Rogue Champions - Aggression Card Review

Marvel’s Champions has grown over the years since its initial release. Each aspect now has a large pool of cards to choose from when building your deck. Today we’re going to start a dive into each aspect to review all the different card types. To keep things flowing, we’re going to look at a card type at a time and see how the cards rate on the following scale.

Rating Scale

Excellent (Good in any deck)
Situationally Great (Good in most decks but very good in certain decks)
Okay (Not a bad choice but not necessarily the best choice either)
Situationally Good (Except in certain deck builds not a great card choice)
Bad (Generally just a bad card choice)

Allies

Hulk
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Usage
  - Hulk is a great chump blocker. At only two cost he’s easy to get out and with five health there’s a fair chance he can survive to absorb more than one hit.
- Combos
  - Rocket Raccoon can use Salvage to pay for Hulk, put a Tech upgrade with a physical resource cost (such as Hand Cannon or Rocket Launcher) on top of his deck, and then activate Hulk confident he’ll get the bonus damage.
  - This is probably not worth doing.
- Notes
  - You don’t want to use Hulk to attack unless you know what’s on top of your deck. There are far too many downsides.
  - First time I used Hulk, I didn’t really consider what “every character” meant. Ended up killing a whole ton of allies.
Tigra
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- Usage
  - Tigra is your best defense against minion swarms. With her two attack there are a number of minions she can outright kill. Or she can be saved for the finishing blow against higher health minions.
- Combos
  - Boot Camp brings her attack up to three, which opens up a whole new host of minions she can outright kill.
  - She is a good candidate to Voltron when paired with a Leadership character. She could do up to 10 damage a round this way fully upgraded.
- Notes
  - She heals BEFORE she takes consequential damage. Her first attack can be against anything because she can’t heal that damage.
Hercules
- Rating: 5. Bad
- Usage
  - Hercules is a great attacker with 3 base attack.
- Combos
  - Thor likes to be engaged with minions. Use a Defender of the Nine Realms and a Get Over Here to increase the number of minions you’re facing before playing him.
  - Ultron can pass out a tremendous number of minions so he’s a good candidate to face with Hercules.
- Notes
  - He’s just not good.
  - If you’re swarmed with enough minions that you can afford Hercules at a reasonable price, you’re in a bad position. He’s not going to pull you out of it.
Valkyrie
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- Usage
  - Valkyrie is a great value for an ally. She comes in, does damage just from being played and can then activate for more.
- Combos
  - Thor, obviously, makes a good hero to take her with because of the Asgard cross over and his abundance of energy resources.
- Notes
  - While playing her with an energy resource is ideal, don’t be afraid to play her without. It’s only one less damage. Compared to many cards that have a particular effect when you use a particular resource, its minor.
Brawn
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Usage
  - Useful in decks that need more balance. Brawn is a perfect balance between thwart and damage.
  - Five health also makes him useful as an indirect damage sponge.
- Combos
- Notes
  - While five health is nice for longevity, it also means he’s eating an Ally slot for a long time. For churn and burn style ally play he’ll be around for a while before he can block.
Sentry
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Usage
  - Sentry brings a lot of health and a high attack together.
- Combos
  - Since he’ll be around a while, and you’re encouraged to make full use of his 3 attack, he’s a decent candidate for some upgrades.
  - Because of his high cost to play, Avengers Tower or Captain America’s Alter Ego ability would be very handy to help afford him.
- Notes
  - The forced encounter card can be trouble. But provided you don’t play him the same turn you’re shuffling your deck and getting an extra encounter card from a side scheme, while also playing on Heroic that can be dealt with.
She-Hulk
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- Usage
  - If you’re playing a villain with a lot of indirect damage you want to pass to an ally, you could trigger her powerful attack sooner.
- Combos
  - Bonus health upgrades from a Leadership play are useful. Team Training and Reinforced Suit combined give her seven health, meaning her final attack could do seven damage (more if she is tricked out with more upgrades).
- Notes
  - She costs a lot for an okay ability. If she were cheaper the ability would be okay.
  - In most cases, by the time she’s doing good damage, you’ve needed to use to chump block.
Spider-Girl
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- Usage
  - Spider-Girl is cheap so she makes a great chump blocker. Throw her out, stun something, attack something, block with her.
- Combos
  - You don’t often want to stun or confuse a minion. You’re usually better killing or ignoring them. But there are a few minions that take a while to kill and negating their attack/scheme for a round can be a turning point. Such as most of the Nemesis minions.
Thor
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Usage
  - You might be asking why Valkyrie is Excellent but Thor is merely okay yet they are very similar. Considering the villain is always in play and you could have Valkyrie in your hand but no minions in play, you’d think Thor would have more value.
  - Unfortunately, that one extra cost is a big deal. For most decks, playing a four cost ally is your entire hand.
- Combos
  - Her bonus damage triggers on a physical resource so for most aggression decks it is much easier to pull off than Valkyrie.
- Notes
  - She does get one more health than Valkyrie but her regular attack is just so-so.
Wasp
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- Usage
  - Wasp is an ally that costs as much as you want to pay.
- Combos
  - Team Training from another player is excellent for her. If it’s in play, you can play her as a zero cost 3 attack card.
  - Thor or Captain Marvel with their abundance of energy resources are the best candidates for her.
- Notes
  - Ant-man can go to four health but Wasp is limited to three and limited by resource type. He’s also Leadership so can more regularly have access to Team Training. Overall much more valuable which is an odd design decision.
Bug
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- Usage
  - A two cost ally that can stay in the game indefinitely.
- Combos
  - Thanks to his heal he’s a good candidate for upgrades.
  - He needs to be with a hero who will attack a lot. Your thwart characters do not want to choose between healing their ally or doing what they’re best at.
- Notes
  - You do have to carefully manage order of activation. This can lead to sub-optimal play if Bug punching second would be better. Such as against a retaliate foe that Bug could kill if hero punched first but will kill Bug if Bug attacks first.
Angela
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- Zero cost ally with three health and two attack? Sounds great.
- You do trade off that zero cost by getting engaged with a minion. Or having to discard Angela if you can’t find a minion in the top ten cards of the villain deck.
- This will make her villain dependant. Villains with very few minions would make her not a good include.
- Pairs nicely with Thor as she can trigger his card draw.