Images courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games

We are only one week away from the North American release of the new Marvel Champions heroes: Black Panther and Silk. One is bringing familiar gameplay with a twist, while the other feels like an established archetype, showing off her power set in a dynamic way. This week, we will be diving into both heroes; understanding what their gimmicks are and examining four cards from each of their kits that help to highlight their core game loops.

Black Panther

First up, we have a new Black Panther. Similar to how Miles Morales carried on the mantle of Spider-Man, we have Shuri carrying on the mantle from her brother. Similar to the Core Set hero, Shuri cares about Black Panther upgrades, but utilizes their abilities in a way that is distinct from her counterpart.

With Shuri, in response to using your basic powers (attack, thwart, defend) you will be able to resolve the special ability on one of your upgrades, as opposed to all of them based off of the four Wakanda Forever! events that were in T’Challa’s hero kit. Additionally, Shari’s attack and thwart events also allow you to resolve these special abilities in the same fashion. Immediately, this is a much cleaner design and allows for a greater focus on each of the upgrades, as you should be able to utilize at least one of them every turn.

Wakandan Tech

Kimoyo Beads

In a similar space to Tactical Genius, Kimoyo Beads is our thwarting upgrade. While it often may feel inconsequential, I’ve played enough games with Black Panther and Gamora to understand how removing a single threat from a scheme can make a world of difference in dire situations. Additionally, all of Shuri’s upgrades come with an added bonus to their effect. In the case of Kimoyo Beads, allowing you to discard it upon activation, confusing an enemy.

The advantage that I fixated on when I was evaluating all four of these cards was that their special ability could even be utilized in response to making a basic defense. In a true solo game, I don’t know that I would use this, unless it was the only upgrade available. But in a multiplayer setting, you would be able to make a basic defense and utilize Kimoyo Beads’ discard text to confuse an enemy, possibly preventing the villain from immediately scheming against a team member.

Panther Claws

My favorite of Shuri’s upgrades, Panther Claws plays in a very similar space to T’challa’s version. The added text this time being that you may discard Panther Claws to deal an additional three damage to the attacked enemy, well also gaining piercing. In most contexts, this is the upgrade that I would hope to seek out with her alter-ego ability and activate with most of my basic activations. This also combines really well with Shuri’s events, Clawed Strike and On the Prowl, allowing you to remove enemies or a villain’s tough status with ease.

Spider Bites

Spider Bites is a new tech upgrade that feels the most scenario dependent. The ability to deal the damage to the villain and each minion engaged with a player is very strong and has proven itself when seen on events and allies of the past. Being able to stun those characters at the cost of discarding Spider Bites is the most exciting part for me and means that I expect to utilize this card in situations where I was going to be discarding it on the first activation.

Even with all that said, the added dimension of being able to activate the special ability upon the use of a basic defense or thwart action adds timing to the effect that leaves it a little bit harder to analyze then it was when we saw this ability attached to T’challa’s Energy Daggers. If there’s one card today that I’m allowed to revise my judgment of in the future, Spider Bites is that card.

Vibranium Suit

Lastly, let’s talk about Vibranium Suit, a card with an effect that felt like cheating the first time that I played T’challa Black Panther. It may not read as that impressive to move a damage off of your hero onto an enemy, but that takes Shuri’s 11 hit points and subtly elevates it without the need for a basic recover action. This is the upgrade that is most hindered by the change of how we activate the Special abilities on these cards. Whereas this could always just be part of T’challa’s sequence, now you’re dedicating a basic action solely to doing this and at that point, you may be inclined to add the tough status counter, as the opportunity may not come again.

Silk

Unlike our previous hero, Silk is playing in a design space that is unexplored thus far. As a hero she is able to tuck cards underneath herself and utilize them in a number of different ways, mostly focused on what encounter set that card comes from. And in alter-ego, she can even discard one of these cards to draw two cards. There is an upper limit to this ability, as once she has more than four cards tucked under her you discard all before of those cards.

As a term, to tuck a card means to place it face up under another card, it’s no longer in play and if the card that it is tucked under is discarded that tucked cards go to their respective discard piles, as well. Reactively, Silk tucks treachery cards she resolves while in hero form. Proactively, Silk will tuck defeated minions and side schemes. Similar to how Valkyrie or Cable prioritize their subsets of cards, Silk will be pulling priority depending on her role at the table.

A Tangled Web

Smooth as Silk

A concern I had when I was first looking at Silk was determining how we would be able to get cards tucked under her on turn one. Smooth as Silk is a role player that addressed that concern. While still relying on an enemy or side scheme to be in play, it’s common for one of those two to enter play during the setup of many scenarios. This enables her to turn on the other cards from her kit as soon as possible, exactly what we’re looking for.

Swinging Silk Kick

It would be a challenge not to compare Swinging Silk Kick to Spider-Man’s Swinging Web Kick. What I like here is that this is still tailored to the character. By itself it is a less powerful version of it’s predecessor but when incorporated with Silks’ tucking mechanic, this can be more powerful. Additionally, it comes with a level of choice, you have to commit a card to powering up your event. Success with Silk may be due to a series of correct choices, as there may be ripple effects if another more appealing target presents itself from the same encounter set, including side schemes.

Wallcrawl

As a Justice player through and through, I really love thwart events and Wallcrawl is a card that I am passionate about. Right off the bat, at a cost of one being able to remove two threat is already commendable. But added to that utilizing the tuck mechanic to then remove three threat from any scheme in play is fantastic!

Silk was not a character that I felt confident in Justice, when I was first looking over her hero card and the cards in her preview article. But Wallcrawl enables her to handle a scheme heavy scenario in solo very well. Expanding this out to multiplayer, I would feel confident that she would be able to pull her weight there as well, as Wallcrawl offers so much flexibility.

Eidetic Memory

My analysis of Eidetic Memory is tied to my recent experience with the Justice card Intelligence. While helpful at the beginning of the game, being able to choose the better of two options when it comes to encounter cards can be a difference maker when we are looking at the closing moments of a scenario. Of course when it comes to Silk, we need to be selective with which cards we are keeping under her, but we may be looking at the better of three or four options, in the event we happen to have consolidated the same encounter set under her.

Through these limitations, we are also given the upside that Eidetic Memory is an upgraded that simply exhausts to utilize this effect. This means that not only can we select a more beneficial encounter card for ourselves, but we can continue to sculpt the cards tucked under Silk over the course of the game and activate Eidetic Memory every round, if required.

In Closing

I am very excited for both of these heroes, as I think that they are bringing interesting new twists to how we can play Marvel Champions. And we didn’t even have time to talk about the cards outside of these two hero kits. Black Panther is coming with a basic archetype for the new Dora Milaje traited cards, feeding into one another and interesting ways through cards like Okoye, Aneka, and Ayo. Completely dependent of Shuri, this may prove to be a future archetype utilized by any hero.

And over in Silks’ deck, we are crucially given new Web-Warriors, including our first allies in Leadership and Aggression: Spider-Man 2099 and Spider-Woman. Most exciting for me, we are seeing Ben Reilly aka Scarlet Spider as an ally, a character that definitely tops my list of heroes I would love to see in the game. Join me next time when I will be talking about my experiences at Con of Heroes 2025, a Marvel Champions event occurring in Minneapolis the weekend of May 2nd.

As always, you can find me every week over on YouTube continuing my List Series, premiering New Player Guides, and playing games. Or check out more of my written content here on Card Gamer, like my piece on competitive balance. Or you can learn the basics of the game here. Until next time, thanks for reading.