Marvel Champions: The Card Game

As far as we are concerned, card games have always had an important charm. Fantasy Flight Games has managed to snatch an important partnership with Marvel to produce a deep and interesting cooperative: Marvel Champions. 

Today we are going to review Marvel Champions, a card game where players can play the role of their favorite superheroes, facing different scenarios to thwart the evil plans of the most dangerous villains of all time.

For those who don’t know what a Living Card Game or LCG is, we’ll explain it . This type of card game involves purchases of basic sets and expansions with an already predetermined card content.

Without spending infinite amounts of money, players can have all the cards they need in one package. It seems like the possibilities of building decks are limited, they aren’t. Each player with equal cards  will be able to build his deck. Thanks to Marvel, FFG had the opportunity to create splendid materials and illustrations of the highest level. 

Marvel Champions is a structured game that involves each player in different scenarios and several levels of difficulty. Players are able to choose to rely on prefabricated and preset decks or give free rein to imagination.

The game’s story focuses on thwarting the evil plans of Marvel villains, such as Ultron, Klaw, and Rhino, and each player (1-4) will choose a main hero from the proposed set and build (or use the preset deck) a gavel to deal with threats. 

The initial heroes we will have available are Iron Man, Captain Marvel, Spider-Man, Black Panther, and She-Hulk. Each of these characters has a well-thought-out card with different features and different abilities to use at will throughout the games. 

Each scenario involves a supervillain to deal with so players will be able to choose a superhero to play alternating with the alter ego form, both with different abilities to be exploited as needed during the game. 

As mentioned, each hero has a specific card consisting of a hero side and an alter-ego side, which affects the size of your hand, the cards you can play, and how enemies will act. 

The deck of a hero can consist of 15 unique cards. In the rules, there are suggestions on how to create each hero’s deck, but once each player becomes familiar with the title, they can choose any card from a set of aspects and any basic card as long as it does not exceed 40-50 cards.

Each hero also has an Obligation card that goes to the villain’s encounter deck and a set of nemesis cards that can enter the game at some point if a card is drawn from the encounter deck.

Each villain will have his or her advanced mode, which will pressure players by gradually increasing the threat chips in the plot, changing shape, and making the villain increasingly fearful and complicated to contain. 

This is a very well-structured dynamic because players will have to think and act quickly to implement a winning and effective strategy.

To cope with the rise of villains, superheroes will be endowed with innate abilities and features tailored to each beloved character. The game will flow through the various phases quite easily, players will be able to face and fight the enemy only when they use the role of the superhero, while the part of the alter-ego will leave room for the advance of the enemy. 

Players in civilian clothing will not oppose the advance of the enemy’s secret plan but will be able to take action to improve the hero’s equipment. Therefore, it will be an important part of managing the two forms very carefully, so as not to be late for the appointment to save the world.

During their turn, each player will be able to display cards of various types, activating powers or abilities to progress in the plot. However, each card will have a fee (written at the top left), which will be paid by discarding other cards from your hand. Playing a high-impact card will soon lead to emptying the hand and leaving us open (play your game). 

The player in each turn will also be able to access the ability of the hero or his alter ego, perform actions of opposing cards, try to make the most of the event cards, and weaken the opponent and his band.

All hero cards are composed of three main stats: Intelligence, Attack, and Defense. Each character in the game will have different features, each designed for the character that distinguishes the hero. 

According to these features, some heroes are more likely to take damage from opponents, others to reduce enemy lines, and those with more intelligence can slow the progress of the enemy plot by removing threats.

Once the turn of the active player is over, we move on to the turn of the villain, which can be summarized in three simple steps: plot, attack, and study. In the Plot phase, the shifty rascal adds threats to the Plot card. 

In the Attack phase, it inflicts a direct attack on each player, while in the last phase it forces you to reveal a Match card to all players. With this last move, they can reach enemies, upgrades, other minions, negative effects for players that slow down their progress or can "summon" the nemesis of superheroes.

The title of Fantasy Flight Games is really fun, not just because we can "play" our favorite Marvel superheroes in a board game, but because three levels of difficulty guarantee a high degree of attention and rejuvenation of the three scenarios of the base set. 

Marvel Champions is a truly complete game, which does everything you need excellently: structured, with a high degree of customization, dynamic, fun, and then there are the heroes of Marvel.

The graphic part plays a prominent role, as each card has been made taking the style of the famous comics, with canonical illustrations of the most famous cartoonists of all time. 

To top it off, the game can also be bought by those who don’t particularly love the deck building part, as with each expansion we find preset decks that can be used safely and that don’t harm the fun, always. ensuring a high degree of competition. 

Among the "positive" features, it should be remembered that being an LCG, when buying all expansions, you will always have everything, absolutely everything, you need all at once.