You have no idea how much I wanted to see such a list, especially since the villains tiers videos on YT are quite old in internet age. And this one is even coming from you, so even more reasons to love it. Thanks for your effort, I really appreciate it. ❤
What an endeavor! I really appreciate the ambitious nature of this rating task. I think you've provided a great resource to the community. If I had one addendum, I'd recommend playing 4-hero wrecking crew again. Because the side-schemes don't scale with player count and the small villain decks run out and produce tons of acceleration counters, it's an order of magnitude more difficult on Expert 4-hero than Expert 1-hero. With 4 heroes on Expert, it's one of the 5 hardest scenarios in my experience.
Massive thanks to you, Nelson, and D20 for all the amazing content that led me to check out this game that had been sat on my shelf for way too long - now have everything produced due to be delivered tomorrow so this video is perfectly timed for what feels like Christmas eve 😂
Good work man, as always. A very detailed and explained tier list. I'm glad to see in so "high position" Nebula and The collector (solo expert mode) compared to other youtube lists: maybe are so underrated 'cause are not fun Villains to face and don't be played very often. Nebula can be very variable: easily win or loss depending on how much she surge...they are the only 2 Villains that I don't like to play in Heroic mode, especially The Collector, auto loss in expert/heroic mode for a lot of Heroes.
I play almost exclusively Standard, and I think you did a pretty good job considering you don't play too much yourself! Biggest outliers in my eyes are 4 horsemen being much lower, probably a 5, and En Sabah Nur being a bit higher at like a 7. I also think Unus is much easier, probably a 2 or 3, because you take much less damage in standard. It means that you need chump blocking much less, and his core mechanic of gene pool scaling is much easier to manage by either defending or just flipping and recovering. Among my group, we have never really struggled with him at any player count. I do think in standard playing "slow" is a little bit more effective than in expert, and this may lead to different evaluations of villain difficulty. Either way, thank you for putting this and the modular rankings together; they are a huge asset to the community!
Oh that's fantastic feedback. We'll see how we go but I'd love to refine this list in the future. Interesting how it's the new scenarios, which are definitely the ones I have least experience with on Standard by far. Although I have played Four Horsemen at least twice on Standard and it felt pretty tough both times. Worth noting these are without their normal modulars, and Four Horsemen's modulars are easier than their own encounter cards etc. But great feedback all the same and curious to see what everyone else thinks!
@@VillainTheorymy wife and I have played this more than any other game since it came out, so we are always interested in content like this to help us systematically control the difficulty to exactly what we want.
Wow! This is amazing! Going through it now and so helpful for me being a newer player and trying to figure out who to play with my level right now. I love these videos! THANK YOU!
Haha! I don't know if you noticed but I snuck Venom into the background of the thumbnail. And just you wait for the next Every Hero's "Worst" Cards video...!
My kind of hot take is that Loki isn't that difficult, but I play only on expert. Probably most people will agree that the biggest difference between standard and expert is that on standard you can build up when you start with pretty low stat villain before you go to phase 2, on expert that's how you start and Loki has same stats in standard and expert, so once you are used to that difficulty Loki is quite annoying but he is max 7/10 in terms of difficulty
Totally fair. I only play him on Expert as well but I find him pretty dangerous compared to most villains. If anything I think having the same stats as Standard means he's just particularly nasty on Standard. His stats are still bigger than most Expert villains.
I came here to say exactly this. I most commonly play 3 player and think we have won every time we have played Loki. Compared to Ultron & Magneto where it took us numerous attempts and real specific/strong deck builds to defeat. And then there’s Nebula/VG & Ronan I still don’t think we’ve ever beaten 😂
@@drcolossus1 I have beaten Nebula and Ronan expert while playing 3-handed, but it was Captain America+Strange+Antman with very strong decks (it was long time ago, before release of MTS), probably the strongest thing I could put together by myself at the time, you need to tech for them and everyone MUST have Target Acquired in their decks Between the 2 I think I dislike Nebula more, Ronan is simple, he hits like a truck, his encounter cards kill you and then surge but that's it, Nebula at the other hand basically deletes 1st player turn, between removing her stupid counters and her effects stunning/confusing/discarding cards from hand first player usually has it the worst, if it's 3 player game it's somewhat manageable, but I usually play solo and as such consider her unplayable I have very mixed opinion about VG, basically if he does not destroy me in first 3 turns I am usually ok, but nasty encounter cards on first turn can end game there already, also my advice: let the scheme that makes you discard cards fail, it's the worst one by far
Yeah! Very good ranking. I may disagree with you but it is insignificant. I loved the way you split between expert and standard and again between solo and multiplayer. Brilliant!!!
After taking 4 attempts for my Partner and me to finally beat Hela on Standard as Cap/Thor it really hurts to see her at Medium 😂 Great Video! Do you recon the campaigns make the villains easier since you tend do get some upgrades? Especially asking for GMW, since it would be next on my list 👀
Ahhh! Don't worry about it at all. Hela is a weird one. She destroyed me and my buddy when we first played her years ago - but once you get the hang of manipulating her schemes and things, and using her huge main scheme threshold, she's not so bad. This is also rating her without her recommended mod sets and the Frost Giants are pretty tough. As for the campaigns, it genuinely changes between campaigns. I don't play the campaigns a lot as I much prefer standalone mode, but from what I recall Rise of Red Skull, Mad Titan's Shadow, MojoMania and NeXt Evolution campaigns help the player - while Galaxy's Most Wanted, Mutant Genesis and Age of Apocalypse make things a little more difficult. Sinister Motives makes things easier as I recall - until it doesn't! If you know, you know... (If anyone else is reading this and plays the campaigns more, feel free to jump in!)
Could you make a video on alternative mod sets for villains that improve their difficulty or leans into their theme more. My attempts at customised mods do not add anything.
I’m going through my collection, campaign by campaign, and so far the only memorable villain was… Ronan… I was lucky to beat him with Starlord and Drax by was rushing him in 3 rounds, and almost got defeated (I had luck of the draw and Drax died)
This is really good thanks. Will say with this and with your modules one which was also really good do you have it available to print or so we can see it all and print it off. I am on the Facebook fans page Marvel Champions lcg community. Thanks
Klaw become easier the most player you add, the main scheme minion doesn't scale, starting with one big minion in solo can be really hard but isn't a problem at 3 or 4.
I should have said it but the information on screen is based around Standard mode. On Expert mode it's very high pressure which is most of what I talk about. I'll go put it in a pinned comment.
I talk about it in the video - basically I don't think he scales up as much as most villains when you make the jump to Expert. To elaborate, he already hits like a truck, has a lot of hp, and the helmet he starts with on Expert is super low pressure. Expert is definitely a good bit harder, but no more so than I think most villains are harder on Expert. The tiers are relative to their own mode. But you could say I put him at the bottom of Very Difficult on Standard, and the top of Difficult on Expert. Also I mainly play 1 and 2-player, I haven't noticed any significant difficulty leap between them. His schemes don't scale much and two people gives much more protection against Avatar of Death. The Infinity Stones are less predictable but you can also "choose" who they go off against by defending for the other player if wanted, which is another level of agency that you can use to your advantage.
![Shenseea - Dating Szn (Options) [Official Music Video]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/eUePmZFIXUg/mqdefault.jpg)
![The Evolution of Villains: Multi-Villain Scenarios [MARVEL CHAMPIONS]](/img/1.gif)
Note the information on screen is focused on Standard difficulty! That's why Mutagen Formula's Starting Pressure is "low" - on Expert it's extreme!
You have no idea how much I wanted to see such a list, especially since the villains tiers videos on YT are quite old in internet age. And this one is even coming from you, so even more reasons to love it. Thanks for your effort, I really appreciate it. ❤
Glad you enjoyed it! It took forever!
This is an incredible undertaking! Love that you're setting the bar high in between sipping tea.
Cheers mate!
Best Marvel Champions youtuber. Ever
*second best LOL
I don't know about that but thank you!
What an endeavor! I really appreciate the ambitious nature of this rating task. I think you've provided a great resource to the community.
If I had one addendum, I'd recommend playing 4-hero wrecking crew again. Because the side-schemes don't scale with player count and the small villain decks run out and produce tons of acceleration counters, it's an order of magnitude more difficult on Expert 4-hero than Expert 1-hero. With 4 heroes on Expert, it's one of the 5 hardest scenarios in my experience.
Interesting! I'll throw it on the list to play again sooner than later and see how it goes.
Massive thanks to you, Nelson, and D20 for all the amazing content that led me to check out this game that had been sat on my shelf for way too long - now have everything produced due to be delivered tomorrow so this video is perfectly timed for what feels like Christmas eve 😂
I think I can speak on behalf of all of us when I say: that's awesome! Have fun with it!
Excellent video! I'm very happy you evaluated the villains sans their recommended encounter sets as that has a huge impact on the difficulty.
Goddamn, VT knocks it out of the park again. One of the best creators for MC! Thanks and I hope you gain more success
Too kind! Thank you!
What a tremendous amount of work! Thanks, Villain, for the list and as always in depth analysis!
Good work man, as always. A very detailed and explained tier list. I'm glad to see in so "high position" Nebula and The collector (solo expert mode) compared to other youtube lists: maybe are so underrated 'cause are not fun Villains to face and don't be played very often. Nebula can be very variable: easily win or loss depending on how much she surge...they are the only 2 Villains that I don't like to play in Heroic mode, especially The Collector, auto loss in expert/heroic mode for a lot of Heroes.
This is a very impressive list. Thank you for the time you put into it and then the time to get it to us.
Makes me feel a little less bad about getting rolled by a Nebula that runs through her entire deck in her first turn - when I played her two handed.
I play almost exclusively Standard, and I think you did a pretty good job considering you don't play too much yourself! Biggest outliers in my eyes are 4 horsemen being much lower, probably a 5, and En Sabah Nur being a bit higher at like a 7.
I also think Unus is much easier, probably a 2 or 3, because you take much less damage in standard. It means that you need chump blocking much less, and his core mechanic of gene pool scaling is much easier to manage by either defending or just flipping and recovering. Among my group, we have never really struggled with him at any player count.
I do think in standard playing "slow" is a little bit more effective than in expert, and this may lead to different evaluations of villain difficulty. Either way, thank you for putting this and the modular rankings together; they are a huge asset to the community!
Oh that's fantastic feedback. We'll see how we go but I'd love to refine this list in the future. Interesting how it's the new scenarios, which are definitely the ones I have least experience with on Standard by far.
Although I have played Four Horsemen at least twice on Standard and it felt pretty tough both times.
Worth noting these are without their normal modulars, and Four Horsemen's modulars are easier than their own encounter cards etc. But great feedback all the same and curious to see what everyone else thinks!
Love these so much. Thank you so much for all your content, villain!
My pleasure!
Thank you for all the great content!
You do such amazing and thorough work! Thanks!
Thank you so much!
@@VillainTheorymy wife and I have played this more than any other game since it came out, so we are always interested in content like this to help us systematically control the difficulty to exactly what we want.
Amazing work. Thank you!
Glad you liked it!
Wow! This is amazing! Going through it now and so helpful for me being a newer player and trying to figure out who to play with my level right now. I love these videos! THANK YOU!
You're very welcome! I really appreciate the kind comments!
Wow, nice job!!!!!!!
Another Herculean endeavour. Kudos Villain, both entertaining and useful… with the right amount of Venom too 😂
Haha! I don't know if you noticed but I snuck Venom into the background of the thumbnail. And just you wait for the next Every Hero's "Worst" Cards video...!
@@VillainTheory Venom worst card is of course the plastic container it comes with :P
My kind of hot take is that Loki isn't that difficult, but I play only on expert. Probably most people will agree that the biggest difference between standard and expert is that on standard you can build up when you start with pretty low stat villain before you go to phase 2, on expert that's how you start and Loki has same stats in standard and expert, so once you are used to that difficulty Loki is quite annoying but he is max 7/10 in terms of difficulty
Totally fair. I only play him on Expert as well but I find him pretty dangerous compared to most villains.
If anything I think having the same stats as Standard means he's just particularly nasty on Standard. His stats are still bigger than most Expert villains.
I came here to say exactly this. I most commonly play 3 player and think we have won every time we have played Loki. Compared to Ultron & Magneto where it took us numerous attempts and real specific/strong deck builds to defeat. And then there’s Nebula/VG & Ronan I still don’t think we’ve ever beaten 😂
@@drcolossus1 I have beaten Nebula and Ronan expert while playing 3-handed, but it was Captain America+Strange+Antman with very strong decks (it was long time ago, before release of MTS), probably the strongest thing I could put together by myself at the time, you need to tech for them and everyone MUST have Target Acquired in their decks
Between the 2 I think I dislike Nebula more, Ronan is simple, he hits like a truck, his encounter cards kill you and then surge but that's it, Nebula at the other hand basically deletes 1st player turn, between removing her stupid counters and her effects stunning/confusing/discarding cards from hand first player usually has it the worst, if it's 3 player game it's somewhat manageable, but I usually play solo and as such consider her unplayable
I have very mixed opinion about VG, basically if he does not destroy me in first 3 turns I am usually ok, but nasty encounter cards on first turn can end game there already, also my advice: let the scheme that makes you discard cards fail, it's the worst one by far
Yeah! Very good ranking. I may disagree with you but it is insignificant. I loved the way you split between expert and standard and again between solo and multiplayer. Brilliant!!!
Glad you enjoyed it!
After taking 4 attempts for my Partner and me to finally beat Hela on Standard as Cap/Thor it really hurts to see her at Medium 😂 Great Video! Do you recon the campaigns make the villains easier since you tend do get some upgrades? Especially asking for GMW, since it would be next on my list 👀
Ahhh! Don't worry about it at all. Hela is a weird one. She destroyed me and my buddy when we first played her years ago - but once you get the hang of manipulating her schemes and things, and using her huge main scheme threshold, she's not so bad. This is also rating her without her recommended mod sets and the Frost Giants are pretty tough.
As for the campaigns, it genuinely changes between campaigns. I don't play the campaigns a lot as I much prefer standalone mode, but from what I recall Rise of Red Skull, Mad Titan's Shadow, MojoMania and NeXt Evolution campaigns help the player - while Galaxy's Most Wanted, Mutant Genesis and Age of Apocalypse make things a little more difficult. Sinister Motives makes things easier as I recall - until it doesn't! If you know, you know...
(If anyone else is reading this and plays the campaigns more, feel free to jump in!)
Could you make a video on alternative mod sets for villains that improve their difficulty or leans into their theme more. My attempts at customised mods do not add anything.
Absolutely, it's in my plans to do that already! Hopefully in the next few weeks some time.
I’m going through my collection, campaign by campaign, and so far the only memorable villain was… Ronan… I was lucky to beat him with Starlord and Drax by was rushing him in 3 rounds, and almost got defeated (I had luck of the draw and Drax died)
This is really good thanks. Will say with this and with your modules one which was also really good do you have it available to print or so we can see it all and print it off. I am on the Facebook fans page Marvel Champions lcg community. Thanks
Klaw become easier the most player you add, the main scheme minion doesn't scale, starting with one big minion in solo can be really hard but isn't a problem at 3 or 4.
Yep! Good point. I took this into account but I didn't think it changed his ranking - do you think it moves him up or down a tier at any player count?
I enjoy this game and can’t wait to play with my children
Mutagen formula starting pressure low? There is a lot of pressure from round 2... I feel this is early/starting pressure
I should have said it but the information on screen is based around Standard mode. On Expert mode it's very high pressure which is most of what I talk about.
I'll go put it in a pinned comment.
Emmanuelle Ford
30:55 this must be a mistake. How could it be harder on standard?
Also, Thanos is waaay more difficult with 2 players than in solo.
I talk about it in the video - basically I don't think he scales up as much as most villains when you make the jump to Expert. To elaborate, he already hits like a truck, has a lot of hp, and the helmet he starts with on Expert is super low pressure. Expert is definitely a good bit harder, but no more so than I think most villains are harder on Expert. The tiers are relative to their own mode. But you could say I put him at the bottom of Very Difficult on Standard, and the top of Difficult on Expert.
Also I mainly play 1 and 2-player, I haven't noticed any significant difficulty leap between them. His schemes don't scale much and two people gives much more protection against Avatar of Death. The Infinity Stones are less predictable but you can also "choose" who they go off against by defending for the other player if wanted, which is another level of agency that you can use to your advantage.
How you think, if expert and standart mods are in one ranking, how many tiers up in average will difficulty increase?
Great question! Probably at least 2-3 tiers for the most part