Marvel Champions, the Card Game, keeps players hooked with its newest expansion, the Mojo Mania scenario pack. To play the Mojo Mania scenario pack, you will need the core set as a prerequisite. Packed with three distinct scenarios, each with its innovative game mechanics, which can be played standalone or linked together in a three-part mini-campaign. Spoiler alert: this is a must-have for any Marvel Champions fan. Getting three villains and six modular encounter sets is impossible to beat at this price point – plus they are also pretty interesting scenarios and the modules are very thematic and, in some cases, quite funny.
A Foray into the Wacky World of Marvel Champions Mojo Mania
In the Marvel Champions Mojo Mania scenario pack players face off against Mojo and his minions in a three-part mini-campaign set in the magnificent Mojoverse, a televised realm of nonstop entertainment – a place as eccentric as it is treacherous. These scenarios immerse players in the Marvel Universe, bringing iconic characters and thrilling adventures to life. Here, you’ll encounter the vile Mojo and his minions, nefarious television promoters looking to constantly improve their ratings by providing viewers with televised mayhem and continually escalating stakes. Each scenario pits you against a new foe, a different genre, and a reality-twisting series of events.
MaGog: Duel in the Mojo-seum
In this scenario players face a new foe – MaGog – the reigning champion, in an arena battle of gladiatorial-style combat in the Mojo-seum. It’s a tug of war for the crowd’s favor, with big hits earning you favor tokens, but any setbacks losing you some favor with the crowd. Ultimately you’ll need to win them over to defeat the scenario, which involves repeatedly beating Magog (who refuses to stay down).
Magog can sometimes be rough on expert and will quickly stack up his needed favor tokens, but if you can avoid activations you can get him under control since he has to damage you in order to add tokens. I do like that he still adds tokens when he damages a minion because if you could chump block and avoid the tokens, this scenario would be really easy. If you’ve read other reviews by me, you know that I love any efforts the designers make to reduce how powerful chump blocking is, and this scenario is no exception.
The modular is a big factor for the difficulty of this scenario and since you randomly select one, it can vary wildly. I don’t think that’s a weakness, especially if you are playing the campaign. But if you are playing it as an independent scenario, you can just pick the modular that best matches your desired difficulty. In the Hood (review here) they rated the difficulty of the included modular encounter sets so that you could dial that in, and I wish they’d done that here as well. More on that later.
Compared to the first scenario, ‘Escape the Museum,’ which features an alternate win condition and unique themes, MaGog’s mechanics offer a different challenge by focusing on crowd favor and repeated combat.
The Search for Spiral
Spiral is an excellent scenario and feels very unique. You have to chase Spiral down across a few different television environments. Until you’ve cornered her, she can’t be damaged. She also won’t damage you, but will instead scheme every time she activates.
She’s got a high threshold on her main scheme, but that doesn’t mean she can’t scheme out. She puts out a lot of nasty side schemes and a lot of threats. You also need to continually thwart her alternate scheme in order to hunt her down and flip her to her cornered side. Suffice it to say, you need threat removal for this one.
When she flips you had better hope that she doesn’t pick up her swords, because it boosts her attack and they are expensive to remove. And you’ll need all the resources to deal out as much damage as you can because each time she activates she’ll add counters and eventually escape again.
It’s worth comparing this to the Risky Business from the Green Goblin Scenario Pack because that villain is also two-sided, but unlike that scenario, Spiral is no joke on either side and you cannot afford to let her stay on the run while you build up your board, because you will lose (unlike with Norman Osborn, who is not very threatening in his alter-ego). You’ve got to chase Spiral and get her flipped over as fast as you can and then do as much damage as you can before she escapes. There isn’t a better way to do it. So, while it has some mechanical similarities, it’s a much better scenario and evidence of the game continuing to grow and improve over time.
One thing I don’t love is that the Environment deck you are searching through does introduce a fair amount of luck. You might immediately flip the card you need when you finish removing the threat from the Search For Spiral, but you might also have to do it a few times before you find her. Thematically, that’s a fun idea and I don’t mind it as long as I know to bring thwarting capabilities. But mechanically, it’s pretty unbalanced and swingy. Worth noting, but doesn’t keep me from loving this scenario.
Mojo: Into the Mojoverse
Stay tuned for Mojo and his (deadly) Wheel of Genres – which keeps throwing in new nasty encounter sets representing different genres and containing beefy minions, nasty effects, and constantly changing environments with global effects that shift the game. Chasing Mojo through these ever-changing environments makes it tough to keep on top of him and win the day.
He doesn’t have much health and the threat threshold on his main scheme seems quite high at first glance, but DO NOT be fooled. When his events trigger and he rolls his wheel, he can rack up threats so fast it will make your head spin too.
Like the Hood scenario pack, he adds set-aside modular to the deck as the game progresses, but unlike the Hood, he sets the whole encounter set right on top, so you are guaranteed to get those cards. This happens when he decks out, and a lot of his cards burn through his deck, so it happens faster than you expect. He also puts a lot of threat out onto characters which is a mechanic unique to this scenario. When a character flips or leaves play all of the threat on that character goes to the main scheme. So this can be a brutal scenario for heroes that like to flip, but it does a good job of mitigating chump blocking, which I value highly, so I guess I can’t complain.
Mojo is inherently difficult, but a fun matchup with great thematic weight. He’s different from the Hood in a lot of ways, but he also suffers from my main complaint about that scenario, which is: that if you start doing poorly things get out of hand, fast. I would prefer a villain to get more powerful as I get powerful because that’s dramatic. The opposite is just punishing.
That said, I like this a lot more than The Hood, because I am presented with a lot of interesting decisions with each encounter card, and feel like I have some influence over how things go – rather than being defeated by big surge chains.
Very interesting and unique scenario that has a lot of staying power for my play group. It’s a challenge we often revisit, perhaps because we often lose.
The Modular Encounter Sets: Worth the Price of Admission
The MojoMania scenario pack wouldn’t be complete without the six modular encounter sets, which add even more variety and challenge to your games. Modular sets enhance gameplay variety by allowing players to customize their encounters and influence the difficulty. These play a significant role in each of the three distinct scenarios and are the connective tissue of the campaign mode, as you’ll see below.
Each set puts an environment in play that changes the game state and the cards all bring their own unique flavor, based on a genre or television show, which is what makes these shine.
Crime
Hard-boiled detective drama inbound. This one is focused on side schemes with major negative effects on the heroes that have to be cleared to progress in the scenario, as well as a couple of treacheries that require lots of scheming. Great theming here and the references are on point.
Compared to other scenarios like the Hood scenario from Marvel Champions, which incorporate multiple modular sets for diverse interactions, the Crime set offers a more focused thematic experience with its intense side schemes and treacheries.
Fantasy
You get +1 hand size, and you are going to need it because this one puts out some nasty minion. The Dragon might just be the nastiest in the game. It also puts out a fetch quest side scheme, which is thematic and fun. Allows you to put a card of your choice into play if you complete it. Feels a lot like the player side schemes that, at the time this was released, were still just around the corner, so that card in particular felt really novel. Compared to other scenarios, the Fantasy set stands out with its unique thematic elements and engaging gameplay mechanics.
Horror
Vampires, cultists, and a pack of werewolves that steal your allies. Oh, and by the way, an enormous Kraken. All together in one of the best minion sets we’ve ever seen. Love the theming here and I really like the optional, wooden stake you can pick up. Great use of surge here, since it has no negative impact otherwise, but I like the idea of some different and interesting decisions cropping up in the villain deck. The varied decision points in the Horror set significantly enhance the game’s replay value.
Sc-Fi
Can’t get enough of the Mutant cycle? How about some cyberpunk versions of the Brotherhood of Mutant characters, in a Blade Runner-themed universe? Why not? That’s what this Mojo set is all about. But theme aside, these are some ugly, beefy minions, made even worse when the environment and side scheme are in play, giving everyone tough, guard, and patrol – and throwing a new minion at you each round. The villains in this set coordinate with sinister motives, creating a challenging and urgent gameplay experience.
Sitcom
These are fun; a set of obligations all themed after a different sitcom. Well, not fun, because the effects are pretty annoying. Flipping you down, making you exhaust, discarding cards, and removing upgrades from play. Not to mention, our first appearance of Deadpool. In a lot of ways, these are mechanically similar to something like Enchantress of Frost Giants from Mad Titan’s Shadow – Enchantress being my most hated encounter set of all time. But for some reason, I don’t hate this. The theme must be doing a lot of the work here – because even though these require alter-ego actions, they seem much more balanced than the nastiness of Frozen, Beguiled, and Seduced.
Western
The gunslingers are probably the best-designed thing in the box. Love that they have Quickstrike, and I love even more that I can pay energy resources to outdraw them and hit them with my attack before they shoot. The Dead or Alive attachment gives players a reward when they kill the attached minion, but the minion gets a lot more health to work with. It’s an interesting trade off and an idea I hope they explore more in the future.
Longshot
II said six, but there are actually seven modules to explore.
Longshot is the most unique of all encounter sets to date. It’s only one card, it doesn’t count toward the number of required encounter sets for a scenario, and, well, it’s an ally. Longshot comes into play when you draw him. You trigger surge, so you’ll still get another card, but you get a free ally in front of you (with piercing) that doesn’t count against your ally limit. That’s a pretty sweet draw.
Why is this great? First and foremost, you don’t have to use it. But you could add it to any scenario to improve your odds, just a little bit. It will make things slightly easier – mainly because he also serves as a zero if drawn as a boost card. I find this game difficult, but I have to admit, it adds a lot of drama when you know that you could draw into an ally on the villain’s turn.
Something I like about this game is all of the levers you can pull to adjust the difficulty to make sure it is perfectly tuned to your taste. I love that they added another option here, especially because these extra options usually make things harder, but it is great to get something that can actually manage to make someone like Ronan just a little bit easier.
Admittedly, I don’t include it in many games, but this is an excellent addition to the game, generally, and another element that makes this expansion a must-have.
The Campaign
I love that they added a three-part mini-campaign to this box, giving it that big box feel, and I hope it’s a trend that continues in future scenario packs. Since this was released on the same weekend as Wolverine and Storm, it felt like we were getting an extra big box expansion.
The thread here is that you are trapped in this weird TV land chasing Mojo across channels and genres, facing off against his minions in three distinct scenarios. The story is bizarre and delightful and cataloged in the campaign guide. The encounter sets are really at their best when used in the campaign because you use all six, randomly, across each scenario – never repeating. So you get to see each of them and savor each different genre, as you progress through the campaign. This adds some replayability to the campaign as well, since, it will take a long time before you see the same modular(s) with the same villain.
It’s a nice touch and makes it feel compact and part of the same story. Of course, like with all the campaign content, it can be played standalone, but linking it together does add to the experience. They seem to have gotten the theme right here (whether you like that theme or if, like me, are still wondering who Mojo even is and what exactly he has to do with the X-men). The campaign mode is perfect for a game night with friends.
Conclusion: It’s Wacky, It’s Wild, It’s Fun
The Mojo Mania scenario pack for Marvel Champions: the card game not only adds depth to the game but also introduces a vibrant and chaotic dimension for players to explore. These villains are very unique and mechanically sound. There’s a lot to be excited about here and I can’t wait to see what’s in store for the future of this game. A variety of Marvel Champions scenario packs are available to enhance your gaming experience.
I always look forward to a new scenario pack for that reason and they have a long tradition of bringing new and interesting ideas to the game. They are often risky and not always successful (see my review of the Wrecking Crew scenario pack) but they always push the game to the next level.
Mojomania is no exception. To be clear, it’s a bit of a wacky adventure, so you’ve got to know that going in, but if you love this game as much as I do, this is a must-have expansion. Three great scenarios to expand your collection, six modular encounter sets, your new best friend Longshot, and a mini-campaign to boot – how could you go wrong?
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Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Can I jump into MojoMania Scenario pack if I’m new to Marvel Champions: the Card Game?
A: Absolutely! While the MojoMania scenario pack definitely packs a punch with its unique gameplay and challenges, it’s designed to be accessible for players of all skill levels. You might find the going tough at first, but that’s all part of the adventure. Just like stepping into a new comic book universe, there’s plenty to discover, and you’ll get the hang of it in no time.
Q: Do I need any specific expansions or packs before buying the MojoMania Scenario Pack?
A: Not necessarily. Mojo Mania is a stand-alone scenario pack, so all you need is the Marvel Champions base game to get started. That being said, having a few hero packs or expansions in your collection can add to the fun, giving you more options to tackle the challenges Mojo throws your way.
Q: How can I make the game more challenging or easier?
A: The beauty of Marvel Champions the card game, and especially the MojoMania scenario pack, is its flexibility. You can adjust the difficulty by choosing different heroes, tweaking your deck, or incorporating different modular encounter sets. Whether you’re a strategy whiz looking for a formidable challenge or someone who prefers a more relaxed gameplay experience, there’s a sweet spot for everyone.
Q: Are there any tips for beating the Mojo scenario?
A: Mojo’s scenario is all about adapting and overcoming unexpected twists. Pay close attention to how the threat accumulates, especially on characters, and have a strategy for managing your deck. Sometimes, the best move is to be bold and take risks. And remember, every defeat is just another opportunity to learn and come back stronger!
Q: When can we expect more expansions like the MojoMania scenario pack?
A: The team behind Marvel Champions the card game is always in the workshop, cooking up new adventures and expanding the universe. Keep an eye on official announcements for any news on future releases. The Mojoverse is vast, and who knows where the next challenge might come from?