Mad Titan's Shadow Playthrough

Angel / Protection + Psylocke / Justice vs Ebony Maw

Ebony Maw:  I like how the spells give you time to plan.  They're powerful, but they don't fire off immediately.  We exploited his weakness --stuns and confuses.  This mostly prevents him from activating his spells.  Only one spell triggered (Fireball on Psylock), and they were able to slow down the rest.  At the end, there were 7 untriggered spells on the board, although 5 only had one more counter on them.  That would have been ugly: stunned, confused, take damage, discard from your hand...  Whew!  The main scheme puts spells into play immediately.  

Protection and Justice are usually a weak pairing, but they handled the main scheme + one side scheme easily.  Only one minion came out.  Neither hero made it through their decks, or got fully built out.  This was a strong win.

Angel:  I mean he's so good in Protection.  He flipped between Angel and Archangel almost every round.  The last two rounds, he threw a 9-damage Razor Dive.  That adds up.  He did have his side scheme Render Medical Aid in play with only 1 threat left on it, so they could have gotten an easy 5-point heal.  

Psylocke:  She had Ebony Maw stunned and confused most rounds.  This really saved the game.  Even Angel flipped down to take advantage of a confused on the villain.  She mostly thwarted, but attacked more than I would have expected to get some stuns.  I put Telekinesis and Telepathy in her deck, but they never got played.  She didn't get Team Building Exercise or X-Gene out, or I might have.  She has the resources to power them, but they're more like a back-up plan than a real strategy.  I might drop them, as they're very inefficient.  

Nightcrawler / Protection + Gambit / Aggression vs Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive

Proxima and Corvus:  These two are interesting.  Both schemes activate, but only one villain activates.  Their minions SUCK --more random discards make this very unfun.  The schemes advance together, so threat removal is more important.  While Kurt had a great game, Remy did not.  They were in control, but just waiting for some good attacks.  This was a longer game than it should have been, and the end was unimpressive.  Really just a slog, not a fun win.  They did keep the Avengers tower from flipping, but most hands were poorly balanced.  I may try again with different heroes.

Nightcrawler:  Got another good start with the Kurt's Cutlasses and the armor came up pretty quick, so he was defending for 5 a lot.  He was doing 2 retaliate.  He's definitely one of the best protection heroes I have.  Still, he did have some bad hands.  His scheme triggered to stun and confuse both villains ==> plenty of bang for the buck there.  He covered the bases on protection.  

Gambit:  Had an aggressive start, but really his whole deck was backward.  He got all his attack events before any of his upgrades.  When he finally got his upgrades, there were no more attack events.  He reshuffled and came up empty again.  Just super frustrating.  This shows one of the weaknesses of Marvel Champions, how you can get an unlucky shuffle.  This is why those turbo-draw decks work so well.  X-men tried to fix some of this with X-Mansion, Mutant Education, and Mutant Instruction.

Ironheart / Leadership + Venom / Justice vs Proxima Midnight and Corvus Glaive

Proxima and Corvus:  They were their usual difficult selves, but this was a much better matchup.  Lots of stuns and confuses in the mid game slowed them down and let Ironheart and Venom take turns flipping down.  Both got hit early and healed.  They controlled the board much better.  This was a slighty slower game, but much more successful.  Both heroes really played to their strengths.  At the end, they got Proxima down to 0, and Corvus down to 1hp.  So close!  Next round, they cleaned up the board for the win.  This would have made a difference in Campaign mode.

Ironheart:  This was the fastest I've ever gotten to version 3.  She sacrificed early to get the Helicarrier and Ingenuity out.  She played Moral Boost + Go All Out three times for 11 damage each. That was power.  She did one Push Ahead to thwart for 7.  

Venom:  I forgot how many upgrades Venom has.  Lots of cards on the table!  He didn't get the Sideholster til the end of the deck.  He got all his main guns out, and made a big difference in the game.  Lots of stuns and confuses really helped Iron Heart get built out by flipping down.  Venom had a couple crucial Run and Gun moments to solve some tough problems.  Late game his nemesis came out.  That was definitely a pain, but these two handled the challenge. 

Black Panther / Protection + Shuri / Justice vs Thanos

Thanos: I like how the Infinity Gauntlet works.  It flips up first, then activates next.  In two player, this means it's activating once or twice per round, depending on the encounter cards.  Thanos hits hard, and his minions are all elite.  Many hero cards are not viable for this scenario.  We did the home rule with Stalwart, where stun and confuse prevent the boost card.  I really like that home rule.  Otherwise too many hero cards are useless.  This was a slower game with lots of control. It was just fun to try both Black Panthers together for the Wakanda traits.  Nothing spectacular, but fun. 

Black Panther:  Thanos hit him for 9hp.  Ouch!  These two have plenty of healing though.  One round, he got 3 full Wakanda Forever plays.  That's a game changer.  They took two rounds to kill Thanos after flipping him.  I didn't mind as much, because that's the weakness of pairing Justice and Protection.

Shuri:  Way too many useless cards.  She had stuns and confuses + cards which affect non-elite minions (Thanos only has elite minions).  Her allies are great.  The more I think about it, the more I want to play Shuri in Leadership with a Voltron deck.  

Falcon / Leadership + Gamora / Aggression vs Thanos

Thanos:  I tried another pair just for fun.  This game went easier.  Thanos' discard attacks are the worst.  Falcon lost one of his best upgrades for the game.  I get the thematics, but if Thanos can melt your gear, also thematically, the heroes should start all geared up.  I dunno.  I may just home rule this, because it's unfun.  

Falcon:  Oh my gosh!  He defended the whole game.  He got his DEF up to 5.  Wow.  I forgot how good he is.  He was able to keep many of his allies up for a long time, and brought Redwing back into his hand 3 times.  So good.  Unfortunately, most of his ally boosting cards never panned out.  Wingman feels a little silly.  He has three in his deck, I may just dump them.  Up Up and Away is fantastic, but I didn't realize how to play it until later.

Gamora:  Amazing as always.  She was hitting and thwarting from the start.  So consistent.  Her resources are great, and with so many cheap cards, she just rocks.  She didn't play quite as many cards on the villain phase this game, but otherwise, she did pretty good.

Nebula / Justice + Bishop / Leadership vs Hela

Hela:  She's tough.  She sets up with a side scheme that really dares you to complete it.  I waited on that little villain combo, and went for board control --these two did great while building up to fight.  You really have to go through all three of her side schemes and elite minions to get to Odin, then take her out.  We wounded her once, then she flipped back when we cleared a side scheme.  Due to some decent planning, we were able to kill the final minion, clear the final side scheme, and then finish her all in one round.  

Nebula:  Super unlucky in her upgrades, but with her techniques, it didn't matter.  I love the way she works.  It's such a nice test of a hero deck to have her best cards show up at the bottom of the deck, and you still have a great game.  She flipped a lot, partially because we kept confusing Hela.  The last round she triggered 4 techniques on Hela, and with 3 allies on the board, finished her off.  

Bishop:  He picked up Team Training and Uncanny X-men early.  This helped with allies.  I flipped him down more than I should have.  His temporal cards were helpful though.  I love his discard control.  He got two full Super Charged cards to slug out the elite minions.  It was perfect to be able to set those up in advance.  He used a temporal resource card to heal and ready both his signature allies twice.  That's such a great use of a double resource.  He really likes to set up big turns.  No complaints with Bishop.  So good.

Jubilee / Justice + Storm / Leadership vs Loki

Loki: I like his form switching.  That's thematic and cool.  Sometimes he's stalwart, sometimes he has retaliate, sometimes he has piercing, sometimes he can't take damage while a side scheme is in play --oh no, Jubilee!  That actually came out at the end.  It's cool that Loki has 4 different victory conditions.  It took a while to kill the first Loki, then the second form went down fast.  Loki has lots of attachments which bug you (not to mention the Infinity Gauntlet)...  He had his crown the whole game, but Jubilee's thwart is so good, we just left it.  Last two rounds both heroes combined for 30 damage, each round.  Both heroes took turns flipping down ever round, again, because Jubliee's thwart is so good.  The only thing I didn't like were the "discard your upgrade / supports."  We did the new house-rule for that, and it worked just fine.  The Enchantress is a pain!  She enchanted one of my allies, and used it against me!  You lose a blocker, and then you have to fight your own ally as a minion.  Once again, the Leadership Leadership combo favored board control early, and then ramped up.

Jubilee:  I really love Jubilee --we played with the home rules on her hero card.  She got Wolverine out early to draw a card, but then Logan had to block a second attack, and she never got him back.  Shopping Spree actually helped throughout this game.  I got Beat Cop out early, and then Surveillance Team, so I could thwart it fast.  Storm got both upgrades in her opening hand, so she spent one to play the other --Shopping Spree to the rescue.  Both Storm's upgrades were in play early --so nice.  Note that the stalwart home rules really kept her from being irrelevant with so many stuns and confuses in her kit.  She was able to use the Cell Phone every round, then fish for it with Shopping Spree.  I might put another one in her deck.

Storm:  I love having Aurora throw clear skies to get a card AND clear stuns + confuses.  That was so awesome.  She had a two Lightning Bolt round.  That rocked.  She was a little slow on getting allies out.  She had TONS of readies.  She spent a support to play Forge, then he put the support back in her hand --that was cool.  Aurora is a game-changer.  This was a great match up.  The X-Mansion came out early and really helped the game with Mutant Education and Mutant Instruction.  Lots of heals, deck control, and extra cards.

Overall:

Mad Titan's Shadow is the third expansion for Marvel Champions, and it drastically improves on GMW.  This is a great box.  A-plus!  It's harder than RORS, but not impossible like its predecessor.  We had fun with every villain scenario.  Great thematics, great deck design, etc...  A little too much stalwart and discarding hero upgrades / supports, but our current home rules worked great, so it didn't feel game-breaking.

I wasn't super intentional about it, but here's the breakdown of our aspects used:

5 Justice

4 Leadership

3 Protection

2 Aggression 

I love how our home rules support this box --stuns and confuses don't prevent the villain from activating, so the Infinity Gauntlet triggers every other activation.  There's no stopping it!  And the discard home rules have a much better feel. 

I guess it's a little sad that I'm writing a playthrough and a review for an out-of-print expansion.  That's sad.  I completely disagree with FFG's decisions for the future of Marvel Champions.  It's still one of the top rated games on BGG, but they're letting EVERYTHING drift out of print.