Rogue Champions - Justice Events Review

Marvel’s Champions has grown over the years since its initial release. Each aspect now has a large pool of upgrades to choose from when building your deck. Previously we’ve reviewed Aggression cards and started on Justice cards. This week we’re going to finish with a dive into Justice Events.

We’ll rate the cards 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)

Events

For Justice
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- Four threat removed for two resources (if you have the right resource) is a good value.
- It does not take much to ensure you have access to a mental resource, using Sense of Justice or Quincarrier
Great Responsibility
- Rating: 5. Bad
- I have never wanted to take this card. It does cost 0 which helps some. I could see some circumstances a high health hero might want this as a safety net.
- The idea behind the card is to prevent game losing threat by taking damage instead. But you’d have to have it in your hand when that occurs and be in hero form.
- If this were a non Justice card, I could see it having more value. Justice has the best ways to mitigate Threat. If the character is doing their job, you’ll never need this. But someone like Thor or Hulk running Aggression might love a card like this.
Concussive Blow
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- This card is made for Hulk. With this three physical resource card, he can confuse and deal damage, allowing him to flip without getting behind in threat, which he has trouble dealing with.
- Confuse is very handy at times, particularly in low player count games. The value of the card goes up the less players there are.
- Unlike For Justice, which has a minor buff if you have the right resource but is still okay to play if you don’t, Concussive blow feels very underpowered for the cost if you lack the proper resource.
Stealth Strike
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Four damage for three cost isn’t great. Also being able to thwart helps.
- The real problem comes from the threat removal trigger. In order to also remove threat, you need to eliminate your target. How often is there a minion with exactly four health? Anything more and you don’t remove threat, anything less and there was probably a cheaper way to defeat it.
Foiled
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- The text on this one makes it feel so convoluted. It can only be used to cancel boost icons on a scheme.
- Unless you, or a teammate, regularly spend time on Alter-Ego the odds of you having this card in your hand when a three boost card is flipped during a scheme are low. And, you wouldn’t want to burn a card from your hand for anything less than that. Otherwise it is probably worth more as a resource.
Clear the Area
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- One cost for two threat is a good value. Even more so in that it costs only one, making it far easier to play.
- The secondary effect can be hard to pull off. If the villain doesn’t have a lot of side-schemes that just limits your opportunity.
- If you do pull it off, the card pays for itself which is even better value.
Lay Down the Law
- Rating: 3. Okay
- One cost for up to four threat removal should be an excellent value. However, the pre-condition of changing forms limits when you can play it. You need the card in your hand when you are flipping back to hero form. The number of times I’ve drawn this card while already in hero form has soured it for me.
- It still has value on a hero that likes to flip a lot. Ant-Man and Wasp are the standouts, as they flip all the time.
Running Interference
- Rating: 3. Okay
- The Avengers precondition will become more of a hinderance as the game goes on, but for the early life of this card it was effectively meaningless. Sorry Ms. Marvel.
- This card has value if you like to play on elite difficulty, as it is four threat removal for two cost, going up to five for two. On standard, it’s three for two, which is only okay.
Crisis Averted
- Rating: 3. Okay
- Three cost cards always have an extra hurdle to jump to justify themselves. This one does give you good value at 2 to 1.
- The secondary effect, if you use mental can come in handy when a Crisis triggers.
- That you can only use this card against the main scheme can be annoying. Removing six threat from a side scheme can often clear them. Which would be nice if there is a crisis, as removing it might be more beneficial.
Multitasking
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- One cost for four total threat removal is great value.
- You do need to take the threat from two different schemes, so if you don’t have any side schemes it’s still an okay card.
- Helps when you want to work on a side scheme but can’t ignore the main scheme. Why not both?
Swift Retribution
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- If you have a villain who doesn’t do much scheme, four damage for one cost is a great value.
- Pairs great with something like Foiled to ensure not much threat gets placed.
Turn the Tide
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- Three damage for zero cost after doing a thwart from any other effect sounds great.
- The condition of removing all threat from a scheme makes it a little harder to pull off, especially while you happen to have this card in your hand.
- Good for Gamora who needs cheap attack/thwart cards available to trigger her ability.
Agile Flight
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- Five threat for three cost isn’t a great value. The ability to choose how you distribute that five threat does have some inherent value.
- The Aerial requirement limits who can use this card. It gives Aerial some added value, though it feels like a limit to the card rather than a benefit to those with Aerial.
Impede
- Rating: 1. Excellent
- Three threat removed for two cost isn’t a great value. But three for one is.
- The requirement to play this first, so you can get the card back, can be tricky sometimes but not as onerous as it first seems.
- One advantage it gives you is that, with a standard five card hand, you can play two 2-cost cards without having access to any resource generating cards in play. Early game it can be frustrating to draw a hand of two cost cards and only be able to play one of them with your five cards.
Pivotal Moment
- Rating: 3. Okay
- If you’re good at keeping the main scheme clear of threat, this is a good value.
- Would combo nicely with Turn the Tide for an eight damage combo if you had another way to clear the threat.
Think Fast
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- If you like to flip a lot, being able to confuse the villain before you do is handy.
- The cost of taking a damage isn’t wonderful, but you’re about to flip so can heal it up.
- The Guardian requirement does limit your choices some. Fortunately, there are several Guardians who don’t mind flipping, Groot being chief among them.
Scare Tactics
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- Three damage for one cost is a good value. However, the precondition can take some work.
- There are set ups where this card is very good and easy to trigger. If you can Confuse and then not use it for an extended period. Or can confuse easily.
- Unless you specifically build for it, this card can end up completely useless.
Making an Entrance
- Rating: 2. Situationally Great
- Two thwart for one cost is a perfectly reasonable cost. The secondary effect of healing if you can remove the last threat is just icing.
- You do need a hero who wants to do basic thwarts. There are many who will just never do that as they are better attacking or exhausting for another effect.
Brains Over Brawns
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- If you have a high thwart hero, this card is a way to provide some free damage, something you’re probably weak at.
- Unfortunately, to make the damage worth the two cost, you need at least a three thwart, but more would be better. To achieve that, you need a lot of setup first. Heroic Intuition plus some other enhancements to get value out of the card.
- It can be done but you need to build for it. Someone like Quicksilver would be the best candidate.
Living Tribunal
- Rating: 4. Situationally Good
- When I first read this card, I thought it was going to be great. You get to put a card into the villain pile with a different back. So you’ll see it when it comes up and know that the encounter card or boost card is going to be positive.
- However, the ruling that if it comes up as a boost card, it counts as a zero cost and is then discarded back to the players discard, not the villains, changes the feel dramatically.
- Two cost for an uncontrollable result is steep. If it resolves as a boost card, then you’ve paid two to prevent a max of three damage or three threat. That’s an okay value but you can’t control when that occurs.
Zone of Silence
- Rating: 3. Okay
- For one cost you can remove up to four threat. Sounds great on the face but there’s more.
- Discarding cards from your deck is a hard cost to judge. On one hand, losing those cards doesn’t affect your current hand at all. It’s just the opportunity cost to play them later. Early, when you’re trying to build your engine this is often bad, as it potentially burns valuable cards. But once you’ve played the upgrades and supports you need, and your deck is already thin, the main cost becomes the extra encounter card you’ll draw.
- The real limiter is the Mystic trait. There are not many characters who qualify.