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One of my favorite things about Marvel Champions is the modularity. There are so many ways to mix and match scenarios and modular sets, to the point that at times it can be daunting! This series will be highlighting some community favorites, hopefully helping players find new ways to play the game and branch out from the suggested modular sets! These scenarios (and those upcoming) were suggested by community members. If you have any favorite combinations, let me know! After the first few articles have been posted in this series, I'll add a page that gathers them together for easy reference. Without further ado, here are the scenarios we are highlighting today! Legions of Red Skull Scenario : Red Skull (Rise of Red Skull) Modular Set : Legions of Hydra (Core Set) Hydra Patrol (Rise of Red Skull) We're kicking this off with a classic! This is a very challenging scenario, because Red Skull's side scheme deck ensures that you will see Legions of Hydra (most likely at the least opportune time). The Quest Scenario : Hela (Mad Titan's Shadow) Modular Sets : Fantasy (MojoMania) Enchantress (Mad Titan's Shadow) I hope you brought your adventuring pants, because we're off on a quest! Fight your way past dragons and a sorceress to save the king from an evil witch! Doctor Horror-ble Scenario : Zola (Rise of Red Skull) Modular Set : Horror (MojoMania) Zola is at it again, but this time he's messing with the supernatural! Beware the Kraken... and any of Zola's wicked attachments that it may have! That's it for this article! Be on the look out for more scenarios to be posted in upcoming articles and on the upcoming Community Favorites page! And don't forget to let me know what your favorite combinations are! Acknowledgements Lots of community members have chimed in on these community favorites. I want to acknowledge everyone who has contributed. For these first few articles, I'll include the list here. Once the main page goes live that gathers them all together, I'll move the acknowledgement list there! So thank you to everyone below that has contributed so far! CastleFrank47 classyrobot Dansome FakeSki Ǵreg Ice Nine journeyman2 MegiDolaDyne MrSelfDestruct regenshine ScarletRhodey

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

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

It's officially 2024, which means it is time for all the end of the year retrospectives! Before I dive into a little bit about my Marvel Champions year, I'll announce the winner of the hero pack contest. The winner is... Jamie! But wait! In a much less exciting version of a fourth name popping out from the Goblet of Fire, it seems we have a bonus winner! ZetaRinGrina! (I had a little extra floating around, so I bumped it up to have two winners. A pro of being in charge.) The winners have been emailed. Thank you everyone for entering. I loved reading your favorite things about the game, and I've shared a couple favorites below: How modular it is, and honestly, the great online community around it! The theme!! Getting to essentially command a team of Marvel heroes against the villains of your choosing is the "grown-up" equivalent to smashing your action figures around. Imagining comic scenes coming to life is a reason this game is so special for so many people. The joy of customization and all cards are listed and not random (hero packs and etc) Astrodar's 2023 2024 saw seven expansions containing: 8 heroes 5 scenarios 12 modular sets a new player card type (player side schemes) a new aspect ('Pool) Deadwolf from the Marvel Champions Community Server shared their "Best of 2023," which inspired me to share mine here. Below you will find all my favorites of the year! If there is a close runner-up, I've included them in parenthesis. I also pulled allies and side schemes into their own category to help show off some of the fun cards. Favorite: Hero: Cable (X-23) Ally: Honey Badger (Outlaw) Aspect Ally: Fantomex (Armor) Player Side Scheme: Call for Backup (Lock and Load) Aggression Card: Bombs Away Justice Card: Upside the Head Leadership Card: Med Lab Protection Card: Taunt 'Pool Card: Tic-Tac-Toe Basic Card: Digging Deep Scenario: Juggernaut Modular Set: Flight Most Played: Heroes: SP//dr Drax Black Widow Aspect Aggression Protection is my favorite aspect, but this year Aggression just snuck ahead for number of plays. I played a lot of SP//dr Aggression at Con of Heroes and a lot of Drax Aggression for Solo Champions League. X-23 gets a big shoutout. The only reason Cable beat her out is that I don't feel I have enough plays of her to for sure move her ahead. But she is a lot of fun. Outlook I think the game is in a really solid place right now. NeXt Evolution was such an incredible box to play through. The designs really rewarded things like going to alter-ego and defending. It’s a box that I would easily recommend for someone just getting into the game. ‘Pool was a really fun surprise, and I love both how silly it is and that the silliness is pulled out from the standard aspects. Age of Apocalypse has been announced, and I’m excited for its release in March. In the meantime, I’m going to be diving into these X-Force heroes more!

As a gift to each of you, I have made this ode to Night Before Christmas. If that's not enough of a gift (ya greedy little elves!), there's a contest below for a hero pack! ‘Twas the night before Christmas, and all through my decks Not a creature was stirring, not even T-Rex; The cards were all sorted from front to the back, divided so neatly by new Tesseracts. The heroes were nestled all snug in their sleeves, While Vision and Shadowcat phased through their dreams. My cards were all ready and my playmat the same, So I settled on in for another quick game. First I pulled out my phone to see all the chatter. I opened up discord to see what was the matter. I scrolled past the messages of fixes for Hulk and questions of when the next article posts. Discord was quiet this holiday night, so I pulled up Cerebro to choose me a fight. When what from the randomizer should appear, But Ronan with Mystique and, of course, Goblin Gear. With a dastardly villain and no hope for change, I knew in a moment it was time for Strange. More rapid than eagles I pulled out his kit, Then saw blue and gray as I chose Leadership. Now Fury! Now, Kaluu! Now Hill and Professor! In, Panther! In Stinger! In, Beast and White Tiger! Grab Rapid Response, Regroup, Make the Call! Now recur cards! Recur cards! Recur them all! As I looked at my deck, I thought “Oh of course!” Then added to it every double resource. The Mystic locked cards were added on top. Then Triskelion and Call for Backup. And then, in a twinkling, with my deck looking grand The scenario started, and I drew up my hand. As I mulliganed away the cards that were unwanted, I drew up again, certainly feeling quite daunted. He was dressed in his armor, his hammer in grip, A hazard icon sitting right on his ship. A side scheme he pulled from the deck on Stage II, A crisis icon limiting what I could do. With a hand full of cards and Rings of Raggadorr, I flipped up to hero to fight the Accuser. Allies were played, Invocations resolved. The puzzle of using each resource was solved. But soon my turn ended, and I gritted my teeth. Apparently Bands was still underneath. Without any stun or confuse to give aid, the villain phase started much to my dismay. The threat it increased. The amount was absurd. The main scheme was already ready to burst. The villain activation was up ahead, and I knew right away I had everything to dread. He wasted no time, but went straight to his work, attacking with two boost cards like a jerk. Then dealing encounter cards, oh what a bother. Surprise! Fanaticism; forced to surge to another. I drew Advanced Glider then, of course, was accused. I wish I could say I was left only bruised. I said as I scooped the few cards from the fight, What was even the point? I’ll call it a night. No Marvel Champions players were hurt in the creation of this rhyme. Contest Thanks for making it this far! Simply click the button below and fill out the Google form to enter the contest. Contest rules are as follows: Giveaway restricted to those residing in the US and Canada. The winner gets one hero pack of their choice from an online retailer that reasonably ships to their address. The winner will need to provide an address for shipping. The winner will be drawn on January 2, 2024. The winner will be contacted via the email address provided below. If the winner doesn't respond within 48 hours, a new winner will be selected. Good luck and Happy Holidays!

Recently I joined Nelson All Over Cards in a roundtable discussion of the new Age of Apocalypse announcement. You can check it out on YouTube!

Continuing mankind’s obsessive need to shove everything in a box, I have grouped the scenarios into categories that share a similar feel of play. This isn't saying that each scenario in the category plays exactly the same. Nor is this categorization based exclusively on the mechanisms of the scenario, though you will see a strong influence from that. Instead, the goal of this categorization is to present similar styles of scenario to help a player or play group determine which scenario they may want to play. For example, if you have just completed the journey that is Hela, perhaps you’d like to play another “adventure style” scenario. Take a peek at the Adventure category, and you'll find Hela alongside some other similar scenarios. Below you'll find a short list of the categories. If you want to skip ahead, click the link to the category you're interested in. You'll find a blurb on what the category is, and I give a brief comment on each scenario in the category. These comments are not intended to give you a synopsis or review of the scenarios, but rather to justify their inclusion and to point to some interesting play. Fisticuffs: Roll up your sleeves, because this is a fistfight. Attrition: Death by one thousand cuts. Swarm: It's like a clown car, but the scenario is the car and minions the clowns. Boss: Queue the cut scene, we've got ourselves a boss battle. Adventure: Buckle-up Bilbo, you’ve got an adventure ahead of you. Guardian: We’re the Guardians of the… Senator or Tower or you know… whatever. Thief: Hey! That’s my stuff! The Hood: Variety is the spice of life. Methodology Before we dive in, I want to include some of the thought processes behind these categorizations. I am taking a very general approach to the scenario. I am accounting for the required modular sets, but not for the recommended modular sets. If the recommended modular sets make a notable difference in how a scenario feels to play, I’ll be sure to note it. Otherwise, any modular sets you add will be adding their own flavor*. For example, the Swarm category features scenarios with a lot of minions. A high minion mod like Band of Badoon is going to make any scenario feel more like a Swarm scenario regardless of which category the scenario is in. I also am not specifically considering Standard or Expert. If there is a notable difference between the two, I’ll comment on it. But generally the scenario as a whole has the same general vibe. *I have my own categorization of mods in the works, but in the meantime, check out Get Up and Game's modular set breakdown on BoardGameGeek! This can be a helpful guide in how modular set choice will influence the scenario's style. Fisticuffs I would point to this category as being the quintessential Marvel Champions experience. These villains are straight up bruisers. You’ll be duking it out with the villains, and their main focus is knocking you down. They tend to hit hard and hit often. Juggernaut This scenario is so focused on defeating you, that it removes one of the main loss conditions in Marvel Champions: losing to threat. Instead, each time the main scheme threshold is met, you’ll simply get attacked by Juggernaut, regardless of your identity's form. You’ll have to manage his helmet carefully, as with it, his attacks have overkill, restricting the usefulness of having allies block for you. While Juggernaut does include a secondary loss condition with Hope Summers, there’s surprisingly little in the scenario that actually focuses on her. But since it is there, we’ll also give Juggernaut an Honorary Guardian categorization (see below). MaGog One of the few scenarios that offers an alternate win condition, MaGog is nothing but a duke-it-out fist fight. You can only win the scenario by impressing the crowd, but the primary way to do that is by defeating MaGog again and again. Just as mentioned with Juggernaut, MaGog also removes threat as a primary loss condition. Instead the scenario shifts scheming out to progressing MaGog’s secondary loss condition: winning the crowd’s favor. Rhino For many players, Rhino was the first experience with Marvel Champions. He is built to hit hard, and with some of the more recent modular sets, he can be buffed out to be quite the threat. He is the quintessential Fisticuffs scenario. (Yes, I realize I've already used 'quintessential' twice. I'm going to use it some more, so learn to deal with it, bucko!) Ronan Ronan the Accuser has some high pressure across the board, but his primary focus is knocking you silly. He has five activation treacheries in his scenario, meaning that once you include Standard cards, he has eight different treacheries that give him extra attacks. On top of the extra activations, he has a permanent hazard icon, meaning you’re seeing more encounter cards each round. He is a tough fight, and easily the most difficult in this category. For this reason, you’ll also see him over in the Boss category. Venom With a unique twist on the format, Venom’s attacks are made powerful by extra boost cards that pile up each time you damage him. When he hits, you’re going to need some strong support or blocking. Those boost cards can really build up, pushing some incredible damage and triggering some rough boost abilities. Wrecking Crew The first of the multi-villain scenarios to make the list, Wrecking Crew doesn’t bring anything particularly different than the other Fisticuff scenarios beyond having multiple villains. The main scheme pressure is limited, and the active villain is very much just looking to hit you hard. Attrition While the villains in these scenarios can still hit hard, they come along with many smaller effects that either apply pressure across multiple fronts or lean into one particular front, like indirect damage. These scenarios can be a lot more disruptive than your Fisticuffs scenarios, handing out status effects, exhaustions, encounter cards in your deck, and more. Absorbing Man Keying off the environment cards Absorbing Man is mimicking, the treacheries in this set have a wide range of abilities, each adding a bit more pressure on the players. Keep an eye out though, because he can hit decently hard if given the chance. Brotherhood of Badoon Surely this one is an error. This is one of *the* premiere minion scenarios. I hear you. You are not alone if you think that. But, take a moment and hear me out. And don't call me Shirley. Drang’s invasion offers a multitude of ways to add pressure. First, he will be occasionally raining down some indirect damage from his Badoon Ship. As the scenario progresses, the indirect damage will come more frequently. Beyond that he taxes your access to the Milano through a bunch of side schemes and treacheries. The scenario as a whole generates a lot of threat to deal with. Now... this is one of the scenarios where the recommended modular set can make a huge difference. The recommended mod is Band of Badoon, a set with ten minions in it. By itself, that modular set will make any scenario feel like a Swarm scenario (see below). However, if you play on Expert, Drang III’s “When Revealed” effect can throw a bunch of minions on the board for a huge tempo change. It is a lot of fun, and if you’re looking to preserve that, ensure that you use minion heavy mods. Because of that stage III ability, Brotherhood of Badoon gets an Honorary Swarm categorization. However, that stage III ability is the only thing in his set that pertains to minions. And it can completely whiff, even with a big minion mod. If you swap out the recommended mod for something else, you completely lose the Swarm vibe. Crossbones Crossbones has one main approach: pull the trigger. He’s going to be dealing a lot of small damage packets with Crossbones’ Machine Gun, his Full Auto treachery, and Hydra Bomber. However, he also features 3 modular sets, and he can gain a lot of variety from those inclusions. Ebony Maw The spells cast by Ebony Maw can be really disruptive, but you can see them coming. This lets you play around the effects to a point, shifting to ensure you’re prepared for the upcoming effects. You’ll see extra damage, exhaust effects, ping damage, and ping threat. As a point of interest, 8 of 17 encounter cards in his set have surge on them, which means you’ll feel the modular sets you add a lot more than most scenarios. Klaw Klaw can really let modular sets with boost abilities shine! His own encounter cards are fairly varied in effect, and they all lean into being fairly disruptive. He heals himself, stuns and exhausts heroes, and forces discards from hand among other things. Mysterio Mysterio is the king of annoying little sting effects. You could say... wait for it... it's the quintessential Attrition experience. He will seed your deck with encounter cards, forcing you to deal with them as extra encounter cards later. Many of his cards deal small amounts of damage or place small amounts of threat. However, they recur often, building pressure as they go. As the number of encounter cards in your deck builds, you can feel each card draw become more tense. Risky Business The majority of Risky Business focuses on forcing a flip back and forth between Norman Osborn and Green Goblin, dealing a lot of damage along the way. Lots of the effects on the encounter cards are small, pushing Green Goblin toward flipping back and Norman Osborn further from flipping. Sandman Sandman’s attacks deal indirect damage, preventing you from effectively blocking with allies and punishing you for damaging your hero. His City Streets environment burns through the encounter deck, forcing acceleration tokens to build faster than usual. Many of his effects are small, but they spread out the damage and build permanent threat pressure through the acceleration tokens. Taskmaster With a lot of small effects like retaliate, damage from flipping to hero form, rebound damage, and forced discards from hand, Taskmaster really fits the bill for Attrition. In addition, he offers the players plenty of help by offering up allies that have been captured by HYDRA. Swarm These scenarios feature a lot of minions or minion-like characters. There are two subcategories here. First is the Overlord category, where one main villain pumps out minions. Second is the Gang Up category where there are potentially multiple villains, some with minion counterparts that show up again and again. So why not split them into two separate categories all together? Partially because I decided to do subcategories semi-last second, but was too lazy to rewrite a few things. And partially because I want to retain a category that is minion focused. The difference between the two subcategories is distinct, but both do focus on minion (or minion-like) characters. Swarm: Overlord Master Mold Master Mold will produce a Sentinel minion every time he schemes. Additionally, you’ll start the game engaged to a minion, and all Sentinel minions have guard. This really amplifies their inclusion in the scenario, because you simply can’t ignore them. The minions in the scenario and required set are also pretty beefy, so you’ll have to put some effort into defeating them. Mutagen Formula There are twelve minions built into this scenario, and ten of those can enter play from their boost effect. This scenario truly feels like a swarm as Green Goblin launches minions out at you. Bonus tip: If you like Band of Badoon and don't mind bending the rules a bit, you can make a similar modular set using the goblins in Mutagen Formula. To make this Goblin Army modular set, you can just take any ten goblins (or all twelve, I won’t judge). However, I recommend the following: 1x Goblin Knight 4x Goblin Soldier 4x Goblin Thrall 1x Monster Toss them in anywhere, but I find they work really well with Klaw (go boost go!), Venom (yay boosts!), Zola (beefy goblins!), and Brotherhood of Badoon. Ultron Why bring your own minions when you can just create some from the players’ decks? Ultron can really churn out minions in the form of drones, but Ultron II in particular amps it up. While the minions in this scenario will be quite small, there is a continuous stream of them during the game. Zola The Mad Doctor also has a minion producing ability, churning out a new minion roughly every three turns. In addition, you’ll find two other side schemes that produce a minion when defeated. Tying this to the nine minions in his scenario and a bunch of attachments that surge if a minion isn’t in play, you will have a constant flow of minions to defeat. Honorary Overlord: Brotherhood of Badoon There is really only one ability in this scenario that interacts directly with minions, and it only happens once. However, it is a such a volatile and fun moment when Drang III's "When Revealed" ability triggers, that Brotherhood of Badoon with a minion heavy modular set earns an Honorary Overlord title. The recommended set is Band of Badoon, and it is one of the best. However, there are some mods and mod combinations that can create a similar effect. I've listed some below, noting how many are minions (minions/total cards). There are definitely more fun combinations than this, but these do a great job at seeding the deck with enough minions. Kree Militants (8/9) Menagerie Medley (9/9) Sinister Assault (6/6) + Beasty Boys (2/4) Hydra Assault (5/6) + Hydra Patrol (5/6) Black Tom Cassidy (5/7) + Mutant Insurrection (4/5) Goblin Army (I mention this in Mutagen Formula's comment.) Swarm: Gang Up Mansion Attack In this assault on Xavier's school, you’ll see a number of enemies show up as both the villain and as minions. The scenario features a variety of ways to pull the minion versions into play, causing you to fight these enemies over and over throughout the course of the game. This scenario is widely variable, but one of the main through lines is seeing the Brotherhood minions pop in and out of play. On the Run This is one that may feel like an odd inclusion here, so I’m going to back up my “vibes check” with some numbers. Within the scenario there will be multiple points where the Marauder minions are pulled into play. First, you will put one into play with each player during setup. Then, you will do this again after defeating the villain the first time. In the encounter deck, there will be 6 minions and 5 encounter cards that put those minions into play. That means on Standard, 11 out of the 24 encounter cards can put minions into play. Once you include the two modular sets (assuming 6 cards each), you’re still at about one third of the deck being minion focused, even if you only use mods with no additional minions (the recommended setup sits between 45-50% of the deck being minion focused). And that is on top of the two times a game where each player is guaranteed to get a minion. Rest easy. I’m done with numbers! The above is all to say that you’re going to see a lot of minions here, and because a lot of them will end up gaining Guard, they’re going to feel like a big part of the scenario. And I haven’t even mentioned yet that being engaged with a Marauder minion will cause the villain to scheme instead of attack! Sinister Six Surely this is a mistake! You've copied and pasted into the wrong spot! I didn't, and I told you not to call me Shirley. While this scenario has very few actual minions in it, the Sinister Six villains are all minion-like in their ATK, SCH, and health. They will be popping into play repeatedly, always giving the feel of a minion target being available. You still have to make some adjustment here though, as a minion-focused player deck will not have adequate targets in the scenario, despite it being a Swarm scenario. Boss These are the scenarios that feel the most like a boss fight. There are some pretty major effects to go along with big attacks and schemes, and there is generally pressure coming on every front. This is the one category that is more indicative of difficulty. It’s also the category that kind of builds itself, as you’ll notice each of the final villains from the campaign boxes are in this category. Loki Sporting the Infinity Gauntlet, Loki has multiple forms of himself that pop in and out of play. These different forms have a variety of strengths, meaning you have to answer for anything that may show up. Additionally, the pressure from the Infinity Gauntlet is amplified by some of his encounter cards. This scenario is even more deserving of the Boss category at Standard, as with the exception of the three Expert modular set cards, it is exactly the same difficulty as Expert right up until you win. Magneto Magneto takes you through multiple schemes during the battle against him, adding an adventure like element to his scenario. His recurring ability to pull magnetic cards from the discard pile add a lot of pressure, and you can feel the added tension as you watch the magnet counters tick up. All in all, he very much feels like a boss battle. Nebula One of the few scenarios in this category that aren’t the conclusion of a campaign box, Nebula sneaks into the Boss category based on her more difficult games. Surge can create huge tempo changes in her favor, and between both her techniques and evasion counters vying for your resources there is a lot of additional pressure in the scenario. That said, she can be quite variable. You can luck into some good draws that avoid building up her techniques, making the scenario much simpler. Red Skull With his unique mechanism that focuses on side schemes, Red Skull pumps out a lot of threat you need to deal with. You’re essentially playing each round with a permanent hazard icon that exclusively pulls side schemes. There are a few mods that can really send Red Skull over the top, such as the infamous Legions of Hydra. Ronan Making his second appearance in this article, Ronan certainly deserves to be in the Boss category. He applies a lot of pressure across all fronts, but first and foremost he is looking to attack you. Stryfe Stryfe is one of (if not the) most disruptive villains in the game. The way that he messes with your play area and the cost of your cards can really create a unique Marvel Champions experience. At times you feel almost sluggish trying to overcome the tax on playing cards. Additionally, with his ability to have a massively boosted attack, his attacks do actually feel threatening. All in all, he joins the ranks of final campaign box villains as another boss battle. Thanos To me, Thanos is the quintessential boss battle. The scenario is really quite simple. He focuses on activating against you, triggering the Infinity Gauntlet, and hitting you really hard. While there’s really not much else going on beyond that, the scenario feels grand. Venom Goblin If there were any of the bosses that got Honorary Attrition, Venom Goblin would be it. There are a ton of small effects that build up over the absurd number of encounter cards that he can throw at you. The main scheme specials are triggering all over the place, each putting just another bit of pressure on the heroes. However, he still feels like a sprawling battle, forcing you to really manage the board state and be prepared for huge tempo swings. Adventure These scenarios feel a little less like a fist fight and more like an adventure. There are defined stages where the scenario progresses along in its story, though those stages may be through schemes, villain stages, or other methods. Escape the Museum As you race out of the museum, you’ll find the Milano, dodge the Collector’s ship, and thwart your way to victory. There is a clear progression of stages here, and you feel like you’re working your way through an adventure. Hela The scenario that defines the category*, Hela has you trudging through Hel looking to save Odin and defeat Hela. You’ll work your way through three beefy mini-bosses and three locations before rescuing Odin and dealing with Hela directly. It’s quite the romp, and well deserving of the Adventure category. *That was my clever way of not saying quintessential. Kang The progression of this adventure has you moving through time and space as you battle against various versions of Kang. In the second act, you'll move into separate play areas, each player facing off against a separate Kang. While defeating the Kangs is the focus, this still feels very much like an adventure. Honorary Adventure: Mojo You’ll battle your way across various shows in the Mojoverse as you work to defeat Mojo. While this scenario is far more variable than the others in this category, the progression here still provides unique stages of the game, and as the show environments swap, the game changes significantly. The reason this only lands in Honorary is that you may never see the progression, as it isn’t tied directly to the win condition. Instead, it is a progression toward a loss condition as the encounter deck runs out. Guardian In these scenarios, there is a secondary loss condition involving some entity you need to protect. Be it a person or a building, you must protect it to complete your mission. Mister Sinister On the final main scheme stage of Mister Sinister, every time he attacks, he will attack Hope Summers. While you can go entire games without him reaching this third stage, Sinister puts a lot of pressure on the main schemes and really pushes toward that final stage. Since it becomes the full focus of the scenario at that point, you must be prepared to defend Hope multiple times, something that merits Mister Sinister being a Guardian scenario. Morlock Siege During the villain phase of Round 3, Morlock Siege introduces the Morlocks. These are the characters you are working to protect, because they are your secondary loss condition. If you lose all the Morlocks, you lose. Since there is a delay in their introduction, you can conceivably win games before they ever show up. However, most of the time the focus of the scenario will be on attacking the Morlocks you control. Sabretooth A recreation of the classic X-Men event, in this scenario you need to rescue and then protect Senator Kelly. If you control Robert Kelly and don’t defend Sabretooth’s attack, the damage will be dealt to Senator Kelly. If he is defeated, you lose the game! Make sure you keep him in play! Tower Defense As you square up against Corvus Glaive and Proxima Midnight, you’ll need to defeat them before they destroy Avengers Tower. There are some encounter cards that damage the tower unless you have an encounter card cancel, but for the most part, you’ll be making a choice each activation that will either prevent or result in damage being dealt to Avengers Tower. Left unchecked, the villains will destroy the tower and you will lose the game. Honorary Guardian Both of these scenarios have Hope Summers as a required mod, meaning there is a character that you have to protect in order to not lose. However, neither of them have much by way of encounter cards that actually threaten Hope, which is why they’re just getting the Honorary Guardian title. Juggernaut Juggernaut has two copies of one card that targets Hope. If you are in Hero form when you reveal Trample, Juggernaut will attack the ally with the fewest remaining hit points (which may be Hope). As a boost card, it will deal 1 damage to an ally you control (which may be Hope). The two copies of this card can certainly lose you the game, but it is more of a “be prepared” thing than the whole scenario being focused around it. You can quite literally remove Hope Summers from the setup and have zero impact on the rest of the scenario. If you want more on Juggernaut, you can reference his Fisticuffs entry. Stryfe Stryfe has one card that targets Hope (Mental Transferal), and it only targets her during the first portion of the scenario. It’s a pretty easy card to work around, assuming you can come up with a source of 1-2 damage. This is another scenario with a secondary loss condition that isn’t integrated enough to justify full inclusion into the Guardian category. However, it still deserves an Honorary Guardian. If you want more on Stryfe, you can reference his Boss entry. Thief These scenarios feature villains that are trying to take your stuff (and sometimes their own stuff, those low down fools). You need to defeat them before they get everything they’re looking for. Infiltrate the Museum He takes your stuff. He takes his stuff. This dude has a fever, and the only cure is more stuff. Infiltrate the Museum was the first scenario to introduce a secondary loss condition, and it is a rough one. Any time a card leaves play to go into a discard pile, it is added to The Collection, which has a measly 5 per player limit. You can dig cards back out, but each player can only do this once per round by exhausting your hero or spending 2 resources. This can be a tough fight, especially if you’re not specifically building decks to handle it. Project Wideawake This scenario is essentially the offspring of Infiltrate the Museum and Taskmaster. Project Wideawake also features a "Collection" through Operation Zero Tolerance, though it has a smaller limit of only 3 more than the number of players. Alongside this smaller limit are much more relaxed conditions for adding cards. The first condition is that allies that have been defeated by an enemy attack will be added here. Second, breaking the threat threshold is removed as a loss condition. If you break the threat threshold, you will be adding a card to Operation Zero Tolerance. From Taskmaster we see the shared genetics of rescuing allies by defeating side schemes, though the allies we see in Project Wideawake are a little muted by comparison. The Hood Your experience with these scenarios are defined more by the modular sets you chose to include than by the scenarios themselves. A better category name might be something like Variety Show (lots of different mod combinations) or Scenario with No Personality that Just Takes on the Personality of the Person They're Dating* (self-explanatory). However, I find The Hood funny, so here we are. These scenarios offer a lot of options and variety, but due to that, the experiences can vary widely. *Okay, this doesn't really work, because the scenarios do have their own feel and personality to them. But why let reality get in the way of a joke? The Hood Modular Set: The Villain… I mean... The Hood is a scenario that will really be emphasizing some or all of the seven modular sets chosen at the beginning of the game. Some organized and thoughtful groupings can make the scenario to fall into many of the categories above. Alternatively, random groupings can give you variety that falls all over the place. Ultimately your choices are going to influence how this scenario feels to play. Below I’ve included a few modular combinations that can help make The Hood land into the Fisticuffs and Swarm categories. Fisticuffs: For these, you’re looking for extra activations and ways to boost the power of the activations. Almost any villain attachment mod does that second part. This Isn’t My Final Form!: Experimental Weapons, Flight, Goblin Gear, Osborn Tech, Super Strength, Telepathy, Weapon Master 1-2 Punch: Symbiotic Strength, A Mess of Things, Weapon Master, Goblin Gimmicks, Brothers Grimm, Ship Command, Goblin Gear Swarm: Really any assortment of minion mods work, but Ransacked Armory is fantastic for Swarm builds. It comes with 2 minions, a card that surges if there are no minions, and 4 cards that either attach to a minion or pull a minion if there isn’t one in play. Alien Invasion!: Armies of Titan, Band of Badoon, Black Order, Children of Thanos, Kree Militants, Menagerie Medley, and Space Pirates. HYDRA!: Hydra Assault, Hydra Patrol, Legions of Hydra, Ransacked Armory, Captain America Nemesis Set, Black Widow Nemesis Set, Spider-Woman Nemesis Set Spiral While Spiral certainly shares a lot of lifeblood with Risky Business, Spiral actually contributes very little to the encounter deck. There are only 6 Spiral cards in the encounter deck, and two of those have Surge. This means that outside the baseline feel of chasing Spiral through the different shows, your games are going to be far more impacted by the Show environments and modular set encounter cards you are dealt. Spiral is restricted to 3 of the 6 show modular sets included with MojoMania. That means there are 20 different combinations that she can run, giving plenty of variety. As a variety reference point, Mister Sinister only has 3 combinations of his required modular sets. Mojo Just like The Hood, Mojo will drip-feed modular sets into the game, but unlike The Hood, he makes sure you see and feel those sets immediately. First, the environment will swap out, changing the board-wide effect. Second, the first player is dealt two cards from the set, and the rest are placed on top of the encounter deck, ensuring those are the next cards you see. While Mojo’s variety isn’t as unrestrained as The Hood, there is still a lot of variety that comes with six show modular sets in MojoMania. If you’re looking for some more variety, check out the Mojo Cinematic Universe, an unofficial modular set from Con of Heroes 2023. You can find it and many other print-and-play modular sets from the convention here! Conclusion Hopefully this is a helpful guide for picking out scenarios you may enjoy playing next or maybe even help you assemble a custom campaign of similar or different styles of scenarios. As more scenarios are released, I'll be coming back to update this list. Who knows, over time we may see categories get added or split to encompass all the new stuff. Thanks Thank you as always to Unicorn for allowing me to use the card scans from the Cerebro project. Thanks to the discord hive-mind for the lively discussion on this topic. In particular, thank you to Andy N, Fernafalej, Journeyman2, Markzilla, MegiDolaDyne, SCOE, thearguerandtheclueless, and Theorel.

Take command as Captain Marvel! You’ll be using energy resources for damage and leveraging card draw, ensuring you and your teammates have extra options when you need them. As Carol Danvers, you can use your Commander ability to let any player draw one card. Not only is this great for boosting your own hand, but you can use this extra card draw to help teammates dig into their deck if they are looking for a particular card or needing more resources. Adding to your options, the Alpha Flight Station support lets you discard a card you don’t want, drawing two cards to replace it when in alter-ego (one card if in hero form). While she doesn’t have any upgrades that generate resources for her, Captain Marvel has Energy Absorption, a resource card featuring a massive 3 energy resources. As Captain Marvel, you’ll have built-in healing with her hero ability, Rechannel. You can spend an energy resource and heal a damage to draw a card, meaning you actually benefit from not being at full health! Her Cosmic Flight upgrades give her Aerial, as well as giving you the ability to discard them to prevent damage. A few other Captain Marvel cards rely on Aerial to get the most out of them. Captain Marvel’s Helmet boosts your DEF by one, or two if you have Aerial. To help manage threat, Captain Marvel has Crisis Interdiction, an event that can remove two threat from two different schemes as long as you have Aerial. For damage, Captain Marvel has her Photonic Blast, an attack that will let you draw a card if you use at least one energy resource to pay for it. Finally, her signature ally is Spider-Woman. Despite her low health, Spider-Woman is a powerful ally due to her ability to confuse the villain when she enters play. This will help you go to alter-ego without much consequence, taking advantage of Carol Danver’s card draw abilities. And if you find any extra cards in hand with energy resources, you can spend them to charge your Energy Channel upgrade, a powerful attack that can be charged and stored until you’re ready to release it. Through her hefty resource cards and card draw capabilities, Captain Marvel has fantastic resource generation. However her events and upgrades reflect that by being more expensive than some other heroes. It can be helpful to lean into your included aspect cards to take full advantage of Captain Marvel’s resources. Deck-Building with Captain Marvel Aggression With the number of resources available to Captain Marvel, you can run a strong set of allies. Try out Valkyrie, Wasp, and Brawn, and boost their attacks with Boot Camp. If you want to focus on minions while also building up your threat management, try events like Into the Fray and Chase Them Down. Or, if you want to focus on just laying the damage on thick, try out Dive Bomb, Clobber, and Melee. Justice Justice will really let you lean into Captain Marvel’s alter-ego card generation. If you want to spend more time in alter-ego, take cards like Sonic Rifle, Quake, and Beat Cop. If you want to handle a lot of threat at a time, try using Spider-Man and Crisis Averted. Leadership Despite lacking dedicated upgrades for direct resource generation, Captain Marvel’s card draw abilities means she has access to more resources and options than most other heroes. Captain Marvel excels at playing allies and buffing their stats, letting them handle the heavy work while she is commanding. If you want to run a wide spread of allies, try Avengers Assemble, Mighty Avengers, and a roster of Avenger allies. If you want even more card draw, try out White Tiger, Nick Fury, and Kaluu. And if you’re looking to help buff other players, try Maria Hill and Lead from the Front. Whatever you're running, consider bringing Beast along to get the most out of Energy Absorption. Protection Protection features a wide range of strong, but expensive allies. With Captain Marvel’s access to extra resources, she can lead an entire crew. For a wide spread of allies, check out Iron Fist, Luke Cage, or Multiple Man. Another ally is Nova, who builds on Captain Marvel’s love of the energy resource. Use Nova alongside defensive cards like Side Step to get extra use from all the energy resources. Bring along Med Team with any of these allies to keep them (and yourself) fit for duty. Once Captain Marvel has Aerial and her helmet out, she has 3 DEF. If you want to build on that to defend for yourself and a couple friends, bring Nerves of Steel, Desperate Defense, and Indomitable. However, this defense boost relies on the single copy of her helmet, so don’t let it go by you. And if you want to take advantage of Aerial once it’s out, you can do some additional threat management with Ever Vigilant. If you liked this post, check out my other Hero Debriefs!

Swing into action as your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man! You’ll be dodging attacks, dealing some big hits, and stopping the villain in their tracks with your handy webs. And you’ll do all that in time to make it back to Aunt May for cookies. As Peter Parker, you’ll gain a free mental resource each round with your Scientist ability. If you’ve taken too many hits as a hero, you have your Aunt May support for big healing boosts. At 4 damage healed a round, she can heal 8 damage off a single trip to Alter-Ego! Then, as you switch into Spider-Man, you’ll dive right into foiling the villain’s plans. Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense ability allows you to draw a card when the villain initiates an attack against you, potentially drawing helpful cards like Backflip. Backflip is a 0-cost event that prevents all damage from an attack, making it one of the best defense events in the game. You can also use Webbed Up to lock an enemy down, preventing their next two attacks. Finally, your Enhanced Spider-Sense event helps you to cancel treachery cards (regardless of who revealed them), preventing extra activations, assorted effects, and even the dreaded Shadow of the Past treachery. Spider-Man’s Swinging Web Kick is an expensive attack event, but deals a whopping 8 damage to an enemy. You can use your Web-Shooters to help you pay for Swinging Web Kick and other cards, but watch out… they can run out, requiring you draw and play them again. One of Spider-Man’s greatest weaknesses is managing threat. His Spider-Tracers will remove threat from any scheme, but they only work once you defeat the minion to which they are attached. Don’t forget to play them out before you or your friends defeat all the minions. As a signature ally, Spider-Man has Black Cat, an ally that not only has the potential to draw you cards when played, but also takes no consequential damage when attacking. She’s a great target for any build focusing on upgrading allies, because she’ll stick around. Deck-Building with Spider-Man Spider-Man has a couple expensive cards, and his resource generation with his Web-Shooters isn’t permanent. Ingenuity, Helicarrier, and Quincarrier are great ways to help boost his ability to pay for things. Aggression While his Swinging Web Kick deals big damage, it’s expensive. Aggression can shore up his damage ability with less expensive attack events and Martial Prowess to help pay for them all. Spider-Man’s threat removal is one of his weakest points, so you need a friend or a plan to help handle it. If you want to capitalize on your Spider Tracers and focus on defeating minions, check out Chase Them Down, Into the Fray, and Relentless Assault. If you want to build a team of allies and use your defensive abilities to keep them out and dealing damage, use Boot Camp to boost the attacks of allies like Sentry, She-Hulk, and Tigra. Justice Threat removal is one of Spider-Man’s greatest weaknesses, and Justice can shore that up. You can use his ability to stay in hero form to just focus on straight threat management. Check out For Justice!, Multi-tasking, or Clear the Area. As another option, Spider-Man’s bonus resource and big heals from Aunt May helps him get great value out of spending time in Alter-Ego. Justice can facilitate the extra time in Alter-Ego, allowing you to really utilize your health as a “resource.” For a scenario with friends, you can bring Great Responsibility and Sonic Gun to take advantage of Aunt May’s big heals. Leadership Spider-Man has some strong built-in defense strategies, meaning he will rely less on his allies for defense. This means he can keep allies out, or do fine on his own without any allies during the villain phase. If you want to run a team with lots of allies, use cards like Strength in Numbers and Avengers Assemble to capitalize on that. If you’re looking for more of a quick cameo, use Sneak Attack on allies with “put into play” abilities like Maria Hill, Black Panther, and Captain Marvel. With Sneak Attack, it helps to bring along cards like Command Team or Last Stand. And if you want to take full advantage of Black Cat’s lack of consequential damage build her up with upgrades and stat boosting events. You can play Honorary Avenger on her, then bring cards like Inspired, Sky Cycle, and Power Gloves. Protection Spider-Man boasts a whopping 3 DEF as well as one of the best hero suites for foiling villain attacks and encounter cards. He’s a natural fit in Protection. If you want to focus on completely blocking damage from an attack, use cards like Unflappable and Hard to Ignore to gain extra rewards. Desperate Defense and Never Back Down will also help with taking no damage by boosting your DEF and rewarding you through letting you ready or stunning the villain.

You. Are. Iron Man! As the billionaire, genius, superhero Iron Man, you’ll assemble your suit and take to the skies, with each piece of your suit increasing your power until you’re nigh unstoppable. As Tony Stark, you are one of the richest identities in the game. Your starting hand is amplified by your Futurist ability which lets you draw three cards and keep whichever one suits your needs best. In addition to that, once Stark Tower is in play, you can allow any player to return the topmost tech upgrade from their discard to their hand. While handy for others, this will be extremely helpful for you, as each of your suit pieces are tech! Finally you have Pepper Potts, who can generate the resource on the top card on your discard pile. This includes resources from cards like Genius, Energy, and Strength, generating two resources! As Iron Man, you are beholden to how much of your suit is in play. You start with a hand size of only 1, but you get +1 hand size for every tech upgrade you control. This can bring your hand size to a maximum of 7, which means along with Pepper Potts, you really can feel like the richest player. Because your hero hand size is dependent on tech upgrades, it’s important to use your mulligan to help draw them in your starting hand. Key pieces of your suit are the Arc Reactor (readies you once per turn), Power Gauntlets (deal 1 damage to an enemy), and Rocket Boots, which give you +1 HP as well as the ability to gain aerial. Spending a mental resource will activate your boots, giving you aerial for the round and boosting many of your cards. Power Gauntlets deal 2 damage instead of 1. The Mark V Helmet removes 1 threat from a scheme, or 1 from each scheme if you have AERIAL. Iron Man’s attack event Supersonic Punch deals 4 damage, which is boosted to 8 if you have aerial. The final piece of the suit is the Mark V Armor, an upgrade that gives you an additional 6 HP. Which means once your entire suit is in play, you’ll have a maximum health of 17! And let’s not forget the classic Repulsor Blast, an attack event that starts at 1 damage, but gets boosted by 2 for every energy resource revealed by discarding the top 5 cards of your deck. Which means you can get up to a maximum of 13 damage with some lucky card pulls (or some strong deck building). Finally your kit rounds out with Iron Man’s signature ally, War Machine. While he is expensive, his ability can deal damage to every enemy on the board, meaning the more enemies around, the better it is. Deck-Building with Iron Man Iron Man wants to get tech cards out early to build his hero hand size. Regardless of which aspect you choose, Basic cards like Plasma Pistol are a great inclusion. Ingenuity and Quincarrier are other great additions to any Iron Man deck, because they can help you pay for Aerial each round. Moon Girl and Nick Fury are great basic allies, as they can draw cards and help Iron Man find his tech upgrades. Aggression If you’re looking to add more tech from Aggression, Hand Cannon can help. It has limited uses, which means when it’s discarded, you’ll be down a tech upgrade. However, as the game progresses, you’ll have enough of your suit out, it won’t have an impact. You can combine it with Combat Training and Skilled Strike for some extra hefty hits. If you want to focus on minion control and overkill damage on the villain, bring along Relentless Assault and Moment of Triumph. Justice If you’re looking to add more tech from Justice, use Sonic Rifle. Confusing the villain can let you go back into Alter-Ego to access Tony Stark’s strong card draws and build more of your suit. If you need to spend more time in Alter-Ego right from the start, check out Under Surveillance, Counterintelligence, and Foiled! for keeping the main scheme from thwarting out. Leadership Why keep all the tech to yourself? Tech upgrades attached to the allies you control also count toward your Iron Man ability. Reinforced Suit gives +2 HP to any ally, making the upgrade generally useful. If you’re bringing some Guardian allies, Comms Implant and Laser Blaster are both stat boosting Tech upgrades. If instead you brought along some Avengers, Power Gloves will help out by pinging damage onto enemies. It helps to have allies that can help manage threat and minions while you’re building your suit. Allies like Maria Hill, Ironheart, and Ant-Man are great choices, because they are inexpensive (leaving you resources for your suit). Another great choice is Ronin, who gets increased stats just for having an upgrade attached to them. Protection Protection offers some solid tech cards for Iron Man with Energy Barrier, Forcefield Generator, and Electrostatic Armor. Energy Barrier almost always finds some use, but Electrostatic Armor will only trigger if you are defending, either through your basic defense or defense events. If you want to add some thwarting ability, Ever Vigilant offers a ready and main scheme threat management when Iron Man has Aerial. If you’re looking to add some extra damage, Nova is an ally that deals damage for energy resources, something Iron Man should have in good stock. Last, but certainly not least, Repurpose discards tech cards to boost the basic stat of your choice. This makes Iron Man incredibly flexible, especially with his ready from Arc Reactor.

Whether delivering justice in the courtroom or doling it out with her fists, She-Hulk is a powerhouse. As Jennifer Walters, your “I Object!” ability prevents a single threat from being placed on a scheme; a small, but sometimes critical, ability. You can also use your Superhuman Law Division support for the rare ability to remove threat while in your alter-ego. As a last resort, you have Legal Practice. While this event is less efficient than many other twarting events, it is yet again one of the few abilities in the game that allow threat removal from alter-ego. As you flip to the hero She-Hulk, you can trigger your “Do You Even Lift?” ability, dealing two damage to any enemy. If you’re looking for more widespread damage, use Ground Stomp, an event that damages every enemy in play. The more enemies around, the better it gets! In true She-Hulk form, you have access to a massive basic attack (3 ATK) which can be boosted by 2 ATK with your Superhuman Strength upgrade. While this upgrade only lasts for a single attack, it also stuns the attacked enemy! If there’s more to do, you can use One-Two Punch after using your basic attack to ready She-Hulk, giving you additional opportunities to attack. While She-Hulk’s hand size is only four, she can use her massive health pool in conjunction with her Focused Rage upgrades to deal herself some damage in exchange for extra cards. Then, give as good as you get with Gamma Slam, a massive attack that deals damage to an enemy equal to the damage you’ve sustained, up to 15! To round it out, you can use She-Hulk’s Split Personality for an additional form change, drawing up to your hand size along the way! At She-Hulk’s side is her signature ally Hellcat, an ally that provides some additional thwarting, and who features the ability to return her to hand. Deck-Building with She-Hulk To take advantage of both She-Hulk’s large ATK and Jennifer’s massive REC, use Down Time and Ready to Rumble. Aggression She-Hulk has the rare ability to remove threat in alter-ego, but the downside is all her threat removal except her basic thwart is tied to alter-ego. If you build with a focus on minions, you can shore this weakness up with cards like Chase Them Down and Into the Fray. If you want to really lean into massive damage from basic attacks, bring Hand Cannon, Skilled Strike, and Combat Training. Justice With Justice, you can be managing threat regardless of which form you’re in. You can prevent threat with cards like Counterintelligence and Foiled! This will let you spend a few extra turns in alter-ego, building up for a larger hero turn. You can also focus on straight threat removal, taking advantage of Justice’s strong events. Try out Lay Down the Law and For Justice! Leadership While She-Hulk does have two upgrades that draw cards, she can still struggle with resources while in hero form. You can supplement her natural draw with an assortment of inexpensive allies and Strength in Numbers. If you want to focus more on boosting your stats for even bigger attacks, try out Moxie and Morale Boost. Protection She-Hulk can make some large basic attacks, and her cards that ready her require you attack first. To really leverage her ATK stat, use Counter-Punch to deal damage to an attacking enemy equal to your damage. Keep in mind that this will even trigger Superhuman Strength, stunning the enemy! It does require defending though, so try it out with Side Step, Pre-emptive Strike, or Defiance. To take full advantage of both attacking and taking defensive measures, try out Indomitable, Armored Vest, and Desperate Defense. Use Energy Barrier to clean up any little damage that sneaks through in either build.

Protection is the support aspect. There are two avenues of support: selfless (support your teammates) or selfish (support your hero kit). While the lines may blur as time progresses, this delineation helps refine the goal of your deck. Selfless: Support Your Teammates When most players think of Protection, this is the type of deck that comes to mind. Your primary goal is to ensure your teammates are healthy and can stay in hero form longer. This reduces the amount of threat that needs to be handled and prevents the Player Defeat loss condition. Decks focusing on defense fall into this category. The primary build for defense Protection is Take No Damage. This build focuses on card effects that give bonuses when you defend and (surprise twist!) take no damage. Aside: I’m going to be using the phrase “take no damage” a borderline unreasonable amount over the next bit, so let’s just abbreviate it to TND. Unflappable is the keystone card for a TND build. Once per turn, Unflappable will draw you a card if you defend and TND. Hard to Ignore is a stack-able upgrade that gives TND threat removal. Along with this, you have a suite of events that boost your DEF and give you a TND bonus. Desperate Defense: TND ready Never Back Down: TND stun Not Today!: TND threat removal There are a couple ways to build toward TND. First, you can strengthen your basic defense by boosting your DEF stat with cards like Armored Vest and the events mentioned above. Heroes with a naturally high DEF stat (DEF = 3) are great targets for this build. The second way is through ATK reduction abilities. These will be cards like Judoka Skill, Subdue, and Pinned Down (for minions) that directly reduce the enemy’s ATK stat. A couple tangentially related cards would be Preemptive Strike (changes boost icons into damage on the villain) and Defiance (discard a boost card before it is flipped). These effects all take place before damage is calculated, preventing the damage from ever existing. This is important for things like protecting a Tough status card on your hero. A similar but distinct way to build toward TND is by including damage prevention cards. This would include cards like Jump Flip (prevent damage and remove threat), Side Step (prevent damage and deal 1 back), Energy Barrier (prevent 1, deal 1), and Forcefield Generator (prevent 6 total damage). Damage prevention abilities will mitigate incoming damage. However, Tough has timing precedence over interrupts, so you cannot save a Tough status with damage prevention. This should by no means preclude you from running damage prevention cards. It is just worth highlighting that Tough generation and damage prevention are at odds. If you are planning to support your team through defense, you will want to ensure you can pull the villain's attack to you. The easiest and most common way to do this is by using your basic defense. However, you will want to bring ready effects like Indomitable and Desperate Defense if you want to use your basic defense more than once. Another way is to use defense cards that don't require you to already be the target. Cards like Preemptive Strike and Powerful Punch let you become the defender of an attack, even if you're already exhausted. Take No Damage is the epitome of defense Protection. You can certainly build for defense without committing to the TND build, but there is less overall synergy between the cards. More than likely, you would want to make a hybrid build leveraging some mix of the archetypes mentioned here. If you like a bit of offense with your defense, there are “porcupine” cards that allow you to return damage while defending. Some I’ve mentioned, like Energy Barrier, Preemptive Strike, and Side Step. In addition, you can increase your damage output with cards like Counter-Punch (deal damage equal to your ATK), Electrostatic Armor (deal 1 damage after defending), Flow Like Water (deal 1 damage with each defense card played), and Dauntless (gain retaliate 1 if above starting hp). Most of these have triggers tied directly to defending, which make them a natural fit in defense Protection builds. Another way to support your teammates is through encounter deck control. Protection's access to encounter deck control is rivaled only by Justice. Get Behind Me! cancels a treachery card in exchange for the villain attacking you. Black Widow lets you spend a resource to redraw an encounter card. Silk preemptively discards nasty treacheries. For encounter cards you reveal yourself, Spider-Tingle lets you tap into a Web-Warrior’s hp to cancel the When Revealed effects, and Spider-Man Noir boosts his stats by locking treacheries you’ve just resolved out of the discard pile. As a final note for the team support builds, a small but growing archetype for Protection is Healing. Cards like Med Team, Second Wind, and The Night Nurse can help heal other characters, keeping them in play or in hero mode longer. The Night Nurse is such a strong card, that regardless of archetype, you'll need a reason not to include it. The Angel hero pack will be bringing another fantastic healing option with the Render Medical Aid player side scheme. Selfish: Support Your Hero Kit On the flip-side, Protection can be built to support your hero’s natural strengths. While you may use some defense cards, you’re mostly looking to help yourself. For that reason, this style of build is a good fit for solo play. The build is highly dependent on the hero and their kit, so the overall archetype will feel looser. Protection can help a hero get full use out of a high THW or ATK stat. It sports more cards with ready effects than any other aspect. For a Ready build, you have options like What Doesn’t Kill Me (heal and ready), Repurpose (ready and boost a stat), Ever Vigilant (aerial-locked ready and threat removal), and Leading Blow (risk ATK reduction with a ready for payout). The higher the hero stat, the more value each ready gives. If you are in need of more damage in your deck, Protection offers First Hit (attack a minion before they activate), Hard Knocks (deal damage with a Tough on defeat), Momentum Shift (heal 2 damage, deal 2 damage), Powerful Punch (hit them first), and Repurpose (for that juicy stat boost). While less conventional than damage you might see in hero kits or Aggression builds, each of these offers a unique way for Protection to increase the damage available to you. With these “fend for yourself” builds, you can also lean into non-defense Protection by leveraging status effects. As mentioned, Hard Knocks can generate a Tough. Perseverance gives you a Tough for flipping into hero form. Additionally, many teams have Tough access. Muster Courage offers Tough for Avengers, Shake It Off for Guardians, and Polaris for X-Men. Tackle and Iron Fist can generate Stuns, and Thwip Thwip! will do the same if you have Web-Warriors around. Using Protection's stun effects alongside stuns available within certain hero kits can have a huge impact on controlling the villain, especially at low player counts. This build is called Stun-Lock, as you lock the villain out of activating each round. Note that a Stun-Lock build can also be a Take No Damage build, taking advantage of Never Back Down as a source of stuns. Examples Spider-Man: Peter Parker is the classic example for a defense build. He has 3 DEF naturally, and he has a defense card that prevents all damage. These synergize perfectly with Take No Damage builds. Ghost-Spider is another great hero for a defense build. She has 3 DEF, and her hero ability can ready her after playing any one of the many of the defense events mentioned above. Rocket Racoon is an example of a hero who wants to run a kit-support build. He sports a strong THW stat and a plethora of Tech cards in his kit. Those alongside Repurpose make him an incredibly versatile Protection hero, but he won't be defending for anyone. Another kit-support hero would be Thor. While not a traditional Protection hero, he has high ATK, aerial, and a large hp pool. A Ready build can help leverage that high ATK. What Doesn’t Kill Me gives him more access to his basic attack while also healing. Ever Vigilant readies him and shores up his weakness with thwarting. Captain America is the quintessential example of a Stun-Lock build. I'll simply link to Brian-V's Stun Lock deck on MarvelCDB, because his write-up explains it really well. Conclusion This debrief is aimed at highlighting strong synergies and archetypes in Protection. As you become more comfortable and experienced with Protection, you will find plenty of ways to break out of the molds I outlined here. There are plenty of powerful builds that are hybrids of the above. Hopefully this serves as a jumping off point for building your own Protection decks and exploring everything Protection has to offer. Acknowledgements: Thanks to jarrett on the Solo Champions Discord for the pithy names (Selfless/Selfish). It perfectly encapsulates the types of support you build with Protection.