In all of the Legendary Deck Building games, players will take on the roles of their favourite franchise heroes and take on the evil villain decks. Taking the Marvel game as an example, players begin by choosing a mastermind villain, stacking that villain's attack cards underneath it and modifying the villain deck as needed based on the chosen villain's scheme. Players will then choose a number of hero decks and shuffle them together.

During the game, players will recruit hero cards to add to their deck - to help make their deck stronger and more resourceful. Players will need to build both their recruitment powers, to add more heroes, and their fighting ability to help battle the villains. Players recruit heroes from an array of five cards, with empty slots refilled as needed.

On a player's turn, they will reveal a villain and add it to the villain row. This row has a limited number of spaces, and if it fills up, the earliest villain to arrive escapes, possibly punishing the heroes in some way. Some villains also take an action when showing up for the first time, such as kidnapping an innocent bystander. The villain deck also contains "master strike" cards, and whenever one of these shows up, the mastermind villain (controlled by the game) takes a bonus action.

As player defeat villains they will collect those cards which will then be worth points at the end of the game. Players may also choose to fight the mastermind. if a player has enough fighting power, he claims one of the attack cards beneath the mastermind, which has a particular effect on the game. If all of these cards are claimed, the game ends and players tally their points to see who wins. If the mastermind completes his scheme, however – having a certain number of villains escape, for example, or imposing a certain number of wounds on the heroes – then the players all lose.