After using Captain America last week against Rhino, this week I decided to see if Doctor Strange could do any better.  I managed to clear Heroic 1 with Captain America, but completely failed to get any wins on Heroic 2. 

I made some changes to the deck I was using in my Deck Development article and started with this.

I removed Helicarrier and Quincarrier for Enhanced Reflexes instead.  As stated in the previous Rhino’s Revenge article, I found that the two-cost resource cards allowed you to have better turns the round that you played them.  That one difference in cost is really noticeable.  The reason that I chose Enhanced Reflexes over the other similar ones is solely for Vision’s ability.

I took Lockjaw out of the deck as I barely played him previously and doubted that would change.

The Triskelion was removed because I didn’t think that my allies would stay in play long enough for it to be useful.

First Aid was removed to add some more damage in the form of Haymaker.

Make the Call was dropped to two copies (I’m beginning to think three copies might be too many in general), and Get Ready was added so that I could squeeze even more out my allies when I needed to.  It could also be used with Wong to help dig through your Invocation deck if absolutely needed, but would probably be best with Nick Fury or an empowered Vision.

The first hurdle was Expert mode.

Difficulty	Module	Result	Rounds
Expert	Bomb Scare	WIN	6
Expert	Running Interference	WIN	8
Expert	Doomsday Chair	WIN	12

Cleared easily, although the Doomsday Chair one was a bit more awkward than normal.  MODOK ended up in play on the first round via the Doomsday Chair side scheme and I wasn’t able to get rid of him until the eighth round (he’d got a Biomechanical Upgrades attachment).

I did make one change going into Heroic 1, I removed the three copies of Haymaker for First Aid (a card that I’d taken out earlier!).

Difficulty	Module	Result	Rounds
Heroic 1	Bomb Scare	WIN	8
Heroic 1	Running Interference	LOSS	7
Heroic 1	Running Interference	WIN	8
Heroic 1	Doomsday Chair	LOSS	9
Heroic 1	Doomsday Chair	WIN	6

In my last game of Heroic 1, MODOK showed up on the second round and immediately got a Biomechanical Upgrades attachment.  Needing sixteen damage and eight thwart to get rid of him and his side scheme, I decided to just ignore them and focus down Rhino instead.

An empowered Vision and also Wonder Man then proceeded to beat the crap out of Rhino.  I finished him off with a Crimson Bands of Cyttorak and a Magic Blast.  This has made me re-evaluate if I play a bit too conservatively, as winning the scenario in only six rounds on such a high difficulty was something of a surprise.

Heroic 2 was next and I didn’t make any changes to the deck.

Difficulty	Module	Result	Rounds
Heroic 2	Bomb Scare	WIN	9
Heroic 2	Running Interference	LOSS	3
Heroic 2	Running Interference	LOSS	2
Heroic 2	Running Interference	LOSS	2

So I did at least manage one win before finally losing three in a row!  A tiny bit further than Captain America, so there’s that.

The above is the state of my game in my final loss.  This was the end of the first round!  Heroic 2 is pretty brutal!

It was 7-5 to Doctor Strange overall, so he ‘beat’ Rhino to a certain degree.  Five wins for Rhino still counts as revenge, right?

Summary

Doctor Strange definitely had a much easier time on Heroic 1 than Captain America did, but then I think that he is probably the most powerful hero in the game at the moment, so that’s not too suprising.

I surprised myself with how quickly I was able to win that one particular playthrough of Doomsday Chair on Heroic 1, where I beat it in six rounds.  I think that it’s tempting to try and exert complete control on the board at all times (i.e no minions, no side schemes, and little threat on the main scheme), I’ve definitely been guilty of that.  So to completely ignore a minion (MODOK) and a side scheme (Doosmday Chair) and instead focus on the boss was somewhat refreshing.

I play a lot of Arkham Horror LCG and I think that I should carry over more lessons from there.  In my experience, I never really have enough actions to do everything that I’d like to in that game.  Oftentimes weaknesses and enemies start to pile up and you’ve always got to assess whether it’s worth the time to deal with them or just accept their negative effects as part of your new normal.  I find myself saying “it could be worse” when adding yet another negative effect to my play area and maybe that’s how I should start seeing more things in Marvel Champions.

In the playthrough referenced above, take MODOK for example.  If left in play, he will attack or scheme for two every round.  That is definitely annoying, but it’s not the end of the world.  It could be worse.  His side scheme, the Doomsday Chair, has an acceleration icon, so it’ll add one extra threat each round to the main scheme (in Rhino’s case, making it two threat per round).  It could be worse.

This particular playthough has definitely caused me to rethink my approach to scenarios.  I think up until now I’ve kinda decided that because I COULD deal with all the minions and side schemes that pop up, I SHOULD deal with them, or at least attempt to.  Ultimately, it doesn’t matter how many minions or side schemes are in play when you defeat the villain, so there’s no need to keep the board completely clear.  However, this doesn’t mean that you should ignore everything that pops up, but you should figure out what your hero’s acceptable level of ‘bad stuff’ is.

I think that I’m almost done with Rhino for now.  I’ve got one more article coming where Captain America and Doctor Strange do a heroic team-up versus Rhino.  It’ll be interesting to see how different it is with two heroes rather than one!  Anyway, I hope you didn’t mind my rambling at the end there too much.

Cheers,

Tim