Rank the Legendary Deckbuilders

Seems there's a ton of them out there. It also seems they're all based on some IP. Are there no original titles in this line?

At any rate, would anyone care to rank the various titles? Maybe it's tough as some IPs are favored over others, but generally how do the mechanics of the various games match their IP and compare against one another?

It’s definitely going to be hard for folks to separate favorite IP from best mechanics. The heart of the appeal of these are seeing how familiar characters, settings, and overall atmospheres and themes are abstracted into simple card effects and tweaks made to the core rules to accommodate the IP. It also doesn’t help that these games look. AWFUL with the exception of Buffy. There are no original games in the line and that’s for the better.

It’s also worth noting that there are actually two lines here, the regular Legendary and the Legendary Encounters. Encounters are more interesting mechanically but the original line is more pure which some people prefer.

Ranking them on mechanics ALONE:
1. Alien (NAILS the IP. It’s lethal and I love how getting an egg could result in a chestburter entering your deck will very likely kill you)
2. Firefly (this is also the ugliest one but is the biggest departure from the formula, incorporating some light RPG elements without resorting to a campaign)
3. Marvel (I rank this above Buffy only because there is more of it and the abstraction of iconic characters and their powers is impressive)
4. Buffy (Simple addition of the light/dark track is great, really did a good job handling the duality of many of the characters on the show)
5. Predator (Has a VS mode which is pretty cool)
6. Big Trouble (also a horrifically bad looking game. Laziest design in the line)

There’s also X-Files, but I haven’t played that because I dislike the IP.

Alien > the rest.

They all have completely shit art.

I’ve been intrigued by the Encounters variants in Alien and Predator but have only ever played the Marvel line. It’s a game I’ve always wanted to like more than I have. The problem, I think, is that deck builders that naturally allow unlimited buy, draw and card play just devolve into buying the best-numbered card with some small consideration for trait/faction synergy and thus bore me.

Regarding the art, the fans did it to themselves. The base set had only a single piece of art per hero, not card type. Some were a little dumb, but there were some more than serviceable pieces like Iron Man and Spider-Man. This may have caused some gameplay confusion as the different hero cards were only differentiated by the amount of border color, but fans demanded different art for each hero.

We were so wrong. The publisher didn’t up the art budget in relation, and you get garbage like the Fantastic 4 set with Invisible Woman’s spiky fingers and Mr. Fantastic art where he’s barely visible.

This series is why I am firmly pro photo stills. That may not have an option with Marvel, but the potential for bad art in board games is simply too great. Photo stills, when accompanied with good graphic design, completely avoids bad art and looks really good. Look at anything GF9 does or the Buffy set, which they did so some embellishment with the graphic design. I’m not saying the graphic design from either source is great, but it’s fine and the game’s are hideously unbearable to look at as a result. Plus, stills piss off the BGG crowd so it must be the right thing to do.

Which reminds me, I hate the icons in the Legendary games. They suggest nothing and should have been abandoned a long time ago.

Counterpoint: The Spider-Man: Homecoming expansion.

boardgamegeek.com/image/3794800/legendary-spider-man-homecoming

What am I saying? Upper Deck’s art would have been worse.

Ha ha! That’s awesome. Some UDE intern just grabbed like random screenshots...either that or they have a thing against Jon Favreau and intentionally picked the most shlubby ones.

I've only played Marvel Legendary and the Alien version of Legendary: Encounters.

Regular-ass Legendary is okay, but ultimately pretty boring. I ended up trading away my stuff and don't regret it.

Legendary: Encounters is one of my very favorite co-op games. It is absolutely leagues better than the original. At some point I really wanna try the Predator / Firefly versions.

I've only played Marvel - And it was was so non-plussed by it, I haven't had an interest in trying any of the others - I have lots of quibbles about the competetive co-op nature of it and the heroes being abstracted into suits, but my major beef is what I consider to be the fatal flaw in a deckbuilding game : I want to be able to play the engine that I've constructed, not just cycle through my deck three times and see the cards I've purchased once, maybe twice. I assume that the other games were of similar length and style and would be equally distateful to me.



/I avoid Clank! for the same reasons

That’s by far less of a problem in Clank! Because there’s another layer of gameplay, you can hit a point where you ignore the deckbuilding and there’s still something to do. Part of the game is knowing when to cut yourself off from buying new cards and use what you’ve got to get out. Adding more only slows you down. El Dorado does this as well. Seriously, man, don’t neglect those two games, they’re a ton of fun.

1. MARVEL. I LOVE this game. Love the game play and I adore the way the different cards capture the abilities and the personalities of the Marvel characters through rule mechanics. This one is so much fun, and still makes me laugh sometimes. All the complaining about the art is a bit overboard. Yeah it would have been great to have actual comic art, but for the MOST part the art is "fine" and certainly far from the worst out there. I DO wish the tiny icons were a bit easier to see, bit I've gotten used to that.

2. BUFFY. Nailed it again. I love the Light and Dark aspect that they added, and once again they do a great job capturing the characters.

3. ALL THE REST. None of the other games did it for me. I would have loved to enjoy FIREFLY, ALIEN and even BIG TROUBLE but somehow these just were not fun for me.

You are DEAD WRONG about the art Al.

Michael Barnes wrote: You are DEAD WRONG about the art Al.

I think you’re both wrong and right, so there.

The base game is borderline unforgivable. It’s bad enough that they used one piece of art for each hero’s card, but that one piece is so lackluster. With how many years of great, iconic art to pull from? Yeah, they shouldn’t have been let off the hook for that. It got better with expansions with step backs here and there (like FF).

But Marvel is far from the worst. Alien, Firefly and Big Trouble are utterly HORRIBLE.

Yeah, I know there is some unforgivable stuff. I remember the Daredevil art in particular being just atrocious. And maybe I AM thinking about the expansion sets, where the art is more varied and less. . .terrible. But seriously, there are many games out there that have art that is much worse.

In the end though, we are just going to have to accept that I may not know much about art, but I know what I like.

I think the hobby needs to hurry up and admit that none of this is about the art and stop damning/praising games for art. It’s clear that the majority of gamers dont know shit about it and if they did, they’d still throw money by the bucketload at games for a myriad of different reasons. Nothing would change.