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Have you ever dragged your feet on something so hard you knew there was an underlying reason you didn’t want to do it? Neither have I. I definitely didn’t put off writing this article due to my aversion to writing when I feel negative about something. I certainly didn’t use the prerelease week of the new Star Wars Unlimited set to justify not writing. And I absolutely did not reorganize my entire Marvel Champions and Star Wars Unlimited collections in order to avoid Eeyore-ing my way through writing an article. I told myself I would finish this before Agents of SHIELD got here. Yet here it is, sitting on my desk. Judging me. I really want to play it, so here we go finishing the series. The main reason I have been dragging my feet is because I don’t love being negative. As a whole, when it comes to my hobbies, I am borderline overly optimistic. Unfortunately… I kind of feel negative about these last couple of heroes. Not completely, but enough to know that they aren’t for me.  My final two heroes are Valkyrie and Rogue. Valkyrie was the one I was most worried about, and true to my instinct, I did not enjoy my first few plays. I had a couple different Aggression decks given to me. These were tried and true deck-builders, so I trusted the decks would be solid. I tried solo first, and then I played alongside a Justice deck. Game after game the play just felt frustrating. Until… it didn’t. I had a fun game! Something clicked during that game, and Wagner began playing in the background as Valkyrie carved her way through the scenario. The villain crumpled under Valkyrie’s might. So I tried again. Then again once more. All three games were perfectly enjoyable.   Great, right?  Well, yeah… I guess so. While I am nowhere near putting her at the top of my preferences list, I truly enjoyed the three plays I had with Valkyrie after whatever epiphany I had that escaped my notice. However, with the cornucopia of heroes we have, I’m not sure I want to spend that much time not enjoying plays before I can have my fun. To be clear, I think this is a “me thing.” I have a couple friends that really enjoy playing Valkyrie, and I’ve played alongside them as they had fun with her. Some of my favorite games from Con of Heroes were playing alongside Josseroo piloting Valkyrie. But whatever it is with how I engage with the game, there was a large barrier between me and having a good time. I overcame that barrier. But it was there, and it was a lot of effort. I wish I could tell the same tale for Rogue. I also didn’t enjoy my plays with her. There were a lot of moving parts that I couldn’t get to click. I couldn’t break away from my preferred play style to engage with the combos the deck facilitated. The deck was perfectly fine. I just couldn’t engage with it the way it was intended. Again, I chalked this up to just not being a fit for me. I intended to revisit Rogue some more after having my epiphany with Valkyrie, but I realized I simply didn’t want to.  So what did I learn from this whole experience? That I am a bad judge of how long it will take me to play through a list of heroes. Also, I definitely narrowed down what my preferred styles are. I found that it can be a lot of fun picking up someone’s deck and running with it. I found that I shouldn’t be bashing my head against something trying to force myself to have fun with it. But I also reinforced that there is fun in there somewhere for someone to find. I had a lot of fun with this series, and I would potentially do it again. But I am excited to play my own decks again! Without further ado, here are the quick rundowns of Valkyrie, Rogue, and the final Spider-Woman deck I covered. Valkyrie Aggression Deck 1: Overkilliest Valkyrie redux Created By: Josseroo Deck 2: ...and they will know us by the trail of dead v2.1 Created By: VJakson Two-player games were paired with Ms. Marvel Justice ( 99 Problems deck covered here ). I played a lot of games with these two decks. It was on the order of 30 some odd games. Enough that I'm not going to bother writing them all out here. I tried out these decks solo, and it went about as well as I expected. I never felt like I could get going, especially in Expert. However, these were meant to be multiplayer decks, so that’s not too crazy of an outcome. So off to multiplayer I went! I felt like this is where I really started getting a vibe for how Valkyrie can play. I needed some thwarting support, so I went with a deck I had enjoyed earlier in the season. I found that flipping a lot with Valkyrie helped to get that set up going, and otherwise I focused on just throwing out Death Glow and cleaning up minions. I really wish I could point to what I did differently in the game where I started having fun. However, it is the first time I legitimately enjoyed playing Valkyrie. That left me with a bit of a conundrum. Do I give heroes I don’t enjoy the 30 some-odd plays it took for me to enjoy Valkyrie? As more and more heroes are added, I’m going to find it harder to want to sink that time in. Rogue Protection Suggested By: Boomguy Created By: ClassyRobot Scenarios: Crossbones (Standard III + Expert I) Project Wideawake (Standard III + Expert I) Absorbing Man (S3 + E1, S1 + E1) Unus (S1 + E1, S1) Ebony Maw (S1 + E1, S1) Deck: Mega (Wo)Man I want to open by saying I really don't think this is a bad deck. I can't reinforce that enough. ClassyRobot has put out a lot of decks I have enjoyed. In particular, I loved the paired Rocket and Groot decks: G'NR ( Groot 'n Rocket ). Any criticisms I have in this write-up are oriented toward Rogue, how her kit interacts with the deck, and my own play style. Definitely give this deck a try for yourself to see if you like it! I tried this against Crossbones and Project Wideawake to kick things off. Either I didn’t understand the deck (totally plausible), or my play style didn’t mesh with it. The games mostly felt frustrating to set up. As I tried to get traited cards out to enable other cards, the scenario pressure ultimately put too many wrenches into the combo machine I was trying to run. I had turns where I literally could play nothing, because I didn’t have an ally or tech already in play. It was too easy to get behind on the board while trying to set up. To try and find some space to set up, I took this against Absorbing Man. I was able to get the win, but I still felt a lot of the same issues. I also realized that Standard III really isn’t helping Rogue’s case. Mystique is a decently nasty nemesis minion, and this deck feels pretty slow to set up. You want to set up her economy cards (Deft Focus, X-Gene), your Tech for Repurpose, and your Androids for Reboot and Ever Vigilant. But your economy cards don’t pay for your Tech or Androids. So you feel like you can do some stuff, but you're sacrificing building one angle to build/play another. I moved on to Unus and Ebony Maw with Standard I + Expert I. It really wasn’t any better. I decided to give myself the space to set up, so I tried Unus on Standard I. It felt a lot better here, though I still felt a lot of the same inefficiencies. I just had the space to work around them. I’m chalking this one up to either needing a better pilot or needing multiplayer to jump into Expert. This is one of the few heroes that I’ve soured on across this experience, and I don’t love that. Again, that's not a comment on the deck itself. My qualms are really with weaknesses that come from Rogue’s own kit and how they contrast with my own play style. If you have another deck for me to try or tips on how to play her, definitely let me know! Spider-Woman Aggression/Justice Suggested By: Astrodar Created By: stilonxy Encounter: Mysterio Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Float like a Honed Butter Knife I'm closing out with another Spider-Woman deck! This is one that has been on my play list for a while. I really enjoyed the Float Like a Butterfly and Honed Technique combo. Spider-Woman has great access to Confuse, and Venom Blast is a great card to get boosted up to 8 easy damage. Press the Advantage was amazing, because it was so easy to hit the triggering condition. All in all there were a lot of cheap cards to boost Spider-Woman’s stats, while also getting boosted themselves. Again, this felt very different to the other Spider-Woman decks I featured. It is definitely worth checking out! Conclusion That's it! That's the end of the series. I should probably write something more profound here, but I'm off to play the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. expansion.

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Hawkeye Justice Ironheart Leadership Quicksilver Aggression She-Hulk Justice Starlord 'Pool and... Drax Protection Jubilee Aggression Magneto Protection Spider-Man (Miles) 'Pool Spider-Woman Aggression/Protection Hawkeye Justice Suggested By: ScarletRhodey Created By: ScarletRhodey Encounter: Taskmaster, Red Skull Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I (both), Standard (Red Skull) Deck: Clint Barton, Agent of SHIELD I really enjoyed this deck! The theme was solid, and it was a nice pregame for the upcoming S.H.I.E.L.D. box. I really enjoy Hawkeye’s arrow system, but it always feels a little at odds with building and using whatever aspect cards you bring. This deck definitely felt a lot more build-oriented than I usually play. It breezed through Taskmaster, so I decided to stress test it on Expert Red Skull. It didn’t have quite enough threat management to keep up while building, but switching over to Standard Red Skull made for another great game. Surprisingly, despite seeing the rockiness of some of his kit again, this made me excited to revisit Hawkeye with my own deck building. (Feel free to insert your favorite "I can fix him!" meme.) Ironheart Leadership Suggested By: BandofSirens Created By: VillainTheory Encounter: Zola Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Beast of Burden Leadership is ridiculous. Ironheart is ridiculous. And Ironheart Leadership is absurd! This was a fun deck, with tons of card draw. The card draw available made it easy to compensate for the low hand size in the early game. Zola’s retaliate was a non-issue with Ironheart’s Maximum Efficiency action that lets you spend her counters for ping damage. The game really felt like it had two parts: "Upgrade and Control", then a single turn of "Burn, Baby, Burn!". Weirdly enough, I don't actually love the one turn rush down for Stage 3 on a villain. It always feels like I'm doing my absolute best to ignore the game I just set up. That's really what keeps Ironheart down in my personal preferences, though I do have fun with her. I had a good time with the deck, and Ironheart is as strong as ever! Quicksilver Aggression Suggested By: VJakson Created By: VJakson Encounter: Mutagen Formula Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Always Be Jarbornin' (A) Quicksilver It’s been a long while since I’ve played Quicksilver. While he started out pretty high for me, he has slowly made his way toward the bottom of my preferences over the years. That said, I had a good time playing this deck. What this showed me was that I probably should revisit Quicksilver in some modern settings, and that I shouldn’t play Quicksilver with Standard III. His nemesis set is incredibly brutal, and it becomes impossible to avoid with Standard III. That alone dragged out my game with Quicksilver, pushing to 17 rounds to get a win. I think to really enjoy Quicksilver, I'll need to play him in multiplayer, and lean into some deck-building that overlaps a little less with some of the more recent designs (looking at you X-23). She-Hulk Justice Suggested By: corbintm Created By: corbintm Encounter: Sandman, Sinister Six Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Reverse Lawyered She-Hulk has grown on me a lot since the Core Set, especially with the rules changes that allow her to keep her Superhuman Strength upgrades out longer. This deck looks to capitalize on that using a plethora of stuns and confuses. The write up to this deck is quite thorough, so it’s definitely worth checking out if you are interested in She-Hulk. Sinister Six actually gave me a bit of a run for my money. It took a long time to stabilize. I really liked Deft Focus here, especially since it can pay for Limitless Stamina to make your readies cheaper. With lots of flipping, you could really crank out some damage. In cases of a lot of threat, like you see in Sinister Six, it was pretty tense trying to keep the main scheme managed as well as the side schemes that came out. All in all it was a fun game, but I didn’t really feel like I had the deck figured out. I ended up taking it against Sandman, and I really enjoyed this match-up. I felt a little less tension from the threat, and I was able to keep pace better. The boosted stats were nice for managing sand counters, letting me double dip a bit on the boosted stats. This was an interesting She-Hulk deck, and it is worth checking out. By the end of my plays here, I was really hoping for some similar mechanics on a new design. I love her card draw, flipping abilities and cards, and threat prevention in AE. I would love to see all those mechanisms revisited. Star-Lord ‘Pool Suggested By: Boomguy Created By: Boomguy Encounter: Escape the Museum Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Player Count: Solo, 2-player (Captain Marvel Justice) Deck: Galactic Pool Cleaner This is an interesting deck, that I was somewhat familiar with before it was even submitted. I saw it played at Con of Heroes last year, and even played alongside a slightly different version. Because of that, I was well aware of the shenanigans that it could do in multiplayer. That said, once I hit the table solo with it... I didn’t love it. Let me clarify... “It’s not you, it’s me” and all that. I really like Star-Lord. I don’t love the ‘Pool play style. I really don’t like them mixed. In solo, there was just too much pressure to afford the big allies and do everything else. Trying it in multiplayer opened a lot more options. It’s still not my preferred way to play, but there was room to lean into the deck. I think the route of spending all your resources in order to mulligan is really clever, and that was my favorite part of the deck. If nothing else, it made me want to revisit a few heroes to try that out. Contusion You thought I was going to make the conclusion joke again, didn't you! But nope... instead, I just wasted a small moment of your time wondering if "Contusion" was a typo or not. Wait, wait! Where are you going? There's still five more heroes to cover! Drax Protection Suggested By: VillainTheory Created By: VillainTheory Encounter: Kang Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Welcome to the Bub Club I’m a sucker for the Guardians, and Drax is no different. I really liked "Come Get Me, Bub!" in this deck, especially with Leading Blow alongside it. It made it easy to get the heal and tough, take out the minion, and still have a few cards to do other things. The healing in this deck was actually preferable to using What Doesn’t Kill Me, in my opinion. What Doesn’t Kill Me makes for some awkward hands, especially before you have Dwi Theet Mastery out. However, with this deck, you either used a Med Team sitting on the board or "Come Get Me, Bub!", which still left you plenty of cards and resources to get other stuff done. I only found myself wasting an unused card in one hand through the entire game. This deck was really smooth, and I bet it would do even better in multiplayer. It was a nice boost to my already positive opinion on Drax. Jubilee Aggression Suggested By: VJakson Created By: VJakson Encounter: Morlock Siege Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Jubilee Updated Hot Topics I haven’t played a ton of Jubilee, but I did think this was a fun deck. The Aggression hooks were solid, giving you a way to pay for big events, then follow them up with decent damage from her sunglasses. There was a lot of confuse available, so I could flip often. The hardest part was dealing with the indirect damage from Harpoon. I am sure I capitalized on the extra Morlock ally you get in solo in order to survive the scenario. That said, Boom Boom was the real star here. I was able to get her out early and build some solid damage on her. Avoiding retaliate while dealing area-of-effect damage was extremely satisfying. I would absolutely run this deck again, hopefully in a multiplayer game. It left me on a positive note for Jubilee. Magneto Protection Suggested By: AndyN Created By: AndyN Encounter: On the Run, Mutagen Formula, Unus Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Pillars of the Earth (No Basics Magneto Protection) This deck had limited itself to no Basics by design. I have been enjoying challenges like that, but I was still surprised to find how much that impacted the game play here. "Come Get Me, Bub!" never felt like a good play, because I was constantly struggling to manage minions. The economy felt just a little off. The allies themselves were all expensive, the tech was expensive, and his resource generator in kit only cares about Magnetic cards. I had a good time with the deck, but I think I really would have preferred it in multiplayer. The Magnetic Missile and Wrapped in Metal combo just felt very rough to put together. Part of that was due to On the Run still seeing traits on the Maurader minions. I couldn’t let the minions sit, because it meant that the villain was scheming. Mutagen cleaned that up a little bit, though I did have the bad luck of naturally pulling Monster and Goblin Knight back to back, which are the only two elite minions in the scenario. I ended up winning the match, but still felt I wasn’t fully grasping the deck. I tried once more against Unus, and again, "Come Get Me, Bub!" just never felt good to play. I think maybe I just had barely enough thwarting to stay in the game, and just barely enough damage in the kit to mostly manage the board. But I didn’t feel like I excelled in either. It was tough getting Repurpose to fire as well with how taxing the set up was. That is all to say, I enjoyed my plays with the deck. I just either I don't understand it well enough to pilot it, or it isn't my play style. I need to play around with Magneto more to pin down what exactly I feel I am missing. This is one I would have liked to run in multiplayer before posting, but I ran out of time (I've got to meet those deadlines set by my terrible boss... me). For now though, I feel pretty neutral about Magneto. Spider-Man (Miles) ‘Pool Suggested By: Caldias Created By: dr00 Encounter: Loki + Sci-Fi + Guerilla Tactics Difficulty: Standard I + Expert I Player Count: 2-player (Storm Aggression) Deck: What's Up Danger? The write-up for the deck mentioned it was meant for multiplayer, so I figured I would take it directly to a multiplayer game. I paired up with my friend tjjj (of Marvel Jesus fame) who piloted a Storm Aggression deck alongside me. This was a really smooth deck. It’s all the goodies from Basic Web-Warriors, while tapping into just five ‘Pool cards. The ‘self-X’ resources were great for supporting the aspect cards. They were consistently two or three resources. Get Rage-y was a really nice way to increase the tempo on some of the allies. And Rock, Paper, Scissors was a really solid card draw engine. Loki is no slouch, and he gave us some tense moments through our game. Cell Phone had some solid moments of letting characters activate out of turn. It was extremely helpful for cleaning up turns. All in all, I was left with a solid reminder of how much I enjoy Spider-Man, and this also gave me a bit of a boost on 'Pool. Spider-Woman Aggression/Protection Suggested By: Astrodar Created By: VillainTheory Encounter: Klaw + Band of Badoon Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Card Drawcula - Halloween Vampire Deck I like to call this combination Mono-Spider-Woman (thanks genetics!), and it’s actually one of my favorite color combos for Spider-Woman. This specific deck has been on my play list for a long while. When I decided to feature multiple Spider-Woman decks, I figured I might as well toss it into the mix. I really enjoyed the Pinned Down/Bring It combo, and between What Doesn’t Kill Me and Contaminant Immunity, I could let minions sit a little bit to help with the timing of drawing into Pinned Down. Compared to the other two Spider-Woman decks featured, this one felt like the ready effects were a lot more valuable. With cheap options of cards to play, it was easy to get 3-4 counters built up on a turn. I had a bunch of fun with this, and I highly recommend it. Conclusion That's it! 11 articles (some doubled up) with 5 heroes per article. That's 55! Well... except I did do some extra Spider-Woman decks. So I still haven't covered Rogue or Valkyrie. To be honest... there's a reason they keep getting pushed back. I'll be back for one final article in this series covering Rogue, Valkyrie, Spider-Woman (again?!), and a quick conclusion for the entire experience. Thanks for coming along for the ride, and I'll see you next week!

It's been a long while since my last post on this series, but I finally have the time to revisit it! That said, in light of the recent announcement introducing the Current and Legacy Environments, I thought it was worth taking a moment to think about what that might mean for this series. Then I realized that was future-Astrodar's problem. So onward and forward! 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, in hopes of 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 using this form ! I cannot promise I will feature every suggestion, but I will credit any suggestions that I do use. In the near future, I'll add a page that gathers the featured scenarios together for easy reference. Without further ado, here are the scenarios I am highlighting today! Venom: Space Fright Scenario : Venom (Sinister Motives) Modular Set : Menagerie Medley (Galaxy's Most Wanted) Venom is all about getting extra boost cards for his activations against you. So what better way to add some zip to his zap than by amping up what boost effects he has available? Menagerie Medley exclusively features minions, and six of those minions have boost effects. With Psionic Ghosts leaping into play off a boost effect and Starsharks dealing extra damage to your characters, it becomes difficult to avoid that extra damage. If you want some similar vibes, Band of Badoon (Galaxy's Most Wanted) also features exclusively minions, and every one of them has a boost effect. You can see a little more about them in the third scenario featured in this article. Attachment Issues Scenario : Thanos (Mad Titan's Shadow) Modular Sets : Brothers Grimm (The Hood) Weapon Master (Rise of Red Skull) Thanos and the Brothers Grimm are coming hard in this scenario. With Brothers Grimm as the only minion in the deck, you're nearly guaranteed to see them. Not only does their boost icon put them into play, the Space Stone (which discards cards until you find a minion) will either pull them out or burn through the encounter deck to reset it and give you an acceleration token. The attachments from the Brothers Grimm modular set essentially have a faux-surge effect, adding to the pressure the scenario puts out. And finally, Weapon Master is guaranteed to get its bonus effects, due to the Infinity Gauntlet having the weapon trait. If you're wanting similar vibes, but with a little less "activate and surge," try replacing Weapon Master with Goblin Gimmicks (Green Goblin) or Celestial Tech (Age of Apocalypse) . Sonic Boosts Scenario : Klaw (Core Set) Modular Set : Band of Badoon (Galaxy's Most Wanted) Klaw is guaranteed two boost cards when he attacks, so this is another scenario that loves boost effects. The Band of Badoon exclusively contains minions, each with a boost effect. These effects may give extra boost icons to attacks, give the attack overkill, or even push minions into play. Each card feels like it impacts the scenario whether it is coming out as a boost or being revealed. If you want something with a similar vibe, Menagerie Medley (Galaxy's Most Wanted) is mentioned above in the Venom scenario. It also features only minions, most of whom have boost effects. Conclusion That is it for this round! Remember that if you have a suggestion you'd like me to take a look at, you can submit it through this form . I cannot promise that the combination will be featured. However, as long as you include your username (or whatever name you wish to be known by), I will credit the suggestion to you! Speaking of crediting people, here is a list of the players that helped me gather suggestions on the first batch of Community Favorites. CastleFrank47 classyrobot Dansome FakeSki Ǵreg Ice Nine journeyman2 MegiDolaDyne MrSelfDestruct regenshine ScarletRhodey

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Ghost-Spider Justice Iron Man Protection Phoenix "Aggression" Scarlet Witch Leadership Wolverine Aggression and... Doctor Strange Aggression Groot Justice Iceman Aggression SP//dr Leadership Spider-Woman Leadership/'Pool Ghost-Spider Justice Suggested By: VJakson Created By: VJakson Encounter: En Sabah Nur Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Let's do things differently this time I’m a big fan of Ghost-Spider Justice, and I’ve even written about a deck I ran through NeXt Evolution a while back ( shameless plug ). This was another fantastic Ghost-Spider deck, and I really liked her interaction with Upside the Head. With many heroes, Upside feels like a limitation, because you are most likely targeting the villain with a basic activation, when you might be wanting to do something else. Here, Ghost-Spider's ready allows you the flexibility to do both. I never got the "George Assesses the Ticket" combo to go off*, because my obligation came out at an odd time. And being the great daughter I am, I never actually went to save George Stacey after that. I had a couple turns where there just wasn’t much to do, because I was hit with an exhaust effect. So much is tied to your basic activation, so if you lose that, it can undercut your entire hand. I think with more plays, I could easily see play lines that help protect against having nothing to do with my hand though. This was a fun deck, and a great refresher on Ghost-Spider. *" George Assesses the Ticket" combo: Tuck all three Assess the Situations under George Stacey, pop them on the same turn, and then trigger Ticket to the Multiverse to take advantage of the +3 hand size twice. Iron Man Protection Suggested By: Caldias Created By: Caldias Encounter: Brotherhood of Badoon Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Aerie Man Says: Sometimes The Best Defense is No (Basic) Def Iron Man is a blast to play, and this was a unique take on a Protection build for him. I liked how it tapped into his HP using cheap, non-exhaust defense events. The deck ran smooth, and it’s probably the best I’ve felt about playing his Mark V Armor for the extra 6 HP. Angel’s Aerie is a neat card that hasn't been tapped into enough. I love it in a Drax deck that I run**, and here was another solid spot for it. This is a really fun deck, and definitely worth trying out. **I know it's weird if you think about it too much. But it's really fun. I'll write about it soon. Phoenix "Aggression" Suggested By: stumpyfjord Created By: stumpyfjord Encounter: Mister Sinister Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: .M- Live, Laugh, Love There are only three Aggression cards in this deck, and it's three copies of Psychic Assault. So this is effectively a Basic deck (or a single swap away from any other aspect), which lets you lean into using The Power in All of Us. Piloting this deck, I had a tense game against Mister Sinister. He got Flight and then Telepathy, and the overkill from the get-go offered some tough decisions. This was the first game that I have used Rise from the Ashes, Phoenix's upgrade that prevents her from being defeated before healing her to full health. I actually triggered it on the hero phase to ready my hero and squeak in a bit of extra damage. While playing this deck, I often felt resource flooded. I was able to build quite the board, but once everything was out, I found myself with more resources than options more often than I would have liked. I used Telekinesis nearly every turn, which was great for additional damage. Telepathy I didn't use much, because I had many other sources of threat removal. I was warned that the deck was more built for multiplayer, but it handled solo well. I imagine the extra threat accumulation in multiplayer would have justified using Telepathy more, and helped with the resource flooding. There are a few things I’d swap around for my own personal play style in solo, but I this deck definitely reminded me of how stable Phoenix can be in the early game. If it looks interesting to you, I think you'd enjoy splashing it into whichever aspect is your favorite! Scarlet Witch Leadership Suggested By: SDx Created By: SDx Encounter: Venom Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Scarlet Witch Leadership This was an interesting deck that offered many routes toward dealing damage and removing threat without actually attacking or thwarting. I was Webbed Up on the first turn of the game, and I never actually removed it. I ultimately lost this game to an untimely scheme, but Scarlet Witch feels as powerful as ever. For my own play style, I would have liked another ally or two that stuck to the board. That said, between status effect generation, Make the Call, and Groot sticking around, I didn't feel that I was in desperate need of blockers the majority of the game. This deck was a strong reminder on the power of Scarlet Witch's Hex Bolts. Wolverine Aggression Suggested By: VillainTheory Created By: VillainTheory Encounter: Sabretooth + Zero Tolerance + Brotherhood Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: The Best at What He Does I took this deck into a thematic rivalry: Sabretooth. This is certainly not my favorite scenario, but it was fun having a plethora of burst damage available. I could slowly manage the board, then quickly burst down a stage of Sabretooth to avoid his healing. It was a nice balance between my normal tempo-based game play and a more complete control style. Many Marvel Champions games have a steady progression through the first stage, followed by a lull before flipping and bursting the villain down. Here it really felt like two separate cycles. While Aggression isn’t my preferred aspect, this felt like a nice showcase of it. Conclusion I can't believe you fell for that two articles in a row! This isn't the conclusion. We've got more heroes to cover in this double feature! Doctor Strange Aggression Suggested By: AndyN Created By: AndyN Encounter: Four Horsemen Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Wizard of Asgard This match up offered some fun wrinkles for Doctor Strange. With his ability to use the invocation deck hampered through Pestilence turning off his hero ability, I had to lean a lot more into the themed Asgard allies. I thought this deck still felt very strong, and I loved the theme. It easily shifted into a damage heavy role after cleanly controlling the board through the early game. This was an enjoyable way to revisit Doctor Strange, and it highlighted that I can still have a lot of fun with him, despite not being a fan of his normal play lines. Groot Justice Suggested By: ArbiterFrosty Created By: ArbiterFrosty Encounter: MaGog + Sitcom Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Groot Justice This was a fun, quick match up. I am fairly certain that I view Groot in a much more favorable light than most, and this deck reinforced how much I enjoy his play lines. The deck is designed to do some massive threat removal, but you can also easily flex into some damage roles. I happened to play this while tired, and I definitely read “Think Fast!” incorrectly. I played under the assumption that you couldn't "take" the damage, due to the growth counters getting in the way. However, that isn't a cost, so you can still play it! Despite playing the whole game, almost never using "Think Fast!", there was enough threat prevention that it wasn’t needed. The deck will only be better when I play it correctly! And I will take every chance I get to shout out how strong "We are Groot" is. If you haven't played Groot in a while, I highly recommend revisiting him.  Iceman Aggression Suggested By: DanTheCrow! Created By: DanTheCrow! Encounter: Dark Beast Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Iceman is as Cold as Ice and Willing to Sacrifice (allies) I’ve been playing a lot of Iceman Protection recently, and I really enjoy this hero. Outside of the precon, this was the first time I’ve played him in Aggression. Utopia is a much needed card for Iceman, and this deck had plenty of allies to help trigger it. He's actually one of the characters that I like Utopia best with, namely because I love how it feeds into his Frostbites. Overall, I prefer where he is at in Protection, due to increased access to readies. Playing this deck, I felt my path was attack → play ally → attack, so I primarily interacted with Utopia and the allies. I don't view that as a negative, I just wanted to note that was where my play style took me. That said, I enjoyed the ally set and how they were incentivized to stick around a bit. Even though I didn’t engage with some of Iceman's cards, I had fun with this deck, and I feel as positive as ever about Iceman! SP//dr Leadership Suggested By: ScarletRhodey Created By: ScarletRhodey Encounter: Mutagen Formula Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Peni's Web-Warriors SP//dr is another top 3 hero for me. I find her play lines offer a lot of decisions and flexibility in what you want to do with your turn. That said, this was perhaps my most odd game with her. I’ve written about this previously, but with a full mulligan, Peni has about a 90% chance to end up with an interface on turn one. In this game, despite getting Aunt May and Uncle Ben to really help me dig, I just couldn’t get anything! All of my interfaces and All Systems Go were in my bottom 15 cards. It was mathematically interesting, but did it make for a rough start! SP//dr is incredibly strong though, so I was able to persevere and pull out a win. I played a second round, and getting that turn one interface felt a lot better! Suit Up was really nice here, allowing me to grab VEN#m, flip up, and get Sidekick set up. I had a lot of fun with this deck. Spider-Woman Leadership/’Pool Suggested By: Deadwolf Created By: Deadwolf Encounter: Mysterio Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Spider Woman Leadership/Pool "Wait, wait, wait! This isn't what I paid for! You featured a Spider-Woman deck last week!" Not to worry! There is a reason I am returning to Spider-Woman. You might even think it's a good one! I find that Spider-Woman plays so differently deck to deck, that I needed to really revisit her a few times with different aspect combinations. Don't be surprised to see another one show up! This was an incredibly smooth deck that played quite differently from Gondo’s Spider-Woman deck that I featured last week. I adored Sidekick with Captain Marvel, as it gave a really solid draw engine. And as FFG knows, the quickest way to my heart is through card draw. There was also a built-in way to heal her, and it could be supplemented with Tic-Tac-Toe. You had readies galore, and you could capitalize on the Spider-Woman's stat boosts with them. With all the sustain from Side-by-Side, Healing Factor, Contaminant Immunities, and basic recoveries, it was breezy keeping Spider-Woman near or at full health. This meant the Self-X resource cards from ‘Pool always generated 2 or 3 resources. It was fun seeing the way ‘Pool and Leadership supplemented Spider-Woman’s natural kit in this deck. Conclusion Well there you have it. The End. La Fin. Het Einde... at least until next week where I throw out another double feature in my attempt to get through this before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. releases in the US. Make sure to check back next week to see my clever use of a translator to say "The End" in even more languages.

The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today: Colossus Protection Domino Basic Ms. Marvel Justice Spider-Woman Aggression/Leadership War Machine Leadership and.... Captain Marvel Leadership Hulk Protection Nebula Justice Vision Leadership X-23 Justice Colossus Protection Suggested By: u/Flying_Toad Created By: u/Flying_Toad Encounter: Absorbing Man Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I, Standard III Deck: Colossus - Heart of Steel This deck was the most outside my wheelhouse so far, especially for solo. Featuring no allies and focusing on defending, it relied heavily on getting set up quickly and keeping threat down. This was a counterintuitive way to play Colossus for me, because I am used to flipping often with him. However, with such little thwarting available, I had to be particularly careful about how I managed the threat. That said, this deck excels at triggering the “take no damage” clauses on a number of cards. If your DEF doesn’t hold up, your Toughs certainly will. I lost my first round on Expert, so I jumped down to Standard. The game on Standard reminded me just how strong of a rush hero Colossus can be. I actually had to play a third game where I leaned into the defense gimmick, because my second game where I rushed didn’t involve a single Protection card. This was definitely an interesting take on defense oriented builds! Domino Basic  Suggested By: MrSelfDestruct Created By: MrSelfDestruct Encounter: Thanos Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Domino All Basic This was a really fun match-up. One of the funniest tidbits to this match was that I never actually got rid of Thanos’s Helmet, which gives him retaliate. Thanks to Domino’s Pistols and Diamondback’s non-attack damage, I was able to skirt by, receiving limited retaliate damage in return. As a whole, this deck highlighted the size of the basic package Domino can utilize. Not once did I feel I was missing power due to not tapping into an aspect. There were plenty of opportunities to feel clever, since I had to be a little more judicious with how I was using my various attacks and allies. This is a deck worth checking out, and if you want to splash in your favorite color, you absolutely could. Ms. Marvel Justice Suggested By: Man-is-Obsolete Created By: Man-is-Obsolete Encounter: On the Run Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: I got 99 problems, but threat ain’t one Ms. Marvel is a top 3 hero for me, and that was reaffirmed with this deck. Her ability to generate an absurd number of resources and cycle cards using Aamir, Nick Fury, and Moon Girl is crazy. I love all the different hooks she has for card draw and combo building. I was running this in solo, but it would easily handle multiplayer threat levels. Man-is-Obsolete suggests swapping out Turn the Tide for Even the Odds at high player counts, which makes sense. This is definitely a deck I would grab for another game. Spider-Woman Aggression/Leadership Suggested By: Gondo Created By: Gondo Encounter: Infiltrate the Museum Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Hang Up Your Christmas Banners, We're Calling for a Carol This was a really fun way to turn Spider-Woman into a rush deck of sorts. Utilizing her alter-ego ability to look at the top card of the deck was incredibly helpful for safely swinging with Hulk. I also had her apartment out, which I used to reshuffle the deck for Hulk a couple of times. Between the cheap events and the 5 damage from Hulk each swing, it felt smooth burning down The Collector. This was a neat deck to revisit Spider-Woman with, and it definitely encouraged me to take another look at her kit beyond the double aspect ability! War Machine Leadership Suggested By: JOMO Created By: JOMO Encounter: Tower Defense Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Mission Commander James Rhodes War Machine has been pretty low on my list of preferred heroes for a long time, mostly because I have always found him to be clunky. There were always leftover cards or unspent ammo counters. The efficiency puzzle just didn’t shake out to where I liked it. On top of that, I struggled to have success with him when I played with him. That all said… this deck felt really smooth to play. I still had the occasional left over card, but I felt like I was getting a lot done. Tower Defense gives a decent bit of wiggle room on flipping to alter-ego, so that may have helped. Having Suit Up to help grab Iron Man (and thus grab important tech) was a super clean way to accelerate set up. This deck left me with a much better impression of War Machine than I had going into. Conclusion Just kidding! This is where the Conclusion would usually be. However, we're doubling up to get this finished before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. releases. Captain Marvel Leadership Suggested By: MegiDolaDyne Created By: MegiDolaDyne Encounter: Spiral + Fantasy + Sci-Fi + Horror Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Captain Mutant Captain Marvel is a top 3 hero for me, so I knew going in that I would probably enjoy playing this deck. What caught me off guard is how absolutely amazing she is with Mutant Mayhem. With her draw engine, it is super easy to get more than one Mutant Mayhem into hand. Then with Beast on the board, the second Mutant Mayhem is essentially free, because you can grab her three resource Energy Absorption card. With Children of the Atom giving all of your allies (except Spider-Woman) the X-Men and X-Force trait, you have a lot of flexibility on how to use Mutant Mayhem. This was a really fun deck, and it is absolutely worth trying out. Hulk Protection Suggested By: KnightAdz Created By: KnightAdz Encounter: Risky Business Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Hulk Protection Luckily, I rolled into Risky Business with Hulk! Granted, I generated that luck by rerolling when I got Ronan, then again when I got Mansion Attack, and yet again when I got Magneto. So as luck would have it, I rolled Risky Business on my first roll (that followed the first three) ! I’m going to be honest here… I truly don’t mind Hulk, particularly in multiplayer. But I do have some limit on what I want to take him against. Something that I liked about this deck was all the healing available with a basic recovery. After his lab and Down Time are out, you’re healing for 8 with each recovery. It lets you lean into his health pool as a resource in a fun way. I am a sucker for Starhawk, and I love how he interacts with Hulk by helping to smooth his hand in hero form. I had a good time, and it did give me a hankering to try a two-handed game with Hulk again. Nebula Justice Suggested By: stumpyfjord Created By: stummpyfjord Encounter: Wrecking Crew Difficulty: Expert Deck: Nebula - Justice A long while back, Nebula used to be in my top 10. She has faded somewhat, mostly because I hadn’t felt the desire to revisit her. This was a fun deck to go back to her though! Float Like a Butterfly is a neat inclusion here. I like that you can time your techniques to confuse an enemy and then have a boosted attack with your attack technique. Wrecking Crew was mildly interesting, because it undercuts her strongest solo technique, Wide Stance. Since you have to target the active villain’s deck, you aren’t always able to perfectly set up the villain phase. With how much confuse was available in solo play, it opened up the option of using the Sonic Rifle as a damage source (even if it can’t be boosted by Float Like a Butterfly). I had fun with this, and I’d be interested in pairing it up in a two-player game. Vision Leadership Suggested By: fantastic_fox_79 Created By: fantastic_fox_79 Encounter: Kang Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: Vision - Air Supremacy I love Vision’s versatility! When he first released, he felt unwieldy, but in hindsight I am not sure why. This deck certainly didn’t feel that way, though I did keep forgetting that Vivian isn’t aerial (namely because her Basic version is). Having a non-attack like Aerial Supremacy gave a nice way for Vision to deal damage even when he was in Intangible form, which helped smooth out the sequencing when playing cards. It was a fun deck concept, and I enjoyed it! X-23 Justice Suggested By: ArbiterFrosty Created By: ArbiterFrosty Encounter: Dark Beast Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I Deck: X-23 Justice This was a tough one for me! I have been coming around to using fewer overall allies, but having only one ally took some adjustments.I figured that after my earlier plays with AndyN’s single-ally Venom deck , I would have a decent grasp of it. Despite the similarities in recurring a single ally, this deck played very differently. I lost my first two games against Dark Beast. I couldn’t decide if The Savage Land discarding cards was causing the issue, or if I wasn’t understanding how to pilot the deck. So rather than change things up, I just buckled down and tried again… and again. The third time was the charm! I had to be more patient, but I was able to set up the framework and get Honey Badger cycling with Sisterhood and buffed with Danger Room. In the end what really impressed me was how many similar mechanisms this deck shared with AndyN’s Venom deck (recurring an ally, taking damage to generate resources/buffs, lots of healing and status effects), while feeling and playing completely different. Conclusion (for real this time) Thanks for sticking around for the double feature! My next few will also be double features, as I finish out the series. I did get a lot of extra decks submitted to me that I want to cover, so given enough time, I may even have a bonus article to cover a few of those. See you next time!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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