Review Detail

another user said the following:

"I didn't like Ascension for deck building, but Legendary works despite being the same game mechanically. However, Legendary's synergies occur in multitude, as you would want from a card game like this. Hero skills and team affiliations trigger combos, and heroes (unsurprisingly) combo fantastically with themselves, making it very easy to build functional decks. Legendary also hits it out of the park for diversity: the sheer number of heroes, masterminds, villains, henchmen, and evil schemes that can be mixed together in absurd variety make for fairly fresh gameplay each time. Finally, the comic book theme shines through: the characters are incredibly clear, to the point that sometimes I'm buying heroes just because I like them, rather than if they work well in what I'm building. Good game."

This is very nearly my opinion exactly. I've played many deckbuilders by now, of various types and pedigree. ultimately deckbuilding works best as a part of a larger game, and pure deckbuilders are limited by being a "deckbuilder". Still, there's a lot of fun to be had in this one, which is why it stays and around and I keep expanding it.

Legendary "Encounters" games are technically better games. they have more depth to their 'schemes' and more cooperation. but the crazy combinations are why I play deckbuilders, and Marvel Legendary blows all the "encounters" games out of the water. I have played Encounters - Firefly, Predator, Alien.

Is a large thematic disconnect due to different players buying different cards from a the same hero...yup there is. but if you can overlook that, all the different heroes and combos can make for a fun little puzzle each turn.

Most deckbuilders have an issue where there isn't enough variety in the base set, and they really require 1 or 2 expansions to really take off. Marvel Legendary has this, with the base set having a decent set of characters, limited/weak villains and relying too much on the semi-coop aspect. Later expansions make the villains much harder and bring in some fun abilities. This is disappointing, as I have a hard time recommending base legendary to anyone, as I think it needs at least Dark City to be a decent game. and the more difficult villains are really needed to move Legendary above the "deck plays itself" style of deckbuilder.

The art in the base game is limited, with the same image on each of a hero's card. at this point I don't think there will ever be a 2nd edition with new art, but it sticks out when you use the base heroes.

Saying that, Legendary has done a good job of avoiding power creep, with most of the base heroes still plenty powerful enough to be used right along side new heroes.