Amerikano’s Tier List Substantiation

I wanted to write this as a follow up to our aspect tier list episode. I hope we made it clear that our respective rankings were not our overall power ranking or our “fun” rank for each hero.

So, I wanted to give you a glimpse into my personal ranking for “fun” (i.e., hierarchy of heroes that I choose to play). Remember: just like what I say on the cast, these are my opinions about which heroes are fun for me. They can’t be wrong 😊

D Tier (“Meh, I’d rather not” Tier):

Ms. Marvel – I get it. Ms. Marvel is a popular hero, and she really plays into constant flipping, which is unique to MC and can be fun for people. I just haven’t had a ton of fun playing her and thus, haven’t wanted to go back and figure her out.

Groot – You’ve probably heard me say “use health as a resource” on the cast. It doesn’t feel like Groot gets to utilize this because he’s constantly adding and removing growth counters, which makes is power level fluctuate.

Rocket Raccoon – I’m OK with heroes that rely on minions in the encounter deck to trigger their specials, but Rocket’s 15 just don’t do it for me.

Star-Lord – His 15 are expensive, which presses you to want to utilize his ability, “What could go wrong?” I don’t like playing heroic and Star-Lord edges me toward that direction.

C Tier (“You can convince me” Tier):

Black Panther – He’s powerful, but to me he’s monotonous. You want to (and probably will, eventually) get out all his signature upgrades. Once that happens, you’re just looking for Wakanda Forever. And chances are, you’ll probably find them easily because there are 5 in the deck.

Dr. Strange – Two reasons here: 1) my wife wants to play Strange whenever she plays. 2) His Invocation deck is fun, but extremely powerful. Like, ridiculously powerful.

Hawkeye – Similar to BP in that he’s sort of monotonous. Get out the Bow and (ideally) Quiver and he can take on some difficult villains.

Scarlet Witch – I waffled on C or B tier for her. Yes, she’s powerful, but her mystic arts come at a price. I enjoy that thematic aspect to her kit. The randomness of the effects isn’t the worst thing in the world but can definitely put a wrench in your plans. I’ve been known to not get along with the RNG gods.

B Tier (“Yeah, I’ll play that hero” Tier”):

She-Hulk – Since the core set, I’ve struggled to effectively play She-Hulk. But, she’s one that I keep coming back to – and keep getting excited to come back to.

Captain Marvel – Her ability for card draw makes her a pretty fun hero to pilot. She’s what I would call the “#1 enabler hero” in the game.

Black Widow – Doing more things during the Villain phase is always a good time.

Wasp – Two hero forms that are almost like two separate heroes to play – at least, you can build for a specific form and that’s fun.

Gamora – A fun solo hero because she’s very well rounded. Maybe not the splashiest, but still makes for a lot of fun when you can do “1 here and 1 there”.

Venom – Usually I’m using only his signature weapons upgrades, but with Hand Cannon and Sonic Rifle, there are some fun decks to explore with Venom.

A Tier (“I’ll for sure play thay hero” Tier):

Spider-Man – Yes, a “baseline” hero, but several different builds that work well and are enjoyable for me: Voltron Black Cat, Heavy Defense, and surprisingly, Hard Aggro.

Captain America – Shield Toss, while more powerful than I think it should be, is just a blast to play.

Thor – Thor’s reliability on minions is fine. His kit with the AOE is pretty fun and I cannot get over perfect theme of Hammer Throw with Mjolnir – still one of my favorite things to do in the game.

Ant-Man – Probably my favorite way to play Ant-Man is to get out all of the Army of Ants and just ping ping ping.

Quicksilver – His ability to burst to huge amounts of threat removal, damage and his shielding ability makes Quicksilver an exciting hero for me to play.

Spiderwoman – The unique combinations make Spiderwoman a blast – even if I’m not always diligent in creating new decks for her.

S Tier (“If no one else is choosing these, I will” Tier):

Iron Man – My main from the core box. Yes, you want to build up his suit, but you don’t need every piece to feel like you can do something. Also, once his suit is built, he can do a lot of little things which makes him versatile, but I don’t feel like his kit makes him overpowered.

Hulk – Alright, yes. I’ll admit that Hulk has some problems. But there are few things in MC that make me happier than exhausting Hulk, playing Hulk Smash to do 13 damage to the villain. And then seeing the look on your teammates faces when they realize how terrifying that would be for the villain.

Drax – My new main. I love this style of play. Berserker type characters speak to me. Taking multiple villain attacks in the first villain phase (in multiplayer or with an unfortunate treachery) ramp him up really quickly. That’s fun. Now he has an almost Spider-Sense (yes, I know that he must be attacked, and not just have an attack initiated against him).

There you have it. Let me know how much you disagree with my fun rankings. You can comment below or @ me on our Discord.

Heroic Intuition: Iron Man/ Tony Stark (Hero Kit Inspection)

Let’s take a look at the 16 cards that make up my favorite hero in the game to play: Iron Man

Tony’s Alter-Ego is nice. It’s better than simply providing you a resource because it lets you choose which resource you want. But more importantly, it lets you dig to find more pieces of his essential armor – especially with an unfortunate mulligan.

Iron Man’s ability is pretty straightforward and directly affects how you want to play Iron Man: build his suit as soon as you can. The faster you can do that, the faster you can get into the fray. And, as you’ll see below, I think the hero cards allow Iron Man to do a lot once he’s in the fray.

Cards I Love:
Pepper Potts – getting Pepper out early can really help boost the number of Tech upgrades you can play quickly. Also, a well timed activation to give you Aerial and not requiring you to spend a card is satisfying.

Arc Reactor – I’m a big fan of cards that let you ready your identity (Hero in this case). It helps if you’ve just dealt with your Obligation, Business Problems. Or it lets you thwart for 4. The flexibility here is great.

An awesome card that makes Iron Man extremely versatile.

Cards I Like:
Repulsor Blast – 1 cost for a potential 13 damage. Why not?

All 5 discarded cards must have an energy resource
(including the Energy card) to get to 13 damage.

Supersonic Blast – 2 resources for (most likely) 8 damage is a great value. I typically only play this with Aerial, unless I only need 4 damage to defeat the Villain’s stage or a pesky minion with Guard.

Really, it’s either a 2 cost for 4 damage or a 3 cost for 8 damage.

Card(s) I Dislike:
War Machine – AOE cards are conditionally good. War Machine is very helpful against Ultron; not as good against other current villains. I usually find myself ditching War Machine for the wild resource.

I love how thematic his kit is: Tony needs time to get his armor on, without it, he’s pretty much worthless against the villain. Once the armor is on, he can handle just about anything. Thanks for reading!

-Amerikano

Check out KennedyHawk’s Hero Combo Primer focusing on Iron Man and 3 cards from each aspect that combo well with his hero kit:

Heroic Intuition: T’Challa/Black Panther (Hero Kit Inspection)

#klawyourwaythroughmay brings us to Black Panther’s hero kit inspection. In the comic lore, Klaw and T’Challa have a rich history including Klaw killing T’Challa’s father, T’Chaka. Without further ado, let’s dig in.

T’Challa’s ability is nice in the context of his hero kit. I mean, you get at least one Black Panther Upgrade to start and potentially more with a lucky draw and a hard mulligan. But I am a bit disappointed that he doesn’t have a non-setup ability. 

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Alter-Ego Form

Black Panther has decent health, solid stat line. Retaliate is awesome. Ping damage for the win. How many turns can you simply ignore Klaw’s Weapons Runner? 2. Then it disappears into the shadows.

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Hero side with retaliate!

Cards I Love:

Shuri – she is the MVP of his deck, I think. She can not only go fish for Black Panther Upgrades, but any upgrades: aspect, basic.

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Just another Wakanda royal family member

The Golden City – getting to draw two cards is so good. The developers tempered this by making it an Alter-Ego action. I’m OK with that. It helps you set up a better board state more quickly, or it sets you up for a big damage dealing turn as Black Panther.

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Every hero needs a base of operations

Cards I Like: Wakanda Forever! – the crux of BP’s deck. You can do a little bit without them, but with them, you can do a lot – depending on the Black Panther upgrades you have in play. You make the determination whether playing WF! With only 1 BP upgrade is worth it. Also, the different copies of WF! have different resource types. I think this was a nice touch.   Vibranium – with 3 copies in BP’s kit, it opens up more deckbuilding possibilities because you’re probably going to replace one or two of your double resource basic cards with one or two extra aspect cards.

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Show me the money!

Cards I Dislike:

Ancestral Knowledge – it’s effect is cool. But you really need this card out and flip to AE when your deck is down to ~3-4 cards for it to really be potent. If my choice is between this and Golden City, I typically choose Golden City.

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Who enjoys alter-ego???

There you go. These are my thoughts on Black Panther’s hero kit and how it helps him take down Klaw and other villains! 

Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!

-Amerikano

Heroic Intuition: She-Hulk / Jennifer Walters (Hero Kit Inspection)

It’s time for another Hero Kit Inspection with Amerikano. Is She-Hulk a smashing success – or a raging monster? This is the third hero kit inspection in Amerikano’s series – will he do Crimson proud – or take him to Justice?

This article’s topic: Jennifer Walters a.k.a. the Savage She-Hulk!

Jennifer Walters’s ability to prevent 1 threat from being placed on a scheme is nice. It would’ve been even nicer if it was once per phase. That may have been too powerful, though.

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Stopping…

She-Hulk’s automatic 2 damage when you flip to Hero form may cause you to switch over to Alter-Ego more than normal. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing with Walters’s hand size of 6 to She-Hulk’s 4. Plus, this hero kit has plenty of ways to deal with the villain’s schemes.

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and Stomping!

Cards I Love:

Focused Rage – exhaust and take 1 damage to draw a card. Card draw is king in a card game. Exhausting the upgrade? Normal. Taking 1 damage? Not a problem. You start with 15 hit points and have a REC of 5.

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Split Personality – I didn’t like this card at first, but it is so thematic and it’s unique to her deck. I can imagine the scenario where threat is under control and you really need to recover but want to get rid of a pesky minion. Flip to Hero form. Bam! “Do you even lift?” Play Split Personality to return to Alter-Ego to REC. Also, you then get to draw up to your hand size. You may even end up with some Alter-Ego Action upgrades in hand. (Editor’s note: Check out She-Hulk Vol. 1 Law and Disorder from 2014 for some major Split Personality action)

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Getting mad at the mirror… literally

 Cards I Like:

One-Two Punch – take our scenario above. Flip to Hero form. 2 damage to an enemy. Basic ATK for 3. Play One-Two punch. Your hero is ready to thwart or attack again. But it’s She-Hulk. You’ll probably be attacking a second time. I’m a fan of cards that let you ready your identity.

Legal Practice – with your innate Alter-Ego ability plus this, you get some decent threat removal. 

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Cards I Dislike:

Gamma Slam – cost of 4 with a hand size of 4? Ouch. Plus, it needs to be in hand when your health is low to really take advantage of it. But, you’re likely taking a lot of damage as She-Hulk which will allow you to deal a lot of damage at once.

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Hellcat – 4 thwart for 3 isn’t very good. If you choose to block, you’re likely going to be sending her to your discard pile and completely lose out on her ability.

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Alright. There’s my take on the hero cards of everyone’s second favorite lawyer-superhero 😉

Let me know what you think. Thanks for reading!

-Amerikano

Heroic Intuition: Spider-Man/ Peter Parker (Hero Kit Inspection)

It’s time for another Hero Kit Inspection with Amerikano. Is Spider-Man all webbed-up or full of S-tier goodness…

This article’s topic: Peter Parker a.k.a. the Amazing Spider-Man

While in Alter-Ego form, Peter Parker will generate one Mental resource per round. On its face, I don’t think it’s as good as Carol Danvers’ ability to just draw a card. Especially because Carol can choose a player to get the draw. But, some card abilities (none in Spider-Man’s signature cards, however) interact with and require a Mental resource. When you’re specifically looking for a Mental resource, this is nice.

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Spider-Man’s Spider-Sense is pretty good. It doesn’t have a limitation on the number of cards you can draw. But be careful. In only triggers when an enemy initiates an attack against you.

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Cards I Love:

Black Cat – she is currently the only ally in the game that doesn’t take any consequential damage from making an attack. Also, she may be able to pay for herself with her Forced Response ability. Plus, “Hero for Hire” has got to be the coolest trait in the game, even if it doesn’t do anything (yet). Are we going to get other Heroes for Hire?

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Backflip – a zero cost card that prevents all damage from an attack? This card is so good. Level III Rhino is attacking with Charge (that’s a base attack of 7!) “Insert your favorite Spider-Man quip addressed to Rhino here.” (Editor’s note: I’m partial to “Have you been practicing? That almost hit me!”)

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Cards I Like:

Aunt May – having Aunt May recover 4 damage is amazing. It can get PP a review of 7 or simply get you a better review than your REC stat and allow you to flip to Spider-Man form ready for a basic ATK/THW.

Enhanced Spider-Sense – 1 cost card to immediately cancel the effects of a treachery card. This is really, really good. This stops Shadows of the Past. And the dreaded Advance. The downside to this superpower is that you must be in Hero form to play it. This doesn’t make a whole lot of thematic sense, unfortunately.

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Cards I Dislike:

Swinging Web Kick – This card just feels uninspired. 8 damage for 3 cost is a really good value. A great value even. There are 3 copies in Spider-Man’s kit. And that art! Maybe I just talked myself into liking SWK.

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 Web-Shooter – I like that this generates a wild resource. I don’t like that you need to exhaust it and remove one of the three starting counters from it to actually generate the wild resource.

There you have it. That’s my quick take on Spider-Man / Peter Parker’s hero kit. Let me know which if Spidey’s cards you like best.

Thanks for reading!

-Amerikano

Heroic Intuition: Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers (Hero Kit Inspection)

(Editor’s Note: Today’s article is brought to you by…. Amerikano… you can find him on many of the Marvel Champions discords… he’s joining the MCM team writing a new article series and more… Heroic Intuition is Amerikano’s first article series here where he’ll be overviewing each heroes kit… now get to the good stuff, ’nuff said! -Kennedy)

I want to do a series of short articles featuring each released hero’s kit. I understand that a deck consists of 40-50 cards and only 15 of those cards (plus the identity card) make up the hero’s kit. I also understand that each hero can feel extremely different depending on the other 25–35 cards you add into your deck (especially from aspect cards). But, I think it will be fun to dive into each of the hero’s cards. I’ll give you the reasons why I like certain cards and don’t like others.


First up: Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers

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Carol Danvers’ ability to choose a player to draw a card is one of the best in the game, IMO. Her hand size is 6. This means that in a solo game, when starting the player phase in Alter-Ego form, your hand size is essentially 7. But, the best part about this is that in multi-player games, you have the ability to boost other players that can do significant damage to the Villain but that struggle with hand size (read: She-Hulk, early game Iron Man, and now Thor).

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On the flip side, Captain Marvel’s ability spend an Energy resource and heal 1 damage to allow her to draw a card may keep you in Hero form longer than you may otherwise choose. This is an extremely powerful ability – as it should be – that allows you to cycle through your deck. The major downside is that if you don’t have any damage to heal (i.e., early in the game), you won’t be able to draw that card.

Cards I Love:

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Energy Channel – There are fewer things more exciting than delivering a fully charged Energy Channel directly to the face of whichever unlucky Villain you’re facing.

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Energy Absorption – This card ties in nicely with Energy Channel to fill up quickly on Energy resources.

Cards I Like:

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Spider-Woman – Her downside is that she only has 2 health. But if you’re playing her, it’s likely because you want to confuse the Villain and to gain a cheap(ish) blocker. (Editor’s Note – See the Avengers Annual #10 from 1981 for the beginning of Spider-Woman and Captain Marvel’s friendship – Kennedy)

Cosmic Flight – Being able to prevent any amount of damage is always nice. It also gains you the Aerial trait. If Aerial had more of a benefit (with aspect cards, for example), this would be in the “Love” category.

Cards I Dislike:

Energy Absorption – Resource cards in a hero’s kit sort of feel cheap to me. There are 2 copies in her kit, so it can sort of feel like we’re missing out on 2 other potential cards. Also, it does emphasize a high Energy resource build (or maybe because of EA, you decide to put other types of cards in her deck).

Captain Marvel’s Helmet – While it’s nice to get +1 Defense, her base Defense stat is only 1, so it doesn’t really feel all that worth it. I get that’s why they added in the Aerial bonus of another Defense, but I typically use Cosmic Flight to prevent 3 damage (especially if you are staying in Hero form for a large part of the game).

Well, there you have it. That’s my take on Captain Marvel / Carol Danvers’ kit. Let me know in the comments below what you think about my choices and if I’m completely off my rocker.

Thanks for reading!

-Amerikano