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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.

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! Guerilla Cyberwarfare Scenario : Ultron (Core Set) Modular Set : Guerilla Tactics (Sinister Motives) What goes best with a never ending flood of enemies? Side schemes that give them each a hazard icon, of course! Make sure you keep on top of both the drones and the side schemes, because this scenario has the potential to quickly get out of hand. The Mill! Scenario : Sandman (Sinister Motives) Modular Sets : Power Drain (Green Goblin) City in Chaos (Sinister Motives) I hope you brought your acceleration icons, because Sandman and Electro both are looking to quickly discard through the encounter deck. For the classic Sandman/Rhino team up, we have City in Chaos here, but if you want some additional discard effects, try out the Arcade modular set instead! * Fun Fact : You'll see effects discarding cards from a deck called "mill effects" or "milling." This term comes from Magic: The Gathering, where the Millstone card first introduced the effect to that game. The term "mill" was even added as a keyword in later sets. Jurassic Park Scenario : Crossbones (Rise of Red Skull) Modular Sets : Sauron (Iceman) Savage Lands (Age of Apocalypse) Temporal (The Once and Future Kang) Crossbones is breaking into the secret SHIELD facility in The Savage Land. Will you be the hunter or the hunted as you take on Crossbones, Sauron, and a variety of dinos! 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

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! Legions of Red Skull Scenario : Red Skull (Rise of Red Skull) Modular Set : Legions of Hydra (Core Set) Hydra Patrol (Rise of Red Skull) We're kicking this off with a classic! This is a very challenging scenario, because Red Skull's side scheme deck ensures that you will see Legions of Hydra (most likely at the least opportune time). The Quest Scenario : Hela (Mad Titan's Shadow) Modular Sets : Fantasy (MojoMania) Enchantress (Mad Titan's Shadow) I hope you brought your adventuring pants, because we're off on a quest! Fight your way past dragons and a sorceress to save the king from an evil witch! Doctor Horror-ble Scenario : Zola (Rise of Red Skull) Modular Set : Horror (MojoMania) Zola is at it again, but this time he's messing with the supernatural! Beware the Kraken... and any of Zola's wicked attachments that it may have! 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

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!

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

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.

One big selling point of Marvel Champions is the ability to buy a pack, crack it open, and start playing immediately with a preconstructed deck. You can (and I have) had a lot of fun playing with the preconstructed decks. However, the deck-building element of Marvel Champions is relatively straight-forward and can blow open the doors on customizing the game to your own liking. Being completely honest, there are times deck-building can seem like a hassle. Luckily, some awesome people have made some neat tools to help accelerate the process. In this series I'm going to do an overview of MarvelCDB.com and how to use it. The goal is to make using the site seem a little less daunting. This article isn't necessarily meant to be read top to bottom. Instead, it's meant to be a guide for if you're trying to figure out a particular part of the site. I'll include an appendix just below that you can use to jump to the different sections. Future articles will cover using the card search and filter syntax. If you see any errors or features you'd like added, please let me know! Appendix What is MarvelCDB? MarvelCDB Menu Creating and Changing an Account Deck Preview Tile The Homepage Decklists Search Advanced Decklists Search Individual Decklist Pages The Decklist Deck Description and Actions Deck Breakdown Charts Card Draw Simulator Links to Related Decks Comments My Decks Private Deck Preview Tile Deck-Building Page (Editing Page) Build Tab Notes Tab Test Tab (redirects here ) Charts Tab (redirects here ) History Tab Actually Building a Deck (Quickstart) What is MarvelCDB? MarvelCDB is a card database and deck-building tool. It is run by kamalisk, who built the Marvel Champions and Arkham Horror versions off the framework created by Alsciende for Lord of the Rings LCG. You can use MarvelCDB to: search and view player and encounter cards from Marvel Champions view deck lists created and published by other players. create your own deck lists. publish deck lists you have made, making them available to the public. There are a few other features tucked away, but these are the primary uses of MarvelCDB. Back to Appendix MarvelCDB Menu At the top of each page, you'll find the menu. I've included an image below, but the menu will look slightly different with different screen sizes. At a smaller size, the card search will collapse to a magnifying glass icon. Smaller than that will collapse the entire menu into a dropdown menu. Menu Links MarvelCDB : This takes you to the homepage. The homepage is explained here . My Decks : If you have an account, this takes you to your private decklists. The private decklists page is covered here . Decklists : This is the search and browsing page for all published decklists. This is covered here. Cards : This is the search page for all cards. This will be covered in a separate article at a later date. Reviews : This links to all the reviews users leave on specific cards. To be clear, this is user generated content. Other users can 'like' and comment on reviews to give a community vote, but beyond that you're on your own for which reviews to trust or agree with. I won't be covering this section further. Rules : This is extremely out of date and ignorable. Just use this link for the current ruleset: Rules Reference Guide 1.5 ( RRG 1.5 ). I won't be covering this section further. FAQs : These are also out of date and ignorable. For official FAQs and errata, look to RRG 1.5 . For official, but not yet published clarifications and answers to questions, check out the latest rulings page on Hall of Heroes . These are official answers from the FFG Rules Specialist. Card Search : This will let you search for a card, and open the results in a new window. The results page will be covered in a separate article at a later date. Flag : Use this to set your language choice. This does not change all the language on the site. Each language is maintained separately, so each will have different portions of the site translated. Account Icon : This is where you can login or register. Once logged in, you have access to the following ( which are covered here ): My Collection Edit Account Public Profile Log Out Back to Appendix Creating and Changing an Account If you have an account, you can create, save, and publish your own decks, as well as track your collection and use it for filtering through decks published by others. Creating an account is super easy. Simply click the account icon in the top right corner of the menu, select Login or Register, and then select Register on the following page. You’ll need to give your email and create a username and password. Once you are registered, you can click that same account icon to access a few account options. Account Options  My Collection : From here you can select all the expansion packs you have access to. Doing this allows you to only display cards in your collection during deckbuilding, as well as filter published decks based on what you have. Edit Account : This is where you can change your username, email, and customize your profile a bit.  Note : There is one really important thing in here, and that is the "Share your decks" option. If you select this, you can share your unpublished decks using the URL from their deck page. Once a deck is published, you can't change it, so this function is useful for sharing decks you're not ready to publish. Public Profile : This shows your public profile, which includes your name, reputation, how long you’ve been around, and links to the card reviews and decks you have published. Log out : Self-explanatory.  Back to Appendix Deck Preview Tile This tile gives you a quick preview of the deck. You'll see it on the homepage and in the decklist search. You'll also find a modified version for your private decklists. Preview Tile Anatomy Deck Name : Clicking the deck name will take you to that deck's page. There you can find the full breakdown of the deck, which I cover here . Hero : This simply lists the hero used. On PC, if you hover over the name, you'll see a pop-up that shows the details of the alter-ego and hero cards. On mobile you will only see the details for the hero card. Aspect : This tells you which aspect or aspects the deck is using. This is limited to two, which only matters for Spider-Woman (shows the two aspects being used) and Adam Warlock (only shows two of the aspects used). Tags : The tags are chosen by the author when publishing. These will denote if the deck is made for solo or multiplayer, as well as noting if it is a beginner or thematic deck. Note : These tags aren't moderated or verified in any way. It is simply whatever the author chooses to select. Likes : If you like a deck, you can click the heart to add a 'like' to it. This works similarly to 'likes' on social media sites. Favorites : If you want to bookmark a deck, you can add it to your favorites by clicking the star. When looking through published decklists, you can filter to show only the decks you have added to your favorites. Note : To use this feature, you must have created an account for the site and be logged in. Comments : This shows how many comments players have made on the deck. Version : When a deck is published, it is Version 1. However, if an author wants to update a deck or credit another deck for inspiration, they can reference the original deck when publishing theirs. The version number tells you how far along the update chain it is. Author : This is the username of the person who published the deck. Author's Reputation : This is a measure of how much the author has contributed on the site, as well as the number of likes and favorites the authors decklists have received. Each user has a reputation number. Date Published : This is the date the deck was published. This is important to note, because the card lists in decks cannot be changed once it is published. If you see an old deck, it won't include cards released after its publish date. Back to Appendix The Homepage On the front page, you’ll find the following categories highlighted: Popular Decks : These are decks that are getting a lot of likes and favorites, moderated by time. That means a deck will drop down the list over time unless it continues to get more likes and favorites. Hero Spotlight : This changes each week, but it features a particular hero and some decks that have been published for it. Recent Decks : These are just the most recent decks that have been published. Card of the Day : This section features a new card each day with a few decks that use it. In each of these sections, you will find decks listed and displayed using a deck preview tile, which I explain here . Back to Appendix Decklists Search This is where you can view all the decks that have been published. These will be shown using a deck preview tile, which is explained here . Using these filters, you can limit the decks shown to those meeting your specific criteria. Decklist Filter Options Decklist Filter Default : All Decklists Options : All Decklists / Favorite Decklists / My Decklists This allows you to filter to see all decks, the decks you have favorited, or the decks you have published. If you are not logged into an account, the latter two will simply give a blank page. Hero Filter Default : Any hero Options : All currently released heroes. I'm not listing them, sorry. This will let you choose all heroes or a specific hero from those released. Aspect Filter Default : Any aspect Options : Any aspect / 'Pool / Aggression / Justice / Leadership / Protection This will let you filter to show only a specific aspect. For Spider-Woman, any deck that includes your chosen aspect will be included in this list. Note : Adam Warlock gets funky, because the decklist only recognizes the first two (of four) aspects added to the deck. It's currently best to avoid the aspect filter for Adam Warlock decks. Tag Filter Default : All Tags Options : Solo / Multiplayer / Beginner / Theme This will let you filter on the above tags. The tags are chosen by the author when they publish the deck. Collection Filter Default : All Cards Options : All Cards / My Collection This will let you choose to exclude any decks containing cards that aren't in your collection. You must have an account to use this feature. I briefly cover Collections here . Note : This is not an entirely reliable filter. Because some cards are reprinted in different packs, there are "duplicate" entries of the card that only differ by which pack they come in. If you have one pack with a reprinted card, but not the other, this filter will exclude decks you can technically create, but that included the version of the card from the pack you don't have. Sort by... Popularity : A ranking based on 'likes' and 'favorites', but moderated by time. Date : Ranks by when the deck was published, most recent shown first. Activity (Hot topics) : Ranks by the number of comments. Number of Likes : Ranks by the number of likes. Reputation of Author : Ranks by the reputation, which is a measure of how much the author has contributed on the site, as well as the number of likes and favorites the author's decks have received. Advanced Decklists Search If you're looking to filter decks using something more specific than the default options, there is a drop-down link labeled ' Show advanced search .' Clicking this opens more filters you can use. "Enter card name" You can list one or more cards that you'd like a deck to contain. Just start typing the name of the card and matching options will show up. Once you select the card, a new field displays to add another card. Note : Some cards have duplicate versions. They are the same card, but they come from different expansion packs. They are not linked in any way, so if you don't include all versions of a card, you may miss out on decks that you may want to see. "Enter author name" You can limit the search to decks created by a specific author. This is case sensitive and does not offer suggestions. You must know the author's username exactly. "Enter text to search in name" This searches deck names for your given term. It is not case-sensitive, but it will only search the exact term you include. In the advanced search there is another drop-down menu labeled " View allowed packs (45 on, 0 off) (Select packs from your collection) ." This offers further filtering options. “ View allowed packs ” Clicking this allows you to select specific expansion packs that you want to include or exclude from the search. If you exclude a pack, no decks with cards from those packs will show up (assuming those cards aren’t also in another pack).  (45 on, 0 off) These numbers will change, but it is the number of packs you have selected (on) and the number you’ve excluded (off). (Select packs from your collection) Clicking this will automatically deselect any packs that aren’t in your collection. I briefly cover Collections here. Back to Appendix Individual Decklist Pages This is where you come to see all the details about a deck. Much of the top portion of this page is the same information you’ll find on the deck preview tile. This page will list the name of the deck at the top. At the top right you’ll find the date published, the number of likes, favorites, comments, and version number. These are all detailed in the deck preview tile section . Things will shift around based on your screen size, but each element on the page is covered below. The Decklist The header for the list includes: hero and alter-ego name aspect used and the number of that aspect included number of cards in deck number of packs required to build deck clicking this lists the packs needed commas separate packs that are required slashes indicate a given card can come from any of the listed packs (i.e. Ms. Marvel / Gamora means both packs contain the same required card). tags it was given The cards listed show: the number included a faction icon (colored to match the aspect or a person icon to indicate it is a hero card) card name resource icon on the card The cards are broken into sub-categories of card type by default, but this can be changed using the ‘sort’ button. Deck Description and Actions Deck Description : The deck description will include any information the author wants to give about the deck. This may include things like suggested cards to swap out, how they tested it, or even links to gameplay videos. Buttons Copy : creates a copy of the deck in your private decks (My Decks) Download : Option to download a text list of the cards or an OCTGN file (OCTGN will potentially be covered in a separate article). Sort : Gives you a dropdown menu of options on how to sort the cards in the list. This will change the subcategories the cards are broken into. Author’s Name Reputation : Found next to the name, this is a measure of how much they have contributed to the site and how many likes and favorites their published decks have received. Date Published : Hovering over this gives the exact date. Likes : Number of times it has been 'liked.' Favorited : Number of times it has been favorited. Comments : Number of comments on the deck. Version Number : If the deck was built off another, this shows where in the update chain it is. Deck Breakdown Charts Card Skill Icons (resource icon breakdown): This shows the number of each icon type in the deck Card Cost: This charts the cost of each card in the deck Card Factions (aspect, basic, hero breakdown): This shows the number of cards by type (aspect, basic, or hero) Card Draw Simulator This can be used to simulate drawing from your deck. You can draw a specific number (1, 2, 6), this hero’s hero handsize, this hero’s alter-ego handsize, or all cards. After you draw some cards, you can select a few to use ‘redraw selected’ or ‘reshuffle selected’. ‘Redraw selected’ will discard the chosen cards and draw new ones. ‘Reshuffle selected’ will “shuffle” the chosen cards back into the deck, but not draw replacements. The ‘Reset’ button will reset the deck and draws Below the buttons you’ll find some odds listed. These odds have nothing to do with the cards actually shown. If you wanted to draw a specific card, these odds tell you how likely it is to draw that specific card in the draw size you just chose. The first number is the odds if you only have 1 copy of your desired card in the deck, the second is if you have 2 copies, and the third is if you have 3 copies in the deck. If you want a more customized breakdown, you can click the ‘more’ link to bring up an odds calculator (fun fact: this is called a geometric odds calculator!). Links to Related Decks “Derived from” list This gives a list of decks that the author chose to list as where they derived their deck. “Inspiration for” list These are the decks that are based off or derived from this deck. Comments Any comments on the deck can be found here, as well as a space for you to comment (as long as you have an account). Back to Appendix My Decks If you have an account, this is where you’ll find your private decks that you’ve created. At the top left you’ll see ‘My private decks’ followed by ‘( #1 / #2 slots)’.  #2 is how many decks you’re allowed to have created at any given time. This number will grow the more you participate in the site through things like publishing decks. #1 is how many decks you currently have created in your account. To the top right, you’ll see some buttons New Deck : This is what you’ll click to create a new deck. Import Deck : If you are importing a deck from text or a file, this is where you’d do that. (I don’t know of anyone who does that.) With Selection : This gives you some options to compare selected decks, bulk add or remove tags, or bulk delete decks. The decklist filters are similar to the public decklists search page. Use these filters to sort through your decks easier. Decklist Filter Options Hero Filter Default : Any hero Options : All currently released heroes. I'm not listing them, sorry. This will let you choose all heroes or a specific hero from those released. Aspect Filter Default : Any aspect Options : Any aspect / 'Pool / Aggression / Justice / Leadership / Protection This will let you filter to show only a specific aspect. For Spider-Woman, any deck that includes your chosen aspect will be included in this list. Note : Adam Warlock gets funky, because the decklist only recognizes the first two (of four) aspects added to the deck. It's currently best to avoid the aspect filter for Adam Warlock decks. Tag Filter Default : All Tags Options : Anything you have used when making a deck. This will let you filter on the tags you've assigned to a deck. You are allowed to make whatever one-word custom tags you want. Collection Filter Default : All Cards Options : All Cards / My Collection This will let you choose to exclude any decks containing cards that aren't in your collection. I briefly cover Collections here . Note : This is not an entirely reliable filter. Because some cards are reprinted in different packs, there are "duplicate" entries of the card that only differ by which pack they come in. If you have one pack with a reprinted card, but not the other, this filter will exclude decks you can technically create, but that included the version of the card from the pack you don't have. Sort by... Updated : This sorts decks by date updated, most recent showing first. Created : This sorts decks by date created, most recent showing first. Name : This sorts the decks alphabetically by title. Private Deck Preview Tile The preview tile for private decks is shown above. It is pretty self explanatory, so I will only note on three pieces: Deck Name : Click this to see the decklist page. It is missing a few features of published decklist pages, but otherwise is quite similar. I cover the decklist pages here . Edit Deck : Click this to enter deck-building page. This is covered here . Publish Deck : Click here to begin the publishing process. This will be covered in a later article. Back to Appendix Deck-Building Page (Editing Page) This is where you will actually build and edit decks. You’ll see the decklist tile as described here , but it will update as you make changes. With a new deck, it will start with only the hero cards. There are a few tabs in the deck-building section. Each of them is covered below. Build Tab This is where the bulk of what you use will be, as this is where you will add or remove cards from your deck. I cover the different features below, but essentially you add what cards you want, name the deck, then save it. Now you can find it in your Private Decklists, which I cover here . Buttons Chaos This replaces your deck with a randomly generated deck. If you have already chosen an aspect by adding a card to your deck or by using the Change Aspect button, the randomly generated deck will stick to your chosen aspect and basic cards. Note : This is not a fully trustworthy build!   Because of the way the cards are included in MarvelCDB, you may get cards that you can’t actually include (such as Linked cards or Team-Up cards) or cards you wouldn’t be able to play in game (such as cards that require a particular trait your hero doesn't have). Change Aspect This sets the aspect for the deck. Once you choose an aspect, the site will tell you when you’ve included a card from the wrong aspect by crossing it out in the decklist. If you’ve decided to change aspects all together after starting a deck, use this. You will need to manually remove any cards you previously included from your old aspect. Note: For Spider-Woman, you will have two of these, since she can take two aspects. Adam Warlock's page seems to have removed this option as well as any deck-building warnings for aspects. Sort Deck This changes the subcategories in the decklist. The default sorts them by card type.  Pack Filter This allows you to select which packs will contribute to the card pool. By default, this is set to match your collection (found in your account settings).  Options This dropdown menu lets you choose how and what is displayed in the deck-building section. See below for a preview and explanation. Filter Help This lists the syntax for filtering the cards shown for specific things. These will be used in the text box (“Find a card or filter the list”). These can be incredibly useful for deckbuilding. For example, you can filter to include only cards with the X-Men trait by typing in “k:x-men” (excluding the quotes). These filters will be covered in another article at a later date. Options Menu Show unusable cards This shows you all cards, but the 'Quantity' section is grayed out for the unusable cards. For most heroes, once you have chosen an aspect, all other aspects will be considered unusable. For heroes that can take off-aspect cards (Like Gamora or Cable), any usable off-aspect card will still show (assuming no other filter is excluding it). Show only used cards This will only show cards you’ve already included in your deck. This can help you quickly finding a card you want to adjust or remove from your deck. Display on 1, 2, 3 columns. Displaying on 1 column gives you a text list that includes Quantity, Name, Resource, Cost, Type, and Class (aspect/basic/hero) Displaying on 2 or 3 columns gives you an image of the card, the name, and Quantity. Card Suggestions This option is defunct.  Class/type cumulative If this is selected, selecting multiple categories in the class and type selection menus will display all cards in the selected categories. Class/type exclusive If this is selected, selecting a category in the class and type selection menus will deselect the current category and display only cards from the new category. Search and Filter Field, Aspect Filter, and Type Filter The search and filter field is where you can search for a card by name or add a filter using the search syntax found under ‘Filter help.’ Typing text will give a menu of all cards that match that term. Clicking on a card from that list will bring a pop up with the card’s image and details, as well as a Deck Quantity option for most deck-building cards. You can use that option to add one or more copies of that card to your deck. The rows below allow you to filter the cards shown based on your selection in each row. If nothing is selected, all cards will be shown. If you want to only show one aspect and one card type at a time, use the Options menu and select “Class/type exclusive.” If you want to show more than one aspect or card type at a time, use the Options menu and select “Class/type cumulative.” The Campaign filter is defunct, and does not actually filter any cards. Card List This shows all the cards that match the filters you’ve used. If no filters are selected, all cards are shown. The filters covered above, but summarized here. Pack Filter : add or exclude specific expansion packs Class Filter : filter on basic or a specific aspect Type Filter : filter on card type (allies, events, etc.) Custom Filter : filter using the correct syntax in the search box You can add a card to your deck by changing the quantity to any available non-zero number. The card will then be included in your decklist. To remove a card, simply set the quantity to zero. If you want to sort cards in the list by a specific category, simply click the column header. By default they are sorted by Type then Name. You can use this sort function even if you are using the 2 or 3 column display that only shows the image, name, and quantity. Notes Tab This is where you can add custom tags and notes on your deck. The tags can be whatever one word you like, however it is useful to have tags that are easy to remember (and spell). You can filter your private decklists on these tags, but you can only filter on one at a time. If you want to have multiple tags, separate them by a space. Test Tab This is simply the card draw simulator described here . Charts Tab These are simply the charts described here . History Tab This is the edit history. Use it to see changes and revert to earlier versions of the deck. Back to Appendix Actually Building a Deck (Quickstart) Here I'm just going to do a quite run-through of how you would actually build a deck. If you have questions or want to read about a function more thoroughly, look to the Deck-Building Page section. Sign into your account. Go to My Decks Choose New Deck (top right) or click the pencil icon on an existing deck you want to edit. If this is a new deck, select the hero you want to build a deck for. Use the filters to reduce the cards shown (i.e. if you want to see Protection cards, select Protection). Use the quantity button to add specific cards to your deck. Once satisfied, name your deck and save it. Back to Appendix