The second Guardians of the Galaxy hero to join the game is Gamora, the deadliest woman in the galaxy. The Gamora hero pack comes with the aggression aspect. A little bit of both protection and justice are thrown in there too. The nemesis for Gamora is her sister Nebula who is also the ally in her deck.
Gamora
Gamora has normal stats on her alter-ego side, a recovery, health, and hand size of 3, 10 and 6. When building Gamora’s deck you can put up to 6 attack and/or thwart events from any other aspect into her deck. In the Gamora hero pack deck, she comes with 3 events from protection and another 3 from justice. This gives her the ability to balance out her deck better and improve her damaging and thwarting powers. Gamora can also look at the top card of her deck once per round. If the card is an attack or thwart event, then she may draw it. Most of her pre-built deck is made up of these events meaning that most of the time she will draw it.
Flipping over to her hero side, she has 2s across the boards for stats and a hand size of 6. On her hero side, Gamora has 2 response abilities. One lets her remove 1 threat from a scheme after playing an attack event. The other lets her deal 1 damage after playing a thwart event. Now you’re probably seeing a pattern in her abilities. Gamora is built around using attack and thwart events.
Gamora’s Cards
As I just mentioned, most cards in the Gamora hero pack are attack and thwart events. 10 out of 15 of her personal cards are these events. Gamora comes equipped with 2 cards that can be very strong if meet the requirements to improve them. Decisive Blow and Forward Momentum. They both cost 2 resources with Decisive Blow dealing 4 damage and Forward Momentum removing 3 threat. However, if you have already played a thwart event during the turn Decisive Blow will do 7 damage.
Forward Momentum works similarly, if you have played an attack event in the turn already it removes 5 threat instead. Gamora comes with 2 events that cost 0 resources to use that can help achieve their boosted effects. One of those events deals 2 damage and the other removes 1 threat. These might not seem strong by themselves but keep in mind Gamora’s hero abilities and that they can improve the previous cards.
Gamora also comes equipped with her sword which deals 1 damage after she plays an attack event. A very powerful card when a large part of your deck is made up of attack events. One of my favourite cards Gamora came with is Crosscounter. This card counts as an attack, thwart and defence event which means it triggers both of Gamora’s responses. The card is an interrupt that prevents you from taking 3 damage, deals 1 damage to an enemy and removes 1 threat from a scheme. If you have Gamora’s sword out it can deal up to three damage and removes 2 threat. All that for an event that costs you 1 threat.
I mentioned earlier that Nebula is both Gamora’s ally and her nemesis. If Nebula is in play as an ally when the nemesis card comes into play, the ally must be discarded. Their sibling rivalry extends further than Nebula fighting her sister. Gamora is the only player that can remove threat from the side scheme that is put into play and the encounter cards added to the deck only target her.
Aspect And Basic Cards
Gamora’s aspect cards, like her deck, focus on attack and thwart events. She comes with 2 cards called Impede and Clobber. They both cost 2 resources, clobber deals 3 damage and impede removes 3 threat. On top of that, they both can be returned to your hand if they are the first card you play in a turn. These cards can help improve your turn flow by coming back to your hand helping pay for another card.
The Gamora hero pack comes with a second ally, Angela. Angela has a cost of 0 but when you play her you need to search the top 10 cards of the encounter deck for a minion and put it in to play against you. If you don’t put a minion in to play, then she is discarded. Angela can be a very strong ally if you find a weak minion, but if you only find something strong then you may be in trouble.
On top of her own sword, Gamora also comes with another, Godslayer. This upgrade lets you deal +2 attack with your basic attack when you attack a unique enemy. A unique enemy is denoted by the star next to their name. The bonus will apply to all villains and nemesis minions meaning Gamora can be hitting them for 5 damage if she has combat training equipped.
Gamora also comes with an event called Hit and Run that is both an attack and thwart event, like Crosscounter. It deals 2 damage and removes 2 threat which for anyone but Gamora might not be worth it as it costs 3 resources. However, Gamora has her bonuses which could bring this up to 4 damage and 3 threat.
Final Thoughts
Gamora’s abilities are simple yet fun. She feels like she can always contribute to the team even on turns where she can’t do a lot. Her focus on attack and thwart events means that she can take enemies down and keep schemes at bay no matter which aspect she chooses. Saying that though, I think that she will excel best in aggression and justice but not so well in leadership and protection.
Gamora’s deck including cards from other aspects is very useful. It can allow you to improve her thwarting and attacking abilities. She could also include a card like Momentum Shift to be able to heal yourself. Gamora will work with countless deck combinations and will work alongside any hero. She feels strong and certainly outshines some other heroes. The Gamora hero pack is a good addition to the marvel champions collection and is the perfect second hero to go alongside Star-Lord.