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

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

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

The goal of these articles are to expound upon rules found in the Learn to Play and Rules Reference Guide, incorporating relevant interactions that may fall outside either of the above. Hopefully these provide some insight and answer any questions you may have. Forms are one of the unique features of Marvel Champions that help to capture the thematic element of being a superhero. As a baseline, each identity card has two forms: alter-ego and hero. Alter-ego form is essentially your time away from the fight. While in alter-ego, the villain will progress their scheme, pushing toward one of their win conditions. There will be a number of cards and abilities that are exclusively usable in alter-ego form, and they will be labeled as such. Hero form is when you’re in the fight and messing up the villain’s plan. Most of your identity’s attacking and thwarting will happen in hero form. As above, there will be cards and abilities that are only usable in hero form. If a card ability is not labeled “hero” or “alter-ego”, it is usable in any form. As a baseline, you can choose to flip your identity card once per turn to change from one form to another. In addition to this, there are abilities that cause you to change form. These abilities do not count as your once-per-turn flip. It’s worth noting that the once-per-turn flip and changes from card abilities are not connected, so one cannot prevent the other from happening. Beyond these two built-in forms (alter-ego and hero), some heroes feature additional forms. Three heroes feature a “three-sided,” folding identity card that has an additional hero form (Angel, Ant-Man, and Wasp). Three others feature separate upgrade cards with the form keyword (Shadowcat, Spectrum, and Vision). Your once-per-turn flip can be used for the “three-sided” identities, but not for the separate form cards. Upgrades with the form keyword. There are a number of abilities that trigger on changing form. While you will find these abilities on all types of cards, all the current aspect and basic cards that trigger on changing form are Hero Response abilities. Most heroes will only be able to use them when flipping from alter-ego into hero form. This means at best they are only usable about half the game, and often less. Ready to Rumble and Moira MacTaggert stand out from the others, because they are played to the board and usable when needed. Moira also can be triggered when other players change to hero form, making it even more useful.  Cards triggering on changing form. The heroes that have additional forms have more access to triggering these abilities. Changing from one hero form to another or changing your non-identity form upgrade meets the triggering condition for the "after you change form" abilities. This means these six heroes have more access to the form changing abilities throughout the game. Summary Additional Form Heroes: "Three-Fold" Identity Angel Ant-Man Wasp Form Upgrades Shadowcat Spectrum Vision Form Changing Cards: Lay Down the Law Moira MacTaggert Moxie Perseverance Ready to Rumble Surprise Attack Relevant RRG Sections: Ability (specifically Triggered Abilities) Form, Change Form Identity

In this series, I highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a decklist that I've enjoyed using them in and a gallery that displays all the cards highlighted. Web of Life and Destiny This card is the crux of Web-Warrior builds, so I'm tackling it first. Web of Life and Destiny is amazing if you're a Web-Warrior, because it's a free resource generator. However, it is definitely worth the cost for non-Web-Warriors. This card rewards you for letting allies do what they do best... getting knocked out. Not only does it generate card draw, it lets you choose which player gets the draw. That's super important for the deck below, but it's also incredibly flexible and helpful for the team. Something else I really like about this card is that it only cares if the ally leaves play. Meaning that if an effect would force you to discard an ally or you're at your ally limit and need more space, you can still benefit from the ally being lost. Additionally, Web of Life and Destiny helps unlock Web-Warrior builds for heroes that are not Web-Warriors. Like many characters in the game, some of the Web-Warrior allies are trait-locked, meaning you must have a specific trait to play the ally. However, the Web-Warrior trait-locking is what I would call a "soft-lock." They don't require that your hero has the trait, only that you control a card with the trait. Enter Web of Life and Destiny. Not only does it give you the fantastic boon of giving any player a card draw when a Web-Warrior leaves play, it can facilitate playing all of the allies that have the soft-lock. If you're running any Web-Warrior build, this card is a must. Across the Spider-Verse Another auto-include for any Web-Warrior build, Across the Spider-Verse lets you ensure you can bring back your multiverse friends. Not only that, it can be triggered multiple times off a single play. You can choose to have yourself or another player repeat the ability, and then that person can choose themselves or someone else, and on and on and on until you run out of the things you need to pay the costs. As a bonus, this is also a nice way to get around Peter's Requirement ability, and it's a small discount compared to playing the 3+ cost allies from hand. Ghost-Spider This is likely one of the most powerful allies in the game, even if you're not running Web-Warrior. Not only will Ghost-Spider give you a card draw from Web of Life and Destiny, she will also hand-pick the hero event you most want from your deck. And since hero cards are usually the best cards ( cough Legal Practice cough ), you can snag something incredibly important. This is the one Web-Warrior ally that is worth running even if you run no other Web-Warrior cards. Just make sure you can get her into play with the likes of Make the Call. SP//dr SP//dr has some similarities with one of my other favorite allies: Starhawk. Both can be recurred into hand with their own ability, meaning that they become incredibly reliable and consistent cheap allies. Personally, I love cheap allies that incentivize you not to block with them, so SP//dr gains some brownie points from that. Here, SP//dr is essentially becoming a 1 cost source for 1 damage and 2 threat removal each turn (1 cost due to her drawing you a card from Web of Life and Destiny and not starting in your hand). Spider-Man: Peter Parker Spider-Man is incredibly flexible, and he can really accelerate your tempo. For Web-Warrior heroes, he's great for helping you be more flexible or really lean into a boosted stat. For non-Web-Warriors he is great for amping up allies like SP//dr. Honorable Mentions: Spider-Man (Spider-Men?) Hobie Brown and Otto Octavius are strong allies as is, and they can be powerhouses in the right deck. They can be deck dependent though, and they don't have quite the same overall impact. For example, Otto is naturally insane with the SP//dr hero, but essentially does nothing in the deck below. Hobie has some strong thwart, and he can crank out some unpredictable non-attack damage on the villain. Try It Out It's a little late for Christmas, but the gift giving continues with Captain Marvel. This is a deck that I took to Con of Heroes last year, and I had a blast handing out cards left and right. Shout-out to MrSelfDestruct from discord for reminding me of this deck, inspiring me to make some updates to it, and suggesting the new Mission Leader upgrade! Here it is on MarvelCDB! The whole point of this deck is to be as generous as possible. You can play it solo perfectly fine, but if you love playing support roles while still getting stuff done, then this is for you. Things you can give away: Carol Danvers' Commander card draw ability Avengers Mansion card draw Helicarrier discount Web of Life and Destiny card draw Mission Leader card draw Maria Hill card draw Players their own allies with Regroup An ally with Call for Backup A support with Build Support Basically you will be everyone's best friend. If you don't mind having a thick deck, feel free to toss in some reinforced suits or other ally upgrades for your friends. Some other notes: Agent 13 can ready Alpha Flight Station, which means in alter-ego you're getting bonus cards! Build Support can grab whatever you need most, but its primary target should be Web of Life and Destiny. Mission Leader only triggers if you are in hero form, so watch the timing. You'll be in alter-ego a decent bit with this deck. If you give the deck a spin, let me know how it goes! Featured Cards

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

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?

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!

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!

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: 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.

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.