Marvel Champions players are living in “The Age of Archetypes.” While it may be hyperbolic to say that archetypes didn’t exist in the game prior, as decks built around Repurpose or Rapid Response have been prevalent for years, I think an examination of the last year of releases has left me feeling like the game’s player base been spoiled with hero packs that either legitimize or spawn completely new archetypes for the game.
And this goes beyond the bare necessities of a hero pack, a functioning deck to buy off the shelf and jump straight into a scenario with. As such, it’s undeniable that this design mindset has been an intentional effort by the designers, carving out new lines of play for aspects that may have grown stale. I’d like to think that if you’re a Marvel Champions player, 2024 has offered you something new to play with. For new players, I hope this piece can be helpful in deciding which hero packs to pick up. And for veterans of the game, I hope that this can highlight new archetypes that have opened up, right beneath our feet.
Top Deck Matters
Right off the bat, the printing of Domino and her deck within the NeXt Evolution expansion box could have been considered simply glorified staples for her and her alone. The idea that there are cards that care if they’ve been discarded from the top of your deck is something that can be taken advantage of by a few heroes, such as Iron Man and the newest hero, Magneto. Additionally, I see Sharpshooter as a card that definitely has its place with Domino, but has brought new life to Hawkeye and hopefully heroes moving forward, as we wait patiently for the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. expansion box.
Then there are cards such as Digging Deep and White Fox, which have taken advantage of not only hero abilities that pull cards off the top of a player’s deck, but also the machinations of the villain’s encounter deck. The fact that these cards are Basic speaks to the fact that Fantasy Flight Games wants heroes to have access to these effects, regardless of what aspect heroes fall into, and the existence of Magik has allowed this archetype to be bent in new ways, separate from Domino.
For a breakdown of Domino, feel free to check out my card-by-card analysis.
Confuse-Lock
When it comes to the confuse-lock archetype, Agent Venom walked so that Psylocke could run. The printing of Upside the Head, Cypher, and Float like a Butterfly through Psylocke brought a lot of legitimacy to decks looking to achieve some form of a stun and confuse lock against the villain.
I see this archetype coming into its own in the next year, as the new “vulnerable” keyword begins appearing on minions in Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. This is something I will gladly take, as I love heroes like Miles Morales, but he always felt like a hero that stalled the game instead of being proactive. And that’s before he gets completely sidelined by Stalwart. The aforementioned cards should be enough to flesh out this archetype and allow for a Justice deck that focuses on alter-ego or uses the status tokens as a mechanism to gain card advantage or deal additional damage.
For a breakdown of Psylocke, feel free to check out my card-by-card analysis.
The Pool Aspect
The Deadpool hero pack is controversial, something that I hope the community can move past once enough time has been removed from Deadpool’s release. The ‘Pool aspect in itself making the icons that are normally a drawback into something that can be used to further your position in the game is valuable; from allies that don’t take consequential damage to spread damage like Da Bomb, and puns like Pool Inspection.
All of this is new space and I can understand, from a certain perspective, how the aspect in itself felt like it was taking some of the seriousness of the game and making a mockery of it. But having been a veteran Magic: the Gathering player, I have already gone through my five stages of grief with the introduction of the silver border products, before coming around to it and realizing that the game does not need to be 100% serious at every moment of gameplay.
Through the ‘Pool aspect, we were given a play style that focuses on just being a little bit more reckless and trying to benefit from playing the entire scenario from a razor’s edge. The only truly disappointing part of playing this aspect is that you’re commonly only utilizing two or three cards and fleshing the remainder out with Basic cards. While I can’t predict when we may see more ‘Pool cards in the future, I hope that Deadpool was not the last instance of this aspect.
For a breakdown of Deadpool, feel free to check out my card-by-card analysis.
Sidekick
Possibly my favorite addition of Marvel Champions this year is the creation of the Sidekick archetype brought to us by the Bishop deck within the Age of Apocalypse expansion box. I wasn’t much of a fan of the Leadership aspect before, which is fine because the game is so much more than just a single aspect. But giving us the suite of cards Sidekick, Suit Up, and Side by Side not only highlighted our identity-specific allies, but opened the game up to making Voltron into something greater than it already was.
I come to the table with my own biases, as Deadpool and Cable have for a great team for this archetype but the beautiful part about what the Sidekick package has brought into the game is that if you want to team up X-23 and Honey Badger, you can make that happen. If you want to use Vision and Vivian, you can make that happen. And this archetype being added is speaking to a portion of the community that wanted to focus on allies, but would rather go tall instead of wide. This is a concept that has existed, but has now gained a lot of legitimacy in 2024.
For a breakdown of Jubilee, feel free to check out my unboxing of the Jubilee pack.
Change of Fortune
Originally serving as the inspiration for this entire piece, the Change of Fortune archetype focuses on defeating enemies during the villain phase. This is something that I think was viable to do prior, but the release of Nightcrawler elevated the archetype and gave it the tools to be something that can be achieved with the minimal amount of product buy in.
Gaining card advantage in the villain phase was something few heroes were capable of before; only Ghost-Spider, Spider-Man, and Thor come to mind. While the Age of Apocalypse wave gave us multiple minion summoning cards for aspects outside of Aggression, I think Protection gaining “Come Get Me, Bub!” was the most impactful, taking the aspect out of just high defense and readying up.
I’ve seen a lot of benefit for Black Panther, who was always a powerful hero, but forgotten as a Core Set hero. As a hero with natural retaliate 1, T’Challa takes on Protection and can now do so much proactively during the villain phase. Heroes like Ghost-Spider and Drax are going to see a huge uptick in what they’re capable of doing. And those were already powerful heroes. This breath of fresh air for Protection has been such a change to the landscape of Marvel Champions, in a positive way.
For a breakdown of Nightcrawler, feel free to check out my unboxing of the Nightcrawler pack.
Disposable Allies
We’ll wrap up our discussion with the final hero from the three X-Men waves; Magneto brought us not only a very well-rounded hero, but advances in an ally Leadership archetype that could prove to be even more impactful than the praises that I gave the Sidekick archetype. This pack focused so much on being able to utilize spent allies in positive ways – from Squared Off bringing a unique twist to minion summoning, to “You got This!” allowing for a thematic way to utilize readying within Leadership. It’s hard not to see just how much we can now take allies and give them a little extra reach while also supporting our hero.
This builds upon what we had gotten in the War Machine hero pack, through cards like Sneak Attack, Save the Day, and Go Down Swinging. These additional cards allow for us to hit a critical mass, where you have more staples than you have deck slots. And while that may bring tension to deck building, having too many tools for a single toolbox brings so much re-playability to an archetype, because it allows for more tinkering and specialization to each villain scenario.
For a true understanding of Magneto, feel free to check out my unboxing of the Magneto pack.
I hope that this summation of the last year of Marvel Champions can help to highlight which hero packs are going to be the most impactful from a new player perspective, and can help to shed a light for veteran players who may not have had the time to really sink their teeth in and think about how these different heroes have really impacted archetypes that we may have not considered in the past.
Until next time, thanks for reading.
For more great content, check out our analysis of Living Card Games.
