Written by Herohodgson
Thanks largely to an Amazon error, fans of the Marvel Champions game got a chance to purchase the Quicksilver Hero Pack last week with next day prime delivery. Whatever or however this happened, as people spread the news on Reddit and other forums it was clear that such an error wouldn’t stay around long, and soon enough Amazon stopped selling the product with next day delivery shipping as an option. The release date for Quicksilver is now unclear along with that of the Wasp and Scarlet Witch, yet it begs the question are these characters also sitting on the shelves in warehouses across the globe?
Either way I was one of the fortunate ones to get an order through before the error was noticed, and whilst the deck-list itself has already been spoiled I thought I’d share my musings on my first few play tests with the character
Looking at Pietro Maximoff himself his stats don’t really stand out too much. The 6/5 hand size is bang on what we’d expect as average now and his 9 HP is in line with other characters on the low spectrum. His alter-ego action is a great way to cycle through your deck towards the cards you want to hit, and as we’ve seen with other draw heavy characters, like Captain Marvel and Doctor Strange, this definitely adds to the flexibility of his card. It’s his super hero ability “Super Speed”, however, that makes the character unique.
First of all its important to remember that Super Speed is limited to once per phase rather than once per round. So you essentially get a free DEFEND in the villain phase and ready yourself going back into the hero phase to then get activated twice in that as well (You can of course DEFEND twice if you fancy helping out a friend in need within the villain phase). This gives Quicksilver the chance to be the best protection hero the game has seen so far as he negates the massively hampering loss of activation in the hero phase that comes with defending.
Clearly Quicksilver players need to make their decks as selfish as they can – meaning, ramp Quicksilver’s stats as high as possible to maximize the resets you can get off. Thankfully his own character deck has some tools to help out here, particularly with his “Always be Running” one cost event to ready himself.
Maximum Velocity is the card most of you will want to see, boosting Quicksilver straight away to a 3,3,3 basic stats character for the round. For this 2 cost event to work however, you should make sure you’re going to still be able to get 2 or 3 activations in the round to make it as cost effective as some of the big attack or thwart events that are out there. However, Accelerated Reflex, Hyper Perception and Reinforced Sinew at least stick around as upgrades. Combine these with the standard +1 upgrades we see in each of the aspects card pools (Combat Training, Heroic Intuition, and Armored Vest) and you can soon see how Quicksilver’s stats get out of control. Getting 3 or 4 activations out of a hero with 5 ATK or 5 THW becomes a real possibility if you get your setup right.
There are no huge events in his card list that will deal a lot of damage in one go such as Hulk Smash or Photonic Blast, but that’s the point with this deck – you’re not hitting the villain with big smashes, but rather a punch here, speed back around, a kick there, before sprinting back to hit him again… Its all insanely fun. The only downside will come from other players when they realize you have a higher basic attack than their Hulk or Thor. But if character comparison is purely what you’re wanting, then I suggest picking up a ‘Top Trumps’ deck instead, as Marvel Champions has never quite mastered this.
If you’re going to run protection either straight out the box or for the defensive activations I’ve mentioned, then I would certainly consider some of the below upgrades to maximize the free hit you will enjoy;
These three will really help turn the villain phase from the old ‘oh man, what’s coming next’ routine to something you will actively enjoy playing within. If you do decide to defend multiple times in one round it will also certainly help your popularity around the table in multiplayer too (and who doesn’t love that).
Also, a big shoutout to Marvel Champions for the design of Multiple Man, giving the protection player even more characters to sacrifice for the cause. Just make sure that if you plan on playing Multiple Man, that you don’t use one of them as a resource early on, as the search text on the card doesn’t go as far as checking your discard pile – only your hand and deck. Protection definitely feels like it has the weakest suite of allies, so to see a card as unique as him within it is great.
To summarize, I have so far played Quicksilver in three aspects (out of the box protection and both an upgrade heavy Justice and Aggression build), and I still can’t decide which he’s best in. I can legitimately see people having protection games with him, taking zero damage throughout, as well as lightening quick aggression builds (if you’ll pardon the pun) that will hit the villain for a middling amount of damage repeatedly. Or, you can be the player in a multiplayer game who rolls up their sleeves and says “Don’t worry – I got this” when the main scheme is just about to complete and you go off and thwart for 10-15 threat in one go to buy the team another couple of rounds. Whilst he’s not quite in that Captain America/Doctor Strange tier of godliness, its certainly clear that Quicksilver is one of the best characters we have seen so far for his flexibility and fun.
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