After my first two Hybrid Heroes - created by mixing cards and abilities from existing heroes to make something new - I'm back with another one, and this time it's one that's close to my heart. But if you're just tuning in now, let's have a reminder of what my guidelines are for making a Hybrid Hero.
- I aim for a 7-8 split on the 15 cards in their hero deck, that is to take 7 cards from one hero and 8 from the other hero. The whole point of this is to create fun new heroes who are going to feel new and interesting so a good mix of cards from both is a good way to ensure your new hybrid doesn't just feel like an old hero in a new pair of pants.
- I have a 'base' hero who is the one whose alter-ego and hero card I'm basing myself in. I usually keep their alter-ego ability untouched but try to switch their hero ability with the other hero in the hybrid. I do this because changing 7 or 8 cards in your deck is often not going to make a massive difference to how things feel or play, but hero abilities are always on and can really shake up the experience
- Sometimes a card refers to their original hero/alter-ego by name (eg. Mjolnir reads "Thor gets +1ATK and gains the Aerial trait"). Any names are assumed to refer to the hero whose deck they are now in. The same goes for Obligations/Nemesis cards. Basically: do what the cards are supposed to do, even if that's not exactly what they now say they do.
And now for the exciting bit... I get to be Black Suit Spidey!
BLACK SUIT SPIDEY
I'm an old man now and little things like Venom and Carnage happened after I stopped really reading comics properly, but back when I was just a little kid in a set of Spider-Man pyjamas I lapped up the first Secret Wars series. It introduced me to a whole world of heroes and villains beyond the pages of my neighbour's vintage Spider-Man collection, and then my mind was blown wide open as it went on to introduce me to a new black Spider-Man suit.
Like, seriously... this was the coolest thing. (It was the 80s. Life was simpler then.)
Then I got distracted by Warhammer 40,000, took my eye off the ball a bit and suddenly Spidey was back in blue and red and there was this Venom guy running around. And then Magic: The Gathering happened and when I next checked back there was a red Venom thingy too, and then it all seemed to get a bit wierd with eight-armed Venom Spideys as villains and I kind of tuned it all out for a decade or so.
But in Marvel Champions I've got a card game with Spider-Man in, and I've even now got the Symbiote suit thanks to the Venom expansion. I can make it the 80's all over again!
- 2x Backflip
- 2x Enhanced Spider-Sense
- 2x Swinging Web Kick
- 1x Aunt May
- 1x Black Cat
- 1x Spider-Sense
- 2x Grasping Tendrils
- 2x Savage Attack
- 2x Behind Enemy Lines
(15 cards)
Obligation: Struggle for Control /// Nemesis: Venom
It turns out that the Spider-Man and Venom card pools merge together very nicely indeed, which I'm sure is in no small part due to the fact the Venom hero set was full of callbacks to the original Spider-Man set anyway, which means it's really easy to flip abilities in and out between the two. For example Spidey has his Web Shooters but his symbiote suit generates its own webs so has the Symbiotic Bond ability built in to create the same effect. Similarly the original Spider-Sense ability moves off the hero card onto an upgrade, moving in the opposite direction to the Web Shooters, and Webbed Up becomes the Grasping Tendrils, the Spider-Tracers become Behind Enemy Lines, etc.
It also helped that there's only really 7 Venom cards that thematically fit because half of his card pool is dedicated to guns, so when you cut those out the switch into Spider-Man virtually builds itself. You pretty much just take out the Spider-Man version of something (Webbed Up, Tracers) and put in the symbiote version on almost a like-for-like basis.
That included switching the hero ability for Venom's Symbiotic Bond, and that became a key change for making the Black Suit Spider-Man play differently to the original. One other change that really added a lot to the feel of character was bringing in Venom's Obligation and Nemesis sets, so now you're dealing with the ramifications of wearing the black suit.
On the flipside, though, he also suffers for that - he's no longer such an obvious Protection aspect candidate as he likes to hurt himself to play cards and you may have to wait a while to get your defensive Spider-Sense online. The new Obligation/Nemesis also sets you back a bit, but I'm going to hold my hands up on this one... this is definitely a more powerful Spider-Man than the original, and arguably more powerful than Venom too with the addition of Backflip and Enhanced Spider-Sense making him extra hard to squish.
He's not wacky over-powered, but to some extent it *is* a Spidey fan's power fantasy.
Mea culpa, I guess.
I already had a Venom deck I liked that used Justice as it's aspect, so in building a deck around the Black Suit Spider-Man I started there and carried across most of that original template, with ultimately only a few changes - mainly because I was no longer a Guardian of the Galaxy as black suit Spidey.
Justice
- 3x Turn The Tide
- 1x Skilled Investigator
- 3x Clear The Area
- 2x Multitasking
- 1x Heroic Intution
- 1x Wiccan
- 1x Quake
- 1x Agent Coulson
- 2x Sonic Rifle
Basic
- 1x Strength
- 1x Energy
- 1x Genius
- 1x Target Acquired
- 2x Endurance
- 1x Ironheart
- 1x Spider-Man (Miles Morales)
- 1x Quincarrier
- 1x Nick Fury
(25 cards)
It's ultimately giving you a potent mix of board control tools to deal with both threat and minions. There weren't many symbiote-Spidey specific decisions to make but I'll call a couple of them out.
Firstly it's really unusual for me to make a deck with two copies of a card like Endurance but it seemed very important for this deck to have that extra health pool available. Endurance feeds into the symbiote side of this deck by giving you more health to spend on being quick and aggressive at generating resources from your Symbiote Bond, and it also gives you more headroom to benefit from all the best-in-class healing that you get from Aunt May when you duck into alter-ego form.
Secondly, the symbiote's cards all ask you to pay with specific resources to activate kicker effects so adding Quincarrier (now that I was an Avenger not a Guardian) made a ton of sense.
Beyond those decisions it's just a straight forward whack-a-mole kind of a deck, with answers for almost anything the villain has planned... so long as you can keep healthy enough to let the Symbiote keep the flow of powerful Events coming. Spider-man's own basic attack/thwart actions aren't much to write home about, it's really all about the sauce you get from having all those fantastic Events in one deck... and I'll be honest, that kind of feels really dynamic and actually a lot more like Spider-Man than the original Spider-Man deck did.
I really like this Hybrid Hero - it may not be much of a "What If...?" scenario but it's ticking a big nostalgia box for me. And who doesn't like a new black suit?
You know, it makes me feel... a bit funny... a bit, kinda... kinda, like... like dancing...
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