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No need to wait! Here's the run-down. If you want more info, read on! I am beyond jazzed for Con of Heroes this year. We are less than a month out, and I am in full swing of packing. Last week I went over how I pack my cards , but this week I thought I would help gather together some information on what to pack. Since we're on the topic of the con anyway, I figured I would throw out some general tips and information on the food available this year. Also, if you aren't on the Marvel Champions Community discord server, you should join us over there! There is a channel hosting all sorts of Con of Heroes discussions, and it includes things like ride share sign-ups, event planning, and discussion on which heroes people are bringing. Here is what I'm covering in the article. If you just want a finalized list to reference, you can find that at the end of the article. Player Cards packing list Scheduled event packing list Challenge card packing list Sleeve packing list General con packing list Food truck information Final packing list KennedyHawk (from Marvel Champions & More and a con organizer) posted a video recently previewing some of the custom cards for the con and showing what scenarios and modular sets you might want to pack for the con. You can find the video here! I'm going to recap a little bit of this, as well as go over some non-card items you'll want to pack. Also, if you're looking for more conversation and tips about the con, you can check out the Winning Hand podcast's Con of Heroes Panel Discussion . I joined a number of other deck-builders and previous con-goers on Winning Hand Podcast to discuss some tips and expectations for the con. Without further ado, let's get into it! Player Cards This is cheating a bit, because it isn't really a list. It's just a reminder to bring your hero decks! I like to pack four to eight decks myself. This year I am taking six. In previous years I've gotten more than thirty games of Champions in each weekend, so I usually get about five games out of each deck. Don't stress over this! Just bring some decks you'll enjoy. If you want to hear more, you can check out the Con of Heroes panel I mentioned above. Don't forget that there will be S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ available to you. This will have a bunch of scenarios and player cards that you can borrow or keep. So if you find you want to swap a card, you can probably find something to make do from S.H.I.E.L.D. HQ. Scheduled Events During the con, there are a number of scheduled events. You can find the full schedule here. To participate in the scheduled events, you'll need access to the following (whether that means you bring it or join a game of people who did): Scheduled Events Packing List Scenarios Thunderbolts 2-4 Scenarios of Your Choice Modular Sets 1 Standard Set 1 Thunderbolts mod Symbiotic Strength You actually don't need a standard set, because you'll be getting one with the custom content provided by the con organizers! That said, I always like to have one of the official versions on hand as well, so I added this into KennedyHawk's original list. You'll only need one Thunderbolts modular set, because you will be using each players' nemesis set (with some modifications) as the remaining Thunderbolt sets. You can find out more information about this in KennedyHawk's hype video. The campaign this year will go over the course of two to four scenarios. You can use any combination of scenarios you like. Feel free to bring a curated list you might want to play through, or just bring your favorite scenario to toss in the mix with whichever group you play through the campaign with! Challenge Cards Each year features challenge cards as part of the con swag. These optional challenge cards pose scenario and mod combinations that you can try to tackle outside the scheduled events. If you want to try them at the con, you'll need access to the following scenarios and modular sets: Challenge Cards Packing List Scenarios Mysterio Risky Business Sandman Sinister Six Modular Sets City in Chaos Guerilla Tactics Personal Nightmare Power Drain Weapon Master Wrecking Crew Here are a couple of examples of previous challenge cards. You can find them all here! Sleeves Packing List Sleeves Packing List 72 sleeves for Con of Heroes custom content Extra sleeves for alt-art hero cards Extra encounter card sleeves for team obligations and nemesis sets. Each attendee will be getting a Con of Heroes fan-made scenario and some other goodies. If you can't make it to the con, these will also be available online for you to print and play! If you prefer to sleeve your cards, you'll need 72 sleeves for the custom cards. You'll also want to pack some extras, because there are a number of con-goers handing out custom alternate-art hero cards. Winning Hand is providing a randomized 4-pack of alt arts for each attendee, and I am going to be handing out 100 Jubilee alt-arts. Keep your eyes peeled, because there will be others around the con handing out more! If you're the one running the games (i.e. you're using your cards and sleeves for the scenario), you may want to have some extra sleeves to put hero obligations and nemesis sets in. Often it is easier to just shuffle them in as-is (ignoring that they have different sleeves). This lets you cut out a lot of the hassle of sleeving, and you're less likely to walk off with someone's nemesis set! If you have 20 extra sleeves, you'll be more than covered on the nemesis and obligation front. Gamezenter has always had a pretty decent selection of sleeves as well, so you can always pick up some extra at the con. If you are curious about which type of cards you'll be getting, here is a breakdown of card types (courtesy KennedyHawk on the Marvel Champions Community discord server): 72 Con of Heroes custom cards 23 double sided cards 7 player cards (blue back cards) 38 encounter cards (orange back cards) 4 challenge cards General Con Packing List Honestly, cards are the hardest part of packing! But here are some other things you'll want to have on hand. I've gone into detail on each below the list. Non-Card Gaming Stuff Tokens and Dials Game Mat Water Bottle Permanent Marker Small Bag / Tote Deodorant Snacks Tokens You'll want to have enough to at least cover your own hero cards (i.e. status effects, damage, and all-purpose counters), but if you want to run games, you should have enough to cover a multiplayer game. Dials are a really nice way to track main scheme threat, because they keep the table tidy. Personally I prefer to use dice in place of tokens for some simple and clean tracking. Game Mat Even if you ordered a mat through the con, you may want to bring an extra one. The mats will be handed out at registration on Friday morning, and there is a lot of gaming that happens between Wednesday night when people start showing up and registration Friday morning. Plus, then you can easily play in transit! That is of course assuming you're in an airport or on a train. Please don't play Champions if you're the one driving the vehicle. Water Bottle It's a good idea to stay hydrated over an event like this. Gamezenter has a small water fountain just outside the main con room, but you don't want leave the room each time you need a drink. Bring something that won't spill easy! Permanent Marker I love getting things signed. There is usually a marker or two floating around the con, but I like to have my own on hand. A lot of people have other players sign their mat or cards, and you never know when the designers might swing by (their office is right across the parking lot). Last year Caleb Grace was kind enough to sign my Advance, and I had my campaign team all sign our legacy cards from last year's custom modular set. Small Bag There is a small walk from the hotel to the con, and at the con you'll likely be shifting around tables throughout the day. It is incredibly handy to have a small bag to pack around your odds and ends. We are going to be tight on space this year, so make sure it isn't something massive. You'll want something you can tuck under your chair. Deodorant This one is pretty self-explanatory, but having some deodorant on hand for a top-off throughout the day is helpful. The con is at its largest ever and is maxed out in room occupancy. It’s a big room, but anytime you cram that many people in, it’s bound to get a bit stuffy. Snacks You'll want to keep your energy up between meals, so it's nice to have some non-messy snacks on hand. Please leave your Cheetos at home, but something like nuts, granola bars, or dried fruit is great. Basically anything that will keep you going and won't leave grease stains on the cards. Last year Gamezenter had some snacks on hand, but they were more along the lines of Hostess-style snacks. Food Trucks One of the things I am most excited about this year is the food! This year, the organizers have arranged to have food trucks available during con hours. There are two trucks that will be there throughout the day, and there are some vegan and vegetarian options on the menus. You can find the planned times for service and their menus below! Grand-Line Donburi Hours: Friday (5/2): 12 PM - 8 PM Saturday (5/3): 11 AM - 8 PM Sunday (5/4): 11 AM - 6 PM Big Red Wagon Hours: Friday (5/2): 1 PM - 7 PM Saturday (5/3): 11 AM - 6 PM Sunday (5/4): 11 AM - 2 PM India Palace This one isn't a food truck, but I would be remiss if I didn't mention my favorite Indian restaurant in the area, India Palace . It is a short, five-minute walk from the hotel (ten minutes from Gamezenter). The food is delicious, and I highly recommend it. This will be my first meal at the con. Conclusion That's everything for this article! If you have any questions about the con, feel free to reach out. If I don't know the answer, I can at least point you in the direction of someone who does. The full list is posted below, but if you think of anything that should be added, let me know! Full Packing List Hero decks Scheduled Event Cards Scenarios Thunderbolts 2-4 Scenarios of Your Choice Modular Sets 1 Standard Set 1 Thunderbolts Mod Symbiotic Strength Challenge Cards Scenarios Mysterio Risky Business Sandman Sinister Six Modular Sets City in Chaos Guerilla Tactics Personal Nightmare Power Drain Weapon Master Wrecking Crew 72 sleeves for custom content Extra sleeves for alt-art hero cards (~10) Extra encounter card sleeves for team obligations and nemesis sets (~20) Tokens / Dials Game Mat Water Bottle Marker Small Bag / Tote Deodorant Snacks

Things have gotten out of hand, and as usual it has fallen to your team to fix it. Multiple issues have risen across the globe, so you're going to have to split your team up. Assign your team members to scenarios and guide them to success! Rules: You can only use one team for the challenge. You can only use each hero once. You can only use each aspect once. You can use one bonus card each scenario. The bonus card does not count against your deck and starts in play. You can only use each bonus card once. Bonus cards cannot be used in deck-building for any scenario in the challenge. Pick a team and assign your heroes to their missions! Avengers: Black Panther, Black Widow, Captain America, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, She-Hulk, Spider-Man: Peter Parker, Vision Avenger Bonuses: Avengers Mansion, Avengers Tower, Quincarrier, Quinjet Guardians: Adam Warlock, Drax, Gamora, Groot, Nebula, Rocket Raccoon, Star-Lord, Venom Guardian Bonuses: Charlie-27, C.I.T.T., Jack Flag, Knowhere Adam Warlock Note: Because Adam Warlock must use four aspects, simply remove one aspect of your choice from your options for the remaining challenges. X-Men: Colossus, Cyclops, Gambit, Phoenix, Rogue, Shadowcat, Storm, Wolverine X-Men Bonuses: The X-Jet, X-Mansion, Utopia, Danger Room Challenges: Brotherhood of Badoon with Ship Command, Enchantress, and Spectrum's Nemesis Set Zola with Ransacked Armory Venom with Symbiotic Strength and Nasty Boys Thanos with Weapon Master and Military Grade The Space Stone Special now reads: Discard 5 cards from the encounter deck. Place this card in the Infinity Stone deck discard pile. Example: If I chose to use Guardians, I could choose Rocket Racoon in Aggression to take on Zola. I'm taking Jack Flag as my bonus card, so he will start in play. In my next challenge, I can take anyone but Rocket in Justice, Leadership, or Protection (or 'Pool!). I can also take any bonus card except Jack Flag. Team-Up! This challenge was designed with true solo in mind, but if you want to add a second player, do the following: Each hero can only be used once. Each player can only use each aspect once. The first player chooses a bonus card to put into play under their control. Congratulate or Commiserate! Come join me on discord or reddit to discuss who you chose and how the challenge is going! I hang out in the following spaces: Marvel Champions Community Discord Living Card Games Discord Reddit Post This is something I am considering turning into a recurring series. Let me know if you enjoyed it and if you'd like to see more!

Things have gotten out of hand, and as usual it has fallen to your team to fix it. Unfortunately, it's February, so you're left with only heroes without a signature ally. Multiple issues have risen across the globe, and you're going to have to split your team up. Assign your team members to scenarios and guide them to success! Rules: You can only use each hero once. You can only use each aspect once. You cannot use allies during deck-building. Choose your difficulty and assign your heroes to their missions! Lone Wolves : Cable, Ghost-Spider, Groot, Hulk, Rocket Raccoon, Spider-Man: Miles, Storm, Venom Challenges : Absorbing Man with Down to Earth Risky Business with State of Emergency Sinister Six with Bomb Scare You are replacing Guerilla Tactics with Bomb Scare. Taskmaster with Hydra Patrol and Power Drain You can still use the allies you rescue. Example: I can choose to use Cable in Justice to take on the Sinister Six. In my next challenge, I can take anyone but Cable in Aggression, Leadership, or Protection (or 'Pool!). Team-Up! This challenge was designed with true solo in mind, but if you want to add a second player, do the following: Each hero can only be used once. Each player can only use each aspect once. Congratulate or Commiserate! Come join me on discord or reddit to discuss who you chose and how the challenge is going! I hang out in the following spaces: Marvel Champions Community Discord Living Card Games Discord (visit the marvel-champions-challenges channel) Reddit Post (coming soon!) Behind the Scenes I realized a few of my favorite heroes wouldn't be able to use the new Side-Kick card coming out with Age of Apocalypse. Additionally, I wanted to do a challenge that encourage players to revisit some of the less difficult scenarios. I figured why not feature the heroes without an identity-specific ally while at the same time tackling some of the less difficult scenarios. Here are a few things I like about this challenge: Allies are an incredibly strong part of the game. Having to rely on non-ally cards helps highlight how strong allies actually are! It messes with the aspect "hierarchy." The ever-strong Leadership has a big focus on allies, so utilizing non-ally cards is challenging. It makes scenarios that are easily countered by blocking with allies more challenging. It is truly solo true solo (except those Taskmaster allies). This is who I took through the challenge on Expert difficulty: Hulk Leadership vs Absorbing Man Cable Justice vs Risky Business Spider-Man (Miles) Aggression vs Sinister Six Storm Protection vs Taskmaster I'd love to hear what you think of this challenge. The next challenge returns to team-based hero selections featuring the Web-Warriors, Champions, and X-Force.

Hey coach! You and your team have been snatched away and dropped into Mojo’s arena. You’ve got a gauntlet of baddies to take your team through, but there’s just one little thing: you can only use each hero and aspect once! So pick your team, choose how you’re going to use them, and rise to the challenge to become the new victors of the arena. Rules: You can only use each hero once. You can only use each aspect once. Optional Challenge: You can only use allies that share a trait with your hero. Choose your difficulty and assign your heroes to their missions! Champions : Ironheart, Ms. Marvel, Nova, Spider-Man (Miles Morales) Web-Warriors : Ghost-Spider, SP//dr, Spider-Ham, Spider-Man (Miles Morales) X-Force : Angel, Cable, Deadpool, Domino, Psylocke, X-23 Challenges : Magog with Armadillo Rhino with Super Strength and Whispers of Paranoia Juggernaut with Down to Earth Venom with Dystopian Nightmare Example: I can choose to use Cable in Justice to take on the Rhino. In my next challenge, I can take any X-Force team member other than Cable in Aggression, Leadership, or Protection (or 'Pool!). Team-Up! This challenge was designed with true solo in mind, but if you want to add more players, do the following: Each player can only use each hero once. Each player can only use each aspect once. The same hero and aspect combination cannot be used more than once across all players. Congratulate or Commiserate! Come join me on discord or reddit to discuss who you chose and how the challenge is going! I hang out in the following spaces: Marvel Champions Community Discord Living Card Games Discord (visit the marvel-champions-challenges channel) Reddit Post (coming soon!) I'd love to hear what you think about the challenge! If you have any suggestions, be that themes, teams, or anything in between!

Welcome to the Mojoseum! As I'm always up for a good show, I have created a series of trials to find who the best (or maybe luckiest) pair of heroes is this year! I have randomly paired heroes into teams. Since we have an odd number of heroes, one hero was unfortunately left out. And the first recipient of the "The Computer Didn't Pick Me" award goes to Wasp! Sorry Wasp. Two teams will face off against a semi-randomly assigned scenario. I chose some scenarios for each round, then randomly assigned them modular sets and teams. Your job is to vote on which team you think can handle the scenario best. You have the freedom to choose whichever aspect you want for each hero. The team with the most votes will move on to the next round to match up against another team and a new scenario. So let's take a look at the first half of the round, consisting of 6 matchups! Match 1 Match 2 Match 3 Match 4 Match 5 Match 6 To Be Continued... Thats it for this week! Next week I will post the second part of Round 1. There will be 4 total rounds, each posted a week apart. We'll see you next week, and in the mean time let me know if you have any fun team names for the teams above!

Pssst! There is a holiday giveaway going on until January 1, 2024! You can enter here! Welcome back to the Mojoseum! Round 1 is officially done, and the results are in! Here are your Round 1 winners: Cyclops & Wolverine Doctor Strange & Phoenix Psylocke & Thor Angel & Spectrum Colossus & Deadpool Cable & Spider-Man: Peter Ant-Man & Shadowcat Ms. Marvel & Nova Spider-Ham & War Machine Black Panther & Captain America Captain Marvel & Venom Gamora & X-23 If you want to see how the results shook out exactly, here are the original articles: Round 1, Part 1 Round 1, Part 2 There is also a bracket at the end of the article! Now on to the good stuff! We have a new slate of baddies to go up against, and teams will pair off as before. Here are the six matchups for Round 2! Match 1 Match 2 Match 3 Match 4 Match Match 6 To Be Continued... That's it for this week! Next week I will post the results of Round 2 and the semi-final match-ups! Below is the overall bracket!

Welcome back to the Mojoseum! Following up on last week's post , this is the second half of Round 1! As a reminder, I have randomly paired heroes into teams. Two teams will face off against a semi-randomly assigned scenario. I chose some scenarios for each round, then randomly assigned them modular sets and teams. Your job is to vote on which team you think can handle the scenario best. You have the freedom to choose whichever aspect you want for each hero. The team with the most votes will move on to the next round to match up against another team and a new scenario. So let's take a look at the second half of the round, consisting of 6 matchups! Match 7 Match 8 Match 9 Match 10 Match 11 Match 12 To Be Continued... Thats it for this week! Next week I will post the results of Round 1 and the Round 2 pairings. There are 3 remaining rounds, and each will be posted a week apart. We'll see you next week, and in the mean time let me know if you have any fun team names for the teams above!

Welcome back to the Mojoseum! Round 3 is officially done, and the results are in! Here are your Round 3 winners: Doctor Strange & Phoenix Captain Marvel & Venom Cable & Spider-Man If you want to see how the results shook out, here are the original articles. Just keep in mind that the voting doesn't actually close, so votes can fluctuate. Round 1, Part 1 Round 1, Part 2 Round 2 Round 3 There is also a bracket at the end of the article! These three heroic duos will now match up against the fearsome Ronan! Which team do you think will do the best against Ronan and the Anachronauts? Thanks for voting! Let me know on reddit or discord what you thought of the matchups and if it is something you'd like to see again!

Welcome back to the Mojoseum! Round 2 is officially done, and the results are in! Here are your Round 2 winners: Doctor Strange & Phoenix Angel & Spectrum Cable & Spider-Man (Peter) Ms. Marvel & Nova Black Panther & Captain America Captain Marvel & Venom The Black Panther & Captain America team up just managed to sneak ahead of Spider-Ham & War Machine. At the time of writing this, they were a single vote apart! If you want to see how the results shook out, here are the original articles. Just keep in mind that the voting doesn't actually close, so votes can fluctuate. Round 1, Part 1 Round 1, Part 2 Round 2 There is also a bracket at the end of the article! Now on to the good stuff! We have a new slate of baddies to go up against, and teams will pair off as before. Here are the three matchups for Round 3! Match 1 Match 2 Match 3 To Be Continued... That's it for this week! In two weeks I will post the results of Round 3 and the final matchup! In the finals the three remaining teams will all go up against the same villain. Below is the overall bracket.

*pssst* If you see an acronym or term you don't recognize, check out our glossary . When you’re looking at which cards to keep and which to mulligan, the primary factor in your decision will be… You know what. Let me start with something else. The mulligan is essentially the first in-game decision that you will make, and it can be a really impactful one. The key to a strong start is leveraging the mulligan. This article dives into some basic principles, the reasons behind them, and when to ignore them. At the end is a list of some heroes denoting which cards are important for their mulligan. Basic Principles of the Mulligan: Dig for keystone/build cards. Good isn’t good enough. Utilize your full hand. Evaluate the scenario. Know Your Deck Before we get into the principles, it is worth noting that you should have a rough idea of what your deck is doing and what the important cards are. At the end of this article, you’ll find a run-through of some heroes highlighting pieces from their kit that are important. There are also some aspect cards/combos listed that can be relevant for multiple heroes. The big thing here is knowing your hero and/or deck at least enough to know your mulligan targets. If you're grabbing a deck from MarvelCDB, check for a write-up. Most of the time the author will note cards to look for in a mulligan. With that said, let's get into the meat of digging into your deck. The Mulligan Primer Let’s kick things off by doing a quick rundown of the mulligan’s reach and some numbers to support it. I swear this isn’t a math lecture, so bear with me. To establish a baseline, we’ll use 6 as the standard alter-ego hand size and 40 as the standard deck size. There’s a reason 40 is really common, but we’ll get into it another time. With 6 cards on your opening draw and up to 6 more from the mulligan, most heroes can see more than a quarter of their deck before anyone takes a turn. This is huge . If you're looking for a particular unique card, you have a 15% chance of getting it in your opening hand, but a 30% chance of getting it once you include your mulligan. An important piece of the mulligan puzzle is knowing when you should do a hard mulligan by discarding most (if not all) of your opening hand so that you can dig this deep. You keep diggin'! Dig for Keystone/Build Cards Keystone Cards On the heels of how deep you can dig into your deck, we should talk about keystone heroes. Keystone heroes have a single piece in their kit that significantly changes their gameplay. The rest of their kit or playstyle may hinge on this one card. Some examples would be Dwi Theet Mastery for Drax or Friction Resistance for Quicksilver. Heroes with these upgrades will want to see them as soon as possible, meaning that a hard mulligan is crucial if you don’t see your keystone in the opening hand. Don't worry if you don’t see the keystone card even after a hard mulligan. You’re still a quarter of the way through your deck, and even closer to the card you need. Player side schemes have added a layer of consistency to these heroes, so it is worth considering holding onto something like Super Power Training that will help you “cheat” your keystone card into play. We’ll cover this a little more under Exceptions . Keystone Examples Build Cards Build heroes tend to have a large difference in gameplay between their opening turn and the final turn. These are heroes that have a number of upgrades, supports, and other factors that will increase their power without having a singular piece upon which their kit relies. Some examples would be Iron Man with all his tech and Black Panther with his upgrades. Because some of the cards in our opening hand will be tossed as resources, you’ll have to consider the risk of getting too many of these important pieces at the same time. These heroes are more likely to have a smaller or non-existent mulligan, as you’ll learn to judge if you have a “good enough” hand to avoid losing too many build pieces all at once. Resource generators are a key type here, as they ramp up your spending power right off the bat. Getting resource generators out early can dramatically impact the game, as they snowball the ability to get set up. I'll note that by resource generator I mean cards with a Resource ability (Quincarrier), a discount ability (Helicarrier), or card draw (Avenger's Mansion, Dwi Theet Mastery). Setup Abilities Many heroes come with a setup ability that grabs a card important to their game play. As an example, Black Panther can grab one of his upgrades, while Star-Lord and Venom grab their guns. Other heroes have an alter-ego action that will function the same way: Nova getting his helmet, Thor getting Mjolnir, and Hawkeye getting his bow for example. With these heroes you run less of a risk of having nothing to do after a hard mulligan, because you know you have important pieces coming. However, you may risk losing out on the ability if you draw that setup/action card from your mulligan. If you get the setup piece in hand during the opening draw, you should absolutely discard it, assuming your ability can grab from your discard. You’ll be getting it right back, and it lets you see farther into your deck. If you don’t have these cards in hand, but have a “good enough” hand, it may be worth skipping or reducing your mulligan in order to avoid missing out on the bonus card. Good Isn’t Good Enough If you’re coming from a game like Magic the Gathering, it will seem like someone is stealing cards out of your deck. You will absolutely burn through your deck in a game of Marvel Champions. I mention this, because many times players will get caught up on a really strong card in their opening hand that won’t help them ramp their hero or solve an immediate problem. Smashing face with Hammer Throw is great, but you should almost always chuck it or make it a resource on the opening draw. There are more important things to fish for, and you will see it again sooner than you think. This is a reminder that there is nothing wrong with discarding most or all of your hand for your mulligan. If it isn't good enough, Keep Fishin'. Utilize Your Full Hand One of the considerations that you should have when evaluating your opening hand is whether or not you can fully utilize all the cards. If you find that you would be one resource short, it is worth digging further into the deck to chase a double resource. However, this points us back to our build heroes. You do not want to end up with too many of your important pieces at once, so if you don’t need to mulligan, don’t. Alongside this, you will want to weigh the possibility that you may hard mulligan into nothing. If you have a satisfactory card like an ally, it can be good to hold that as insurance against an unlucky mulligan. You reduce your odds of finding what you want slightly, but you reduce the risk of having nothing to play. Evaluate the Scenario Sometimes the cadence of the scenario is not a slow build, but rather something that requires you to put out fires immediately. In scenarios that give a lot of early pressure, you may want to put more priority into events. In multiplayer games, teamwork is crucial and starts with the opening hands. If one player can forgo setup to manage the board, it can give the other players the time they need to set up quickly. Another thing to consider here are villains that have high attacks or scenarios where you start the game with facedown encounter cards. Allies gain a lot of value here (which is saying something, since they are so valuable already), because they are primed to block an extra attack or flex into what you need to deal with the following turn. Allies are a prime target to hold on to from an opening hand if you’re concerned about having something to play after your mulligan. Exceptions There are two main exceptions to the principles above. First is having a different overall strategy for approaching the scenario by using a rush strategy. Second is the availability of player side schemes, which give you a different path to your same goal (getting the important cards). Rush Strategies Named after the band, Rush strategies focus on delivering sick beats and face-melting riffs. While I have been largely basing this mulligan discussion around a control strategy, you often have the first principle flipped when running a rush strategy. In a control style game, you are looking to manage enemy fires while building your board. Once built, you can move toward defeating the villain. In a rush style game, your goal is to ignore all the fires and just defeat the villain as fast as possible. If your goal is to burn down the villain as quickly as possible, you don’t want to waste time playing cards that won’t return their value. Let’s take Quincarrier as an example. This resource generator costs 4 effective resources , or ER (3 cost + the card itself) while granting a wild resource each use. This means that you aren’t fully refunded until the fourth time you use Quincarrier. While anything above the fourth time is pure value, anything less is questionable. It may help you gain the final resource you need for a single explosive turn, or it may be wasting resources since the game will be over before it pays out. It’s an interesting discussion regarding tempo of play. The Enhanced resource upgrades (Enhanced Awareness, Enhanced Physique, Enhanced Reflexes) offer a worse efficiency of 3 ER for 3 resources compared to Quincarrier's 4 ER for infinite resources. However, they have a much smaller impact on your hand and pay out faster. While I am not wholly condoning loading your decks with Enhanced resource upgrades, this example works well to highlight how value considerations are impacted by strategy. When playing rush, events will hold greater import due to the immediacy of their payout. However, you may still be looking at getting high impact pieces (similar to keystone heroes) or combination pieces. This pushes back to "know your deck." Player Side Schemes Player side schemes are a new card in the game that can fundamentally change how some heroes play. If you or a teammate has a player side scheme that can pull an important card from your deck, it is worth considering that scheme as a faux-copy of your keystone or build card. Mentioned earlier was Superpower Training, a player side scheme that allows each player to find an identity-specific upgrade and put it into play. If this card is in someone’s opening hand, you may want to put a higher priority on threat removal, because it will achieve the same goal (get your card) just with a different path. On the deck-building side, player side schemes are a great way to fix the consistency issues that come with having a keystone card. Conclusion Before we conclude by diving into the individual heroes, I want to reiterate that mulligans are an art. While there are some guiding principles that I outlined above, there are a multitude of factors that will impact how you actually go about your mulligan. Some of the skill comes from experience with a hero or deck. Hopefully this writeup has given you some direction and confidence for pursuing bigger mulligans and stronger starts. Keystone Hero Priorities Here I will be looking at the keystone heroes and their mulligan priorities. I'll also note if there are alternative cards or strategies to watch for during the mulligan. Ant-Man Keystone: Ant-Man's Helmet Ant-Man does a whole lot of form changing, and while he still can do work without his helmet, the card draw and healing are game changing. Colossus Keystone: Iron Will Alternates: Titanium Muscles, Piotr's Studio Iron Will draws you a card each time you lose a Tough status card. This is the central piece to boosting Colossus's abilities. Titanium Muscles can do work, but it isn't nearly as central to the kit. Piotr's Studio is noted here, because it can help you dig for Iron Will. Drax Keystone: Dwi Theet Mastery Alternate: Mantis Dwi Theet Mastery is a huge economy card for Drax, and with his reduced hand size, Drax needs all the card draw he can get. Mantis is a good alternate for the mulligan, because she can provide necessary early healing while Drax builds counters. Hawkeye AE Action: Hawkeye's Bow Keystone: Hawkeye's Quiver Alternates: Mockingbird Hawkeye has a fairly independent hero kit where once built, he can fire a free arrow each turn while still having his whole hand to do other things. His arrow kit functions as a problem solving toolkit. However, the usefulness of this toolbox hinges on building up a stockpile of arrows with Hawkeye's Quiver. The disparity between having and not having the quiver is strong enough that Hawkeye lands here instead of in the Build Hero category. Mockingbird is a good alternate card to increase Hawkeye's survivability while he builds. Quicksilver Keystone: Friction Resistance Friction Resistance is the sole source of economy in Quicksilver's kit. It's huge, because it can be leveraged to produce a lot of resources for a hero with pretty inexpensive hero cards. Star Lord Setup: Element Gun Keystone: Star-Lord's Helmet The legendary outlaw makes this list due to his helmet. Counteracting the extra encounter cards you may get by having an increased hand size is huge. The difference between having the helmet and not is game changing. Groot Keystone: Fertile Grounds While this card may not seem like much at first glance, it has a huge impact on Groot's ability to replenish growth counters. 2 extra counters and 2 extra cards each time Groot changes to alter-ego is a big uptick in tempo. Build Hero Priorities Here I am going to highlight some of the build heroes and their mulligan priorities. While this list is not exhaustive of all build heroes, the heroes below have a number of high priority targets that help bring their power online. There are other build heroes that are not listed here that may have generic build like resource generators or that pull the majority of their focus from their aspect cards and deck design. Adam Warlock Build Cards: Mystic Senses, Sorcerer Supreme, Karmic Staff While Karmic Staff and Sorcerer Supreme are pretty straightforward ramp cards, the copies of Mystic Senses are what really turn Warlock's economy and power on. Each will draw a card when Warlock uses his Battle Mage ability, meaning you can take your least useful card each turn and turn it into two other options. Note: Take a look at the Spiritual Mediation entry for Mystics below. Black Panther Setup: one Black Panther upgrade from deck Build Cards: The Golden City, Black Panther upgrades, Shuri While many players are looking to build the suit as fast as possible, The value of The Golden City cannot be stressed enough. An early draw will absolutely snowball your ability to set up. Something crucial to note for Black Panther is that his Setup ability (and Shuri) doesn't reach into the discard pile. That means if you have an upgrade you want, don't discard it during the mulligan . Iron Man Build Cards: tech upgrades, Pepper Potts, Stark Tower Tech upgrades are the primary card you should be looking for during your mulligan. You should be aiming to land at least two upgrades on your first turn. Pepper Potts and Stark Tower are both helpful, but rarely should either be taking precedence over playing more tech cards. Ms. Marvel Build Cards: Aamir Khan, Nakia Bahadir, Embiggen!, Shrink, Biokinetic Polymer Suit Ms. Marvel has some of the strongest alter-ego support in the game. This means she has a lot of solid options for kicking off the game. The above are pretty self-explanatory, but I will note that if you're leaning into a role (thwarter / damage dealer), then feel free to chuck Embiggen! or Shrink during your opening hand. Their value largely depends on your role. She-Hulk Build Cards: Focused Rage x2, Superhuman Law Division Focused Rage is the big economy card for She-Hulk, and they help for setting up massive damage turns for Gamma Slam. These are expensive upgrades, so the sooner you get them out, the more likely they are to pay themselves off. Superhuman Law Division is a solid early card as well, as it is essentially the only efficient thwarting in her kit beyond Hellcat. SP//dr Build Cards: Interface cards, All Systems Go!, Aunt May & Uncle Ben, SP//dr Command SP//dr is a hero that I could do an entire write up on just her mulligan and opening hand. Suffice it to say that while she has a lot of setup, she can do it fast. You have a 90% chance of hitting at least one interface upgrade in your opening sequence. You have roughly 30% chance to hit two or more interfaces in your opening sequence. While your mulligan may be small with only 4 cards, you can then draw an additional 2 cards with the SP//dr Suit support. Then you have Aunt May & Uncle Ben that give you further reach into your deck. Despite the small hand size, SP//dr can reach just as far into her deck as most heroes. Thor Action: Mjolnir Build: Asgard, For Asgard!, God of Thunder Thor's biggest limiting factor is his economy. Once set up, it's plenty strong. However, you have a lot of cards to grab, and they aren't particularly cheap. Asgard is the big one, as it will increase Thor's hand size in both hero and alter-ego. For Asgard! is a decent draw in your opening hand if it is drawn alongside a double resource. If you have both, you can grab Asgard and play it while also playing Mjolnir. God of Thunder is generally useful, but they also power Lightning Strike to help manage the minions Thor may produce. War Machine Build cards: Shoulder Cannon, Gauntlet Gun, Munitions Bunker, Missile Launcher War Machine has some powerful cards, but they are dependent on his ammo counters. For this reason, his Gauntlet Guns are helpful for powering his events, and they can help you do more with your ammo ration from flipping. Shoulder Cannon is a fantastic upgrade that will help you drain your ammo counters before flipping, and Munitions Bunker is essential for building up more explosive turns. Venom Setup: one weapon from deck Build cards: Multigun, Spider-Sense, Venom’s Pistols, Project Rebirth 2.0 You'll be getting a weapon from your deck during setup, but Venom is a hero where I think digging for Multigun is worth the risk of losing out on your Setup ability. The rest are pretty straight forward economy and build cards. Ebb-and-Flow Hero Priorities These are build heroes that I colloquially call Ebb-and-Flow Heroes. They tend to have a lot of setup, but it is with cards that will be discarded through play. You end up with this ebb and flow feel as you build toward big turns, then fall back to rebuild after that big turn. Essentially you'll want to grab at least one of their focus cards during your mulligan and then the rest will be dependent on what deck you run. I'm not going to go into these heroes at this point beyond just listing who they are. I'll also note there are other Ebb-and-Flow heroes that derive the feel from building counters or the like, but they'll be addressed another time. Black Widow (preparations) Nebula (techniques) Rocket Raccoon (tech) The reason I bother mentioning Rocket here is that you can use his alter-ego action to ditch an early tech and dig deeper into his deck. Everyone Else The rest of the heroes have minimal setup. Most of them will just want resource generators given either by their kit or aspect cards. One that I will call out is Ironheart. She seems like a build hero at first glance, but initially you're looking to upgrade your suit. This is an event focused path for the most part. Her build pieces largely come later. Aspects I wanted to pick out two aspect suites that can really change how a hero builds. X-Men : The X-Men have a really strong suite of cards that can turn any X-Men or Mutant hero into a build hero. Some combination of Cerebro, Danger Room, Utopia, X-Jet, and X-Mansion can all make for a solid deck and be strong choices for mulligans. These will be deck dependent, so again... Know Your Deck. Mystics : All the mystics will want to take Sorcerer Supreme, and it will be one of your important mulligan pieces. However, mystics can also take Spiritual Meditation. I wanted to highlight this card regarding the mulligan, because it can be a little unintuitive. You want to keep Spiritual Meditation during your mulligan so you can reach farther into your deck. If you discard Spiritual Meditation during the mulligan, you will only see 12 cards in your deck. If you hold Spiritual Meditation, you see 11 cards and then see 2 more when you play it. You'll be resource neutral (no gain or loss), but you will have dug deeper into your deck. Thanks Thank you again to everyone who chatted with me about this topic. In particular, thank you to Journeyman2, Jossero, and MegiDolaDyne.

Whether you're new to the game or a seasoned player looking to up their performance, these general tips and strategies are a great starting point on improving your play. I think it is important to note right from the get-go that more refined strategies are hero and deck specific. Taking a look at MarvelCDB can be really helpful, as many of the authors will do a write-up explaining the goals and strategies of their deck. That said, there are some tips and strategies that are pretty universal. Utilizing these can jump-start a new player’s play. Don’t Half-Ass Two Things. Whole-Ass One Thing. In Marvel Champions, card abilities and effects are all or nothing. It doesn’t matter how much damage is on a minion or threat on a side scheme. If they aren’t defeated, they are firing at 100%. For this reason, villain damage is generally one of the lowest priorities at any given point in the game. If you have a 2-HP minion in play, dealing 2 damage to it defeats it, reducing its power (or impact on the game) to zero. However, dealing 2 damage to the villain doesn’t reduce its power or impact in any way. They will still be hitting at full strength. This means it’s best to put out whatever fires you can before working on reducing the villain’s health. This is referred to as a “control” play style. As another approach, there is the “rush” play style, where you ignore most (if not all) fires to push damage on the villain. In both cases you're not wasting resources partially solving a problem. You're dealing with them or ignoring them. Use It or Lose It! More often than not, the best use of your cards is to play them in whatever way utilizes your full hand and any available resource generators. Keep in mind that first and foremost you want to be solving any major problems on the board. This usually means clearing minions and side schemes (see above). Beyond that though, you want to be using your resources in the most efficient way possible. Some of this has to be taken into consideration at the deck building stage. You want to ensure that the cost of the cards in your deck are something you can easily play without leaving resources behind each turn. For example, if you have a hand size of 5 in hero form, but you have mostly 3 cost cards, you will consistently have a card left over. This means each round you’re using only 4/5 of the resources available to you. As with all things in life, there are exceptions. Occasionally you will need to hold onto a card or have a card left over after putting out this round's fires. However, in most cases the most efficient play is to use all the resources available to you. Never fear, though! There are plenty of ways to handle extra resources. Resource sinks like Lockjaw (play from the discard pile), Plan B (discard a random card for 2 damage), and Machine Man (use a resource to boost a stat for a single activation) offer ways to smooth your hand by converting leftover resources into damage and threat removal. I'll Be Back (Quick Turnover) On the heels of the above advice, don’t feel bad using a good card to pay for a great one. If you’re coming from a background like Magic the Gathering, you’ll certainly have anxiety about discarding a card or passing one up. The truth of it is, Marvel Champions has so much card draw built in that you will see that card again, and you will see it sooner than you think. Swinging Web Kick is pretty rad, but if it isn’t solving an immediate problem, take Elsa’s advice: let it go. There are obviously a few cards that are the exception to this. Dwi Theet Mastery and Friction Resistance are keystone cards for Drax and Quicksilver respectively. Prioritize cards like these unless you absolutely cannot. Beyond that, learn to be okay using a card as a resource if it helps you solve current problems or increase your ability to handle problems later. One of the places this issue shows up the most is with the mulligan. Use the mulligan as an opportunity to dig for cards that will have a long term impact on your game, even if it means discarding good cards. A Noble Sacrifice (Let Allies Take the Punch) Allies are the most efficient cards in the game. Why? They often have an enter play or activation ability. They generally remove a few threat or deal a bit of damage. They can be used as meat shields. Most of the time, the best way to use the final hp of an ally is to block a villain’s attack. What is better: clearing 1 threat or blocking infinite damage (absent overkill, of course)? It is hard to beat the incredible value of using an ally to defend for you or a teammate. Utilizing allies efficiently can drastically improve your survivability. Over is Over When you go over a main scheme threshold, it doesn’t matter how much or how little you go over. The threat will all be removed when the stage advances, regardless of how much is there. This can be leveraged! If you are fairly certain the main scheme is going to pop (and there are more main scheme stages), don’t waste resources clearing threat. For example, in a solo game with a main scheme that will increase by one threat at the start of the villain phase, I will make sure I’m two threat below threshold when the villain phase starts. This means that when the villain schemes, anything beyond one threat is threat I don’t have to manage! Instead, I’m able to use those resources elsewhere. There is No Score Unless you’re playing in the Solo Champions League ( which you should be! ), no one is scoring you. Which means it doesn’t matter if there are minions in play or threat on schemes when the villain is defeated. You win either way! Keep this in mind, because there will be a point in the game when you need to move from controlling the board to defeating the villain. It’s a somewhat nebulous point, but learning when you can ignore a minion or push toward defeating the villain is an incredibly valuable skill. One, Not One per Player This is just a super common mistake new players make: Hazard icons only deal one additional encounter card to the table, not one per player. You’re welcome. I'm Going to Go Now This is more of a quality of life tip than a strategy tip. Actions can be taken out of turn. If you have an action that won’t affect the rest of the table, take it! This will drastically speed up games, especially at high player counts. There is no need to wait to use Kamala Khan’s Teen Spirit ability. Get that card in hand, so you can start processing your turn before it gets to you. In Conclusion Taking these tips to heart will give you a solid framework for improving your play. As you improve, you’ll learn that there are occasions when you should absolutely toss these suggestions to the curb. In the meantime, focusing on them will help bring your hero’s true power to bear.

Tracking all the triggers and abilities in Marvel Champions is one of the easiest things to mess up in this game. There are conditions on nearly every card, and as the game goes on, there are only more things to track. In this article, we’re going to take a look at triggering conditions for abilities, trigger windows, and timing priorities. We’ll do a few examples along the way, and there will be a few hidden answer examples at the end if you want to test your knowledge. Psst! I know after that title you were expecting a bouncing, stuffed tiger, but you're stuck with me instead. I’m here as the “Ackchyually” guy. In some cases being perfectly technical gets in the way of learning, so there will be some stuff Astrodar leaves out, glosses over, or even makes up for the sake of clarity. I’ll let you know when this happens. I’ll also include some fun* tidbits of extra info along the way. Don’t worry, though! You have my word that his info is still correct, regardless of omissions and made-up terms. Scout's Honor!** *Fun in a “I don’t understand what the word fun means” kind of way. **Technically he made me say that. Triggered Abilities Abilities are essentially any non-trait text in a card’s text box. Some are constant abilities that are always active when a card is in play, while others are keywords defined separately in the rules. Others yet are triggered abilities, where the text is preceded by a bold timing trigger indicating the ability is only active when triggered. These triggered abilities are what we’re focusing on in this article. While some triggered abilities are optional, others are mandatory. I've listed them below. While we won’t really go into it here, keep in mind that some of the timing triggers on abilities are also labeled Hero or Alter-Ego, which further limits when they can be triggered. Mandatory Triggered Abilities Boost Forced Interrupt Forced Response Setup * When Defeated When Revealed Optional Triggered Abilities Action Interrupt Resource Response *It’s worth noting that Setup is a keyword, while Setup is a timing trigger. There is no separate RRG entry for Setup , however, the ‘Ability’ entry and ‘Appendix II: Setup’ mention the timing trigger. See! "Fun!" Setup abilities are the first that you’ll run into during a game. These occur during step 12 (on the main scheme) and step 16 (on identity cards) during the game’s setup. After that, the easiest ability to understand is the Action ability. This is the easiest, because the triggering condition is… you! As long as it is the player phase and no other game step or ability is being resolved, you can choose to trigger an Action ability. This can be on your turn or another player’s turn! Resource abilities are nearly as simple, and they can be triggered when you’re paying the cost of another card or ability. There may be further limitations imposed, such as limiting the card type that a Resource ability can be used for (i.e. “generate an energy resource for a DEFENSE event”). The remaining triggered abilities all come with a timing trigger ( Interrupt , Response , When Revealed , etc.) followed by a triggering condition in the ability text. For example, Upside the Head has the ‘ Response ’ timing trigger with “after your hero makes a basic attack and damages an enemy” as the triggering condition. Triggering conditions generally have “when” for an Interrupt or “after” for a Response as part of the description. Interrupt and Response timing triggers are worth diving into a little deeper. The timing trigger tells us the relationship between the triggering condition and the timing of the ability. An Interrupt ability will occur entirely before its triggering condition, while a Response ability will occur entirely after the triggering condition. One place where this really matters is with abilities that have multiple sentences or sentences with multiple effects. These are important to highlight, because while you cannot respond to an effect before it's done resolving, you can respond between sentences of an ability. Let's look at some examples. You're playing She-Hulk, and you're in alter-ego with the following hand: Split Personality, Surprise Attack, and four other cards each with a single resource. You play Split Personality, leaving only Surprise Attack and one other card in hand. The first sentence of Split Personality has you change form. If you do nothing else, you will resolve the second sentence and draw two cards, bringing you up to She-Hulk's hero hand size of four. However, you are allowed to respond between sentences. This means that you can play Surprise Attack (since it triggers on changing form), leaving you with no cards in hand. Then the second sentence resolves, allowing you to draw up to your full hand size. Keep in mind that moving on to the second sentence of Split Personality closes the window for 'form change' triggers. If during the resolution of the second sentence you were to draw into Surprise Attack, you cannot play it. Remember that while you can respond between sentences of an ability, you cannot respond in the middle of a sentence. Let's take a look at Spectrum to illustrate this point. If you play Gamma Blast, you will change to Gamma form and deal 7 damage. Those things happen simultaneously, and you cannot interrupt or respond to any part of it until the full sentence is resolved. This means you cannot trigger Gamma's Response ability to deal 1 damage until after the 7 damage has already been dealt. Bummer if your target has a Tough. So far we've been going through timing triggers, but that isn't the whole picture. Now let's dive into trigger windows. Trigger Windows When a triggering condition is met, it opens a window during which any ability with a matching triggering condition may be resolved. Multiple triggering conditions can be met at once, but only one window is opened. For example, the “after the villain attacks” condition shares a window with the “after your hero defends” condition. For the most part, a window stays open as long as players choose. However, it closes once the players do one of the following: move on by proceeding with another game step choose to activate an Action ability return to an outer trigger window (see below) resolve an ability or effect that invalidates or closes a trigger window There better be something below! What the hell is an outer trigger window? The first two are pretty simple. Essentially the players choose to move on, because there is nothing they want to do in the current trigger window. Once an Action ability is activated or you have moved to a new games step (such as finishing the villain attack and moving to deal encounter cards to players) you close all open windows. With the final two methods, there will be things that allow a window to remain open (even while playing other cards) or that prematurely close a window. Nested Trigger Windows After a trigger window is opened, secondary windows may be opened by abilities being resolved during the initial window. These windows are nested inside one another, meaning that when a new nested window opens, it doesn't close the current window. In other words, you can play Response and Interrupt abilities to this new trigger without closing the current window. As an example, we’ll look at Ms. Marvel’s Morphogenetics ability, Turn the Tide, and Justice Served. As the Ms. Marvel player, you use an event to clear the last threat on a side scheme. This opens up a window to play all cards that trigger off: your hero thwarting scheme being defeated all threat being removed from a scheme etc. As you can see, there are multiple triggering conditions, but they will share only one window. You chooses to play Turn the Tide, whose triggering condition has been met. Upon resolution of Turn the Tide, a second window opens up for all cards that trigger off your hero attacking playing an attack event etc. Thanks to this second window, Ms. Marvel can trigger her Morphogenetics ability, exhausting her identity to bring Turn the Tide back into hand. We don’t have anything else that triggers off playing an attack event or our hero attacking, so we let this window close and return to the outer trigger window*. Since the second window was nested inside the first, the first window hasn't closed, meaning we can play Turn the Tide again. After that, we have no further abilities to use, so we let this window close and move on. A visualization of nested trigger windows. Closing a nested window does not close an outer window. *I’m not sure if Astrodar knows this, but there is nothing about ‘nested’ or 'outer' windows in RRG 1.5. Actually there’s nothing about it in 1.6 either, but I’m not supposed to know that. It seems he is really just using these concepts to help demonstrate how players are choosing to close a trigger window by moving on with the game. To further the example above, let's assume the same situation given, but you also have Justice Served in play. Now you can pull Turn the Tide into hand a third time, by doing the sequence shown below. Here, Justice Served was triggered before the second play of Turn the Tide, so Ms. Marvel can trigger Morphogenetics again. Invalidated Trigger Windows While most of the time players can choose to close a window at their whim, occasionally triggered abilities will invalidate or close a window. The best explanation here is, again, through Ms. Marvel. As the Ms. Marvel player, you are being attacked and dealt 5 damage. Luckily, you have Wiggle Room in hand, so you play it. As an Interrupt , its effect takes place before the damage is dealt, reducing the damage to 2 and drawing you a card. Being the clever Ms. Marvel player that you are, you trigger her Morphogenetics ability to pull Wiggle Room back into hand. Similar to our example above, the 'when you would take any amount of damage' window is still open. You play Wiggle Room a second time, reducing the damage to 0 and drawing a second card. What if, however, there were only 2 damage initially being dealt? The beginning of the sequence is the same. You play Wiggle Room and use Morphogenetics to bring it to hand. However, at this point you have reduced the damage to 0. The 'when you would take any amount of damage' window has closed, because there is no longer any damage being dealt. This means you cannot play Wiggle Room a second time, no matter how much you want that card draw. Similar Triggers and Timing Priorities First and foremost, it is important to remember that the triggering condition is the really important part ! The timing trigger simply tells you when the ability happens in relation to the trigger (An Interrupt is before and a Response is after) and the ability’s priority if multiple abilities trigger off the same triggering condition. When there are multiple abilities that trigger from the same triggering condition, they will resolve according to the priority timing chart on page 5 of RRG 1.5. I have reproduced it here. Timing: Constant abilities, keywords, and acceleration, amplify, crisis, and hazard icons Status cards “ Forced Interrupt ” abilities “ Interrupt ” abilities “ Boost ,” “ When Defeated ,” and “ When Revealed ” abilities “ Forced Response ” abilities “ Response ” abilities Consequential damage Remember that the triggering condition must be met first . The timing chart only applies within the same trigger window. If there are multiple abilities with the same triggering condition and timing trigger, you can resolve them in the order of your choice. Let's take a look at some Protection upgrades as an example. Forcefield Generator, Energy Barrier, and Defensive Stance are all upgrades with the "when you would take any amount of damage" triggering condition. This means they will all have the same trigger window. Forcefield Generator has a Forced Interrupt ability, so it must be resolved before the Interrupt abilities on Energy Barrier and Defensive Stance. If Forcefield Generator prevents all the damage, Energy Barrier and Defensive Stance cannot be triggered. However, if there is still damage left over after Forcefield Generator, you can choose the activation order for Energy Barrier and Defensive Stance, because they share the same timing trigger. When you have cases like above, it's worth emphasizing that you should ensure they do actually have the same triggering condition. There are many similar, but different, triggering conditions to track. This is a particularly good spot to talk about ‘would.’ In Marvel Champions, ‘would’ shifts a triggering condition to an earlier point in time. Using the example from RRG 1.5, “when a character would be defeated” occurs before “when a character is defeated.” This is important, because it can prevent some triggering conditions from ever happening. For example, let's look at some defense events. Both Defiance and Preemptive Strike have Interrupt abilities that depend on a boost card being turned face up. However, Defiance's trigger cares about when a boost card "would be turned faceup," while Preemptive Strike cares about when a boost card "is turned face up." This means Defiance actually triggers at an earlier point. If you play it, the boost card is discarded instead of being turned faceup, and Preemptive Strike does not have an opportunity to trigger. As another example, we can look at an interaction Colossus may run into with Master Mold. Armor Up and Master Mold's ability both care about the villain activating. Though Master Mold is more specific, requiring a scheme activation, there is no timing difference between a villain activating, scheming, or attacking. Activating is just the more general term that encompasses both scheming and attacking. However, Armor Up's Interrupt ability has the trigger condition 'when the villain would activate,'* while Master Mold's Forced Interrupt ability has the condition 'when Master Mold schemes.' If these shared a window, Master Mold would trigger first. However, 'would' pushes Armor Up to an earlier time, meaning it is actually triggering in a different window. *I know what you're thinking. "Astrodar has lost it. There is no 'would' on Armor Up." While that first bit is true, the second isn't! There is an errata for Armor Up that changes 'activates' to 'would activate.' This allows the interactions to all work properly. You can find the errata on page 55 of RRG 1.5. Windows During Enemy Attacks To give us an idea of what triggering conditions we may see during an enemy attack and when we might see them, let’s look at this list below. This list isn’t guaranteed to be complete, but it does contain the most common triggers. (At least he’s honest about the carefree way he throws rules to the wind.) “when [character] attacks”, “when [character] initiates an attack”, “when [character] activates” when [character] basic defends turn boost card faceup deal damage take damage defeated (if applicable) leaves play (if applicable) after [character] attacks, after [character] activates, after [character] defends Conditions 3-7 each have a ‘when’ and ‘after’ version that occurs before/after the listed condition. Remember that adding ‘would’ to any of the above statements shifts it immediately above the same statement without ‘would.’ It’s also worth noting that in the outline above, I only pointed out the basic defense trigger. A ‘when [character] defends’ trigger can happen at any point in the process due to various timing on defense events. If you don’t use a basic defense, but later play a defense event, that would create the ‘when [character] defends’ triggering condition. I want to emphasize that dealing damage and taking damage are two separate steps during an attack. For example, let’s look at Rhino with a Tough status card and his Armored Rhino Suit attached. For the sake of precision, the RRG 1.5 entry for Tough states: If a character with a tough status card would take any amount of damage, prevent all of that damage and discard a tough status card from that character instead. Our two triggering conditions are “when any amount of damage would be dealt to Rhino” and “if a character with a tough status card would take any amount of damage.” If we attack Rhino with a 2 ATK hero, we exhaust our hero and deal 2 damage to Rhino. This opens up the ‘dealing damage’ window, triggering Armored Rhino Suit’s Forced Interrupt and placing the damage on the card instead. Since there are no more abilities that trigger on ‘dealing damage,’ we close the window and move on. There is no longer any damage for Rhino to take, so the ‘taking damage’ window never opens, and Tough* does not interact in any way. *This is a good time to mention that the first sub-bullet to the third bullet of the Damage section is incorrect. If that’s not enough bullets, I swear I’ve got more. We know this entry is incorrect via the Official Rules Specialist, Alex. Dealing damage happens first, then tough, then taking damage. Conclusion I hope this helps give you a better grasp on triggering conditions and timing windows. With luck, I’ll be back to make any adjustments based on a new RRG, rules answers, or maybe even just with more examples. For now, you can find a few more examples below. Thanks Thanks to the discord rules gurus who helped out with this one: igorbone, journeyman2, SCOE, Scott Hill, and Theorel. Get a load of this guy! He doesn't even give me credit in the Thanks section? What's a guy gotta do around here to get a little recognition for all his hard work? Relevant RRG Entries Ability p4 Action p5 After p6 Appendix II: Setup p43 Forced p17 Interrupt p21 Resource Ability p30 Response p31 Tough p36 Triggered Ability p37 Triggering Condition p37 When Defeated Abilities p39 When Revealed Abilities p39 "Would" p40 Examples Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Question 1: Building upon the example given in the article, let’s say that Ms. Marvel has Counter-Punch in hand and Indomitable in play. If she plays a defense event (aka defends against an attack), how many times can she play Counter-Punch? (If you're getting stressed about playing Counter-Punch for Ms. Marvel's measly 1 ATK, pretend she used Repurpose during the player phase to boost her ATK to 4.) Answer 1 Three . If she plays a defense event, at the end of the attack she opens up a window to play all cards that trigger off 'after your hero defends.' This means she can play Counter-Punch. Playing Counter-Punch opens a window to play all cards that trigger off your hero attacking playing an attack event Our first window hasn’t closed, because we haven’t moved to the next game step. So we can exhaust Ms. Marvel to trigger her ability, bringing Counter-Punch back to hand. We don’t have any other cards that care about this window, so we can let it close. Since our first window is still open, we can still trigger any "after defending" abilities. We choose to trigger Indomitable, readying Ms. Marvel. Since our window is still open, we’ll play Counter-Punch. This opens a new secondary window, just like before, giving us the chance to exhaust Ms. Marvel and bring Counter-Punch back into our hand. We don’t have any more abilities that care about attacking, so we let this secondary window close. That first window is still open, meaning we can play Counter-Punch a third time. Now that we don’t have any cards left, we can let the window that opened after defending finally close. All Dressed Up, and Something Must Go Question 2 : Both of these attachments are on one minion, and that minion has two hit points. What happens if you attack it and it takes two damage? Answer 2 We attack the minion, dealing exactly enough damage to bring the minion’s health to 0. When a character’s hit points reach 0, it is defeated. This means that an Interrupt timing window opens just before the minion is defeated. Biomechanical Upgrades triggers, restoring the minion to full hit points and discarding itself. There is now no minion leaving play, which means that Psionic Shield remains in play, as the ability was not triggered. Question 3 : Both of these attachments are on one non-elite minion, and that minion has two hit points. What happens if you defeat the player side scheme Take Out the Guards? Answer 3 You can choose to discard the minion, which opens a “When attached minion would leave play” Interrupt window just before you actually discard the minion. Psionic Shield is forced to trigger, healing all damage and leaving the minion in play. Then it discards itself. The Thorn in Thor's Side Question 4: Loki has 1 damage on him. Thor swings his mighty hammer, exhausts his identity, and deals 3 damage to Loki. If the top card of the encounter deck is a treachery, will you be able to trigger Battle Fury? *Back in my day, Loki's ability was optional. However, someone decided it was an error that needed to be errata'd to a Forced Interrupt . You can find the errata on page 54 of RRG 1.5. Though depending on how frustrated one is by Loki healing sixteen goddamn times, one may choose to ignore that errata. #PlayHowYouWant Answer 4 No. Loki's Forced Interrupt triggers first, as the triggering condition happens before Loki is actually defeated. After you discard the treachery on the top of the encounter deck, you heal Loki, replacing his defeat. This means the triggering condition for Battle Fury never happens.