Marvel Champions is a cooperative, hand management game.

Title: Marvel Champions: The Card Game

Year Published: 2019

Designer: Michael Boggs, Nate French, Caleb Grace

Publisher: Fantasy Flight Games

Players: 1-4

Game Time: ~90 mins

Set-up Time: ~5 mins

Ages: 14+

Theme: The Marvel Universe

Mechanisms: Hand Management

How to win: Defeat the Villain before they can defeat the Heroes or complete their scheme.

Game Description

Players embody iconic heroes from the Marvel Universe as they battle to stop infamous villains from enacting their devious schemes.

Set Up, Game Play & Game End

Theme

I’m still riding high on the back of the MCU phases 1-3 and the recent UK release of Disney+ has allowed me to rewatch (almost) all of them again. I’m not a comic book fan but I do like the movies and I do love a Universe with a deep back story. Also, Infinity War is the greatest film ever made!

The theme of the goodies and baddies here does show with each unique deck. You don’t just play the cards, you play their character.

Setup & Rulebook

Setup is OK. There is a lot to do but the rulebook lays it all out like a comic with easy to follow steps so once you’ve done it a couple of times it’s easy to remember.

The actual gameplay part of the rulebook is very heavy. Lots of text and its not really in great order. I found it quite difficult to follow, even though I’d played it before.

The additional reference rulebook is handy, but that’s a lot of keywords to remember. Some make sense in context… others not so much.

Components & Artwork

The cards are nice and have that standard feel of an FFG LCG which thankfully is better quality than their board game cards. The tokens are standard and the life dials are nice, really well made.

The artwork is phenomenal, ripped from the pages of a comic book… figuratively of course.

Ease of Teaching & Accessibility

Fortunately for the game, it’s a co-op so teaching is very easy. Players have a hand of cards but there is no communication restriction so they can be played face-up if required.

This also keeps it accessible. If you have a new player you can allow them to play the fun cards they want to play rather than discard them to play the strategically ‘correct’ card. That way they have fun and they’re at least making their own choices. You can always explain some tactical things after.

Marvel Champions Summary

What do you compare this to? For other games in the theme, you have to look at Marvel Legendary. It’s another card game but a deck builder and while I do like Deck Builders, it doesn’t have the theme of Champions.

I haven’t played many LCGs, not since the original Netrunner back in the mid 90’s. I played a few once or twice but not enough to comment on.

Heroes & Villains Decks

One thing I do like about the game is that building a deck is optional. You can get the Hero cards and an aspect and just shuffle them together and you’re pretty much done. These decks are good too, not 100% optimal but they’re strong enough.

The Heroes play out really well. Each of the cards in their own deck is very thematic and when teamed up with the right aspect works particularly well.

The Villains also work well again and each plays out to their theme really well. With the Villains, you also have the ability to increase the difficulty of each one meaning you can tailor the game fo your group. No once wants to win or lose every time.

Mechanisms

The main mechanism is hand management which is one of my favourite mechanisms in a game. This is where you have a handful of cards, you want to play them all but you have to discard some to pay for the ones you do play. This is always a tough decision to make but it’s a really good one.

The Villain is going to constantly add Threat to their Scheme so you need to balance removing this with dealing damage and staying alive. This is where discarding cards to pay for other cards really comes in. It’s another balancing act which makes the whole thing even more of a headache.

Marvel Champions Ups & Downs Review

This is a short review video, part of my Ups & Downs review series.

Marvel Champions Round-Up

 This game just comes together really well and it is going to be in my Top 10 games of all time, solo or otherwise.

Rating: I give it 8/10