Board Gaming Review: Marvel Champions LCG

"With great power, there must also come great responsibility."

–Stan Lee, Amazing Fantasy #15

Marvel Champions: The Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games is a cooperative card game in which you play as Marvel superheroes who are attempting to thwart villains’ evil schemes. Embody iconic heroes from the Marvel Universe as you battle to stop infamous villains from enacting their devious schemes. Play as Iron Man and team up with Black Panther to stop Rhino from rampaging through the streets of New York. Have Captain Marvel and Spider-Man battle Ultron as he threatens global annihilation!

The game is designed by Nate French, Michael Boggs and Caleb Grace and is the third cooperative Living Card Game (LCG) that Fantasy Flight has released following The Lord of the Rings: The Card Game and Arkham Horror: The Card Game, which means that new content will be released for it every month. As per the standard LCG format, there are no 'blind-buy purchasing packs' - meaning that all the content; from the base core box to add-on Hero and Villain packs to deluxe expansions; are the same. No more randomness, you get exactly what you paid for. Variance comes in customized deck construction and how you play and from my first run through of the core game, this game is absolutely fantastic!

Core Box Components:

Cards and a LOT of them. The core box contains over 350 cards, 100 tokens, hit dial tokens and, in true Fantasy Flight style, the two rulebook format - one Learn To Play book that has you setup and ready to rumble within minutes and a second, more detailed rules reference book for when you really need it. The Core box comes with 5 Heroes: Spiderman, Iron Man, Black Panther, Captain Marvel and She Hulk and, like with the 'sphering' aspect in the Lord of the Rings LCG, Marvel Champions allows you to customize your decks & style of play according to four different 'aspects' - Leadership, Aggression, Protection & Justice.

My only gripe (and I'm entitled to gripe) is the lack of a player mat which would have been oh so sweet. You can purchase these separately from FF though - - Oh how the commercial engine churns!

Setup:

Off the bat, you can play with the two pre-constructed decks of Captain Marvel and Spiderman and play through the very first scenario against the Rhino to get a feel for the game. From there on, you're pretty much spoiled for choice in terms of building and customizing your deck for your selected Hero. You do need to build a deck for one aspect and your deck has to have a few must-include cards such as the 'Affairs Of State' obligation card for Black Panther. Each Hero also has a set of treachery cards unique to that Hero that gets included when facing off against a particular Villain scenario/ scheme. 

Each Hero card has two sides - Your Hero side as well as your Alter-Ego side and each has its own set of advantages and strategies for knowing how and when to play. Hero cards are of five types: Events which are played and resolved immediately, Upgrades which enhance your Hero's skills and abilities, Supports, Resource and Allies.

Aside from the Villain cards and Schemes cards, villains also have Treachery and Minion cards at their disposal to aid them in achieving their goals and fulfilling their schemes.

How it plays:

Your mission is to basically prevent the villain from scheming and reaching their nefarious targets (normally world domination, robbing a bank or, in the case of Klaw, searching for his long lost uncle Hook...just kidding).

To do this, Your will swap alter-ego and hero forms, which are represented by double-sided Hero cards. Knowing when to do this is part of the fun. With Iron Man, its a slow burn - you want to keep Tony Stark in play for as long as you can, building up your armor with upgrades and enhancements before finally stepping into the Iron Man role to bring on the pain! As Spiderman, you might want to duck into an alley and quickly jump back into Peter Parker mode so that you can have some downtime to amp up resources and heal before web-slinging back in to kick Rhino in the face.

This game is positively booming with theme. Each Hero in the core box feels and plays differently and, by varying that Hero's deck aspect, you have even more permutations on how to play your Hero. Iron Man in aggression mode? You bet! Captain Marvel for leadership? Why not! The villain scenarios are also highly thematic and ties in flawlessly with how you would imagine that villain acting out in an actual comic book or movie.

Marvel Champions is extremely easy to get into. After just one round, my newbie brother was ready to take on Klaw and Ultron while running around shouting Wakanda Forever! at everything and everyone that moved. Difficulty can also be readily adjusted. If you want tougher or tougherer, then just shuffle in the expert villain cards into the encounter decks and you're good to go!

Overall:

Marvel Champions is a fantastic cooperative card game. As a huge Marvel fan, I'm super excited at the ever-expanding card pool and cannot wait to add a few more expansions to my list. From Captain America to Thor, Doctor Strange, Antman, The Hulk, Scarlet Witch and even Venom - the sheer volume of available Heroes is really great. And with the deluxe expansions and Villain Scenarios, this LCG is fast moving up my list to become my new favorite. I'm almost giddy - like being back in the 90s and opening up a back of Fleer Ultra Marvel Masterpieces - only this time, you get to actually PLAY with your heroes and yes, you're even allowed to shout "Avengers, Assemble!" during battle.

For being able to bring a quick to learn, easy to play, fun and thematic card game, Marvel Champions scores:

Components: 8
Setup: 8
Gameplay: 9
Replayability: 8
Theme: 8
Overall Score: 8