Are Older Heroes Becoming Obsolete?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 15 вер 2024
- Do you think older heroes in Marvel Champions are becoming obsolete?
PATREON: / d20woodworking
JOIN: www.youtube.co...
TWITCH: / d20woodworking
BUY CARDS: www.ebay.com/u...
DISCORD: / discord
Support The D20 Channel With your Amazon Purchases: amzn.to/3dMc8Vd
REDDIT: / d20woodworking
SUPPORT: www.ko-fi.com/...
Merch: d20-woodworkin...
Upgrade your keyboard and mouse (affiliate link): razer.a9yw.net...
----
#marvelchampions #xmen #mutantgenesis
Definitely an interesting topic of conversation. I think in a game like Marvel Champions, it shouldn't really matter. This isn't Magic/Pokemon/Yugioh etc where you need to play the Meta decks to win. And I know you aren't arguing that here, but it's something that, as a Magic player, I frequently have to remind myself. Sometimes I just want to throw together my janky Hawkeye deck and go to town because I just re-watched the show, and that's the beauty of MC to me.
I think even though the newer heroes feel improved the newer cards mixed with the old heroes keep them competitive to the point where it feels viable to play whatever hero you like because they can all compete. I don’t feel Marvel Champions suffers from power creep like many other games do
Nooooo D20 don’t do Peter like this
Agreed he will always be my spiderman !
@@timmy163 man of culture 🤝
Peter Spidey's kit is criminally underrated now. He has some bonkers tools
@@canadianmustash Totally. Backflip is still the best defense card (0 cost is invaluable) and Aunt May lets him take hits like no other!
I would really love the design team to find ways to get support for old heroes into new products. Kind of like how so much has been earmarked by the community for Dominio lately, plugging in cards that Ironman or Vemon (as examples) might really need that didn't exist in 2019-2021.
I would say for the vast amount of old heroes they've already done this. Iron-Man is insane now with all the tech cards, Ms Marvel gets better with each event card that comes out, all heroes who use the aerial trait just got a huge boost and venom has to with all the cards that interact with weapon attachments.
What do you want to see specifically or for who? The five core heroes are ALL still incredibly fun, strong and play well in every aspect.
What do you feel is missing from earlier heroes?
@@brandtsanderson4665
That's a good question, as I feel that most of the shortcomings relevant to the video topic of heroes are in their hero pack (as that's the on thing you can't customize).
I'd love to see a resource generator for our Asgard heroes - not sure what trait locks you could put on it without being heavy handed.
For characters like Drax and War Machine, I would love to see a card that could somehow retain even one counter removed from an identity, as the ability to get ahead an activation at the cost of a single card in your deck feels like a decent update/trade off.
Lastly, I think there is design space for targeting heroes with a printed THW of 1 or less to enable some thwarting ability (even if limited to a single copy in a deck) to those heroes.
@@TheMaskedHero Thor has two resource generators in his kit and a +1 hand size card. Agreed on Valkyrie; her synergy is a mess.
Drax is a monster who either never flips or flips once per game. He Fight Me Coward to get counters.
War Machine is built to flip every turn like She Hulk. So he reloads and goes to town every other turn. He’s not intended to stay in hero form, but that does make him harder to play.
One thwart heroes have basic Allie’s galore. Nick, War Machine, Lockjaw, Professor X, Vivian, Moon Girl, etc. use those and you never need to thwart.
I like combining old heroes with new cards. Quicksilver got a good boost from Hope Summers and Superpower Training and his 'Pool build became my favorite way to play him. Even though there are stronger and weaker heroes, all of them are at least playable and fun most of the time.
While the comparison between Quicksilver and X-23 is sort of apt, the ceiling for damage with Quicksilver is a lot higher than X-23. X can give it to you faster for sure but her damage cap tops out a bit. Granted you don't need it so much in a true solo game so being able to build and set up and do 50 damage in one turn with Quicksilver can be over kill, it just borders on the OTK category of "do a thing, ready, do it again" where X-23 is more constant. It's different strokes TBH. If you play both as consistent damage dealers, then sure, X is better because she's already set up out the gate to do 4 damage a turn while old boy Pietro needs to find and play Sinew. I would argue that Quicksilver is more versatile once set up as well. 4 thwart consistently a turn is pretty damn good too AND his "defence and stand" isn't conditional.
My thoughts on older heroes being obsolete is that I don't think that's true at all. Does a hero like Angle make Ant-Man and Wasp obsolete? I don't think so. They play similar sure but it's not just a hero that defines that, it's the kit. Hell I could argue that you can build X-23 like Vision and have Honey be a slightly better Vivian because she enables the hero while also being useful in her own right (rather than Vision enabling Vivian). It's all in how you look at it and ultimately build a deck. If you only look at the surface and play in one way, sure everything can feel the same and every new hero can be just a better version of pervious ones. While that's not wrong, it's just a narrower way to look at and play the game.
Yeah, and I think the old heroes are veerryy underrated.
I also think post-Avengers all teams are very self-enclosed, whereas Avengers really felt like a catch-all, so I think they feel more powerful out of the game because of that
I think another thing which comes into this is that 2/3 of the deck are cards which aren't Hero cards...when that's the case, it mitigates a lot of how much impact the hero cards have.
I have a suspicion there is more power variation between say, Miles Morales and different aspects than Miles Morales vs. Peter Parker using the same aspect.
It'd be interesting to set up a test for that...make the exact same decks, one for each aspect, with the only difference being Miles vs. Peter hero cards.
I still think the general advice "buy the core set, buy the heros you like" still holds -- especially for most casual players. If someone is at the point where they are watching youtube videos trying to mix-max a deck, they are going to want to optimize for newer, refined mechanisms in heroes. But if someone plays a couple times a month or a few times a year, just grab what sounds fun and relax with the game. I play a Domino and Psylocke mostly now but I also have a Black Widow/Justice build with mostly older cards and all of them can swing through expert campaigns.
As a casual gamer, I think it’s situational and the old heroes aren’t obsolete. I still think “pick the heroes you like” works because the thematics are where this game shines.
I am more likely to grab Drax than X-23 even though X-23 has the leg up for any matchup when compared to Drax. Just my preference for the character.
I would love to see Parallel Heroes, similar to what we have in Arkham Horror, with alternate versions of the identity cards. This is a must-have for me, especially for the core set heroes.
That would be so nice to have.
That is more difficult for Marvel Champions than Arkham. For Arkham they just have to design 3 cards or so (identity, signature card, weakness). For Marvel, they have to design 16 cards.
Also the designers have said they would rather focus on new heroes than retooling old ones. We’re likely going to see Brawn before we ever see Parallel Hulk
I've done game design before for a few RPGs, including one which had a new edition put out...and one of the things that was hard to do was deal with the "first supplement/corebook" problem where just not having experience with the game system or the formatting...you learn things. You make some mistakes that later you wouldn't make.
I'm not saying that's the case here, but since this isn't a competitive game, I wouldn't worry as much if one hero is better than another, unless it's blatantly better...and in all circumstances.
Something I observe a lot with Marvel Champions players (both on UA-cam and Reddit) is that often something is stated as a universal fact, when it actually only applies in true solo play...and things can be different substantially when you get to multiplayer. So while Miles is arguably better than Peter because he's got +1 THW...that's more because of the needs in solo play. If I'm in a multiplayer game with Peter Parker, I'm not worried nearly as much (if at all) about my THW ability. That +1 DEF means more, because if I can ready after defending myself, I can then defend one of my fellow players...and be taking less damage from doing so...whereas Miles might be a bit more hung out to try doing multiple defends because his Tough card gets discarded on that first hit.
Same thing for X-23 vs. Quicksilver. X-23 in solo is SICK...but in multiplayer I'm told that she's not as dominant. And I think that might be where Quicksilver shines more...especially if you consider that X-23 really emphasizes buffing her ATK...but if you're say, doing Quicksilver in Protection, the fact he isn't going to be taking damage in order to ready can become pretty huge, and especially if it's in a multiplayer game where there are more attacks coming in.
Also, because X-23 has to take damage to ready...there is the potential sometimes that she actually defends so well she doesn't take any damage at all...and then you're kinda flapping in the wind.
I can see the concern...I just don't think it's such a huge deal...especially when you then add on the fact that there's more to a deck than just the Hero cards...but the aspect cards, as you mentioned. For instance, to me, when I buy Ironheart, it isn't going to be because I necessarily like her as a hero, but because I want the other cards that come in that pack.
And then there's the whole "play the ones you like" aspect. I'm not a POC but I am in a different marginalized community. So just having the choice on what character to play can be a pretty big deal....as long as the heroes are roughly equivalent.
And I think so far, they are.
My thought is that older heroes struggle to break into the new archetypes just because of history (and also, precons are way better in Next Evolution wave than in Rise of Red Skull wave, which means more enjoyable first experience).
So older heroes need fresh perspectives in order to compete, that’s always more cognitive load to get to the table. But at least in my experience with QuickStart Quicksilver or Embrace Chaos, these heroes aren’t replaced. They are still fun; they just have baggage.
I love this question!
Sorry to add to this, but my favorite part of Web Warrior Fanatics builds are that they re-introduce older heroes this way, like his She-Hulk or OG Spider-Man. They are tons of fun.
One thing to note with the spidermen is Peter has genius but Miles doesn't so if in a F4 set Reed has genius cards like angel had ariel cards then Pete would get a little bump Miles wouldn't have access to
Some of them are for sure. In some cases it's very obvious how this has happened (Ironheart vs. Ironman for example) in others it is more that they have some bad parts of their kit (Spider-Man/Peter Parker) that were created by a team who didn't really know how their game was going to develop, grow and be played. It's been very rare that we've had a rules change or new release that has brought a weaker old hero back to the forefront. She-Hulk is a rare example of getting a new life thanks to a rules change.
Of course, the answer is very simple, to mimic the Arkham Horror LCG team and release their very own "Taboo List" of updates for us to print and play if we want to use them, and even go further with new "Parallel"multi-verse variants of older characters with some changed cards. The team's stubbornness against doing this is one of the worst elements of the team behind Marvel Champions, they won't have the licence forever and while they still have it they could take steps to create the best version of the game they can. More members of the community as a whole should be ringing that shame bell at the designers for their inaction.
It may not be the design team's stubborness at all, but it very well could be restrictions put upon them by Marvel. I've worked on licensed materials before, including a previous incarnation of the Marvel RPG...and there were definitely things that we could and could not do that were dictated by Marvel licensing which a lot of people were like "Why are you doing this? This is stupid?"
I saw this video yesterday, and I couldn't post at the time, so I'll just post this here, which I also posted in Web-Warrior Fanatic's channel.
I think that the newer heroes aren't necessarily more powerful overall, but they are better designed. This means that they have a higher floor and a lower ceiling (or, alternatively, worse weaknesses but also less strengths).
To explain what I mean, if we take a look at Peter Parker, we see that he has almost inexistent thwarting. However, his economy and defense are stellar, and even his damage is quite good (Swinging Web-Kick is still the benchmark card for damage). Like you say, Carol Danvers has a horrible kit, but is an amazing hero because of how rich she is, and both Peter and Carol, while they don't have a fantastic hero kit, are a force multiplier for whatever aspect cards you decide to run.
If we contrast that with Miles, Miles is super well designed, has amazing synergies in his kit, and the 2/2/2 statline is arguably better (I don't want to get into this, but I don't exactly agree that it's better. It's better for solo). However, his economy is nowhere as good (and so he struggles setting up where Peter might not), and he relies a bit on the status cards, which not all villains are vulnerable to. Like you say, against the toughest villains in the game, like Venom Goblin or Ronan, he can struggle.
Now let's look at Domino. Domino pretty much has a "set deck", where you're playing her hero cards, you have a bunch of cards that you always want to include (like her posse), the various resource cards, and then what's left is maybe 10 cards from whatever aspect you want where you mostly care about what resource symbol they come with. Domino is a very tight design, certainly much better designed than, say, Carol, but it's also very limited, and that makes her kind of one-note.
So, to answer the original question: "are older heroes becoming obsolete?" I don't think so. The card pool is sufficiently wide to patch whatever problems hero kits have these days, even in glaring cases like Valkyrie or Hulk, and while newer heroes may be a refinement of whatever concept an older hero has (like X-23 being a more polished "I ready all the time" than Quicksilver), older heroes still have a lot to offer, overall. Also, while newer heroes tend to have stronger statlines (in particular, I feel that they've overinflated HP compared to older heroes in the latest releases), they tend to come with more conditions (for example, Storm needs to get her upgrades into play to catch up with most early game heroes). Their hero kits are, in general, better. However, like I said earlier, that doesn't mean they have an easier time using them, be it because of economy, or because they need to set up a gameplay loop that many old heroes don't.
As a newer player (started around NeXt Evolution), I've been gradually picking up the older heroes and I find its a mixed bag. Certain older heroes still feel great, some of which are becoming my most played heroes (including Quicksilver actually). I think the novelty of them has worn off for veterans to the game, with newer, fresher takes on different hero archetypes understandably outshining.
That said, some heroes do feel a little dated out of the box. For me, Hulk, Hawkeye, She-Hulk & Wasp all feel pretty flat in the pool we have available.
I think there are enough cards to make any Hero play well, however, if you don’t own everything and don’t have a large card pool maybe the new heroes will feel more put together right out of the box.
It's a valid question, and generally I think that newer heroes tend to do some things more efficiently than older ones that use similar mechanics, but I don't think that makes the older heroes obsolete. PP and MM Spider-man both play very differently, and I like that they do. Agreed that Spider Tracer is a terrible thwart card and makes PP harder to do on solo, but he naturally lends to a more defensive style of play, which is a) thematic, and b) more and more possible with the release of new protection cards that let you thwart when you defend. As with a lot of things, "fun" is pretty subjective; for myself, I have a lot of fun running PP Spider-man protection, especially in group play (though he's still good on his own - I've beaten Venom Goblin with him solo).
Similar things can be said for other comparisons made here. I recently made my first Quicksilver deck and absolutely loved it. He can be absolutely insane when he's built out (I played a game with friends last month where I did ~120 damage in a single turn to win the game). I think he and X-23 both have different styles of play, but just because they're different or some may consider X-23 more "fun" than QS doesn't make him obsolete. Just depends on how you like to play and what heroes you like either as characters or for their mechanics.
You can also look at Grasping Tendrils as a cheaper Webbed Up instead of a more expensive Backflip, since it can stun and cancel attack just like Webbed Up. Project Rebirth is like Aunt May + a card draw if you're healed up so it's always usable. Multi-Gun is kind of lack Black Cat in the sense it doesn't take damage when attacking (nor thwarting), but can't block. He can boost is attacking, thwarting, and defending with his pistols. He has built in resource which never goes away like web shooters. He can both stun and confuse in his kit for cheap unlike Spiderman. He can ready up with Locked and Loaded. Venom is a better spider man... period.
I still recommend people buy who they're interested in playing. I think the only ones I don't recommend is Hulk if they're playing solo. They all play fine. If you feel that the core set heroes are lacking, the card pool has grown enough to help shore up their weaknesses.
Grasping Tendrils is such a fun card and my favorite Venom card.
i'm with you that i like Grasping Tendrils because it's easier to play. but it's nice that webbed up is an upgrade, so you don't have to draw into it or save it. you can also stack a stun on it to cancel 3 activates (while it thematically makes sense to be hero side only, it would've been more playable if i could use Peter's scientist ability to help pay for it)
I think the only reason why people make the comparison between Venom and Spider-Man is theme. Yes, there are homages between them, but strategically they are very different. And it's not like anyone is unique for having stuns, confuses, healing, resources, etc.
@@zeroisnine yes, theme is a valid comparison and they do a lot of the same things like draw cards when attacked, I gots an uber healing support/upgrade. If we remove theme from the equation, then we should not compare Miles Morales to Spiderman either because he plays very different as well.
Similar in theme though is different from being obsolete or replaced, and newer cards give relevance to these older cards. For instance, I played Peter and a friend played cyclops. Spider-Tracer looks really good now. But I’ve never thought “Why play Peter when I could play Miles or Flash?” I don’t think some heroes are obsolete, but I definitely think their primary archetypes and combos have to be rethought.
I’d happily give you decks for each of the five core heroes using new cards that will rock ANY villain in the game.
Heh. I've been buying expansions in order, and just got Mad Titan's Shadow --Adam and Spectrum feel like a step backward from the core box.
I play MC to play the heroes I grew up loving, so I play the old heroes a lot. I do like exploring new heroes but if I’m not super familiar with them, I usually don’t play them much after release.
I don't think there is an across the board answer, but in general, they simply are getting better at designing strong heroes and have a better grasp on balance.
So with Quicksilver, they were pretty conservative with his stat line, when they really should have just given him 2/2/2 to start. So when they made X23 who is also around readying, they took the lessons from QS and made her more balanced. That said, while X23 is stronger out of the gate, QS does have a higher ceiling when it comes to burst damage.
Many early heroes do have the benefit of having strong economies, which will never not be relevant. While I think Spider-Man would be different if designed today (his thwart weakness is a thematic tragedy), his strong economy will always make him a decent pick. Money heroes have the advantage of just making use of the every increasing power of aspect cards.
"How do you handle the recommendation question?" Telling them to play their favorite is still the way to go. A personal positive bias is always going to trump a small mechanical advantage. That said, I would warn a player if their favorite requires a lot of other packs to build. Tony, for example is going to want packs like Ironheart and SP//DR to pad out card support.
This is why Hulk will always be strongest one there is. They'll never design a hero who throws away their hand at the end of the turn better than he does!
I think Quicksilver is the pertinent example, but he’s also kind of the only example. He was always kind of generic anyways, stats and ready. Pretty easy to get obsoleted
I can’t think of a single other hero that I don’t want to play as much because of someone else. Everyone has their own hook. Quicksilver’s hook just isn’t really a hook
As far as recommendations go, if by “better” you mean “stronger”, I don’t think in those terms. I think buying one hero over another because they’re stronger is absolutely not the way to go about things.
Fun should be the primary purchasing choice in my opinion, and for me power level is A consideration because sometimes power translates to fun because you can do more things, but it’s by no means the only consideration.
Venom may be stronger than Spider-Man, but Peter is just as much fun to play so what does it matter? If someone is choosing Miles over Peter only because he’s stronger then I just don’t think that’s what this game is trying to be
Yup! I hated playing Quicksilver. Without ramp, he is just a 1/1 that hits twice which is no different than me just running a 2/2/2 statline character. Sure, his free Defense action is nice, but he gets horribly screwed if he gets exhausted, because he can only ready when he basics. Did the villain exhaust you? Enjoy your dead turn.
I gave him a flat D grade.
I think it would be neat if in one of the future boxes (FF, maybe?) the Marvel Champions team dipped their toes into Multiverse and gave us a few extra swappable cards for the core box and wave 1-2 heroes.
Something I do miss from Sentinels of the Multiverse is having alternate character cards, which can significantly change how the deck plays, even if the rest of the deck stays the same.
But it wouldn't surprise me if there were some sort of restriction on that put down by Marvel, considering the fact they haven't done that (and it does make sense).
I think the strength of this game and proof FFG has learned from making LCGs a long time is how viable the original heroes still are. Compare to Marvel Crisis Protocol…every new release there makes a different group of characters unplayable until errata.
Im relatively new to the game, this beeing my first year with MC. Currently im on my first run through RORS. (Playing a Cpt. Marvel / Hulk Combo with my partner).
And even though im very interested in the mechanics and having fun experimenting with different Combos, for me its all about the theme and having fun playing as my favorite Heroes.
So for now, i dont really care about power creep or "better" Heroes.
For example I love playing Hulk! I know hes quite restricted and not as "good" as other heroes. But he is not supposed to! He is supposed to smash at every problem and be a powerhouse wich can easily be distracted and therefore loose a game if left by himself. It feels very thematic and in its own right well designed.
Maybe later in the game i want to dive even deeper in the mechanics, but for now im primarily interested in getting my favorite Heroes from the Comics and Movies on the Table and have fun!
I don't think it matters cos to me even weaker hero's can be fun but I definitely think there is a general hero power creep since sinister motives wave onwards. The hero's are becoming more specialised I noticed compared to the early hero's which feel alot more jack of all trades. With newer mechanics and generally better card design the newer hero's definitely feel overall more fleshed out and have overall better synergy with their own kits.
When someone asks me who and what should they get with Marvel Champions, I then ask them a question --- which heroes will you like playing? And if they answer ANY of the Avengers (Hulk, Black Widow, Hawkeye, Iron Man, Thor.. ect) then I tell them to go play a different game... sorry to say... but those old heroes are not worth playing.. Thanks to FF and their powercreep they employ for all of their LCG games there is little to no fun loosing over and over again to good villain's... Its a broken game with a broken system... every new release is designed to be just that much better, just that must more powerful so that you buy all of the new stuff and keep this endless cycle going forward and making FF tons of money.. if FF released anything half baked or less powerful with these heroes that nobody cares about they wouldn't make any money.... for FF is a business of making money.... not making a better game.... so any new players I tell them not to bother investing in this game... save your money and go elsewhere...
I assume you sold out of MC then?
I love the old heroes more probably. Maybe bc of the connection and in depth knowledge I have of them. Them pandemic years allowed a lot of extra playing time. However, just make favorites. Black Panther, Iron Man, Spider-man, Rocket, Capt. Marvel, Hulk 😉, Thor, SP//dr. The new hero’s that have fallen into that group Wolverine, X-23, Gambit, Angel, Deadpool😅
I still typically try to play the heroes I'm most interested in. Like I will always play Iron Man over Ironheart because I just like Iron Man more and he's a way better character imo, even though he may be weaker and clunkier than Ironheart. That being said, I do agree that the power creep is getting to a point where I think Fantasy Flight Games needs to consider doing something for older heroes. Something like making new identity specific cards for old heroes that can either be used in addition to their original identity specific cards or replace certain old identity specific cards that are either underpowered or just too restrictive in general.
Iron Man and Spiderman are great examples where I feel like they could print some Iron Man specific cards where it adds (or replaces) a couple of his cards with 2 tech upgrades that simply generate an energy resource and a Uni-Beam attack event that deals scaling damage based on how many tech upgrades you control. With Spiderman, I'd love to see the spider tracer replaced with a more reliable thwart event if I'm being honest, or have a Spiderman specific thwart event there in addition to spider tracer. I feel the same for a lot of the core box heroes (except Captain Marvel) as well as some of the first wave heroes along with some other randomly underpowered heroes that came later on.
I never really clicked with quicksilver, Ant-Man or wasp. I feel much better playing X-23 or angel, vision or any other multi form hero.
I think they are using their experience to better streamline heroes.
Since Avengers/X-Men/Guardian etc, have their own synergies that have their own pros/cons I don't think your left with the short end of the stick with older characters.
Honestly I don't believe Miles outclasses OG Spider-man, they are incredibly different in their goals. Spiderman is more well rounded and great at preventing consequences from the villain. Miles is focused on heavy status effects to lock down the villain and is creative in his defense to offset how squishy he is. Miles has Web Warrior traits vs Spider-Man Avengers trait, the later has much more support. It more accurate to say Miles absolutely outclasses Hawkeye, even despite the trait difference. Outside of that, I think there are very few characters that are outright outclassed.
Take Captain America, there are certainly other characters like Agent Venom or Angel can frequently ready and are incredibly well rounded, but only a few characters can do that with benefits of having Avengers synergy. Then you have, who Iron Man has become incredibly effective with the new player side schemes, increased support for aerial/tech, and cards like Repurpose.
Outside of a few harder scenarios like Ronan or awkward bad matchups like Thor vs Sinister Six, you can take on just about any villain with most heroes. I do think modern characters are easier to recommend because they are smoother mechanically, but I wouldn't worry about older characters being outclassed.
I primarily play multi-hero games, but I happily recommend old heroes.
The most important thing to me isn’t power or efficiency, but replay value.
Peter Parker is way better than Miles Morales on that front. Peter has much stronger economy and can play so many more deck archetypes than Miles. It doesn’t matter that Peter’s threat card is bad, because he should only use it as a last resort.
Similarly with QS… is he a little worse than X-23 on turn 1? Sure.
Will X-23 ever block over 20 damage from villain attacks in a single phase in Prot? What about removing 30 threat in Justice? If no, then she’s pretty far from being a clearly better hero to me.
I think this comes down to deck construction. Web warrior fanatic has beaten venom
Goblin and magneto and Ronan for crying out loud with a justice peter Parker deck. I don’t think some of these older heroes are as weak or obsolete as some think. They just aren’t being built and piloted at their top potential.
The perspective probably differs from true solo to higher player counts. I play 3-4 players almost exclusively and I always aim for building board. At 3-4 players almost nothing drastically alters the flow of the game so nothing feels significantly bad.
Surprised you didnt mention the most obvious comparison of heroes, Drax is clearly just a better implementation of Hulk.
Probably should have but that too is a good one.
I love Drax more than Hulk, but I don't know that I'd compare those two. Drax has to sustain attacks in order to get stronger. Hulk just comes out the gate with 3 ATK ready to pummel. You still have to set Drax up to be the big hitter. Hulk has no setup to be a big hitter. A common card in both builds is "Leading Blow," but you have to wait 2 or 3 villain activations in order to get any use out of it with Drax, whereas Hulk will use it turn 1. Drax wants villain attacks. Hulk would rather try to smash the villain before he gets attacked.
@@mcandyr Hulks entire thing in comics is the more angry he gets, the stronger he becomes. Drax's mechanic of being attacked and getting more powerful because of it is exactly what Hulk should be doing. It fits Hulk far more than it does Drax's character.
@@GaNSiNaTeR i'm definitely with you that i wish Hulk's mechanics matched the comics (and that Drax's game mechanics match Hulk's character better). my thought is that the game mechanics between Hulk and Drax aren't comparible to each other. Drax's mechanics aren't a better implementation of Hulk's mechanics. They each have a different view of the aspects cards
@@mcandyr Sure they may get around to it differently, but both heroes are designed to do one thing well, and that's high damage low thwart. Hulk has the higher base attack, but Drax can reach the same statline (possibly even higher) in a single turn.
As a Hypothetical plug Drax's 15 card kit into Hulks hero/alter ego ability and it will do the exact same job but more consistently than Hulks own kit. Hulks kit is just a plain overcosted mess comparitively.
That alone screams to me that Drax's kit is just upgraded over Hulks. It does the same thing, while being different and more fun in its route to get there.
I think it all depends on your card pool. If you have a full card pool Iron-Man is one of the strongest hero's once built out. Filling your deck with techs means you can reliably have a 7 hand size early in the game while having your suit dealing with multiple parts of the board leaving you to focus on what you want. I think what a lot of people tend to do is gauage heroes power at the time they came out. On release X-23 is stronger than Quicksilver was but with all the card pool available once quicksilver is built out he can do an insane amount of damage and readying that X-23 can't keep up with. I'd also say people measure this argument differently. Miles is stronger than Peter for instance in solo play and with non Stalwart villains, in every other scenario Peter is better. Peter has one of the best defensive kits in the game and with multiple players he can reliably defend for everyone, filp and heal up to full health. Miles doesnt scale very well and is rendred almost usless if exhausted ( I love both). I'd also say it really depends how you want to play and that is probably the defing factor on recommendations. Id still recommend who you like as a hero first though as that's the biggest hook I feel.
Dr Strange is obsolete or Peter Porker ? I think they upgrade a mechanic : you could chose Colossus with his orange cards : he is a better version of War Machine and Morales because the cards of Morales are useless with robust or solid and the upgrade of War Machine which was too expensive
Caps still the best.
Some heroes are feeling the age and the power creep, the aspect can card help but there is a limit in what they can do. I still enjoy playing most of them, but i would love to see an expansion pack to updste those heroes, maybe change their playstyle and thrn you can have 2 version of the same hero, just changing some of the hero cards. Like a true black suited spiderman or another version of ironman's armor
Not to us new players. I just played Iron Heart (not sure if she’s older) and Drax for the first time this weekend.
Been a player for only 3 months. I’m told I need to play and learn Black Panther and Iron Man. I hear Black Panther may be underrated.
X-23 being new, I grabbed the pack! She is honestly strong in every aspect. I like aggression and protection the most for her.
Sinister Moves is on my to get list. I use Miles (ally) card in almost all my games.
D20 and fans/supporters…
Do you think Hit and Run 6:26 can help Spider-Man’s play for thwart? Obviously the attack helps, too. Anyhow, 2 thwart.
Iron Heart has one the best pre-designed hero packs I’ve bought. The allies, support and event cards are STRONG. Especially, versions 2, 3. I’ve only played her in leadership and already feel strongly for it and her.
It helps but it’s just expensive
@@D20Woodworking web shooter, hellicarrier, Peter Parker RG… just a thought. But, yeah! A 2 cost thwart beneficial card would be best fit
Yeah I mean if you build out it’s not terrible. Just generally expensive. For 3 cost you would be hoping for closer to 4/5 thwart and 3 cost want like 8 damage. It’s just a rough trade off. I think you could get a better thwart removal with certain aspect cards
@@D20Woodworking indeed. I believe For Justice. 3 thwart (4 instead with genius resource payment) will always help. 2 cost. Are we getting there??? Haha!
Hey, D20 and fans! I played Thor vs Ultron. Very first time… I biffed-up. I had only 2 hit points left, so Alter-Ego was a must. Ultron and minions hit with threat that landed exactly to 10 (end of 2B main scheme). I STOPPED AND THOUGHT I lost!! There’s a 3 A/B. I know better and should’ve looked for the completes the game. I had Hercules in play with three hit points and a decent hand. After recovery I could’ve been in it still.
I tweaked my deck to include Lie In Wait and Tac Team, for drone minion help
Games should be fun and who cares if something feels improved. They feel different enough and in the example quicksilver feels like a speedster and x23 feels like a brawler. Yes some older heroes are clunky but please encourage folks to buy based on theme but not power. I have someone who LOVES playing as Thor and Spider-Man even though both of their kits are a bit dated based on how the game has evolved, the challenge is the fun.
The only pack I don’t recommend is Valkyrie. 😂
How dare you with that Valk slander haha.
To me it depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re just trying to win, then less powerful heroes are “obsolete”. As long as they play differently though, then I’m okay with different power levels as everything cannot be perfectly balanced.
I don’t have some of the heroes in these examples, but as an example: does Spider-Man feel like you’re playing Miles, but with inferior cards? Or is he slightly less powerful, but still feels unique when playing him?
Imo there are little to no heroes I see as viable. Some maybe easier and quicker out of the gate but I think every character has their spot. This is where aspect cards come in to clear up any weak spots, very balanced game really.
the non deck building heroes/OP heroes yes.
heck even antman that is top tier is now just mid.
There is a significant assumption on your part that heroes are intended to be effective primarily in solo play. However, the game is not balanced with solo play as the primary focus. For instance, Spider-Man's strength becomes more apparent in multiplayer when he receives assistance in thwarting.
The game may have been primarily focused for multiplayer (assuming) but to say it's not balanced for solo play I hard disagree with. Yes Spider-Man is not as good in solo because of his lack of thwarting but they (the pre con deck) specifically recommend justice decks for him because of that. If they were focusing on multiplayer they would have recommended something else like a protection (IMO).
@@D20Woodworking It is balanced but their focus is primarily on multiplayer.
Just add new hero specific cards, is it that hard ffs, or cards that refer to couple of heroes in bolded letters.
Also improve "bolded" phrases. Gamma, I'm looking at you.
Miles Morales and Venom are nothing like Spider-Man??? I really don't agree at all with your comparisons...
Ghost Spider is the character that is very clearly the version 2.0 of Spider-Man.
But like... every hero is "obsolete," since you don't need any specific hero to beat content. Or because Dr. Strange is better than any other hero
I'd also say I think you're underestimating how powerful Spider-Man is. Having "Draw a card" printed on your hero is huge, and not something often seen. I also think thwarting is less, and less an issue as Rhino-esque villains appear as exceptions
I think the bigger thing is that Quicksilver is not a super interesting design. I think most slow build heroes can feel samey, because while build different things, the the build strategy is similar
And even then Quicksilver really needs cards outside his kit shine, like you can only buff him so much with his kit
So I think he just needs a lot more to shine, and I think when this happens he stands apart from, X-23, but it's also unnecessary
Project Rebirth is a more versatile version of Aunt May. Grasping Tendrils is an easier card to play than Webbed Up. This was a poor explanation on my part.
But if you are going off pure strength then yes, "weaker" heroes are obsolete, sure. But I am saying if the same main "mechanic" is done by someone else newer and does it "better" does it make the older one obsolete.
@@D20Woodworkingbut I don't really think of Venom as being strategically that similar to Spider-Man
Like when I think Venom, I think his guns, which moves him in a completely different direction from Spider-Man, and to me that is very core to Venom
And sure Grasping Tendrils vs Webbed Up, but Venom has no Black Cat equivalent nor Enhanced Spider-Sense, and I could see an argument that Backflip is better than Tendrils
Just my 2 cents