Written by Squigglydiagram
Introduction
Hello all and thank you for checking out my first article for Marvel Champions: The Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games.
With the increased popularity of the game, we’re seeing plenty of expansions coming out within the next few months such as Quicksilver, Scarlet Witch, Wasp and my most anticipated one, Galaxy’s Most Wanted! I’ve always had interest into that part of the Marvel Universe. I would of preferred if Star Lord and maybe Gamora would have been released with the box, but I’m not going to complaining about our favorite tech savvy racoon and his one liner sidekick!
What We Know So Far
Let’s jump right into it. I’ve been waiting since the release of the game for a campaign mode. The Rise of Red Skull was our first campaign but I feel this one is going in a entirely different direction. Like the other LCGs FFG has put out that are cooperative, I feel a campaign mode adds more to the game. Now, there’s no real comparison to let’s say Arkham Horror where it’s more story driven as normal humans to Marvel Champions where you’re superpowered beings trying to beat up some bad guys.
Let’s talk about what we know about what’s in the box itself. So far, we know it comes with 2 new heroes and five new villains that we can play in campaign or as standalones. We have two The Collectors, Ronan, Drang and Nebula. We don’t know too much on each of the villains but here’s what we do know about them.
We know a little of his side one which has a Scheme of 2, attack of 1, 13 hit points per player. His effect states ‘Forced response: When a card (player or encounter) would be put into a discard pile from, put that card underneath The Grand Collection.’ This a very unique yet devastating effect as the main scheme states when this scheme has 5 cards underneath per player, the players lose the game. That’s huge! A very badly timed caught off guard could get make or break a game with some heroes needing those special tech or weapons to get them really going. Did I also note, that you could lose those cards permanently?! Never fret, the game is not that punishing. The main scheme does allow us to get them back by a hero action. Either discarding two resources or we exhaust our hero to put a card back from the collection to the owners discard pile. This will make players think extra hard on how their turns go while dealing with threat, annoying minions, the villain itself, and now an alternative way to lose. I really can’t wait to play him!
He’s a little lack luster from what we can see. He has an attack of 2, scheme of 1 with an ability that reads ‘Forced Response: After Drang schemes, resolve the Badoon Ships ‘Charge up’ ability. The Badoon ships ability for Charge up is to place one barrage counter on it. After four are placed on it, remove all four and deal 2 indirect damage to each player. The only thing I can see being annoying is, it’s not just hero form, but also alter-ego. But as it stands, we only have one way of putting counters on it, which is from Drang himself. Hopefully we see other cards in his main set that adds more barrage counters.
The moment you’ve all been waiting for, our heroes! Lets see what they do and bring to the table.
Our aggressive, fluffy gadgeteer. I’m personally going to enjoy him more than Groot since I’m a sucker for drawing cards. Rocket on his alter-ego side has a recovery of 3, hand size of 6, hit points of 9, the genius, and outlaw trait with the ability ‘Tinkering: Choose and discard one tech upgrade you control – Draw two cards (Limit once per round). Now that is awesome. If we have some tech we no longer need on the board, we ditch it and get two fresh cards which could help us out in a pinch. Now his hero side. He has a thwart of 2, attack of 1 and defense of 1, with a hand size of 5 respectively. Rocket has a response on this side called ‘Murdered you!-‘ After you deal excess damage to an enemy, draw a card. This is a lot better in my eyes than his tinkering ability since it’s not limited to just once per turn. We see plenty of aggression cards with the ‘overkill’ keyword and can see Rocket’s hand size of five easily to 7-8 a turn consistently.
As for the few player cards we see with Racoon, we can assume a good majority will be tech upgrades due to his nature . First we have Particle Cannon, it’s a tech/weapon upgrade that costs 3 resources. It is restricted and comes in with two counters on it. We can exhaust it as a hero action (attack) to remove one counter from it and deal four damage to an enemy, while the attack gains overkill and ranged. We’ll go back to this in a moment. Next we have Rocket Launcher. It has the same traits, resource cost and restricted as Particle Cannon but with the effect, Hero action: Exhaust Rocket Launcher, remove a counter off of this card and choose a player, deal 2 damage to the villain and each minion engaged with them. I really like this card due to it’s not an attack so it can get around guard, so we can get rid of the villain if they were on their last leg. Now for the final card shown, Reload. A very simple event card that costs 1 with a hero action: Ready each tech upgrade you control. This can make for some cheeky plays with Rocket’s hero ability to draw cards every time you do excess damage. I am hoping to see 3 of those in the deck!
The one liner treeman himself. On his alter-ego side, he has a recovery of 4, the outlaw trait, a hand size of six, and 10 hit points respectively. His ability, Growth Spurt allows us to put two growth counters on Groot (up to a maximum of ten), once per turn by this effect. Now, it looks like nothing special without seeing the other cards, so let’s just move on right to his hero side. He has a hand size of 5, the guardian trait, with a scheme of 1, attack of 2, and defense of 3. Ironically, most heroes who have a static six on their basic stats generally tend to be the better heroes or more played (from my experience at least). His ability on his hero side Flora Colossus which is a forced response ‘When Groot would take any amount of damage, remove that many growth counters off Groot. For each counter removed, reduce the damage dealt by one.’ That effect sounds insanely powerful, especially if we pair Groot up with Protection, so we can keep our precious counters to use his player cards to their full ability. For his first card, we have Root Stomp ,which is a event card that costs 2 resources with the attack and superpower traits. It reads, Hero attack (attack) Deal five damage to an enemy. If this attack defeats an enemy, place 1 growth counter on Groot. Maximum of ten. This will be great since if we do start losing counters, we have a way of getting them back without having to flip to his alter-ego side. His second card we have been shown is a event card called I. AM. GROOT! which is also a attack superpower with a 2 resource cost with the ability Hero action (attack) Deal damage to an enemy equal to the number of growth counters on Groot. This can be a damage card for only two, so let’s see if we will get more cards that pump out counters to utilize the full benefit of this card.
Conclusion
Well, there you have it. I did not go over every single card that was spoiled but a very good chunk of them. I hope you enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing it. Until next time!
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