Marvel Champions

There's some really cool stuff in the Sinister Motives cards I looked through. Goblin Gear is a way meaner version of Goblin Gimmicks... Advanced Glider says "after the attached villain activates against you it activates again (limit once per phase)" and you have to discard attack cards with a total cost of 3+ to get rid of it... Nasty stuff. Love it. Slotting that into Mutagen Formula instead of Goblin Gimmicks is gonna be fun.

I started the Sinister Motives campaign, going with a 3-hero team of Spider-man/leadership and the untuned Ghost-Spider and Miles Morales decks that came with the campaign. First up was Sandman, and he posed an interesting challenge. All of his attack damage is indirect damage, so chump blocking less effective. To make matters worse, if a hero takes any damage during an attack by Sandman, that triggers an environment card that makes Sandman discard cards. You can weaken the environment card by diverting your attacks to it, but Sandman has cards that recharge the card. All this means that Sandman burns through his deck faster than a normal villain, which means more acceleration tokens as the game goes on.

The three spider heroes played very differently. Regular Spider-man did well with a leadership deck because it wasn't strictly focused on chump blocking. He had cards that allowed him to tap allies to boost his own attacks or thwarts, plus Last Stand to throw away an ally on one last good attack instead of the usual sacrificial chumping. Ghost-Spider is highly defensive, and can even stockpile extra events (defenses in this case). On the down side, sometimes Ghost-Spider used so many cards on defense that her following turn was a dead turn with no cards. Miles took a little while to build up his SHIELD organization, but once it got rolling, it was a powerful thwarting machine. Miles is also good for stunning and confusing the bad guys.

By the end, regular Spider-man was pretty banged up, but the other two heroes were in good shape when they took Sandman down. We got a reputation score (new mechanic for this campaign) of 4, based on scoring two victory cards, and defeating the villain without losing a hero or having any side schemes still in play. That reputation score earned each hero a SHIELD tech card, but the next villain will get an Osborn tech card in his deck. Miles got tech that gives him a permanent upgrade of +1 THW. He can only thwart the main scheme, but he is allowed to disregard the crisis (!) icon on side schemes. Spider-man's tech card gives him +2 hit points and the ability to reduce damage he takes for one turn. Ghost-Spider's tech gives her +1 ATK and the potential to stun an enemy.

Peeking ahead at the other cards, it seems that an effort was made to make this campaign feel like it's taking place in a city. Most of the scenarios use environment or even scheme cards to represent locations within the city, as well as related tactical considerations.

Continued the Sinister Motives campaign yesterday, going up against Venom. Like Sandman, Venom poses an interesting challenge due to a twist. With Sandman, it was the indirect damage plus his environment card that often triggered him to discard and race through his deck. Venom's big deal is that whenever a card you control damages him, you get a facedown boost card on your identity. The next time Venom activates, he gets your facedown boost card(s) in addition to his normal boost card. So, for example, if your hero tapped to hit Venom for a basic ATK, plus hit him with an attack event, and had an ally tap to attack Venom, you would get three facedown boost cards on your identity. The next time Venom activates against you (either attack or scheme) he would get a total of four boost cards added to his basic ATK.

So ideally you don't want to hit Venom a lot, you want to only hit him with big attacks. And then there is the other twist in this scenario, which is the Bell Tower environment. Venom is vulnerable to loud noises, so you want to get those bells ringing. Any time you would damage Venom, you can choose to instead apply the damage to put chime tokens on the bell tower. Once you have 3/hero chime tokens on the bell tower, it flips over and gives you +1 damage every time you damage Venom. And then all of Venom's damage is used to reduce chime tokens until zero, which flips the bell tower back over. One more nasty trick is a treachery card that lets Venom attack you when you are in alter ego form. The card forces you to flip over into hero form and get attacked, and that could be terrible timing if you went to alter ego to heal.

Chump blocking works well enough against Venom, except that he sometimes gets a temporary attachment that gives him overkill. And his Osborn tech attachment also gave him overkill. Since I was still playing Ghost-Spider and the two Spider-men, I could sometimes shut down the villain for a turn by webbing him up and stunning him. Ghost-Spider has good access to defense cards, and the original Spider-man has his Backflips. Near the end of the game, I stopped worrying about the boost cards and just went all-out against Venom. It was a very close call, because if Ghost-Spider hadn't drawn and played Return the Favor, each of my heroes had from 3 to 5 facedown boost cards to face on Venom's next activation. I don't even like to play Return the Favor, except that it has been the game-ending attack two games in a row now.

This game increased our team reputation to 7. That gives the next villain (Mysterio) +3 threat tokens on the main scheme at the start of the game, but it also gives each of my heroes 2 mulligans instead of one at the start of the game. I tend to forget about the mulligan rule unless I am playing Iron Man, but mulligan is great and 2 mulligans is fantastic. We also gained Venom as an ally. He compares favorably to the Odin ally from the MTS campaign. So far, this feels like the easiest campaign (I don't have GMW, but it has a nasty reputation), but the last two scenarios could be tough.

Leadership Miles with Meditation + Make The Call + Rapid Response + Web of Time and Space + Enter the Spiderverse and the Web Warrior allies is really fun and really really powerful.

Ah_Pook wrote: Leadership Miles with Meditation + Make The Call + Rapid Response + Web of Time and Space + Enter the Spiderverse and the Web Warrior allies is really fun and really really powerful.

That sounds great. I'll probably run that with Miles. Going to run prot Gwen. But first, old school Justice Spidey solo on Standard.

Last night I went to bed with an expected delivery of today by 7. I felt it was bit dubious as tracking hadn't updated since Wednesday. I went to work hopeful that I would be sleeving cards this evening. Thankfully, some dude in Spokane scanned the package around noon, so that I knew to move my expectations, and the bottle of bourbon barrel aged stout, til Wednesday.

All of the reviews of the scenarios have me super stoked...... I even sat through the last 30 minutes of Spiderman 3.

Over the weekend I proxied a Symbiote Suit and ran it with Star Lord. It is disgusting. Try it out if you like cheesiness like Dr. Strange and Cosmo. Venom-Lord was broke.

I haven't found much use for Meditation so far, but Miles has Double Life that let's him ready and change form which makes it pretty good. I also wasn't sold on the Web Warrior ally suite until I noticed that Web of Life and Death doesn't exhaust, and when you have ways to cheat then into play repeatedly it gets ridic.

I need to play around with the Symbiote Suit, the potential for some heroes with that is crazy. I want to try Symbiote Hulk and Symbiote Drax.

Edit: I'm still not really sold on the SHIELD stuff yet, but we'll see. There's potential there at least. If nothing else Agent 13 opens up some fun stuff with heroes that have SHIELD locations.

When I finally tuned all my decks recently, I put one Meditation in Black Widow's deck, because she can get a lot done while staying in alter ego. And I put two Meditations in She-Hulk's deck, because she has incentives to keep switching forms, and Meditation can help compensate for her small hand size in hero form.

Ah_Pook wrote: Edit: I'm still not really sold on the SHIELD stuff yet, but we'll see. There's potential there at least. If nothing else Agent 13 opens up some fun stuff with heroes that have SHIELD locations.

I haven't made any changes to either hero deck from Sinister Motives, but the default SHIELD build for Miles is strong. Each Government Liaison can be tapped to bring out a SHIELD card for -1 cost, and there are three in the deck. They all count as SHIELD cards, so they are convenient for tapping when you play either Homeland Intervention or Global Logistics. Sky Destroyer can tap to deal 2 damage when you play a SHIELD card. Monica Chang brings out a free Surveillance Team. Dum Dum Dugan is an expensive ally, but has THW/ATK of 3/3, and you can keep him alive longer with Field Agent. Agent 13 can untap one your SHIELD supports, which is especially good for Sky Destroyer. Spider-Woman is the only SHIELD card that doesn't have much synergy with the rest of the SHIELD cards, but she qualifies for the Liaison discount and can tap for Homeland Intervention or Global Logistics. Just a little bit of deck building could make the SHIELD package even better, adding basic cards like Helicarrier or Nick Fury or Mockingbird. The War Machine ally is also a basic SHIELD card.

Sandman: good villain. Either does indirect damage or overkill depending on his stage, so he makes chump blocking tricky. Also he burns through the encounter deck really fast, so it's a race vs his acceleration tokens. Just a fun solid scenario.

Venom: send like another take on the Risky Business double sided thing with the bell tower. Every time you damage him he gives you a face down boost card, so taking hits from him gets spooky fast. Plus he has ways to get overkill and even force you to change from Alter Ego to Hero so he can attack you. Another good solid scenario.

Onward to Mysterio tomorrow. I'm just playing these standalone atm, since I didn't want to mess around with the campaign rules. I'll go back through with a friend of mine in the campaign later. Also my Ghost Spider deck needs some work. I've got her in Aggression but she's seeming prone to bad draws and awkward turns.

I'm halfway through Mysterio right now. He is harder than expected, because he has ways to move cards from his deck to hero decks. This makes his deck go faster, and when his cards get drawn or discarded from a hero deck, they enter play as face-down encounter cards. One turn, Miles got hit with six face-down encounter cards. Two turns later, the same happened to Ghost-Spider. Mysterio schemes hard, and one of his cards can bring out your nemesis' side scheme. Another card can bring out your nemesis and give him/her an extra hit point. So we got the Lizard and also the Lizard and Prowler side schemes. Then Shadow of the Past brought in the rest of the Prowler cards

Venom is a powerful ally, except that he has that bonus card symbol, so we were getting an extra encounter card each turn. Then we got Fool's Paradise, which is crazy:

https://hallofheroeshome.files.wordpress.com/2022/03/4-10.jpg?w=2000&h=

Fools Paradise is such a fun card! There's lots of awesome stuff in Mysterio's scenario, which I just finished. I think its another absolute banger. Stuffing nasty stuff into your deck, turning your allies against you with paranoia, summoning stuff out of your Nemesis set... Just tons of really fun and creative ideas in there.

So far, Sinister Motives seems to be the best MC campaign yet. Then again, I felt the same way about Mad Titan's Shadow until I ran smack into a wall of Loki. Hopefully the designers exercised some restraint with the Venom Goblin scenario.

Sp//Dr just got announced

www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2022/4/21/sync-and-swing/

Interesting stuff, but a hand size of 4/3 is BRUTAL, no matter how many resources you're generating outside of it. There's basically a Hulk specific support card in there which is cool. M curious to see how she plays out.

Assuming that there will be 3 copies of Unshakeable in that Sp//DR set, I am definitely putting one each in my Hulk and Thor decks.

That hand size of 4/3 will make for a slow, rough start for the Sp//DR deck, but it may end being just fine by mid-game, depending on the prevalence of cards that can be tapped for a resource. I'm usually only playing 2 or maybe 3 cards per turn with a normal deck, using the rest of my hand plus supports to pay for those cards.

The are a ton of resource generating cards in there, but drawing 3 is going to hurt your options yknow. Like sure you can play all 3 but if they're not relevant to the situation at hand...