Adam Warlock Home Rules

 Adam Warlock Home Rules

Here's my custom set for Adam Warlock.  Note that there are only a few hero decks which have major problems for me: Adam, Hulk, She Hulk, and Ms Marvel.  Finally, I'll probably make all the "team" cards discardable upgrades instead of unreliable events.



Implementing house rules was tricky, because there's really not enough room on Adam's hero card to write anything.  Adding the rules to cards which get shuffled into your deck is sketchy: you might not get them when you need them.  We're back to Adam's original problem --he needs certain cards, but he ends up discarding them, and can't get them back.  Instead, I added two rules on two cards in order to give him a better chance to start controlling his discard pile.  

Okay, I used to add the home rules to the Karmic Staff and Warlock's Cape.  But I also made an extra hero card called "Counter-Earth" which had the extra two rules on it on setup, and then a different interaction on the back.  This ended up being the best option, with more interesting gameplay from turn one.

Counter Earth (side 1): 
Response: After you discard more than 3 cards from an effect, shuffle one of those cards back into your deck.
Alter Ego: Discard a basic card to place a card from the discard pile on top of your deck.  Flip this card.
Counter Earth (side 2): 
Draw a card from your discard pile, then if your hand contains at least one card of all four aspects, keep that card, otherwise, discard a card.  Flip this card.

And, of course, I made Quantum Magic an Upgrade, so if you get them in your opening hand, they aren't worthless.  That creates a fix for the discard problems from the opening hand.  Also I included the updated Cosmic Entities.  Since I was updating the cards to scale with player count, I updated the cost as well.  I think they'll get played more and have a much more "cosmic" feel.

  1. Minimum upgrade: Home Rules added to Quantum Magic.
  2. Moderate upgrade: Home Rules added to Karmic Staff, Adam Warlock's Cape, Quantum Magic.
  3. Full Upgrade: Home Rules added to Karmic Staff, Adam Warlock's Cape, Quantum Magic, and all the Cosmic Entities.
  4. Nuclear (newbie) Option:  Counter Earth is added to your hand on setup.  Home Rules added to Quantum Magic and all the Cosmic Entities.
Home brew ethical note: I've taken care to make the smallest changes I can while fixing the FUN aspect of each deck.  Adam is hopefully more playable and fun now.  I added shuffle rules to help with unfortunate discards, and "place on top of your deck" to Alter Ego, because I didn't want to eclipse the power of Quantum Magic, while still gaining more control over the discard pile.  The goal was to have Adam's discard abilities (worst case) create a minor setback, rather than a major handicap.  Home Rules are optional, but hopefully these help --especially when your friends choose one of these decks to play on game night.

WHY?
Adam's deck has been a real pain.
Adam's deck is a very slow build.  Think of a less-reliable Iron Man.

Problem: 
  • Adam is heavily reliant on upgrades to play competently.
  • So many of his cards discard from your deck to have an effect.  
  • Many of his important upgrades get discarded
  • Quantum Magic seeks to help with this problem by getting cards out of the discard pile and placing them in your hand.
  • Quantum Magic is an event which never turns up at the right time.
Consider the following:  
Opening hand: Quantum Magic and various events. 
Hard Mulligan: Quantum Magic and various events.
Next hand: Summoning Spell discards 5 upgrades.
Effect: Adam is now completely handicapped for the entire game.  Oh, he could get some upgrades out near the end, but then they might not be worth the expense.

Objection!  That is highly improbable!
Quantum Magic ALWAYS shows up in the opening hand.  For all my Adam Warlock plays, and deck fiddling, I have had extreme trouble getting to his upgrades, and I've yet to be able to use a single Quantum Magic to help.  QM has been 100% useless.

You've just been unlucky!  Keep playing and eventually, you will have a good game!
No.  Unreliable heroes are no fun.  It is way too easy for Adam to have a terrible game.  I bring all my heroes to the table on game night, and some love Adam Warlock.  He needs to be playable and fun, and I don't mind if he starts to get a little closer to Dr Strange in power...  For my money, these upgrades are NOT overpowered.  They give Adam no control over the deck, just some control over the discard pile.  He still has to draw his way through the deck.  Discarding is a little more powerful, because he can eventually get some cards back into his deck for later plays.  To mitigate this, I have his deck at a full 50 cards ==> he has 7 in each aspect, including basic.  He's different, and interesting, but now he's not randomly handicapped.  Rather, he's randomly delayed.  Eventually, he could get built out, and then recur some useful cards out of the discard pile.  Other heroes can do that.  I'm okay with that.  

What's fun about Adam?  
In Magic the Gathering, this is called a "discard / tutor" deck.  This just means he can discard cards to power other cards, then search through, or otherwise control his discard pile.  A player would say, "I tutored that card from the discard pile." The term "tutor" makes no sense in this context, so I just call it a "discard / search" deck.  Having played Bishop who has a similar mechanic (which actually works), I feel like his design is an apology for Adam.  Some people love this mechanic.  It looks like Magneto will also use this mechanic.  It seems popular.

The discard / search mechanic is not one which I'm usually fond of.  I know that it works, and it can be powerful, but it rips through a deck which you've carefully built.  You're carelessly discarding powerful cards to cheaply power other cards.  It has the feel of making a bunch of your well-chosen cards useless.  

Why not just add three of an important card? 
Adam is forbidden to have more than one of each aspect card.  There's no way around this problem with Adam.  You're absolutely going to discard a bunch of very important cards, and that will usually create a powerful play, but most of those cards will be inaccessible until you shuffle.  The idea with Adam is that you can race through your deck to shuffle quickly (and to power Soul World).

Conclusion:  Adam needs some reliable control over his discard pile to be more consistently playable, vice the whole [lucky or handicapped] roller coaster.  

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Helpful Links for Understanding / Improving your Decks and how to play them.

Image
These are a few YouTube links which helped me immensely in figuring out Marvel Champions, building decks, swapping aspects, and playing them. Fix These 10 Rules Mistakes To Win More Games - Marvel Champions From DaringLime I've made at least half of these mistakes.  This helps so much. 10 More Rules Mistakes To Fix That Will Help You Win Games! - Marvel Champions Rules Reference 1.6 From DaringLime Even more help from DL --again, I've made half of these mistakes. Every Hero's "Worst" Card: Core Set Edition From VillainTheory (with Boomguy ) This (series) helped me think about efficiency, coordination, and deck building.  Whenever I get a new hero pack, I often come back to this series. Marvel Champions: Every Hero's Best Aspect (At Every Player Count!) From VillainTheory This comprehensive video helped me think about aspect swaps, and why some heroes pair better with certain aspects in multiplayer.  Whenever I get a new hero pack, I often come back to this vi...
Read more

Team Up Cards: Home Rules

Image
 Custom Cards: Team Up Cards These might be my final hero custom card set for Home Rules.  There's not too much else on the hero side that really feels broken or unfun.  My next custom cards will likely be villain scenarios: Collector and Ronan.   Team up cards are cool, and very thematic, but no one ever puts them in a deck unless you're playing a thematic duo in multiplayer.  I want to make sure we can use these with our signature allies, especially because m y friends are more into the thematics in each deck.  Hence, I've been working on this a little more in my deck building for game night. There are two big problems with these cards: There's a 1/8 chance that they'll end up in the same hand with your signature ally.  That's absolutely not worth the deck space.   The cost of a signature ally is often 3-4, and usually you would not be able to play both the ally and the Team-Up card at the same time. So the fix is to just make these al...
Read more

Re-sized Fold-Out Heroes: Ant Man, Wasp, Angel

Image
Okay, many of us have fiddled with these "Giant-Form" heroes.  Sure, they look cool, and folding out is a great visual on the table when you switch to Giant Form.  I don't have Ant Man, but I do have Wasp, and now I have Angel.  Here's the problem: how do we get these to fit into a regular card sleeve? I cheated with Wasp.  I copied the giant form on a color copier, cut it out, folded it into the sleeve, so you could see the top half with the stats, and you could flip to see the bottom half with the abilities.  Angel is printed wide, not tall, so you can fold it to see the stats, but the abilities get cut off halfway across.  So,    https://champions-card-maker.pages.dev      to the rescue. Here are Ant Man ,  Archangel and Wasp fixed for regular card size to put into a sleeve.  I just print these on paper, cut them out, and then I just use some lame cards I don't care about and put them both in the sleeve.  It feel...
Read more