Marvel Champions: How to Pair the Aspects In Multiplayer!

[@styfen]

HUGE video here, there's just not enough team based content for MC out there. So many solo plays and games with decks that are basically two solo decks sitting alongside each other. More please, I'd love a whole series of X hero and Y hero partnership builds.

[@VillainTheory]

Noted! I plan to do one video already, probably after the next one in this series, about matching heroes up at a broad level. But I could easily dedicate a video to certain pairings - that would be really fun. Wish I had infinite time to make videos. So many cool ideas. Will see if I can find the time!

[@TheVlad1616]

I don’t play 3 handed, but triple leadership, with Cyclops, Capt America, and Star Lord seems like a cool team.

[@VillainTheory]

I think it's fun! I wonder if a video on thematic or interesting team-ups would be interesting?

[@bfrederick39]

@@VillainTheory Please!

[@VillainTheory]

Do you guys have a favourite pairing of aspects or heroes? Let me know!

[@EvanSnowWolf]

MatPat: "Of course that's just a theory... a VILLAIN THEORY!"

[@VillainTheory]

MatPat announces his retirement from Game Theory right when I start making videos again. Coincidence? Am I in fact MatPat? Has anyone ever seen us in the same room together...? _But that's just a theory...a KZbinR THEORY. Thanks for watching!_

[@markzsombor6059]

Playing 2 player I agree with your breakdown, all the combos work but A+P can really struggle with threat and needs to be accounted for. The only combo you don't talk much about is J+P, which I find works pretty well. They do lack damage some, but with all your loss conditions accounted for you can generally afford to be slow on your win condition. My favorite 2 player-same aspect playthrough I ever say was Dale the Casual Gamer playing Drax and Groot both as protection, where Groot existed to support Drax who was able to do disgusting things because of it. That said it works because Drax-P is an aggression character in disguise.

[@VillainTheory]

I was a little conflicted on Justice + Protection. We actually play that fairly often here, but it will generally be on high damage heroes to account for that because otherwise the games can drag on. And some of the nastier villains will, if you give them enough time, pull some random doom combo thanks to Surge... Drax and Groot in Protection sounds super fun. 100% agreed, readying a lot in Protection on a high ATK character is really just Green Aggression. And sooo fun. I've been playing a lot of that style of deck with X-23 lately.

[@forrest3491]

You have a really high quality that you hold yourself to. It’s very helpful in making what you’re talking about seem more professional. Great content and great quality. Thank you for the videos!

[@VillainTheory]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@Ddwlf27]

A&J are my favorite 2p combo. I love tempo, just come out of the gate swinging, and aim the end the game by turn 6 or so. In 4p, 2x Justice is really powerful - like one will use confuse/float and the other big thwart. 2x Justice, Leadership, and Aggressive Protection is my most common group these days.

[@VillainTheory]

A & J is probably my favourite combo too. The only "problem" is that I want to be the one playing Aggression all the time in that combo

[@blackdaz3]

I don't playmultiplayer but i found the video really informative.. well done, as always. can't wait for the hero - aspect- grading, that really sounds awesome and really work intense on your part thanks !

[@VillainTheory]

Glad you enjoyed!

[@thelutherbob]

This! I didnt realize how much I wanted this video!

[@VillainTheory]

Thanks! I enjoyed making it 😁

[@noprobllama9747]

This is so interesting, makes me want to look for more players to do four player games.

[@VillainTheory]

I think it's fun! It adds a different dynamic to the game.

[@marianogabrielsapere1144]

Love your insight, VT! Can't wait for that next video you're cooking. Greetings from Argentina.

[@VillainTheory]

Awesome! Thank you!

[@Grognard-Solo-Gaming]

This was great, but the next video sounds REALLY interesting! Looking forward to that. I have made my own villain decks, and Josh from Get up and Game asked me to show them, so I made videos for him. The decks are nothing special, but as a super fan of the game maybe you’d find it fun to see.

[@VillainTheory]

Nice! I hope the next video can live up to the hype! Cool videos too! I skimmed through a couple and love Red Hulk especially. Don't have the time to watch them fully right now (busy week!) but I'll try and return to them some time

[@korhankaya6637]

I think with some of the new protection counterattack cards which came out with the Nightcrawler pack, it might have changed things up a bit for multi-player games.

[@saintmatthew956]

Great video. I play mostly multiplayer with a friend, and I am building both decks. It's amazing how much I've learned in the process. I do think Protection can be decent at threat removal (Hard to Ignore, Not Today, Bait & Switch, Jump Flip).

[@VillainTheory]

Agreed, it does have some decent thwarting these days, mainly since Sinister Motives onwards though Hard to Ignore is sooo good. I guess my big problem with it is it's still a tricky when a side scheme comes out with 6-7 threat. It can't respond to that quite like Justice or Leadership typically can.

[@fandabidozi3191]

I need the meme of VT with the board and all the red lines connecting how these play out. 😁

[@VillainTheory]

Haha! I feel like we need more memes in general

[@ColaTheLodger]

I've been running a two handed Next Evolution campaign with Cable (your Justice deck, Mr Theory) as well as the 50 card Leadership Cyclops deck and its probably the most fun I've had playing two handed. This may age poorly as next is Juggernaut

[@VillainTheory]

That's awesome, happy to hear it! I think those decks will do fairly well against Juggernaut but Juggernaut is one of those villains that, if unprepared, will destroy you out of nowhere... Good luck!

[@ghostsage6421]

Best way to play is random heroes random aspects. forces you into weird non optimized pairings that lets you explore different strategies

[@VillainTheory]

That's a really fun way to do it!

[@OresteGamba]

Very useful video! Thank you! For example: struggling a bit with a justice / protection duo... in fact is not advised by you... Anyway, I suppose it depends form the heroes: I tried Gambit justice / Rogue protection and Scarlet justice / Vision protection (no precon decks) and I had hard times with Mutant Genesis and Shadow of the Mad Titan. But I supposte that if I use Cap America justice and Dr Strange protection will works perfectly. Hoping to see a video about thematic teams.

[@VillainTheory]

Justice and Protection can be okay, I prefer it to Aggression and Protection, but it's still a slightly flawed pairing you have to work harder to make work. If you do want to try it, X-23 Protection with cards like Leading Blow, What Doesn't Kill You and/or Repurpose goes really well with most Justice decks, so that would be my suggestion - it's basically Green Aggression and one of my favourite decks to play right now!

[@OresteGamba]

@@VillainTheory Yes, probably my decks were sub optimal. Thank you so much for the tips! X-23 is a very pleaceful surprise as hero.

[@R8C2]

I rarely play multiplayer but keen to get others to the table to give it more of a go. Are there any villains that you think particularly excel in multiplayer in terms of fun (outside of Kang, who a lot of people seem to rate)? Great video as always. The next one you have planned sounds bananas. Looking forward to it!

[@VillainTheory]

Oh, great question! That could be a fantastic video in itself. But let's see - I think Red Skull, Collector II Escape the Museum, Mysterio, all the Mojo Mania villains and Stryfe are elevated in multiplayer. They have things interacting at different levels in different ways with different people.

[@R8C2]

@@VillainTheory Been thinking it’s time I give Mysterious another go as well. Spiral and Magog are two of my favourite villains. Thank you for the tips!

[@ddookhar]

I know this is an Aspect based discussion and you did touch on it a bit but for 3/4 player i think "role"-based team building is a better approach than aspect-based team building. For example, proection quicksilver can put out Thw and dmg to incredibly similar numbers to a purely justice or aggression QS. Or agression vision can do almost as much thw as justice vision. Ultimately, if a player says they're covering threat removal and another is covering damage they should focus on how best to get their output vs which aspect traditionally focuses on that style.

[@VillainTheory]

While I agree that role-based is better, I skewed the video toward aspects as I think it's much easier for a broader audience to understand. However, when it comes to Justice and threat removal, I don't think anything competes with it. Largely in general, but specifically with those few cards which duplicate threat removal or scale in efficiency at player count! It's just too good. Taking Quicksilver for example, I don't think Protection has anything that comes close to him running Heroic Intuition, Making and Entrance, and Overwatch. Repurpose is probably closest and it can do a ton of bursty thwarting, but isn't reliable turn-to-turn. And if we're talking 3-4 player, Even the Odds just doesn't have any competition - especially in the modern era with player side schemes, no matter who is running it for the most part. Vision Aggression without it is going to pale significantly to a Vision Justice with it. And modern Vision decks with Heroic Intuition + Surveillance Specialist (from Specialized Training) absolutely loves Reboot and Justice Served, Aggression also can't compete with that build at all in my opinion.

[@ddookhar]

@@VillainTheory I agree with your points...to an extent. At standard 1 sure. but at stand 2 + expert or higher there is so much disruption that highly specialized builds can get shutdown very easily leaving a team very vulnerable. In my experience honestly, the entire board needs to output decent Thw & Dmg consistently because if your role specialist gets shutdown by surge flooding then the team doesn't suffer as much. But thats more advanced team building than the target of this video. I just tend to build decks that accommodate the highest tier difficulty I can manage even if i will end up playing at a lower difficulty.

[@Gakoth]

Amazing video, bro! I'll consider it to start playing Two Handed, cause I'm losing interest on True Solo, some heroes can't shine by themselves and I really want to play them. I'll work on Rocket (A) + Groot (J). Wish me luck!

[@VillainTheory]

Good luck! Great team! Don't forget their team-up card, it does a lot of work. If you can keep Groot topped up on counters you should get results!

[@DeannaGilbert616]

For two handed this feels a lot like blood types. Leadership is O-negative, and Protection is AB-positive.

[@VillainTheory]

Haha, I guess it does!

[@jonathanpickles2946]

You do touch on this but I'd say any two decks that are good solo will work together in 2 player regardless of aspect. No idea about 3+ as the threat on x/player side schemes scales quite a bit and I never play 3+. Using dedicated MP decks should let you specialise which will be better in aggregate - using Aggression's situational threat removal and Justice's situational damage is not so effective as using their powerful on brand cards. I mostly play 2 handed to use a hero or deck idea that will not work solo, this is typically Aggression with either Justice or Leadership to cover the thwarting weakness. The double weakness of Protection that you mention is the reason it took so very long for the aspect to be really viable in solo play, even so I feel it's best with some "gimmicky" heroes or the very versatile ones. Still it's now my favourite aspect.

[@VillainTheory]

Basically agreed on all counts! Protection is a strange one for me. I absolutely love readying Protection in all its forms but I'm not keen on traditional exhaust to defend decks aside from a few heroes with special synergy like Ghost-Spider.

[@jonathanpickles2946]

@@VillainTheory I thought I quite like the defending decks but on review the ones I like either have gimmicks like Gwen or Shadowcat or have readies like X23 Quicksilver and Venom (who has Multigun which is ~a ready was well as Run n Gun). I did play Groot perfect defence but I found it really dull! So I guess I am not keen on them either! edit: I didn't like Gwen much either now I think - I found her far more entertaining it aggression.

[@VillainTheory]

@@jonathanpickles2946 Yeah! Quicksilver was the first hero I truly liked Protection on.

[@robertkimball6625]

Wonderful content! Thankyou sooooo much. My only criticism is that your exhuberance is very evident but you NEED to SLOWWWWWWW DOWN! The content comes through like a bullet train makingit hard to digest. just my two cents.

[@VillainTheory]

Thanks for the feedback! I'll keep it in mind. I don't recall my exact thoughts when recording this but I do often worry if I don't go fast people will click away - or the video lengths will get too crazy.