The Wolverine hero pack for Marvel Champions was one of the most anticipated heroes in the game’s history. Wolverine is an incredibly popular hero and, the first question on everyone’s mind once the X-men were announced was, when are we getting Wolverine. His inclusion in Marvel Champions was very exciting and (spoiler) did not disappoint – he’s powerful and interesting and his mechanics feel very unique. In this review, we’ll take a closer look at Marvel Champions Wolverine Hero Pack and give you the info you need to determine if you should pick this one up.
What is a Hero Pack Anyway?
A hero pack in Marvel Champions the Living Card Game includes a fully playable deck, including a two-sided identity card (hero and alter ego form) along with 15 cards that are unique to that hero and can only be played when using them. There are 25 other cards added that make up the 40 card pre-built deck. These cards can later be used with any hero, and will be limited (in almost all cases) to basic cards and cards from a single aspect.
In addition to the prebuilt desk, these packs usually come with a few extra cards from the other aspects. The idea being that, since you can play the new hero in any aspect, these new cards can give you some options and ideas for building other decks. There is also a hero obligation card, to be placed in the villain’s deck, as well as a unique nemesis set that can show up to aid any villain if triggered during a game.
If you like the deck construction element of the game, you’ll want all of these. Eventually. If that’s not your jam, each hero pack comes perfectly playable out of the box, so just get your favorite hero and start playing. Having both option is part of what makes Marvel Champions the Card Game so great.
Check out our comprehensive buyer’s guide for more information on this.
Marvel Champions Wolverine Hero Pack
Wolverine comes with a fully playable deck in the aggression aspect and his kit is packed with excellent damage dealing cards. He kicks off with a great stat line of 2-2-2, but can increase to 3-2-2 once he get’s his adamantium Skeleton. He also is the only hero with a power that can heal him in hero form, removing two damage at the beginning of any turn.
His deck actually includes sixteen signature cards, because he comes armed with Adamantium claws, an additional permanent that starts in play. His claws allow him to spend hit points and unleash expensive attack events that gain piercing to deal damage. He has three excellent cards for damage that either focus on multiple instances of damage (Berzerker Barrage and Slice and Dice) or Overkill (Lunging Strike). Because of this he can feel like a combat focused hero, but on top of that he has a powerful healing factor giving him two hit points at the beginning of each hero phase.
If you equip his Adamantium skeleton, he gains some additional hit points and plus-one attack. But even with all that health, like Phoenix and Captain America, he comes with a card that triggers when he dies, resetting his health dial and keeping him alive – ‘I Got Better.’ It’s quite expensive, but since you are usually low on health, it can be worth the four cost, to allow you to live dangerously and keep you in the game.
His thwart card is pretty strong too. Potentially allowing him to draw two cards if he clears a scheme, which is powerful – like all card draw in this game. He also has some healing cards in his kit as well (which is important, since health works as an additional resource).
Berserker Frenzy is probably his most interesting card, as, while it is in play, whenever he takes damage from an enemy attack he draws a card. It discards if you switch to alter-ego, but as long as you can stay alive, you’ll find Wolverine gets stronger, taking hit after hit, preparing to unleash a relentless assault upon the villains.
Prebuilt Deck
The Wolverine hero pack includes additional aggression cards that can be played with any hero, but are combined with his sixteen signature cards, to make a 40 card pre built deck ready to start playing games of marvel champions straight out of the box.
Not surprisingly it focuses on Wolverine as a combat focused hero leaning into attack events. With his healing factor and armed with adamantium claws, they basically put together a rush deck packed with extra attacks and boosts to complement his already excellent hero kit. Trouble is, I rarely, if ever, played the other cards. that and, I’m not sure his kit is balanced enough for players eager to challenge magneto solo, since he is so focused on dealing damage. An alternative strategy could be to explore the Leadership aspect, which offers different strategies such as ally swarm, voltron allies, and hero buffing.
Though, it should not be understated that he comes with an excellent set of allies, including his signature ally, Jubilee, who boosts both Wolverine and Jubilee’s attack for the remainder of the turn she enters play, which has a lot of potential if you can add some readies to his kit.
Aggression Aspect Card Highlights
Because Wolverine’s cards are fairly strong on their own, the other cards don’t matter all that much for him in his hero deck. Still, he gets a full assortment of aggression cards including three attack events that deal damage. Two of them don’t have much synergy with his kit. Outta my way is pretty weak compared to his hero events and rarely will see play, and Mean Swing (an X-men art reprint of an existing card) is also rarely used because it requires you exhaust a weapon and you’ll almost always exhaust the claws to play an event instead.
Piercing strike does have some synergy since it allows you to heal if you kill something, but it doesn’t do very much damage. In my opinion you will almost always be better off throwing in Moment of Triumph, especially with Lunging Strike’s overkill.
All that said, the allies in this pack are incredible. Some of the best in the game and certainly some of the most important to the aggression aspect. Psylocke allows you to confuse the villain – which is extremely strong in Aggression, since it can be so difficult to justify flipping down. Sunfire is a very good cheap ally, allowing heroes the option to throw in an energy resource to remove a villain attachment making it essentially an auto include.
There’s another copy of Colossus here as well along with probably my favorite Team Up card in the game: Fastball Special. It allows you to combine Wolverine and Colossus’ attack values into one attack. It’s really good and, if I have a shot at having both characters in play, I include it. I also like Weapon X for alter-ego card draw for mutants.
Warrior Skill is a cool card, especially for characters like Wolverine who can do multiple instances of damage with the same attack – since it allows you to boost each instance of damage. Great in combination with One by One or Melee, not to mention Honed Technique and, let’s just say it, Ms. Marvel. It’s one that makes it into a lot of aggression decks these days.
I can’t say I’m a huge fan of any of the X-men energy cards that boost the stats of the card played and the Aggression version is probably not one I’d ever include – though, again, if you have multiple instances of damage, it could be useful, but I’d almost always rather run a basic energy.
Back of the Pack
Because the Wolverine hero pack includes a bonus modular set that you can shuffle into the encounter deck, it doesn’t have much in the way of extra cards, but does give us two. The Longshot ally, the only basic cards included, which is a total bust for me. He’s quite expensive, but his power doesn’t justify his cost since it is so limited. Has to attack a non-elite minion to trigger his effect and then only if the top card has a boost effect (star icon) he does two extra damage to that minion. It’s really, very weak, I think.
It does include some justice cards: Command Center, which is one I love to include in any ally-focused Justice decks, since it does two damage when an ally clears a scheme. Justice is hungry for damage options, and this is a solid one that is easy to consistently trigger in the right deck. Leadership cards are also highly effective in ally-focused strategies, offering flexibility to remove threat, deal damage, and block damage.
Nemesis Set and Obligation
Omega Red is about as nasty a nemesis set as you get in this game. 8 health plus retaliate and steady. Ouch. On top of that when he attacks you, he does 1 damage to each character you control. Seems like someone you would want to get rid of really quickly right? Well as long as his side scheme is in play, you can’t. On top of that he has a card that stuns you and he has two copies of Death Factor, which attaches to your identity, dealing 1 damage per turn. You can get rid of it in alter-ego by healing, but in lieu of healing – particularly problematic if you are Wolverine.
I love how nasty this is and it really amps up the difficulty once it is added to the encounter deck. It exploits all of Wolverines weaknesses and is proportionally strong based on how good Wolverine is. I love that, and it is really what makes the nemesis sets good is when they complement the hero in a thematic way. I wish they were all as perfectly tuned as this one is.
The publishers have really upped their game with the X-men obligations and this one is no exception. These cards are meant to add hero specific theming to the encounter deck and historically, have really only caused you to flip to alter ego and exhaust. They all ended up all feeling very similar.
This one, even though it is quite similar to those classic ones, manages to feel very hero-specific. It’s very punishing if you stay in hero mode, giving him both stun and confuse, which is especially bad for Wolverine, because if the villains forces manage to get his to flip down he stands to lose Berserker Frenzy and miss out on his powerful healing factor. Very well designed.
Bonus Modular Encounter cards
Beginning with the Champions Heroes in the Web-warrior cycle, hero packs started to include a modular encounter set that had some thematic relationship to the hero. This was especially important for the Champions, who essentially have no representation in the scenarios, but also for the X-men, so they could quickly build out more support for that universe in the game. Great move her by the publisher fantasy flight games.
The wolverine hero pack includes a bonus modular encounter set featuring the dangerous Lady Deathstrike. She has quickstrike and, if she damages you, you have to discard a card. She’s got other cards that make you discard and a side scheme that brings Lady Deathstrick into play if she’s not already out. She can attach Adamantium upgrades, giving plus two attack to herself, or any villain or minion. Hopefully you’ve got Sunfire with you, because otherwise it costs three resources to remove.
Play Style and Recommended Decks: stay in hero form
Wolverine is powerful, and feels very thematic, but he is also limited in playstyle and isn’t a very versatile hero. He wants to deal a lot of damage. He wants to stay in hero form as long as possible and keep his health up, so avoiding alter ego is key. This means that you either build a rush deck that boosts his attack and adds attack events or you build him in protection so you can heal him more consistently and just rely on his hero cards to do the damage.
There are slight variations of this – you might lean into minion slaying, since he has those double attacks. That’s better for multiplayer, since it is a little slower than a solo rush deck needs to be. Toe to toe can be an absolute busted card if you have Bezerker Frenzy out, since it nets you a card along with the five damage and can be paid for with health. But to keep that on the board you’ll have to avoid flipping down to alter ego form and stay in hero form as long as you can.
And with the protection aspect you could also build around cards like Taunt or Bait and Switch, since, again, it gets the villain to attack you on your turn, netting you a card. Protection cards also has some good options for readying, particularly the ‘What Doesn’t Kill Me’ event card to get some extra healing.
Recommended decks on MarvelCDB.com
For a great example of the minion-based/toe-to-toe strategy, I like QuickDraw McClaw from journeyman2. You’ll be swimming in cards (if you can stay alive).
For a Protection option, that’s a little more consistent, I like Hit Me Baby One More Time from Villain Theory, which is a protection deck that focuses on Card Draw and staying in hero form at all costs. Maybe not the strongest deck out there, but for sure the most fun to play:
Conclusion: It’s Clobberin’ Time!
The wolverine hero pack is a must buy and a great way to expand your collection and add variety to your games of Marvel Champions. Wolverine is a fun and powerful hero that makes great use of his healing abilities and comes with a full assortment of aggression cards inviting new strategies. While he may be limited in playstyle, he can still pack quite a punch and take down enemies with ease. So grab your Adamantium claws and get ready to slash your way through the villains of the Marvel universe.
Frequently Asked Questions: Wolverine and Marvel Champions the Card Game
Q: How can I best deal with Omega Red and his Nemesis set?
A: Focus on managing his side scheme as a priority, which prevents you from dealing with Omega Red directly. Building a deck with strong scheme management can help mitigate the damage done by Omega Red and his Death Factor.
Q: Are there specific heroes that synergize well with Wolverine for multiplayer games?
A: Heroes with strong thwarting capabilities (or any deck using the justice aspect) or those who can provide additional healing or defense support are great allies for Wolverine especially if you are eager to challenge Magneto, or any other strong villain you can’t just rush. Having other heroes on the team that can keep threat in check allows Wolverine to focus on dealing damage so he can spend his hit points and unleash a relentless assault upon the villains forces. She hulk. Captain Marvel. Captain America. Black Panther. Black Widow deck.
Q: What is the most challenging aspect of playing with the Wolverine hero pack?
A: Wolverine’s reliance on staying in hero form and keeping his health up presents a unique challenge, especially against enemies with high damage output. Players need to balance aggression with caution to maximize Wolverine’s effectiveness. His nemesis set as well as the encounter set featuring the dangerous Lady Deathstrike also add additional difficulty to existing scenarios.
Q: Can Lady Deathstrike’s adamantium upgrades be removed by any card effect?
A: Yes, her adamantium upgrades can be removed, but it typically requires spending three resources unless you have a specific card like Sunfire, which can help manage these upgrades more efficiently.