The Rise of Red Skull Preview part 2

Welcome back Champions! This is part 2 of our card by card breakdown of the Rise of Red Skull preview. The original plan was to just cover the Encounter cards in this article but since we had some new spoilers we are just gonna look at all the remaining cards. I am joined again by my main man and the fearless leader of the Side Scheme, BananaCrapshoot! Let’s get to it.

Spider-Man:

Tommy: 5 is a steep price to pay for any ally and will most likely result in this being one of the only cards you play that turn. 4 health, 2 ATK and 2 THW for 1 consequential damage is good though. The real value is in his ability which has been translated to something like after you play Spider-Man from hand remove 3 threat per player from a Side Scheme. This is a really strong ability to deal with those pesky Schemes that can stack up on you quickly. He’s a solid card but is a little expensive for my taste.

BananaCrapshoot: Yea I agree with my cohort. 5 is really expensive, he has a great ability however so it could be worth it. Overall I think this will see more play in multiplayer as his ability has a better payoff there. For me I don’t see how I play him solo.

World’s Greatest Heroes?:

Tommy: This event is amazing. It reads something like, Exhaust an Avenger you control to ready another. This is awesome to use on some of those cheaper allies like Squirrel Girl or Allies that aren’t really used for their attack or thwart values like Hawkeye. You can ready your hero or maybe even a Vision after he’s been boosted with an Energy resource for the turn. Love this card.

BananaCrapshoot: This Card enables some ridiculous combos. Exhausting a cheap ally like squirrel girl or Maria Hill to keep them alive to block while readying your hero or a pumped up ally is pretty powerful.

White Tiger:

Tommy: This card should read something like, after you play White Tiger from your hand pay resources to remove threat. No idea on the quantity, resources or threat though. Extremely interesting that this card is listed in the Taskmaster set. Not really sure how this card goes in a hero deck but an ally at 0 cost with any stat line and ability is good in my book let alone 3 THW.

BananaCrapshoot: No idea how we get to play this card but it looks awesome and I’m excited to find out. The traits translate to prisoner and mercenary hero so Steve from Critical Encounters Think she’s Taskmasters prisoner and you Free her to play her. Which sounds super cool so I hope that’s the case.

Taskmaster:

Tommy: This stage 1 Villain has 1 SCH and 2 ATK with an ability that says something like, after a player changes to hero form that player discards the top card of the encounter deck and takes damage equal to the number of symbols on that card. This looks like an extremely interesting villain with that ability. His damage output seems scary and some heroes that like to change forms a lot may struggle here. This is also really interesting as it is the first villain that doubles as a Nemesis minion. This opens the door for the likes of Loki, Baron Zemo, and Baron Mordo to one day be villains too.

BananaCrapshoot: I really like the design of Taskmaster. Punishing you for flipping is a cool mechanic and will really make plying she-hulk and Ms Marvel a challenge, especially and Marvel with her low HP.

Crossbones:

Tommy: Here we see the new keyword piercing which has the ability to discard tough status cards prior to damage being dealt. 12 health per player for a stage one is pretty standard. Seems like his weapon cards are going to be the focus of this encounter as they should be.

BananaCrapshoot: Crossbones doesn’t seem that crazy just looking at his card but I’m sure his encounter deck is full of stuff that’s a pain to deal with. I imagine it’s very aggro.

Crossbones’ Machine Gun:

Tommy: This card will definitely help up this villain’s damage output but my favorite part about it is the way it comes with limited ammo. I think it’s extremely thematic and can introduce a flaw or a bad turn for this villain, which is likely an early villain in the campaign. The 3 boost icons is intimidating too and could be rough if the rest of the deck has high boost counts like this. It will also be interesting to see if there is a way to “reload” this weapon and place counters back onto it.

BananaCrapshoot: Here we go. This packs a punch and I hope there’s more cards like this in his deck.

Absorbing Man:

Tommy: Gaining the traits of each environment in play is such a cool mechanic for a character that can mimic the composition of any surface he touches. I honestly struggle to imagine what they have in mind for him with all these environments but I’m definitely excited for it! His stat line is good for a stage 1 villain and 14 health per player is a solid number.

BananaCrapshoot: I imagine Thunderball is upset homeboy stole his weapon. I love the design here, this box is giving us scenarios We desperately need and the mechanics here are awesome so far.

Snowy Hillside:

Tommy: This card has me very excited because it looks punishing for multiple reasons and in multiple ways. I love that it gives him the ice trait as well as surges and then still, remains in play with another punishing effect. I also love that it can come into play by being a boost card. If I had to guess, I’d bet that any given scenario Absorbing Man will get plenty of traits from his environments so look out.

BananaCrapshoot: These environments are gonna hit the board. Just accept it. Interested to see what The delay counters all entail.

Omni-Morph Duplication:

Tommy: Ouch. You better hope this card is a boost card because if even just 2 of these effects go off it’s gonna hurt. If this is a sign of things to come from the rest of this set, this could be an extremely difficult encounter.

BananaCrapshoot: OMG this OMD is going to hurt. We know these environments are gonna stick so I imagine getting hit with 2/3 of these effects will be common. If this is indicative of the rest of his deck we are in for a world of hurt.

Zola:

Tommy: Heavy on the scheme, with 12 Health per player. Retaliate is an extremely annoying ability for a villain to have because it immensely devalues allies. Heroes don’t care as much but it can definitely add up over time. I’d like to see more villains with retaliate so that allies take a hit.

BananaCrapshoot: Retaliate is super annoying, good thing we have damage dealers that get around that. Otherwise nothing too exciting here besides the art which is good.

Zola’s Mutate:

Tommy: It looks like Zola is going to lean on his minions because this one is a big boy. 5 health is really tanky for a minion. The fact that he digs for a tech upgrade too is really strong and leaves me wondering how much will Zola himself be able to build up to while the players are facing down these mutates. The boost shuffling him back into the deck also signals to me that the designers want this card to have an increased chance to hit the table.

BananaCrapshoot: I feel like this deck will be similar to Mutagen Formula. Big bad minions that can put out the hurt. Mutagen is currently my favorite scenario so I’m all for that.

Red Skull:

Tommy: This is another card that has been translated, but Read Skull basically gets 1 additional ATK for each side scheme in play. Thematically I love this and from a mechanical standpoint I’m a fan too. The static 2 SCH on a stage one is also scary and the 0 ATK may allow the heroes to have a turn or 2 to really build

before his ATK stat gets out of hand, but if you can’t control his side schemes look out. The 12 health per player seems a little low for the final encounter of the campaign though. I am thrilled with Red Skull as the first big box villain for this game. It feels like a logical place to start and gives them room to expand. This guy is definitely worthy of the box title.

BananaCrapshoot: 2 SCH on stage 1 is no joke and his ability to buff his attack means there’s potential for a lot of damage output too depending on how the encounter deck is constructed. I like the design and I’m looking forward to facing off vs the box named villain. I also suspect the cosmic cube will make an appearance here.

Well, that about does it for our Rise of Red Skull preview. If you got all the way to this point we are super grateful! As always, if you are interested in more content please stay tuned here for more articles, as well as checking out The Side Scheme on FB, YouTube, Twitch, Patreon, and wherever you listen to Podcasts. I’m Tommy of Titan ominously drifting into the shadows.