Marvel Champions NeXt Evolution Expansion Review

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The short version: NeXt Evolution is the box you buy for Cable, Domino, and Juggernaut, and it is out of print — Fantasy Flight lists SKU MC40en as retired. Its two heroes are among the most inventive in Marvel Champions, and Juggernaut is one of the best villains in the game. The rest is softer than the line’s standard: the Marauders scenarios blur together, the campaign is the first one that makes the game easier, and four of five scenarios lean on the same protect-an-ally hook. Worth owning, still not the box to start with.

Introduction: A Brief Overview of Marvel Champions

Marvel Champions: The Card Game is a Living Card Game (LCG) where players step into the shoes of Marvel’s superheroes (and their alter-egos) each with a unique deck tailored to their distinct abilities and story arcs. These Champions must cooperate to thwart the villains’ nefarious schemes and save the day, drawing upon their collective might and strategic prowess.

One of the great things about Marvel Champions, as opposed to other Living Card games, is that players can jump right in, using the prebuilt hero decks, that come ready to go in any pack you buy – no deck construction required. Then, if you choose, you can use their card pool to build decks that further enhance the abilities of these heroes. So it can provide enjoyment for a lot of different types of players.

That accessibility is the part that has aged well. The promise of endless expansion has not: as of August 2026 most of the back catalog is out of print, including this box. What is left is a game that is unusually good at standing still — the core set plus one or two campaign boxes is a complete, deep collection rather than the first installment of a subscription. Judge NeXt Evolution as a finished product you either want or don’t, not as a chapter in a line that keeps growing.

Marvel Champions NeXt Evolution Expansion

NeXt Evolution brings the X-Force corner of the Marvel universe into Marvel Champions with two new playable heroes, Cable and Domino, each arriving with a pre-built deck you can play out of the box. It adds five scenarios that can be played individually or strung together as a campaign, facing you off against the Marauders, Juggernaut, Mister Sinister, and Stryfe. Fantasy Flight released it on August 18, 2023 as the game’s sixth campaign expansion.

This expansion also introduces the new player-side scheme card type. Players can now deploy side schemes and receive benefits once they are cleared, adding a new layer of gameplay strategy. Whether you’re eager to experiment with new play styles or explore the expanded lore, the NeXt Evolution pack offers a wealth of content to delve into.

What’s In The Box?

Heroes: Two New Playable Heroes

Cable

Cable leans heavily into the new player-side schemes. His ability to include side schemes from every aspect, was a smart move on the designer’s part, since otherwise he would have been quite limited – plus it gave them an excuse to give us player side schemes for every aspect right out of the gate, just like they did with X-Men allies in the Cyclops pack.

He gets ready when he clears a side scheme and most of his cards are boosted based on how many side schemes are in the victory display (which is where you put completed player side schemes). He’s very powerful, and I think most players pretty quickly ditched his leadership cards for Justice to lean into his thwarting abilities and get him focused on clearing threats.

Not to say he wouldn’t work in other aspects, but you really need someone at the table clearing side schemes for Cable to reach his potential, and often it makes the most sense to just do it yourself.

Domino

Domino is all about deck manipulation and making sure the odds are stacked in your favor. A lot of her cards center around either looking at the top card and benefiting based on the number of resources displayed. For her, wilds count double, and her deck is packed with wilds. She has one card in her deck, Jackpot, with all three resources displayed. You’ll spend most of the game trying to get this card on top of your deck so you can take advantage of the boost.

Domino has a very fun play style and feels very fresh. Many of her cards require you to be lucky, but her abilities and her cards also allow her to make her own luck, which feels very thematic. She works great with a deck packed with wild resources, and aspect cards that allow you to cycle the cards in your deck, but for the most part, you’ll focus on the cards in her kit.

New Villains

In the NeXt Evolution box, there are five scenarios that offer unique challenges. The new villains present a looming threat, with their sinister plans slowly unfolding.

A diabolical plot involving the young mutant Hope Summers is at the center of the villains’ schemes, causing concern about her involvement.

Morlock Siege

The scenario was intriguing, and I was interested in how having lots of villain cards to choose from would increase the replayability. I think they definitely accomplished that, since there are something like 35 unique combinations, but, because the villains are all different, unfortunately, they are pretty unbalanced. So what you draw and in what order really impacts the difficulty. It’s never an issue that it is too difficult, but you can draw a set that is pretty easy.

The way they did the multiple villains, by putting out a lot of intense minions (instead of multiple villains out at the same time), was similar to Mansion Attack, which I thought was a big step forward for facing off against a team of villains. This continues to move that idea forward, but, I think the variability and low difficulty make this one pretty forgettable.

On the Run

I’m usually not a fan of repeat villains in a box, but because there are so many, I think it does work in this case. But just like with the previous scenario, having that many villains in the stack really just dilutes their impact. I would have preferred, one well-designed, well-balanced villain. I think what I’ve decided is that I don’t actually need a ton of variability in an individual scenario. I have everything, so there are a lot of villains to choose from in the game, so I already have a lot of variety at my disposal.

It’s possible that there are some combinations that are tricky, but I have consistently found this one to be too easy and not interesting enough to draw me in. Sadly, not much love for either of the Marauder scenarios. They remind me a bit of the two sentinel scenarios in the previous box, the way they blur together a bit, and I wonder if, over time, as I play them out of context a little more and experiment with different modules they’ll begin to feel more unique.

Juggernaut

The third scenario, where players face off against The Unstoppable Juggernaut, provides a thrilling puzzle where you have to survive his powerful hits until you can get his helmet off. There’s a lull in the action once you do, but as soon as he regains his helmet, he mercilessly pummels you again.

His overkill is an obvious problem, but, if you let him, he can actually scheme at an astonishing speed and when he kicks his scheme, it really hurts, especially because he hits you even if you are in alter-ego.

People have said that this is a (vastly) improved Rhino, and I agree, but he also reminds me a bit of Venom with how hard he hits, but the helmet is so much better than the Bell Tower because if you don’t interact with it, you will regret it. It isn’t required, sure, but it’s so much better integrated, and feels necessary both thematically and mechanically.

And best of all, they’ve successfully nerfed the chump-blocking strategy in this one. I think it’s important for the designers to reduce that strategy’s effectiveness, and push players to try new things, so I was happy to see that here.

Juggernaut is my favorite from this box and has earned a spot as one of my favorite villains in the game.

Mister Sinister

In some scenarios, once you get your board set up and your hero has reached their max power, often the end game feels like a foregone conclusion. As a result, any scenarios that don’t do a good job of having the villain progress over time will only be interesting during the early game.

Mister Sinister does this, perhaps better than any other scenario in the game. Because he is continually boosting his stats and gaining keywords, he reliably gets much more powerful over the course of the game. I like this sense of progression a lot and think of it as a vast improvement over someone like Crossbones gaining weapons, or the Hood bringing in more and more modular sets. Much better tuned and balanced, and doesn’t rely entirely on poor play in order to get his upgrades into play.

Stryfe

Stryfe is tricky but is much more difficult in your first couple of plays. He starts with a loaded-up side scheme with a crisis icon. If you can clear it before you beat the villain’s level, you’ll be much better off. As a result, if you bring a lot of thwarting capability, you might find this less difficult than intended.

He introduces a concept where he benefits a lot from the cards in your hand. Decks that bring a lot of events, upgrades, or any single type of card, will find it very punishing. I really liked the idea of what he does in the late game, where he ups your hand size, meaning that he’s more likely to hit hard with his boost ability, it is interesting, but ultimately, I don’t think the trade-off of having to spend an extra card is high enough. If you have a decent deck, even if everything costs a little more, drawing more cards is a really strong benefit. As a result, my experienced playgroup found that he got easier as he progressed, rather than harder. Which, I’m assuming is the opposite of what they were going for.

Eventually, you’ll find Stryfe generally challenging, but somewhat solvable. Long term, that’s a negative, but I did have fun puzzling through this one in my initial plays. The challenges it presented were interesting and created a lot of surprising moments.

It’s not one I’ll take out frequently, but one that I’ll return to every so often for its unique mechanics and feel. Nothing else in the game is like it.

Campaign: Not My Favorite

The campaign heavily features player-side schemes, which I get is the big thing for this box. I like them, generally, but the benefits from clearing them were too powerful, and disproportionately rewards thwarting – which is already strong. The main problem is that the additional minion or encounter cards added to the deck to offset these rewards are usually only a minor inconvenience. This is the first time campaign mode made the game easier, which I think was a mistake.

Hope Summers plays a crucial role in the campaign, often finding herself in over her head, whether being captured by the Marauders or assisting players in facing off against the Unstoppable Juggernaut.

I also didn’t love the over-reliance on the protecting the ally mechanic in this box. I don’t have a problem with that generally, but I just didn’t like how prominent it was in four out of five scenarios. I think it was intended to be a thematic link, but the allies you had to protect, Hope in particular, provided too much benefit (unlike, say, the senator from Sabretooth) so it ultimately contributed to the box feeling too easy.

Overall, the campaign is decent to play but lacks the thematic cohesion of Sinister Motives or Rise of the Red Skull. It doesn’t add enough complexity or challenge to motivate me to play in this mode over just facing off against the individual scenarios.

Is NeXt Evolution still in print?

No. Fantasy Flight Games lists NeXt Evolution (SKU MC40en, MSRP $44.99) as out of print on its own product page, checked in August 2026. It released on August 18, 2023 as the sixth campaign expansion, and no reprint has been announced.

It is not alone. Of the ten campaign expansions Marvel Champions has produced, only four are still sold at retail: Age of Apocalypse, Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., Civil War, and Fear No Evil. Rise of the Red Skull, Galaxy’s Most Wanted, Mad Titan’s Shadow, Sinister Motives, Mutant Genesis, and this box are all retired.

For this box specifically, that lands more gently than it does elsewhere. NeXt Evolution is a box you buy for two heroes and one villain, and if a secondary-market copy is priced well above the old $44.99, the honest answer is that you are not missing a great deal. Juggernaut is excellent and Cable and Domino are genuinely novel, but nothing here is load-bearing for the rest of your collection, and the campaign is the weakest reason to own it. Pay a fair price or wait. If you want the mutant storyline rather than these particular characters, Age of Apocalypse concludes it and is still buyable at MSRP.

Final Thoughts: NeXt Evolution Continues to Impress

While it has its flaws, this is a solid box, and the case for it is specific rather than general. Cable and Domino are two of the most interesting heroes in the game, and the expansion introduces the player side scheme — a card type you will want in decks well beyond this box. The first two scenarios lean easy, but Juggernaut is fabulous and carries the set on his own. Mister Sinister and Stryfe are decently balanced and both bring genuinely new ideas. So there is a lot to like here, provided you are buying it for those things.

I can’t tell if it’s power creep, or if this box is a bit easier than the others – for me, it’s definitely a bit too easy in campaign mode. That’s not a deal breaker for me at all, because, it’s not as much of an issue outside of the campaign. Plus, one of Marvel Champions’ strengths is the ability to tune the difficulty by adding expert cards or swapping out modular sets, so it’s easy enough to dial them up if I want to.

Even so, I would not make it your first big box expansion — the villains lean easy but play complicated, which is the wrong combination for someone still learning the game. That advice used to point at Rise of the Red Skull or Mutant Genesis; both are now out of print, so it points somewhere else. Start with Age of Apocalypse, which Fantasy Flight still sells and which needs nothing but the core set. Once you have one expansion under your belt, this is a good second or third purchase — if you can find it.

Out of print — the link above goes to Amazon’s listing for this box, where availability and price vary by seller.

For more Marvel Champions content check out our comprehensive list of expansions with links to all our reviews, or our ranked guide to the hero packs.

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