The X-Men are coming to the Marvel Champions card game
Mind those mutants.
The X-Men are making their entrance to Marvel Champions: The Card Game in its next expansion, Mutant Genesis.
Featuring the first playable characters from the X-Men comicbook series, Mutant Genesis is an upcoming board game expansion for Marvel Champions that will have players fighting against one of the most iconic supervillains out there – Magneto.
A campaign expansion for the living card game, Mutant Genesis is themed around the beloved X-Men, a team of heroes whose mutant powers allow them to perform incredible feats.
One of the playable characters found in Mutant Genesis is Piotr Rasputin, otherwise known as Colossus, a mutant who’s able to transform his skin into steel. Having appeared in multiple adaptations of the X-Men comic books – including the spin-off movie series, Deadpool, starring Ryan Reynolds – Colossus is originally from Russia and aspires to be a painter in his downtime. As his alter-ego, Piotr Rasputin, Colossus allows players to find and acquire the Organic Steel card from their deck, which then grants him extra toughness to withstand enemy attacks.
As his hero form, Colossus is able to have an additional tough status card in play – working well with his Organic Steel – which the player can then use to combo with many of Colossus’ other cards, such as Made of Rage, which boosts an attack, or the stunning Steel Fist. Colossus has a protection style Marvel Champions deck that allows him to better take hits and even deal damage back to an enemy using cards like Powerful Punch.
The other playable mutant included in Mutant Genesis is Kitty Pryde, whose hero form is Shadowcat. Having previously been featured in both X-Men: The Last Stand and X-Men: Days of Future Past, Kitty Pryde is able to phase through solid matter. As her alter-ego form, Kitty is able to activate and de-activate their Mass Form upgrade card, choosing to either make extra resources for events or take no damage from attacking enemies – switching to solid form whenever she attacks when phased.
Shadowcat’s hero ability plays alongside her phasing, allowing her to ignore guards and patrol keywords – as well as crisis icons – which allows her to avoid negative effects from enemies. Cats like Shadowcat Surprise also give her the opportunity to phase before attacking, thereby allowing her to ignore guard and deal more damage.
Players will be joined by various allies from the X-Men such as Professor X – who gives players the option to confuse a villain, stun a minion or ready an X-Men character – and Wolverine himself, whose attacks are able to pierce through enemy defenses and can heal playable characters every turn.
The players will need to harness everything in their arsenal to take down enemies such as Sabretooth, the Sentinels – featured in X-Men: Days of Future Past – and eventually Magneto himself, who is joined by an army of mutants from Pyro to Toad.
Marvel Champions: The Card Game is a co-op game that has players taking control of classic comic book superheroes fighting against a roster of villains and their minions. Players use their respective decks and character abilities to attack minions, villains and to thwart schemes in order to save the world. The players win the game if they are able to thwart the villain’s scheme or reduce their health to zero - but lose if the scheme is carried out or one of them dies.
Mutant Genesis is set to be released on September 30th at a retail price of $45 (£36), with a series of six additional X-Men hero packs set to follow – including one for Cyclops and Phoenix that will launch alongside Mutant Genesis.