Update Nov. 14: The deadline for campaign submissions has been extended to November 25th. If you have an idea for your own custom campaign, be sure to send it our way!

Greetings, Marvel Champions: The Card Game fans!

Back in 2022, we hosted our first ever official Campaign Contest for the game. Players submitted dozens of creative ideas, and the winners even had their campaigns featured here on our website.

Today, we’re excited to announce that, as part of the Marvel Champions 5-year anniversary celebration, we are once again hosting a Campaign Contest!

To any readers who are unfamiliar with the first iteration of this contest, this is an opportunity to create your own custom Marvel Champions campaign using existing content from the game. Mix and match your favorite villains/scenarios from across all of the game’s expansions and create your own unique story, then send it our way for a chance to win a special prize pack (detailed in the official rules). We’ll reveal the winners in a livestream on December 12^th, in which the Marvel Champions design team will give their takes on the winning campaigns.

Interested in taking part? Then read on for some frequently-asked questions to learn more about this awesome opportunity!

Who can participate in this contest?

We at Fantasy Flight Games recognize that there are fans of Marvel Champions all over the world, and we want nothing more than to include as many people as possible. However, due to various laws and legal restrictions, we can only accept submissions from residents of the United States who are at least 18 years old. We appreciate your understanding!

How do I create a campaign? What content can I use?

To create your campaign, first you must pick 3 to 5 scenarios from any existing Marvel Champions product up through and including Age of Apocalypse. You choose the order in which players will face the villains, and you choose which modular encounter sets will be used for each scenario. You can use any modular encounter sets from any Marvel Champions product up through and including the Magneto Hero Pack. If a scenario normally requires a specific encounter set or sets, it is highly recommended that you use those sets for that scenario in your campaign.

In this example, the Zero Tolerance encounter set is required for the Project Wideawake scenario. Since this scenario is designed and balanced around the inclusion of this set, it is highly recommended that you include the Zero Tolerance set if you use the Project Wideawake scenario in your campaign.

In that same vein, because the Standard II, Standard III, Expert, and Expert II encounter sets are meant to allow players to modify the difficulty of a given scenario, you cannot require the use of any of those encounter sets for your campaign. Instead, anyone who plays your campaign can choose to include those sets on their own if they want some added challenge!

Once you have chosen your scenarios and encounter sets, you’ll need to write up a campaign document and campaign log. We’ll go over the guidelines for those documents in a moment.

Can I add my own rules/restrictions to the campaign?

Yes you can! That said, you will have to abide by the following guidelines:

You cannot change any of the core rules of Marvel Champions. This includes adding completely new rules to how the game is played, altering or omitting the rules of certain ability/card interactions, or changing the game’s mechanics. Basically, if your rule would require a change to the official Marvel Champions rules reference, it’s not allowed.

You can add your own unique restrictions to your campaign, such as “Web-Warrior heroes only,” “no Mystic heroes allowed,” “each player must use a different aspect,” etc.

You cannot create custom cards for your campaign. This includes custom player cards, villains, encounter sets, or any other game component.

You can add a rule to a scenario that adds one or more keywords to cards that do not normally have them, such as “for this scenario, each minion gains teamwork (Sentinel)” or “during this scenario, each hero-specific upgrade gains permanent.”

You can add special setup rules to your scenarios as well. For example, if you were utilizing the Project Wideawake scenario, you could add a special setup rule stating “at the end of setup, each player searches the encounter deck for a Sentinel minion and reveals it.”

You cannot drastically alter the normal deckbuilding rules or restrictions as part of your campaign. However, you can allow players to add extra cards to their decks as rewards for completing scenarios.

Keep in mind that the more rules/restrictions you add to a scenario—and the more complex those rules/restrictions are—the more it can be difficult to keep track of things during gameplay. Everything in moderation!

I’m ready! How do I submit my campaign?

You can send us your campaign submission via email to [email protected]. Please be sure to include the following information in your email in order for your submission to be considered:

• Your first and last name
• Your state of residence (reminder, this contest is for U.S. residents only)
• The name of your campaign
• The subject line for your email should be “Marvel Champions Campaign Submission”
• Your campaign document should be attached to the email as a PDF or Word document (see the corresponding section below for more details)
• A campaign log summary should be included at the end of your campaign document or attached to the email as its own document (see the campaign document section below for more details)

Please keep in mind that if your submission is missing any of the above points, it will be disqualified from the contest. Also, as a reminder, we only accept one submission per person, so send us whichever campaign idea you think is best!

What are the judging criteria?

In addition to checking whether or not a submission is valid, our judges will also rate your submission based on the following three criteria:

• Creativity (30%) – How well does your campaign tell a “story”?
• Originality (40%) – How unique is your campaign compared to existing products?
• Playability (30%) – How well are your campaign’s rules presented? How consistent is the campaign to play without making a rules error?

How should I format my campaign document?

Generally speaking, you should aim for your campaign document to be organized in a similar fashion to the official ones from existing Marvel Champions products. If you need a reference, check out the Mutant Genesis Rulebook on the Marvel Champions web page.

As for the information you should include in your document, for each scenario in your campaign you will need:

• The scenario’s name and number.
  • Example: Scenario #1 – Sabretooth
• The villain deck, listing the villain character cards being used.
  • Example: Sabretooth (I), Sabretooth (II)
• The main scheme deck, which is the main scheme deck that belongs to the chosen villain/scenario.
  • Example: Stalked by Sabretooth, The Injured Senator
• The encounter deck, including both the required encounter sets for the scenario and the modular encounter sets. We ask that you also include which products the chosen encounter sets can be found in.
  • Example: Sabretooth set (Mutant Genesis), Standard Set (Core Set), Super Strength (NeXt Evolution), Mutant Slayers (NeXt Evolution)
• If it is the first scenario of your campaign, include any special rules or restrictions for your campaign.
  • Example: “For this campaign, only heroes with Mutant and/or Psionic alter-egos may be used.”
  • Example: “This campaign uses a ‘brute beatdown tracker.’ During each scenario, whenever a Brute enemy is defeated, players advance the brute beatdown tracker by 1.”
• The scenario’s setup instructions. For the first scenario, this should include each player recording their identity in the campaign log.
  • Example (First Scenario): Each player records their identity in the campaign log. Players cannot switch identities during a campaign.
  • Example (Later Scenario): At the end of setup, if the brute beatdown tracker is currently set to 5 or higher, each player may draw 1 additional card after drawing their starting hand.
  • Example (Later Scenario): At the end of setup, each player may search their deck for the upgrade they recorded in the campaign log and add it to their hand.
• The scenario’s victory instructions. This includes any special rewards the players earned through their performance in the scenario.
  • Example: Each player records the name of 1 upgrade they control in the campaign log. They will be able to start later scenarios with that upgrade in their hand.

At the end of the campaign document, you will need your campaign log summary. This can simply be a bullet list representing all the sections your campaign log would have for recording information during the campaign. For example, your players would need to record their chosen identities for the campaign, so the first bullet on your list would say something like “Player Identities.” Below is an example of what a bullet list of this nature might look like:

Example:

• Player identities
• Players’ chosen upgrades
• Players’ chosen allies
• Number of Brotherhood of Mutants minions defeated in Scenario #3
• The enemy attachments that begin in play each scenario
• The brute beatdown tracker

Keep in mind that any time your campaign document instructs players to record something in the campaign log, your campaign log will need a section to record that information, and therefore will need a bullet on this list! If you need a reference on what sort of things are recorded in a campaign log, check out the Sinister Motives campaign log, which you can find on the Marvel Champions web page.

 

­In this example, the scenario’s setup and victory condition (left) interact with the “reputation track” (right), which is part of the Sinister Motives campaign log. If this was your campaign, you would need to include the reputation track on your campaign log summary.

How long do I have to submit my campaign?

Submissions for this contest will be accepted from 12:00 PM CST on November 4^th, 2024 to 11:59 PM CST on November 25^th, 2024.

Where can I find the official contest rules?

You can find them on the Marvel Champions: The Card Game web page. The rules document includes important disclaimers* and details about judging and prize awarding, so make sure you give it a read!

*Please keep in mind that any and all submissions for this contest become the property of Fantasy Flight Games at time of submission. This includes (but is not limited to) any ideas, concepts, or mechanics presented as part of a submission.

 

Written by Peter Schumacher