Hello once again Champions, BananaCrapshoot here again for another article, brought to you by The Side Scheme. The focus today is to talk about the state of the game. At this point each aspect has had their hero pool deepened, and twice for protection, to fill out deck builds and variants within each aspect. I wanted to take a few mins and talk about each aspect, and encounters where they are at and how they fit overall in the design of the game.
Starting off with Justice, this aspect really needed help and it came with Black Widow. Adding Coulson and Quake really help out the allies and add some versatility to the aspect. It has some strong cards like counterintelligence, For Justice, and Concussive Blow. But that is really it. Stealth strike was a nice add to help with damage output. Overall this aspect does exactly what it’s trying to but its still the weakest of the four. Lacks punch damage wise and really shines in solo to keep you out of range to lose to threat very often.
Next is protection, this got 2 packs featuring this aspect with Ms Marvel and Doctor Strange. Overall protection is pretty strong right now. Has some good allies like Iron Fist and some strong events like Momentum Shift and Tackle. But Med Team and especially Energy Barrier are very strong. Energy Barrier might be the best cars in the game period, sure that’s debatable but it brings so much value to the table, and even more if you are Iron Man. Protection and the next aspect I think are neck and neck power wise but I have to give an edge to the upcoming one, completely personal bias as it’s my favorite aspect. Downsides are that sometimes you feel like you are stalling out when playing solo. And taking forever to finish games out.
Right so my favorite aspect Aggression is in a really solid spot right now. Thor’s pack and the upcoming Hulk pack really round out the aspect. Mean Swing and Jarnbjorn really push Black Panther over the top to be one of the best decks in the game. The allies in the Hulk pack (Sentry and She-Hulk) look really solid and possibly abuseable, looking forward to 12 honorary avengers on She-Hulk in a 4 player game and having her hit for like 12 at a time. Aggression fits my play style and I like racing down the villain as fast as possible so that’s why I’m partial to it.
Leadership is without a doubt the best aspect. I think initial design they didn’t realize how good allies were, a few activations and a block are really solid value. Then add cards like make the call and rapid response to recur your chump blockers or strong boss monsters and get them on the table as much as possible. Theres a few leadership variants, self buff, avengers assemble, chump swarms and the doctor strange tough status card version. All are strong and viable and better than almost every other deck. No weaknesses here really. It’s crazy how efficient leadership decks are.
Scenario wise we have been lacking for a few months. The last pack was Wrecking Crew. While that design is really cool and unique, the encounter is a slog to play and really easy to game on standard and expert. Heroic really pushes wrecking crew but it’s still a slog. Then we have the core set villains which are all fun and Klaw and Ultron are staples I don’t see going away soon. Green Goblin brought us 2 unique scenarios in Risky Business and Mutagen Formula. Risky Business is fun and introduced a new mechanic and interaction for the villain. But this scenario is fairly easy and really easy to game. Mutagen Formula however is an amazing scenario, it’s my personal favorite and it can absolutely trash you on expert. Staring round 1 with 3 encounter cards per player is crazy. And it helps off set the size of his encounter deck, which is full of minions, and 2 boss monsters with Monster and Goblin Knight. This scenario is a blast and I always like to test my decks against Mutagen Formula. We have been running draft leagues through our Discord server and have been struggling to keep the encounters fresh. That changes soon with the Red Skill box and Kang, are number of scenarios is about to double, then factor in any additional modular sets and we can replay the first wave of scenarios for new experiences and combos!
The future is bright for Marvel Champions. The designers have a lot of room to flex their designs on us, there’s hundreds of hero and villain scenarios left for us to mess around with. Each aspect has its own niche and I hope they lean into the niche and continue to develop each aspect as its own unique play style without a lot of bleed across aspects.
That’s it for this one, what do you think of the current state or the game? Any thoughts or concerns for the design of the game? Let me know. And stay scheming champions.