Constraints of Review
I am using the prefabbed decks that come with the box to see how they handle solo play. I do not have the option to do group play by and large, so please take everything you read here with the knowledge that I have no idea how it relates to group play and probably won't for months. When I do get to do group play I'll let you know what I think then. Because I will be playing with everything out of the box, as-is, I will be doing the whole thing on Basic difficulty. I'll go through the box again on Solo Expert and will write up something for that, then.
What is This?
This is the first major expansion for Marvel Champions the Living Card Game. It includes five villains (Crossbones, Absorbing Man, Taskmaster, Zola, and Red Skull) and arranges them in a campaign format. Fight the villains in order, upgrading your deck with campaign cards. pretty simple set up, but simple can be very good. We'll see.
Last Time...
Spider-Woman and Hawkeye both did equally poorly against Zola, both losing a game before finally bringing the victory home. Zola. Is. An. Asshole.
The Red Skull
The star of the show did not disappoint, not in the slightest. Red Skull, like Zola, juggles a ton of things that eventually funnel back into a problem that you just can't help but shake your head at. First off, there's the side scheme deck, which begins with "The Red House", which blocks all damage to Red Skull while its out. Fortunately you can attack it instead of thwart it! Obviously, this then leads into the central problem of Red Skull's deck: all his side schemes are in their own deck, which then plunks out a new side scheme each turn. Red Skull's attack is equal to the number of side schemes. This gives a completely different level of complexity, as I scrambled to get rid of the side schemes as soon as I could, while dealing with the rest of the nonsense in Red Skull's deck.
The problem, of course, became that my resources were needed elsewhere. Red Skull has a ton of minions, including the Sleeper, who has Toughness and Guard and is linked to a side scheme so you know that jerk is coming back soon (the side scheme deck cycles).EDIT: The Sleeper and his related scheme are removed from the game after defeat, they don't cycle. And thank God. Thanks to TD1215 on Reddit for catching that! But the real MVP of Red Skull's deck are all the freaking toughness cards that get thrown around. Almost all the minions have toughness. Red Skull has a bunch of cards that grant toughness to himself. I think I drew them all. The sheer amount of orange being thrown around made me feel like I was in a prison cell. Fortunately Red Skull's hit points are pretty low, meaning it's possible to burst damage him if you get the chance. But you will have to earn that friggin' chance.
Spider-Woman took him out in one game and I've absolutely no clue how that happened. The campaign rules made me just completely blow through phase one of Red Skull's scheme: I was hopelessly outmatched. Or so I thought. Pheromones is a great card. But two Pheromones is the best thing ever. I was able to stall Red Skull long enough to get some better cards, turn around, and just punish him. There was a flurry of readies, piercing strikes, and venom blasts, which resulted in a very dead Red Skull. And not a moment too soon: there was an army of tough minions coming my way, which would have probably resulted in a schemed out or dead Spider-Woman.
Hawkeye had a significantly easier time, at least at first. Spider-Woman's base kit is so freaking flexible that she had made up the difference of her bad start. Hawkeye could not adapt the way Spider-Woman could, and so I found myself on the second stage before I knew it. But the issue of having to dance around multiple toughness cards in a row did not present the same issue to Hawkeye as to Spider-Woman, and that is entirely because of Vibranium Arrow and The Black Knight. Being able to just outright ignore Toughness makes The Black Knight an absolute necessity in dealing with Red Skull's nonsense. Somehow I managed to get Toughness on Red Skull three turns in a row, and each time The Black Knight knocked it off, allowing me to finally put down the menace for good.
Conclusion
The namesake of the box is a true threat, throwing around side schemes like they're rumpled up paper, hitting like a truck if you're not careful, and laughing off your feeble attacks to hurt him. The preconstructed decks are able to take him, provided you use them both to their full potential. As much as Spider-Woman's deck was hampered she managed to shine in a completely different way than Hawkeye did. It should be safe to hand this to a complete newbie and let them stumble around with it. This was an amazing ride. I can't wait to get started on the Expert side!
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