This past week, we held our second “favorite scenario” survey. Here are the results, with a pretty large sample size of 645 votes!
The top 10
Amazingly, exactly one year to the day of the first poll results, Kang has won again. The Lord of the Rings-inspired design takes the crown, which directly leads into another Lord of the Rings-adjacent villain and newcomer that has taken the number two spot: Hela. It was close!
Given how good the word of mouth is for Hela, it’s a no-brainer that people like her so much: she offers a way to play the game that differs from the typical “cage match” villain battle. It’ll be fascinating to see how she holds up in the future if we get more of those types of scenarios. Assuming that the team sees the positive reception and decides to iterate upon Hela, we could see it sometime around mid-2023 (given the year and a half lead time).
Coming in at number three is Mutagen Formula, which took home the number two spot in 2021. I had fully expected these three to make an appearance in the top five, but it’s good to see that newcomers and long-timers alike are still enjoying Kang and Mutagen.
From there, things get a little less predictable. 65 people voted for the Sinister Six scenario to take the fourth overall spot, which is one of the one of the two appearances of the Sinister Motives box in the top 10. It seems as if people took to the unique approach of fighting a horde of villains and escaping via a side scheme. The other is the thematic and encounter card-heavy Mysterio, which comes in at number five, directly below Sinister Six.
After that is The Hood, which has been polarizing in many circles, but popular enough to warrant the overall sixth spot. Some defenders cite the heavy usage of modular sets as a reason to revisit The Hood. That’s followed by Red Skull, Thanos, Tower Defense, and Taskmaster comprising the top 10 respectively.
As far as the breakdown of the top 10 goes, there’s a great split of six Caleb-helmed scenarios and four Boggs-led scenarios. One scenario is from 2019, three are from 2020, four are from 2021, and two are from 2022. Mad Titan’s Shadow was the most represented box with three scenarios, but Sinister Motives was right behind it. Three of the top 10 scenarios were from individual packs, seven were from boxes.
Kang, Mutagen, Red Skull, and Taskmaster all remained in the top 10 from 2021 to 2022, and deserve a special honor for withstanding the test of time.
Middle of the road
Venom comes in very close right behind Taskmaster with 14 votes to Taskmaster’s 16.
Outside of the top 10, beyond Venom, we have Risky Business, Sandman, Ultron, Klaw, Collector 2, Collector 1, Crossbones, Rhino, Loki, Drang, Zola, and Ebony Maw.
Throughout the lifetime of these scenarios, players have reported all sorts of experiences (positive and negative), and several of these were already in the middle of the pack in the 2021 poll: they stayed stagnant, without any sort of new lease on life/revelatory mod situation.
Risky Business (previously overall third last year, now 12) is one of the biggest falls from the 2021 poll to the most recent one, now that there’s more competition to deal with. Ultron and Klaw similarly fell a bit out of the top 10 but are still at a respectable position in the 2022 poll.
The bottom five
Looking at the bottom five, not much has changed. Absorbing Man, Nebula, and Ronan are still a few of the least-liked scenarios. Now they are joined by Wrecking Crew being dragged down from the middle of the pack to the bottom five, with Venom Goblin making a surprise-appearance in that same category.
None of these are real big surprises, and if you frequent any online communities, they are frequently coming up. Nebula, Ronan, and Venom Goblin are disliked because they’re overtuned, or too random (excessive RNG is generally a design principle that can create negative player experiences for everyone involved). Wrecking Crew doesn’t support modular sets, so as time goes on, it ages less gracefully. Absorbing Man is one of the standout outliers, but theme and mechanics generally don’t go far enough to make use of the scenario’s potential, and it ultimately doesn’t even justify the use of the character.
Thanks to everyone for voting! Our second poll was a huge success and you’re a big reason why.
Hall of Heroes 