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It's "Oops! All Leadership!" this week. A lot of Leadership decks were shared over the course of this challenge, so today we're taking a look at some of the many ways Leadership can be played. The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Cable Leadership Angel Leadership Psylocke Leadership Storm Leadership Wasp Leadership Cable Leadership Suggested By: theromeo Created By: theromeo Encounter: Project Wideawake Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Bring your daughter to work day This was a great reminder of how strong Cable is! I took Cable (and his daughter) up against Project Wideawake, which really helped bring Cable online due to Abduction Protocols having Victory and starting in play. Mutant Mayhem was a lot of fun to play, even if it was for something as simple as getting aggressive by replaying Marrow as the X-Force target. Hope was grabbed by Project Wideawake. While thematically fun, it undercut that side of the deck. All in all, this was a quick fun game! I’d be interested in running this alongside some other X-Men and X-Force decks. Angel Leadership Suggested By: royal7 Created By: royal7 Encounter: Mojo + Crime + Fantasy Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Angel's Psychic Sidekick The encounter randomizer rolled Mojo, and that was a rough match-up! I really liked the attack/ready combo of the deck with Sidekick and extra readies from Psylocke and Ready to Rumble. Once Psylocke was out, I could generate a lot of value off the readies. I was even able to close out the game using Side-by-Side. That said, the pressure of the scenario made it hard to set up the combo. At times I felt I was fighting against Angel’s natural answers in order to set up the combo. Angel’s in-kit cards are so well tuned, that I have to specifically focus on outside things. I often feel this way with Sidekick decks, so I think it boils down to a play style preference. Sidekick offers a really neat combo, but I feel like I’m dragging the game in order to set it up. Replaying Angel reminded me of how insular his cards feel, and why I have fallen off him somewhat recently. He's still a lot of fun to play, but I default to the same old play lines with him. If you like Sidekick, I think this is absolutely worth trying out! Psylocke Leadership Suggested By: mougy Created By: mougy Encounter: Tower Defense Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Berserker Training Camp Psylocke is one of the heroes I haven’t played a whole lot. She definitely felt favored in this match-up. The versatility of Flurry of Blades allowed me to confuse both villains and easily keep my ability to flip down to alter-ego. I liked the concept of this deck, and I have been growing fond of ally upgrade decks where you spread the upgrades across multiple allies, rather than load up one singular ally (aka Voltron decks). I think this hit the sweet spot on ally upgrades, even without bringing a huge amount of allies along. Target Practice was surprisingly useful here. It is essentially just turning a card into two damage, but the fact that it can sit on the board until needed was helpful. Initially I was concerned about the number of low cost cards in the deck that are reliant on other cards (like Psychic Kicker and the “max 1 per ally” limit on Sidearm and Inspired). In play, I was able to easily finagle my hands to ensure there was something to play, so they weren’t the hindrance I initially thought. As a note, I did make the swap of Pete Wisdom to Cable that they suggested in their notes. This deck definitely made me wonder why I don’t play Psylocke more. Storm Leadership Suggested By: Stretch22 Created By: Stretch22 Encounter: Klaw Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: The Lightning Legion This was a super breezy deck. I’ve been playing a lot of Storm Leadership recently, but in a completely different play style (shameless plug to my article) . It was interesting to lean into the full power of Storm and Leadership, and they were able to handle Klaw easily. I really liked the ally density for “To Me, My X-Men.” I haven’t used this card in many decks (though this is my second in this series), and I really enjoyed how easily it hit. I know Stretch22 plays a lot of Heroic (shameless plug to his channel) , and I do feel like this is a deck that could meet those challenges. This reminded me that Storm is an absolute beast (not your Beast) , Leadership is an absolute beast (still not your Beast) , and the X-Men are… you’ve got it… absolute beasts (including your Beast) . Wasp Leadership Suggested By: JWalton Created By: JWalton Encounter: Sandman Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Nadia Van Dyne | G.I.R.L. Power (Get Up and Game!) Believe it or not, Wasp is a top five hero for me, and this deck really highlighted some of the reasons why. It is incredibly strong to have extra access to incredibly powerful cards like Nick Fury, Moon Girl, and Professor X. Not to mention, you can cycle her large damage attack, Pinpoint Strike, increasing her access to damage. When I play Wasp Leadership, I don't usually cycle Fury and X back in. Instead, I cycle Make the Call and leave the two temporary allies in my discard pile for flexible access to which I want. Other than that, Moon Girl and Genius are my top targets for G.I.R.L. I really liked the use of Goliath in this deck, especially since I haven’t used Goliath in a long time. The ability to get him on board and swinging for 5 or 10 damage with a ready led to some big tempo swings, especially against Sandman, where his 5 ATK cleaned up the sand counters I had let build up. The deck ran smooth, and I feel as good about Wasp as I ever have. Though now I have an itch to bring back out my favorite version of Wasp: Wasp Protection! Conclusion This was a fun run of decks, mostly because they tackled Leadership in a variety of ways. While Leadership isn't my favorite aspect, it was a blast seeing the versatility and diversity in the aspect.

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Ant-Man Justice Bishop 'Pool Spectrum Aggression Spider-Ham 'Pool Gambit Aggression Ant-Man Justice Suggested By: KnightAdz Created By: KnightAdz Encounter: Red Skull Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Ant-Man Justice Ant-Man is a top ten hero for me, and I had a blast with this deck. I always love how much ping damage Ant-Man can create, and in solo that really sings. I played against Red Skull, and the ping damage helped with tough management and working around Guard. I enjoyed the inclusion of Speed in this deck, because I think he is an underrated ally. He has a significant impact on threat management in solo, and has the added flexibility of splitting his threat removal across two different schemes. He is a high strong tempo play, impacting the board in a big way while also being ready to block for you that round or the next. I love lower ally count builds right now, and Ant-Man has the kit to support it. This deck definitely reminded me how fun Ant-Man is! Bishop ‘Pool Suggested By: Fakeski Created By: jasonbrown0620 Encounter: Ultron Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I, Standard III Deck: Get Baptized This deck was a reminder of “a time and place for everything.” I am not particularly fond of the icon-focused version of ‘Pool, and rolling solo into Expert Ultron with it was rough. To be fair, it could very well be that I don't understand the play lines for icon-focused 'Pool. It could also be that multiplayer would open up the space to experience it on expert difficulty. However, I decided that I would have a much better time playing on Standard difficulty for this match-up. Switching to Standard opened up the game play enough for me to enjoy what the deck was doing, while not having to deal with Ultron's extra pressure. It absolutely breezed through Standard. As a whole, it was a really solid deck, and I enjoyed my plays of it on Standard! Spectrum Aggression Suggested By: VJakson Created By: VJakson Encounter: Stryfe Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Spectum (A) Infrared Stryfe always makes for some interesting games, and I had a lot of fun with this Spectrum deck. Despite Stryfe's additional tax on playing cards, Spectrum's economy still felt strong. There were plenty of expensive cards to play, which minimized the impact of that tax. I really enjoy the massive boost Honed Technique gives to cards like Dive Bomb, but I actually found the extra little stretch on the small events to be helpful as well. My first attempt against Stryfe resulted in a loss, but I took him down on the second. I had a particularly memorable and rough turn where I played Pulsar Shield to clear my hand (thus reducing Stryfe’s ATK), leaving me with an ally, a double resource, and two Speed of Lights in hand. I could flip to whatever form I needed as soon as my turn started. Lo and behold, my encounter card was Spectrum’s obligation, blocking me from changing forms. I stayed in Pulsar form the rest of the game, defending and letting my allies do the work. This was a surprisingly flexible deck, and I had a good time with it! It feels like it would really take off in multiplayer. Spider-Ham ‘Pool Suggested By: dr00 Created By: dr00 Encounter: Nebula Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Pink Eggs and Ham As if it knew what hero I was playing, the randomizer spit out Nebula for this match-up. Nebula is my least favorite scenario in the game. That said, it’s still Marvel Champions, so I knew I could have a good time. Ham did Ham things, and he was able to capitalize on the ‘Pool cards to amp up his kit’s abilities. War in particular was a lot of fun to use (though I kept discarding my Cartoon Physics with it). This game reminded me of how many hard answers Ham and ‘Pool have to a lot of what the encounter deck throws at you. I had a good time with this deck, which is saying something. You never quite know what will happen when you go up against Nebula. Gambit Aggression Suggested By: BandofSirens Created By: NocturnalAnimal Encounter: Mojo + Sitcom + Western Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: 5 Card Stud Ms. Marvel has been a top three hero for me for ages. So when Gambit was announced, I was amped about the damage boosting. However, Gambit’s alter-ego abilities are incredibly powerful, so they kind of took over in my head as Gambit's schtick. That said, I got to see the two sides of his kit work together in this match up. Mojo gave me two real issues: First, flipping really taxes your threat removal. Second, Sitcom was shuffled in first, and it doesn’t have any minions. That made it difficult to capitalize on all the minion cards. However, I still had a bunch of fun, and by the time Western came out, the minion slaying cards really sang. I was able to use his alter-ego abilities to help me build through the early game, then I was able to focus down Mojo with boosted damage as we raced to the end. Also, finely tuning the damage to ensure no actions were wasted was super nice. For example, ensuring you could get a clean five damage on one attack to get rid of his Stinger Tail without taking retaliate was satisfying. I really like dialing numbers in to hit exact breakpoints like that. It was a lot of fun and a tense game.  Conclusion That's it for this go around! Next on the docket is an Oops! All Leadership post. I got a lot of Leadership decks suggested for this project.

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Spider-Man Leadership Black Panther Protection Rocket Racoon Protection Captain America Justice Adam Warlock (sans 'Pool) Spider-Man Leadership Suggested By: SecretlyASummers Created By: SecretlyASummers Encounter: Klaw Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Spider-Man - Black Cat Upgrades I absolutely love Spider-Man, and I love his ability to protect his allies as they do what needs to be done. This deck is all about making Black Cat your sidekick and boosting her up with upgrades. I took it up against Klaw, and I lost my first game against him. I definitely didn't have a good grasp of how to open the game with this deck in solo, and things got out of hand quickly. The second game went much smoother, because I had a better idea of what kind of opening play line would let me keep the threat under control. Essentially, in a deck focused on a specific ally and with only one other ally, I had opted for clearing the starting minion and assuming my allies would show up when they show up. However, what I needed to do was get my allies going and get Spider Tracer on the minion. That made all the difference, and from the second turn forward I felt much more in control! As is somewhat par for the course with these so far, I think this would really take off in multiplayer, because the set up should be much faster and smoother! Black Panther Protection Suggested By: MegiDolaDyne Created By: MegiDolaDyne Encounter: Mysterio Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: War Has Changed I played a lot of Black Panther early on with Marvel Champions, but he hasn't hit the table a whole lot for me. He always felt like he kind of got left behind compared to all the other Core Set heroes, because there were fewer new toys for him to play with. This deck proved me wrong. All the ping damage was fantastic. I was curious about Change of Fortune without any of the defense/attack events, but between all the ping damage and using Warpath to play Wakanda Forever in the villain phase, there were a lot of ways to trigger that card draw. It made a rich Black Panther feel even richer! I actually played this deck a bit before the new Black Panther hero pack announcement came out, so I was already jazzed to get Black Panther back to the table. Now with that announcement, I can guarantee he will be hitting the table a lot more often in the near future. Rocket Raccoon Protection Suggested By: CastleFrank47 Created By: CastleFrank47 Encounter: Unus Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Come Get Murdered Bub Rocket Raccoon is one of my favorite heroes in the game. He is also the hero I have played the most in the game. So I was already predisposed to like this deck. I love Come At Me Bub as a way to work around Rocket’s fragility. The healing and the tough were huge, and generally there was little to no impact on the minion coming out (though that’s partially due to this just being Unus). Since Rocket can store answers on the board for the minions and gets a benefit from overkilling them, you don’t mind pulling more up. Groot also worked great in concert with that, since you can use Groot as a minion blocker until you’re ready to finish them. Repurpose is always a favorite of mine with Rocket. You can have some absolutely absurd turns with damage dealing or thwarting! The player side schemes often felt like a low priority, but some of that shakes out to my personal play style. I think they add consistency to getting out his big guns, so I definitely wouldn’t remove them. However, they do feel like they would be more impactful in multiplayer games. Great deck all around! Captain America Justice Suggested By: corbintm Created By: corbintm Encounter: Morlock Siege Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Substitute Teacher This was Captain America doing Captain America things. He’s a great chassis for supporting expensive allies, and you can really leverage that with Danger Room. I love builds that incentivize using your allies for their activations over defending with them, so I had a lot of fun with this. Between Cap’s readying ability and Husk’s ability, there were plenty of decisions on how to use resources, and no resource was wasted. This was a fun deck, and I think that it could handle the thwarting needs in a 2-3 player game even without thwart events. Adam Warlock (sans 'Pool) Suggested By: DanTheCrow! Created By: DanTheCrow! Encounter: Escape the Museum Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Adam Warlock - Perfectly Balanced (4 Types) This was a fun thematic build, so I decided to take it up against one of the Guardian of the Galaxies villains. I ran it against the Collector in Escape the Museum. As always, Adam Warlock has a lot of build, but I always forget how much card draw he has! I felt like I had some nice flexibility in getting what I needed to answer the problems on the table. He is such a great "toolbox" hero, that lets you find the exact answer you need. Galactic Artifacts definitely impacted how easy it was to get some big allies out like Martyr, but everything still felt very playable. I still think the double resources are worth inclusion, but the deck felt smooth throughout the scenario. As always, I enjoy my Adam Warlock plays, but always feel too lazy to physically build decks for him. This was a nice incentive to revisit him. Conclusion That's it for this week! I'm actually getting decently close to being done with my actual games, but I'm trying to keep these write-ups relatively short and spread out. I've been having fun with it though, so I'm considering opening it up to get more decks suggested. Maybe one for each hero in each aspect! We'll see how it all shakes out, but let me know if you'd like to see more of these decks featured!

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Black Widow Justice Venom Leadership Gamora Aggression Shadowcat Leadership Magik Justice Black Widow Justice Suggested By: Zelron Created By: VillainTheory Encounter: Rhino Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Black Widow - S.H.I.E.L.D. + Vigilante Training It’s been a while since I’ve played Black Widow, SHIELD Justice, or even Rhino! It was a blast revisiting all of these after so long. At one point not too long ago, Black Widow was a top three hero for me. This particular Black Widow deck is an oldie but a goodie, so I didn’t make any changes to update it. This was a fun game all around, and it reminded me how much control Black Widow has on games, especially in solo. I’m excited to see how she gets revitalized in the upcoming SHIELD wave, and I wouldn't be surprised to see her climbing back up my favorites rankings! Venom Leadership Suggested By: Andy N Created By: Andy N Encounter: Ebony Maw Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: I Just Met a Girl Named Maria This is the silliest deck I have played in a long time, and I absolutely love it. At times Leadership recursion can seem egregiously powerful, to the point that I largely don't play it. However, this was simple, unadulterated fun. Maria pops in and out of play, helping to keep threat managed, all while Venom sets up and deals damage. I really liked Clarity of Purpose here to double up on Venom’s natural “take damage for a resource” ability, and I definitely played fast and loose with how often I used it (Star-Lord players would be proud). I lost my first game with the deck, thanks to a lovely Invocation chain from Ebony Maw, and my second game came down to the wire with 5 invocations out, a 3 HP Venom exhausted and unable to ready, and my Multigun dealing the final two damage after surviving a brutal villain phase. This is not only a deck I would play again, it’s going right into my favorites. Gamora Aggression Suggested By: krautbammer Created By: krautbammer Encounter: MaGog, Sinister Six Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Gamora but you actually play her sword.. Despite my love of the Guardians, Gamora has always been my least favorite. I walked into this game not expecting a whole lot. Since I haven’t played her since the introduction of player side schemes, I was excited to see that was the focus of this deck. The randomizer paired me up against MaGog, which unfortunately is not a great match-up for this deck. With no status effects, I was essentially relying on using my basic defense and Crosscounter together or going to alter-ego to keep from taking damage. It was a race to the finish, but MaGog pulled out one extra attack that gave him the win. While it was a fun game, I never really had the space to play the player side schemes, so I wanted to give it another go. I considered attempting it on Standard difficulty to give it a bit more breathing room, but instead I decided to reroll into a new scenario.  I ended up with Sinister Six, and I had a blast with this game. Here I had the space to play Lock and Load, which was then incredibly easy to clear with Gamora’s pings of threat removal. Once her sword was out, I really felt like I was everywhere at once. A little threat removed here, some big damage there, some ping damage all around… it was fantastic. Her sword always felt cumbersome to play before, but Lock and Load made it accessible. This definitely boosted my opinion of Gamora. Shadowcat Leadership Suggested By: ScarletRhodey Created By: ScarletRhodey Encounter: Hela + Enchantress + Fantasy Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I, Standard III Deck: Lady Cat of the House of X This was suggested as a thematic fantasy romp through Hel, and it delivered! My first attempt I tried this on my usual Standard III + Expert I, but I lost to Hela’s oppressive scheming. Somehow I forgot how mean Enchantress can be. I scaled the difficulty back by dropping to Standard III, and it was still surprisingly tough! Between Enchantress’s Seduced and the White Queen, I had multiple times where I couldn’t attack or thwart due to being perma-confused and perma-stunned. Luckily my allies stepped in to help. I was particularly impressed with Black Knight who was kitted out with all sorts of upgrades. It nailed the fantasy theme, and I had a blast with the deck. I definitely want to find more thematic match-ups like this! Magik Justice Suggested By: Man-is-Obsolete Created By: Man-is-Obsolete Encounter: Brotherhood of Badoon Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: I can't drive, FORTY CARDS! I really haven't played a ton of Magik yet, so I was interested to see how she ran in Justice. I was expecting a more classic "good-stuff" Justice build that utilized Magik's fantastic resource access. I was pleasantly surprised to find something completely different. I had a lot of fun with this deck. While the ally count is low, you still feel like you have a lot going on with allies. Magik always makes for some interesting turns as you try to finagle things into place, though I admit that the Milano helped here by accelerating setup. I think the thing I enjoyed the most about the deck was how consistent and easy it was to set up the Wolfsbane card draw payoff. Then, between the massive threat management and extra card draw, flipping to alter-ego was breezy. This was a great deck that broke the monotony I’ve been feeling with the classic Justice builds. It's definitely worth a try! That's it for this article! Sorry Protection fans, I didn't have anything this go around, but there are some fun builds coming up!

TL;DR: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me from other players. If you want to skip straight to the decks and my brief thoughts, use these links! Nightcrawler Protection Cyclops Leadership Thor Leadership Nova Aggression Deadpool Protection Once upon an early December, I had a simple and brilliant idea. I would play through all of the heroes before the end of the year! Unfortunately, I found myself with a case of the lazies when it came to building decks. I decided to outsource it and have other people suggest decks for each hero! (Feel free to picture the Genius card of your choice.) The premise was simple. Whatever suggestion was made for a hero and aspect combination, I would play. To make things simple, I had a randomizer spit out an encounter to tackle, and I planned to use the recommended modular sets with Standard III and Expert I for the difficulty. It got off to a great start! I had a bunch of suggestions from many helpful people on Discord, and I managed to gather a deck for each hero. I got straight into my games, sure to waste no time. So here we are a week into the new year, and I can confidently announce… I didn’t make it through them all. The holidays ate up more time than expected (not a bad thing), and my family fell ill to a terrible case of the flu (a bad thing). Additionally, I ended up with a lot more than the 55 plays I was expecting. I initially thought that I would just play each deck once, have a grand old time, and call it a day. Once I got into the games though, I found one game per deck was simply not enough. I ran into a number of decks where I wanted another game with them. Either I felt like I didn’t understand the deck on the first play, or I felt I bypassed their core concept by exclusively playing hero cards or leaning into my own play-style too much. Then, tragedy hit. I had a rash of games that I didn’t enjoy. I came out the other side of each game feeling more negative about the hero. I like to think of myself as an overly optimistic player, and I can find the fun in anything. So I took a step back, took a little break, and realized something important. I was playing a lot of play-styles and deck types that I don’t naturally fall into. By not choosing the decks myself, I was actually forcing myself to really push the limits of my comfort zone. It was going to take some finagling to make each of these games sing for me. I learned two things from this. First, I really can find the fun in anything. Sometimes it takes some work, but I can do it. Changing scenario, difficulty, player count, modular sets... There are many ways to dial in the fun. Second, all things in moderation. Pushing out of my comfort zone is fun! But pushing out of it repeatedly and successively can make it hard to enjoy the plays. After a brief break and scheduling in some time for "normal" games of Champions, I got back into it. Despite it being a lot larger of a task than I initially thought it would be, it has been a really fun experience. I’m going to share some of the decks I’ve been through so far, as well as do a brief write-up on my games with them. As I get through more heroes, I’ll write them up and post them in batches. With luck, I’ll get through them all before next year. Nightcrawler Protection  Suggested By: Caldias Created By: Caldias Encounter: Juggernaut Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Uncanny X-Men Roster 2024: Nightcrawler I had a lot of fun with this deck, and I think it would have shone even brighter in multiplayer. This deck functions on defending a lot , so having more opportunities to defend would have really opened up the deck’s identity and let me cycle my BAMFs a bit more. As it was, I largely stuck a BAMF on Juggernaut, then left it for an emergency. I used my basic defense for the first attack each round (just in case I got exhausted), and saved my BAMF for any bonus attack. It was amazing getting to deal small packets of damage and removing small bits of threat throughout the villain turn. Ignoring the fact that I was stunned and avoiding absurd amounts of retaliate damage while dealing damage to Juggernaut was particularly satisfying. I love all styles of Protection, so this one was right in my wheelhouse. Cyclops Leadership Suggested By: MrSelfDestruct Created By: MrSelfDestruct Encounter: Master Mold Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Blue is Yellow This was another deck that I think I would enjoy even more in multiplayer where I can really lean into its core concept. I had a hard time prioritizing the Uncanny X-Force stuff, because I needed to answer the board state all on my own. That said, it performed really well, and I have been enjoying Cyclops a lot lately. There is a massive amount of thwarting potential here that I really want to tap into. I plan to pair this with Caldias's Nightcrawler deck for another go soon! Thor Leadership Suggested By: royal7 Created By: Boomguy Encounter: Zola Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Blue Christmas This deck really lets you tap into Thor's health pool while giving him some much needed boosts. The economy felt fantastic, and the gameplay was really smooth. This was easily some of the most fun I’ve had with Thor. The new cards have breathed a whole new life into him. I was incredibly lucky on my randomizer here, because Zola really feeds into Thor's abilities. Nova Aggression Suggested By: astrodar Created By: astrodar Encounter: Mutagen Formula Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck:  There is a Use for Test the Defense This is cheating a bit, because I used my own deck! I was having an interesting conversation on discord about Test the Defense, so I revised one of my old decks and took it for a spin. Nova really is a blast, and Unleash the Nova Force turns are so much fun. The premise of this deck is to show there is a home for Test the Defense, and I think this deck does that. Nova can charge it up quickly, and it’s great for keeping an Unleash the Nova Force turn going! I had a lot of fun with this deck, so props to the deck builder. They must be quite dashing and intelligent. Deadpool Protection Suggested By: tjjj Created By: tjjj Encounter: Loki, Venom Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck:  Marvel Jesus I ran this up against Loki and lost three times. I decided I didn’t understand the deck well enough to run it solo against Loki, so I re-rolled my randomizer and took it against Venom. It was a lot of fun once I had the room to flip and more easily manage threat. The Serve and Protect combo for keeping threat off the board was really solid. The threat did slowly keep climbing up, but that was largely because I didn’t focus any energy on managing it beyond Serve and Protect. I was reminded that Deadpool has some absurdly powerful cards, and that Protection works really well to help him protect that final HP. My favorite moment in the game was leaning into the fact that I was going to smacked for absurd amounts, and letting Deadpool take a hit consisting of 7 boost cards, only to flip and live on at 1 HP. This was a clever use of a “multiplayer” card in solo games, and I really want to take it into a multiplayer match! (Sorry to whoever ends up with me poorly piloting such a deck!) Conclusion That's it for this first installment! More plays are done and on the way, so keep an eye out! Let me know if you take any of these decks for a spin and how it all fared!

Warning! There are some incredibly mild spoilers in this article for The Way of Kings by Brandon Sanderson. This is the first book in the Stormlight Archive, a series that is an absolute favorite of mine. If you haven't checked out this series, definitely give it a go! If you want to avoid any and all spoilers on the book, just check out the deck links here: Highstorm (Storm Leadership) Bridge Four (Cyclops Aggression) The spoilers below are single sentences that explain what a highstorm and Bridge Four are in the most general terms possible. I am a huge fan of the interactions between heroes in this game. I've been playing a lot more two player and two-handed games, and I've started building hero decks that are meant to work in concert with each other. For this article I wanted to show off a couple decks I've been having fun with, and suggest a few ways you could make the concepts work for you! When I was playing these decks, I took them up against my Evil Scientist campaign. Dark Beast with Temporal Zola with Mister Hyde Mutagen Formula with Ransacked Armory Mister Sinister with The Doomsday Chair The Highstorm (Storm Leadership) I love the Stormlight Archive, so this deck is lightly themed around the highstorm. For the uninitiated, the highstorm is a fierce storm that washes across the land every few days, leaving destruction in its wake, but also infusing gems with an energy called stormlight. The premise of the deck is to infuse and empower someone else's ally swarm, but also having the option to spread damage across the board. I'll hit the two sides of the deck separately. Empowerment Your role is to build up your partner. You can do this in a number of ways, namely through supports, permanent buffs, and temporary buffs. Supports: Team Training and Uncanny X-Men both give additional HP to their allies, and Uncanny X-Men will help them easily afford more allies. Permanent Empowerment: You can use Danger Room Training and Sidearm to buff individual allies. I would avoid putting these on allies that are higher priority for blocking, such as allies with "when played" effects. Temporary Empowerment: You also have targeted temporary buffs through Leadership Skill and Cell Phone . These look similar, but serve different functions. Cell Phone is an action, so it will let you activate and empower a character someone else controls on your turn. Leadership Skill is of course usable at any time an ally is activating. Your remaining temporary buffs are through Lead from the Front , which you can play to really empower the swarm, and Thunderstorm from your weather deck. These will help boost the ally stats across the board. Card Empowerment: I included limited card draw in the deck through Maria Hill and Mission Leader . Both of these will give a small boost to your partner. Additionally, you can help them get allies on their board with Call for Backup and New Recruits . Tempo Empowerment: Finally you have empowerment through readying. Command Team will be the primary method, but you also have Phoenix that can enter play and ready an X-Men ally. Just keep an eye on your timing for this, as it can't be played off turn unless you use Team - Building Exercise . The Storm The highstorm is a dangerous thing to be out in. For this reason, I have included three area of effect (AoE) damage sources. Squirrel Girl and Sunspot will both work to deal AoE damage to enemies, and Kid Omega will allow you to either damage enemies or clear some threat. Additionally, Storm has some AoE damage in her kit with Blast of Wind. Play Lines Essentially you are looking to build your board while opportunistically buffing your partner. All the while, you'll need to be managing your weather deck to buff friendlies or debuff enemies. I don't flip down a lot with Storm. I find it is important that she stays up in order to change her weather supports at the appropriate time. There are very few allies to block for you in this deck, so you'll want to use Flash Freeze when able. If you find yourself going to alter-ego more, you could switch Team-Building Exercise with Med Lab to help recur some of your allies (or your partner's allies). During the mid to late game, you'll be purely focused on powering up your partner with Lead from the Front. By the time they have 4-5 allies out, you can really burn down a villain stage. Different Partner If you are looking to run this deck alongside a non-X-men partner, there are some nice little packages to swap out. Just substitute some of the cards below for cards you don't think you'll need or that are X-Men specific. Guardians Major Victory for Phoenix Guardians of the Galaxy for Uncanny X-Men Laser Blaster and/or Comms Implant C.I.T.T. if you want to ready their hero Blaze of Glory for or alongside Lead from the Front (I'd also include ally healing like Rally the Troops) Avengers Mighty Avengers Sky Cycle Power Gloves Champions Patriot Champion Mobile Bunker X-Force Children of the Atom alongside X-Men stuff Uncanny X-Force Bridge Four (Cylcops Aggression) My second deck is using Cyclops Aggression to build Bridge Four, a rag-tag group of "expendable lowlifes" forced into the front lines of a war. For this, I was looking to get a solid crew of allies and ways to bring them all together. Let's get real here. We are ripe with choice on which X-Men Cyclops can bring along, so you can't really go wrong. I honestly don't think the build is all that important beyond having enough allies to swarm. I'm going to go through the choices I made for the deck, but it is by no means gospel. Events: I wanted this to be an aggressive deck, so I included Team Strike . Thematically it lets me bring my crew together, and it acts as faux healing. Since I'm already building up my allies ATK, this lets me tap into their ATK more without dealing with consequential damage. This is also great against retaliate, because just my hero will take the retaliate damage, saving that ally HP for later activations. Supports: Boot Camp is there to buff the ATK just a bit more. Honestly, since Storm is already buffing us, this is a pretty low priority. However, it's added consistency and it can help close out games. Stepford Cuckoos are a great way to avoid any treacheries that will undercut your build. All around they are pretty great regardless of build. Team-Building Exercise is going to help further discount allies. Most of the time you will use this on your turn. However, there will be times that you'll get a card draw from Maria Hill or Mission Leader after your turn that lets you afford one more ally, so keep an eye out for when you might want to save this! The X-Jet is a nice resource to be able to share when needed. Utopia is giving you an X-Men ready, which often with this deck will be an ally, not your hero. It also gives you an extra ally slot. X-Mansion is a great way to keep your allies out on the board. You'll be flipping a lot with Cyclops, so it should be easy to trigger. If you find that you aren't flipping during your games for whatever reason, this is an easy cut to thin your deck. Upgrades: Since Scott can search for a Tactics upgrade, I wanted to include a bit of a toolbox for him to choose from. I included The Direct Approach to capitalize on the boosted ATK of allies and Marked to help avoid retaliate and to avoid wasting damage from your buffed allies. I also included Gatekeeper as an additional cheap thwarting option, but keep in mind this one can't be pulled with Scott's AE ability.. Allies: As for the allies, take whatever combination pleases you. Here are the allies I chose. Beak and Triage are cheap, impactful allies. With the boosted stats, they swing above their weight. Generally they are not sticking around, and will be the higher priority chump targets. Psylocke is just good stuff. Her confuses will help Cyclops flip. Professor X is the chumpiest of our chump blockers, but he will help Cyclops flip and help manage threat. Also, keep an eye out for when you may want to ready a boosted ally over confusing the villain. Wolverine 's big ATK, piercing, and natural healing make him a high priority ally to have out. He's a great target for Team Strike and Rogue. Rogue is great for getting a really amped up ATK stat. You can use her alongside Marked to make sure you're not wasting any damage. Additionally she's another way to essentially avoid extra retaliate damage, because only one ally takes the damage instead of two. Polaris is one of the best allies in the bunch. She drops in, gives you a tough to help keep you healthy, and helps you avoid blocking with allies. Since she doesn't have the tough on herself, she can immediately start swinging. With 2 ATK, she hits a lot of breakpoints with Storm boosting her stats. Nightcrawler is another ally that is solid value. The extra HP from Team Training and Uncanny X-Men help him stay out until you really need him, but he is also a great defensive option when the time comes. He also becomes super cheap to cycle once Uncanny X-Men and Team-Building Exercise are out. Gambit I am somewhat mixed on. I really like him being able to grab an encounter card and lock it out of the deck, but it's a gamble on if you'll get anything of real value. Colossus provides a block for you, but also tends to be slower than Polaris, since he has the tough on himself. There are plenty of times in this deck where I have burned the tough by activating him just to push extra damage though. He's another solid target for Rogue (after his tough is gone). All in all, the three allies I played the least were Psylocke, Gambit, and Colossus. Those would be early swaps for me. If you were swapping out Gambit and Colossus though, you may want to look at dropping The Power in All of Us. Ten targets is already at the threshold of dropping it for me. Feel free to bring whatever X-Men to the party you like. I have a lot of fun tailoring the group of allies to particular scenarios, just like Cyclops would when putting a team together. Play Lines Essentially you're looking to quickly build out your board and support your allies. I flip a lot with Cyclops, nearly every turn. This helps avoid attacks, meaning you have to block with allies less. This also gives you access to two or three additional cards across a single flip down. You want to build up a couple allies, keeping one ally slot essentially rotating with blocking allies. This could be chump blocking with Triage and Beak or using that slot to cycle Nightcrawler in and out of play. By the late game, you'll have a board of 4-5 allies that can really work the board. So there you have it! Those are the Stormlight decks I have been running. I love that Storm can shift to support whichever team you want beyond X-Men, and that is where I will be taking her next. Which hero would you pick to build Bridge Four in another team?

The short answer is "no." The best answer is "probably." The nonsensical answer is "Beyonce likes pizza." I see this question pop up regularly, so I figured I might as well write out my suggestions for players looking to get into the game. So do you have to buy the Core Set, or can you start with another release? To avoid burying the lede, you can buy into the game and play it without getting the Core Set. It’s just a bit more work. I'll go into it in full below, but here's a link to the end of the article where I have my final recommendation . What You'll Need You’ll need to gather together the following fundamental pieces in order to play. player cards scenario cards standard set (for standard difficulty) expert set (for expert difficulty) threat tracking method damage tracking method counter tracking method acceleration tracking method status effect tracking method The Core Set provides all of the above in a neat little box, ready to go. By design, this is the best place to start. It provides you with the following items so that up to four players can play the game. 5 heroes 3 scenarios Enough player cards to have 4 decks built Standard modular set Expert modular set threat tokens damage tokens counter tokens acceleration tokens status cards 4 hero health dials 1 villain health dial Like I said, this is the best place to start. I cannot emphasize that enough. The Core Set heroes are a lot of fun, and they still hold their own against recent releases. On top of that, there are three solid scenarios in the box. If you want to get into Marvel Champions, I absolutely recommend getting the Core Set. “But Astrodar!” you say. “I simply cannot abide Spiderman. He’s a criminal, that’s who he is. A vigilante! A public menace! What’s he doing in my Core Set?!“ If the Core Set Avengers theme or whatever else about it doesn’t speak to you, you can start elsewhere in the releases with a bit of finagling. To state the obvious, if you want to play the game, you will need to buy at least some of the game. The player cards and scenario cards you will get with whatever hero, scenario, or campaign expansion you decide to buy. However, there are only a couple expansions that have a standard and/or expert set, and you’ll generally be looking at third party solutions for all the tokens.  Standard and Expert Sets At a baseline, you need to get a standard set. This is pretty non-negotiable, because the scenarios are designed around this set’s inclusion. Namely it provides extra villain activations and a way for your hero’s nemesis set to enter the game. There are two places other than the core set to get a standard set. The Hood scenario pack Age of Apocalypse campaign expansion The Hood scenario pack includes Standard II, which is an alternative standard set meant to be used in place of the original standard set. However, it is also meant to be more challenging. It boosts the villain’s stats during their activations, makes blocking the attacks harder, and gives the villain a keyword (Steady), which means some of your hero’s abilities won’t be as strong against them. The rest of the pack contains a single scenario, the Expert II set, and a plethora of other modular sets. Personally, I find the scenario decently fun, but with a lot of randomness that can escalate the scenario quickly. To be frank, this is not a favorite among the online community. All in all, this isn’t my preferred suggestion for getting a standard set. The Age of Apocalypse box is the third box of the mutant waves and the seventh campaign box overall. It contains Standard III, another alternative standard set. Standard III has become my baseline choice for a standard set. It mirrors the original standard set in a lot of ways, but it also provides a “count-down” to your nemesis set coming out. Each time a card from Standard III is revealed, you get closer to your nemesis coming out, making it less “will it come out?” and more the inevitable “when will it come out?” If you’re looking to skip the Core Set, this is the expansion I would start with. Expert is a little bit different. The Expert set is just 3 cards. Each provides some pretty intense pressure. However, a good portion of the Expert difficulty comes not from the expert cards, but from using the more difficult villain stages which are included with the scenario. While your games will be different, you can get away with skipping these cards altogether and still jump up to expert difficulty. If you do want an alternative expert set without getting the Core Set, you can again look to The Hood. It has a 4 card Expert II set, which like Standard II bumps up the difficulty compared to the original sets. Personally, I actually really like Expert II, so I use it in place of Expert I in a lot of scenarios, usually alongside Standard III. Tokens The tokens and tracking methods are much easier to proxy. Many people just use dice, myself included. I have a number of 12 mm dice in red, green, and yellow to represent damage, all-purpose counters, and threat. Additionally I have one black die that I use to track acceleration tokens. While I would suggest getting three different colors of dice, you can get by with fewer. I suggest a minimum of two different dice styles for counters, because there will be many times when two types of counters are on one card (like an ally with damage and all-purpose counters). There is a scenario where you can end up with all three types of counters on a single card, but that’s easy enough to work around for one scenario. I would recommend just a single unique die to track acceleration tokens. A six-sided die works fine for the majority of scenarios. For the villain, the damage totals are quite high, especially in three and four player games. Dice can be used here as well, but it gets a little unwieldy. A health dial is pretty handy, and I suggest picking one up. There are lots of health dials available on sites like Etsy or through companies like Gamegenic. If you plan to play four player games often, you’ll want to make sure your dial can go into the triple digits. A few of the villains can pop over 100 health. Hero health is also easier to track with a dial, but dice can be used just fine here. Even using all the health increases available, the values are generally going to be under 30 health for the majority of heroes, with only a few having access to cards to jump them higher than that. This is where I remind you that you get four player dials and a villain dial in the Core Set. It’s a pretty sweet deal. The health dials are the only tracking method I haven’t upgraded, because they work so well. As a completely budget-friendly option, there is always pen and paper to track life totals. Status effects are the final missing piece to playing the game. There are three status effects that you need to be able to track: Stunned, Confused, and Tough. The core set provides cards to track these (Can you tell I really think you should get the Core Set?). However, you can use additional dice or custom tokens. When I’m traveling light or simply too lazy to grab the tokens I use for status effects, I simply use a die set to 1 and placed next to the stat the status corresponds to (i.e. I put a die set to 1 next to my THW stat if my hero is confused). Also, these never have to be shuffled, so you could just write it on a small piece of paper to create some budget status effect cards. If you are one who likes to get premium tokens, many of these issues can be solved by using third party solutions. Some of my personal favorites are Buy the Same Token and Burger Tokens. Burger Tokens is the more budget friendly option, as they provide stickers meant to go on pennies (or hardware washers). They are easy to assemble, and you can get a full set of tokens for something like $30 (plus shipping). Buy the Same Token is a premium solution, offering a range of basic tokens and custom tokens to mark keywords or specific counters. However, it will run you over $100 for a full set of Core Set tokens. Again, I’ll be frank… if you’re shelling out the money for Buy the Same Token, just buy the Core Set first. You can get the fancy stuff later. I mention these two specifically, not because I have any direct relation with the companies. They are simply the two that I have personally tried and enjoyed. There are a lot more options out there on sites like Etsy, and you can always make your own if you have access to something like a 3D printer or laser cutter. Conclusion All in all, I’ll reiterate that the Core Set is a fantastic product. I highly recommend picking it up. But if you are looking to skip, just make sure to do the following: Get a Standard set from Age of Apocalypse or The Hood Get a way to track things, such as using dice, third-party tokens, or whatever else. For your final, “I’m just a solo player that wants to really go light” suggestion, you can just get a hero pack and The Wrecking Crew scenario pack. This is the only scenario in the game that doesn’t require a standard set. Together these will run you about $40 at MSRP, which is halfway to getting the Core Set. My personal suggestion for jumping into the game without the Core Set: Age of Apocalypse 3 sets of 12 mm d6 dice (different colors) for token tracking 1 unique d6 for acceleration tracking Pen and paper for tracking villain HP (or just use the dice) This gives you everything you need for two players to jump into the game. Grab some hero packs or another campaign expansion if you want to do three or four players. I hope this was helpful for anyone looking into the game! If you have questions, feel free to ask! Fair warning, my answer may just be “buy the Core Set.” If you have suggestions for new players on ways they could skip the Core Set if they wanted, let us know that as well!

Due to unforeseen circumstance, my Round 3 match-up didn't end up happening. So here we are jumping right into Round 4, where I will be matching up against Nelson himself! You can see my Round 3 pack openings here and my Round 4 pack openings here ! The full card pool (separated by round) is available in this spreadsheet . My Round 3 packs didn't blow my mind, but it did give me a couple strong cards like Timely Intervention, Rose Tico, and some common Aggression cards to help fill out that pool. Round 4 was much better, bringing me a Lurking TIE Phantom, another Enfys Nest, Adelphi Patrol Wing, Ketsu Onyu, and Mercenary Company. Sadly my Legendary from these packs was DJ, which while I love him in constructed, I don't see him working here. I'm going to keep this one short and sweet. I didn't pull enough Aggression and Heroism or Villainy cards to move over to Han or Bossk. However, my Command cards are starting to look quite strong. At this point I have 3 Timely Interventions, and my top end is General Reeiken and Mercenary Company. Paired with my Mandalorian and Chewbacca bombs in Vigilance, Command/Vigilance/Heroism is looking like a strong card pool. This leaves me with two options for leaders: Boba Fett or Rey. Both have strong arguments, but in the end I decided to go with Rey. I have enough small units for her to buff, and while I have a lot of keyword units to trigger Boba's ability, I don't have a lot of ambush in these aspects. So his buff feels a little slow until he is out. That all said, here is the list for this round! I'll be matching up against Nelson this week, and with any luck we'll have some game footage this go around! I'll report back soon! As an aside, I'm not super happy with how the written content for this is going. It is hard to really put into text the thought process of going through a limited pool. As such, I am considering adding a video element where I just record my thoughts as I go through the card pool. We'll see what shakes out, but this is an ever evolving process on discovering how best to bring you all into the league so you can enjoy it alongside us!

Round 1 is officially in the bag, and I was soundly defeated by KennedyHawk from the MCM and SAGA podcasts. We had a fun game, but it definitely highlighted some flaws with my current deck. After leading my previous article by covering how you should look for bombs (powerful cards to build around), I promptly ignored that and went for a swarm deck that lacked any real end game. I definitely felt the lack of a strong closer, because Kennedyhawk was able to manage my swarm, undercutting my ability to go wide and push damage. In hindsight, I think I would have preferred the Mandalorian deck I outlined in the previous article. And jumping ahead a bit, I have another solid argument for switching over to it! Here is the opening of my next three packs , and I had some solid pulls! You can find my full card pool for Round 2 in this spreadsheet . These packs gave me two new leaders: Han Solo and Fennec Shand. Both are worth considering... later. I am not yet seeing a reason to take Fennec Shand over The Mandalorian, and Han is similar to Bossk. Both need a little more time for the Aggression card pool to grow. I'll dive deeper into what is there for him in later articles when more packs are available. In my previous article , I outlined a Mandalorian deck that I was considering. The new packs brought some fantastic cards to support it, including Rivals Fall and the legendary Mandalorian unit himself. With my lack of an end game last round, I really like the idea of pivoting back to The Mandalorian and taking advantage of the bombs in my card pool like The Mandalorian, Chewbacca, and Fennec Shand. My updated list is as follows: I considered dropping Kuil, because I worried that he would discard key pieces. Limited formats mean you often only have one copy of strong cards. In this case, I don't risk losing my bombs, as most of them have Vigilance as an aspect, so I opted to keep Kuil. My weaknesses with this deck are the space arena and removal. I will need to be careful playing any Vigilance/Villainy, because I know Brutal Lethality is in the mix for every player. Additionally, capture is rough for this deck, because it will clear the upgrades on my units. These are definitely weakness that can be played around. I can spread out my upgrades or focus on my leader if I know Fell the Dragon or Rivals Fall is not likely to be in the mix. Next I am matching up against Ryan from Man vs. Meeple! Here is a link to their website where they cover a variety of games.

One of my favorite things about Marvel Champions is the modularity. There are so many ways to mix and match scenarios and modular sets, to the point that at times it can be daunting! This series will be highlighting some community favorites, hopefully helping players find new ways to play the game and branch out from the suggested modular sets! These scenarios (and those upcoming) were suggested by community members. If you have any favorite combinations, let me know! After the first few articles have been posted in this series, I'll add a page that gathers them together for easy reference. Without further ado, here are the scenarios we are highlighting today! The Brawl Scenario : Juggernaut (NeXt Evolution) Modular Set : Hope Summers (NeXt Evolution) Wrecking Crew (The Hood) Brutes of a feather, flock together! Not only will the villain be hitting hard, the Wrecking Crew minions come out strong. You'll be dealing with big bodies and big attacks in this all out brawl. Much Obliged Scenario : Kang (The Once and Future Kang) Modular Set : Sitcom (MojoMania) Don't feel obligated to play this scenario, but if you do, be prepared for obligations galore! Trouble at Hand Scenario : Stryfe (NeXt Evolution) Modular Set : Personal Nightmare (Sinister Motives) What can go wrong by getting more cards in hand? This scenario leans into Stryfe's focus on your hand by adding cards like Fool's Paradise (increase hand size by 2) and additional cards that attack your hand. That's it for this article! Be on the look out for more scenarios to be posted in upcoming articles and on the upcoming Community Favorites page! And don't forget to let me know what your favorite combinations are! Acknowledgements Lots of community members have chimed in on these community favorites. I want to acknowledge everyone who has contributed. For these first few articles, I'll include the list here. Once the main page goes live that gathers them all together, I'll move the acknowledgement list there! So thank you to everyone below that has contributed so far! CastleFrank47 classyrobot Dansome FakeSki Ǵreg Ice Nine journeyman2 MegiDolaDyne MrSelfDestruct regenshine ScarletRhodey

I know, I know! Star Wars: Unlimited? On a blog about Marvel Champions?! Well before you get your pitchforks out, I'll lead by saying I am still very much playing Champions and will be writing articles covering various aspects of it. However, I'm also going to be branching out to cover some Star Wars: Unlimited and other various board games my family and I are playing. So without further ado, here is my first Star Wars: Unlimited post. SWU Content Creator Progression League I have had the incredible fortune of being invited to play in a Star Wars: Unlimited Progression League run by NelsonAllOverCards ! I am ecstatic to be joining the league, and I want to kick off this article by covering what a Progression League is and how I will be covering it. Each set of Star Wars: Unlimited has two main products: a starter box and booster packs. The starter box comes with two ready-to-play decks, and each booster pack comes with 16 randomized cards (1 leader, 1 base/token, and 14 cards for deck-building). For the progression league, each player starts with a card pool consisting of the Shadows of the Galaxy starter box and 3 Shadows of the Galaxy booster packs. Using these cards, we each build a deck consisting of one leader, one base, and 50 cards. We are then paired up against another league member for a match. Each following round, we will add an additional 3 booster packs, giving us access to new cards and leaders! As the league goes on, we can change our deck either by upgrading it with new cards or switching leaders and builds altogether! I plan to record the opening of my 3 packs each round and write a follow-up article going over my deck-building process and updates. Then I will have a quick blurb about my game each round, covering who I played, what they were playing, and where my deck or piloting has flown or faltered. This is essentially an extended limited format, meaning that we don't have access to all the cards right from the get-go as you would in a normal constructed format. I hope these articles will give some insight into limited format deck-building, as well as help me dig into ways to improve my own game-play and deck-building. All in all, I am thrilled to be a part of this progression league, because I love engaging with Star Wars: Unlimited in limited formats like this. Round 1 Deck Construction You can find the video where I am opening my starter boxes and my first three packs here! Videos are definitely not the norm for me, so the quality is a bit abysmal. However, it’s a quick, easy, and verifiable way to show what cards I pulled each round. I have also included my card pool in spreadsheet format here , in case anyone wants to take a gander and see what kind of decks they might build. If you want to know more about specific cards, you can find them on the official database or on SWUDB , a fan run deck-building site and card database. To kick things off, the starter decks are Cunning/Vigilance (The Mandalorian leader) and Command/Vigilance (Moff Gideon leader). This means that we’ll have a plethora of Vigilance cards, and a decent start on Command and Cunning. My first three packs added in very few Aggression cards and very few cards pushing me toward Heroism. Again, you can find the full list in this spreadsheet . For deck-building in a limited format like this, I like to start by considering two main things: What leaders do I have, and what bombs did I pull? By "bombs," I essentially mean powerful cards that are worth building around. This doesn't necessarily translate to "which Rare or Legendary cards did I pull?" In fact, one of the great things about SWU is that the power curve is surprisingly shallow across rarities (as you'll see below). These two factors are going to have the largest impact on my deck-building. Here are the leaders I have access to during round 1: The Mandalorian We’re going to tackle the Heroism side first, because I pulled no additional Heroism leaders. This means Mando is my only choice on that side of the card pool. Chewbacca was the bomb I pulled for Heroism, which works well with the Cunning/Vigilance card pools that the starter deck provided. I also pulled the rare card Mystic Reflection, but with Grogu being the only Force unit in my pool, there isn’t a strong incentive to put it in the deck. On the Cunning side, I have both Fennec Shand and Enfys Nest (both uncommon cards) that add some solid back-end for a limited pool. Since we have some decent late game, let's see if there is anything in the rest of the pool that incentivizes building this deck. Village Protectors pops out instantly as a strong sentinel unit. Snapshot Reflexes is an upgrade that both triggers Mando's ability, while not costing us action efficiency. We have around a dozen decent 2-cost units, meaning we have strong odds of getting a turn 1 play. We also see a decent space presence with about a dozen space units. All things said and done, there is a decent card pool use. Piecing things together, my Vigilance Mando deck would look like this: My largest concerns with this deck are that I would be running a relatively low number of upgrades (six), meaning I'm triggering Mando's ability less. Razor's Crest helps that by pulling upgrades back to hand from the discard pile, but realistically I'm running this deck for access to Chewbacca and Village Protectors, both of which I would not use elsewhere. Potentially this is worth revising with more bounty cards to get further use from my leader ability. Villainy Options To look at the Villainy side, I have a lot more options. Doctor Aphra really doesn’t call to me in a limited format, so I am taking her out of consideration. I don't foresee me building with her, even as my card pool grows. Bossk is very appealing, since he deploys on 5 resources. However, he requires I use Aggression, and with a grand total of 7 Aggression cards there isn't much to work with. It does include Kylo's TIE Silencer (a Legendary card), but while the stats are nice for a space unit, I can get those same stats from the uncommon Mercenary Gunship I pulled. I have generally found the 4-resource cost to steal the ship tends to be more expensive than removing it any other way. At that point, it’s as good as Kylo’s TIE, but can be run in any aspect combination. Hunting Nexu is also a strong card, but with so few Aggression units, it will likely not gain access to its raid ability. All in all, Aggression just didn’t have the cards to support a full deck, though Bossk may become very appealing as the card pool grows. This leaves me with either Gar Saxon or Moff Gideon. Moff Gideon Both Cunning and Vigilance offer some solid cards for Moff Gideon, but Vigilance offers more cards that work well with his leader ability. It also offers some better removal options with Fell the Dragon and Calculated Brutality. By way of bombs, there isn't much here beyond Gideon's Cruiser. That's perfectly fine, because Gideon's ability pushes us toward a swarm deck. Rather than put resources into a few high-value units, we'll spread resources out over many low-value units. Taking a look at our low end, we have a lot of units that cost three or less. General Tagge jumps out, because we have around twenty trooper units in our card pool. Anything that buffs our cheap unit great, so alongside Tagge we have Outland TIE Vanguards that can help bump up the stats. We also have a number of ramp options to accelerate our resource accumulation. Superlaser Technician and Price on Your Head will both accelerate how quickly we can hit our late game, allowing us to drop Gideon's Cruiser or smuggle out a Pirate Tank. That is a little at odds with wanting to pump out units, because we will likely burn through our hand dropping small units. Usually we would look to stop resourcing cards in order to quickly drop more units. However, it also offers us some options on how we play depending on who we match up with. Putting it all together, it looks like this: Gar Saxon Gar Saxon requires we take Vigilance, which we don't mind since we have a strong pool of cards in Vigilance. Aggression is weak in our pool, as mentioned above, and we have nothing that pulls us toward mono-Vigilance. That leaves Command and Cunning for us to evaluate. Cunning offers most of the top end we saw with our Mando deck, but as a whole, I find myself pulled toward Command. This is going to offer a similar set of cards we looked at for Moff Gideon. Command offers flexible ways to get upgrades on units through Outland TIE Vanguard and General Tagge. The Rickety Quadjumper offers additional ways to get experience upgrades on units, but it is unreliable. It also doesn't have the stats to really help manage the space arena. For upgrades, Mandalorian Armor is great, especially for Gar Saxon. Resilient offers a bit of staying power. Legal Authority is soft removal, which can be incredibly strong in limited formats. Privateer Crew is interesting here, as the smuggle option makes it into a 6-cost unit with 6 power and 5 hp. The Client and Cargo Juggernaut come into play with an upgrade, giving them Saxon's bonus. As a whole there are a lot of options for taking advantage of Gar Saxon's leader ability, and it isn't locked to attacking other units. The deck would shake out to look like this: Conclusion All things said and done, I had to decide between these three decks. I think all will work well in the format, but in the end, I am going with the Gar Saxon Command deck. While he deploys a turn later than Gideon, I think the stat boost limitation from Gideon isn't as flexible as the boost from Saxon. For round 1, I have been paired with Kennedyhawk from the MCM and SAGA podcasts. After my match is complete, I’ll post a short write-up detailing which deck I picked, how the match went, and what changes I would make moving forward. With the following round, I’ll have another video and write-up detailing the new cards I have access to and if those will push me to another leader/aspect combination. I would love to hear what deck would you choose, and how might you build it differently. Author's Note: If you have any comments or suggestions on this style of article, let me know! I'm trying to find a nice balance between needing to show every card discussed and not showing enough cards for readers who may not know them all. I would love feedback on this aspect of the write-up!

In a previous article , I categorized heroes according to how complex their piloting is. To help give another tool for players in helping choose which heroes they may like to play or pick up, I’m going to continue this series by categorizing heroes according to their playstyle. So what do I mean by playstyle? My aim is to get at the essence of what these heroes feel like to play. “Feel” is an inherently subjective term, but I think we can still capture some common throughlines that players can agree on. Are they fast out the gate? Do they need time to reach their potential? These are, of course, things that can be drastically modified by aspect and deck-build, but I still think it is helpful to categorize the core of each hero. It's also worth noting that all heroes will see some build and power increase across the game, even if using a rush-style play. That all said, I have defined three categories that can capture the general feel of a hero’s playstyle: Zero to Hero Good to Go Ebb and Flow Below you'll find what defines each category, which heroes fall into it, and a small tidbit on each hero. If you want to skip to any particular section, you can click the links above. Zero to Hero These heroes have a large differential between what they can accomplish on an early turn compared to a late-game turn. They tend to have a low impact on the early game. I’m starting with Zero to Hero because it has a quintessential Marvel Champions vibe to it. With these heroes, there is a massive gap between what you can do in the early game and the late game. You have a lot of building to do, and while some heroes may build faster than others, you can certainly feel a difference in how you’re impacting the board. The poster-hero for this would be Iron Man. You can do next to nothing in hero form without some upgrades in play, but you've got a high ceiling on what you can do once built. Adam Warlock While Adam has a lot he can do early in the game thanks to his Battle Mage ability, he doesn’t feel nearly as strong as during the late game when his upgrades are out. Between a standard resource generator with his staff and a suite of upgrades that trigger off using his Battle Mage ability, a late game turn will feel far more powerful than his first turn. Discarding any card you don’t want to get two new cards and a ready is huge, even if you don’t get the aspect effect from Battle Mage . Ant-Man Ant-Man can come out the gate with at least 3 threat removal or 4 damage thanks to his hero form abilities and basic activations. This means he can actually have a pretty decent impact on the early board. However, he doesn’t feel fully unleashed until his helmet, Giant Strength, and Army of Ants are out. Wrist Gauntlets are often overlooked, but they are an incredibly powerful and flexible upgrade. They too contribute to the full power Ant-Man can have in the late game. Black Panther Wakanda Forever is one of the most powerful scaling cards in the game. With each Black Panther upgrade played it becomes stronger. While you don’t need to build his full suit for it to become effective, your turn one will feel much different than a late game turn with The Golden City and his suit in play. Cable Cable is our first hero that doesn’t rely exclusively on building out their board to increase their impact on the game. Instead he will be boosting and building the power of his events and upgrades as he puts side schemes in the Victory Display. While approaching things very differently, the flow of his game still very much fits into Zero to Hero. Colossus Colossus is likely the furthest away from ‘zero’ out of all the heroes in this category. His opening level is so strong, I considered creating an entirely separate category just to account for it. Right out the gate, Colossus gains a Tough with his flip to hero form. This Tough can power a number of his events, and his high health means he can use it and still not worry much about the first villain phase. However, his following turn will see him with a smaller than average hand size and potentially the need to generate additional Toughs. He has a number of upgrades that really power up his Tough usage, namely Iron Will and Titanium Muscles. Once those and at least one Organic Strength are out, Colossus feels even more powerful, generating card draw, toughs, and status effects galore. Domino Domino has some incredibly unique powers that are online from turn one. However, to fully utilize them, she needs to get out some subset of upgrades and supports. Once you have out some combination of her pistols, Probability Field, Pip, and/or The Painted Lady, you’ll be blowing up the board. Drax Another hero that has a non-traditional power ramp, Drax is powered up by taking hits from the villain. Once he has maxed out his vengeance counters, Drax has +3 ATK, card draw following a villain attack, reduced cost events, powered up thwarts, and incredibly strong defense events. In addition to his vengeance counters, Drax does have some traditional build with Dwi Theet Mastery, Mantis, and Drax’s Knife. Ghost-Spider While Ghost-Spider has some kick (pun intended) from the get-go, she really increases in impact and power by having her bracelets and dad on the board. She can still have a strong impact on early turns, so she steps outside the norm a bit on that front. However, with a few good events tucked away on George Stacey and rebates on response and interrupt cards, she’ll have a lot more flexibility in how she reacts and more options to impact the board. Additionally, she has Ticket to the Multiverse, which is a hefty investment for a later one-time payout. That payout is greatly improved once Ghost-Spider has been built up. Hawkeye While Hawkeye has access to his arrow suite from turn one, his toolkit doesn’t fully unlock until his quiver and at least one resource generator is out. Even then, it doesn’t really hit until you’ve built up some arrow options on your quiver. By late game you’ll essentially have an “arrow turn” and your normal turn using your hand. Iron Man Iron Man is the quintessential build hero. He can build quickly, especially with some aggressive mulligans, but a turn one Iron Man is very different from a late game Iron Man. By the late game Iron Man will feel like you play one turn using his upgrades on the board and a second using what is in your hand. Ironheart While not nearly as rough of an early game as Iron Man, Ironheart has a similar feel to her build. First, she has a suite of upgrades that give you a lot of board control. Second (and primarily) she will upgrade her suit throughout the game, boosting her stats, hand size, and the power of her upgrades. Ms. Marvel Ms. Marvel has one of the larger build suites in the game. Once you have 2-3 upgrades and 2-3 supports out, you’ll find that you’re incredibly resource rich and have lots of options to boost damage and thwart. One thing to note about Ms. Marvel is that a lot of her build is locked to alter-ego, so in solo and some high pressure scenarios, she’ll have a lot less build she can or needs to do. Quicksilver As the epitome of a Keystone hero ( from the previous article ), Quicksilver's power feels very reliant on getting Friction Resistance into play. And, while Quicksilver’s upgrade suite looks a little bland, you shouldn’t shy away from the stat boosts. As his stats and ready sources are built up, you’ll find that you are accomplishing far more in the late game, especially with Friction Resistance readying each time Quicksilver readies. She-Hulk She-Hulk can have a strong opening, but ultimately lands in Zero to Hero due to her small hand size and Focused Rage upgrades. She feels much stronger with access to more cards. Additionally, since she will spend a decent amount of time in alter-ego for many builds, Superhuman Law Division is one of her better threat removal options. SP//dr Perhaps the fastest build hero in this list, SP//dr still has a lot of upgrades she wants to get into play. However, by late game you will essentially be taking multiple turns worth of actions as you get full use from All Systems Go. As a note of interest, there is a 90% chance of getting one or more interfaces in your opening sequence. Despite the small hand size, SP//dr and Peni can reach just as far into their deck as many other heroes, meaning they are getting to the build cards just as fast. Star-Lord Star-Lord is going to be generating a lot of extra encounter cards over the course of a game, and he very much wants his helmet, boots, and Leader of the Guardians in play to help counter that. Each of these help offset the extra encounter cards by preventing damage, generating card draw, and increasing threat management capabilities. Additionally Star-Lord will be playing one or both Element Guns, making his damage access quite strong in the late game. Thor Due to his alter-ego hand size of five, Thor has a much lower floor than many heroes during the first turn. Turn one he will for sure have access to 3 ATK, but he has to put Mjolnir into play, leaving him only four cards to build and/or impact the board. As you get out his resource generators and Asgard, he’ll feel a lot more online. Valkyrie With turn one access to Death Glow, Valkyrie can be targeting enemies and powering up a few of her cards. However, until she gets out some weapons and Valhalla, Death Glow has limited overall impact on her turns. War Machine Due to his ammo counters, War Machine could also almost go in the Ebb and Flow category. However, his early and late game are relatively independent from his ammo counters. In addition to that, you aren’t really building up the counters so much as just gaining them initially and preserving them through his gauntlets. However, with his various weapon upgrades and Upgraded Chassis out, War Machine feels completely different. His biggest building point is his Munitions Bunker. You can essentially build your end game as you load it up. Good to Go These heroes have a small differential between what they can accomplish on an early turn compared to a late-game turn. They tend to have a high impact on the early game. Good to Go heroes will also have some build, but there is a much smaller difference between what you can do in the early game and what you can do on a late-game turn. These heroes come out firing, and they can really impact the board from the get-go. This is a great category to find rush heroes. Nova is my favorite hero to embody this category. On the first turn, you have your helmet and can be doing some serious work. If you have Unleash Nova Force and the targets for it, you can be wiping the early pressure the scenario sets. Captain America From turn one, Captain America can thwart for 4-6, attack for 4, or do some combination there-in. While this has a lower impact as player count goes up, it is nothing to be ignored. His villain phase is covered, as he will have 3 DEF and access to a ready the following turn. He also has potential for a full damage block, dependent only on how soon he draws Shield Block. Captain Marvel Captain Marvel has essentially bought her way into this category. Her insane access to resources has limited reliance on build, so while it will be better by the late game, it’s not significantly different than the early game. This means that on turn one you can already be impacting the board or building as needed. Doctor Strange Doctor Strange’s strongest events are available on turn one. He’ll certainly see some increase with his cape and Wong, but really he has some incredible strength from the get-go. Gamora Gamora has some inexpensive events, and her hero ability elevates them from turn one. You’ll see a pretty standard power increase across the game for her, but she’ll have a strong board impact early on. He ping damage and thwart does lose some impact at high player counts, but it can still be valuable to do a little bit of everything. Hulk Hulk is one of the best rush heroes in the game, which is a strong indication that he can come hard out the gate. He certainly has some build that he can do, but his turn one and late game turns can feel relatively similar in power. Nova While Connection to the Worldmind won’t give you access to extra resources during setup, Nova essentially has two resource generators out the first turn thanks to his helmet. He doesn’t have a whole lot of build beyond that. Additionally, Unleash Nova Force can make for some incredibly powerful turns, so as long as there are targets, Nova’s early game Unleash can be quite similar to his late game Unleash turns. Phoenix Phoenix has an interesting progression depending on build. If you are focusing on her Restrained side, she is essentially fully powered on turn one. However, if you are focusing fully on Unleashed, you’ll have a brief “build” across a few turns as you work down her counters. Really I find it comes down to playstyle preference. It tends to hit somewhere in the middle where you’ll hit a turning point in the game that you’ll flip from Restrained to Unleashed. Either way, she has a lot of board impact from turn one. Rogue While Rogue may be looking to set up a number of combos, her events are essentially full powered on turn one. Within her kit she only has one upgrade, so you will have to look to your aspect choice for any further build. In the most basic form of play, Rogue will attach Touched to the villain the majority of the game. This means she will see little increase in power from her events over the course of a game. In more combo heavy decks, Rogue will see more build to a (hopefully) bigger payout with whatever combo you have set up. Scarlet Witch Scarlet Witch has some fantastic cards that offer her some control and consistency, but realistically her Hex Bolts and attacks are fully powered turn one. She has some minimal build from her crest and Sorcerer Supreme. Shadowcat When you can block infinite damage turn one, it is mandatory you are in this category. Shadowcat’s greatest strength is her defending abilities. She starts the game with a resource generator and full damage prevention. She’ll definitely add some cards to the mix over the course of the game, but it’s hard to start at a higher point than this. Spectrum Not only can Spectrum start the game with a stat of 3, she has the choice of which stat that is. She’ll add in some resource generators and aspect upgrades along the way, but her board impact turn one is both strong and flexible. Spider-Man (Miles) Miles Morales is another hero that could realistically get through an entire game without playing an actual upgrade or support. He has a few that are helpful, but from the get go he has access to strong events and powerful status effects. Spider-Man (Peter) Peter Parker has a strong start with his Scientist resource in alter-ego. Turn one he has a defense of 3 and potentially a full damage block with Backflip. He can impact the board in a lot of ways depending on his card draw, and he really doesn’t have to prepare for that first villain activation in the way that other heroes do. Star-Lord Hold up! Wasn’t Star-Lord in Zero to Hero? Yes. Yes, he was. However, he offers a totally different approach to the game with his rush strategy. Star-Lord is one of the best heroes for turn one wins. He can quickly and easily power-up his events, preventing the villain from ever activating. Just make sure that you actually do win turn one, or you're likely going to be in a world of hurt. Storm Storm will not only power herself up right off the bat, she’ll power everyone else as well. A lot of board control can be gained from +1 ATK for the hero phase, and -1 ATK during the villain phase can be incredibly helpful for creating space to build further on turn two. Venom Venom will start the game with a resource generator (his hero ability) and a weapon in his hand, meaning on turn one, he has access to 8 resources. He is likely the easiest one to hinder for setup, since if you include too many weapons you have a chance to slow down access to his strong and flexible in-kit weapons. Vision Vision’s events are incredibly flexible, and while they can depend on what form you’re in, they have the same impact turn one as they do in the late game. He has minimal build available in his kit, but some builds will be looking to recur Vivian using 616 Hickory Branch Lane. Even with this, there is minimal setup to get it running. Wasp Wasp is probably the hero here that could most likely be slotted into Zero to Hero, but almost all of her build would come from aspect cards. She has some great events and board impact from turn one though, so she makes the cut. Wolverine Wolverine gets his claws during setup, which means he has access to strong discounts on attacks turn one. He's a great candidate for rush, especially in solo. Ebb and Flow These heroes will alternate between a building phase followed by a phase of spending or losing that build. Ebb and Flow heroes have an interesting playstyle. If you’re a fan of Spirit Island, these heroes remind me of Ocean’s Hungry Grasp. There is a bit of build up, spending or losing that build up, then building up again. As the game goes on you’ll see a general incline, but your turn-to-turn will have a cycle of building and using. The epitome in this game would be Black Widow. You build up her preps, then spend them later. Your power is at its peak with a board full of preparations, and with each one used, you reduce your strength. Black Widow Taking advantage of Preparations, Black Widow has some really interesting play reacting to what the encounter deck is doing. You’ll build up preparations through your turns and spend them to counter the villain. While the Winter Soldier is the only card impacted directly by the preparations being in play, Black Widow certainly loses a lot of power and control when they are gone. Her suit and hero ability won’t trigger without preparations, and she can no longer respond to the encounter deck, which is her greatest strength. Cyclops Cyclops is an interesting ebb and flow hero, because his buffs and debuffs generally affect the entire board before being lost at the end of the round. He has relatively easy access to his temporary Tactic upgrades through his alter-ego ability and Tactical Brilliance, however the feel of the round can be very different depending on what Temporary upgrades are in play. An Exploit Weakness turn will feel very damage heavy, but following turns may feel a bit lackluster with ping damage. Gambit Gambit has a lot more going on in his kit than charge counters, but the counters have a lot of impact on his events and aspect cards. You’ll see this ebb and flow as you build up a charge, spend them, then build them again. Groot Groot’s growth counters will build up through events and his alter-ego ability. Then they will be lost through damage, an event, and Groot’s upgrades. His events are also powered up by how many growth counters are on Groot, so you’ll see periods of time in the game where they are weaker or stronger. Nebula Nebula’s techniques are harder to control, but you’ll see yourself play a number out, gain passive benefits, then trigger their active abilities and discard those upgrades. There are some unique play-lines that can let you keep some techniques in play or take further advantage of them while they are in play, but in the end you will likely see this ebb and flow as techniques enter and leave play. Rocket Raccoon Rocket has two lines of ebb and flow. His tech cards have counters that can be replenished, but he also has ways to discard tech in order to draw cards. So you will see this ebb and flow of weapons charging up, being spent down, thrown out, then played again. Spider-Ham Spider-Ham is the most flexible when it comes to what you can do with his ebb and flow counters. Toon counters are easy to come by and can be used to power up events, trigger upgrades, and even be spent as resources on whatever you darn well please. With how easy toon counters are to come by, there may even be times that you lose the ebb-and-flow feel. Spider-Woman Spider-Woman’s ebb and flow is a fair bit different then the others. As the round progresses, you will play cards and boost her stats. Then at the end of the round she’ll lose the boost, and you’ll have to start again the following round. It’s a much faster cycle, but you very much still have the ebb and flow vibe. Star-Lord Okay, now you’re just being ridiculous. Yes. Yes, I am. However, Star-Lord will see some ebb and flow to the strength of his events, the size of his hand, and the amount of damage he can prevent with his boots. Each of these are impacted by the number of encounter cards dealt to Star-Lord. As his future problems pile up, his events and helmet power up. Conclusion Hopefully this resource is helpful for helping pick which heroes you may find appealing or want to play. As more heroes are released, I'll be updating this to include them. And who knows... maybe with enough outliers, I'll even add additional categories. Thanks Thank you to the discord brain trust for engaging in conversation about this. In particular, thanks to MegiDolaDyne, Jimmydm90, journeyman2, and thearguerandtheclueless.