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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.

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.

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.

Since the game's genesis there has been an ongoing conversation in which the community evaluates and discusses cards and effects, comparing them one to another. This conversation can be overwhelming to join, as it not only builds on everything released since the Core Set, but also pulls jargon, mathematical proofs, philosophies, and more from older gaming behemoths like Magic the Gathering. You’ll hear values quoted for what rates are good for damage or bad for threat removal. Players will make vehement declarations that 40 card decks are the only correct choice. You’ll see reviewers and content creators break down hero packs, passing judgement card by card. And in some very dark corners of the discord community, leaked cards will be lamented before they even have a chance to be released. (I say that last bit lovingly. We're an incredibly passionate bunch.) Premise The point of this article is to lower the hurdle of joining the Great Marvel Champions Conversation by bringing players up to speed on the discussions involving efficiency. The goal is to give players a point of reference for the values used throughout the community, as well as give them the tools needed to understand how and when those values are applicable. A lot of the evaluation of efficiency is not something that needs to be done constantly. However, it is a part of learning the value of a card and how it fits into the wider card pool. It is not the sole measure of a card, but a valuable gauge nonetheless. These efficiency benchmarks matter more for out-of-game discussions as opposed to in-game decision making, as the in-game evaluation is entirely board dependent. If the main scheme is only one threat away from you losing the game, almost* any thwarting is efficient (*see below). In this article we want to establish some rough benchmarks for what is currently an efficient use of resources for a variety of effects. Benchmarks For some players this article will feel like a math lesson. If you’re interested in the results, but don’t care to see how the sausage is made, feel free to skip to the end. I have all the benchmarks outlined there. That said, there are a lot of caveats that a list can’t contain, so I highly suggest diving into the article if you want a wider picture. Point in fact, we’re going to start with a massive caveat. We are working with small, whole numbers. Decimals are meaningless in the game, because there is no way to remove half a threat or deal partial damage (unless you’re talking about the partial damage dealt to my soul every time I draw Advance). Because of this, there is a lot of wiggle room on how ratios get rounded or on what constitutes efficiency. I find the following rule of thumb valuable: Any benchmark can have both its resource and expected value increased or decreased by one and still be on par with the original benchmark. By that I mean 2 resources for 3 threat is on par with both 1 for 2 and 3 for 4. The difference in rounding is essentially accounted for within the conditions and restrictions placed on the card. Effective Resources To evaluate cards against each other, we need an indication of the true value of a card. It points to how well designed the game is that it is so difficult to compare the true costs of abilities and effects. One difficulty in comparing different abilities derives from their different types of costs. One may require an additional cost of exhausting your hero, while another may require dealing damage to your identity. How do you compare the value of the exhaust to the value of the damage you took? Another hurdle is that some non-resource costs come with an opportunity cost. For example, if you have to exhaust your hero for a card ability, you’re giving up the opportunity to use their stats with a basic activation. Despite these hurdles, we can still get to a rough baseline comparison point by simplifying the value of each effect to something called “effective resources” (ER). This is an estimation of the resources needed to get a particular effect. First, let’s discuss playing a card with no additional costs in the ability. When playing a card from hand, you lose both the cards spent to cover the cost and the card you just played. If you start the game with 6 cards, you will only have 3 cards in hand after playing a 2 cost card. The effective cost of playing the card was 3, as you are now down 3 resources. When playing a card from hand, its effective cost is one higher than its resource cost. This will be a foundational part of the ensuing points. Damage Next, let’s hit the two fundamental pieces of the game: damage and thwart. Swinging Web Kick is essentially the center for all damage discussions. It has a cost of 3 and deals 8 damage. Since it is an event you’re playing from hand, you have 4 ER for 8 damage, which reduces to 1 ER for 2 damage. A good benchmark for efficient damage is 1 ER for 2 damage. We can see this value show up across a number of abilities like Jarnbjorn and Plan B. However, these are not only more conditional than Swinging Web Kick, they also have upfront costs to put them into play. This conditionality must be factored into the wider conversation regarding the value of a card, but the examples given do well enough to point out our benchmark. A more realistic rate you can expect for low or non-conditional damage outside of hero kits is something around 2 ER for 3 damage. Cards like Clobber and Uppercut point to these values. Thwart Threat removal is more expensive. It tends to be more conditional than damage, meaning there are either more modifiers through kicker abilities (like For Justice!) or there are smaller windows in which to play it (Lay Down the Law). A good benchmark for efficient threat removal is 2 ER for 3 threat removed. Some examples are Cable Arrow and Crisis Averted. As a reminder, these small, whole numbers widen the uncertainty of our benchmark. The 3 ER for 4 threat removal on For Justice! is essentially on par with the 2 for 3. Ready Next we can visit another common and potentially valuable effect: readying your hero. A good benchmark for an efficient hero ready is 2 ER. This is based on cards like Always Be Running, Justice Served, Battle Fury, and Ready to Rumble. I really want to emphasize here that this is an efficiency benchmark for a hero ready, not a value statement for exhausting or readying your hero. The opportunity cost of exhausting your hero is the loss of the ability to use their ATK, THW, or REC with a basic activation. The value of these are inherently different based on hero, build, and game-state. As an example, Spectrum exhausting in her Photon form has a 3 threat removal opportunity cost, whereas Ms. Marvel has a 1 threat removal opportunity cost. Yet their opportunity cost for damage in this same game-state is the same at 1 damage. The value of the ready or exhaust is part of that wider conversation beyond direct card comparison. Status Effect I hope you're not confused at this point, but if you are, I likely only spent 2 ER. A good benchmark for an efficient status effect is 2 ER. There are a lot of sources here, so to make things simple, I’m just going to bullet list it. I’ve broken out the status effects from the rest of the abilities to show that we are left with effects that match our other efficiency benchmarks. Sonic Rifle (4 ER for 2 Confuse) Wrist Gauntlets (2 ER each status) “Think Fast!” (2 ER and a damage for 1 Confuse) Concussive Blow (2 ER for 1 Confuse, 2 ER for 3 villain damage) Electric Arrow (2 ER for Stun, 1 ER for 3 damage) Tackle (2 ER for Stun, 2 ER for 3 villain damage) Hard Knocks (2 ER for Tough, 2 ER for 4 damage) Perseverance (2 ER for a Tough) These are all either conditional, have additional effects, or are restricted in some way. However, they all point to a rough benchmark of 2 ER for a status effect. Again, it is worth noting that the value of the status effect is entirely separate from the efficiency benchmark of the status effect. A Confuse is often more valuable than a Stun due to the ability to access alter-ego’s larger hand size and alter-ego effects. However, that is again something that will be scenario and hero dependent. Healing Healing is surprisingly hard to evaluate in Marvel Champions. Much of identity healing is tied to alter-ego Support cards that have no additional costs beyond exhausting them once they are in play. However, a few of the cards we can look at here are First Aid (2 ER for 2 damage), Med Team (4 ER for 6 damage), Second Wind (4 ER for 5 damage), and Momentum Shift (3 ER for healing 2 and dealing 2 damage). These are a bit harder to nail down, but they show us we should be looking roughly around 2 ER to heal 2-3 damage. A good benchmark for efficient identity healing is 2 ER for 3 health. Allies I will note that ally health is more expensive at 1 ER to heal 1 damage. Inspiring Presence, First Aid, and Reboot point us to this rate. A good benchmark for efficient ally healing is 1 ER for 1 damage. It is the same rate to ready an ally. Get Ready and Command Team both point this rate. A good benchmark for an efficient ally ready is 1 ER. General Trends In addition to the benchmarks listed above, there are some trends regarding efficiency that are worth pointing out. Hero cards tend to be the most efficient and least restricted cards. Aspect and Basic cards tend to be balanced against the benchmark by either locking the efficiency behind some condition (a la Multitasking), being more restrictive on who can use it or how it can be used (such as "Thinking Fast!"), or by reducing the overall efficiency (like with Uppercut). In addition to the impact of a card's classification, the card's efficiency will be impacted by how general the ability is. The more general it is, the less efficient it is expected to be. The more conditional or restricted the ability is, the more it is expected to have higher efficiency. As an example, Always Be Running is a hero event. It is exactly 2 ER to ready your hero, and it can be played any time you can play an Action ability. Ready to Rumble is a Basic upgrade that also readies your hero for only 2 ER, hitting our benchmark. However, you can only trigger it immediately after changing to hero form, meaning the ability to trigger it is more conditional. With that said, the above ratios are effectively the benchmarks that are referenced when comparing and evaluating cards. Now that you know them, throw them away. Context Matters These are not the end-all-be-all values for what makes an effect efficient. In fact, these benchmarks have extremely limited use regarding actual gameplay. While they give us a comparison point when evaluating cards, they are being compared in a vacuum. When building your decks, your hero and deck strategy will inform you on if a conditional effect will be useful or not. Lay Down the Law has great efficiency that is conditional on changing form. If you’re not changing form often, it’s not a good fit for your deck despite its efficiency. Crisis Averted is a poster-child for efficient thwart removal in an aspect, but if you are playing solo, you will rarely need 6 threat removed from a scheme all at once. Multitasking and Clear the Area have the same efficiency when their full effects are realized. Yet one requires two schemes and benefits more from boosting effects (like Shrink!), while the other cycles your deck, giving you access to more of your cards sooner. Which of these is better? (It's Multitasking, because you should be playing more Ms. Marvel). Conclusion In a future article we'll dive deeper into card and ability evaluations. We'll look at the wider picture of what makes a card valuable beyond its efficiency. For now, I hope this article helps give you a strong basis to begin evaluating cards as well as give you a foundation for joining discussions in the community. I look forward to seeing you out there! . Summary Here is a quick summary of the benchmarks established above. It is important to remember that these are a small part of the picture when it comes to evaluating cards. It is worth glancing above to see some of the caveats. These are loose benchmarks. Efficiency Benchmarks 1 ER to deal 2 damage 2 ER to remove 3 threat 2 ER to ready your hero 2 ER to heal 3 identity damage 1 ER to heal 1 ally damage 1 ER to ready an ally Efficiency Caveats ±1 ER and ±1 statistic is on par with the benchmark Efficiency is expected to go up as restrictions and conditionality go up Hero kits tend to be the most efficient and least restricted. Aspect and Basic cards tend to maintain balance relative to the benchmark by one of the following: Increasing conditionality Increasing restrictions Reducing overall efficiency Thanks Thank you to the discord brain trust and everyone who helped to poke and prod at the assumptions here. In particular, thank you to Fernafalej, Josseroo, journeyman2, MegiDolaDyne, Schmendrix, Theorel, and VJakson. Thank you to Unicorn for allowing me to use the scans from his Cerebro project.

The title is meant to get your goat, but what I want to cover in this article is how to elevate your play by leveraging... the rules. While we're not actually breaking the game itself, we are looking to break the norms of the game. Before we get going, I want to address two things. First is the fact that a decent chunk of what we discuss in this post will rub some players wrong. For some, these things can feel like "rules lawyering" or ruining the thematic side of card design. That is a totally valid complaint, and there are no hard feelings if this isn't a part of the game you want to engage with. I will note, however, that everything discussed here is in fact legal within the current rules. Second, I don't want anyone to feel weird about playing Doctor Strange or feel like they shouldn't enjoy him. He is simply the best vessel to discuss these rules, as a lot of his power derives directly from their application. Understanding why his cards function the way they do can help you apply the same concepts across the card pool to similar cards. So with those disclaimers, let's get to "breaking" the game. There are a couple "norms" that I want to address right off the bat. These are things you may hear said or alluded to colloquially, but are not rules accurate. Removing threat is thwarting. Dealing damage is attacking. Triggering the ability on an event is playing it. If an ally entered play, you played it. These are all actually quite close to the truth, but completely wrong. I want to rephrase them to accurate statements. When you thwart, you generally remove threat. When you attack, you generally deal damage. When you play an event, you trigger the ability on it. When you play an ally, it enters play. These may seem like obtuse restatements, but they are actually quite important. We can see why when we look at Doctor Strange's Invocation deck. This is a deck of cards unique to Doctor Strange that always has the top card face up. Doctor Strange can use his hero ability to exhaust himself, pay the cost of the face up card, then trigger it's special ability. The Invocation Deck Winds of Watoomb (Draw 3 cards.) For this card, I want to reinforce the value of having access to cards outside your hand. When playing a card from hand, you lose the card itself as part of the process. If you start with 5 cards and play a 2 cost card, you end with 2 cards in hand. You have effectively spent 3 resources. (I discuss effective resources in this article on efficiency!) When using a card from outside your hand, like an event grabbed by the Black Panther ally, an ally on Med Lab, or even Lockjaw being played from your discard pile, you only have to pay the resource cost. As a direct comparison for Winds of Watoomb, we can look at One Way or Another. While One Way or Another gives you 3 cards (in addition to a side scheme to deal with) you had a net gain of only 2. With Winds of Watoomb we have an ability that allows you to gain 3 cards with no disadvantage beyond the exhaust. Leveraging abilities that store playable cards outside your hand can give you a strong resource advantage, letting you do more on your turn. Images of Ikonn (Confuse the villain and remove 4 threat from a scheme.) Right off the bat, we can see this card is fantastic value. In general, threat removal is considered efficient at roughly 2 effective resources (ER) for 3 threat removed. Here you spend 1 resource and exhaust Strange for 4 threat removed and a Confused status on the villain. Since Strange could have just exhausted to thwart for 2 anyway, we essentially end up with 1 resource for 2 threat and a Confuse. Even without the Confuse, that is on or above par for threat removal. The real neat bit here? Note the absence of the (thwart) label on the ability. This is not a thwart, so it bypasses Confuse and Patrol. The only thing that stops it is a Crisis icon, and that only affects the main scheme. Cards and abilities that can remove threat without thwarting can be helpful for high Confuse/Patrol scenarios. Just keep in mind that these cards won't combo with cards like Overwatch, which require a thwart. Crimson Bands of Cyttorak (Stun an enemy and deal 7 damage to it.) While these bands won't give you the power of Juggernaut, they will stun an enemy and deal 7 damage to it, all for a measly 2 resources and an exhaust. Doctor Strange could have attacked for 1 damage, so we're really looking at 2 resources for a Stun and 6 damage. Damage is generally considered efficient at 2 damage for 1 effective resource. As with Images of Ikonn, this is efficient even before the status effect. Again I will point out the missing label. Without the (attack) label on the ability, this damage bypasses Guard, Retaliate, and Stun. You can leverage other non-attack damage dealing abilities in your own decks to similarly bypass these keywords. Seven Rings of Raggardorr (Give up to 3 characters each a tough status card.) Tough status reigns supreme. For 2 resources and an exhaust, you get 6 effective resources worth of Toughs. That's a whole lot more defense than Strange would have gotten with his 2 DEF, and it doesn't care if the villain is Steady or Stalwart. This one doesn't really have any wider picture notes. It's just a bonkers card. If you want a take-away, find ways of incorporating Tough access into your builds. Vapors of Valtorr (Choose a status card in play. Replace that status with a different status card.) Very few abilities in the game let you manipulate status cards on an enemy, and most of the ones that do aren't working in your favor. The ability to swap a Tough for a Confuse or Stun is huge. You could have exhausted Strange to deal one damage and clear the Tough, so this is effectively a free status of your choice if they already have one on them. It's also a great way to help a teammate (or yourself) by turning an annoying Stun or Confuse into a free block the next villain phase. Now you do have a hiccup here is when you have a Stalwart villain, as you can't change the Tough. However, the ability to manipulate existing status effects is quite strong. This is another card that doesn't have much of a wider picture, but it is far more valuable than many see. Spell Mastery (Playing vs Triggering) There are a couple things to touch on with Spell Mastery. First, it is an Action, meaning you can use it on other players' turns. While this is not unique to this ability, it is extremely powerful when at any given moment you have access to one of your seven best cards. A few cards worth mentioning that let you break norms for what you do off turn are Team-Building Exercise and Meditation. Both of these allow you to play something to the board that you would usually have to wait to play until your turn. This can even let you sneak in an ally off turn! Jumping back to Spell Mastery, we want to take a look at the verbiage. Doctor Strange doesn't ever play the invocations. They are all events, but you are simply resolving their special ability. It's for this reason that Strange's obligation and nemesis set are so lackluster. Physical Toll (his obligation) does not impact the Invocations, meaning you will not have to deal with the additional cost for them specifically. Counterspell also doesn't impact you triggering the invocations at all, as you aren't playing them. Play vs Put into Play As a follow up to 'playing vs triggering,' I want to touch on a powerful card available only to Mystics. Summoning Spell allows a Mystic hero to discard cards from the top of the deck until an ally is discarded. Then put that ally into play. Let's back up a bit and look at Summoning Spell's restriction. It is only playable by identities with the Mystic trait. This kind of play restriction is fairly common in the game, and in general the restrictions lock some heroes/alter-egos out of using certain cards. If you do not meet the play restrictions, you simply cannot play the card. However, putting a card into play is not playing the card. Instead, it is simply making it enter the in-play area. This means you can get allies and cards that you normally couldn't use into play and under your control. There are a number of cards that allow you to do this, such as Make the Call or Call for Backup. Player side schemes like Build Support can even help you get trait-locked supports like Weapon X into play for non-mutants. Not only does this bypass traited play restrictions, this will also bypass things like Requirement. These restrictions only care whether or not you are playing the card, so utilizing 'put into play' abilities can help you make non-traditional plays. As an added bonus, this applies to encounter cards as well. If an ability causes you to put a minion into play, you don't need to trigger Surge, Incite, or any When Revealed abilities. Double the Resources, Double the Fun A final point worth bringing up is how The Power in All of Us works regarding cards like C.I.T.T. and Across the Spider-Verse. This isn't specifically related to Doctor Strange, but it will be important for my next section. Directly from the FFG Rules Specialist, Alex, we have: "Yes, the resources generated by The Power in All of Us can be applied to an ability cost on a basic card like C.I.T.T." This also applies to the second part of Across the Spider-Verse. Not only can you use The Power in All of Us as a double resource for playing the card, you (or another player) can use The Power in All of Us as a double resource for the ability cost to repeat the ability. Prove It Now that we have access to all this power, we might as well use it. To prove how powerful Doctor Strange and these "cheats" are, I built a Doctor Strange Leadership deck that utilizes all of these principles. Here it is on MarvelCDB.com This is a bit of a silly deck as many of the allies you can't actually play outright. However, a lot of power is packed away by leveraging the rules we covered above. First and foremost, you have all the Invocations. Then, we've got Make the Call, Call for Backup, and Summoning Spell to cheat in allies. Rapid Response puts these allies back into play from the discard pile, again avoiding the restrictions. Black Panther can grab Summoning Spell or Make the Call so you have a freebie card outside your hand. The Power in All of Us can be used alongside Make the Call for the Basic allies in addition to being used for Across the Spider-Verse, Web of Life and Destiny, and The Sorcerer Supreme. Build Support will help you skip the cost of Web of Life and Destiny if you don't have a Web-Warrior ally yet. Last but not least, we have Vivian, the queen of breaking things. I won't go into a full list here, but watch for ways that she can mute an ability or effect in order for you to bypass any play restrictions (like ignoring a Crisis Icon, Guard, or Patrol). Feel free to give the deck above a run to see if you can master these norm-breaking abilities. Or, feel free to check out this list of all the player cards that are non-thwarting threat removal, non-attack damage, or put into play abilities. Thanks Thanks to Chocobo, Journeyman2, josseroo, and theromeo3517 for suggestions and discussions on the deck!

In this series, I am going to highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a decklist that I've enjoyed using them in and a slideshow that displays all the cards. Call for Backup Hot off the press, it's the new player side scheme for Leadership. Defeating this side scheme will let you put one ally from your deck or discard pile into play. It's powerful... and a whole lot of fun. There is something quite cinematic about Call for Backup being completed in a larger multiplayer game. A team of three or four allies swarm the board, turning the tide of the game. The reason that I really enjoy it though, is that it has breathed some life into expensive and forgotten allies. This leads me to my next card. Beta Ray Bill Hailing from Star-Lord's hero pack, Beta Ray Bill is the hunter of minions. After he attacks and defeats a minion, you can remove two threat from the main scheme. That 5 cost is hefty, but now that Call for Backup offers alternative ways to get him into play, you can drop him in, keep him healed, and be handling multiple problems at once. E.V.A. (and Fantomex) Another set of cards from NeXt Evolution, I couldn't include one without the other. There is something fantastic about Fantomex entering play and immediately dropping another card on the board. That said, E.V.A. is the real star to me. I really like having ping damage and threat removal, because it makes it a lot easier to set up other abilities to trigger (like Beta Ray Bill's ability). It also helps you ensure you're not wasting damage or threat removal on dealing with a Tough or clearing a 1 threat side scheme with your powerful basic activation or event. As a bonus, E.V.A. doesn't thwart or attack, so you can sidestep some nasty effects. I've enjoyed both loading Fantomex up with upgrades to power him up and just keeping him around to run E.V.A. and power up cards like Band Together. Band Together While sometimes touted as a 'win-more' card, I have found Band Together to be a really strong tempo card, especially in the NeXt Evolution scenarios and campaign. The main concern with the card is that it can be unusable without allies, but in NeXt Evolution you will often have access to campaign allies that help power it up. It makes it really easy to bump it to a double or even triple resource. While it's not something that I would put in any deck, it has really been singing alongside the big allies that I've been keeping out on the board. Adam Warlock Adam Warlock might be one of the most fun allies in the game. He looks a tidge wimpy with a small 1 THW and 1 ATK, but his strength comes from his ability. If you can set it up to have a single resource type left in your hand before he activates, you can choose what effect you will get. 3 non-attack damage, 3 non-thwart threat removal, or 3 identity healing is massive and a highly efficient use of your cards. As a bonus, if you can trigger him with something like Jackpot! or Salvage, you can even trigger multiple of the effects. (Just note that it doesn't work like that for something like Strength or Genius). Try Them Out If you want a quick and easy way to try these five (technically six) cards out, I just took this Spider-Man deck through all the NeXt Evolution scenarios and had a blast! If you're taking it through NeXt Evolution, I would suggest swapping United We Stand for First Aid during the first two scenarios. This is the deck on MarvelCDB.com. Featured Cards

In this Card Highlight series, I highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a deck list that I've enjoyed using them in and a slideshow that displays all the cards. Shake and Bay...ke Groot Groot may be my all-time favorite ally. I really love his ability to defend and heal, taking massive hits and staying on the board. He can be a great ally to build survivability for Guardian heroes or anyone able to cheat him in with something like Call for Backup or Make the Call. I love taking a big hit from the villain (5 damage or less!), then healing back up by blocking a 1 ATK minion over and over. He really is one of a kind when it comes to allies. He's a unique defensive Voltron ally, so feel free to let your friends in other aspects dump upgrades on him. Each health makes it easier for him to take bigger attacks, so Honorary upgrades, Reinforced Suit, or Training upgrades are great for making him even more durable. Shake It Off Shake It Off is great for any Guardian, but it absolutely sings with the Groot ally. He can take a hit up to 5 damage, heal 2 of that, then you can put a Tough on him. This means the next time he blocks a full attack, he'll be left with only one damage on him, ready to take more hits. Shake It Off is super flexible, and works best when triggering it off a small minion attack. Hangar Bay Shake It Off and Groot have always been good, but they are a bit slow. Hangar Bay blows this wide open by letting Groot defend multiple attacks in a round, taking quick advantage of his healing or Shake It Off. Charlie-27 As much as I love him, Groot isn't always around. Charlie-27 is a nice backup. He comes with a Tough and retaliate. This means your first block is free, and he'll deal a bit of extra damage along the way. He's not my top choice, but he works well alongside Groot. Pinned Down This isn't mandatory to the above combos, but it can be helpful for harvesting minion attacks. Even if you reduce the minion's ATK to 0, it is considered to attack, meaning Groot can defend and heal or Charlie-27 can defend and retaliate. If you reduce the minion to 1 ATK (and make sure it doesn't have nasty activation abilities), you can also use it to trigger Shake It Off. Honorable Mention: Med Team What's this? A surprise entry? You've only done two of these Fabulous Fives, and both went over the limit? Yes. I am cheating again. Really this is just an honorable mention. It's super flexible, it can speed up Groot's healing, and it can keep Charlie-27 around. If you're running into some minions with rough activation abilities, I'd swap Pinned Down for this. Try It Out My favorite place for this is with Rocket Raccoon. The other Guardians can run it plenty fine as well, but Rocket and Groot are such a thematic matchup. On top of that, it sets up Flora and Fauna, a fantastic Team-Up card. Here is a deck that I enjoyed with NeXt Evolution scenarios. While it can be run solo, I prefer it with another teammate or two, because it makes hitting the Shake and Bay...ke combo easier. You can find it on MarvelCDB here! You could easily swap some things around. Moon Girl is always great with Rocket, especially when he can flip down often. You could drop Pinned Down and just rely on naturally occurring attacks. There are enough 2+ cost Protection cards to justify running The Power of Protection, but I find Rocket to be pretty resource rich as is. If you give it a run, I hope you have fun with it! Featured Cards

We've rebranded! After the first two articles in this series, I decided that keeping it locked to five cards was a little more restrictive than what I wanted to do, so I'm moving away from Fabulous Five and to Card Highlight. And what do you know? This is the first time I've actually hit five cards. In this Card Highlight series, I highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a deck list that I've enjoyed using them in and a slideshow that displays all the cards. Render Medical Aid Another fresh off the presses card from Wave 7, Render Medical Aid is a new card from the Psylocke hero pack, and it is amazing. You can toss this onto the board, and you and your friends can all get some heals. This card alone is what has really solidified the healing package for me, and I think it is a fantastic use of player side schemes. The Night Nurse A classic Protection card hailing from the Doctor Strange hero pack, The Night Nurse is a staple for any Protection deck. In addition to healing 1, you remove a status effect from the hero you're targeting. There are three important things to note here: You can only target a hero. This isn't usually a big deal, because you can call for this action off turn. However, there has been the occasion where this has mattered for me. You must remove a status card if you can. Don't throw this heal around, because if a hero only has a Tough status on them, it will be removed. Don't leave home without it. Your friends will thank you for it. Second Wind Tucked away in the back of Thor's hero pack, Second Wind is often overlooked. I really love that this is an Action, as it can be played in alter-ego. In fact, the deck that I am sharing at the end is an alter-ego focused Protection deck. I have had plenty of times when a hero was low on health, but they can't afford to use their basic activation to recover. Second Wind is a nice bulk heal that can push heroes into another round. It's particularly nice during NeXt Evolution with all the retaliate and overkill floating around. Med Team A classic from the Core Set, Med Team has been one of the most helpful cards since the game began. Use it to heal allies or heroes, and trigger it in whatever form you are in. Meditation Another back-of-pack card, this event comes from Vision's hero pack. This card isn't specific to healing builds, but it is to the one that I've been enjoying for some time. Notice that both Med Team and Second Wind are 3 cost cards. If you have an alter-ego focused build or have little use for your basic activation and will be in alter-ego a decent bit, this is a great way to get a discount on another card. Keep in mind that it is only a two resource discount, because you could have just used Meditation as part of the payment playing it normally. This is also an action, so you can use it to sneak out allies, supports, and upgrades off turn. Try It Out Below you'll find two decks. One is an updated version of a deck I ran at Con of Heroes this year that leans heavily on Basic cards, and the other is more Protection card focused. The first published deck that I remember running a variation of this was created by Schmendrix. You can find their deck here! G.I.R.L. 'n Heals If you're a big fan of working from home, you may find this support deck a lot of fun. The focus of the deck is to use Wasp's G.I.R.L. ability to recur powerful cards and support the team by healing, providing blockers, and sharing Avenger's Mansion and Helicarrier. There will certainly be times that you flip up to hero form in order to play Pinpoint Strike or other hero actions, but otherwise you can use your basic activation in alter-ego with Meditation or to heal overkill damage from blocking with your allies. Just ensure that you are providing enough benefit to make up for the scheming threat you're generating! G.I.R.L. 'n Grey Heals Here it is on MarvelCDB! G.I.R.L. 'n Green Heals Here it is on MarvelCDB! Really this G.I.R.L. 'n Heals framework is easily customizable. Just toss in the package from the article, pick out which allies you want to run, then grab the Power Of cards that best suit your ally choice. There are a lot of fun combinations. Featured Cards

In this series, I highlight cards that I am currently enjoying. These are by no means the most powerful cards. They aren't even necessarily my all-time favorite cards. They are simply cards that I am really enjoying right now. At the end of the article you'll find a decklist that I've enjoyed using them in and a slideshow that displays all the cards. This card highlight isn't as cohesive as some of the others, but each of these cards are making for a lot of fun at my table. Let's dive-in! Foiled! I have been a sucker for this card since I started playing Marvel Champions. Back in the day, I loved running this with Iron Man to give some space for early building. If you're running a deck low on status cards or are up against Stalwart villains, Foiled! can really open up the ability to flip down. It is not a Hero Interrupt, so you can use it in both alter-ego and hero form. While it feels best drawing into it at just the right time, don't be afraid to strategically hold it from one turn to another if you know the villain will be scheming. I generally run three copies to improve the odds of having it when I need it, but I generally also run it alongside other non-status threat prevention like Counterintelligence. Personally I prefer it in multiplayer games where there is more opportunity to use it. Making an Entrance A boosted thwart with healing potential is nothing to scoff at. Healing two damage is really helpful for staying in hero form, and this 2 THW boost can help clean up schemes in order to trigger other cards like Skilled Investigator and Turn the Tide. This card does require you make a basic thwart, so keep that in mind when considering it for your decks. It's great alongside heroes like Captain America or SP//dr who have easy access to ready effects. Spider-Man: Pavitr Prahbakar The Protection Web-Warrior suite is so strong that I think the Justice suite is often overlooked. I love dropping Pavitr into play for some bulk threat removal. He's still great if you're low on Web-Warrior cards, but having him clean up 4-5 threat in the late game is a huge momentum swing. His Avenger counterpart Peter Parker is far more limited due to cost, the play from hand restriction, and less overall synergy for his trait available. Pavitr hits a really sweet spot for this ability. Great Responsibility Oh no! Avert your gaze! Surely it is criminal to enjoy such a card as this. While I wouldn't toss Great Responsibility into any deck, it is a neat tool for threat management. There are few ways to interact with threat during the villain phase, and this is one of them. If you want to get particularly cheeky, you can run it alongside some Tough generation to block some massive threat placements. Who needs to thwart Stryfe's Grasp when you can simply defeat Stryfe and Great Responsibility away all the threat that started on it? Thanks to MCGamora and royal7 for bringing that interaction up in the Solo Champions League discord. It inspired me to toss it into my deck! Assess the Situation I love this card so much that it is sneaking into a Justice list. To me, this is the perfect Basic card. Some heroes can really leverage it (see below), while for others it is simply a great tool for smoothing hands and avoiding leftover resources. I try to keep Assess as the last card in my hand each round. If I need to spend it, no worries. However, if it looks like I'll have a card leftover, there's no reason not to pass it to my next turn. Try It Out Below is a Ghost-Spider deck that I took through NeXt Evolution in two player games. With George Stacey being able to store cards and Ghost-Spider's ability to ready off interrupts and responses, Foiled! and Great Responsibility gain huge value. You can tuck them away and use them when you need them. Assess the Situation is also great here, as early in the game it helps smooth your hands, and late in the game it can be used in conjunction with Ticket to the Multiverse to help Ghost-Spider with a massive turn. Here it is on MarvelCDB! You could easily make some swaps in this deck to tune it to your preferences. If you're not going to be attacking much, swap Turn the Tide for some more thwarting events. If you can't justify The Power in All of Us for limited targets, drop them. Though note that SP//dr and Across the Spider-Verse make for many more targets than it seems at first glance. If you feel you're not seeing your Web-Warrior allies enough, toss in Chance Encounter to help grab them sooner. I have been having a blast with these cards, and I hope that this encourages you to look at some of them as well! Featured Cards

In the previous article from this series I took a look at efficiency and pulled out some loose efficiency benchmarks for a variety of effects. However, efficiency is merely one tool with which we evaluate cards. In that article, I pointed out a number of cards that reflected these benchmarks, but many came with some pretty massive caveats. Taking a look at these caveats or conditions is the next step in evaluating cards. It will be another tool we add to our evaluation toolbox. Many of the abilities we see in aspect and Basic cards hit the efficiency benchmarks, but they are locked behind conditionals such as needing two side schemes or needing to remove the last threat on a scheme. Evaluating these conditionals will inform us on if they are a good fit for our deck. However, you will first need to know the goal of your deck. I’ll cover that more fully in a separate article, but your deck’s focus or goal is the primary driver behind what cards you’ll add to your deck. And to be clear, I don’t mean “My deck’s goal is to help me win the game.” How do you want it to help you win the game? Are you going to be the threat manager in a multiplayer game? Is your deck helping you win by covering your weaknesses or building your strengths? Once you know what you want your deck to do, you will have something to measure these conditionals against. With that said, let’s take a look at the common conditionals that we find in card abilities. If you want to skip to a particular section, just click the link below. Common Conditionals resource reliant target reliant form reliant attack \ thwart \ defense reliant take damage reliant trait reliant Resource Reliant Do you have the right resource types to pay for Requirement and kicker abilities? These conditionals are going to depend on having the right resources available at the right time. Let’s start with Requirement’s definition: A card with the requirement keyword cannot be played unless each resource of the specified type is spent while paying for that card’s cost. This is pretty straight forward. You are completely locked out of playing it without the right resources. You either need a plan to meet the Requirement or a plan to skirt around it. Cards like Make the Call, Build Support, and Call for Backup all help you bypass Requirement by using “put into play” abilities which ignore play restrictions like Requirement and trait-locks. Keep in mind that anything that plays the card while ignoring the resource cost cannot be used here. For example, you cannot use Team-Building Exercise to play Spider-Man: Peter Parker, because you haven’t paid all the Requirement resources. For conditionals with kickers (boosted effects), you can play the card regardless of what resources you spend, but the extra benefits require you spend some specific resource for them to activate. Most conditionals only need one specific resource type, making it easier to ensure you have it when you need it. Non-Leadership aspects each have a favored trait and a resource type that is commonly the trigger for kickers. Each also has a resource generator that generates the aspect’s favored resource for their favored trait. Check out the chart below for more information. Regardless of which aspect you are in, there are always the Basic Enhanced resource upgrades available (Awareness, Physique, Reflexes) that offer a specific resource type. If you think you’ll need more than one kicker or more than one resource type for kickers, it is worth looking at more flexible resource sources with wild resources. You can run the ‘Power Of’ resource cards to boost the likelihood of having wilds available to hit kickers and requirements. For example, I tend to run Power of Protection alongside What Doesn’t Kill Me. It neatly pays for the event and covers the Requirement resource. There are also flexible (but more expensive) resource generators like Quincarrier or X-Jet. We’re going to do a quick aside here, because a comparison between Quincarrier and the Enhanced resource upgrades is fantastic for highlighting how efficiency is just a tool of evaluation. Let’s set aside the type of resource generated for a moment. Now, step away from the pitchforks and torches until you’ve finished reading. Ready? Quincarrier has the same or worse efficiency than an Enhanced resource upgrade up until its fifth use. The Enhanced card takes 3 resources (2 cost, plus the card itself) and gives back 3 resources. This means it pays itself back on the third use. Quincarrier takes 4 resources (3 cost, plus the card itself), and gives back infinite resources (over infinite turns). Quincarrier seems *way* more efficient. However, it hasn’t even paid itself back until the fourth use. Additionally it has a higher hit on your tempo due to the higher cost. This means that if your game is lasting anywhere around 4 turns (pretty fast, to be sure), you overpaid for resources. If your game is lasting anywhere around 8 turns (surprisingly common), but you often pass over or don’t see your Quincarrier during the first couple of turns, you may have been better off with the Enhanced resource upgrades, despite them having worse efficiency overall. The scenario’s pressure, the quickness of the game, and the cost curve or tempo of your deck can overshadow pure efficiency. Now to shine Quincarrier back up a bit, cards like Build Support change the math somewhat. In addition, the Enhanced resource upgrades limit you to one specific resource type. That may be fine or it may not. Only your deck will know. Okay, back to our regular programming! When it comes to what resource types you’ll have available for kickers, you’ll want to keep your hero kit in mind. Captain America has resource generators that generate physical resources, so they will be more helpful in Aggression than in Justice. Venom has a built-in Wild generator, so he can easily hit kickers. Another important card to highlight is Honed Technique. It gives every Aggression attack event a kicker, but muddies the water by requiring a mental resource to get the boost. This can become restrictive when looking at cards like No Quarter which already have a different resource requirement. The biggest thing here is that you will want to make sure you have a source or answer to the resource restrictions. Target Reliant Will you have access to an appropriate target? This covers a variety of different targets, but most commonly minions, side schemes, and allies are the targets we’ll need. Multitarget For multitarget conditionals, you will need more than one target to get full value of the effect. First and foremost this is impacted by player count. At high player counts, it is far more likely for minions and side schemes to come out naturally. However, in low player counts that is far less reliable, purely because you’ll be seeing fewer encounter cards. If you want to use an ability that requires a specific target at low player counts, you will want to bring along some summoning effects to ensure your target is available. One Way or Another will ensure you get side schemes, while Looking for Trouble will grab minions. Regarding allies, more players generally means more allies. More than likely, in a multiplayer game you will have more targets for abilities targeting friendly characters like allies. A few examples of multi-target conditionals would be Multi-tasking requiring two schemes, Melee needing two enemies, and United We Stand needing two or three allies to get full value from them. As player count goes up, the likelihood of having a side scheme, minion, or ally available to target will also go up. Attach to X As with the multitarget discussion above, you will have to look at how likely you are to naturally have your target. Side Schemes are easier than ever, as player side schemes count for upgrades like Followed and Chance Encounter. Allies are another thing that are more in the players’ control. In multiplayer you are more likely to have a target for ally upgrades, while in solo you will be solely responsible for providing allies. Remember that in solo or two player games, you may want summoning effects to ensure you have the target available when you need one. This trend follows the same as above. As player count goes up, the likelihood of having a side scheme, minion, or ally available to target will also go up. Some examples of Attach to X cards would be Overwatch for side schemes, Pinned Down for minions, and Sidearm for allies. Defeat X Defeat X (or similarly “remove the last threat”) is a conditional that has to look a bit further than just availability. If you are required to defeat the side scheme or minion, you’ll want to address how easy that will be. Side schemes at high player counts have high amounts of threat, meaning you are far less likely to trigger “remove the last threat” abilities on cards like Clear the Area. However, three to four starting threat is pretty common in solo play. You can have a character you control thwart, then easily hit Clear the Area’s trigger in solo. Additionally, if you’re keeping the main scheme at 0 threat, you will commonly only have a couple threat on it in solo play, making Clear the Area really easy to trigger. For threat and side schemes, as player count goes up, the likelihood of clearing or defeating schemes goes down. Minions on the other hand don’t scale at all (with notable exceptions). This means that you’re more likely to have a target you can defeat in multiplayer. As player count goes up, the likelihood of defeating an enemy also goes up. Now we’ll add a big caveat to that. This is scenario and modular set dependent. As the minion size goes up, your likelihood of defeating them goes down. If you have conditionals like Hard Knocks, you’ll be far more likely to get the kicker in a scenario that features a lot of small minions. As an aside (I know, asides are becoming a problem), scenarios are varied enough now that if you’re building a deck to use across many scenarios, it’s worth creating a side board for the deck. This is a small collection of cards that you can easily swap into your deck. Side boards can help you adjust for things like beefy minions. Exhaust X Many abilities require that you exhaust your hero, ally, weapon, or whatever else. You’ll want to ensure you have targets available to you. This one is a little tricky, because it can be impacted by encounter cards and enemy abilities very easily. For example, if you require a basic activation to trigger an ability, Exhaustion can cause your identity to be exhausted before the phase even begins. Knowing the kinds of exhaust effects on encounter cards as well as having access to readying effects can help make these abilities more reliable. These are also generally part of the costs, rather than the ability. This means that you can only use cards you control to pay those costs. There is no substantial difference across player count for your likelihood of having targets to exhaust available. The standout from this are Alliance cards that allow other players to help pay the costs. I've included a couple examples below. Others There are still some more specific interactions that are looking for targets that don’t fit into the categories above. For example, Float Like a Butterfly and Press the Advantage are looking for enemies that have status effects on them. A lot of those can come from your own deck, but in multiplayer you can also rely on other players to produce the status effects. The chances for a target are higher as player count increases. Lie in Wait and Anticipation are specifically looking to trigger off a minion engaging you. While this doesn’t specifically change based on player count, Aggression and a few heroes have access to minion summoning. The usefulness of these abilities will be informed by your hero and aspect choice almost exclusively. Form Reliant This is a replacement gif. I was going to insert a Dragon Ball Z "This isn't even my final form!" gif, but I just learned no one actually says that in the series. Now you know, too. Will you be in the correct form? You’ll want a good gauge of your hero and deck goals for form reliant abilities. Many cards have alter-ego abilities, and if you won’t be going to alter-ego often, you’ll want to avoid most of them. If you will be spending a decent amount of time in alter-ego (meaning somewhere between every turn to multiple turns in a game), you can really lean into more alter-ego focused or non-form specific cards. When doing this, you’ll also want to look at scaling back some event cards with hero abilities. Case in point, defense events aren’t particularly useful in alter-ego, so you’ll want to avoid including many if you’re spending much time there. You’ll also want to ensure your deck has ways to use resources in alter-ego, especially if you have a lot of card draw available. Allies, upgrades, and supports are great to help reduce resource waste. It also doesn't hurt to have some resource sinks (places to spend unused resources) like Machine Man, Lockjaw, or Assess the Situation. Alongside which form you are in, there are many conditionals that rely on you changing forms. Cards like Surprise Attack and Ready to Rumble can only trigger when changing into hero form. For most heroes, this is equivalent to what is stated above. If you're not visiting home often, leave the form changing cards in the box. However, there are a number of heroes with multiple hero forms, and they will have greater access to form changing. Ant-Man, Wasp, Angel, Vision, and Shadowcat will all have more opportunities to trigger abilities requiring a form change. Attack / Defend / Thwart Reliant There are a number of abilities that require you attack, defend, or thwart before you trigger them. You’re going to want to look at what your build is focusing on before adding these cards. Thor Aggression in a 4 player game will have a multitude of attack opportunities. This is perfect for “after you attack” conditionals. Conversely, in solo, Captain America Aggression will likely split his actions between attacking and thwarting. His “after you attack” triggering opportunities will be much more limited. Defense tends to have the biggest limiting factor, as many times you will go all-or-nothing on defending. If your deck’s goal isn’t to defend, you’ll want to skip the “when you defend” cards. Expanding on this, the more specific “after you defend and take no damage” conditionals are much harder to hit if you aren’t building specifically to handle it. Whether or not defending is something you want to build into can be informed by your hero choice. Many of the 3 DEF heroes are good fits for the “take no damage” archetype. The big takeaway here is that how focused or generalist your deck is will be informing your attack/defend/thwart reliant choices. The more focused your deck is, the easier it will be to trigger attack/defend/thwart reliant abilities. Take-Damage Reliant Can you take extra damage? Some abilities require you take damage to trigger them (from enemy attacks, the ability itself, or other outside sources) or cause you damage once triggered. Considerations for these cards will be your overall health, access to healing, and Tough access. You can lock yourself out of using an ability if you have Tough, but are required to take damage. On the flip side, you can waste an entire Tough on one damage from triggering an ability. For example, you will take one damage as part of “Think Fast”, so you would lose your Tough in order to Confuse the villain. However, with Weapon X, you simply couldn’t trigger the ability at all if you have a Tough, because taking one damage is part of the cost. Keep in mind that some of these abilities will be triggering off taking damage from an attack. This is at direct odds with things like keeping the villain stunned or blocking with allies. Trait Reliant Do you have the correct trait or access to it? Many cards are going to be play-restricted by what traits you have. This has a lot of overlap with form reliant conditions, as many times your traits are different between your alter-ego and hero forms. For example, in alter-ego, Guardians don’t have the Guardian trait. In order to play a Guardian trait-locked ally like Groot, they have to either be in hero form or acquire the Guardian trait in alter-ego through Honorary Guardian. The Mutant trait is tied to alter-ego, and it has a number of abilities and triggers available on various cards. You’ll want to ensure that you have a plan for flipping down if you want access to these Mutant-locked traits. The alternative to the above is the same as bypassing Requirement. If you have a way to “cheat” the card in through a “put into play” ability, you can avoid the reliance on a given trait. Just keep in mind that this often reduces the reliability and consistency of the play, as you must first have access to the “cheat” card. Conclusion The above covers most of the conditionals you’ll run into across the deck-building pool. While efficiency is going to be a tool that you use to evaluate a card (particularly in vacuum), these conditional evaluations are going to be far more impactful on your actual deck-building decisions. Your hero, aspect, archetype, and player count will all be informing which conditionals you’ll be likely to meet. Hopefully this is helpful for players that are new to deck-building. Learning to process and evaluate these conditionals is a foundational part of getting quick and effective at deck-building. I want to end this by noting that these evaluations aren’t just for power gamers and min-maxers. If you love building toward whatever combos you find fun, these considerations can both help smooth the path toward hitting you combos and help you make informed decisions regarding the likelihood of your combos. Don’t let a low likelihood keep you from a combo. Instead, use these considerations to help improve that likelihood by including cards that cover weaknesses or smooth hiccups. Thanks Thanks again to the discord hivemind. In particular, thank you to Gondo, josseroo, and SCOE for giving some feedback on my early breakdowns of the topic. As always, thanks to Unicorn and the Cerebro project for providing card images.

As I use terms in articles or come across them in the community, I will add them here. These are colloquially used terms and jargon. For rules terms, refer to the latest Rules Reference Guide. build card / ramp card : a card that increases a hero's power, but isn't a card that the deck hinges on alone. chump blocking : using an ally to block an enemy's attack control : a strategy that relies on managing the board state and building their own board while ignoring the villain until they are ready to defeat the villain in a short burst effective resources (ER) : the full cost of playing a card, generally consisting of the card's cost and the card itself. For example, if you play Helicarrier using only cards in hand, the cost is 3, but you have 4 cards fewer. The effective resource of playing Helicarrier is 4. hard mulligan : discarding all or most of your hand during your mulligan keystone card : a singular card that is fundamental to a hero kit or strategy precon : short for preconstructed deck, the deck with which the hero was originally packaged recursion : this is a deck style where you focus on replaying or returning to play some particular card or card type, usually allies. For example, using Make the Call and Rapid Response in Leadership, you can recur Maria Hill to get multiple card draws in a round. rush : a strategy that relies on ignoring everything it can in favor of defeating the villain as quickly as possible tutor : a term carrying over from Magic the Gathering, it means to search for a specific card or card type voltron : a deck type that focuses on boosting one or more allies by attaching multiple upgrades to them