It all started when somebody on the Marvel Champions Discord channel said something to the effect "I've always wanted to just stack a deck full of all the nemesis minions and see what happens". That really got my attention because while battling Klaw and Ultron is cool and all, as an original Spider-Man fan a lot of my favourites are only in the game in minion form, like Vulture, Electro, Sandman etc.
I really liked the sound of that and I thought to myself: "I'm pretty new to this game with barely any experience of different encounters and how they work... I'll do it!"
So I did.
From the outset I laid down three golden rules that I had to follow:
- Make Minions Matter. Put loads of big scary minions in and make them the focus of the encounter. That's the seed of the idea and it's why we're here.
- No New Cards. The encounter would entirely be made from existing cards that players can easily pull together from their collection.
- No New Rules. The cards should all be able to be played exactly as they are in any other encounter. For instance this ruled out villain-specific cards that said things like "Attach to Rhino" or "Klaw attacks you" and meant I could only use cards that used the generic "the villain". It also made the Main scheme choices a little more restrictive (eg. I had to include a scheme that said you lost the game if the villains completed it!)
Over the last month I've gone through many different iterations of the encounter as I've fine-tuned it, learning a lot about the game along the way. The resulting encounter, which I call the Danger Room after the X-Men training room, is one that I really enjoy throwing my heroes against.
As we all wait anxiously for Guardians Most Wanted to arrive maybe this is the perfect time to share my Danger Room with the wider world, so that you've got a little time to try it out before we all get distracted by playing as Rocket Raccoon and Groot for the next six months!
I hope you give it a try and I hope you like it. I think the Danger Room is a very tough encounter, probably close to Heroic level, so it should provide you some stiff opposition and because of some design choices I've made it doesn't play or feel entirely like other encounters.
First I'm going to share the encounter with you, then if you're still interested after that I'll also talk a little bit of the design journey I went on to make it.
SCENARIO A - THE DANGER ROOM
Listen up, Avengers! You may think this is just a training drill and nothing can go wrong but trust me, once you step inside that room it's going to feel very real. Tony has spent weeks programming J.A.R.V.I.S. to produce completely authentic simulations of some of the most dangerous villains we've ever faced and they're all waiting for us in this room. They may only be training drones but they're going to look like the real deal and they're going to hit like they're the real deal, so be sure you bring your A-game.
I don't know who we're going to have to beat down, but I've fought a couple of the early demonstration runs and I can promise you this: the bruises are real, the fear is real, and the danger is real. And once you've handled what this room can throw at you you're going to feel like you take on the whole world.
So let's take it seriously: look out for each other in there and watch your backs. It's time to suit up!
Villain Deck: Taskmaster (II), Green Goblin (II)
If you like eating dirt use Taskmaster (III) and Green Goblin (III) for expert mode.
Main Scheme Deck: The Island of Dr. Zola, The Mad Doctor
Follow all Setup instructions on The Island of Dr Zola as normal. Reveal Hydra Prison and put Ultimate Bio-Servants into play.
Note: there are only three Ultimate Bio-Servants in the encounter deck. In a four-player game one player has an easier start with no minion engaged from the start.
Encounter Deck: Danger Room set.
It is not recommended to add the Standard set or any modules as the Danger Room set is large enough that it includes cards you would normally add from modular sets.
The Danger Room Set
Text version, sorted by expansion:Core Set: Under Fire, Exhaustion, Caught Off Guard, Shadow of the Past, Vibranium Armor, Concussion Blasters, Vulture, Titania, Whiplash, Electro-Whip Attack x2, Kree Manipulator x2, Heart-Shaped HerbGreen Goblin: Green Goblin (II), Hysteria, Monster, ScorpionRise of the Red Skull: Taskmaster (II), The Island of Dr. Zola, The Mad Doctor, Hydra Prison, Hydra Regular x2, Hydra Jet Trooper x2, Hydra Soldier x2, Ultimate Bio-Servant x3, Crossfire, Technological Enhancements x2, Hail Hydra!, Concussion Grenade, Hydra Patrol, Taskmaster's Training Camp, Test Subjects, Avalanche!, Defensive Programming x2
Hulk: Abomination, Clash of the Titans x2Black Widow: Deadly ShotScarlet Witch: Luminous
Design Notes: Taskmaster and Green Goblin are both villains who reveal cards from the encounter deck, potentially putting big minions into play. The Dr Zola main schemes push minions into play and they get to activate that turn, making them a bigger threat. There is no Standard set (see below) but there are lots of attack effects based on minions like Quickstrike, Hydra Jet Trooper, Clash of the Titans, and there's a lot of little Incite effects to keep threat ticking along as well like Technological Enhancements and Kree Manipulator.
There aren't many side schemes or attachments but the most of the ones that are there support the 'make minions matter' theme. The Danger Room will push a lot of meaty minions at you and try to keep you on your toes while you deal with them. You'll need to fight for the right to reach Taskmaster and the Green Goblin and finish the encounter!
MAKING THE DANGER ROOM
v0.1 - A Shaky Start
My very first attempt lasted just one game because it was clearly wrong, but the intentions were almost all laid in at this stage. I was looking to make a very difficult scenario so I picked the two most difficult villains I was aware of: Ultron II to spawn his Drones and then Green Goblin III from Mutagen Formula who would come in with three of the super-powerful Encounter deck I had created. I grabbed a handful of scary beasties, shuffled it all up and was ready to go.
The difficulty curve was WAY off. Without an entire deck to support him it turned out that Ultron II was easy to control, then Green Goblin III unleashed World War 3 on me and I died seconds after he was flipped up from Ultron... I got Quickstriked twice for 6 damage, including a stun from Scorpion, and there was an Advanced Ultron Drone that I'd have to kill twice thanks to Biomechanical Upgrades. GG.
That's ok, I can fix that.
v0.2 - Let's Hear it for the New Boss, Same as the Old Boss
A lot of the decisions I made for v0.2 are still in the deck today, including the villain choices. Instead of having Goblin III hurling three encounter cards at me I took Taskmaster II for the first stage, who would deal one encounter card, then Green Goblin II for the second stage who would add two encounter cards. My fear at this point was that the best way to sidestep all the dangerous minions I was putting into the deck was to simply burn through the villains directly and I added a third villain in Red Skull III to stop players doing that.
This version immediately played much better and I got into a really nice duel with the deck as I tried to cope with all the big minions and not get pushed too far behind the ball. Then I drew an Advance and lost.
This was very frustrating. I was trying to rewrite the flow of an encounter so that it felt different and dangerous. I wanted to throw a spotlight onto the likes of Abomination and Titania, and yet games were still being decided by hitting an Advance just like in any other encounter. This was where I made a controversial decision... the Standard deck was subverting my plan and had to go!
v0.3 - A New Standard
I didn't want Assault, Gang Up or Advance anywhere near my deck. I was trying to build an encounter that was all about huge scary nemesis Minions and the Standard deck was just overpowering my intentions - a full 25% of my deck that was the same as every other encounter and making games all feel the same.
Now, I respected that the Standard deck fulfills an important game function (I figured there's probably a reason why it's in every single encounter FFG make) but I wanted to tune down the sudden game-ending capability of the Standard deck to give my Minions room to take centre stage. I tried to like-for-like swap the cards as much as possible for weaker or more flavourful versions. Assault became Clash of the Titans, for instance, still nasty to see but less likely to suddenly hit you for 7 damage and end the game and it was nice that it showcased big minions too. Same for using cards like Trickery to replace Advance, something that would put Threat onto the main scheme but was less likely to suddenly dump 6 stress and force an instant loss.
Some of the more experienced players had concerns about this change: if I took Assault and Advance out of the deck how could the heroes possibly lose? I didn't want to believe that the game was in a place where it was only spikes of extreme bad fortune on Treacheries that saw the villain attack or scheme that could beat a strong hero team. I wanted to give time for my horde of minions to push the heroes to where they were stuck behind a rock and a hard place.
Spider-Snob — What would be a loss that isn’t swingy and out of nowhere?
Stay On The Leader (Me) — I feel something is wrong that that’s even a question
Spider-Snob — Haha. Yeah, I think that’s how most of the losses in the game feel already. I don’t think that’s different.
Spider-Snob was right and I was wrong, but I didn't know that yet.
v0.4 - Public Beta Test
After another little round of tweaks (the biggest addition was settling on both stages of Dr Zola's main scheme because having minions thrown at you was much more interesting than Hunting Down Heroes) - my new Standard-less encounter was at a stage where it was kicking my ass all over the place, but I now liked the way that I was losing. I felt like I'd tested it as far as I could and I needed more experienced players to try it out.
Thankfully a few of them did, and the feedback that I got back was both very clearly negative, but also very descriptive and helpful.
KennedyHawk — Interesting, so I’ve found (in just my lowly 2 games) that the danger room feels more like a slog than a danger. You just slowly chip away at the villain and handle whatever minion comes up every turn. The lack of villain activations took the tension out. Much like wrecking crew the minions just felt like they were adding to the health total but not threat. Maybe I’m doing it wrong :p
SpiderMana — I finally finished my run. I had fun! It was certainly sloggy, but I don’t know how to differentiate a good slog from a bad slog, because Ultron is my favorite scenario and playing that multi-handed can be a bit much sometimes
I could definitely see how it would feel like a slog - I'd designed the encounter to feel like you were stuck in the trenches against the mighty minions and trying to fight your way through. But if your hero was strong and you knew you were going to win then all I was really doing was making it take ages for you to finish the game.
I already had ideas for how to change this and develop the scenario to add more peril back in when something clicked for me: I beat the encounter for the first time. Or rather, I *would* have beaten the encounter except that the turn before I was going to win the game the Encounter deck spontaneously created an Assault by putting Titania into play then immediately revealing Clash of the Titans on the next card.
So, let's get this straight. I'd taken all of the Assaults out of the deck and had created an encounter that I was inevitably going to win until I hit a pseudo-Assault. That very neatly proved to me that all the other people right about how essential it was for the encounter deck to have those dangerous knockout blows in it. Without the encounter deck being able to throw instant attacks and damage at you, or stack lots of extra threat onto the main scheme, it's actually almost impossible for a strong hero team to lose a game of Marvel Champions. No matter how strong you make the minions they're just speed bumps to a hero that's had time to set themselves up... Abomination may as well be a Weapons Runner. In fact the Weapons Runner has Surge so it's arguably a bigger problem than Abomination!
It's a frustrating and inconvenient truth for me, seeing as I wanted to make an encounter that was all about big scary minions.
It wasn't the end of the road for Danger Room, but it did mean I have to shift my parameters for design success.
v0.5 to v1.0 - He's Not The Messiah, He's a Very Naughty Boy
I'd set out with the rather ambitious plan of making The Bestest Most Difficultest And Most Funnest Encounter Ever.
I had failed.
But what I *had* created was still pretty difficult and still pretty fun. The first thing I did was reduce the 'slog' feel by cutting the third villain phase. Red Skull was no harder than Green Goblin so having him there wasn't proving anything - if you'd got as far as Red Skull you knew you had what it took to beat him too, all I was doing was making the game longer not harder.
Back down to a shorter runtime of two villains I kept tweaking and fiddling with card choices here and there and I kept running at it because it was fun to play against. And it was also seriously tough, which I appreciated more fully once I went back to trying the standard villains. After being used to dealing with big minions getting launched at me by The Mad Doctor and Green Goblin II it was actually a bit of a relief to only have to face a psychotic droid and his army of drones - it felt like Klaw and Ultron were moving on slow motion.
I'd failed because the goals I set myself turned out to be unachievable, but in aiming for them I'd created something that was still well worth the effort.
I think it's not really possible to make Minions the be-all and end-all of Marvel Champions because even the most powerful minions are just meat shields for the villain. They may buy the villain time but the hero will get to them eventually and it turned out that even signature villains like Electro or Titania couldn't stop that because they were dead as soon as they hit the table. I recalibrated - if the danger was extra attacks from encounter cards but I wanted the game to be about minions then fine, let's make sure to include signature Quickstrike mions like Vulture and Crossfire. If heroes could build up their economy to the point where they overwhelm anything the villain does then let's hit those economy cards more directly.
It turns out that I'm no Tony Stark. I couldn't make The Bestest Most Difficultest And Most Funnest Encounter Ever from bits of scrap, but I think my Danger Room encounter is still something close to Heroic level difficulty thanks to the extra threats coming out of the main scheme. And because I've stood firm on removing the Standard deck it does play differently to most other encounters you'll have faced and it comes at you a little bit sideways, constantly trying to trade upwards on cards and push you back down instead of relying on those big swings of variance from a Gang Up or Advance to steal a win.
If you're strong you'll beat it, but you HAVE to be strong and I think it probably does exactly the job that the real X-Men Danger Room does: if you can reliably beat this then you're ready for anything!
I hope you'll give it a try, and if you do I hope you like it!
v2.0? - The Post-Credits Scene
Interior, day. It's the Oval Office. The camera pans slowly over the furniture towards the famous Resolute desk. The chair sits empty as the camera draws to a standstill with a closeup across the top of the desk. We hear a door opening and footsteps approaching and then something is placed on the desk directly in front of the camera. It's the Green Goblin's mask. Out of focus, a figure dress in green and purple takes the chair behind the desk and puts their feet up.
We hear a second person enters the Oval Office, then voice speaks from off-camera. The voice has a very noticeable German accent.
Red Skull - President Osborn. Our plan proceeds exactly as we devised it. Hydra forces control most of the Eastern seaboard and are pushing inland. New York was holding out but thanks to you personal involvement we will take the city within weeks.Green Goblin - But...?
Red Skull - *pauses* But... there are reports a small group of heroes has escaped New York. There have been sightings within Washington and several Hydra patrols have gone missing within our perimeter in the last two hours.
Green Goblin - The heroes cannot be allowed to retrieve the Infinity Gem, Schmidt! They will undo everything! But no matter, they will be stopped. I have something special lined up for our would-be vanquishers. Something... new.
Red Skull - The Wrecking Crew? You mean to unleash them here, within the city? Can we do that? What about the rules?
Green Goblin - What use is an Infinity Gem if we can't change reality.
The Green Goblin puts his mask back on and the camera pans up until he's looking directly into the lens
Green Goblin - I think it's time to write some *new* rules.
TO BE CONTINUED
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