Hello Marvel and gaming fans alike! My name is Tommy of Titan and I have the privilege of being the cohost of the Marvel Champions podcast The Side Scheme. Today in this article I wanted to talk all about the newly previewed hero Doctor Strange! Mostly because I’m psyched out of my ever-loving nerdy little mind! We will be going over the officially previewed cards as well as some of the “unofficially” spoiled cards. I know, cheeky right?
Let’s start with Stephen Strange. Hand size of 6 and HP of 10 is fairly standard in this game so far. Mystic trait, very nice. Oh, what’s this Invocation deck thing? Well, it’s a 5-card side deck that according to the “spoiled” rules insert always has the top card face up. Steve (I know probably getting too comfortable calling him Steve, but I feel a real connection here) also has the ability to cycle the top card to reveal a new one best suiting the situation.
Now let’s look at how to utilize this deck. Moving right along to the good Doctor now we see an average stat line with a 2 THW, 1 ATK, and a 2 DEF, along with the Avengers trait His ability “Spell Mastery” is an action that will allow you to play the top card of the Invocation deck at the cost of exhausting Dr. Strange. Keep in mind you still need to pay the card’s price. Two things of note right away here are that the Invocation cards are all designated as special, not the typical attack, thwart, or defense typings. One thing that this means is that a stunned or confused status will never prevent you from playing these cards. The other great thing about this ability is that it is simply an action. This means that your teammates will have the ability to request you utilize your Invocations at any time during their turns as well. This is interesting because it seems to take the place of tapping Dr. Strange to use his stats which is something that has historically been limited to you being able to do on your turn.
So, we’ve gone over how the Invocation deck works and that’s great and all but, what’s in the thing? Well to this point we only know 3 of the cards and boy are they potent. These 3 cards offer so much value for their cost. Crimson Bands of Cyttorak at 7 damage for 2 resources and a stun is so far above the curve it’s crazy. Just compare it to Swinging Web Kick. The ability to tap Dr S. to draw 3 for free with Winds of Watoomb is insane. Lastly, and admittedly the most situational of the 3, is Vapors of Valtorr giving you the ability to change a status card to a different status for free which is so thematic for a sorcerer and powerful in game. I can’t wait to see what the other cards can do. If I had to guess I would bet that one did some splash damage to help deal with hordes of minions and the other would deal with threat in some way. This would cover all your bases extraordinarily well. It will be interesting to see how this character plays out with this extremely powerful set of cards. With all the Invocations it’s also going to be important to consider that because they don’t come from your hand, their cost doesn’t include discarding themselves from your hand unlike every other card we’ve currently seen. I’m curious to see how limiting it will be to have limited access to this deck each round.
Ok, that covers the character and the Invocation deck well. Let’s move on to what we’ve seen of his 15-card set. Astral Projection is an event that looks strong enough to belong in the Invocation deck. 2 cost to remove 3 threat is already in the wheel house of appropriate value. Add on top of that the bonus threat removal of the number of boost icons from the top card of the encounter deck and it is great value. Not to mention that you now know how much the first boost card the villain will draw against the team is going to add. Let’s not forget that the set of 15 could include multiple copies of this bad boy.
Next up we have Master of the Mystic Arts. A 1 cost event that allows you to interact with the Invocation deck by playing the top card. So happy to see them lean into this new mechanic. Again, this is a card that we could have more than 1 of in his set and I really hope we do get 2 or 3 of it.
Whew, I got it all off my chest and can now attempt to get some rest before work tomorrow. Thank you so much for ingesting this content and if you’d like to see more the Side Scheme will continue to put out articles as well as podcasts and streams. Give us a like on Facebook, YouTube and Twitch if you’d like to see more.
-Tommy of Titan