The Clash of Chaos and Confetti 5 – Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

The Premise and Standings

Each week we’ll face off in a best of three series playing a different board game from our collection.  The winner claims the moniker of C&C Clash Champ for the week.  The loser will try to be deemed more of a sidekick than a hero.  The lesser player also gets to choose the game for the next week.

We will maintain a record of wins and losses throughout the year to see who finishes 2022 as the ultimate board game champ in our household.

Our current C&C Champion is Confetti after winning last week’s Wingspan showdown.

Pre-Clash Current Standings:

• Weekly Winner: 3 Chaos – 2 Confetti
• Individual game wins:  8 Chaos – 6 Confetti

After losing last week, Chaos has chosen Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

The Game – Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

Upper Deck’s Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game is a semi-cooperative deck building game set in the Marvel universe.  With more than twenty expansions released over the last ten years, there are a lot of potential elements to delve into, even before counting the spin-offs which are technically compatible with the original Marvel system.

While the expansions have added some interesting twists, mechanics, scenarios, and set-up options, the basic gist of the game has mostly stayed the same.  A big-time badguy (mastermind) is here to do some evil and they have a scheme they hope to accomplish.  The selected scheme will give players directions on any unique setup requirements for that particular game.  Otherwise, there will be two main decks on the board.  First, the villain deck will be composed of henchmen, minor villain groups, scheme twists, master strike (the big bad gets to take a swing), and bystanders (people to rescue).  The other deck is the hero deck, where the Marvel superheroes come into play.

Instead of playing as any one hero, players will work to recruit and coordinate heroes (cards) to take down the forces of evil before it’s too late.  By building a better deck with both powerful hero cards and ones which can activate each others’ abilities, players should be able to take on some pretty big foes.

While players share the goal of taking down the mastermind and preventing their scheme from playing out completely, they can also score their own individual points along the way.  The more villains players defeat and the more bystanders they rescue, the better their personal scores will be.  Saving the day is great, but isn’t it even better to know you were the biggest hero?

Chaos’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:

I love Legendary.  It’s one of my all time favorite board games.  I own almost every expansion and plan to keep getting them as they drop.  I thought Legendary would be a great pre-Valentine’s Day competition.  We’ll still technically be competing, but we’ll also get to join forces.  I’ll be honest, any excuse to play Legendary is a good one.  Games of Legendary can get pretty crazy depending on setups, so it’s hard to guarantee a win.  Let’s hope we can pull off victory, and I can pull off the overall big win.

Confetti’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:

I’m not at all surprised that Chaos picked Marvel Legendary. He wants to play it all the time and this is a good excuse to get me to agree to play at least two games of it this week. It’s OK though – I do like Marvel Legendary and I beat him in points at least 50% of the time. We do generally play it cooperatively though, just counting up points at the end to mark on BG Stats and for bragging rights. Intentionally playing the whole game trying to beat Chaos definitely changes my normal game strategy… hopefully, I can come out on top in the end!

Game 1:

Our first game had us taking on Annihilus as he hoped to complete his Annihilation: Conquest.  Heroes were being infected and turned to the darkside.  Our job was to beat Annihilus before too many heroes broke bad without reprisal.  Annihilus would be backed by the Annihilation Wave, Guardians of Knowhere, and Phalanx.  Chaos some used theming around an unplayed scheme to setup the villain side of things.

Our heroes were chosen completely randomly.  Representing the forces of good were: The Punisher, HellCat, Symbiote Spider-Man, Colossus, The Sentry, and the combined hero of Storm and Black Panther.  A wild mismash indeed.

This game stayed high pressure the entire time.  We had to stay on top of the defecting heroes or we wouldn’t last long as they kept coming out quickly and kept growing in size.  Meanwhile, Weaponized Galatcus started eating our board early, making it harder to beat villains before they could escape. The whole scenario put Chaos and Confetti to the test over being team players or individualists.  The infected heroes needed to be dealt with to keep us in the game, but beating them didn’t actually earn anyone points.  Keeping the team alive meant sacrificing opportunities to score.  Both players opted to be team players at times, but it wasn’t always to their liking.

To make things even worse, the game decided we needed even more of a challenge and Angela soon ascended to become a second mastermind.  It was one more thing to deal with, but we did take her down.  Putting out all the fires around the board kept us from really being able to mount much of an offensive against Annihilus.  Eventually, we decided to risk letting other aspects of the game slip to focus on our big bad.  If he didn’t take him down quickly enough, we’d soon be unable to handle the growing infected anyways.

Confetti ran a HellCat heavy deck with some Punisher and Sentry to add a little more firepower.  Chaos leaned more into the versatility of Storm/Black Panther, also using a dash of Punisher and Black Panther.  We let the much smaller Symbiote Spider-Man stick around as potential infection targets that were easier to deal with. 

It wasn’t easy, but we did eventually takedown Annihilus, but not before Confetti accidentally activated Sentry’s biggest attack causing him to morph into The Void, creating yet another mastermind.

Somehow we eked out a win.  Our decks and board weren’t pretty, but good conquered evil.  Chaos also achieved individual success.

Final score: Chaos: 35 – Confetti: 28

Game 2:

With the Messiah Complex expansion just coming out, it only seemed right to break into the new cards and give them a whirl.  Game two saw Bastion, Fused Sentinel hacking into Cerebro.  His team consisted of The Acolytes, Purifiers, and Sentinel Squad O*N*E*.  

On the side of good were Multiple Man, The Stepford Cuckoos, Siryn, Rictor, and Warpath.  We had a solid team of mutants ready to step up to the plate.

This game felt like the complete opposite of the previous one.  While we barely hung in there game one and the win felt like a miracle, game two had a mastermind who never really picked up steam.  Thanks to the clone mechanic, our decks ramped up quickly and we immediately started wailing on Bastion.  His gimmick is creating extra masterminds who can potentially grow rather large.  Unfortunately for him, he raced through him and his spare big bads before he had a chance to gain much strength.  

Chaos relied heavily on Multiple Man with a splash of Warpath and Siryn for attack.  Confetti used a good mix of Multiple Man and Siryn.

This game flew by, not even allowing the scheme to hit its second stage.  Confetti hit enough of the spare masterminds to grab the win.

Final score: Chaos: 25 – Confetti: 34

Game 3: 

For our final game, we stuck with the Messiah Complex expansion but turn up the difficulty by facing Exodus.  Unlike most mastermind who top out at the high single digits or low teens for hit points, Exodus starts with thirty-two.  Spending recruit points can lower his stats, but that would require players to build well balanced recruit and attack decks.  Exodus was supported by the Acolytes, Reavers, and Mister Sinister Clones.  Together the baddies hoped to drain mutants powers to control the mutant messiah.  

Since they didn’t see much play last game, Rictor and the Stepford Cuckoos returned.  Joining them were Shatterstar, Strong Guy, and M.  

Spoiler: We did not achieve the balance we needed to be successful.  Our decks ended up at the perfect strength to take down everyone put Exodus.  We had no problem clearing out the smaller villains, but we had more trouble having enough recruit to shrink Exodus while still maintaining enough attack to actually hit him. Confetti pulled the feat off twice, but that wouldn’t be enough to stop Exodus.  

Confetti had a nice draw and money engine going, mostly relying on Strong Guy and Shatterstar.  She just couldn’t get the attack lined up often enough.  Meanwhile, Chaos leaned more into M and the Stepford Cuckoos.  They supported each other nicely, but ended up more attack heavy.  Being able to build up to attack power in the mid-to-high teens is great, but not when the mastermind is double that and you don’t have the resources to bring him to a more manageable size.

In the end, Exodus proved too powerful and evil got the final say.  We still tallied our points to see who was the biggest loser.  

Final score: Chaos: 31 – Confetti: 32

Your winner and NEW C&C Clash Champion: Confetti

Chaos’ Post-Clash thoughts:

I didn’t win the championship, but I did get to play several games of Legendary, so that’s a win in itself.  I also got to give my new expansion a try, so that was even sweeter.  It sucks not being able to beat Exodus, but I think we will beat him next time.  This just means I have to get Confetti to play some more outside of our competition.  I’m sure I can convince her.  As for the Clash title, I think next week will be my week. 

Confetti’s Post-Clash thoughts:

I’m thrilled to be the C&C Clash Champion for another week – it’s also my first successful title defense and at Chaos’ favorite game too, so a double victory. I’d be lying though if I said I wasn’t disappointed that we didn’t actually win the game in our final round. Partially because I like to beat the game after that much of a time investment and partially because I know Chaos will forever want to mark my win with an asterisk * in the record book. Looking forward to being a 3 time C&C Clash Champion next week!

Next Week:

Chaos and Confetti duke it out in Stone Age.