WE'RE BACK! Check out Boomguy and the Winning Hand podcast here: www.youtube.com/@WinningHandPodcast/featured And you can make your own "worst cards" ranking here: tiermaker.com/create/marvel-champions--worst--hero-cards-16731517
My only problem with this video series is it makes me want to play a BUNCH of heroes, when I already haven’t played much due to time restrictions in my life. Seriously, love the series. You guys are awesome. Always a pleasure to watch your videos VT. I regularly listen to the Winning Hand podcast; I look forward to every episode
I changed my mind on 1-2 of these when looking back and editing, but too late now! Just know there's a good chance I agree with you disagreeing with me on a couple of cards 🤣
This may be my favorite series for Marvel Champions ever. Sorry, just barely got around to watching it due to workload. Definitely cannot wait for the rest of this series! Thank you
I was thinking similar to Villain about playstyle when Agatha was mentioned: I highly value going to alter ego just for the sake of going to alter ego. Supports and abilities are just icing on the cake!
LOL! I was going to say this about Spider-Woman, her AE ability has to be one of the most useless in the game. Maybe if she had a better AE ability, you'd be more incentivized to go to AE and could also use her Apartment's ability.
@@professorkid5129 Her AE is great alongside allies like Hulk or Wolfsbane! It also works well with Cosmo, though that is more niche while Wolfsbane goes in all her modern decks with Justice. And in solo play, if you stun/confuse the enemy (which she has in-kit) you can view your upcoming encounter card which is pretty handy to play around it
@@VillainTheoryThat’s a great point I’ve never considered. It also applies to two player assuming one player is staying up and one goes down. Depending on first payer order, you can choose whether that next card will be a boost or encounter card. Still pretty niche though.
Great job guys! I was enjoying every single minute and I am looking forward to your 2p game stream😁 Boomguy’s Winning Hand podcast is pure gold, keep up the great work man!
I saw your first comment pop up. From then on I knew it was only a matter of time until you saw it 🤣 Poor Wasp. I like a lot about her. But apparently not enough...
I tend to agree about Wasp, so I built her an overkill deck (ahem, expensive) which shows off her abilities a little. With Hand Cannons, Rapid Growth, and Skilled Strike, she can trigger overkill on multiple targets with one attack by distributing damage. This triggers (3x) Follow Through multiple times as well, adding +6, +9, or even +12 damage to the villain. Cards like Wasp Sting can really set up a multiple-target overkill for her. Watching her sweep the board with one attack is really fun. And I like that overkill encourages others to chip away at the minions without worrying about knocking them out. It makes cards like Ground Stomp more attractive, and it helps with efficient team play. Yeah, it's a slow-build deck, but it definitely creates a few real "show-off" moments for Wasp...
If Quicksilver was made today he would probably have better upgrades. His stat boosting upgrades specifically, I could see then being similar to Magik’s upgrades. Accelerated Reflex should give Retaliate which incentives players to defend with him more. Reinforced Sinew should give Piercing. He’s faster than a bullet so it makes sense for him to punch through Toughs. Hyper Perception should give Steady.
Mockingbird is the best card in Hawkeyes kit (maybe quiver is better) because it solves all of his problems and turns out to be the key piece of the shield machine. When we talk about Domino, we assume she has the discard suite of cards built into her. Likewise, when talking about Hawkeye it’s probably best to assume he always has the shield suite built in. I heard this take a while back and went ahead and took the Hawkeye-shield combo for a whirl and it just worked too perfectly, while still leaving space in his deck for customization (similar to domino with the discard cards). I didn’t realize that not everyone played Hawkeye like this. I encourage you to approach Hawkeye like this next time you pick him up, you’ll find him to be an extremely self-sufficient hero with his weakness being heavy setup. Here’s my hot take: Spider-woman’s worst card is self-propelled glide. I believe the reason to play spider-woman is to access the wild and unique combos that the two aspect deck building unlocks. When playing her, I almost never play self-propelled glide because I’m too busy paying for the cool combos I’ve built into her deck. Also that part towards the end where boom guy knew exactly how Army Of Ants work was perfectly good and normal, it was just weird y’all edited something out right before that…
Love the enthusiasm for Mockingbird, and she is a great card. Turns out I've written a big reply here it turns out but hopefully it's interesting! Unfortunately, while I do very much like Hawkeye in SHIELD, I personally believe he has multiple more powerful builds and, since SHIELD is largely locked to one aspect, I don't think it's quite right to assume he always has it (in contrast to Domino who can always take 3x Digging Deep + White Fox in every aspect). You can certainly run some SHIELD stuff in every aspect - but if you end up playing something like Government Liaison, it's generally dead several turns of the game as you can't consistently draw a SHIELD card. Mockingbird always comes back to hand but you have to find her first. To expand on that, my general problem with reliance on Mockingbird is that, if she's in the last few cards of your deck, you have to play the hardest part of the game (the beginning, where you have your fewest cards on the board to power you up) without your big defensive tool. Unfortunately this does push me to largely just build ally-heavy decks for Hawkeye, for consistency, but if you're repeatedly playing Mockingbird otherwise I don't think it's a huge difference. Part of my problem with SHIELD here, a slow setup archetype, on Hawkeye is that Hawkeye starts off very weak. A weak early game combined with something that takes several turns to setup just doesn't quite cut it for me. But I do still like it, and it's awesome when the engine is going for sure. And hey, maybe I am totally wrong on this. But that's largely where I'm coming from in detail!
I must admit for Ant Man, I've played Wrist Gauntlets more than Hive Mind...Ant Man is just so good thwarting that I've never really needed to use Hive Mind on a regular basis...Wrist Gauntlets I find are great for "in case of emergency" situations...handy to just have there and there's an opportunity to stun and confuse if you need that breather...
Love this series. Any chance of getting a video on how you would redesign each heroes worst card to make it better? I know it would be hard since a lot of these cards are pretty good.
Tiers list are always subjective in one way or another, but I have very hard time to understand how "Ant Man" signature ally can be worse than the "Bio Synthetic Wing". I like Wasp quite a lot, I played her a tone of times, and what is interesting about her is that her kit cards change in value depending on your aspect card and gameplan. ie: her attack cards become way more efficient in agression than in leadership. But even if you go protection, unlike the red room retaliate, the wing never really pay off, either because you are in giant form, or either because it is way too slow. And 2 cost to get an unreliable aerial trait is too many hoop to build an aerial deck around her. On the other hand, as you said, ally have inherent value just by being an ally no matter what your build is. And 4 cost ally Ant Man is my optional Voltron target when I go leadership. If I hit Iron Man early, fine, Ant Man is just a resource. But if I hit Ant Man first hand, I land him, he attack/thwart for more than Iron Man on landing, and he will just get bigger as the game goes on. If you really want a bad 4 cost ally, it is War Machine from Iron Man kit, and he is on the list. :p Nice video any way, always food for thought.
Yeah I wasn't initially going to go for the Ant-Man ally. In hindsight, I should have stuck to that as I ended up really benefiting from playing them basically straight after recording this haha! But I didn't have a strong pull towards the other cards I named, and I do think the Ant-Man ally is generally a poor choice for Wasp due to her lack of resources as mentioned in the video. So at the end of the day, I don't think I would have made much effort to fight for a different choice even if I had picked differently, and so we'd still end up putting Ant-Man into our list. And I don't think he's talked about much, so glad we got to dive into a discussion about him! Great points either way. What's interesting is I know people who swear by aerial-Wasp, and there's an argument that the wings do pay off in Protection as they allow you to go to tiny form and still reliably trigger Unflappable. But I still tend not to bother and just entirely abandon that side of Wasp in full defendy Protection builds. So in some ways, I agree with that too.
@@VillainTheory I understand your choice, and I'm not offended by it, I was just sharing my perspective. But tbf, perfect defense is itself a weak strategy: it is cap to mid tiers villain, so I never go unflappable anymore with avengers hero. Especially with Wasp who get access to tough for cheap in protection, by using "perseverance". But then you will have someone who will say "oh but I chump block and I use unflappable against minion" and I will go "oh, so you exhaust to defend a minion and draw a card, and trigger the minion when attack ability? That's value I guess... :p" Yeah it is endless, and subjective as always. The wing is the only card i never play with her, bare none, everything else is situationnal. :p
@@alberttaco3668 No worries, apologies if I seemed defensive or anything. I thought your comment was great! Totally agreed on Perfect Defense. And definitely not a fan of exhausting to defend minions normally (though maybe Nightcrawler's cards can change my mind!)
I rarely disagree with VT, but on Quicksilver, that extra +1 Def should get used most rounds, no matter what build you're using. Quicksilver gets to defend --essentially for free. He readies once per phase when he activates a basic power. So, after he defends, he readies --which means he could exhaust Friction Resistance to use a 1-cost interrupt / response, then defend to ready himself and FR... This maximizes FR and gives you so many options in multiplayer. The only consequence is that with 2-3 defense, he could still be taking some damage from the villain.
Totally fair. I was talking on Discord and said if I could go back and change one, it would probably be Quicksilver's. If I enjoyed him more in Protection it would certainly help but regardless I do play the +1 DEF fairly often when I see it.
If we're comparing to aspect cards, then the best comparison to "Venom Blast" is "Uppercut" which is 3 cost for 5 damage. Using that comparison "Venom Blast" IS more efficient than its aspect counterpart and is probably costed correctly.
Uppercut is unfortunately a very unpopular card and generally considered overpriced for what it does, though are perhaps right and that's what the designers balanced it against at the time.
This wave is hard, any claim of a bad hero - for starters - would be in bad faith. Getting into the kits, I'm at a loss to call out a bad card off the top of my head for most of these heroes. Now to watch.
35:14 "Venom Blast isn't an aspect card." - VillainTheory, 2024 Jk, jk. This slight blunder just made me chuckle. Love this series, guys. I'll get around to making my own tier list of worst cards soon too. Thinking about less popular parts of the game for once is super fun.
Haha! I thiiiink I meant it's not a regular aspect card. It's in her 15 hero-specific cards, and so should be competitive with hero-specific cards. But that is pretty funny. Glad you enjoyed it and I really enjoy thinking about this stuff too!
These are really fun, here are my fifferent takes. Serval Industries for Quicksilver until you actually play it & get to stuff your 2 card deck with 3 Always Be Running & Maximum Velocity. Scarlet Witch has Quicksliver because he's not Hex Bolt though he does feel great to play off Chaos magic. Hawkeye has his bow which represents a tax on all his other not quite good enough for the hoops you have to jump through arrows. Spiderwoman has Captain Marvel who is way too expensive to play instead of aspect cards unless you are building around her. Finesse is also annoying as it doesn't build into more economy. Self propelled glide always promises more than it delivers - if you can get huge stats then you can't afford to play it. Jessica Drew's Apartment as it is only about half as good as Agatha Harkness. (The criticisms of this later are incoherent - it's a better Avengers Mansion for 1, with a tiny limitation). Venom blast is certainly the weakest of her aspect cards though the others are really pushed. It is so much better than Big Hands that having them next to each other in the tier list is weird. Wasp has too many bad cards & It makes me sad (she was so unfun I didn't play her enough to have an opinion). My least favourite Antman Card is Giant Strength though Hive Mind it pretty terrible and Wrist Gauntlets are much harder to actually leverage than I expected. Conditions on a stick beat ropey thwart though.
In hindsight I wondered if I should have said Serval for QS but I absolutely love Serval, so it's tough. I do however still love Captain Marvel on Spider-Woman even when not building around her. I almost thought we should have put Big Hands ahead of Venom Blast. It's tricky to rate these cards with the heroes that use them in mind. Venom Blast is better but not strictly needed, while Big Hands is worse but way more necessary for Ms. Marvel... Great thoughts as always, thanks!
@@VillainTheory I think I am just finally admitting to myself that I don't really enjoy Spider Woman all that much. I love the idea & whacky builds but in practice I find her a bit of a drag. She doesn't really mesh with my playstyle as she doesn't build much. Serval is great but I did not think it was going to be. SW is probably his worst IMO - I love that the characters borrow from their hero versions but as Boomguy says the lack of synergy hurts her. Still all his stuff is pretty good.
I'm surprised Cable Arrow wasn't picked for Hawkeye. I get that it's fairly efficient thwart and that he's bad at thwarting, but I don't feel like it makes enough of an impact to really solve the problem. In multi-player with a dedicated Justice it's never impact full enough to use. Admittedly I usually play in high player counts with a dedicated justice so this may be coloring my opinion, but I'm almost always throwing Cable Arrow in the quiver just to get it out of my deck. Also having only 2 in the deck makes it too inconsistent to take care of the threat.
Afraid to say I love Cable arrow. It's especially good in solo as 3 threat is what most player side schemes, but still very useful in my main player count of 2! It's definitely not enough to take care of threat alone but I wouldn't trade them.
Venom blast would probably be too strong if buffed. Currently it is 2 for 6 damage or 2 for 5 damage and 1 Thwart due to Spider-Woman’s hero ability. You could argue that 2-2-2 should be the standard stat line so it just brings her up to baseline, but since she is playing multiple aspect cards fairly consistently I’d say there’s a greater than 50 percent chance that it ends up being an above-curve card. There is an interesting discussion to be had regarding damage value per player count and Aggression losing efficacy in multiplayer but I don’t want to type another 2 paragraphs.
Having reevaluated it, I think you are correct. I still think I put it as her worst card for me personally but I support moving it up a little. Keep an eye out on the next episode!
Oh, I am going to play along. I will make my picks before I see what you say. Quicksilver = Double Time, yes it is a good card, but ultimately it is a 2 for 4 threat/damage, which just doesn't excite me as much as his other cards. I would rather have 4 maximum velocities for example. Yes you can argue that accelerated reflexes is just worse than the aspect card, which it is, but I play that card more than I play Double Time. Scarlet Witch = Quicksilver, he is just too expensive. Magic Shield was my first thought like you, since so often I don't play it, but I never play Quicksilver. I actually think he might be right that 3rd magic Shield is the worst Card. Hawkeye = Explosive Arrow, I think all the other cards are good. All of his cards a "good" overall but he is on the weak side for me. My runner-up was the quiver, I just think searching 5 is kind of weak, I miss too often on it and don't get any arrows out of it. Spider-woman = Self-propelled Glide. Every single card of hers is excellent. No bad cards, heck no good cards, they are all better than good. But Self-propelled glide is basically limitless stamina, a basic card, and like a basic card it doesn't trigger her hero ability, and she can't use finesse to pay for it, which feels bad every time I use it. And yes of course I use it it is great, but I like her other cards better. Wasp = Ant-man, 4 cost is too much. If I am paying 4 I want Nick Fury. much like Scarlet Witch Quicksilver ally, just too expensive. Ant-man = Hive Mind, I agree, Hive Mind is terrible until you get 2 army ants. Wrist Gauntlets are fine. With a quincarrier in play it is trivial to get a stun or confuse every turn.
Nice! I love it when people join in. I actually love Double Time on Quicksilver. It's the card that gets him through the early game when his stats are potentially just 1/1/1 and he can't do anything meaningful. I really like how flexible it is. Quicksilver is totally a fair choice. I just love Scarlet Witch's alter-ego a lot especially, notably in combination with Agatha. For Hawkeye I'm afraid to say I personally think Explosive Arrow is one of his best arrows! A 1-cost card that, with just one minion out, does 6 overall damage is very good and can really get you out of bad situations if you get swarmed. I also love Self-Propelled Glide. It's kind of like Double Time for me in that it's just extremely flexible. It is Limitless Stamina, but Limitless Stamina is stronger than most basic/aspect cards on the basis it's restricted to the typically-underpowered 14 hp heroes. But totally fair, it crossed my mind when I was trying to decide. Everything is just good.
It's interesting how this differs from different allies to heroes. Some allies are really good interpretations of their hero-versions, and some are just wildly different. The Protection Miles Morales Spider-Man resembles the hero, but the basic ally version has nothing in common with the hero Miles 🤔 And Psylocke's signature ally version of Angel readies her, synergizing with her huge stats while the Angel hero himself has absolutely nothing to ready other characters... Interesting topic to think about!
A shame you ended up going with electric arrow, I much preferred your reasoning on mockingbird instead. Mockingbird is genuinely nothing special. Her effect as you pointed out is barely a benefit since every ally can just chump block to block an attack anyway. I"d rather just load my decks with other allies which are all better than mockingbird and just play a cheap ally every turn rather than spend 3 resources to get out mockingbird every turn. It's also really bad value if you use mockingbirds effect while she has more than 1hp left, so she's not really ideal to block with every turn. You're much better off using 2 health cheap allies that can block for you. The only real benefit I can say to her is the shield synergy, but if I had an other shield card in hand I'd rather play that than mockingbird. Electric arrow is really really good. It's basically the same as drop kick and concussive blast which are perfectly strong cards. I think it's a little unfair to judge it against steady/stalwart because that's still far from every villain.
I mostly agree. Steady/stalwart is very present these days so I think it should be a factor, but not the only factor. And I still often play Electric Arrow.
I'm sure this is for a different video, but I have now played every hero in MC a number of times, and am convinced Jefferson Davis is the absolute worst kit card in the entire game. Thoughts?
@@VillainTheory Yeah, I have a pretty informal metric to judge the quality of cards which is, roughly: "How excited (or not excited) am I when I draw this card?" In the case of Jefferson Davis, I have reached the stage where I typically greet him with a massive eye roll and a barely perceptible "Oh, F-you," uttered under my breath.
"Card filtering is bad because it can put good cards to the bottom of your deck!" I... wow. Just wow. You would prefer no control over your deck to some control? If you think that you might be right because your decisions are quite likely worse than a coin flip but still just... wow.
![Ep. 14: The Leadership Aspect [Marvel Champions podcast with @NelsonAllOverCards]](/img/1.gif)
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Check out Boomguy and the Winning Hand podcast here: www.youtube.com/@WinningHandPodcast/featured
And you can make your own "worst cards" ranking here: tiermaker.com/create/marvel-champions--worst--hero-cards-16731517
My only problem with this video series is it makes me want to play a BUNCH of heroes, when I already haven’t played much due to time restrictions in my life.
Seriously, love the series. You guys are awesome. Always a pleasure to watch your videos VT. I regularly listen to the Winning Hand podcast; I look forward to every episode
I know the feeling honestly. With over 50 heroes now even I can't find time to play them all as much as I'd like!
I changed my mind on 1-2 of these when looking back and editing, but too late now! Just know there's a good chance I agree with you disagreeing with me on a couple of cards 🤣
One of the most fascinating things in this video series is how much a view on a card is impacted by play style.
Honestly yes. Boomguy doesn't like alter-ego stuff, and I don't like defensive stuff 😅
This may be my favorite series for Marvel Champions ever. Sorry, just barely got around to watching it due to workload. Definitely cannot wait for the rest of this series! Thank you
Wow that is a huge compliment! Glad you enjoyed it!
I was thinking similar to Villain about playstyle when Agatha was mentioned: I highly value going to alter ego just for the sake of going to alter ego. Supports and abilities are just icing on the cake!
Hawkeye’s worst card, by far, is his AE card…. He gets zero benefit for flipping down and a bad setup ability (compared to most).
Agreed! Unfortunately we're only picking actual cards from your deck because otherwise I'm 100% with you
LOL! I was going to say this about Spider-Woman, her AE ability has to be one of the most useless in the game. Maybe if she had a better AE ability, you'd be more incentivized to go to AE and could also use her Apartment's ability.
@@professorkid5129 hers isn’t too useful either. Rarely used, and not good enough to want to flip to AE.
@@professorkid5129 Her AE is great alongside allies like Hulk or Wolfsbane! It also works well with Cosmo, though that is more niche while Wolfsbane goes in all her modern decks with Justice.
And in solo play, if you stun/confuse the enemy (which she has in-kit) you can view your upcoming encounter card which is pretty handy to play around it
@@VillainTheoryThat’s a great point I’ve never considered. It also applies to two player assuming one player is staying up and one goes down. Depending on first payer order, you can choose whether that next card will be a boost or encounter card. Still pretty niche though.
Great job guys! I was enjoying every single minute and I am looking forward to your 2p game stream😁 Boomguy’s Winning Hand podcast is pure gold, keep up the great work man!
It's a great podcast! Though the best ever episode is about Fantomex, trust me...! 😉
43:46 😂😂😂
Poor Wasp, I know me and Boomguy really like her and that’s good enough for me! 😆
I saw your first comment pop up. From then on I knew it was only a matter of time until you saw it 🤣
Poor Wasp. I like a lot about her. But apparently not enough...
I tend to agree about Wasp, so I built her an overkill deck (ahem, expensive) which shows off her abilities a little. With Hand Cannons, Rapid Growth, and Skilled Strike, she can trigger overkill on multiple targets with one attack by distributing damage. This triggers (3x) Follow Through multiple times as well, adding +6, +9, or even +12 damage to the villain. Cards like Wasp Sting can really set up a multiple-target overkill for her. Watching her sweep the board with one attack is really fun. And I like that overkill encourages others to chip away at the minions without worrying about knocking them out. It makes cards like Ground Stomp more attractive, and it helps with efficient team play. Yeah, it's a slow-build deck, but it definitely creates a few real "show-off" moments for Wasp...
@@josephgerman2674 nice!
If Quicksilver was made today he would probably have better upgrades. His stat boosting upgrades specifically, I could see then being similar to Magik’s upgrades. Accelerated Reflex should give Retaliate which incentives players to defend with him more. Reinforced Sinew should give Piercing. He’s faster than a bullet so it makes sense for him to punch through Toughs. Hyper Perception should give Steady.
Great ideas
Mockingbird is the best card in Hawkeyes kit (maybe quiver is better) because it solves all of his problems and turns out to be the key piece of the shield machine. When we talk about Domino, we assume she has the discard suite of cards built into her. Likewise, when talking about Hawkeye it’s probably best to assume he always has the shield suite built in. I heard this take a while back and went ahead and took the Hawkeye-shield combo for a whirl and it just worked too perfectly, while still leaving space in his deck for customization (similar to domino with the discard cards). I didn’t realize that not everyone played Hawkeye like this. I encourage you to approach Hawkeye like this next time you pick him up, you’ll find him to be an extremely self-sufficient hero with his weakness being heavy setup.
Here’s my hot take: Spider-woman’s worst card is self-propelled glide. I believe the reason to play spider-woman is to access the wild and unique combos that the two aspect deck building unlocks. When playing her, I almost never play self-propelled glide because I’m too busy paying for the cool combos I’ve built into her deck.
Also that part towards the end where boom guy knew exactly how Army Of Ants work was perfectly good and normal, it was just weird y’all edited something out right before that…
Love the enthusiasm for Mockingbird, and she is a great card. Turns out I've written a big reply here it turns out but hopefully it's interesting!
Unfortunately, while I do very much like Hawkeye in SHIELD, I personally believe he has multiple more powerful builds and, since SHIELD is largely locked to one aspect, I don't think it's quite right to assume he always has it (in contrast to Domino who can always take 3x Digging Deep + White Fox in every aspect). You can certainly run some SHIELD stuff in every aspect - but if you end up playing something like Government Liaison, it's generally dead several turns of the game as you can't consistently draw a SHIELD card. Mockingbird always comes back to hand but you have to find her first.
To expand on that, my general problem with reliance on Mockingbird is that, if she's in the last few cards of your deck, you have to play the hardest part of the game (the beginning, where you have your fewest cards on the board to power you up) without your big defensive tool. Unfortunately this does push me to largely just build ally-heavy decks for Hawkeye, for consistency, but if you're repeatedly playing Mockingbird otherwise I don't think it's a huge difference.
Part of my problem with SHIELD here, a slow setup archetype, on Hawkeye is that Hawkeye starts off very weak. A weak early game combined with something that takes several turns to setup just doesn't quite cut it for me. But I do still like it, and it's awesome when the engine is going for sure.
And hey, maybe I am totally wrong on this. But that's largely where I'm coming from in detail!
Love this series!!! Find the collab of boomguy and villain perfect together!! Love you guys!
Woo! Thanks!
I must admit for Ant Man, I've played Wrist Gauntlets more than Hive Mind...Ant Man is just so good thwarting that I've never really needed to use Hive Mind on a regular basis...Wrist Gauntlets I find are great for "in case of emergency" situations...handy to just have there and there's an opportunity to stun and confuse if you need that breather...
That's fun, great use of them. Seems like Ant-Man's worst card is pretty divisive!
Been watching for the next video in this series all weekend. Finally here!
Woo! Hope you enjoy it!
Love this series. Any chance of getting a video on how you would redesign each heroes worst card to make it better? I know it would be hard since a lot of these cards are pretty good.
Possibly! Love the idea
I agree with your Quicksilver pick.
Scarlett Witch doesn't have "bad" cards really, but Quicksilver would be her worst. Agatha is great!
It was Agatha all along 👀
Also you got my sub finally after mentioning you play primarily at 2-player. I need to find more multiplayer geared content.
VillainTheory, awesome content keep up the amazing work
Thanks!
WE. ARE. BACK. BABYYYYYY
WOO! HYPE! And stuff!
Tiers list are always subjective in one way or another, but I have very hard time to understand how "Ant Man" signature ally can be worse than the "Bio Synthetic Wing". I like Wasp quite a lot, I played her a tone of times, and what is interesting about her is that her kit cards change in value depending on your aspect card and gameplan. ie: her attack cards become way more efficient in agression than in leadership.
But even if you go protection, unlike the red room retaliate, the wing never really pay off, either because you are in giant form, or either because it is way too slow. And 2 cost to get an unreliable aerial trait is too many hoop to build an aerial deck around her.
On the other hand, as you said, ally have inherent value just by being an ally no matter what your build is. And 4 cost ally Ant Man is my optional Voltron target when I go leadership. If I hit Iron Man early, fine, Ant Man is just a resource. But if I hit Ant Man first hand, I land him, he attack/thwart for more than Iron Man on landing, and he will just get bigger as the game goes on.
If you really want a bad 4 cost ally, it is War Machine from Iron Man kit, and he is on the list. :p
Nice video any way, always food for thought.
Yeah I wasn't initially going to go for the Ant-Man ally. In hindsight, I should have stuck to that as I ended up really benefiting from playing them basically straight after recording this haha! But I didn't have a strong pull towards the other cards I named, and I do think the Ant-Man ally is generally a poor choice for Wasp due to her lack of resources as mentioned in the video.
So at the end of the day, I don't think I would have made much effort to fight for a different choice even if I had picked differently, and so we'd still end up putting Ant-Man into our list. And I don't think he's talked about much, so glad we got to dive into a discussion about him!
Great points either way. What's interesting is I know people who swear by aerial-Wasp, and there's an argument that the wings do pay off in Protection as they allow you to go to tiny form and still reliably trigger Unflappable. But I still tend not to bother and just entirely abandon that side of Wasp in full defendy Protection builds. So in some ways, I agree with that too.
@@VillainTheory I understand your choice, and I'm not offended by it, I was just sharing my perspective. But tbf, perfect defense is itself a weak strategy: it is cap to mid tiers villain, so I never go unflappable anymore with avengers hero. Especially with Wasp who get access to tough for cheap in protection, by using "perseverance". But then you will have someone who will say "oh but I chump block and I use unflappable against minion" and I will go "oh, so you exhaust to defend a minion and draw a card, and trigger the minion when attack ability? That's value I guess... :p"
Yeah it is endless, and subjective as always. The wing is the only card i never play with her, bare none, everything else is situationnal. :p
@@alberttaco3668 No worries, apologies if I seemed defensive or anything. I thought your comment was great!
Totally agreed on Perfect Defense. And definitely not a fan of exhausting to defend minions normally (though maybe Nightcrawler's cards can change my mind!)
I rarely disagree with VT, but on Quicksilver, that extra +1 Def should get used most rounds, no matter what build you're using. Quicksilver gets to defend --essentially for free. He readies once per phase when he activates a basic power. So, after he defends, he readies --which means he could exhaust Friction Resistance to use a 1-cost interrupt / response, then defend to ready himself and FR... This maximizes FR and gives you so many options in multiplayer. The only consequence is that with 2-3 defense, he could still be taking some damage from the villain.
Totally fair. I was talking on Discord and said if I could go back and change one, it would probably be Quicksilver's. If I enjoyed him more in Protection it would certainly help but regardless I do play the +1 DEF fairly often when I see it.
If we're comparing to aspect cards, then the best comparison to "Venom Blast" is "Uppercut" which is 3 cost for 5 damage. Using that comparison "Venom Blast" IS more efficient than its aspect counterpart and is probably costed correctly.
Uppercut is unfortunately a very unpopular card and generally considered overpriced for what it does, though are perhaps right and that's what the designers balanced it against at the time.
Having a target on your backside while you ride away on a motorbike as Hawkeye tries to shoot it is… a choice. 😳
Ahaha, I had to go look up his cards to see what you meant. That's definitely a choice alright...
I’ll head over to the discord, but just wanna say that I’m loving these episodes
Really happy to hear it!
Venom Blast is a high A to me. There's no condition to play it, and can be powered by Aggression cards like Honed Technique and more.
Totally fair! I could definitely see myself moving it to low A-tier maybe, it's a great card for sure
This wave is hard, any claim of a bad hero - for starters - would be in bad faith. Getting into the kits, I'm at a loss to call out a bad card off the top of my head for most of these heroes.
Now to watch.
This one was agony which is why the video is so long, but good fun to make!
I would argue that Hawkeye is a bad hero. He is easily my least favorite hero yet.
35:14 "Venom Blast isn't an aspect card." - VillainTheory, 2024
Jk, jk. This slight blunder just made me chuckle. Love this series, guys. I'll get around to making my own tier list of worst cards soon too. Thinking about less popular parts of the game for once is super fun.
Haha! I thiiiink I meant it's not a regular aspect card. It's in her 15 hero-specific cards, and so should be competitive with hero-specific cards. But that is pretty funny. Glad you enjoyed it and I really enjoy thinking about this stuff too!
Love this series. I wonder when we will get our first S tier card. Gotta be Valkyrie right? 😂
Oh definitely 🤣
These are really fun, here are my fifferent takes. Serval Industries for Quicksilver until you actually play it & get to stuff your 2 card deck with 3 Always Be Running & Maximum Velocity. Scarlet Witch has Quicksliver because he's not Hex Bolt though he does feel great to play off Chaos magic. Hawkeye has his bow which represents a tax on all his other not quite good enough for the hoops you have to jump through arrows.
Spiderwoman has Captain Marvel who is way too expensive to play instead of aspect cards unless you are building around her. Finesse is also annoying as it doesn't build into more economy. Self propelled glide always promises more than it delivers - if you can get huge stats then you can't afford to play it. Jessica Drew's Apartment as it is only about half as good as Agatha Harkness. (The criticisms of this later are incoherent - it's a better Avengers Mansion for 1, with a tiny limitation). Venom blast is certainly the weakest of her aspect cards though the others are really pushed. It is so much better than Big Hands that having them next to each other in the tier list is weird.
Wasp has too many bad cards & It makes me sad (she was so unfun I didn't play her enough to have an opinion). My least favourite Antman Card is Giant Strength though Hive Mind it pretty terrible and Wrist Gauntlets are much harder to actually leverage than I expected. Conditions on a stick beat ropey thwart though.
In hindsight I wondered if I should have said Serval for QS but I absolutely love Serval, so it's tough. I do however still love Captain Marvel on Spider-Woman even when not building around her.
I almost thought we should have put Big Hands ahead of Venom Blast. It's tricky to rate these cards with the heroes that use them in mind. Venom Blast is better but not strictly needed, while Big Hands is worse but way more necessary for Ms. Marvel...
Great thoughts as always, thanks!
@@VillainTheory I think I am just finally admitting to myself that I don't really enjoy Spider Woman all that much. I love the idea & whacky builds but in practice I find her a bit of a drag. She doesn't really mesh with my playstyle as she doesn't build much. Serval is great but I did not think it was going to be. SW is probably his worst IMO - I love that the characters borrow from their hero versions but as Boomguy says the lack of synergy hurts her. Still all his stuff is pretty good.
I'm surprised Cable Arrow wasn't picked for Hawkeye. I get that it's fairly efficient thwart and that he's bad at thwarting, but I don't feel like it makes enough of an impact to really solve the problem. In multi-player with a dedicated Justice it's never impact full enough to use.
Admittedly I usually play in high player counts with a dedicated justice so this may be coloring my opinion, but I'm almost always throwing Cable Arrow in the quiver just to get it out of my deck.
Also having only 2 in the deck makes it too inconsistent to take care of the threat.
Afraid to say I love Cable arrow. It's especially good in solo as 3 threat is what most player side schemes, but still very useful in my main player count of 2!
It's definitely not enough to take care of threat alone but I wouldn't trade them.
i agree with Boom guy on worst Ant Man card. I play Ant man a lot, and rarely play Wrist Gauntlets
Totally fair! I will say I don't often play it in solo especially
@@VillainTheory yeah, I play a lot solo. so that may be why I don't use it
Venom blast would probably be too strong if buffed. Currently it is 2 for 6 damage or 2 for 5 damage and 1 Thwart due to Spider-Woman’s hero ability. You could argue that 2-2-2 should be the standard stat line so it just brings her up to baseline, but since she is playing multiple aspect cards fairly consistently I’d say there’s a greater than 50 percent chance that it ends up being an above-curve card.
There is an interesting discussion to be had regarding damage value per player count and Aggression losing efficacy in multiplayer but I don’t want to type another 2 paragraphs.
Having reevaluated it, I think you are correct. I still think I put it as her worst card for me personally but I support moving it up a little. Keep an eye out on the next episode!
Oh, I am going to play along. I will make my picks before I see what you say.
Quicksilver = Double Time, yes it is a good card, but ultimately it is a 2 for 4 threat/damage, which just doesn't excite me as much as his other cards. I would rather have 4 maximum velocities for example. Yes you can argue that accelerated reflexes is just worse than the aspect card, which it is, but I play that card more than I play Double Time.
Scarlet Witch = Quicksilver, he is just too expensive. Magic Shield was my first thought like you, since so often I don't play it, but I never play Quicksilver. I actually think he might be right that 3rd magic Shield is the worst Card.
Hawkeye = Explosive Arrow, I think all the other cards are good. All of his cards a "good" overall but he is on the weak side for me. My runner-up was the quiver, I just think searching 5 is kind of weak, I miss too often on it and don't get any arrows out of it.
Spider-woman = Self-propelled Glide. Every single card of hers is excellent. No bad cards, heck no good cards, they are all better than good. But Self-propelled glide is basically limitless stamina, a basic card, and like a basic card it doesn't trigger her hero ability, and she can't use finesse to pay for it, which feels bad every time I use it. And yes of course I use it it is great, but I like her other cards better.
Wasp = Ant-man, 4 cost is too much. If I am paying 4 I want Nick Fury. much like Scarlet Witch Quicksilver ally, just too expensive.
Ant-man = Hive Mind, I agree, Hive Mind is terrible until you get 2 army ants. Wrist Gauntlets are fine. With a quincarrier in play it is trivial to get a stun or confuse every turn.
Nice! I love it when people join in.
I actually love Double Time on Quicksilver. It's the card that gets him through the early game when his stats are potentially just 1/1/1 and he can't do anything meaningful. I really like how flexible it is.
Quicksilver is totally a fair choice. I just love Scarlet Witch's alter-ego a lot especially, notably in combination with Agatha. For Hawkeye I'm afraid to say I personally think Explosive Arrow is one of his best arrows! A 1-cost card that, with just one minion out, does 6 overall damage is very good and can really get you out of bad situations if you get swarmed.
I also love Self-Propelled Glide. It's kind of like Double Time for me in that it's just extremely flexible. It is Limitless Stamina, but Limitless Stamina is stronger than most basic/aspect cards on the basis it's restricted to the typically-underpowered 14 hp heroes. But totally fair, it crossed my mind when I was trying to decide. Everything is just good.
Wasp -> half of her kit could fit, lol, but I still like her because of extremely strong AE ability.
Poor Wasp...
Whats the discord? I would love to show my list and tierlist.
Hop in! discord.gg/xK2ZTRDsB3
The signature allies reflect their hero version, not the deck they are in!
It's interesting how this differs from different allies to heroes. Some allies are really good interpretations of their hero-versions, and some are just wildly different. The Protection Miles Morales Spider-Man resembles the hero, but the basic ally version has nothing in common with the hero Miles 🤔 And Psylocke's signature ally version of Angel readies her, synergizing with her huge stats while the Angel hero himself has absolutely nothing to ready other characters...
Interesting topic to think about!
A shame you ended up going with electric arrow, I much preferred your reasoning on mockingbird instead.
Mockingbird is genuinely nothing special. Her effect as you pointed out is barely a benefit since every ally can just chump block to block an attack anyway. I"d rather just load my decks with other allies which are all better than mockingbird and just play a cheap ally every turn rather than spend 3 resources to get out mockingbird every turn. It's also really bad value if you use mockingbirds effect while she has more than 1hp left, so she's not really ideal to block with every turn. You're much better off using 2 health cheap allies that can block for you.
The only real benefit I can say to her is the shield synergy, but if I had an other shield card in hand I'd rather play that than mockingbird.
Electric arrow is really really good. It's basically the same as drop kick and concussive blast which are perfectly strong cards. I think it's a little unfair to judge it against steady/stalwart because that's still far from every villain.
I mostly agree. Steady/stalwart is very present these days so I think it should be a factor, but not the only factor. And I still often play Electric Arrow.
I'm sure this is for a different video, but I have now played every hero in MC a number of times, and am convinced Jefferson Davis is the absolute worst kit card in the entire game. Thoughts?
Hopefully Boomguy doesn't read this, but both Miles' supports are on my radar for him...
@@VillainTheory Yeah, I have a pretty informal metric to judge the quality of cards which is, roughly: "How excited (or not excited) am I when I draw this card?"
In the case of Jefferson Davis, I have reached the stage where I typically greet him with a massive eye roll and a barely perceptible "Oh, F-you," uttered under my breath.
Hawkeye's worst card is his identity
It's absolutely terrible
"Card filtering is bad because it can put good cards to the bottom of your deck!"
I... wow. Just wow. You would prefer no control over your deck to some control? If you think that you might be right because your decisions are quite likely worse than a coin flip but still just... wow.
Ahh no way! Magic shield is much better than Agatha
Totally fair. Do you think Agatha is her worst card?