Blog Post Title One
Legendary Expansion Review: Fantastic Four
Introduction to the set and explanation of how I play the set for the blog post.
Welcome to the Legendary expansion review series on LegendaryCardGame.com. In this blog series I will be playing through all Legendary expansions and writing about the cards in each set, starting with the small box (100 card) expansions. For the set reviews I’ll play two handed solo with each mastermind in combination with each scheme, usually eight games. During the games all heroes will come from that expansion unless I need to add more due to the scheme or mastermind. All villain groups will come from the expansion, supplemented by other sets when needed.
Fantastic Four was the second expansion to Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game released on October 15th, 2013. The expansion features the first family of Marvel: Mr. Fantastic, the Invisible Woman, the Human Torch, and Thing along with the Silver Surfer. Facing off against the heroes are Galactus and his Heralds along with Mole Man and the villains of Subterranea. Fantastic Four is often recommended as a great set for newer Legendary players, let's see if it holds up to expectations!
Keywords and mechanics overview
Fantastic Four introduces three new keywords: Focus, Burrow, and Cosmic Threat.
Focus is the main keyword on heroes which allows players to transform recruit points into other effects, including attack. You are allowed to use the focus effect as many times as you want and can afford to on your turn. Due to this, the set features a very high number of hero cards with recruit on them. Fantastic Four features eight distinct hero cards with recruit points. I compared this to three other small box expansions where the number of distinct hero cards with recruit points were four, five, and five. These increased number of recruit cards helps to support the Focus keyword, giving you enough recruit to spend it on other effects.
Burrow is a keyword appearing exclusively on villains. Burrow means that when you defeat the villain, if the streets city space is empty, instead of going to your victory pile the villain moves to the streets space. This makes managing the city a big focus when fighting the Subterranea villains. Sometimes you may only want to fight the villain once, or if it has a beneficial fight effect you may want it to burrow to the streets so you can fight it a second time and get the beneficial effect again.
Cosmic Threat is another keyword appearing exclusively on villains. Cosmic Threat is always followed by one or more class symbols (Strength/Green, Instinct/Yellow, Covert/Red, Tech/Black, and/or Ranged/Blue). For each card of that class you reveal, the enemy loses 3 attack. If you revealed three ranged cards, an enemy with Cosmic Threat: Ranged would lose 9 attack for your turn. Galactus has Cosmic Threat for all five colors, but you have to pick only one of them to use. Also, Galactus can only have Cosmic Threat used against him once per turn. After taking a tactic, if you want to hit Galactus again that turn you must reach his full attack value.
If you want to learn more about these keywords, check out the official Fantastic Four rule sheet here or watch these videos from Jinjoz link link link.
Discuss the heroes
Human Torch is the explosive damage dealer from this set. Hothead, one of his commons, is a four cost hero that gives four attack but gives you a wound. This is a tremendous amount of attack on a four cost card, but at a cost. To help balance this out, Call for Backup lets you KO a wound, and gives you an extra recruit point if you do. Together these cards let you get very high values of attack and recruit for the cost making a big impact. The uncommon Flame On! Brings the focus keyword to the Human Torch, allowing you to turn 6 recruit into four extra attack. Human Torch’s rare Nova Flame gives 6 attack and if you’ve played another Fantastic Four hero first you get +1 attack for each city space with a villain. So the more dangerous the city is, the stronger Human Torch will be. Human Torch is the heavy hitter of the group with a strong set of cards. You could say that Human Torch really… brings the heat. Given the emphasis on recruit giving hero cards in this set, Human Torch showing up in the HQ is a breath of fresh air and gives hope that you will be able to manage the city and hit the mastermind. When I didn’t see much Human Torch much in a game I knew I would have a tougher time.
Invisible Woman embraces the focus keyword and likes hero cards that cost four. Her Disappearing Act has Focus 2 recruit to KO a card from your hand or discard pile. This card is fantastic for thinning your deck of starter cards or wounds to draw your better cards more often. Unseen Rescue lets you spend extra recruit to rescue bystanders. Many expansions add special bystanders and give a lot more benefit to this effect. Four of a Kind gives bonus attack if you play other four cost cards. 23 of the 70 hero cards in the set cost four, giving great support for this card. There are also heroes in other expansions that have 4 cost support such as Juggernaut and Luke Cage Noir who pair well with Invisible Woman. Invisible Barrier, the rare card, lets you stop ambush effects on villains and draw cards. This is a great card to stop villains from completing detrimental effects to yourself and other players. Invisible Woman really seems like the hero set that connects the rest of the heroes in the set and gets them to synergize with each other. Her 4 cost synergy drips flavor for the Fantastic 4 and her ability to thin your deck is… fantastic! Invisible Woman is always a hero I enjoy seeing in my HQ, and one of these days I’ll play with a wonderful 4 cost synergy team to rock masterminds with.
Mr. Fantastic loves to have the largest hand possible. His iconic common Unstable Molecules draws you two cards and his other common Twisting Equations lets you utilize recruit through focus to increase the size of your next hand. These are both to set up big turns in general, or specifically to use his uncommon One Gigantic Hand which gives you an extra attack for each other card in your hand. Even with a standard six card hand, if you play a Fantastic Four hero and then One Gigantic Hand you’ll generate 5 total attack on a 5 cost card due to the four remaining cards in your hand, generating tremendous value even without the benefit of Mr. Fantastic’s commons. Ultimate Nullifier, Mr. Fantastic’s rare card, lets you choose to ignore a fight effect of an enemy (which means villains AND masterminds). Great for getting around Burrow in this set, or to avoid negative fight effects on villains or masterminds in many expansions. Ultimate Nullifier also lets you focus any amount of recruit into an equal amount of attack against the mastermind. If you’re a fan of drawing lots of cards and having plenty of options on your turn, using Mr. Fantastic is no stretch. Mr. Fantastic aligns with my favorite playstyle which is drawing as many cards as possible. I really enjoy pairing him with heroes like core set Iron Man to draw through as much of my deck as possible and slap the mastermind silly with my giant hands.
Silver Surfer is an unaffiliated hero who tags along with the Fantastic Four in this expansion. Using the Power Cosmic, Silver Surfer features recruit on all of his cards and focus abilities on three of them. The common card Warp Speed gives two recruit and lets you focus two recruit to draw a card. Warp speed lets you dig for that one extra attack or class trigger card you need, or utilize recruit in the late game when you're focused on defeating the enemies. The Power Cosmic, Silver Surfer’s uncommon card, provides 3 recruit and lets you focus 9 to generate 9 attack. Generating 9 attack, potentially multiple times in a turn is huge, but if you have 9 or 18 recruit, you probably don’t have much other attack in your hand. One of the worst feelings is when you have 8 total recruit in your hand, just one short of activating this focus and you probably won’t have enough attack to hit anything otherwise. A very high risk, high reward uncommon. This plays better if you recruit from heroes that focus extensively on recruit like The Ancient one or Peter’s Allies. My least favorite card in the set is Silver Surfer’s other common, Epic Destiny. It allows you to focus 6 to defeat a villain of 5 or 6 attack. Out of the 16 villain cards in this set, only the two copies of Megataur have a printed attack value of 5 or 6. The wording of the card doesn’t say it has to be a printed attack, which means that if you utilize Cosmic Threat well you could get 3 of the 4 villains in the Heralds of Galactus villain group to 5 or 6 attack. Generating 2 recruit for 4 cost with a focus ability that likely won’t do anything for you most of the time, I usually feel better recruiting a Maria Hill S.H.I.E.L.D. officer for 3 cost and the better value. Silver Surfer’s final card is Energy Surge as his rare which gives no recruit but doubles the recruit you have already generated this turn. This card really lets you get high enough recruit values for the focus abilities on hero cards throughout the expansion. The Silver Surfer may have the Power Cosmic, but he doesn’t feel cosmically powerful in this set.
Thing: It’s Clobberin’ Time! Thing has a blend of attack, recruit, and focus to bring some heavy hits. It Started on Yancy Street and Knuckle Sandwich bring a bunch of recruit for their value, and Knuckle Sandwich lets you turn that recruit into attack through focus. His uncommon Crime Stopper has a whopping 4 attack and can move villains around to control the city and rescue bystanders. The recruit on his commons lets you move villains all around, turn excess recruit into attack, and rescue a bunch of bystanders. Thing’s rare, It’s Clobberin’ Time! brings in the only class trigger on a hero in the set. For each green/strength hero you played before Clobberin’ time, you’ll get 3 extra attack. Green/strength cards are only available in one Silver Surfer common and Thing’s cards outside of his instinct common. While It’s Clobberin’ Time! has the potential to get huge attack values, there isn’t a lot of support in this set for him. Thing brings some welcome attack that is underrepresented in this set. If you need a lot of attack while playing with this set, you’ll want to be looking for Thing and the Human Torch to carry you. Thing will let you clobber any villains in the city.
Discuss the MMs
Galactus is currently one of the five highest attack masterminds in the game; and at time of release was the highest attack mastermind. However, with good deck building focusing on one or two classes, you can bring him down to very reasonable attack numbers. Cosmic Threat reduces enemy attack by three for each card of the chosen class. Galactus lets you pick from any of the five class options for your first attack against him for the turn, but if you want to hit him a second time you will need an additional full 20 attack as you can’t use his Cosmic Threat more than once per turn. His master strike is the scary part of Galactus, each time you draw a master strike you must destroy one of the city spaces, and any villain there escapes. This makes managing the city more difficult as the game goes on as you have less and less room in the city to keep villains without escapes. A bad shuffle with multiple early master strikes can cripple your ability to manage the city.
Out of Galactus’ four tactics, three have a beneficial effect. Force of Eternity lets you draw six extra cards at the end of the turn and discard six.This lets you filter through for your stronger recruited cards instead of starter agents/troopers and wounds. Cosmic Entity lets you choose a class then each player draws cards equal to the number of that class they reveal. You can pick the class most beneficial to you, and each other player has a chance to get a benefit; or in a co-op game you could talk about which class benefits the table the most collectively to finish off Galactus. Panicked Mobs follows suit and after picking a class each player rescues bystanders equal to the number of that class they can reveal. His final tactic, Sunder the Earth affects each other player forcing them to KO all hero cards in their discard pile that match a hero card in the HQ.
Given that you can reduce the attack on Galactus by a lot, and his tactics are generally beneficial, the toughest thing about Galactus is the ticking clock of his master strikes destroying the city and causing escapes / making it more difficult to manage the city. When playing through this expansion I was 1-3 against Galactus. Twice I lost to the scheme timer, and once to him eating the entire city. Galactus is a mastermind where you are racing against at least one timer, and trying to get a lean and mean deck as fast as possible. This makes a really fun challenge for a mastermind and building your deck over the course of the game.
Community member Travelsized has created these fantastic unofficial promo cards for destroyed city spaces available on his Extra Life page for a donation. Feel free to check these out here : insert link. I use them for Galactus, Ego the Living Planet, and the Heralds of Galactus hero group where they really make the play experience against them more exciting.
Mole Man is a deceptively tough mastermind. At first he only has seven attack and in the early game you might even be able to hit him for that value or a little more. However, with each ill timed master strike that causes Subterranea villains to escape he becomes that much more difficult. Worst case scenario Mole Man becomes a 15 attack mastermind if all eight Subterranea villains escape. Keeping the city clear of Subterranea villains is made that much more difficult because of their burrow keyword which makes it so you often have to hit them twice to remove them from the city, with the threat of a master strike forcing an escape hanging over your head. The wounds that Mole Man hands out when his master strikes succeed slow you and make it more difficult to hit him and manage the city later in the game.
Mole Man’s tactics are not as overly beneficial as those of Galactus. Secret Tunnel gives you +6 attack against villains in the streets. This helps you to deal with those pesky Subterranea villains who may have burrowed there. Underground Riches gives you +6 recruit for heroes in the HQ space under the streets, helping you to build out your deck. Dig to Freedom has each other player (which includes you in solo mode) choose a Subterranea villain in their victory pile and put it into the escaped villains pile, buffing Mole Man and making him stronger. In a five player game this could increase his strength by up to four. Potentially the scariest tactic is Master of Monsters which has you, if it is not the final tactic, reveal the top six cards of the villain deck and play all of the Subterranea villains revealed. This could cause escapes in the city and heroes from the HQ to be KO’d, which trigger loss conditions on two of the schemes in this expansion. This tactic single-handedly lost me the game playing this set by reaching a KO’d heroes total on the scheme due to escapes. Mole Man becomes much more difficult if you pair him with other villain groups that are difficult to remove from the city such as those with very high attack or keywords like Fateful Resurrection which might cause you to hit them multiple times.
Discuss the MMs
The Heralds of Galactus villain group features four villains: Firelord, Stardust, Terrax the Tamer, and Morg. Firelord starts out at 9 attack with Cosmic Threat: Ranged. HIs fight effect gives out wounds to each player, including you, who does not reveal a ranged hero. This could hand out a bunch of wounds to slow you down. If you can’t manage to fight Firelord before he escapes, he does his fight effect, handing out wounds to players without ranged heroes. Stardust is a 10 attack villain with Cosmic Threat: Covert. His fight effect lets you choose one of your covert heroes and add it to your hand for next turn, a very beneficial effect. Terrax the Tamer starts off with 11 attack and Cosmic Threat: Strength. When Terrax enters the city, he captures a bystander for each strength hero in the HQ, challenging their strength. Finally, Morg is a 12 attack villain with Cosmic Threat: Instinct. His ambush puts all non-instinct heroes from the HQ on the bottom of the hero deck. Morg’s ambush provides you a higher chance to recruit instinct heroes to take him on. This villain group starts off looking scary at 9-12 attack values, but for each appropriate cosmic threat you can lower their attack by 3. If you manage to have three ranged heroes in your hand in one turn, then Firelord can be attacked for zero! Hopefully one player at your table is focusing on each color and the villains can be handled without too much difficulty. If your HQ doesn’t give you the right answers, this villain group will pose a huge problem for your city management.
The Subterranea villain group features four villains: the Moloids, Ra’ktar the Molan King, Megataur, and Giganto. The attack values are nowhere near as high on these villains as on the Heralds of Galactus, but you can’t reduce them either, and you are sometimes going to have to fight them twice. The Moloids have only 3 attack with the beneficial fight effect to KO one of your heroes, but they burrow if the streets are empty. If you need to hit them twice, that is 6 attack, but you would get the fight effect twice. Ra’ktar the Molan King is scariest of the Subterranea villains for me, single handedly causing losses for me in two of my games in this playthrough. When he ambushes into the city, any villain in the streets moves to the bridge, and if a villain was already on the bridge they escape. Two of the schemes in this expansion cause a loss based on hero KOs, facilitated by the escapes caused by Ra’ktar. At 4 attack, don’t underestimate him or his burrow mechanic. Megataur ambushes in with two captured bystanders and has 6 attack plus burrow. He is a more challenging villain to overcome, but rewards you with two bystanders for your efforts. Hopefully his burrow doesn’t have you spending 12 attack to defeat him! Finally we have Giganto with 7 attack who’s fight effect lets you draw two extra cards at the end of the turn, a great benefit for Mr. Fantastic or just setting up your next turn in general. This is a great effect to let burrow and hit a second time if you can spare the attack, or want to share with the next player. The Subterranea villains don’t seem too bad, until they burrow and you have to hit them a second time if your city isn’t laid out the way you want. Heroes that move villains around the city are a huge benefit to fighting the Subterranea.
Discuss the Schemes
Bathe Earth in Cosmic Rays is a deceptively tough scheme. You start out thinking it will take you until the sixth twist to lose, but then you have an escape or two, a mastermind tactic that hits you with an unexpected KO, or a henchmen KO that takes out a non-grey hero and all of a sudden you are losing on twist four or five and there is nothing you can do about it. My two games with this scheme were both losses, and came on twist 4 or an escape after twist 4. Ra’ktar the Molan King was brutal in forcing early escapes in the first game and in combination with the Master of Monsters tactic from Mole Man in game two caused several escapes. Galactus also caused an escape in game one when he destroyed the streets and a Subterranea villain escaped causing me to lose. The scheme was great for keeping tension high in the mid to late phases of the game as I was actively evaluating any risk of escape that could come up. A couple of times I had to KO a 3 cost hero for the scheme and the cheapest hero in the HQ was a 4, so I didn’t get a replacement. Those times felt pretty rough, but happened infrequently enough it wasn’t too punishing. If you are looking for a low complexity high risk scheme, this would be a great one to bust out for your games. Many people complain that the core set is too easy; this scheme is simple but definitely puts you on a time crunch to win as quickly as possible, which makes it a nice step up from the core set schemes. The theming works well with Galactus trying to warm up his dinner (via a galactic microwave) or any other space based adversaries trying to cause harm to the Earth.
Flood the Planet with Melted Glaciers is a very interesting scheme to play against. In my first game it did not KO a hero from the HQ until the 5th twist, and only one card at that. The HQ was very expensive from the start, so the scheme didn’t play much of a role until very late in the game. I eventually got to a point where I could not lose to the scheme even on the 8th twist. In my second game the scheme started to KO heroes on twist three and kept the loss counter moving up and up each time. I lost game two because of the 8th scheme twist coming out and KO’ing the HQ. One game the scheme felt meaningful, and another it did not. Although this expansion comes with a LOT of hero cards with recruit, I was very much subject to the luck of the draw on what came out of the HQ rather than feeling in control to manage the scheme. The recruit heroes also made it difficult to deal with early game villains, even henchmen, which led to early escapes and moved up the loss counter. This scheme can be a great way to adjust the difficulty up or down on a simpler mastermind by forcing you to pay a lot of attention to what is in the HQ as well as managing the city. Do you buy the one six cost hero to pump up your deck, or buy two three cost heroes to prevent their KO by the scheme, but fill your deck up with less desirable cards? Depending on your hero cards, you could have a wildly different speed of the game. Play all spider heroes? You’ll lose VERY quickly as the timer ticks up by 5 on each twist after the first. Choose worthy heroes and you’ll have plenty of heroes five cost and higher to slow down the timer until later twists. The scheme has great theming with any masterminds that have a water element, have a history of creating ecological disasters, or just want to wipe out humanity.
Invincible Force Field is a pretty simple and fun scheme. It slowly ticks up the mastermind’s attack value, but allows you to use attack or recruit to get through the forcefield. If you are familiar with the keyword Bribe from Dark City, this operates as a mini-partial bribe effect on mastermind. On Galactus this effectively meant I’d want 1-2 more cards of the class I chose for Cosmic Threat to free up more attack for the effect of the scheme, or I could use some recruit to get past it. On Mole Man, this was putting him up towards 14 attack plus 6 from the scheme, making him as strong as Galactus. The scheme was pretty fun because it introduced rising tension as the game went on making the mastermind tougher and tougher. This scheme pairs well with many masterminds that have a technology or magical powerset. Watching the Avengers Earth’s Mightiest Heroes cartoon, Kang always had a force field around him, so this type of scheme would pair well with a futuristic tech mastermind like the Kangs, Nimrod, or Bastion. Magic masterminds like Ebony Maw or psychic masterminds like Charles Xavier, Professor of Crime would work well with this scheme as well.
Pull Reality into the Negative Zone is another simple but game impacting scheme. For significant chunks, including the end of the game, you will be using recruit to attack and attack to recruit. You need to be considering this as you recruit heroes throughout the game, making sure you have enough recruit to land those last hit(s) on the mastermind after twist 6 and before you lose on twist 7. The scheme puts 8 twists in the deck even though you lose on twist 7, to increase the speed of the timer. This set featuring so much recruit and the focus keyword, really shines under this scheme. You might have your whole turn planned out, then a twist comes out and you have to reevaluate your game plan on the spot, making this scheme very impactful. Thematically, this scheme goes well with any mastermind who operates in another dimension and wants to pull the Earth there such as Annihilus, Arcade, or the Beyonder.
Approachability of the set for new players
Fantastic 4 is the second expansion to Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game and often recommended as an early purchase for new players to Legendary, but does it hold up to that standard? The keywords and mechanics are on the simpler side, which is great for new players. Focus lets you turn recruit into something else, letting those recruit cards remain relevant for the entire game. Cosmic Threat as -3 attack for each card of a class you play is also very simple while reinforcing to new players that you want to try and focus on one or two classes as you recruit. I’ve seen newer players struggle with Burrow a bit, but I don’t think it is too complicated once you see it in action once or twice.
A common complaint about the original Legendary core set is that things were too easy, this expansion doesn’t seem to have that problem. Playing through this expansion I lost 5 out of 8 games, four of those losses being to the scheme (the remainder being Galactus eating the city). This was partly due to the high attack values on the masterminds and tight timers on schemes, however a big part was the heroes not generating enough attack to hit the masterminds. The sheer number of cards with recruit on them really slowed down my decks and kept me from hitting the villains in the city and masterminds. Two of the four schemes cause a loss based on the number of heroes KO’d, which is increased by escaping villains. Managing the city is essential in this expansion, and the reduced number of cards generating attack really prevents you from accomplishing that task as well as other hero sets do. I found myself getting frustrated often that I didn’t have heroes with attack points to recruit, or that I wasn’t getting the focus options to turn those recruit points into attack. I’d hate to see new players face that same sense of frustration.
The first family of Marvel and Galactus are incredibly iconic characters and Galactus is one of my favorite masterminds. However, this expansion feels so difficult to win while playing that I find myself wanting to recommend other expansions over this one. While you shouldn’t expect to win every game of Marvel Legendary by any means, it can be very frustrating if you aren’t winning often. If any of these characters are top favorites for you, buy this expansion up by all means. At one point early in the game’s lifespan this expansion was out of print, extremely difficult to find, and we weren’t sure if it was ever going to get reprinted. The expansion sold for tremendous amounts on the secondhand market, and given Upper Deck’s recent apparent difficulties keeping expansions in print, there is no knowing how long this may stay available.
Fun and Flavor of the set
The set is definitely fun! Galactus has such a cool and memorable master strike, he comes to mind often when players tell stories about Legendary. The Fantastic 4 have such great synergies among their team, and turning recruit into beneficial effects in the later parts of the game makes it an easier decision to recruit those cards in the early game. Invisible Woman bringing in a 4 synergy theme is such great flavor, the power cosmic through Cosmic Threat is a flavorful effect as well. The theme really knocks it out of the park in this set with how the heroes all work together.
Overall thoughts on the set
I went into playing this expansion with some rose colored glasses. I remembered loving the Fantastic 4 expansion when I first got it, less than a month after discovering Legendary. During this playthrough I felt frustrated playing the set. I was trying so hard to get attack generating heroes to be able to manage villains in the city and hit masterminds, and only finding recruit cards available. I only won three of the eight games, and in several of the losses I didn’t feel like I was particularly close to victory. The synergies among the heroes were not presenting themselves to me, I couldn’t get class synergies for cosmic threat, and it was frustrating to watch the game slip away from me turn after turn. There are a lot of great and fun cards in the set, but playing with all five of these heroes dilutes them. I love to use Silver Surfer with other heavy recruit heroes when I am trying to summon the Galactus Hungers hero card to win by devouring the city. I enjoy using the Invisible Woman with other 4 cost matters heroes like Luke Cage Noir or Juggernaut. Mr. Fantastic does very well with other tech heavy card draw heroes. All together, the Fantastic Four heroes get muddied, which is a real shame. Despite this, Galactus remains one of my favorite masterminds and I go back to fighting him time and time again.
Let me know your thoughts on the Fantastic 4 expansion below.
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My name is CaptainMetroidica and I run LegendaryCardGame.com. I was also the 2023 Ultimate Legendary Gamer which was one of the greatest honors I’ve received. I’ve been playing Legendary since July 2017 and love all things Legendary. If you find LegendaryCardGame.com helpful, consider supporting it on my Ko-Fi: https://ko-fi.com/captainmetroidica . All donations go towards funding the costs of running the site and once that goal is achieved, making more of these blogs and running more giveaways to help other Legendary players expand their collections. Thanks for reading the blog and supporting the site by visiting!
Game Notes:
Game 1: Galactus Bathe Earth in Cosmic Rays
Loss against Galactus bathe earth in cosmic rays. 12 KOs. Had a few early escapes from an ambush (ra’ktar the molan king) and not being able to hit henchmen. Lots of middling attack hands because of getting too much recruit. Scheme really threw me for a loop with not always getting a good card or any card. Overly KOd on one side and couldn’t recruit much. Overall tough to balance the recruit and attack, struggled to get class synergies for galactus. Still a fun game, good tension. Two city spaces destroyed. Managed to hit one tactic. Hothead human torch and disappearing act invisible woman were a fantastic combo. Lots of early henchmen (doom bots) but several 4/2 hands so I couldn’t hit them, leading to the aforementioned escapes.
Game 2: Mole Man Bathe Earth in Cosmic Rays
Lost against Mole Man. Got the Master of Monsters tactic on his first hit, which led to 3 escapes, several hero KOs, and discard from hand. Really pushed the scheme win condition forward. Used doombots for both bathe earth in cosmic rays games which may have been a bad choice.
Game 3: Galactus Flood the Planet with Melted Glaciers
Won! Very slow start to the game in the city and with recruiting. I had very expensive cards in the HQ which led to buying some officers and not losing anything to the first four scheme twists, and only one card on the 5th. I eventually got to a point where I could not lose from the final scheme twist in the villain deck. It took a really long time to get to enough class synergy to make cosmic threat work well enough for me due to my limited recruit options in the beginning. Silver Surfer’s warp speed and Invisible Woman’s Disappearing Act were key cards for this game, to thin my decks and draw enough to get the attack and cosmic threat needed to beat Galactus. Ended up with 4 city spaces destroyed. This particular game didn’t give me a great feel for the scheme, but it was something that factored into my recruiting decisions when I could afford multiple options. Before twist 6, would I buy one or two cheaper cards vs buying the one big impactful card? Cosmic threat also played a role in that decision making process. Ra’ktar the molan king continues to be a thorn in my foot during games, leading to escapes, with bystanders often. Silver Surfer Energy Surge worked very well with the focus cards i had in the deck, letting me KO and draw a LOT of cards.
Game 4: Mole Man Flood the Planet with Melted Glaciers
Loss. Didn’t get enough attack early to even hit henchmen, very little KO to thin the deck. Decks clogged up with recruit and not enough ways to generate attack. Bad HQs the whole game with very limited choices that would benefit me. Not the most fun game, was just a slow slog to the end. Managed to hit the mm twice, but that was the highlight. The scheme was much more consistent along the way starting to hit heroes in the HQ on twist 3, giving me a more consistent ticking clock, and I actually lost to a scheme twist.
Game 5: Galactus Invincible Force Field
Lost to Galactus eating the city. Most of the game I only had 2 city spaces, so city management was very challenging. Got Mr. Fantastic working well with his uncommon generating lots of attack. I really appreciate/value that card much higher now; usually 5 attack for 5. That is a great cost:attack ratio. The scheme really didn’t stack up too fast, it basically meant I needed one or two more heroes of the same color to hit galactus using cosmic threat. Still realy struggling to hit things past the amount of recruit that clogs up decks. One side got KO’d down really small deck, but still couldn’t hit things.
Game 6: Mole Man Invincible Force Field
Won, just barely. One Gigantic Hand Mr. Fantastic was the MVP of this game, having one hand down to 8-9 card and drawing all each turn, I was playing two of them for +6 and +5 attack each. The recruit being too high is still a continuing problem. The scheme was much more impactful this game, and did give me something to spend the recruit on in the late game. Mole Man was at 14 attack plus 6 attack/recruit from the scheme at the end of the game for the last hit, making him very challenging.
Game 7: Galactus Pull Reality into the Negative Zone
Lost to the scheme twist 7. I tried to get one deck into recruit and one into attack. However, I got stuck on twist 6 in the negative zone quickly and for a long time, making one side kind of useless. The recruit side was managing to hit Galactus, but it was too slow to get going.
Game 8: Mole Man Pull Reality into the Negative Zone
Won easily! Mr. Fantastic One Gigantic Hand along with Disappearing Act Invisible Woman made a lean and effective deck that blew through any Subterranea villains in the city and the Mole Man. The scheme didn’t alternate much, largely being in the normal dimension for all but 2 or 3 turns, letting me really hit hard with Mr. Fantastic and the Human Torch/Invisible Woman.
