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. They should consider hanging up their cape and tights. 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 Watergate war.
Pre-Clash Current Standings:
- Weekly Winner: 9 Chaos – 9 Confetti
- Individual game wins: 27 Chaos – 24 Confetti
After losing last week, Chaos has chosen Marvel United/Marvel United: X-Men.
The Game – Marvel United
Marvel United is normally a cooperative strategy game that has players stepping into the shoes of Marvel’s greatest heroes in order to take on Marvel’s biggest villains. Normally, a team of players take turns amongst themselves and with the villain in order to see if they can beat their foe before the villain’s master plan comes together. Players will hop around city locations, rescuing bystanders, beating thugs, performing heroic actions, and taking swings at the big bad and their henchmen.
The game is card based and players will use different action symbols (fight, heroic, and move) not only from the card they played but also based on the card the last player used. This is where a lot of the game’s teamwork and strategy comes in. Marvel United is all about maximizing resources to achieve goals while dealing with an ever worsening problem and a rapidly declining time limit. The game has built in ways to adjust the difficulty level but no matter how you play, a win comes down to smart turns and solid forward planning.
With all that said, this is Clash of Chaos and Confetti, not Chaos and Confetti’s Cooperative Kumbuya and Cuddle Convention. We need these two to face off! Thankfully, one of Marvel United’s greatest strengths is how much variability and variety the creator built into it. The game has over one hundred playable characters and dozens of villains to fight against (with each villain especially altering how gameplay works). If that wasn’t enough, the designers have also created a bunch of add-ons and expansions that allow a variety of playstyles and game modes. Among the game’s official modes are mini-campaigns, endurance tests, multi-boss fights, and (most importantly to us) a player-vs.-player option.
In the PVP mode, players will each be running their own separate team of two or three heroes. The goals still include reducing bystanders and beating up thugs on the way to beating the big bad, but this time it’s a race to achieve goals and hit the main villain the most.
The team that caused the most damage to the main villain wins.
Chaos’ Pre-Clash Thoughts:
We both have a lot of Marvel United experience, but neither of us have played the pvp mode before. This should be pretty interesting. My goal is to win for the week, but I also want to throw together some fun and thematic teams.
Confetti’s Pre-Clash Thoughts:
Marvel United is a really fun game, but I’m used to playing it cooperatively. It’ll be an interesting twist to try the pvp mode. I’m excited to try my hand at it and hopefully hold on to the C&C Championship for another week.
Game 1 –
Since this is our first time playing pvp in Marvel United, we decided to stick to two characters each. For our first game, we pulled from the Blue Team and Gold Team expansions. Chaos went with Colossus and Archangel while Confetti teamed up Rogue and Jubilee. The team would be facing off with Mr. Sinister.
Chaos quickly beat up enough thugs to put pressure on Mr. Sinister, speeding up Sinister’s turn order. Both players then immediately started achieving their personal goals to make themselves eligible to start attacking Mr. Sinister. The road to full combat proved to pretty quick and easy.
While Chaos started hitting the villain first, Confetti’s cards allowed for greater attack. What made the ending interesting though was that Mr. Sinister decided to hang around on spots that would force players to play cards randomly. Unfortunately for Chaos, fate was not on his side and Confetti was able to do more damage.
Score: Chaos 4 – Confetti 7
Game 1 Winner: Confetti
Game 2 –
In our second clash of the evening, we took on Sebastian Shaw. Shaw filled the board with henchmen and he himself was not afraid to dole out punishment either.
Chaos brought together best friends Cannonball and Sunspot for his team. Confetti decided to throw Kitty Pryde and Pixie together.
Immediately, our chances of winning felt slim and we knew this would be a tougher fight than we faced with Mr. Sinister. Shaw’s henchmen were brutal and we had to quickly focus on taking out the members of the Hellfire Club. Things looked so bad for a moment that Confetti was even willing to give up one of her health just to take out The Black Queen who was demolishing Chaos. She figured it was better to game going than let Shaw win over both players.
Chaos was the first to set himself up to start attacking Shaw. Unfortunately the board cleared in a way that made it very difficult for Confetti to meet her requirements. Chaos was a bit worried about Shaw’s special rules that only let him take one damage a turn and made any hero that hurt him take two damage in return.
Chaos chipped away at Shaw hoping to lock in victory before Confetti could catch up or Shaw could run out of cards. Thankfully, Cannonball and Sunspot proved to be a solid team that both offered a lot of movement and a lot of benefit from using movement. Cannonball also had some cards that prevented damage, protecting him from Shaw’s rebound attacks.
In the end, Confetti was unable to catch up and Chaos swept the second game.
Score: Chaos 4 – Confetti 0
Game 2 Winner: Chaos
Game 3 –
In our final game, Chaos would bring together Spider-Man’s Amazing friends: Iceman and Firestar. Confetti opted for New Mutant teammates Magik and Mirage. Our really big bad would take the form of the unstoppable Juggernaut.
Juggernaut immediately began by hitting every character for one damage. Seeing Juggernaut’s damage output, both players quickly rushed to start chipping away at their goals. They wanted to get to hitting Juggernaut back quickly. Chaos and Confetti both tried to position their characters away from Juggernaut’s attacks but he just kept running in for damage.
Confetti cracked her mission goals first and started assaulting Juggernaut. Sadly, Juggernaut wasn’t putting out the thugs Chaos needed and Chaos also lacked the stars required to knock out Juggernaut’s threats. Chaos just had to watch as Confetti started racking up damage points.
What might have saved Chaos was Confetti’s more limited movement actions. However, Juggernaut refused to keep his distance and kept running in for attacks, both against us and on him.
By the time Chaos finally was able to start attacking Juggernaut the game was already lost to him. Confetti already sealed her victory with five hits, which meant Chaos could only scoop up what was left, which wasn’t enough.
Juggernaut proved quite stoppable, unlike Confetti’s reign as champ.
Score: Chaos 3 – Confetti 5
Game 3 Winner: Confetti
Your Winner and Still C&C Clash Champion: Confetti!!
Chaos’ Post-Clash Thoughts:
Overall, I liked Marvel United’s pvp mode. I’m interested in experimenting with it more and trying it out with different characters and villains. I will say, based on my observations from games two and three, it’s definitely hard to catch up once a player takes the lead. It’s a real bummer to lose, but I guess there’s always next week.
Confetti’s Post-Clash Thoughts:
I’m a little surprised I was able to pull out the victory. Chaos really had my number in the second game and I was worried he’d continue that momentum into the third. I’m glad I was able to build a lead early and clinch my win. Hopefully I can keep up the pace to become the longest reigning C&C Clash Champion.
New Standings:
Post-Clash Standings:
- Weekly Winner: 9 Chaos – 10 Confetti
- Individual game wins: 28 Chaos – 26 Confetti
Next Week:
Chaos and Confetti will clash through the ages in Innovation. Who will build a civilization to envy and who will be left in the dust?
Chaos & Confetti 