Caught Off Guard

This card needs to be changed. Maybe it could be an expert card.

Edit: Home Rule: “Discard an upgrade or support you control, or pay two plus the cost of the upgrade to keep it in play. If no cards were discarded, this card gains surge.”

One of the big problems with Marvel Champions is how many scenarios end quickly. A common complaint is, “just when I get my hero built, the game is over.” The [getting built out] part is often the struggle.

I used to hate Stuns because the complaint is “I didn’t get to do anything.” Usually, you can clear them, BUT more importantly, they slow down attacks, which gives you more time to build out. So now I kinda like them for pacing.

Caught Off Guard adds to the pacing problem, and prevents the fun of building out. Our Home Rule fixes both problems.

Saying this "needs to be changed" is an overreaction, but you are entitled to play how you enjoy. This will usually cost you 2-3 resources of value, which is on par with other encounter cards. Does it feel bad? Sure, but that's the encounter deck's job — Stretch22 · 1302
Yeah, obviously it's your board game so you should play how you want, but "needs to be changed" is a bit of an overreaction when a card like Overwhelming Force exists. Definitely sucks to pull it when you' only have a big upgrade or support on the board, but a card you have to think about when deckbuilding. — Jvenom23 · 3
Well, it’s the Standard I modular which gets added to almost every scenario because Shadows of the Past is a base game element. Overwhelming Force is Standard II (which many people don’t play because it’s just punishing and worse than Expert 1). As it stands, most consider that S1 < E1 < S2 < E2. If we cared about S2, we’d probably change that card. “Needs to be changed” refers, of course, to base game pacing. Breaking hero build-outs on the base game leads to late build-outs which are often not economical to play + game might be over next turn, so you might not get to experience the full (or near full) build-out. The Upgrades and Supports are kind of weird anyway. Did Vision lose his cape? Thematically, suiting up tends to match powering up for a villain fight (especially with stage 1 feeling like an initial villain fight and stage 2 feeling like the final showdown). I mind cards like Caught Off Guard less in harder scenarios, but for learning the game –come on. That’s not learning, that’s just robbing players of the full experience. Why have a deck, if you can’t play it? Also, I would argue that the hero decks are the most fun part of the game. Lots of people spend a lot of time building them. Building custom villain scenarios with different modulars? Not as much (with notable exceptions). — underthewronghat · 57
Thanks to all you commented... We decided to change this home rule to, “Discard an upgrade or support you control, or pay two plus the cost of the upgrade to keep it in play. If no cards were discarded, this card gains surge.” The main reason here is because heroes like Hawkeye have a built-in mitigation for this card. Thus, it would cost Hawkeye one total resource plus flipping to get his bow back, or he could pay two resources right now and draw another encounter card. Thor could flip and get the hammer back for 1 cost, or he could pay 3 total resources and draw another encounter card to keep Mjolnir in play. Options are great. This has the effect of letting the player choose to have a resource set back plus another encounter card, or a full deck and re-shuffle setback. This retains the usefulness of those Alter Ego abilities. — underthewronghat · 57
Slingshot

I'm really confused. Are we allowed to use Actions on cards in our hands that haven't been played yet? That feels like the clear implication but... why would we ever need to pay for any other card in that case? It would seem this means that all Events can just happen from our hands without cost. What am I missing here? I get that the action specifies it happens from your hand, but that text is after the "Action" text and after the cost, so it doesn't matter until Actions are available, which means actions must be available before the costs are paid?

Turbowombat · 60
The legalese of doing an action from hand is unsatisfying, but the intent is abundantly clear. According to the dev comment here, "The card's ability is worded in such a way to allow this": https://hallofheroeslcg.com/latest-ffg-rulings-post-rrg-1-6/ — Stretch22 · 1302
Laser Blaster

One of many pieces to make voltron ally strategy shine. Especially good in Star-Lord deck, but also in other realiable on Guardian cards.

This is interesting, that basic card (Sidearm) is usually better for ally (avoid retaliate than overkill). However when ally got 3 or more attack, this card can be game changer.

Rate (A-C) B- This is upgrade likeof the worst upgrades on ally, Only to consider on making big ally.

nosiak · 129
Energy Shield

This feels crazy good with lots of potential, for anything voltron deck related! Also for decks that end up having a spare card around - and instead of using Plan B - use an ally that can have maybe 3 atk/thw!

Thats just solo! In multiplayer it can get even better!

Or what I'm thinking - drop on iron man and two allies - being able to boost your hand while getting consistent ally activation out when flipped down and building!

TreeTopTKM · 3
Daredevil

For a two cost ally, Daredevil is a pretty good card. If you're playing a Protection deck against Ultron, he's a solid pick to counter the Ultron Drones Environment. You can use him specifically to tank one Drone, then move that damage back to the Drone and discard it. Another good use is to specifically deal with enemies with a Tough status card, as moving the damage from him to the enemy causes the Tough status card to trigger when you try to apply the damage.

It's important to note that if you're trying to chump block with Daredevil, because his ability is a Response, he has to SURVIVE the attack in order to move 1 damage from him to the enemy, meaning a fresh Daredevil can only block up to 2 damage. (I'm about to submit this and I noticed @Stretch22 beat me to the punch 3 years ago, so if you see this before you see their post and this answered your question, please give their review a like too!)

Daredevil's capabilities can be extended with cards such as Med Team and First Aid, and/or expanded on using the growing collection of Honorary Upgrades provided to us in card packs/expansions. Some current options could include:

I'm still new to the game and have been in the trenches with several X-Men builds and saw that this possible combo exists to maximize your use of this ability to really deal with 1 HP Minions and Tough statuses:

While I don't believe the above combo is an optimal use of these resources, I do think it's a funny build challenge to get working and really does help deal with some damage mitigation and annoyances like 1 HP minions and Tough status cards.

My primary reason for writing a review was to submit a rules clarification that took a while to find and I'm just hoping to save another, newer player, some time on a search engine:

  • Despite being from different universes, Daredevil and Daredevil cannot be in play at the same time.
  • Per the rules under the Unique Icon portion of the v1.6 Rules Reference : An Ally without a subtitle cannot coexist with an Ally that has a subtitle if those Allies share the same title.

This only came up because I wanted to have two Daredevils out and about with Spider-Woman at the same time, but my scheme was thwarted by the rules. I know the Earth-14512 version of Daredevil would be something like Mike, Mat, or Levi, but it was never confirmed, so here we are. Then again, a lot of people play Nebula against Nebula and THAT'S against the rules, so I guess if you have a cool table who doesn't mind, you can do it anyway.

BardicMonk · 3
I love this awesome and thorough review. — tunicv · 777