Discover Your Power

“All these years I thought you were just showing off, Stark. But it was never about flair or style…it was a feature.”
   –Andy Bhang, Tony Stark: Iron Man #1

Ultron’s army of robot drones takes to the skies. Klaw uses sinister sound waves to cause mass havoc. Rhino rampages through mankind’s first line of defense. In these desperate times, heroes are needed to confront these villains and thwart their dastardly schemes once and for all!

Join us today as we preview the Player Phase in Marvel Champions: the Card Game!

Marvel Champions sees you and your friends step into the shoes of Marvel Heroes like Iron Man and She-Hulk as they team up to thwart a villain from enacting their evil schemes. The Marvel Champions: The Card Game Core Set  presents you with five different heroes ready to take on three different villains and their dastardly plots. The Player Phase gives you a chance to show off your superhero skills by thwarting the villain's schemes, defeating their minions, assisting other heroes, and bringing down the bad guys!

Unleash Your Power

During the Player Phase, each hero gets to take a turn to do their part in saving the world! During a turn, a player has several different options that can be taken in any order.

Once per turn, a Hero may change form by flipping their identity card! Marvel heroes aren’t just superheroes, they’re people like you who have their own set of unique skills. For example, Iron Man (Core Set, 29A) has incredible power, but he can only reach that point if he takes the time as Tony Stark (Core Set, 29B) to invent the technology that powers his suit! To change your form, you simply flip your card over, unlocking the abilities on that side. You can only take the form change action once per turn, however, so you must carefully choose which version of your Hero you want to use on a given turn.

During your turn, you'll have the option to switch your identity card from its hero side to its alter ego side, or vice versa!

In addition to changing form, players can also choose to play an ally, support, or upgrade card from their hand during this phase. These cards represent the amazing powers, incredible technology, fascinating places, and loyal allies ready to join you in your fight against evil!

To play a card from your hand, you must first pay its resource cost, seen in the upper left corner of the card. These resources are most often generated by discarding other cards from your hand—every card has a number of symbols in the bottom left, indicating how many and what kind of resources are generated by that card when you discard it. Perhaps the discarded cards represents the mental fortitude needed to invent a new repulsor ray on the fly, or the physical prowess to deliver a devastating web kick!

These cards  enter the field and stay there, allowing you to slowly build up a heroic repository of resources! In Iron Man’s case, cards like Powered Gauntlets (Core Set, 38) and Rocket Boots (Core Set, 39) allow Tony to construct his suit, giving Iron Man even more options when confronting the villain.

You also have the option to use your hero's intrinsic abilities to confront the villain and their schemes! In hero mode, you can exhaust your character by turning their identity card 90 degrees, paying the cost for using their basic attack or thwart ability. Attacking will deal damage to the villain, while thwarting will remove threat from a scheme; both will be vital if you have any hope of saving the world! Alternatively, if you’re in your alter-ego form, you can exhaust your Identity card to recover health! The life of a hero is dangerous, and taking the time to recover from your wounds is important if you want to continue the fight!

You can also use an ally to attack or thwart, but it comes with the additional cost of damaging them! Once an ally runs out of hit points , they are defeated and removed from the field.

Allies like Hawkeye and Black Cat can attack and thwart like any hero, but may take consequential damage in response if a damage symbol is present under either of these values.

You can also trigger an Action ability on a card you control. This can either be any card you control on the field, or an event card in your hand! Most of these abilities are limited to once per turn, but can help turn the tide in the fight against evil. For example, the Arc Reactor (Core Set, 35) allows you to ready Iron Man, letting him attack or thwart a second time during his turn! Some cards, like Arc Reactor, will have the word “Hero” or “Alter-Ego” preceding the word Action. These abilities can only be used when your character is in the corresponding form!

When all else fails, you can rely on other heroes on the field to provide assistance. Asking another hero for help allows them to use an Action ability on one of their cards, giving you access to things like a friend’s Helicarrier (Core Set, 92) that provides a discount on the next card you play during your turn.

Once each player has taken their turn, they ready their character and draw cards up to the hand size listed at the bottom of their Identity card! Be careful, often times alter-egos and heroes will have different hand sizes, be aware of the difference when you’re planning on what form to end your turn in! 

Find your Strength

Join us next week, as we take a look at the villain phase, where you’ll have to defend yourself from a vicious counter-assault! Do you have what it takes to thwart the villain's schemes once and for all? Discover your inner power when Marvel Champions: The Card Game releases in the fourth quarter of 2019!

Become a hero in the Marvel Universe with Marvel Champions: The Card Game Core Set (MC01EN), available now for pre-order from your local retailer or our website with free shipping in the continental United States!