Marvel Champions Final Thoughts

hey everybody filed last time for marble champions the card game I'm in love I am so in love with this game in the biggest baddest way and full disclosure right up front I am a lifelong Marvel fan when I was a little kid in the 70s and you know every quarter I could put together was to go down to the local 7-eleven and get you know whatever comics they had on île those little spinning comic book viral and just devoured and read it over and over again when I went into high school and I actually had a part-time job all my money went to comics I had first edition Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles first edition Watchmen Dark Knight all of it and I mean I sold those for a pretty penny when I went off to college let me tell you but I make my Marvel my whole life and I am so in love with this game in large part because this is a love song to this subject matter the designers Nate French Michael Boggs and Caleb Grace oh my gosh here's what they did that I appreciate so much as a Marvel fan that is so rarely done when you know Marvel superheroes are brought over into gaming formats they respect the Canon they do not do like what know those Capcom's vs. Street Fighter games do where every character is equally balanced again every other character and um you know so Captain America take down the Hulk if he wanted to which is patently impossible uh-hum you know by just punching him over and over again and kicking him that's ridiculous but this game pays attention to the source material um you know she-hulk starts with 15 hit points as opposed to Peters to spider-man's 10 that's appropriate she-hulk heals incredibly fast but spider-man heals pretty quick too um you know you know their base powers you know a Hulk entering the you know we just you imagine her jumping you know from half you know down Manhattan and slamming down and just knocking everybody out before she even starts attacking she's doing damage you know Peter spider-sense every time he gets a tide you get to draw a card and that could be the thing that saves you because in the comics spider-sense works sometimes and other times it doesn't but ah everything about this game he's just the matically perfect the verisimilitude the way that these designers have brought to life these characters and all their abilities with just a very pared back and simple collection of mechanisms is jaw-droppingly astonishing to me I'm a formative I was a video game designer for 20 years and I am in awe of what these guys have been able to do now um I know this actually borrows a lot of the core structure of another game that Nate French was involved with the Lord of the Rings living card game and if you ever watched my video for that you know we love that one too but another thing that Marvel champions I so appreciate is this game could have been completely drowning in Byzantine special-case little rules and tons of different statuses that characters can get in and you know key words that could conflict with other keywords and mix-and-match they could have done that and certainly most games of this ilk do go down that road they opted not to they were very reserved much more pared back and when effects do come in that have like big game-changing effects you know they put them on cards where you can be reminded of what all this particulars are they always remind you of what surge or what anything does so this game is so much more silky smooth and playable then Arkham Horror the living card game or you know Lord of the Rings living card game or other card games of this ilk I think in part that was probably a directive they are working under because I'm you know the higher-ups realized just how big a deal this could be how wide reaching this could go beyond just hardcore game geeks I mean anybody who loves the MCU and who doesn't love the MCU if you don't love the MCU what is wrong with you um sorry I'm sure I'm sure you have your reasons but yo there is such a huge groundswell of support for these characters there's so much love out there that they had to you'll limit themselves and not give in to their designer II desires to just drown us in Byzantine rules and bylaws and all of that now that's not to say there aren't some little things they'll catch you up and oh wait how does this interfere interact with this I don't know if I can quite find it in what is largely a very good example of the the final fantasy once you punch up hey we'll teach you the rules just everything you need to go get going and then you can look up stuff here in this encyclopedia this works pretty well but there occasion you'll find a few things here and there but what I found is if I ever wasn't understand certain how it would work I would just say how would it work in the comics and I would just keep going and then I'd look it up afterwards and yep the way it works in the comics is the way it works here and so I've never really been too terribly caught up or stuck in you know all the masa Nations that these games can put you through you know because they all are heir apparent to imagine the gathering which when you go down into the deep end oh it can just get insane that way lies madness but not in Marvel champions it's smooth its elegant it's really simple this is one of the best player aids 2-sided really nicely done the heroes and the villains it reminds you of all the key important stuff something a lot of player aides fail at in part they can do it because all the important stuff is pretty easy - there's not that much stuff it's clean it's simple and yet every time you play you are gonna feel like a comic book story lays out and another thing I love so much about this game the thing that makes this game I have to me right now folks I am waffling back and forth is this my game of the year or is Black Angel my game of the year this game is that good I won't know until December after I play them both a little bit more but this is so amazing why more than anything else I've said the design decision to have alter egos and heroic egos being able to switch back and forth between these strategically is the icing on the narrative cake this game and it is designed so every time you play the heroes the heroes always do have the upper hand right up front I mean they get to do more because we'd start with a hero phase instead of the villain so it's like they almost get a free turn before they have to start worrying about being tapped and not being able to do stuff and so they start off strong and the villain seems you know it seems impossible but inevitably as the game goes on I'm you know crazy unexpected twists will come out that feel like the unexpected twist from a comic book I got oh my gosh titania is here or I've got to pay my rent or whatever it might be these things that meant that what has always been special about Marvel characters compared you know what Stanley and and the rest of his cohorts you know Jack Kirby and Steve Ditko and all the rest of them what they pioneered was these were not stories about the superheroes these were stories about the regular heroes and this game brings that to life and um turns into such a cool dynamic arc that a game will always go through you come in hitting hard things are amazing that villains don't seem to have a chance but oh my gosh wow that really set us back we got it we got to leave remains we are leaving and we go back into our day jobs we lick our wounds we try to find out what's going on and then that's when the villains use that opportunity when we're not on the battlefield to pursue their Jen and get closer but we can call it allies we can use shield you know we're members of the Avengers were members of the defenders we have our deck is full of cards that we can use when we're fighting but it is also more interesting the cards that are in our deck that we use in our day-to-day life having Aunt May save Peter after he's been completely obliterated by RINO that feels perfect and as a Marvel fan I I said it right up front I'm in love I have nothing bad to say about this game this game is sheer perfection everything works even my wife who does not have the same deeply ingrained love I mean she likes Marvel characters who doesn't like spider-man you know and all the rest of it but her response is after he played this a few times is hey this is drek though she said if we were normal people we would totally go down the rabbit hole on this game she's sucked in because again it has the perfect design of complexity to bring the theme to life but without drowning the game in it so that you can spend more time just focused on what do I got in my hand what am I gonna do how am I gonna survive until tomorrow how am I gonna stop this crazy scheme never mind the fact it's a minor thing um the reason I showed RINO today which is the first of a three mission campaign structure there's a little story there is an actual story for why rhino is attacking the shield base and you will discover it as you go through a little three chapter thing and I love that they didn't have to do that there's no campaign structure here but there is a nice little narrative that again feels like a multi story arc that would crossover between the pages of Amazing Spiderman savage she-hulk or whatever it might be and again as a lifelong comic book fan I love it now so if you're a lifelong comic a fan particularly a Marvel fan I mean you have to seek it out it's perfection if you don't care about them how is it as a game well like I said it is still really really good and even Jen who could care less well maybe it helps because she's playing with me and while we're playing this I am constantly singing the theme songs to all those old sixties Marvel cartoons you know doc Bruce Banner belted my gamma rays turn to do the Hulk and he unglamorous you know and all the rest oh my god The Hulk I was kind of hoping he would come out there's one reason I wanted to show you know perfection of interesting gameplay tied to theme let's see he's in the aggression Disney yeah of course yes of course Hulk is in the aggression deck um this card he's got five hit points the toughest of all the minions he attacks for three he can't Swart at all of course he can't um and what does he do after he attacks you draw a card so there's a randomizer that means you know he might do more damage to the enemy might hit them or he might hurt everybody because they Park the Hulk is a force of nature he hurt himself and everybody else or he just might bound away and leave long before he was worn out because you just I mean again you can oh man perfect sorry I know I I'm trying to put my Marvel hat I take my hat off and just focus on the game it's sharp it's clean it's action-packed and dramatic and every game is gonna play out differently not the least of which is because of all the variety of how you can set up the villain deck or the encounters deck and your hero decks there's a lot of you know you can you could lean into to to learn more and play more and explore more it also works great solo I have played a game once solo but I've really much more enjoy playing of a gen because you know wow this particular entry didn't come out much making those choices of okay oh don't worry Spidey I'll jump in and save you those brave heroic moments that players get to feel again that's pure comic-book drama at its best and I love it but it is a good solo game I have heard that it's a bit more swingy because it's clearly designed as a multiplayer game person it just works well solo but people are it's solo just you have to know it's a quick game if you play by yourself and and you know the cards just could completely go against you where's things seem to be smoothed out and people can make up for weaknesses you know if Spidey goes by himself and he doesn't have a way to deal with warding he's gonna have a tough time making it cuz he's just not a well-balanced character so how do you build his deck to overcome that I don't know I couldn't imagine losing myself in solo with this quite a bit as well um but if there were any problems to have one is I haven't experienced it I've only played this solo and two-player but I've met to believe as a four-player game everything scales up everything becomes 4x the bad guys have four times the number of hit points and four times the amount of progress has to be made on the things so the game gets a four player game will last you twice as long as a two-player game and I have heard some people who have played that long it may be overstays its welcome I don't know I suspect that's not really an issue if players get to know the game but I can't speak to that with any certainty I know Jen and I we played this a few times now and we've gotten it down to where as a two-player game it's about a 45-minute game and that feels about right so but we're pretty good and we're pretty quick with it so I would imagine an hour and a half doesn't seem unreasonable but I've heard people say oh my god it was a two or three hour game I suspect those were probably learning games and but again that's something I've heard complain about um as much as I laud this game for being so good about being so upfront with all of the rules as reminders that you need and there's only occasionally do you have to come back and say oh wait what's the timing on this little special thing hopefully I can find it in the nice alphabetized index here in the back one thing that drives me nuts though and I'm constant forgetting I forgot it in the run-through but I remember doing the extended the fact that every time one of your allies helps out they take damage that's fine the matically makes perfect sense if they go off and sneak into the bad guys lair to find out what the scheme is they're biola thwarting more stuff not a reasonable they took some damage on the way out but it's just really easy to forget cuz it's a very tiny little icon and I just forget it all the time another easy thing to forget having to do with allies you're limited to no more than three and if you've got a deck that is very Ally heavy well that gives you a lot of interesting stuff to juggle but only if you remember that you only have three slots so there's a couple little things that maybe could have stood I mean I don't know what I mean if these little hit markers were bigger so they be they pop out more because they're just easy to forget amongst the gorgeous you know action-packed comic book panel I don't know I'm I am just grasping at straws to find stuff to complain about for us the length is perfect the depth and complexity of all the inner playing mechanisms the opportunities to feel clever and smart and come up with wait I've got an idea I got a leave oh I've got a plan and y'all you know that stuff is wonderful and if you're a Marvel fan like I said yeah how can you not love this game because it's it is obvious to me that the developers did their homework they did not just say oh in the name of game balance everybody has to be equally balanced everybody is you know just kind of a carbon copy these characters all feel unique Iron Man plays radically differently than Black Panther then a Jennifer Walters I mean Jennifer Walters she's just that Yoshi's the tank you think she's the simplest but you know they've worked in the old the nature of um yo strength fueled powering up the more damage she takes the more damage she does that's awesome eventually presumably I mean right now Hulk is just an ally but presumably he will eventually make it into the game and what will they do with that the fact that switching back and forth to your alter-ego in the case of a Hulk player that's not something you can necessarily do voluntarily that the potential every comic book Marvel character villain you could think of you can come up with interesting ways using this design sandbox to come up with cool unique playing characters and I cannot wait see more as I understand it next up is Captain America how will throwing his shield work obviously it's gonna be an upgrade that he has to recover does it take a while for it to bounce back is it something that goes in the discard pile you can get back out of the discard pile oh yeah I can imagine a Miss Marvel is coming Green Goblin the Wrecking Crew oh man it is a good time to be a Marvel fan with Marvel champions on the shelves folks and yeah that's it that is my run through again I love it and thank you very much for watching have a very nice day talk to you later so long

Channel: Rahdo

Views: 22,053

Rating: 4.9516406 out of 5

Keywords: board game, boardgames, baordgames, baordgame, radho, baord games, baord game, board games, rahdo, game, rhado, boardgame

Id: zjDwDL2pwnw

Length: 15min 40sec (940 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 08 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/philequal]

I really couldn’t agree more. FFG have done a fantastic job with this game: fun, engaging, thematic. I’m really looking forward to seeing how the gameplay evolves with more hero/villain packs.

[u/Xonim]

Ugh I feel like I have to be missing something with this game. I've played a demo plus 4 full games (2x 2p and 2x solo) and I just didn't like it. But EVERYONE else seems to love it. I know different games for different people and all, but I'm half tempted to buy it again just to give it another go.

[u/largelylegit]

My wife likes Marvel Legendary, and likes deckbuilders like Dominion too, but historically she draws the line at CCG/LCG games, primarily due to the amount of text on the cards.

I wonder if the Marvel theme could hook her into this... interesting game.

[u/fortracyhyde]

Easy GOTY of 2019. But the core set will leave u wanting more. Luckily the Green Goblin, Captain America and Ms Marvel is coming out soon

[u/zamoose]

I’m a Marvel fan who did a lot of mid-90’s reading. How likely is it that we’ll see content packs that introduce some more obscure characters — Darkhawk, Sleepwalker, New Warriors, etc.?

[u/Ninja_Badger_RSA]

I have two questions:

• I love Aeon's End (currently one of my fav games). I know AE is a deckbuilder, while Marvel Champions is played with pre-constructed decks. But with both games using the turn-based AI deck containing minions, life counters, etc., are they different enough to own both?
• If I'm not necessarily a Marvel "super fan", but do like the superheroes, will I still find a lot of enjoyment in this as some of the superfans do? I love what I've read of how thematic the card mechanics are. But basically I just want to make sure the game doesn't get all the praise strictly due to the Marvel theme alone.

[u/keysespleases]

How much deck building in involved in this game? I really wanted to like LotR and Arkham Horror LCGs, but I just can’t get into spending time outside of the game trying to put the ideal deck together. I much prefer a “ready to go” out of the box type game. Thanks in advance!

[u/nakedmeeple]

I collected comics, mostly Marvel, when I was a kid. I'm just a bit younger than Richard I think, but I had a huge collection of stuff starting from the mid 80's into the mid 90's. A game that respectfully honors that legacy of superheroes would be a welcome thing. Though I'm not a big fan of the LCG format, or the concept of crafting decks, his enthusiasm has gentle tipped this onto my radar. I'll wait and see how people feel about it in another 6 months.

[u/zz_x_zz]

Can't wait to try this game. I was always sort of interested in the Arkham Horror LCG but by the time I really tuned I was so far behind and packs were out of print that it just didn't seem worth it.

Looking forward to actually getting in on the ground floor for once.