Bishop Deep Dive - Beast's Best Friend
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- Опубліковано 28 сер 2024
- Let's take a full look at Bishop, the latest hero announced for Marvel Champions! We'll look at his kit, card counts, and possible decks/aspect combos! And, of course, I try to predict just how good Bishop will be.
Apologies for the lack of chess puns! Also? I forgot to mention the Hope Summers basic ally who can grab you a Super-Charged.
I also forgot to mention Counterattack and "You'll Pay for That" in Aggression as @jeremysteward8251 pointed out here in the comments. They'll be great for him.
Good work VT! I was quite surprised about Bishop. Initially, I wasn’t too excited for him, but his mechanics look super thematic and fun. Deck building for him is going to be fun utilizing the different resource cards.
Though I was excited to play him, I grew a lot more excited when making this video. And I think there's potential to do some terribly powerful combos in multiplayer - I'm counting on you for that!
I expect Alliance cards for X-Men and X-Force and Cable seems like the hero to pair him with especially if so 🤞
Sharpshooter works with his rifle. Yet even more deck drawing.
Yeah! That's fun. His deck can be shredded.
He seems like a very solid hero that will play different from most others in the current roster. However, my one concern is the same that I've had with several of the latest heroes (especially Domino, but it applies to a lot in the last two waves), which is that there is maybe too many basic support and allies tailored towards a specific hero's playstyle and traits (the X-Men are particularly bad at this), and so your deck practically builds itself once you add all the good cards that you are going to include anyway. If we include 4 of the X-supports, resources, lockjaw plus a couple other resource sinks, and 3-4 of the archetype staples (moment of triumph, make the call...), we're pretty much at 40 cards already without really making many choices. I feel that this is hurting deckbuilding a little bit. Hopefully once we're past the mutant waves this will be ameliorated, and they won't repeat the same mistake with regards to support cards for a trait.
Unfortunately I think both new heroes will struggle for deck space in that regard. But at least there's the option not to take everything and experiment, that's probably what I'll end up doing.
I think I'm gonna like Bishop a lot. And I can't wait to see his promo art
Yeah that should be cool! Here's hoping I can find it
@@VillainTheory I waited about two months before I found a good deal on the first X Men box promo cards. I just wish I could get them without eBay
Idk what people are talking about. Bishops art is amazing!!
I certainly like it!
Bishop was the hero I didn’t know I wanted. I love how he’s sort of a rehash of Captain Marvel (and in my opinion Spider-Ham), but still feels like a distinct hero. All the talk about finding resource sinks really makes me believe this hero will be unique in his deck-building and I think is a very creative direction for a hero.
Agreed on all counts!
Great stuff! I’m really hoping he comes with a card like Lockjaw to help spend those resources. We’re due for another one and it would be so perfect here!
Bit late replying, took a month off, but 100% agreed! Another tool like that would be sooo useful.
@@VillainTheory ha no worries, I’ve taken about 3 months off so far 🤪. Good to hear from you though, I was literally thinking just yesterday I was gonna message you soon just to check in ☺️
Great breakdown! I am really excited for Bishop (and love the art) in a Leadership Voltron style build. Might be especially good with the new Missions, depending on how those work.
I like the idea of using him more support style with Alliance cards and shareable supports. When my wife and I play, she is always Aggression so that would be a fun way to help amp her damage while I thwart.
Thanks and I'm excited to try the Voltron stuff too. And fingers crossed for new X-Men/X-Force Alliance cards!
This box seems great. Keep up the good work!
Thanks!
He looks quite fun, i love how he uses an existing card type differently. For me, while he is a bit random, i'm not too overly concerned with it. I think proper deckbuilding will mitigate. HP is the bigger issue, you can only take so many full face hits, and AE turns the ability off. He really wishes we had more efficient healing options.
You didnt mention these but could he run counter attack/You'll pay for that in Aggression? But yeah, i think he has avenues in all aspects, and i like money heroes.
Ah yes, the Counterattack and You'll Pay For That have a lot of synergy and I should have included. Great shout.
I also think most of the risk can be mitigated, but we'll see. I do think most resource sinks aren't as efficient as regular cards and more resources drawn in hand means less options.
Either way I'm excited, there's a lot of potential!
I believe I am leaning towards MUCH more resources than most. And I think he’s going to be most reliable and fun in his own kit if that is really leaned into.
Looking at his cards I’m thinking I want 2-3 at least every turn. Which would be ~40-50% of his deck (or more??). I don’t think it will be unreasonable to see 18 resources for best “Bishop” effect.
Your meme deck may only be overdoing it by a few in reality.
I think there is going to be pleeently of places to put all the resources honestly.
2-3 resources will pay for 1-2 of the cards in his hand. Particularly if running high cost cards. If he draws 5 resources - 1) odds are low, and 2) he can still throw those resources into his sinks, and will be healing great after getting hit. He has energy channel, 2 signatures, potentially 1-2+ other ally sinks, plan B, etc etc.
I could see a long game of him being getting upgrades and allies out early and second deck pass having almost all signature events or resources which may not actually be bad.
And for him, I’d rather have a 1-resource card in many situations than a 1 cost event that can’t trigger his abilities. Or a single-resource card I can almost always use on one of his sinks than a random event.
He’s also likely to have a couple cool cards coming. I’m think a neat alter ego support, maybe a heal card built into his kit. I don’t anticipate a defense card actually (unless it is also a resource or something) but more so a heal card as it seems more “Bishop-y”. Defending would block his extra resources gained and his healing potential which seems counter-intuitive. He may also have a health-boosting card to assist the berserker mentality.
Maybe I’m overestimating his want of resources.
But we’ll see!
I think having 2-3 resources in hand is a fine goal, but that many resources total in the deck could make you very prone to having an unplayable hand. This is fine if you have some resource sinks out but, against a hard villain in the early game? That could be a game-ender or at least severely set you back. I personally don't think I'd risk it! With that said, it's all going to take some fine-tuning after playing the character, so it will be fun to see where this lands.
Yeah I think I'm sold on Bishop. All these ideas make him just seem so fun and I don't know what deck to play first with him. I totally missed that minions interact with his ability and that Bring It idea seems so fun (and risky which makes it extra fun). I feel like you almost want Gang Up as an encounter card as long as you have enough health. Also Toe to Toe and Bait and Switch could be interesting, but probably too risky. I feel like I'm going to overestimate how many attacks Bishop can take at the start, but figuring it out is part of the fun.
The healing Protection brings is also interesting. I love seeing Second Wind be possibly useful - he can certainly pay for it. I feel like he won't mind playing over-costed cards as much which may lead to some uses out of cards I haven't touched in forever.
And Leadership just looks... fantastic. Seeing Kate Bishop Hawkeye might get some use is super great - again, her ability is overcosted (1 resource for 1 damage is not great) but it's a solid resource sink when you have so many resources. X-23 voltron looks incredible too, and being able to Sidekick either Malcolm or Randall depending on if you need more damage or thwart in the scenario seems really versatile.
I'm like 80% sure he'll come with a new resource too. We got Power of the Mind (mental) and Power of Flight (energy) so I'm wondering if we'll get a new Power card with physical resources, which complements his kit fairly nicely. I also wouldn't be surprised if there's something in his kit to help his consistency - I definitely agree his reliability seems very low, but there has to be a way to make him at least relatively reliable (plus as a math major I'm excited to try and figure out some probability nonsense to make it as consistent as possible).
Anyways, thank you so much for the video (and for the shoutout at the start! Made my day) - fantastic work as always. My hype level just increased a whole lot and I'm definitely picking Bishop first (I'm sure my roommate will be happy to play Magik anyways)!
I also can't imagine him not having some other new resource for us! And perhaps ways to get other cards from the discard pile.
Glad you enjoyed it and I'm very excited to play Bishop too!
X-men leadership is one of my favourite ways to play. Looks like that is not going to change anytime soon.
Nice! Yeah it's only getting better!
Both heroes look amazing, but for me Bishop is the most interesting. Magik just looks like another mystic doing mystic things, while Bishop is so unique and will have so much cool build potential!
I do find Magic has some good stuff but Bishop has really grown on me since I made this video
He looks like someone who will want a 50 card deck too. To slow down decking out so fast and to give him cards to play with the resource cards.
50 cards is an interesting idea for him. It will slow him down finding his upgrades but do a lot for creative space to deck build and slow those encounter cards.
His uniform seems like it will completely nullify the threat of Ultron and his drones, since it triggers whenever Energy Absorbtion does, which will include minion hits, so even 1 or 2 resources in hand is going to be great against a wave of 1 damage pings.
Unfortunately his Uniform exhaust so you're only ever getting one heal per round. You could definitely wait until the last drone attacks though, after hopefully gaining a lot of resources, and then get the biggest heal possible afterwards!
@@VillainTheory I missed the exhaust in the long text... that's certainly a big hit to potency.
I bet he’s gonna have a defense event that will prevent damage, but let him use his ability anyway. And maybe a cheap event that will have you discard the top X cards and draw the resources discarded this way
Those would both be really interesting!
what about digging deep? his rifle can interact with sharpshooter, right? and digging deep is a wild resource so we could use it for either of his signature allies too
I also think Marked is a good card that interacts with his Super-charged card, and the Bring It build you mentioned!
I'm conflicted on Marked, I did consider including it in the video. I think the Overkill is exceptional but, in a hand that could be flooded with resources, I think I'd rather have anything except a 0-cost card. So there lies the danger and my preference for Hand Cannons to provide the Overkill.
The tricky thing about his allies are that they want *printed* energies or physicals so wilds don't work. But rest assured you aren't the first person to comment on those lines, won't be the last, and it will confuse everyone when they launch too! I guarantee it haha!
But his rifle does work with Sharpshooter!
I think I'd pass on 'White Fox' in an 'Uncanny X-Men' deck - but fine outside that. She'll prob cause all sorts of hell with not only being NOT a "TEAM player", but also breaking the "Utopia" world. Digging Deep could still be fine here though.
I've ran White Fox in a few different trait-specific ally-based decks and she's usually always worth it still just because her value is so insanely good! You would usually expect to pay 3 effective resources (equivalent to a 2-cost card) for her. So we could say that discarding her from the top of your deck is vaguely equivalent to gaining 3 resources. And that's worth some potential disruption.
With that said, if you have a free ally slot, discarding her and getting her into play doesn't really have a downside. Utopia can still ready you if you play an X-Men ally, you only lose the increased ally limit - but if you have empty slots that doesn't matter. Breaking Uncanny X-Men is a bigger issue but the nice thing about White Fox's response is that it's optional so, if you discard her and don't want her, you don't have to put her into play. Which is another way of saying she's great to strengthen your early game which, to me, is the part of the game where you're most vulnerable. And later on you can ignore her if you've flooded your board with X-Men allies are are cruising toward victory.
...With all that said, we're getting new X-Men allies in Age of Apocalypse with two great basic X-Men already confirmed. So there might not be any deck space left for White Fox! Right now, without having played Bishop to test anything, that's my biggest concern! 😁
I get why you are putting his reliability at 2, but I'd argue that this might be somewhere you are underestimating him a bit.
Think about it this way, what's the worst that can happen? You draw all your resources and discard your non resources with energy Absorption. No problem! Flip to alter ego and turor out your key temporal upgrades with Temporally Displaced. This actually makes him a lot more reliable then most heroes when it comes to getting set up!
Yeah, I talk a bit about that at the Speed of Setup stage. The reliability issue is more about quantity of resources you may or may not draw. But you may be right - I'd be fine if I was surprised and I think he'll be perfectly strong regardless!
I feel like loading up your deck with resources and getting hit on purpose is a recipe for disaster against some villains. Hopefully I'm wrong, but he seems massively swing-y and not in the Star Lord "beat the villain in one turn" sort of way, but the "you just took six damage and got nothing" or "your hand is all resource cards and an Attack Training" sort of way.
It's definitely worse against certain villains, and gets riskier and riskier as they hit harder and harder. I think, like I sometimes do with Shadowcat, he'll like a cheap ally sitting around to block for him in an emergency.
Thinking about it, I do wonder if they'll release another "power of" card that doubles when paying for temporal traited cards. Power of Time, or something like that. Are there even enough temporal cards to make that worth it?
I don't think there are any player Temporal cards outside of Bishop, so I don't think so, though I do love the idea. There's enough time-travel in Marvel Champions to do something fun with it. But another Power of X card is 110% possible and I'd love to see one with a physical resource (Power of Flight is an energy resource and Power of the Mind is a mental resource).
@@VillainTheoryWell it's always hard to say which traits will be sustained and which will be dropped in any LCG, but it would be nice to think that temporal had enough staying power to justify a Power Of card!
I was thinking that maybe in his ID specific cards there might be a card that doubles as a resource card AND an upgrade or something, allowing for some flexibility seeing as his deck will have to contain lots of resource cards for his hero ability to hit. To me this would mitigate some of the danger that comes with discarding cards from his deck and would be a first in champions (as far as I'm aware), but I doubt it's the case. I guess we'll see when AoA is released. Either way I'm trying him first!
Very tiny-small detail when looking at card numbers: the order of cards seems to be quite inconsistent between expansions, for example Domino has her resource in the middle, upgrades at the end numbers and events first, same for Angel, however, they seem to be consistent within cycle, or at least within single box. Based on Limbo being 2nd Magik card (support between ally and upgrade) we can assume, with high chance, Bishop has no support cards
I think he wants to run kind of deck that does not rely on unique aspect cards, he can pull rifle or uniform from discard with ability, but what if he discards sidekick? Optionally you can play using his ability in a very conservative way on his first run through deck and then go wild, I kind of do something like that when I play Domino (use pistols sparingly when setting up), personally I am not big fan of cards like Mutant Education (don't like to flip a lot, too many loses to Advance)
I remember from ancient core-set only days running Black Panther with Power of [aspect] was bad idea, it stinks when you draw 4 resources, Bishop has some nice resource sinks at least but I would include Avengers Mansion, one: probably he can deal with the cost, two: it's not really for the sake of economy, it's more like a safe mechanism against that hand with resources and nothing to spend them on
Also I will repeat myself from the other video of yours, I seriously think Bishop in Pool aspect might be pretty good ;)
Agreed, I went over Magik's cards last night in preparation for Monday's video. Interesting point about Sidekick. I have to imagine we'll get some kind of tool to pull other cards out of his discard pile a bit like Quantum Magic on Adam Warlock perhaps? We'll have to wait and see!
@@VillainTheory good guess I think, it looks like there is room for 2 different events in his deck, one is most likely his thwart event, defence event doesn't exactly fit him, his uniform is his "defence", so some kind of recursion makes sense
Can’t you use wilds for his signature allies?
Sadly not! They want you to discard a printed physical or energy resource and wilds don't fulfill that. Wilds can only be another type of resource when they are spent, not discarded, and can never be another type of *printed* resource.
But it's a great question and I think this will catch a lot of people out
Thanks, I am sure we will get this wrong lol
Best part about the art is he looks like he is long hair/don't caring the art haters
I don't think Bishop does care haha, agreed!