Marvel Champions is a 1-4 player superhero game, where each player takes on the role of a Marvel hero to battle it out against one of three villains. Play as Captain Marvel, Spiderman, She-Hulk, Black Panther or Iron Man and face off against Rhino, Klaw or Ultron. Each Hero is represented by a deck of cards, consisting of basic cards, Hero-specific cards and aspect cards (one of leadership, justice, aggression and protection). Each Villain is also represented by a deck of cards, comprising villain-specific cards, basic villain cards and a modular encounter set.
Marvel Champions is a living card game (LCG). As such, the publisher, Fantasy Flight Games, is expanding the game with new Hero & Villain packs all the time. If you're so inclined, check out a full review & final thoughts of the core game here. However, for today's review, we'll be focusing on the Quicksilver Hero Pack.
Catch Me If You Can
Quicksilver has superhuman speed. He is one of the fastest people on earth. With the ability to run at a supersonic speed, he can dodge bullets, chase down speeding cards and cover great distances in a short period of time. He can create cyclones, run up walls and even run on water. Quicksilver is an impressive and powerful hero; he is bringing the fight to the villains and he is bringing it quickly.
The Quicksilver Hero Pack comes with a pre-constructed protection deck, along with additional cards for further deck-building and Quicksilver's very own nemesis, Avalanche.
Look Again
At first glance, you may think that Quicksilver is not going to be a very strong character with his one attack, one defence, and one thwart. But then you notice his response-ability, which lets you ready Quicksilver after using a basic power, effectively turning him into a two attack, two defence and two thwart character. Not only that but he can perform this ability once per phase, not per round but per phase. This, in essence, gives him a free defend in every villain phase as well. Oh, boy, is this character fun to play with.
The "Always Be Running" card allows you to ready Quicksilver; couple this with "Maximum Velocity" (which gives you +2 attack, defences and thwart till the end of the round) and his special ability and you can create some fantastic combos and damage output.
Upgrades for the Winqui
There are other upgrade cards in Quicksilver's deck which give him +1 attack, defence, or thwart that stay out. If you can get a few of these upgrades in play, you can really take the fight to the villain and thwart to your heart's content. It takes some building up to get to this point but when you do you can (rather thematically) quickly deal a lot of damage or remove a lot of threat. These moves are always so satisfying and you can often turn a perilous situation around rather quickly.
There are also some fantastic protection cards in the deck as well. "Multiple Man", for example, is a four-cost ally with only one thwart, one attack and two health, but when you play one Multiple Man you can search your deck and hand for another copy of "Multiple Man" and put it in to play. "Never Back Down" gives you an additional two defence and stuns the enemy if you don't take damage.
Basically New
The Quicksilver Hero Pack for Marvel Champions also provides some new basic cards, which give you additional attack or thwart if you discard the card till the end of the phase. These cards are another great way to boost the basic powers of Quicksilver. This further enforces the combos that you can create with this hero and you can create some amazing turns.
I have been having an absolute blast with the pre-constructed deck for Quicksilver. It's a fun deck to play. I am reluctant to strip it back and build my own. I usually find you get more out of the hero when building new decks or even using other people’s constructed decks. You can only imagine how much fun Quicksilver will be when used with the aspects. An aggression deck would be very interesting to pursue, I would imagine, and I can't wait to delve further into Quicksilver