Images courtesy of Fantasy Flight Games
With the incoming horizon of Environments within Marvel Champions, my attention has been drawn to all the cards going unused. And the hope that a gradual adoption of Environments will lead to more diverse games, as I hop between card pools. In Fantasy Flight Games’ recent article on the topic, Nate French brought up the concept of “competitive balance.” While the term is new to me, the philosophy is not.
For the entire existence of both Arkham Horror and Marvel Champions the question of “Is this card good?” had to be judged against every card that existed. But with the introduction of the Current Environment, that mentality can shift and an honest discussion can be had about how the power level of cards can shift once the available card pool is minimized.
Today, let’s talk about cards that will see new value in a world that is not dominated by an entire history of staples.
“What Is Current, Again?”
For the purposes of the discussion let’s remind ourselves what the communicated Current Environment will look like. As described, Current will consist of the Core Set, any evergreen expansions, and newer expansions that have yet to be retired. Products should be expected to have a life of approximately two to three years, with an updated list available around each product release. This allows scenarios to be more focused on the smaller available card pool, meaning that we’ll see the economy of events, upgrades, player side schemes, and presumably even heroes change between product releases.
For enfranchised players, this really doesn’t need to change anything, as retired product will move into Fantasy Flights Games’ Legacy Environment. I haven’t played long enough to have truly felt the influence of power creep. But certainly I can see the meta established on MarvelCDB affecting how much personal use cards get. Through Current, players new and old will be able to come at scenarios with a competitive balance, seeing cards not considered previously because better ones have always existed.
Diversifying Options
Basic cards have the potential of being universal staples in any deck, and the Core Set houses evergreen staples: Avengers Mansion, Helicarrier, and Nick Fury. This makes finding substitutive examples harder, but not impossible. Ironheart can easily fit into any deck; she offers card draw at a low cost on a body that can attack, thwart, or defend. In the future, this deck slot will be filled with more specialized options, tailored to what the deck needs for redundancy or due to a blind spot. In the age of the X-Men, that comes in the form of Marrow, Beak, and Triage.
This won’t be the case forever, as traits will begin to diversify more moving between waves, possibly becoming parasitic. For the immediate future, the template for low-cost Basic allies will be more niche, allowing for diversity in the answers seeing play. This is the most underwhelming change to balancing, as Basic allies in this mold will predictably remain trade locked to the wave that they premiere in.
The Next Approach
It’s entirely possible that, come 2026, Aggression will no longer have access to the card Into the Fray. While not the first Aggression card that comes to mind, its important to recognize it as an attack event that also removes threat. In an environment where we don’t have access to this card, what do you replace it with? A good candidate that is seeing a fraction of use is Mutant Genesis’ Gatekeeper.
These cards fill a similar role, in an aspect with shallow options for dealing with threat. Defeating a minion to remove threat will look different in the foreseeable future of Current: spaced out between two or more cards or by utilizing a basic attack. But it remains true that Aggression’s threat mitigation focuses on attacking. We see something similar with the assault keyword, seen on Keep Them Busy and The Direct Approach, which allows heroes to use their attack stat to remove threat. But with only two cards, that might be betting on the wrong horse.
The Move Towards Tempo
Justice is taking a lot of hits as we look into the future of the aspect. While the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. wave could do a lot of good for the aspect, nothing is promised. Up to this point, a Justice player could reasonably assume that they would have card selection, but that may be changing. Losing staples such as Skilled Investigator, Clear the Area, and One Way or Another could fundamentally change the economy of Justice.
My estimation says that the future of Justice is going to see a lot more tempo control akin to Upside the Head and raw damage in the form of cards like Gunboat Diplomacy. The card selection comes more from the length of a scenario. In short, expect less raw card draw and more focus on controlling the pace of a scenario.
Healthcare Under Leadership
Leadership is a harder aspect to tackle. 2024 was a very impactful year with the addition of the Sidekick archetype along with cards coming out of the Magneto pack, which enabled players to utilize their allies in ways that were possible before, but not fully fleshed out. And while a card like Rapid Response is possible to fall off due to retirement, its status as a preparation leaves the door open for a reprint soon.
What may not come though is the return of Regroup out of the Drax hero pack. For players looking to utilize ally recursion, they’ll likely be turning their attention to Med Lab, out of Rogue. Filling a similar role without occupying your hand size, Med Lab may be less flexible, but it supports decks that want to fill their ally slots, with backup plans laying in wait. And with Command Team being confirmed in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., combining it with Leadership Skill may mean that a Leadership rush strategy is safe for the foreseeable future.
Proactive Over Perfect
I was quick to assume that the perfect defense archetype, looking to eliminate all damage through cards like Desperate Defense and Never Back Down, would survive unblemished going into the Current Environment. But after some reflection, I realized that the recent candidates to fill that role were Containment Strategy, Not Today! and Riposte.
A further investigation finds that we’re losing a bit of Protection’s identity to ready, as Leading Blow and Repurpose also fall by the wayside. As such, it becomes clear that the future of the Protection aspect may lie with cards like Change of Fortune and Under Control. This more proactive development may be the preferred place for the aspect to sit. It’s wise to remember that retirement also affects heroes, so this change will maintain some of the gameplay currently exemplified by Ghost Spider.
Environments are an opt-in point for established players, but a nuance that brings new life to a game that often feels solved after each campaign has been evaluated. Something that players should be prepared for as they embrace Current is that card evaluation will be more important than ever. If this retirement system had existed since the beginning of the game, it might have meant that players that no longer had access to Clobber were choosing One by One more often.
Obviously, the future is uncertain and products coming out in 2026 could very well provide us with the staples that we are already aware of. But for the growth of the game and the next generation that will only know Marvel Champions as a game that reinvents itself every year, it’s important that we’re welcoming to the idea that we can set aside our ultra powerful staples to play at that same level of competitive balance.
