how they've connected it so strongly to the first. I've lost a few times so need to tinker with the pre-cons but am yet to get around to it. The player side schemes are a neat idea and I'll be happy to see more of them come through.

I really hope that when Mutants finishes we get to the street-level heroes.

@Shellhead - I hear you about the malaise. I still enjoy the game but am not as fanatical about it as I was a year ago. The other day I realised I have 5 or 6 heroes still in shrink that I haven't got to yet. Most were bought on sale but I think I've reached the point of being more selective rather than being "all in".

@Ah_Pook - Can I ask why you're selling up?

Ive been all in since before Red Skull came out, and I think I'm just at a point of diminishing returns. I'm not playing the new stuff much, the new announcements aren't exciting me much, etc. I'm not super precious about cycling my games out in general. I still think it's a great game, but for me that doesn't mean I won't sell my stuff and remember it as a great game.

Watched the Marvels last night (loved it - but I also liked Shazam, full disclosure) and was inspired to put together a 3 handed game with Captain Marvel/Ms Marvel/Spectrum. I chose Nebula as the stand in for Dar-Benn and replaced the Space Pirates module with Kree Militants (I also, always use the house rule that I cribbed from Gideons Gaming - Adding the game effect that once per round (not per player), if someone punches Nebula in the face for 3 or more damage you remove an evasion counter - It was a tough fun battle - I really had fun playing out that story.

I didn't enjoy the Angel deck that I picked up a while back. I like Angel as a character, one who has been an X-Men, a Champion, a Defender, and even a villain. But his untuned deck was so clunky. I can see that if I tune it well, it will deliver some good attacks and thwarts and untap effects. But it feels like all the aerial events and aerial allies are slightly overcosted even though the aerial keyword hasn't gotten much support until now. And that was one thematic element of Angel that they overlooked, that he is independently wealthy and should have some sort of improved ability to pay for cards.

I also didn't like the Mojo pack so far. It's thematic and novel, but the game show theme is not one that excites me, and the setup instructions for the Spiral scenario seem quite complex for such a small campaign.

But my excitement for this game has been rekindled due to two new acquisitions. First, I picked up the new Deadpool deck, and it's wild. Deadpool is a fourth-wall-breaking weirdo who has an extreme ability to regenerate, so he careens through his adventures with reckless abandon. In this game, some of his cards are really powerful, but balanced by either causing him damage or introducing dangerous icons into the game, especially acceleration tokens on the main scheme. And some of his other cards become more powerful when these dangerous icons are in play.

This Deadpool pack takes up a release slot that would normally be used for a scenario pack like Mojo, so it is somewhat larger and slightly pricier than a normal hero deck, because it includes a whole new aspect. The base game introduced four aspects: Aggression, Justice, Leadership, and Protection. This pack introduces a fifth aspect called 'Pool, which is more Deadpool-style nonsense, like allies who don't take consequential damage (because they regenerate) and fourth-wall-breaking game with game stuff, including a card that incorporates a mini-game of Tic Tac Toe in a fun way.

So I pitted Deadpool/'pool against standard Rhino, only I went with A Mess of Things (Scorpion) instead of Bomb Threat for the modular set. It almost felt like cheating, but I soon got into the reckless spirit of things. By the end of the game, Rhino was defeated and his main scheme only had two threat on it, along with four (!) acceleration tokens on it. Normally, a pile of acceleration tokens on the main scheme is a symptom of long game, most likely due to inefficient hero decks. But this was actually a fairly quick game, and Rhino didn't even get through his deck once.

I also printed and sleeved a fun custom deck for Hyperion, who is basically Marvel's version of Superman. You can see the cards here:

drive.google.com/drive/folders/1SxWYOLlZ...TU2MDb5loXxYh02aOev-

Normally I don't enjoy deck building, but it seemed clear that Hyperion wants to increase his ATK and hit things hard and untap again. His hero ability is that his ATK is *, where * equals the number of cards currently in his hand. However, he can't play any cards after making a basic ATK attack. He also enjoys certain advantages when engaged by multiple minions. So I went heavy on aggression cards like Quick Strike, The Best Defense, Bring It!, and Smash the Problem. He uses a lot of superpower cards, so I included a Deft Focus to help pay for them, and he has a similar card in his hero card set.

To test out Hyperion, I put him against standard Ultron with the usual Under Attack modular set. Hyperion couldn't stop Ultron from speeding through the first stage of the main scheme, but held the line on the second of three stages. It was good game early on, but in the endgame, Hyperion went wild with the cards draws and loaded up his hand with 15(!) cards and then just wrecked Ultron and his drones. I think this Hyperion deck isn't broken, but is definitely expert-level. Still, it was a fun game.

Though I had social events happening both Wednesday and Thursday, I also had some downtime. So I re-tuned my customized randomizer (an Excel spreadsheet with lists of heroes, scenarios, modular sets, and aspects attached to separate randomizer functions. Then I randomed a half dozen scenarios and wrote them down for my next several games.

Yesterday, I played Vision/protection and Hawkeye/leadership against the Kang mini-campaign, with the Wrecking Crew modular set in place of Temporal. It was a really fun game, with the heroes dominating the first two stages and then things getting tight in the final stage. To keep Kang from scheming out, the heroes stuck it out in hero form near the end, with Hawkeye getting picked off. Vision had a shot at the win, but was hampered by obligations and then got hosed by indirect damage for a loss to Kang. If not for that final encounter card, Vision would have beaten Kang on his next turn.

Today, I played Brother Voodoo/leadership, Ant-Man/leadership, and Valkyrie/aggression against Mandarin plus the Enchanteress modular set. Since Enchanteress is also Valkyrie's nemesis, there was potential for a great deal of hassle from Enchanteress this game. In reality, she only showed up once and seduced Ant-Man, and his hordes of ants got rid of her in two turns. Brother Voodoo struggled to pull his kit together and alternated between effective turns and somewhat useless turns, though it came together nicely in the endgame. Valkyrie also struggled to get her act together, and not many minions showed up, so she focused quite a few attacks on Mandarin himself. Mandarin had a good game, piling on the rings and wreaking much havoc, but somehow the heroes managed to pull off a win with probably one turn to spare.

I'm still not excited about the upcoming third and last wave of X-stuff, but I am enjoying the overall game at this point with help from various custom materials plus the randomizer. Though they haven't been announced yet, the general expectation among fans is that we will get a Fantastic Four wave (YES!!!) and at least one street-level wave with should include Daredevil. Assuming that Namor and Silver Surfer decks are part of the FF wave, I will consider the game reasonably complete for my purposes, though there are still so many good villains that haven't got scenarios yet.

Maybe one of these days I will learn how to make my own custom cards. Although the Scourge wasn't one of my favorite villains (or even in my top 50), I have an idea for a Scourge scenario. The Scourge (of the Underworld) was an evil vigilante who murdered (lame) villains, until Captain America finally stopped him.

In my scenario, Scourge would have an unusual win condition where he wins if he defeats and places X number of villain minions in the Victory zone, where X is number of players +3. His scenario deck would be a normal mixture of attacking and scheming, except that his attacks would be focused on minions in play. His scenario would also come with a custom modular set featuring a variety of lame villains like Stiltman, Commander Kraken, Ringer, and Steeplejack. The heroes would need to defend the villains and/or defeat them to get them at least temporarily out of harm's way. Scourge would probably need some treachery cards that cause players to discard encounter cards until a villain is revealed, to keep him with a steady flow of targets even as he eliminates some from play.

I decided to disregard my randomized scenario list and instead cherrypick a strong team to go against The Hood with some strong modular sets in the mix. My team was Hyperion/aggression, Deadpool/'pool, and Thor (Jane Foster)/justice. I don't remember all seven modular sets that the Hood got, but the ones that hit the table were Lady Deathstrike, MODOK, Armadillo, and Streets of Mayhem.

The first turn, Deadpool did 16 damage to the Hood, while the other two heroes got set up and did minor attacking or thwarting. Two turns later, Deadpool dropped a big bomb on the Hood for another 10 points of damage, plus 1 damage to everybody else including the heroes. Then the game turned into an agonizing slog. All three of the modular villains bring attachments into the mix, leading to some surprising and very nasty combinations, especially after Dreadpool also entered the game. At one point, the Hood was doing a base attack of 4 (plus the usual flip) while also ignoring the text on the target's card. Hyperion tended to get dogpiled, especially after MODOK engaged him and got his own enhancement card twice (the second one just after the first one left play).

At least Deadpool was having fun. He took down Armadillo in one turn, even though Armadillo had two toughness cards (Deadpool had two katanas, though). At another point, his ally Lady Deadpool turned against him, but she got killed almost immediately afterwards due to another card that target Deadpool Corps members. Meanwhile, Deadpool himself evaded the damage because he was in alter ego at the time.

The Hood schemed his way to victory, with six acceleration icons in play near the end. Jane was supposed to be doing the serious thwarting, but just wasn't drawing into her good justice cards. Hyperion got tripped up by his own weakness card, twice. Still, it was all exciting, so I may try this setup again tomorrow.

Following my annual tradition, I invited friends to play board games today (New Year's Day), but nobody showed up this time. So I set up random solitaire game of Marvel Champions. The heroes were She-Hulk (aggression), War Machine (leadership), and Moon Knight (all four aspects). The scenario was Taskmaster, with Hydra Patrol and Armadillo.

She-Hulk was at a definite disadvantage this game, for two reasons. First, she is built to flip identities often, but every time a player changes into hero form, Taskmaster flips an encounter card and does damage equal to the boost tokens. In hero form, She-Hulk has a hand size of only four, and the scenario deck had some discard effects. Also, She-Hulk has some weak hero cards.

War Machine was great as usual, except that he never really got the ally part of his deck working properly. He was particularly useful against the many Hydra minions.

Moon Knight was ever more screwed by Taskmaster's special ability, as his custom deck includes a five-card mini-deck of identities. Two of those identities are heroes, and he has some built-in incentives to switch identities even more often than She-Hulk. And his hero forms both have a hand size of just four, so he was also screwed by the occasional discard effects.

There was some very nasty synergy between Hydra Patrol and Armadillo, as Armadillo has a scheme card that gives Tough status cards to minions as they enter play. And another Armadillo card gives other benefits to tough characters. However, the one time that Armadillo entered play was brief. War Machine effed him up, Moon Knight stunned him, and then War Machine dusted Armadillo the following turn.

It was a close game, but Taskmaster managed to complete his scheme for the win. Might need to replay.

That Moon Knight deck is interesting, because of the deck of identities. He has two hero identities and three alter ego identities. Each identity grants him a discount on one of the four basic aspects. For example, Moon Knight pays -1 cost on all Aggression aspect cards. However, the two hero identities only have a hand size of 4, and two of the alter egos have a hand size of 5. His primary alter ego is Marc Spector, who has a hand size of 7.

In the comics, Moon Knight has a core secret identity, former mercenary Marc Spector. He also has two additional secret identities, cab driver Jake Locksley and billionaire Steven Grant. The Grant identity is well-established, having successfully invested Spector mercenary earnings into business, real estate, and art. The Locksley identity primarily consists of a freelance taxi cab and a blue collar wardrobe, but gives Moon Knight access to a wide range of street-level contacts. In more recent years, a second hero identity emerged: Mr. Knight.

The other interesting aspect of this custom Moon Knight character is that he must include all four aspects in his deck, but can't use aspect cards that cost more than 2. In play, this makes him a very flexible character but somewhat lacking in power. He is pretty effective in true solo play, but not a strong team player in multi-player mode.

I kept seeing comments online that the Next Evolution campaign box is really good, so after a grinding month at work, I splurged on it. I was reluctant in the past because Juggernaut is the only villain that I like in this set, and I abhor the entire era of Marvel Comics that spawned the heroes Cable and Domino. But I relented because of the positive comments and because the Hood scenario is so much fun even though I can't stand the Hood in comics.

First I tuned the new hero decks slightly, then played each of them against the Rhino scenario, though I substituted Power Drain (Electro) for the default Bomb Scare modular set.

Cable specializes in playing and defeating player side schemes, a new card type. Player side schemes deliver a potent advantage when they are defeated, but then leave play. Cable can run a side scheme of any aspect regardless of his deck build, but the really important one is his one personal side scheme, because it gives him +1 to his stats and grants him the psionic trait. He easily defeated Rhino with a solid array of attacks and thwarts.

Domino gets boosts from discarding the top card of her deck and counting the boost icons. She also has some card recursion and manipulation abilities, and most of her cards have the wild icon symbol. She is also good at both attacks and thwarts, and won soon.

I also tinkered so more with my unsatisfactory Angel deck. I gave him a copy of X-Gene, which helps him afford his somewhat expensive flight events. I also gave him a few more defensive cards. But he lost his first game against Rhino, due to some really bad hand draws. I adjusted his deck again, and he managed to beat Rhino the second time.

Then I started the Next Evolution campaign with Cable, Domino, Angel, and also Deadpool. So far, I have only completed the first scenario, Morlock Siege. It was a lively and entertaining game. Instead of one main villain, there is a team of 7 villains, though only one functions as the main villain at a give time. Players need to defeat 3 main villains to win this scenario. In addition to the usual risk of the villain completing the main scheme, the villains are also able to win if they defeat all the Morlocks. Each hero must defend a Morlock who is the preferred target of villain attacks.

All four hero decks performed well, especially Domino and Deadpool, who had a very Deadpool game. On his first turn, Deadpool managed to drop Da Bomb on Riptide for 10 damage. Later, both of Deadpool's nemeses entered play on the same turn. Normally Deadpool's obligation card (Merc With A Mouth) is harmless during solitaire play, but I slipped up and mumbled something during Deadpool's turn, which prolonged the card effect. Late in the game, there was a turn where Deadpool was in alter ego and five consecutive encounter cards failed and surged because he was in alter ego.

I continued on to the second scenario in the NeXt Evolution box, On the Run. This is a very direct sequel to the first scenario, featuring many of the same cards, and another Villain drawn from the same set as the first scenario, minus the three villains already defeated in that scenario. I drew Blockbuster, a stereotypical strong, dumb thug type who actually has a default Scheme stat of 0. I am still learning to play three of my four hero decks, but hopefully I get better, because this scenario was a long slog. My team has excellent thwarting capabilities, but comes up a little short on the attacks. Finally, I leaned into Deadpool's more extreme events and pulled off a Pool Inspection for major thwarting, and dropped Da Bomb twice in the late game for a lot of damage on the villain and a lesser amount of damage on the minions and heroes. Fortunately, Da Bomb doesn't affect allies or heroes in alter ego form.

I finished that NeXT campaign a few weeks ago. The Juggernaut scenario was brutal, but I got through by sending heroes into alter ego more often for healing. Mister Sinister was a fun scenario, because he leveled up and acquired the powers of superhuman strength and telepathy during the game. Stryfe was a tolerable final boss, tough enough to beat the first time but beatable on replay. He is somewhat devoid of thematic flourishes, but has an interesting mechanic where he punishes you for having too many cards of the same type in your hand. This is mostly a problem in hero form, so I won the second game by going into alter ego a lot.

My nomadic friend is back in town and wanted to play some Marvel Champions, so we started in on the NeXT campaign. The first game, I played my finely-tuned Cyclops/leadership deck while my friend played an untuned Deadpool deck. It was an easy win. The second game, I stuck with Cyclops while my friend switched to the custom Hyperion/aggression deck. We struggled for a while, but eventually Hyperion came through with some big attacks for the win. In both games, we played against type. Usually my friend is doing more of the thwarting and recruiting of allies, while I focus on beating down the minions and the villain.