Marvel Champions Age of Apocalypse Review 

You are my number 1 go to when it comes to marvelchampions, thanks for still making vids!

I really appreciate your honesty especially in regards to missions. I totally agree with how you feel about the campaign and how it not only affects decks with low allies but prolongs every game. Also agree that everything else from this box is 💯. Thanks for the review!

As someone who collects the game but doesn't play it much, I super appreciate this type of breakdown for when I finally break it out. I'm silly glad the algorithm recommended you to me so I can go back and learn the game better in general and know how the heck to deck build (and not just rely on hit & miss db sites).

Got half way through the video before I realized you're wearing a shirt from my home town haha

As someone who hasn't played this expansion yet, I really appreciate your review!

I agree the 4 horsemen is the hardest but disagree that it is my least favorite. I am not a fan of the constant annoying penalties. First round in my first game: oh joy I just discarded both Bishop’s suit and gun. Oh joy I just discarded Limbo and two of Magik’s upgrades. F$$&&&@@k!!! I do feel the same about Magik and Bishop. She may replace Domino as my fav (Would love to see you do a 2 hand play through with them) and I was not excited about Bishop but he is so much more fun than I expected

Played the campaign, but those missions were not my favorite design. Thanks for the video! I enjoyed hearing your opinion on the rest of the box!

Thanks for this video! I think this is kind of where I fall on it. Loving Standard III and see it as a permanent replacement. All of the scenarios are fun and have their own quirks. Found the missions to be a bit much and not as fun as previous campaign mechanics. The modulars are great. And, of course, the heroes are amazing! The Gandalf/Norman Withers mechanic is always a blast while Bishop makes all those not-so-great resource cards worth using.

I have just a handful of expansions and heroes. While I don’t get this game to the table often, I always enjoy your videos and enthusiasm around this game.

Love the shoutout to D20’s luck of the draw with Shadows 😂

I love this box. I'm pretending the missions don't exist but everything else in this box is awesome. From a solo perspective, I'd say my favourites from best to worst are both Apocalypse's, Dark Beast, Unus, and then Four Horsemen. I just find the Four Horsemen insanely oppressive and I'm not a fan when villains just constantly mill my deck and force me to discard all of my upgrades/supports. I also play a lot of 3-4 player and man, En Sabah Nur Apocalypse is one of the most fun villains in the entire game in multiplayer. With more encounter cards going out, he flips like 1-3 times every villain phase and it makes it such a blast to fight him with him healing, dealing indirect damage, and pumping out a lot more threat and power counters. He just feels like such an epic brawl between villain and heroes.

Great video! I usually play no campaigns as well but like the option and I weirdly enjoyed the mission mechanic but probably helped that I kept summoning and sending Domino with an upgrade to deal with missions so she always triggered haha. It’s a neat mechanic but I always dealt with it first to get the benefit before progressing on the main villain/scheme. I can see how it would just delay the game if you wait until you have pretty much won to grind it out. Thanks for the content!

I've only gotten to play through the box 3 times so far, Solo Magik Expert, Solo Bishop Expert, and in a 3 player standard game, so my opinions may change. All three have been in campaign mode. I've found four horsemen relatively easy in my solo runs, and it was punishingly hard in our multiplayer game. Magik just kept them so locked down, I rarely ever dealt with their abilities. Bishop struggled a little more without as easy access to status effects but still handled it pretty easily. But on standard multiplayer, they were a hard scenario. They kept ahitting down juat the right peraon at the right time. My son playing Cyclops got the diacard upgrade/support almost everytime, and my wife as Magik kept getting hit with shutting down her ability, which is brutal. So, with very limited data, this scenario has been from really easy to standard difficulty solo, and extremely hard multiplayer on a lower difficulty. The campaign is straight awful. Definitely the worst campaign mode in the game so far. Unfortunately, my son only wants to play in campaigns, so I need to find a house rule for moving forward because I hate it. It adds a ton of time to the game, and like you said, ita usually atbthe end when you've really already won. If anyone has any ideas on house rules for the campaign I'd love to hear them. Im leaning towards the one I got off reddit which is to use thwir overseer side, and when you thwart the scheme or attack the prelate, they activate against you. In solo, I don't think I'll ever run theough it in campaign mode again because it is so awful. Good review, though I'm really not sure on villian placement yet with so little data and playing in campaign which was bad. I'm glad you enjoy Bishop. He's my favorite of the two even though Magik is stronger, IMO. Magik is so good, but it really has me wracking my brain more than any other hero I've 0layed to date. Not a bad thing per se, but navigating her is tricky and my turns tend to take a long time.

For me I loved the heroes in the box (my favorite pairing so far in a box) but found all the scenarios to be fairly mediocre with Dark Beast being the weakest. I can't see any of them entering my regular rotation but they'll hit the table occasionally. I agree about the campaign, it was a big dud for me.

I agree. The Scenario’s are great. I love Unus design the most with the infanuats side scheme. Very clever. I love the idea of the missions and the design team being inventive. But… yeah… it was a miss from me too 😅. I didn’t love how the mechanics worked.

Great breakdown of the box!

You make this box sound so good. I haven't bought an expansion in a while, and the mutant theme is my jam...if you were going to get one, Genius, NE, or Apocalypse...would lean towards Apocalypse? I understand if you can't answer as a creator. In any case thanks for the great review!

I play 95% 2 player with my wife, so this is coming from a 2 player perspective: From a difficulty perspective I rate these scenarios as (1 is hardest): 1. Four Horsemen 2. Apocalypse 3. En Sabah Nur 4. Unus 5. Dark Beast Agree mostly about the missions. Thematically, I think it makes sense for the last scheme's mission to be required (En Sabah Nur), but otherwise, I think they aren't worth the effort. We completely ignored them on the 2 hardest scenarios because those scenarios required full attention to defeat (lost 3 times to Four Horsemen and 2 times to Apocalypse). Also, there is a method of defeating the missions that is kind of boring once you figure it out--Put out at least 2 of 3 high stat allies that have wild resources (I'm looking at you Colossus and Venom) and somebody like Captain Britain or Dum Dum Dugan and you can defeat the mission in 2 tries. I would put this campaign in the middle of the pack for difficulty. OK, now the controversial hot take. I like Standard I better than Standard III. There is just more surprise with the Nemesis minion coming out in Standard I. Under Standard III you can see it coming. And with Standard I it is true that many times you won't see your Nemesis, but other times, you can have both players having their Nemesis minion coming out. I bet Standard III will rarely have both Nemesis minions come out in one game. I like the tension of the uncertainty. I actually feel that Standard III is easier than Standard I.

Great review! Haven’t gotten this one yet but excited to eventually. I’ve heard others say the same about the campaign. Guess it’s new mechanic is rough around the edges. Do you think it will lead to anything more refined in the future?

Amazing video man! I am curious about your comment that you usually don't play campaigns. This makes me wonder: how do you usually decide what to play? (it would be great if you had a video about this, btw). Do you just go with your gut, or do you search for cool decks in Marvelcdb and try them out, or do you randomize, etc. Also, since it takes a while to deckbuild, do you play two or three scenarios with a character? Or you deckbuild and play and then undo (so, one off).

Question coming from someone who doesn't own the hood and hasn't opened age of apocalypse yet. Can you mix standard and expert sets? E.g standard 3 with expert 1?

I didn't love the villains in this box that much. None of them are bad, but Unus and Dark Beast feel a little bland, and Four Horsemen just felt like a brick wall the two or three times I tried it. But I love Bishop, and right now I'm enjoying him more than Magik which I would not have guessed. Part of it may be that he's just so incredibly strong - he sailed through every scenario except Four Horsemen, even with decks I hadn't put that much thought into. But now I'm tuning a Sidekick deck for Spider-Woman. Captain Marvel gets so ridoncolous!

I ask myself if we will get another expansion..... I really hope so. I see 2 ways to go from here, a dive into mystical adventures (More Magic Users, Multiversums and so on) or a street level box with heroes like Daredevil. Was there an hint about a new expansion series somewhere?

I agree with the vast majority of the things you said. The only thing I don't like about Standard III is, that, at least when I played the campaign (I played it 6 times in total, 3 in standard, 3 in expert, 4 times in total with 2 players), except for like 2 games, Pursuit of the Past always triggered. A lot of the time twice, especially when I played with 2 players. When I played with the OG Standard, I saw Shadow of the Past activated like 40-50% of the time. With Standard III, it's pretty much guaranteed. On the flip side, it's near impossible to trigger Pursuit in the first 2 turns, unlike the OG, when I can just get it whenever. I want to say I prefer the OG Standard, but since Pursuit is pretty much guaranteed to trigger, I actually like the added challenge.

Ufa finally bro.

Is it fairly common to play through a new box without using the campaign rules because I’ve been wanting to do that but I feel like I’m cheating lol

Haven't watch the video yet but I will say the campaign mechanics imo suck this time. Missions are a drag.