On May 24, 2023, Fantasy Flight Games held an FFG Live stream featuring Marvel Champions and Marvel DAGGER. Xander Tabler filled-in for Josh Massey as the host of FFG Live, with Marvel Champions lead designers Caleb Grace and Tony Fanchi as well as producer Molly Glover and DAGGER designer Dane Beltrami.
The full May 2023 DAGGER and Marvel Champions stream
Senior Card Game Designer Dane Beltrami joined Molly Glover and Xander Tabler to kick off the stream with Marvel DAGGER.
DAGGER unboxing images
Marvel Champions quotes from the May 2023 stream
Tony: “This is the first Marvel Champions box I got to work on as part of the Champions line. Player side schemes are a brand new type of card introduced in this expansion…all but one of them have a per-player amount [of threat] and a per-player reward…so it’s like a team effort. There’s a restriction…in a 1-2 player game there’s only one in play at a time, and in 3-4 player there’s two.”
Caleb: “For me it’s a long time coming, even before Tony was brought on board…this is something me and [Boggs] had talked about, we’re getting to the point eventually where we’re making player side schemes…it often breaks into teams, like this team is going to hold off Thanos, or this team is going to get the magic gem…player side schemes kind of represent that, like it’s our chance to keep the villain busy. Tony got excited and he came up with some really good ones.”
[Are you running out of ideas?] Caleb: “No I don’t think we’re running out of ideas. I call back to working with Michael Boggs, years ago we mapped out this long road of content, we haven’t reached the end of what we mapped out. Tony is on board and he’s coming up with ideas…this game could go indefinitely.”
Tony: “Domino was a favorite of many of my playtesters. Capturing the feeling of luck…I don’t have super-power luck! Building a character that feels like that who can cheat luck, it felt fun to get that right.”
[Are there any specific X-Force comic runs that inspired this box?] Tony: “There were a number of inspirations, I think it was Rick Remender’s run…Domino I got inspiration from her kit from her solo book written by Gail Simone…I love the relationship between her and Diamondback.”
Tony: “With the introduction of player side schemes, I wanted to have them in the campaign. There are four [later mentioned to be six] player side schemes for the campaign specifically, they can’t be used outside of the campaign. If you complete the player side scheme in the scenario, you’ll get the support in future campaign scenarios.”
Tony: “Mutant Slayers can be used in any scenario.”
Caleb: “I told Tony to put in the Nasty Boys.”
Caleb: “This is something we’re going to explore more in expert mode [Cyttorak’s Exemplar]. For people who are playing expert mode and looking for more of a challenge, you’ll occasionally find abilities like this.”
Tony: “Ive loved this game since the core set was in design, so being able to work on it now is a pleasure.”
Caleb: “Tony and I have been friends for like 7 years now, probably more. He playtested Lord of the Rings with me, so we’ve known each other for a long time.”
NeXt Evolution will have an OP kit of some sort, “similar to Mutant Genesis,” with some “changes.”
Images and spoilers from the Marvel Champions NeXT Evolution box
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