Hello everyone, This is going to be the first installment of a new article series we are doing breaking down and grading each hero based on their 15 signature hero cards. To be clear, this wont be a review or breakdown of the identity card, just the signature hero cards. We are going to start with the core set heroes. Our first hero will be Black Panther.
So Black Panther has a cool suite of cards, all of his upgrades abilities are triggered by playing event cards from your hand. So ideally thinning your deck and being able to cycle these events is the end game goal. Without further filler material for the article lets jump right in.
Shuri is a good solid ally for Black Panther. 3 health for 2 cost is good, her thwart and attack is nothing special but her ability really shines. For Black Panther to be effective he needs his upgrades, Shuri helps you find one, generally tutors and card draw are good. So Shuri is a good start to the Black Panther package.
Ancestral Knowledge is a card I really like, it only costs 1 resource and allows you to add 3 cards back into your hand. This is great end game when you are trying to cycle Wakanda Forever, early game this can help you build your board up by using cards as resources then bringing them back to hand to play on the board. This card is a one of so you don’t see it all that often and will be used as a resource a good amount of the time.
Wakanda Forever, the main thing about this card is whenever you play one you have to do the thing where your cross your arms in front of your chest. It’s a must, not even an option, if you don’t do it you don’t get to trigger your special abilities on your upgrades, then you probably lose to rhino and cry. All joking aside these cards are what make Black Panther so good. There are five of these in the deck, each resource type is represented while there are two that generate a wild resource. These cards early game are great for resources when trying to build the board and then amazing end game to just go off on your opponent, his schemes, and minions. This card is great and is what makes Black Panther work.
Well well well, what do we have here, some Vibranium is what. Double resource cards are baller, strength, genius, energy are staple basic cards in every deck for a reason. And vibranium is better than all of them because it generates two wild resources. Best double resource card in the game. Period. Oh, and did I forget to mention Black Panther comes with three of these in his deck? I know right.
This card is both a better and worse Avenger’s Mansion. Its better because it draws 2 cards, and card draw is king in this game. But its worse because you have to be in alter-ego to use this bad boy. You can set up some ridiculous turns with this card and is best to play early to find the upgrades and other cards you want to stick on your board. I really like this card, only complaint is the alter-ego stipulation. If it didn’t have it though, it would be busted broken good and nobody would play anything other than T’Challa.
Energy Daggers are the first of the Black Panther upgrades we are looking at, all of the upgrades cost two resources to play. Each upgrade also does not do anything unless you have Wakanda Forever in hand. Each upgrade by itself is not that crazy powerful, but when you have all four out it is very strong. Energy Daggers is very good at dealing with Ultron drones and clearing minions/villains with tough status cards. Generally this is the first or second upgrade I want down depending on the aspect and encounter I am playing. You will notice the last upgrade triggered in the sequence has its ability doubled.
While Energy Daggers was the AoE attack upgrade, Panther Claws is the single target damage upgrade, dealing 4 damage is nothing to sneeze at, and the 2 can be relevant to not waste damage and still damage even if you are trying to clear threat.
Tactical Genius is the generally the last upgrade I want to see, removing one or two threat can be very clutch, especially when clearing side schemes, but its only 2 threat max removed. It is good but the weaker of the upgrades in my opinion.
Vibranium Suit. Here we are, probably the best upgrade in the suite, this or Energy Daggers are usually the first ones I want to see. This thing is a 2 or 4 damage swing, keeping Black Panther healed and dealing damage at the same time. It is very strong.
So that is it. That is a general overview of the Black Panther signature hero cards. Overall he has some very good cards and synergy but his reliance on Wakanda Forever to make his upgrades work can be a negative. Having three double resource cards in his deck is ridiculous, and really you don’t need the three basic double resource cards as well, you will find you are over paying a lot of the time. Overall I would say his suite is good, but not the best out of the core set.
So at the end of these articles Tommy of Titan and myself (BananaCrapshoot) are going to give a score to each hero’s signature card suite on a rating of 1-5, 5 being the best 15 cards you could wish to have in a hero suite and 1 being terrible, would never play, why was this even designed.
Our Grades:
BananaCrapshoot -3.5
Tommy of Titan- 3.5
So that’s the first article in the series we are doing doing a quick overview and grade of the fifteen signature cards for each hero. Thanks for reading, don’t know how you stuck with it for this long. Hope you enjoyed it, and if not…. We appreciate everyone that has shown us support this far. We are hoping to bring even better podcast and gameplay content in the future. So for Tommy of Titan, I’m BananaCrapshoot, stay scheming Champions.
-BananaCrapshoot