Marvel and Fantasy Flight Games have announced a new card game based on the Marvel Universe called Marvel Champions. In the game, each player selects a Marvel hero to play as, and fight out a scenario involving a villain. Each villain has their own deck full of different henchmen and tactics, such as Ultron having drones and Klaw having a sonic boom.
Marvel Champions will launch as a full set, with expansion sets coming out every month. This is not a collectible card game like Magic: The Gathering, where each pack has different cards, but a living card game where every set is the same. The expansions will enhance the game and provide new ways to play, but the base set provides a full game.
When selecting a character, they have their own deck of cards to utilize and customize. For instance, if playing as Iron Man, your deck will have different attacks and armor sets for the player to utilize as they see fit. Each turn, you can call on an ally, upgrade your equipment, or play event or support cards in your hand. Event cards are cards with a one-time effect, and support cards can perform actions like increasing stats. You’ll also start out the game as someone like Tony Stark or Peter Parker, and not Iron Man or Spider Man, forcing you to upgrade up to the character’s full costume and powers before you directly engage the villain. You can switch between the hero and their real identity by flipping the double-sided character card, and each of them has their own advantages and disadvantages.
However, every hero must have their villains. In Marvel Champions, nobody directly plays as a villain, but the villain cards give you instructions on how to play out their actions.
The announcement does not give a comprehensive list of characters in the game, but we can see some cards and art. Confirmed for the game are heroes Tony Stark/Iron Man, Matt Murdoch/Daredevil, Carol Danvers/Captain Marvel, T’Challa/Black Panther, Peter Parker/Spider-Man, Steve Rogers/Captain America, Jennifer Walters/She-Hulk, Vision, Thor, and Rocket Racoon. Villains Thanos, Red Skull, Venom Rhino, Klaw, and Ultron are also shown or mentioned in the announcement.
Marvel Champions is available for pre-order at Fantasy Flight Games’ website for $59.95 USD and will launch in Q4 2019.
