In an effort to preserve all possible information for Marvel Champions, here is the old Rise of Red Skull archive, containing interview tidbits as well as international spoiler cards. Duplicate information will not be preserved: only what was removed from the original listing.
Confirmed to be two heroes (with pre-built decks) and five scenarios, with a connected thread and upgrades to earn throughout the expansion. It can also be played standalone or in expert mode. There will be three modular sets in the box (one of them, Hydra Patrol, is previewed below).
It will contain 265 cards, sporting a box “like an L5R premium box.” One copy of the expansion will give you a full playset of cards, like the core. Five new keywords will appear in the expansion: the new ranged keyword ignores retaliate, and piercing discards tough status cards from a target before dealing damage.
The villains are Crossbones, Absorbing Man, Taskmaster, Zola and Red Skull. If you draw Shadows of the Past as Black Widow while fighting the Taskmaster villain, you will “resolve as much as possible” with the card (no Taskmaster nemesis as it is unique) and it will surge. There is no plan to replace Captain Marvel’s signature ally, it just becomes a resource if you’re also playing with the Spider-Woman hero.
New information on August 4, 2020 – Source
“I don’t think we went too crazy with our designs. So I don’t think it will challenge you in terms of wrapping your head around it, but it will challenge you in terms of ‘wow I’ve never faced a villain like Red Skull before.’ Crossbones is the most straight-forward of the villains. He’s a mercenary and a hit man, so he has weapons in his kit.” – [Lead Designer] Caleb Grace
On Taskmaster: “Try to imagine designing a villain like Taskmaster. What is he going to do, replicate hero abilities? We can’t open that Pandora’s Box. There’s a card, I think it’s called Mimicry, and you mill your deck. If you discard an attack card, he attacks you, if you discard a thwart card, he thwarts…something like that. Hydra has conquered the United States, and he’s going door to door hunting heroes with his hit squad.” – Caleb
“I’m excited for people to see that [Red Skull box] comic. I pitched that, too. We were pretty well into the development process where it occurred to me, when I was writing the story. And I said ‘why am I writing a story for a comic book game, there should be a comic here. We shelled out a little more to get an artist, to write out comic scripts for the artist to illustrate. The comics are actually in the rules document, it’s not a separate thing. They’re not going to blow anyone’s minds, they’re kind of campy and a callback…the story is an excuse for most people to fight.” – Caleb
“Nate was the one who felt very strongly that we need a hero that breaks the deckbuilding rules very early…two aspects. There was some talk about Hulk, like the Bruce Banner and Hulk dichotomy…but ultimately we scaled back from that because Hulk is going to resonate with a lot of our younger audience who wants to smash things. So when we were talking about who was going into the story box it had this Avenger theme and this Hydra theme, so we wanted Hawkeye in for sure. But Jessica Drew, sure it makes sense, she has this weird connection to Hydra…she was a double-agent, hey, double-agent, two aspects.” – Caleb
“For me it’s all about Hawkeye’s quiver. That’s how he all comes together. Matt [Newman] helped with that. He said ‘I want to take an arrow and put it in the quiver and save it for later. All of his arrows are events. So if you have one in your hand that you don’t want to shoot that turn, you can put it in your quiver and save it for later.” – Caleb
Incite keyword from Kang confirmed for the Red Skull box as one of the five new keywords: “We have the Incite keyword, which maybe hasn’t been spoiled yet. Honestly for the longest time we called it doom, because it works like doom in Lord of the Rings.” – Caleb
Clint Barton/Hawkeye
1 cost upgrade – Generate a wild for an arrow event
Player cards (Czech Source # 1 – Source # 2)
- Spider-Man: a Justice ally that removes 3 threat per player from a side scheme.
- Earth’s Mightiest Heroes: a 0-cost event that exhausts an Avengers character you control to ready another Avenger you control.
- White Tiger: Removes 3 threat from a scheme after spending a science resource after entering play (she seems to be a campaign-only card, as she is part of the “Taskmaster” set, but is also a player card).
- Sky Cycle: 1 cost upgrade – attach to Avenger, ally gets aerial
Action: exhaust to ready Ally
- 2-cost Hero Event: Deal three damage, gain piercing
Comic panels are confirmed to facilitate the story in the box. The panel seems to insinuate that Crossbones is the first villain in the campaign. The story hints that Red Skull “plans to conquer the world with the power of the Reality Stone.”
Crossbones
- Crossbones II: While Crossbones has a Weapon attachment, his attacks gain Piercing. When Revealed: Search the encounter deck and discard pile for Crossbones Machine Gun and attach it to Crossbones. Shuffle the encounter deck.
Absorbing Man
- Absorbing Man II: Absorbing Man gains the trait of each environment in play. When Revealed: If Super Absorbing is in play, deal each player an encounter card. Otherwise, search the encounter deck and discard pile for Super Absorbing and put it into play.
Taskmaster
- Taskmaster forces players to discard the top card from the encounter deck and deal damage equal to the boost icons on the card after swapping to hero form.
- Minion: Attack gains piercing and ranged.
Boost: If you are in hero form take 1 damage, otherwise place 1 threat on Main Scheme.
Red Skull
- Red Skull gets +1 Attack per side scheme in play and has a “side scheme deck.” Source: Asmodee Store.
- Caleb: “It’s a separate side scheme deck so a side scheme is always revealed every round. So Red Skull is always up to something. It’s obviously very challenging, we had to tone down some of the craziness. There’s a lot of replay value with it.
There’s 6-7 different cards in the side scheme deck, and each one is unique. So the order is randomized so it’s going to come together differently every time you play. It’s kind of a callback or homage to a Lord of the Rings LCG mechanic.” Source: Deckcelsior.
Hall of Heroes 