With us fast approaching 50 heroes in the game, it can be daunting deciding who to play or purchase next. The heroes range across a variety of different play styles and complexity levels. Luckily, with a little organization, we can actually differentiate heroes based on how complex they are to pilot, which can help you select the best hero for the mood and level you're at.
I know what you're thinking. You've reduced all the heroes in the game into four categories based solely on how difficult they are to pilot? Surely you can't be serious. To that, I say:
Before we dive into the categories, I want to highlight what I mean by piloting. Specifically I mean decisions that you will make during the actual game. The deck you bring is the main limiting factor in what decisions will be available to you once you are in the game. However, a skilled pilot will fare far better than an unskilled pilot with the same deck. Keep in mind that "skilled pilot" and "experienced player" are not always synonymous. Being an experienced player with the game as a whole will certainly raise your baseline competence with a deck, but the individual heroes still have unique play lines that you have to learn.
The heroes can be broken into four categories to indicate how difficult they are to pilot.
Beginner Friendly: These heroes are flexible and easy to play. They can be very forgiving for new players.
Know the Hero: These heroes require some knowledge of how they play before you can pilot them well. Once you have a decent understanding of them, their in-game decisions tend to be pretty straight forward.
Sequencing Decisions: These heroes have more complex in-game decisions, but often the complexity comes from finding the right order to do things.
Critical Decisions: These heroes have very open and potentially complex decisions. It takes a strong understanding of both the hero and the game to really unlock their potential.
Before we really dive in, I want to emphasize that these groupings don't explicitly have anything to do with power levels or how fun they are to play. I also want to point out that the groups are not explicitly linear in complexity; there will be a range of complexity in each category. Also, Sequencing Decisions and Critical Decisions are roughly equivalent in how complex they are, but they differ in where that complexity shows up.
Beginner Friendly
If you're a new player, bringing a new player on board, or simply want a hero that gives you a lot of flexibility without too much brain burn, these are the heroes for you. It will likely come as no surprise that both the suggested Learn to Play heroes from the Core Set are here. While this group is not expressly the most powerful heroes, many of these heroes are quite powerful. That is part of what makes them so forgiving.
Captain America
Captain America’s “I Can Do This All Day!” ability makes him instantly flexible, especially in low player counts. Add to it that he has a strong damage cancel card, discounts on allies (the most flexible card type), and good defense and you can see why he is a strong hero for new players.
Captain Marvel
Captain Marvel has the answer to every problem: money. She is incredibly resource rich, which means that she can play (or pay) around inefficient cards and actions. Alongside this, she has in-kit healing, high health, and an easy resource sink in Energy Channel. Captain Marvel is also a fantastic hero to play alongside a new player, because you can easily feed additional resources to other players with her Commander ability and Avenger's Mansion.
Gamora
Gamora is a solid jack-of-all-trades; she does a bit of everything each turn. Because of her inexpensive events and clear sequencing (get an attack/thwart bonus if you already played a thwart/attack), it is easy for new players to contribute to the team. Her resource generators lean into her focus, enabling powerful turns, but limiting the decision space.
Ironheart
When fully built, Ironheart is incredibly flexible and powerful. The path toward maximizing her powers is simple. Her events point you directly to it, reminding you with each hand that you’re looking to upgrade her suit. While she starts weaker than most other heroes here, she is quick to upgrade and has a high ceiling.
Spider-Ham
Spider-Ham is one of the strongest heroes in the game. In addition to his massive damage reduction abilities, solid healing, and easily boosted stats, he has access to the all powerful ability of money. While other heroes may be punished for leaving a minion out, Spider-Ham can reap benefits from it. He is also incredibly flexible, easily allowing players to change focus mid-game.
Spider-Man (Miles Morales)
Miles's access to status effects is rivaled only by Doctor Strange. His events are powerful, and they are efficient even when unable to capitalize on status effects due to Stalwart enemies. You can hand him to a new player, tell them to play cards with Spider-man's face in the corner, and let them go.
Spider-Man (Peter Parker)
One of the suggested Learn to Play heroes, Spider-Man is still a great choice for new players. His kit is pretty straight forward, he has strong defense, and he has some of the best alter-ego healing in the game.
Venom
Due to his weapon upgrades, Venom can be incredibly flexible during the game. This allows players to pivot and adjust to meet the flow of the game. He also has access to solid resources due to his Symbiotic Bond ability, strong alter-ego healing, and strong events with easy to trigger status effect bonuses.
Know the Hero
These heroes take various levels of experience to understand, but once you understand the hero, the game play itself can be very straight forward. With many of these heroes, the tough decisions and strategies are actually made during deck-building. Don't take this to mean that these heroes aren't fun or fulfilling to play. It simply means that their in-game decision space is less open than the heroes in Sequencing Decisions and Critical Decisions.
Ant-Man
Ant-Man is a hero that could arguably be bumped into the Sequencing heroes. During your turn you will do a lot, often including changing hero forms multiple times. However, once you have a feel for Ant-Man, the decisions require a lot less consideration. Largely you will just be ensuring you play and trigger all form dependent cards while you are in the appropriate forms. It is less “should I play this now or later” and more “I can’t play this later, so I should play it now.”
Bishop
What do we want? Resource cards! When do we want them? Always! Bishop's decision making comes down to how you want to utilize the extra access to resource cards. Choosing when to hold cards, when to take hits, and when to trigger his uniform for healing (among other things) are all decisions that become much easier with experience.
Black Panther
Black Panther may look like he should jump in with the Sequencing heroes, but once you have a grasp of how he plays, the decision tree is pretty narrow. Your decisions will focus around which Black Panther upgrades to prioritize, and these are largely dictated by your role in the game (something decided during deckbuilding). From there, triggering Wakanda Forever is a pretty straight path where it will often be evident which upgrade you should trigger last for the bonus.
Black Widow
Black Widow has some of the best encounter deck control in the game. However, it is rare that you don’t want to trigger her Preparations in order to gain the bonuses. For this reason, there aren’t hugely critical decisions surrounding playing and triggering them. It boils down to play them when they come up and trigger them when you can.
Cable
At the beginning of the game Cable is going to have one critical decision: the starting player side scheme. You need to account for your team needs, what threat removal will be available, and try to time it to get Cable's ready from completing a side scheme. Beyond that, Cable tends to have a pretty straight forward path during the game. You'll be looking to play and complete side schemes to power up his cards. Beyond the Setup ability, most of your strategy will be decided during deck building.
Deadpool
With his ability to cheat death while in hero form, Deadpool pushes really close to being a Beginner Friendly hero. However, there are some really key things you need to look out for while managing his health as a resource. Otherwise, you may find your game ending prematurely. Once you know what to watch for and how to manage his cards, he is another incredibly strong hero.
Doctor Strange
Doctor Strange is likely the most powerful hero in the game, and a lot of that power comes from unlocking the potential of his Invocation deck. The Invocations skirt the limitations of normal play in a number of ways, but it can take a moment to fully realize it. Once you do unlock it, gameplay largely boils down to recognizing what spell or spells you need this turn, cycling to them, and benefiting from their powerful effects.
Drax
Drax has a cadence similar to Iron Man. He has some powerful potential, but it takes some time and risk to reach it. In the early game, Drax will be focused on building rage counters and minimizing the damage he takes. At the mid game, he will shift to leveraging the insane amounts of damage he can do. With a small hand size and narrow focus, the decision space in the game is fairly limited.
Ghost-Spider
Ghost-Spider has a unique ability that triggers off other response and interrupt abilities. For this reason, she can take a moment to really grasp how to take full advantage of this. However, her decks tend to be fairly focused, so once you are in the game, the decisions on when to use response and interrupt cards aren’t terribly difficult. Your deck design will largely be dictating which events you will have available and when/if you want to play them.
Groot
Groot is an absolute powerhouse with some of the highest potential cards in the game. Once you figure out how to leverage his events, your gameplay choices hover around building and preserving his growth counters and when/how often to flip to alter-ego.
Hawkeye
Hawkeye has a pretty self-contained hero kit. Outside getting his bow, quiver, and resource generators out initially, you won’t have much interaction between his arrow kit and the aspect side of your deck. With 3 ATK once the bow is out, he also rarely wants to be playing a second arrow card. This means that while that option is technically available, it tends to be a pretty skippable option most turns.
Hulk
Hulk is one of the finest examples of this category. His goal is damage, his hero ability limits forethought, and his events are highly dependent on resource type. Once the game starts, his decision paths are narrow, and often point to just dealing a lot of damage.
Iron Man
Iron Man has a very straight path in the game. Build up tech, then do everything. While there are a lot of fun builds you can do with Iron Man, once you are in the game, the optimal decisions are often fairly evident. His kit also doesn’t have much reliance on each other, so outside triggering his boots to gain Aerial, the order in which you take your actions doesn’t often matter.
Phoenix
I honestly haven’t played Phoenix enough to really lock her out of the Critical Decisions crew. However, in my plays I have found that her deck building often focuses her deck into one of her two forms. While there may be one big decision during the game to flip to the opposing form, I haven’t found her to be one that really feels wide open in her decision tree. (Feel free to convince me otherwise!)
Quicksilver
With lots of readying and the ability to boost stats, Quicksilver is a hero that seems incredibly flexible. However, gameplay doesn't quite reflect that. He is flexible, but that flexibility shows up in deck-building. Once you are in the game, you will largely build your stats that favor the role you are playing, then do whatever you can to use those stats as much as possible. When playing solo, he does get to take advantage of his flexibility during the game more, so in that situation he has more of an argument to jump up into Sequencing.
Rogue
Rogue seems to have endless possibilities, but at her baseline, she can be very straightforward. Often you will simply put Touched on the villain and leverage status effects from her events. When you do choose to get fancier, those decisions are often made during deck-building. You are usually including in your deck ways to get desired traits and take advantage of unique trait combinations. Once you are in the game, you play toward those combos.
She-Hulk
Like her cousin, She-Hulk’s kit is pretty singular in its focus: do damage. Once you learn to leverage She-Hulk’s alter-ego trips and health pool, you will find that she can be a very powerful hero. Her strategy is really decided during deck-building, and she doesn’t have a lot of flexibility for mid-game changes. For this reason, her decision tree tends to be pretty narrow during the game.
Thor
Thor hits hard. While this may seem like a reduction of his hero kit, it is the baseline you need to keep in mind as you play him. Regardless of what else you do, Thor will be leveraging his attack events and basic activations to clean up minions and deal damage. There are some clever play lines to figure out regarding leveraging Mjolnir and alter-ego to gain resources, but beyond that, Thor’s biggest decision points surround the use of his minion summoning abilities and where to swing his hammer.
Valkyrie
Valkyrie has a hero kit that is somewhat split in focus. It is inefficient to try and utilize them all in one game. For this reason, you largely pick one focus during deckbuilding, and once you are in the game the decision path is fairly narrow. I have few plays with Valkyrie though, so feel free to argue her case!
War Machine
Much like Groot, War Machine is a hero that centers around leveraging a unique resource. In War Machine’s case, your game decisions will center around burning through ammo and flipping back to alter-ego to replenish. Because his events and upgrades are dependent on that ammo, your decision space is far more limited.
Wasp
Wasp is the prime example of heroes who have many of their decisions made during deck-building. How you use her abilities will be massively impacted by how you build her deck. Once you are in the game, your deck will offer you a fairly clear path toward sticking with your deck’s strategy.
Wolverine
Wolverine shares similarities with Star-Lord in some ways. You will have a moment each round where you can apply a large discount to play a card. However, Wolverine’s options are greatly limited in comparison, and the consequences are fully understood in advance. Once you have a read on how much damage you can get away with and which events to discount, Wolverine has a fairly direct path forward... directly through the enemies.
X-23
Throughout your turn with X-23, you will be looking at the order in which to exhaust, take damage, and ready. While sometimes this involves more complex sequencing, often it is either a straight-forward path or the order is interchangeable. Understanding and familiarity with X-23's interactions with her kit (particularly with Honey Badger) will lead to smooth games and low-complexity decision making.
Sequencing Decisions
These heroes have some complex decisions that must be made during the game. The best decisions aren't always "play the powerful card," but often come down to the order in which you do things. Often these heroes feel like they are taking a lot of smaller actions each turn, leading to a big turn overall.
Angel
Angel has a strong focus on aerial cards, and he is extremely powerful when utilizing them consistently. He is looking to trigger the abilities of multiple forms each turn, and your challenge is figuring out the sequence in which to play cards and change forms in order to maximize his bonuses.
Cyclops
Cyclops has his tactic upgrades which create a sequencing puzzle, especially in multiplayer. However, his sequencing isn’t necessarily constrained to his own hand. You want to ensure the entire table can take advantage of the upgrades. This sequencing is greatly reduced by playing Field Commander, making Cyclops the first player each round. However, his alter-ego ability and Tactical Brilliance event still leave open unique sequencing choices by grabbing tactic cards.
Ms. Marvel
Ms. Marvel is one of the strongest heroes in the game when it comes to alter-ego abilities. She can draw cards, store cards, reshuffle cards, and generate discounts that can even carry over to hero form. Her ability to recur cards, store cards, and boost abilities make her a very combo heavy hero. You will constantly weigh which cards to boost, which to recur, and if you should be returning to Alter-Ego to utilize the fantastic supports she carries. A good understanding of timing windows will really help you unlock Ms. Marvel's potential.
Nebula
The importance of Nebula’s sequencing is somewhat hidden at first glance. Her hero ability is a forced response, meaning that you are required to trigger each Technique upgrade in play on turns you start in hero form. However, you will only trigger and discard them if they have a valid target. For this reason, the sequence in which you trigger her Techniques and how you choose to utilize Lethal Intent (an event that allows you to trigger a number of Techniques in play) is important for keeping upgrades in play for their constant abilities. For example, if you can maintain a Tough card on Nebula, Unyielding Persistence will stay out, continuing to grant Stalwart, +1 ATK, and +1 THW.
Nova
Nova has two main sequencing lines. First and foremost is utilizing his basic activation to ready his helmet. The second is the use of Unleash the Nova Force, a sequencing line that blows the first wide open. You will be focusing on setting up these Unleash turns to combo into more card draw, more readies, and more resources.
Rocket Raccoon
Rocket’s hero ability is limited only by the number of enemies on the board and the amount of damage he can do. In order to generate card draw, you will need to set enemies up to be dealt excess damage, ideally with minimal or no waste. Additionally, you will need to have a strong understanding of what you could draw into, so you can ensure you take advantage of all the resources and cards you have available. This includes factoring his card from from Tinkering in alter-ego.
Scarlet Witch
One of Scarlet Witch’s strongest cards is Hex Bolt, a card that can deal damage, remove threat, draw cards, or give out status effects. Often the best play is simply to play Hex Bolt. However, to leverage her to her greatest ability, you should have a strong understanding of the boosts in the encounter deck, when to utilize her abilities to manipulate these boosts, and which effect you push to trigger. In addition, you will want to weigh the cards you want to play afterward against the probability of what Hex Bolt will do. As a simple example, if you are wanting to play Clear the Area for its bonus, you must weigh that against the possibility that Hex Bolt could remove any threat remaining.
Shadowcat
This is one of the most technical heroes in the game. Shadowcat’s sequencing relies heavily on understanding the rules and timing of defending and attacking. You can generate some incredibly powerful turns and leave yourself in a position to take no damage in the villain phase, but you must understand when to utilize the unforced response on her Solid form in order to have a favorable trigger of the forced response on her Phased form.
SP//dr
Despite the small hand size, SP//dr is an incredibly versatile hero. Similar to Groot, she has stat boosting upgrades. However, each upgrade can also be used as a resource. This means that you will have to have a good read of the board state in order to take advantage of readily available resources without undercutting necessary stat boosts. Her alter-ego also has some strong card draw generation, so knowing when you can afford to utilize it is key.
Spectrum
Spectrum does not have the ability to change forms as freely as the likes of Ant-Man, Wasp, and Vision. She is dependent on her events and Alter-Ego. For this reason, it is important to understand how to sequence her form changes to ensure you are in a usable form while still taking full advantage of her events.
Spider-Woman
Spider-Woman is essentially the baseline example of sequencing. She gains a boost to her basic stats when she plays each of the different aspect cards. This means that you want to sequence the aspect card plays in a way that let her take full advantage of the boosted stats.
Storm
Storm’s sequencing affects not only herself, but the entire table. It is important to understand how changing the weather deck affects enemies and other players in order to leverage boons and avoid untimely debuffs.
Vision
Not only does Vision have two hero forms to consider, one form locks him out of two aspects of the game, attacking and defending. For this reason, you must pay close attention to what you want to play before and after changing hero forms to ensure you can actually even play the card.
Critical Decisions
These heroes have many high impact decisions to make during the game, but they aren't necessarily order dependent like the Sequencing Decisions category. In order to pilot these heroes well, you need a strong understanding of both the hero and the overall game. They will have a lot more paths of play open to them compared to other heroes, and you will need to find which is best.
Adam Warlock
Due to his access to four aspects and his limitation of one of each card, Adam Warlock has incredibly unique decks. His hero kit features abilities that recur cards from your discard, which means at any given moment, you may have access to any card you’ve already seen. That blows open the options available to him compared to most heroes. You will need to have a good read of the board state in order to properly choose the right tool for the situation. In addition to this, each aspect card in hand has a secondary “ability” granting you effects from his Battle Mage ability and card draw from his Mystic Senses upgrades.
Colossus
Colossus has a multitude of ways that he can leverage his Tough status cards. Most of the time, you will only be making one key decision each turn. However, there will be turns where Colossus feels more like a Sequencing hero. You will find ways to lose Toughs to generate cards and more Toughs, which you can use to pay for cards and draw cards, on and on. Because of the baseline usefulness of Tough, Colossus has a much wider decision space than heroes that deal with unique resources, like Groot or War Machine.
Domino
With potentially the most wide open decision space of any hero in the game, Domino can reward clever and careful thinking in amazing ways. Utilizing her various card swapping abilities can absolutely amplify your turns. That said, she does have access to a "point and shoot" play style that somewhat skirts around many of these complex decisions.
Gambit
Gambit is a hero who can really leverage both of his forms. Nearly each round he will make one really critical decision: how to leverage Thief Extraordinaire (an alter-ego thwarting ability that lets you use one of the top two cards to remove threat). While at first glance it may seem like you should just pick whatever card removes the most threat, Gambit will often be dictating which encounter card a player gets. In solo, he will be dictating either the boost or dealt encounter card, while in multiplayer, he can often control which encounter card a player is dealt from decking out. It is powerful control, and to really take advantage of it, you must have a strong understanding of the board state.
Magik
With Magik's ability to view, manipulate, and play cards from the top of her deck, you are faced with a plethora of decisions throughout the game. Additionally, these abilities aren't tied exclusively to hero cards or a limited selection of cards, opening up the decision space in a big way.
Psylocke
With many of Psylocke's cards giving you bonuses based on the state of her psi-energy weapons, you must have an understanding of the opportunity cost of flipping them to the different sides. These decisions and opportunity costs are very much based on the game state, which is what elevates her to Critical Decisions.
Star-Lord
Star-Lord really has one massive decision each turn: does he want to risk an extra encounter card to utilize his hero ability for a discount. In order to properly leverage this, you need a strong understanding of the scenario and the game overall. You should have a good gauge of how this impacts your tempo, what the consequence may be, and if you can handle the consequence if worse comes to worst.
Conclusion
To wrap things up, I want to note a couple things. First, this is a mutable list. As more heroes, scenarios, and aspect cards come out, heroes may be added or moved between categories. I think this is a useful resource for new players and veterans alike, so feel free to let me know what you think and if there are ways you think it should be updated. Second, nothing here should be used to make someone feel bad or superior for which heroes they enjoy playing, regardless of complexity. This is simply a tool to help players gauge which heroes they may enjoy playing or picking up. It's meant as a discussion point for the community.
Thanks
Thank you to the discord brain trust with all the help and discussion around this topic. In particular, thank you to Journeyman2, Fernafalej, Hitbuttons, Ice Nine, MegiDolaDyne, Scott, and tjjj.
Changelog
This is a record of changes and additions I have made since initially publishing the article. Overtime new heroes will be added or old ones moved based on more plays with them.
May 2024 Update
Cable moved from Sequencing to Know the Hero
Domino blurb updated
Angel, Bishop, Deadpool, Magik, Psylocke, and X-23 added
Comments