Welcome to Critical Encounters, a podcast about Marvel Champions, a Living Card Game by Fantasy Flight Games. Here we take a good look at that most critical piece of the game, the Encounter Sets. We’ll discuss those poorly understood characters, unfairly labeled Villains, and their various plans to shape humanity and benefit the planet, as well as those so-called heroes intent on thwarting them. We are your hosts Vardaen, bigfomlof, TheTruth and WanderingTook.
Hey thanks for watching. It possible you have the icons flipped. The main scheme starts with 2 threat per player and goes up each turn by 1 per player. There is an acceleration icon in play for campaign like in this game. So in a true solo it goes up by 2 each villain turn.
Long time listener, first time caller. I have not been able to beat Sandman standard true solo or with 2 characters, so I'm checking out a few videos to see if I'm playing correctly. Every video I watch has set up differently. One quick clarification - shouldn't Hapless Pedestrians start out with 2 Threat on it? Otherwise, I wanted to clarify that 3 threat is added each villain turn. That's how I played it, and it just seems impossible in solo!!!!
Great playthrough Steve! Magik is fun .... I've only played her once, but now I want to try her out again! There are just so many good heroes out there is hard to play them all! Haha...currently am into Cyclops, Iceman, Angel, Bishop, Domino and Thor (he's always fun!):)...
I love how enthusiastically you announced Goldballs 😂 Hey where did you get your aftermarket tokens? Mine are all worn out and I think I want some plastic ones to replace them.
For some reason that's a funny name. Those are Burger Tokens: burgertokens.com/ You get a sheet of sticky tokens that attach to pennies you can customize what's on either side so I have Stun on one side and Confuse on another, and other stuff like that. I suggest trying to put the threat on more more spread out because I never seem to have enough threat, but other wise like them.
Love all your material obviously, ...but I EXTRA love the live playthroughs!! Something about watching a live game - the shuffling, the sounds of cards hitting the table...nothing sweeter!! Im loving Iceman too! I never really play precon decks, but its always interesting to see how they fare....thanks for the awesome video!!
Thanks! Might I suggest you always play a pre-con a tleast once. Open that pack, put it on the table and play it once against your favorite scenario. You see what the designers had in mind, and its a good challenge too. Then deck build from there. There are many people out there that only play pre-cons or use pre-cons a lot, you'd be surprised. Its a fun way to interact with the game.
@criticalencounterspod You convinced me! I might try that for Jubilee or Nightcrawler ....I think I did it for Domino and just found some of the reskinned cards (is it Even the Odds..? The justice card - remove 1 threat off each side scheme ...deal 1 damage to villain etc) superfluous in the deck... Also, with the Iceman precon for instance...I'd only put one copy of Team Building in the deck, so for me the two other copies could be replaced with better cards.... A big part of the enjoyment for me is the deck construction...but I'll play a few more precons with the coming releases because I like the idea you can see what the designers have crafted for that hero...!:)...and it would give an extra challenge, playing the precon....(sometimes the scenarios are challenging enough! Haha) Would love to see more live playthroughs from CE!:)
@@Rey_Plays_Games Yeah the Pre-cons are not the best optimized decks but they provide a good interaction with the game for a game or two, then its time to deck build. We will try and keep the live plays coming, its too bad its so hard to record multiplayer games live.
@criticalencounterspod yeah it's such a shame it's hard get multi play with live cards...I've seen some other channels basically cast their tables in sync...but then you need someone controlling the encounter deck ....I'm currently on a quest to learn how to play Cyclops and pilot him well....I'll look at his precon deck and see if it gives some clues as to hos overall design!:)
@@Rey_Plays_Games We play plenty of MP games here, but I don't have the equipment to film the whole table, etc. We need more of that sweet sweet Pateron money to ever think of doing that! :) Or perhaps some Break'in and Tak'in
Really love your live card setup. Super easy to follow along. And the card images on the screen help out a ton. I also like that you feature the precon. The raw card shuffling kinda triggers my OCD. I was struggling with tempo when playing with his precon because of how expensive his deck is. I had to go with a 43 card deck by tossing in Energy, Genius, and Strength just to try and get a tiny bit more economy. I do have a question: was there something that caused you to begin the game with extra threat on the main scheme? I feel like I missed something there. Good Game! Please keep making these. Super fun to watch.
Thanks! Hmmm, why did it start with 3 threat? I think I read 3 Knock Counters and that number was stuck in my head....wait a minute, who was that bald guy in a wheel chair that just rolled out of the room? Professor X must have messed with my mind and FORCED the number 3 to be in my mind so I started with too much threat! LOL
This episode felt like a fever dream in the best way. Loved the commitment to the Pawn Stars bit; it really livened up talking about an otherwise mid modular set.
It is def difficult to do lore segments on modular sets like this. Thank you to all our guests for coming and bringing their A game, Maka, BGL, Lexicon, DArcy and Weenkster! Go check their stuff out also.
I’m still enamored by the spectacular appearance pickle grips….courtesy of the Board Game Lawyer. (Please watch episode 224 if you are listening to this and somehow missed it!)
As I've said before, I love watching people play with the physical cards - though i have grown to enjoy and appreciate the OCTGN games as well, so I'll watch either way. I really enjoyed this game - I had a very similar experience running Iceman against Unus (i played him in Standard 2/Expert) and he got out of control on me - I think I had my first encounter phase go exactly like your first encounter in one of my games! It took me three tries with a slightly modded pre-con to take down the victory. Anyway, I love watching you play with the cards, so I'd adore seeing more content like this!
I agree with Leroy. A game with physical cards looks much better. Thanks for sharing this fun game! I also have 1 comment about the Gene Pool. This card states the following: "Forced Response: After an ally is defeated by anything other than consequential damage, place 3 threat here." I think you forgot about this (I often forget this too) For example, when you lost an ally due to Unus' retaliate 1.
Looking back I didn't loose any allies to retaliate or non-consequential damage, at least not that I saw. Its a lot going on so its possible I missed it, but he didn't have retaliate 1 much during the game thankfully for Iceman.
Personally, I pretty much only watch live play with physical cards. I can't explain why, but it's just much more interesting than watching a computer screen. In terms of the recording, I really liked the overlay of cards to show what you played. I'd mess around with the lighting bit, it's a bit bright (but maybe sleeving cards will change that). I would also suggest moving the villain HP dial to be above the player HP dial to free up some space below the villain for attachments and stuff. What I've seen from other people with live recordings is they will put their hand in the middle at the start of the turn to show what they have, and then pick them up into their hand for board space. Maybe that would work for you too?
This is my favourite of the Mojo sets. Something about Blob 3.14 just tickles my funny bone, and they are a good, varied challenge without being insane.
Nice channel i just found it by this video, i'm new at the game and i just built a protection deck for the cap, but Klaw has been kicking my butt and i want to know if i'm missing something haha
What a blast! Thanks for taking time to document it for those of us who couldn't make it. This was an awesome snapshot of the people, games, and overall adventure of the Con this year. I'm looking forward to Issue 220 and hearing from all the villains and minions who attended even more now than I was before - especially with faces to names and voices.
If Drang had his Spear, he would be Stalwart and the Superhuman Strength wouldn't get discarded. I don't think it would be enough to quite finish it still, though! (Edit - Sounds like Romeo caught this during the stream)
Wow, that was a fast one! Drang had your number!, for sure. He can really push out the damage :). The ending there was hilarious. A double K-O on Jennifer, and the death of Iron Man :D. I can imagine She-Hulk climbing out of the panel where she got killed only to be blown up by the Rogue Vessel in the next frame.
I think we all know the White Queen is Wanted Dead or Alive for her offenses against grammar and general controversy. :P Also, I have to throw Magneto 2.6 in the running. In a 4-player game, he'd have a lot more time to put counters on and discard cards from your hand! Another pick would be Speed Demon since he gets to attack first whenever a character attacks Speed Demon, making him almost immune to allies and a pain for any hero who can't hit him with a big attack!
This was an epic game! Crossbones with his armor and a bazooka was just spectacular :D. Lots of tense moments, barely hanging on throughout the game. Very fun!
I don't understand all the hate for Iron Man... he sounds like the perfect villain in making Sentinels and supporting Mutant Registration ;) Y'all are just jealous that he's suckered everyone else into thinking he's really a hero.
Deck Lists Need some tip on how to defeat Iron Man... wait, um, no, anyhow here are the deck links we talked about on Issue 217: Weenkster - Aggress marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/37336/dive-bomb-is-excessive-1.0 Vardaen - Protection marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/37968/the-soaring-cost-of-tech-these-days-critical-encounters-1.0 Bigfomlof - Leadership marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/37970/iron-man-for-podcast-1-1.0 Lexicon - Justice marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/37966/the-intellectually-superior-iron-man-1.0 Lexicon - Pool marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/37964/iron-pain-in-the-asterisk-1.0 WanderingTook - Pool marvelcdb.com/deck/view/690936
Fun game - glad you had a chance to return to this for revenge! Ya'll were getting so set up, Kang knew he needed to shut you down fast! Steve - your volume has been a bit low lately, especially compared to BGLs. Might be worth increasing the volume on your mic for the next game!
