Heads up. I got one thing incorrect. I say that Arachnobatics can flop against villains with steady or stalwart. It's actually only true with stalwart. It may take two of the same status card to stun or confuse a villain with steady, but they would still count for the Arachnobatics effect.
Very good review and I though quite agree on it. Both the heroes are very strong and fun, and the scenarios all got good design and mechanics. Though it may look having poor scaling on acceleration tokens, but I think it’s actually not that huge problem as you will gone through the encounter deck lot faster while in multiplayer, especially in sand man’s case, where he will attack the players more often, you will have a greater chance to trigger the ‘surging sands’ ability and cycle through the deck more often. The sinister six scenario can actually have different variations than expected, like some villains have never shown up in once, though I would also agree that no other modular encounter sets is needed to be added is quite lame. The modular encounter sets is quite interesting also as personal nightmare can pull your nemesis minion and side scheme out without sotp and you can hardly counter it except for ghost spider’s piourette and punch, it’s actually something we would like to see more. But I not so agree on the Osborn tech set as I think it all got surge is mainly due to becoming a part of the reputation track. In order not to dilute the encounter deck, adding the ‘surge’ keyword is actually quite reasonable. Though the advance glider is quite nasty I agree, it’s great that it is not a ‘must’ to include in venom goblin’s scenario. But I think having some sets to bump up the difficulty is always great and it is needed. Finally as for venom and the symbiote suit, I think it’s quite clever to add the hazard icon to balance the card while it fits thematically. The public outcry isn’t that hard to clear in the mid to late campaign though, as you mostly start up with some minions and a side scheme out, which helps to clear it very quickly.
Thank you for the video! Really appreciate the quality of your production as well as your opinions on the game. I have played through the campaign in 2-player on Standard. We won our 1st playthrough and really loved it. The Reputation Track was a great addition and we never felt like any scenario was as punishing as Ronan (our benchmark in 'broken'). I've played back through all of the scenarios except VenGob (in Standard Solo play with an upgraded GhostSpider Prot) and won each without defeat. Here are some thoughts, both general about MC as well as SM. 1. Sandman is easy to maintain with allies, and sometimes even gives a better reason to keep them on the table beyond chumping. Not only for their non-consequential ability to remove sand, but also mitigate the indirect damage. 2. The Bell Tower (Venom) works better in Solo than group play, and might have been intended to balance the Threat issue you have with the side schemes. Because the Chime Counters are a result of only 1 Attack, they go further with a solo player than group. Being able to set up 2 on Quiet, then hit for 6 with GS, putting 5 counters on Ringing, was much more valuable when only 1 activation was meant to occur in the upcoming round. 3. Based on Hawkeye(s) in RoRS expansion, I believe you are able to use Young Love to heal both heroes so long as the person playing the card is in Alter Ego. SpiderMan is still Miles Morales on his hero side, the same way Hawkeye is still Clint Barton and thus can exist next to Kate Bishop without his Hero side including his Alter Ego name. 4. Down the Earth is one of my faves of all time and will likely become another 'Standard' in my solo play! Thanks again for the great video!
Enjoyed your review. I mainly play MC true solo and yes it's imbalanced at times with some Hero's and Villains requiring optimised decks, good play and just plain luck often. Still enjoy the new box. Always annoys me when "they" refuse to utilise "per player" making many cards so much more difficult/imbalanced true solo than it really needs to be Vs multi-hand or multiplayer.. they have the mechanism but bafflingly don't use it sometimes when they should... it's like someone at FFG is trolling TS :). Totally agree some Villains are just plain broken TS though even on easy. The games needs some TS focussed cards that only work when your TS.. "Lone Wolf" is a keyword i'd give them for free :P Yep surprised wrt web warrior and think they missed a trick not including upgraded replacement Web Warrior Cards for Spider Man & Woman in this box.... IMO Sandman is easy with the Hero's I've tried, yes it's single Stage 9 but not too bad and the same rule applies to this as Rhino.. always allow for Advance or if Justice Under Surveillance helps and is a rare card that has more benefit for TS scale wise. Sp//dr apparently has a "Thwip Thwip" protection card which deals with Steady wrt Stun so possibly something similar for confuse is incoming also.. Still the game needs some serious work to stop the rot wrt TS... at least play test it TS would be a start.
