I can say You can't play "THink Fast" with Groot. You can't take damage if you remove tokens

Thank you so much for this video!! I really wanted to start playing marvelc but didn't know where to start. You explained it in the most simplest way

It’s helpful to see losses, so thank you for posting this. We all struggle, and we all get bad card draws. Sometimes it happens. We learn to mitigate the luck and make better choices in deck building and gameplay.

VG is tough and Advanced Glider is a killer. But nice try. Some rules notes for you. Professor X can't ready X-23 and retaliate stacks, so if VG has retaliate 1, and then the side scheme gives him retaliate 1, he then has retaliate 2.

Facing Venom Goblin in expert or heroic solo without the possibility to discard the Glider is very very very difficult. I usually don't set up the deck depending on the villain (I play the same deck vs every villain) but in situation like this (x-23 + leadership) I would make an exception playing a couple (or 3) of multitalented/hit and run (the only other option is mass attack but I don't think it is playable in your deck)

I've been playing using this video as a guide. Thanks again. I have some follow-up questions: how do I play a 2-handed SOLO game, and is there anyway to lock the camera angle?

Excellent discussion of the topic. I hadn't really thought about it in this way. There are times when I'll include a one-off card and very often be happy I did (and not sad if can't necessarily use it), but your analysis helped explain why it works out well in a game design like Marvel Champions. Thanks!

What about defensive cards for holding on to them? I.E backflip or shield block etc, how do those fit into normal counting?

I'm enjoying these little videos that go over the finer points. It was a long time of playing before I started thinking about these types of things. A related point is that if I was planning on flipping down to Alter-Ego, but I'm about to deck out and give the villain an extra encounter card, I consider whether it's riskier to get the extra encounter card in hero form or alter-ego form, often checking the encounter discard pile to see how many Advance or Assault cards are there.

After I realized that I had played very few match in heroic solo with Ironheart, today she satisfied me with 3 win on 3 vs Rhino/Klaw/Ultron...now she's ready to face heroic Ronan and Venom Goblin! In heroic solo mode I don't think Doc Strange is the strongest hero...leadership Bishop and Spider Ham actually have a better win rate. I'm thinking of making an exception for Phoenix: usually I play standard 3 in heroic solo mode, but as I said last time, Dark Phoenix is a nightmare so I switch to standard 1.

I agree with everyone saying Honey Badger is not essential to X-23 being extremely powerful, and in fact I think constructing your deck to try to maximize Honey Badger will make your decks worse on average. It’ll raise the ceiling a bit but drop the floor out. Just build focusing on X-23 herself, and sometimes you’ll get a nice bonus with HB. Also if you aren’t building towards HB, X-23 has the softest obligation in the entire game. I don’t think Honey Badger is her best card, I think Pain Tolerance is a much stronger card in general for good X-23 decks. I just don’t get thinking X-23 needs time to set up, when she’s probably the hero that is closest to her peak on turn one without putting a single card into play. She is so flexible and can handle basically any problem at any turn. I wouldn’t say she’s definitely an S-tier hero, partially because she doesn’t have access to status effects, but she’s probably the closest to that tier without breaking in. I think a big thing is she has natural resilience against a lot of negative effects encounter cards often throw at you. Status effects on her mean less because she has the action advantage to still get things done through a stun/confuse. Effects that exhaust your hero mean less, effects that force you to discard mean less because her kit is the cheapest in the game, and obviously cards like Assault are easier to mitigate. So I’d say that S-tier can be held for characters that kind of negate the game, while X-23 is probably the best at just going toe to toe with the encounter deck and face tanking her way to victory. Extra bonus points for being great in every aspect, while feeling truly different in each one as well.

Leadership X-men is one of the strongest built of the game, no matter the hero, LOL!

Is it good to have Blade, Machine Man, Wonder Man, Warlock and/or resourceful to provide an end of tirn optionto use the wasted cards? Or am I adding another layer of overcomplication?

3+ left over is usually a mixture of resources & situational cards. You can't stop it happening sometimes with some heroes who have a lot of situational cards (Magneto) but if it happens often then deck redesign is in order. You should usually discard heavily if you do end up with a lot of left overs or the situation will not improve.

Congratulations and good luck! I'm new here but thank you for your video...very very few consider the heroic mode.

I totally agree. Storm is very very strong (esp. leadership) even for heroic solo mode. Phoenix and A. Warlock are two of my personal top 10 enjoyable heroes...I play Phoenix often in heroic solo mode: she defeated a lot of strong villains but his rate of loss is very high, revealing 2 or 3 encounter cards for turn (I usually play standard 3 in heroic) means to face Dark Phoenix (the worst nemesi of the game) for sure multiple times during a match! I really like Ironheart but I admit I had played no more than 1 or 2 heroic match with her. Star Lord is controversial for me...the build I prefer is leadership but sometimes is difficult to manage his ability for the best goal: with luck you go insane...in expert he can win as you said vs the strongest villains but in heroic mode I found him very difficult to play and win, too much encounter cards...too much!

Hi! I like to play and win in heroic solo mode. I had played near 2000 expert/heroic solo match with all 55 heroes ( with 15 around 50 match each, the last 10 I like less around 15 match each). I think Angel is B+ and Cyclops is an S tier for heroic solo: x-men allies have incredibly strong sinergy, the strongest of the game, so having access to all aspect x-men is incredibly valuable. Only with Bishop and Spider Ham I had a better heroic win rate than Cyclops ( usually I play heroic solo vs the hardest 5-6 villains with the best 12-15 heroes)

Good Advice! I would clarify that Spiritual Meditation should probably be the last card draw that you use, if you have lots :), as you will have the best information on what you want to discard. Hex Bolt is another card that you want to play early in the turn to mitigate its randomness - you will know whether you need to thwart or attack etc after you see what it spins into plus it's card draw, sometimes. I do find that once I get 10+ cards in hand I tend to be more lax with the planning but that's usually the end game anyway.

Congratulations again! I’ll offer the same advice that everyone offered me when I did the same thing: please just take your time, enjoy the baby, take every opportunity you can to sleep, and we’ll still be here when you get back 😊

This series is THE strategy guide for Marvel Champions

Congratulations. TBH I'm happy if you don't put updates everyday I can't watch em all and it put a lot of pressure on me. But anyhow good luck and congratulations for you and your wife.

Congratulations! 🥳 🥳 🥳 Mazal Tov

Congratulations! And thanks for all your contributions to the community so far

Good game. I’m loving playing Magneto right now. He is very strong. One slight mistake at the end that I noticed was you forgot to surge on the Kree Physiology card. You went straight into the next encounter card which was Master Plan. The first card discarded from that was a gang up. Wouldn’t have made a difference in the end as you had plenty of blockers and plenty of damage to end it.

Why didn’t you use the white queen’s ability to remove Ronan’s tough? It is an easily missed trigger. (In turn 1, you did it near the end of the game)

How strong do you think Magneto is?

SpiderWoman might be my most overrated in that she often given High A sort of rating but I never feel in control with her. I think it is more that I just don't really enjoy her. A lot of those heroes listed do absolutely crush regular Expert scenarios (as does Miles mentioned elsewhere) so this is probably a difficulty thing. X23 is the one I think is most likely to be over the edge - presumably why she is only number 5. She is really strong & fast in leadership sidekick & the speed helps avoid the obligation & Leadership can mitigate it. The first time I played Cyclops I felt pretty much the same as you. The second time he was way more effective, especially supporting another hero in 2 player. (by each time I mean session of a few games). You failed to point out that the best X men allies are basic anyway further undermining his schtick :) I haven't played Ms M for ages but she was pretty solid back then, again as a flipper given time to set up, which is quite smooth with her 1 cost eco cards. She does need to flip which is a very fun part of the game you seem to be denying yourself. I find Angel & SPDR a bit dull & haven't played them a ton/ SPDR is certainly way better than I would expect a 3 hand size character to be but she can still stall a bit.

Ironheart was someone that surprised me too. My very first game with her I was hooked and besides Drax she’s definitely in my top 3 favorite heroes. My rankings move around a bit so it’s hard to nail down specifics, but Drax, Ironheart, Ms Marvel, Captain Marvel, and X-23 are all in my favorites to play top ten.

Now that we have the full X-cycle, Cyclops deck-building power doesn't feel as strong as it did at the end of the Mutant Genesis wave. Today we have so many basic X-men and Children of the Atom giving similar strength to other X- heroes. That said, your adjustment of him and the other heroes doesn't make a lot of sense without defining what you are thinking about for different tier levels. From my play experience, Leadership with Cyclops can be built to defeat any scenario on expert difficulty over 95% of the time. Hard for me to agree that he's slipped as much as power creep may have just helped other approach his ceiling.

It's true. All of these heroes are worse thank Hawkeye. mid-tier at best

as a person who LOVES playing Cyclops, and he is my favorite hero, I agree with your assessment of him and how he plays. Honestly I tend to run about 5-6 allies in my Leadership deck for him, primarily focusing on Pixie and just recycling the allies I need, when I need them, otherwise He himself mostly thwarts. I will say I got majority of my use of "Optic Blast" when I made him an aggression deck, specifically after Magik's release. I will also admit that I ran him through the core box with the aggression build, and retooled the deck after for Gambit for much greater success.

Currently, my most overrated Hero is Spider-Woman. I tend to make a LOT of decks with her because she's so fun to deck build, but I rarely field her at the table...hoping to change that soon. I love her cards and her build possibilities. She's just become more of a mini-game of trying cool card interactions though. Because of that, I think her actual effectiveness is lower at maybe a B-tier, because it's too easy to chase after some neat interactions/combos.

I think it's a very good list! I think the community has a tendency to overrate these middle-of-the-pack heroes because they identify (correctly) that they can beat many expert scenarios, even the game's hardest. However, this is not really a differentiating factor as almost every hero in the game can consistently win on expert in the hands of a good deckbuilder and player. Only when you really stress test these heroes can you separate the best of the best from the great from the good. On some specific heroes you mention - I think Cyclops gets people to play more allies. Turns out, allies are very good! And most decks people play would likely improve with a few more allies. If you look at Cyclops's actual cards and not just the very strong ally-heavy decks people usually play with him, you can see he is a middle-tier hero. I massively agree with SP//dr as well. I think she is the quintessential case of a hero that feels extremely powerful once set up but can struggle to get there against hard scenarios that pressure the early turns. Still, not a D-tier hero by any means, but I'm always surprised when people rank her with the best in the game.

>>Incoming Wall of Text>> X-23 - I agree with this. I never thought she was S. I think there was just a lot of residual hype around the interaction of Honeybadger and Side-by-Side. Angel - He is one of my favorites. He just feels so good at the table. I love flexible heroes and Angel is where it's at. He's got a little of everything and when you can trigger both Angel of Life and Angel of Death in the same turn, it just feels so good. I don't consider him as strong as Strange, but I play lots of multi-player and his potential and flexibility are just unrivaled. He keeps getting better the more Aerial heroes and events that come out, so I keep going back to him. He's one of my go-to Justice multiplayer picks. He's probably A+ ranking for me, so right on target where you see him, which I think is awesome for the different lenses of solo play vs multiplayer. Ms. Marvel - I see her more as B+ to a solid A. For me, it's not so much about her recursion of events, or the downside of all those supports in Alter-Ego, but more about Embiggen and Shrink. In multi-player these upgrades are just bonkers and combo so well with many newer cards. Shrinking an Even the Odds in a 4p game feels amazing when there are several side schemes out. Even the simple Shrink + Multitasking turns it into a 4 + 4 threat removal for a two effective resources. Shrink with the newer Three Steps Ahead is just bonkers as well if you wanted to build around that. Of course, in solo you don't need so much threat removal typically and she'll come off feeling very weak. SP//dr - I agree with your overall rank. She takes some time to get set up, similar to Iron Man. But I also think she can come swinging out of the gate which Iron Man can't do as easily. She has several copies of All Systems Go to grab her interfaces which get you to the juicy bits and she's got the HP and base stat line to handle board control out of the gate. Cyclops - I'm not sure I ever played him solo, but that makes sense. The way I value Cyclops though is more about his ability to combine X-Men from different aspects with non X-men cards from another aspect. Simple things like Dust with Leadership Skill or Med Team, or Boot Camp with a suite of cheap leadership X-Men that wouldn't be possible otherwise. When he first came out, I never expected so many basic X-Men, so this isn't as strong as it used to be, and he definitely shines more in multi-player. Though, I have seen some decks that focus solely on firing Full Blast as many times as possible through recursion of Phoenix. I will note that there are more opportunities for upgrades to get attached to villains these days as well, especially in multi-player, so it makes Optic Blast a bit better.

X-23 is my fave hero but I agree she isnt S, A/A+ is the right assessment. S is reserved for the gamebreakers (Cable, Ham, Strange, Bishop). Ghost Spider is overrated I've seen her as high as A, no hero gets shut off more by a drawing exhaustion than her B- or C for me.

I soooo agree with your number 3! I honestly haven’t played any of the others. So, if you rank her as overrated…I might have to look into your other rankings and comments. Like you, I don’t seem to click with her. She’s not enjoyable to play most of the time. And I am not a power gamer. So on the fun factor side of things, we still might have a lot in common.

Captain America. His AE ability is just a worse / clunkier version of extra resources / draw most of the time, and his cards lack cohesion. They're strong, of course, and so is his hero ability, but often times he just feels like diet (not weaker) Spider-Man with better basic stats. It's all so bland is my biggest gripe.

This was really good! You always make your points so well and so clearly Any kind of power ranking always hits me weird because I care so so little about it, I just really try to enjoy every hero the way they’re meant to be enjoyed. Which sometimes means I have to play them in standard or against villains that aren’t quite so harsh for them. But I don’t mind that at all, and the fact I quite like it because I get the most enjoyment out of every hero that I can. So when I listen to power rankings I just have to constantly remind myself that my perspective on the game is pretty different I guess 😀

Very interesting list! I think for cyclops it’s less about being able to find 10 good allies, and more about the fact that he could take the 10 best allies in a leadership act with uncanny X-Men and to me my X-Men. Those cards are so strong and he can make them work with the very best allies