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Origin Stories - Marvel Champions: Core Set Review
🕑 Added 2023-04-04 12:00:04 +0000 UTC
Marvel has been a franchise juggernaut for nearly a decade and a half at this point. Since Jon Favreau brought Robert Downey Jr's portrayal of Tony Stark to the big screen there hasn't been a year without Marvel heroes and villains battling it out for a popcorn stuffed audience. The quality of these movies has varied, but it is only recently that we've began to see the cracks show as hero fatigue sets in - the series has had a fantastic run, even if some of the movies are not great. Not everything can be Thor Ragnarok I guess.
However, in the world of board games superheroes show no signs of this fatigue and Marvel Champions is no exception. It may not be the first Superhero Boss Battling game; but it is without a doubt one of the stronger entries in both the superhero and boss battling genres. The real question is; how much value is there inside the core box?
While I own and use all of the currently released content for Marvel Champions. In this review I paired back the experience to nothing but the core game in order to refresh what the experience is like if you purchase just the core game alone. Fantasy Flight's Living Card Games are very much a lifestyle game, you can sink a lot of money into them, but you can get a lot of enjoyment in return. The issue with this game design is that the core game tends to be less of a complete experience in itself and instead is more of a sample taster.
Components
Marvel Champions comes in a medium sized box, it is on the smaller for Fantasy Flight Games but this design has become the new standard for their LCG core games and it certainly has room for at least a few decks. The box has a plastic insert, tokens, cards and a rulebook. The cards cover five heroes; Black Panther, Captain Marvel, Iron Man, She-Hulk and your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man. There are also three villain scenarios; featuring a man in a daft suit, aka Rhino, a man who replaced his hand with a sound gun; aka Klaw and Denny Crane's husband aka Ultron.
The insert is not great, plastic is a poor material to use for storing cards due to its relatively low friction, this combines with the bizarre lack of dividers (despite the insert having slots for them) and creates a situation where cards tend to fall over due to gravity being a harsh mistress – something that happens to almost all plastic inserts that do not have a ridged style of bottom. Space wise it does hold everything in the core game with room to spare, but for myself nothing about this insert apart from its colour is satisfactory and one may well end up looking for third party solutions.
The cards themselves are clear, clean, bold affairs with artwork taken from various comic book panels. While some of the artwork chosen on later cards *cough* Wolverine *cough* Beserker Frenzy *cough* can be a bit poor; the art here in the core game is all satisfactory. The tokens are also well distinguished from each other and are of an appropriate size. I do like the start player token, it is aesthetically very fun and thematic.
The rulebook comes in two parts; there is a learn to play booklet that walks through the basic flow of the game and one of those Fantasy Flight Games Rules Reference affairs that are relatively comprehensive (at least until all the extra rules from expansions are added) and honestly I appreciate these books, but they really are hard to navigate until you internalise the structure that are used.
Gameplay – Setup & Teardown
We will go into this in more detail below; but at its most basic and simple level; where you use the two pre-constructed decks against the the game can be set up in less than five minutes. You grab your hero deck, put your identity card on alter ego mode; set up the tokens, life dials and then follow the instructions on the villain's main scheme to ensure the right modules are shuffled in and boom, you're ready to go!
Teardown is likewise relatively quick and just requires cleaning up tokens; returning the decks to their original organisation (The scenario deck with its modules takes the longest to pull apart) and returning everything to the box. Again it should take less than five minutes to sort out.
However; if you get into the game fully, elements like deck customisation and higher difficulty levels then setup can take a lot longer; as long as you like really. There's a whole separate game experience in deck construction and building good decks requires a different set of skills from playing. Fortunately if that is not your jive you can use other people's time and skill to skip deck construction and follow their builds. Places like marvelcbd and this geeklist are great places to start! Marvelcdb is a little overwhelming and has poor search tools; but for people with limited collections the functionality is fantastic.
Gameplay – Deck Construction
For people who are new to deck construction; the game comes with a pre-built starter deck for Spider-Man and Captain Marvel who are designed for a learning game against the Rhino scenario. In the rulebook are recommendations for decks and the box has enough cards to construct four of the five heroes. The recommendations given are not the best, but you can find excellent alternatives elsewhere online and after you've completed your learning game I'd recommend you spend a little time searching for them instead of using the ones in the rulebook.
A typical Marvel Champions player's deck includes all the hero cards specific to the given hero, these 16 cards include a double-sided identity card plus fifteen other cards all marked as belonging to that hero. The rest of the cards come from a single aspect identified by its colour. These colours also have a thematic design focused on the ethos that their name represents. Aggression is Red; Leadership is Blue; Justice is Yellow and Protection is Green.
The Aggression aspect in the core game focuses on attacking with cards that either provide relatively efficient damage for the cost; or provide additional benefits triggered by attacking. For the most part however the selection of Aggression cards in the core game are not that strong. The Hulk ally is one of the best cards available for this aspect, and the Combat Training Upgrade is also excellent, but an Aggression deck does not want all three copies. This means that playing Aggression in the core game is a lacklustre experience, it will grow with additional content but it is not a great 'out of the box' experience. Aggression gains the most options outside of boxed expansions from either the Wasp, Nova or Hulk decks. Be aware that Hulk himself is a hero with some shortcomings; I've had most success with Hulk in Justice or Leadership, not Aggression.
Justice is the Yellow aspect and it revolves around dealing with plots and schemes; Justice overall is one of the stronger aspects and even in the core game this is no exception. Of course the core game Justice cards are not as strong as later options, but Daredevil, Jessica Jones and For Justice! are all good enough for the job. It is also worth noting that Surveillance Team is not great in just the core game, but it becomes a core feature of Justice S.H.I.E.L.D. Based decks once you have access to Sinister Motives' Monica Chang. Again in Heroic Intuition we have another card that comes with three copies, but only one is required per deck. The hero pack I'd most recommend picking up to bolster Justice is Nebula, which has One Way or Another; probably the best Justice card in the entire game.
Leadership dons the blue and it is a colour focused around commanding a team of other heroes, mechanically called an 'Ally' in the game. This is easily the strongest overall aspect in the game
due to how Allies work (more on that later); and the core game is no exception, bringing several staple cards like Maria Hill, Make The Call and The Triskelion. Frustratingly, despite being such staples you only get one copy of unique characters or Locations like Maria Hill/The Triskellion. While you can only have one in a deck, multiple players can easily all field Maria Hill in their decks without the uniqueness rule causing much interference – but this is a relatively minor complaint that won't affect players who intend to have one of each aspect in their games rather than playing doubles of Leadership. For additional Leadership Aspect cards Captain America probably leads the charge due to adding more Avengers synergy that can be combined with the core game cards.
Then we have the runt of the core game in Protection. The Green Aspect lags sadly behind all the other aspects by quite a large margin in the core game. This aspect is focused around defending, but it does not start to take off until it is supplemented by expansions. There are some decent cards that appear in tuned decks like Counter-Punch, Med Team, Armored Vest and Indomitable but the player who takes Protection in the core game will feel weak in comparison to others due to lacking key synergy pieces. If you are looking to quickly make Protection more viable in the cheapest and most efficient way possible – Doctor Strange's hero pack is the best overall choice; it has great Protection cards, Doctor Strange is also very powerful and a potent Protection hero to boot; Vision is another option and I really like the unusual way that he plays in Protection.
Finally there's one more colour in the game and that's Grey/Basic, a colour which represents generic cards available to all heroes regardless of their chosen aspect. There are multiple staples between the generic double resource cards; Nicolmaus Furry, the Hellicarrier and even the Avenger's Mansion are all holding up to the test of time.
Gameplay – Cards
Cards are the heart of the game and they essentially come in two versions; player cards and scenario cards that represent the villain and their plans. Outside of double-sided cards such as hero identity cards or main schemes; the cards are marked on the back as either blue for player cards or orange for scenario cards.
Hero cards have mostly been described above, but the key concepts to finish describing are the identity card and how cards are played. The hero identity card is a double-sided card that depicts the hero on one side and their civilian alter ego on the reverse. You will start the game in alter ego mode; where one cannot perform the usual actions that superheroes tend to do, such as punching, thwarting, quipping and having upside-down kisses with MJ. So Alter Egos tend to not be able to do much to progress winning the game; however in compensation for this they are very good at healing damage dealt to your hero; drawing more cards and some heroes even have specific cards that they can only use when out of costume.
The other side has our hero in their tight spandex pants and it is where the main action occurs. Here instead of a boring old recovery number they have attack, thwarting and defense numbers plus some other exciting things and keywords.
The rest of the cards have four main areas to consider, the cost in the top left, which is how many resources you will have to muster to play the card, the card's type, the card's effect and in the bottom left corner is what resources this card provides when used to pay for another card. The types are Mental, Physical, Energy and Wild. Most cards provide a single type of resource, some provide two or even three resources when used. The exact typing of resource generally doesn't matter unless the card you are using has specific requirements printed on it.
Hero cards come in four main types Allies; Events, Support and Upgrades. Allies are versions of other heroes in a smaller form; they can attack, thwart or defend from attacks, but their health numbers tend to be considerably smaller. This narratively represents their supporting role in the story that your hero is involving in. Events are single use effects, you play them and then get to do what they say, these include thwarting and attacking but there can be other options. Supports and Upgrades are very similar mechanically as they are cards which sit in your play area and provide multiple uses, however thematically Upgrades are things which improve your hero's capabilities – things like helmets, shields and similar while supports tend to be locations or non-combatant people such as Pepper Potts.
Scenario cards on the other hand come in three main types, there are the villain cards, which have three different phases and you'll fight two of them in a scenario. Then there is the main schemes; which gradually accrue threat and if they are all completed the players lose the scenario. The other cards make up the scenario deck and they will include the scenario cards plus some additional modular effects that are added in. Swapping these modules can change the difficulty of a given scenario and this is a great way to scale up or down scenarios.
The individual card types for the scenario are side schemes; attachments; treachery; minions; obligations and environments. Attachments improve the power of the villain or sometimes minions; minions are set against a single player and act as a miniature attacker/schemer until defeated; obligations and treachery are a wide range of different single shot abilities with mostly thematic rather than mechanical differences between them and environments are something that has happened to the area and tend to stay in play unless something specific to the scenario changes them.
There is also an additional set of cards added to the scenario that are specific to each hero being played. These represent one of a heroes' given nemesis and their plots, they are not added in automatically, but instead join if a card like Shadows of the Past are drawn. Nemeses are intended to be a balancing counterweight to help bring really powerful heroes into line while also adding more flavour and uniqueness to the story. However, in practice there tends to be little correlation here; weak heroes can have a very intimidating nemesis and strong heroes can have a weak one.
Gameplay – Flow of the Game
The overall pattern in a game of Marvel Champions is relatively simple, one will select the hero(es) they want to play, the scenario they want to experience and follow the instructions for building the villain deck by including the standard module and whatever other modules are required for the scenario. One then places the hero, main scheme and villain cards; with the villain set on phase 1 for normal and phase 2 for expert before shuffling decks and drawing opening hands.
Marvel Champions is very generous on its opening hands; not only do you start on Alter-Ego mode which draws more cards than hero mode; and you are allowed to “mulligan” once by discarding any number of cards before drawing replacement cards from your deck. This, coupled with the relatively small minimum deck size of 40 means that hero decks can be consistently powerful and get their strategies online in a reasonable time; something that's needed because of how much the villains can ramp up their threats.
The goal of the game is to defeat the villain by dealing damage equal to their hit points in both their two phases; the game itself seeks to win through twin threats of advancing their main scheme to completion or reducing all the heroes health to 0. Because of this second element; one should be aware that player elimination is possible; but unless you're near the end of a scenario losing a player tends to accelerate the loss. However; it is a shame that the game does not implement a way for players to continue to contribute; other boss battlers like Sentinels of the Multiverse and Aeon's End have mechanisms that cover that.
The players start; with the player that has the first player marker taking the initial turn; they can do any number of actions as long as they have the resources to do so. Actions include changing form by flipping their Identity Card (limit once per turn); playing cards from hand, activating abilities on their cards – some of which require exhausting (turning the card 90 degrees to achieve this); exhausting allies or their Identity Card to attack/thwart or even occasionally asking other players to trigger abilities on their own cards or play cards from their hand. It is this last one that makes multiplayer games of Marvel Champions very much a different experience; one can construct decks to work in duos, trios or even quads by playing cards that scale with player count and help each other out during every turn. Unfortunately, the current online resources for exploring team style deck building is not optimised and many decks seen online are constructed effectively as solo decks that can work in teams through incidental bonuses rather than being focused that way.
Once the players have all had their turns; the player phase ends with all exhausted cards being rotated back upright and players can choose to discard any cards they don't need right now before drawing back up to their identity card hand limit. Then the villain has a phase; they will in order advance their main scheme by adding on it threat equal to the player number multiplied by the number of players; then they will activate against each player attacking the hero or scheming to add more threat if a player's Identity is in alter-ego.
This activation deals damage/threat equal to the villain's numbers plus the boost number. Boost is worked out by revealing card(s) from the scenario deck and checking the symbols in the bottom right corner. Everything else on the card is ignored unless a symbol indicates that there is a boost effect on the card. This can be tricky for players to internalise; but having boost on the scenario cards works well to keep the table component count reduced while also allowing each scenario to have a different boost flavour. Minions will also activate in the same fashion against the hero they are assigned against, but unless their card specifically notes otherwise, they do not boost.
Players can choose to either leave the attack undefended or defend with either their hero identity (exhausting it and reducing the damage by the hero defense value) or with an ally (who exhause and take the damage directly as health). This is a big part of what makes allies so strong; they can enter play; have triggers, attack/thwart (taking a little consequential damage there in most cases) and then they can defend against a hit from an enemy unit. They're very valuable packages indeed. Thwart cannot be defended against; and there are also abilities like overkill and triggers on undefended attacks that can throw wrinkles into plans.
After that there is the encounter phase; every player will face at least one encounter card; but additional ones can also be dealt out. For example an empty players deck will result in a reshuffle of the deck and a draw of a face down encounter card which will be resolved during this phase.
Encounters vary; minions work as anything from mooks who exist to attack/thwart and perform a all the way up to mini-villains that cause bunch of other issues. Side-Schemes are additional plots that come into play with a fixed amount of threat and cause problems until they are removed. Otherwise it tends to be one shot effects, but we won't dwell too long on them as scenario/villain cards were discussed above. Instead it's time to move onto how this game scales.
Scaling – Player Counts
There can be elegant ways that boss battlers scale; but there are there are also boss battlers that fail to scale and force certain numbers of players. Marvel Champions has both an inelegant way of scaling and an elegant one. The inelegant way is the increased amount of threat or health that certain cards (mostly schemes and the villain) have/deal out before they are removed. It works, but it's also more mental load to recall for the players.
The elegant ways are how the villain activates and how the encounter cards are dealt out. With the villain activating against every single hero and the encounter cards being dealt out to each player as well the scenario is very scalable on that front. Likewise the villain's health scaling works well also; it's almost a perfect fit. However; the schemes can be wildly varying in how devastating they are depending on player count. Rhino's Main Scheme for example is prone to going from 0 or 1 to completing itself in a single villain phase and that doesn't feel good.
Team play is a delight though. With players are able to greatly influence and assist each other if they want to; while most decks are built by the community to work with self synergy rather than team play, even those decks can help each other by attacking minions engaged with other players or defending against attacks aimed at their play partners.
Review – The Power of the Aspects and Heroes
The core game's balance of both aspects and heroes leaves a fair bit to be desired. While there are staple cards for some of the aspects; each aspect does not get as strong a set of cards as the others. Justice and Leadership come out as the two best aspects in the box; with aggression lagging behind that and then protection really getting the bum deal.
The heroes are also in a somewhat similar situation; Captain Marvel is a very powerful hero with a great mechanical design. Due to her hero cards being so well designed she has remained strong even in the face of the eventual power creep that occurs in a living card game; Spider-Man is also solid and has gained assistance with later sets. The other three are not so well off; they all do get stronger when you own a larger collection, but they never really manage to be better than around average. This means if you are wanting to play Iron-Man; Black Panther or She-Hulk you should be prepared to either pair them with the stronger aspects if you are only using the core game, or pay attention to what packs will help them grow in strength, I have a few suggestions near the end of this article.
Review – The Scenarios
Next up we'll take a quick look at the scenarios and modules that come with the core game. The first thing is the Standard module; these cards are present in every game you'll play in this set and they cover a bunch of generically powerful ways the villain can act. They are also the only way in this box that a heroes nemesis will come into the picture, so don't forget to add them in!.
Rhino
Rhino is our tutorial villain, and he does a fine job of that. But it is worth noting that he can be surprisingly challenging on the higher difficulty due to how fast he can complete his main scheme (especially in solo where he can go from 0-2 threat to 7 in a single turn with the right draws). Overall he's not a great scenario, but he absolutely does the job of teaching players I guess. He is recommended with the Bomb Scare module (see below). Overall however? I think that the next scenario does a better job of introducing new players to how the game works.
Klaw
Probably my favourite of the three core game villains. This is the scenario I return to most because of how it works, it requires a lot of consideration and forethought because of how Klaw's boosts can peak hard with huge hits unexpectedly. His recommended modular set is the fun Masters of Evil set and he's quite a minion focused character in addition to his heavy leaning into boosts.
Ultron
At least as hard as Klaw if not more so, this scenario can feel absolutely brutal when you first encounter it if your chosen hero(es) don't happen to be able to handle swarms. It's exceptionally thematic and Ultron is one of my favourite villains in general. I just prefer the more varied way that Klaw plays. Ultron is paired with the Under Attack scenario; but the various custom campaigns that came out after the FFG competition have allowed Ultron to shine and create some really memorable moments.
Review – Modules
Now lets go through the modules. I'm going to add a subjective “threat rating” from 1 to 5 onto each of these (apart from Expert) so you can see how the three scenarios above can be tweaked in difficulty outside of just switching between standard/expert modes. I'm also going to provide a rough category for each one, this is similar to Get Up and Game's excellent video (https://youtu.be/nd2RQwqMLU4) going through all the modules in the game, discussing their styles. I certainly do not disagree with their assessments on style of the core game modules, so I won't be deviating far from there.
Bomb Scare is to modules what Rhino is to scenarios; this is a relatively gentle module that provides a little confusion, some schemes and some minions. Resulting in a varied experience with no particular focus that I've always called the blend style of module. Bomb Scare sits at a lighter difficulty as is appropriate for its status as a tutorial. Threat Level: 1
Masters of Evil is a module that brings a mixture of moderate power villains in minion form. I've always called this the Brute Squad; outside of their individual power they also have a great deal of dangerous boosts and cards that bring one of them into play or interact with their Masters of Evil trait. Threat Level: 3
Under Attack seeks to power up the villain's capabilities rather than providing minions and this style of “Augmenatation” I've tended to call the Addition style of module as it is adding on to the villain. It works well for Ultron, but not so well for Klaw or Rhino who lack a lot of scenario minions and prefer that support. Threat Level: 3
The remaining modules are not in any recommended scenario scheme lists, so it's quite possible that for most owners of the core game they sit in the box and get forgotten about.
Legions of Hydra is the second toughest module set in the core box; the reason for this is Madame Hydra who is a miniature villain in her own right and can't even be removed as long as one of the Legions of Hydra side schemes are in play – I tend to think of these as being the a more single character orientated Brute Squad style of deck that I've always referred to as Henchmen. She and her Guarding soldiers gets even more threatening when combined with Hydra villains and this module can be terrifying. Threat Level: 4
The Doomsday Chair is the final module in the core set and this one is just a complete nightmare. It features Modok and his chair in a style that is called 'Lieutenant'. Modok is a single minion in the deck, but cards exist to pull him into play and then protect him. Which is really hard due to Modok having Retaliate 2; a trait that hurts the attacker for a massive 2 points each time they attack him. Sometimes you even have to defeat him twice before he's gone due to his Biomechanical Upgrades. A horrendously terrifying beast of a module even when you have a large collection of cards to increase your hero power level. I regret to inform you that this ugly pile of terror turns up in some of the competition campaigns. Threat Level: 5+
Final Words
Marvel Champions as a product line is an exceptional lifestyle game thanks to it innovating on its mechanics and continuing to produce exciting heroes and scenarios. However, the core game is not the best example of this due to its limited pool of aspect cards; especially where Aggression and Protection are concerned. Also only having three scenarios with no linking between them leaves an empty experience when you consider what is available in the expansion box.
This makes the core box an essential purchase, but not an exciting one, especially for players who would prefer to play other heroes. I've long considered it to be not a particularly pro-consumer move the way that the smaller expansion boxes do not come with the components to play the campaign in full thereby forcing players to purchase the core box regardless. A core box that in my opinion does not give the best impression of the game, I know that originally I bought the core box, played it a few times and then stuck it on the shelf for around a year before being convinced to give Sinister Motives and Rise of the Red Skull a chance (in that order); both of which got me hooked into playing the game as a whole.
Even writing this; I cannot see this model changing, FFG know how to keep their bread on the table fully buttered and that's staying the current course with this style for the LCGs. They could however at least look at following the taboo model that Arkham Horror LCG has taken by providing tuned up replacements for older hero cards and revising the core set to have more useful staples while evening out the power level between the aspects.
Those criticisms aside; I do have to point out that the core game scenarios do a very good job of teaching players how to play the game by showcasing multiple different scenario mechanics and playstyles while also avoiding a lot of the complexity that can occur in the expansions. So; even though I think you should be purchasing this game alongside a chosen expansion; I do not think you should skip on playing the core game scenarios and play each of them a bit until you are handling the game without missing too many triggers/modifiers and similar. The game can get very complex in content outside of the core box; so learning in a closed environment helps a lot and that's the place where the core game excels. I do wish that Rhino would get an updated scenario that doesn't cause him to complete his scheme in a single turn out of nowhere at higher difficulties, Rhino itself is fun, but that main scheme is not.
In short; Marvel Champions is an amazing boss battling card game with a somewhat average experience loaded into the core set, the game absolutely gets better the more you put into it and it is a worthy lifestyle game. But even if you just want a few of your favourite heroes to smash villains with you will want expansions. So one should consider the base cost of starting this game with a good experience to be a bit higher than what's printed on the box; perhaps you get the core game one month and then once you're up to speed with all that it offers you dive into the hero packs you like and a campaign.
Final Final Words: Where to go from here?
Given that it is my opinion that the core set only experience for Marvel Champions is not a great, cohesive or balanced experience all by itself; I think it is only fair that I mention the expansions that I think add the most bang for your buck and should probably be considered as a purchase alongside or shortly after the core game. I do not think you need to pick up more than the core set plus one of the below recommended expansions and any hero packs for the hero(es) you want to play in specific; but the game is absolutely improved as a beginning experience when you have a campaign to play through.
Often the first expansion recommended is Rise of the Red Skull. However I think due to the various Spider-Man/Peter Parker synergies, Justice Shield trait cards and having two good hero options one could instead consider the expansion Sinister Motives. It is just as beneficial for growing your experience and as such that's my primary recommendation for content to purchase alongside/just after the core set. Just be aware that Sinister Motives does kick both the mechanical and scenario difficulty up a bit and while I prefer 4 of the 5 scenarios in Sinister Motives over Rise; I cannot ignore that Rise's final scenario against the Red Skull is a lot more engaging and balanced than the Sinister Motives one against Venom Goblin.
Other marks in favor of Sinister Motive are its heroes. Spider-Man/Miles Morales and Ghost-Spider are both excellent heroes with exciting kits and the set adds a lot to boost up Protection (which really needs the help more than any other aspects) as well as Shield Justice decks. In contrast Rise of the Red Skull's Hawkeye lags quite a bit behind the pack in respect to his power (he really needs powerful aspect cards to help him get set up as he is fragile as heck. Spider-Woman who comes with Hawkeye is more fortunate and remains a powerful, fun hero to operate; I'd argue that Spider-Woman might be the most interesting and engaging hero in the entire game because she runs two aspects at the same time. Funnily enough though; Hawkeye and Spider-Woman both benefit from Sinister Motive's cards a great deal!
However, the recently released Mutant Genesis is also a really good option for X-Men fans as there is a lot of self contained synergies within the expansion and Shadowcat is a really powerful hero. So if you prefer that flavour of marvel hero I think they are a valid first expansion choice over either of the above two – but be aware that the complexity of the scenarios is high in this box; you'll probably make a lot of errors when learning them and Magneto will give you a real run for your money, he's a beast, as he should be.
To round out the small campaign boxes; I do not recommend Galaxy's Most Wanted as an early purchase and I think Mad Titan's Shadow is fine, but neither of those two are as robust as Sinister Motives, Mutant Genesis or Rise of the Red Skull; so I would leave them on the shelf for now. You're not ready to dance with Ronan young hero; to do so at this point would be hubris.
