Caught Off Guard (Standard I) Home Rule

This card needs to be changed. Maybe it could be an expert card.

Home Rule: “Exhaust an upgrade or support you control. If no cards were exhausted, this card gains surge.”

One of the big problems with Marvel Champions is how many scenarios end quickly. A common complaint is, “just when I get my hero built, the game is over.” The [getting built out] part is often the struggle.

I used to hate Stuns because the complaint is “I didn’t get to do anything.” Usually, you can clear them, BUT more importantly, they slow down attacks, which gives you more time to build out. So now I kinda like them for pacing.

Caught Off Guard adds to the pacing problem, and prevents the fun of building out. This home rule fixes both problems.


It's only one card, does it really “need to be changed?”  

Well, it’s the Standard I modular which gets added to almost every scenario because Shadows of the Past is a base game element.  “Needs to be changed” refers, of course, to base game pacing.  Breaking hero build-outs on the base game leads to late build-outs which are often not economical to play + game is over next turn, so you might not get to experience the full (or near full) build-out.  


But Overwhelming Force is way worse.

Overwhelming Force is Standard II (which many people don’t play because it’s just punishing and worse than Expert 1).  As it stands, most consider that S1 < E1 < S2 < E2.  We played S2 once, and threw it back into the box.  If I cared about S2, I’d probably change that card. That may be for a future project, but I think we’re all more okay with overly difficult cards in harder modulars.  


What even are Upgrades and Supports?

The Upgrades and Supports are kind of weird anyway.  Did Vision lose his cape?  Thematically, “suiting up” tends to match “powering up” for a villain fight (especially with stage 1 feeling like an initial villain fight and stage 2 feeling like the final showdown).  I mind cards like Caught Off Guard less in harder scenarios, but for learning the game –come on.  That’s not learning, that’s just robbing players of the full experience.  Why have a deck, if you can’t play it?  


Hero Decks

I would argue that the hero decks are the most fun part of the game.  Lots of people spend a lot of time building them.  It’s no fun if your cool deck gets broken by one overly powered card in the base game.  In contrast, do players painstakingly build custom villain scenarios with different modulars?  Not as much (with notable exceptions).


What about those Alter Ego abilities?

Does this eclipse heroes like Hawkeye who have a built-in mitigation for this card? There are other scenarios with similar cards, so this would help Clint find his bow in those situations. It's just not going to be an EVERY scenario problem. This weakens those Alter Ego abilities, but it depends on the scenario.


Have you tried it?

This is way more fun. The home rule slows you down without wrecking your build.


Cycle 9 New Cards:

Front Organization. This is from the Agents of SHIELD expansion. It took nine cycles for FFG to realize that Caught Off Guard is a problem. It may be because the 6-cost supports from Maria Hill make CoG overpowered. There are still cards like Psychological Manipulation which can discard your upgrades, but technically, this might make the Front Organization less necessary.

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