Greetings, heroes!

The Marvel Champions: The Card Game rules team is pleased to present to you version 1.6 of our online Rules Reference. This update is intended to add new rules introduced to the game since our last update, address some areas of the rules that were not addressed previously, and add clarity in some areas that were previously unclear. All of these updates are intended to make your games of Marvel Champions play as smoothly as possible!

Today, we would like to discuss some of the more important changes made in this update so that you know what those changes are and why they were made.

Updates to the Target Rules

The big change in the previous update to the rules reference was the switch from rules requiring an ability to “change the game state” in order to be initiated to instead require that each ability have a valid target. The “Target” section of the rules defines a valid target as a game element that can be affected by an ability. To help you determine whether a target is affected by an ability, we have added a list of examples of things that qualify as affecting a target. These are: dealing/healing damage, adding/removing threat, giving/removing a status card, exhausting/readying the target, and defeating/discarding the target.

Also in this update, we have broadened the valid target rules to apply to “game functions,” which primarily refers to the use of basic powers. It was always our intention that heroes and allies must have a valid target in order to perform a basic thwart or basic attack, and that is now reflected in the “Target” section of the rules. We have, however, carved out an exception for heroes and allies with a THW or ATK of 0, so your Hulk (Hulk, 1A) hero can continue Making an Entrance (Venom, 13). (Note that a value of 0 is different from a dash (“–“) value in that a character with a dash for one of their basic powers can never use that basic power.)

And finally, we have codified a rule that we have established across multiple rulings on questions we have received that any effect that uses the wording “that [target]” refers to the target of a previous effect and can only be resolved for a valid target of the previous effect. For example, Concussive Blow (Ms. Marvel, 31) cannot target an enemy that is already confused in order to deal them damage because “that enemy” is not a valid target for the initial confuse effect.

Resolving Activation Instructions

We have recently made some rulings on questions surrounding the effect “the villain attacks you” establishing that this effect is considered resolved upon the initiation of the attack. Those rulings have created some confusion in the community and caused certain cards, like Toe to Toe (Hulk, 15) and Taunt (Angel, 16), to not function as intended.

For those reasons, we are changing course on this question. Now, the effect “the villain attacks you” is not considered resolved until the villain’s attack has fully resolved, including any effects that happen after an attack, such as the retaliate keyword and any responses to that attack. Only then is the instruction “the villain attacks you” considered resolved and effects following the attack can resolve.

For example, the card Toe to Toe says “Hero Action (attack): Choose an enemy. That enemy attacks you. Deal 5 damage to that enemy.” When you play Toe to Toe, you must fully resolve the enemy’s attack before you deal the 5 damage to that enemy.

This rule also applies to scheme and activation instructions (including the quickstrike and teamwork keywords), as well as to minions doing any of those things.

With this change, we have updated a frequently asked question about Black Widow’s Widow’s Bite (Black Widow, 10) upgrade that was previously a source of confusion. Widow’s Bite now does not resolve against a minion with quickstrike until after that minion fully resolves its quickstrike attack.

Initiating Abilities

There are two updates of note to this section.

First, we have added a step to this process in which a player who is playing a card places that card faceup on the table in front of them while they pay its costs and, in the case of events, resolve its effects. The card is not considered “in play” at this time. Allies, player side schemes, supports, and upgrades are not considered to enter play until step 6 of the “Initiating Abilities” process.

These rules apply when Magik (Age of Apocalypse, 30A) is playing a card from the top of her deck. As soon as she determines that the card can be played, she moves it to the table and flips the next card in her deck faceup before finishing the process of playing the card.

Second, we have removed the previous step 5 of the “Initiating Abilities” process. This step read: “Make all ‘choose’ decisions required to resolve the card.” Instead of making these decisions up front, it makes more sense (and some abilities require) that these choices are made when the sentence that includes the choice is being resolved. You must still check that the ability has at least one valid target during step 1 of the “Initiating Abilities” process, but your choice of target is not locked in until you resolve the sentence in which the choice is made.

Referential Abilities

With numerous heroes, allies, villains, and minions sharing titles with each other, determining whom is being referred to by abilities that name a card title has gotten tricky. To simplify things, we have created a tiered system for determining which card is being referred to by an ability that uses a card’s title. When an ability refers to a card title, it refers to the card(s) that fit the criteria highest in this list:

1. The card on which the ability is printed.
2. Cards that belong to the same identity or encounter set.
3. All other cards.

This means the basic Spider-Man (Sinister Motives, 49) ally’s response refers only to itself, while Lethal Weapon (Nebula, 30) will only attach to the Gamora minion in the same encounter set and not a hero or ally. This does mean that Old Rivals (Nebula, 31) no longer functions as intended, so we have changed its text to function as originally intended.

Quick Notes

The following updates are important enough to note, but don’t require in-depth explanation:

Attack (Enemy Activation), Attack (Player Ability Type), and Attacks Against Allies:
We have formalized the order of resolution for abilities that are triggered by attacks. Additionally, we have revised how attacks against allies are handled. Now, every enemy attack is considered to target both a player and a character. In the standard case, the targets of an attack are the hero being attacked and the player controlling that hero. With attacks against allies, the targets of the attack are the specified ally and the player controlling that ally.

Cost:
If a cost uses the word “choose,” the player paying the cost can choose game elements they do not control.

Damage:
We have added a timing chart for the resolution of effects surrounding the dealing and taking of damage.

Find:
We have significantly expanded this section with a list of places that the “find” instruction will not look, which includes facedown encounter cards, the victory display, and cards that have been removed from the game.

Labeled Ability:
This new section compiles all of the rules around labeled abilities (i.e. those with “(attack)”, “(defense)”, or “(thwart)” following the bold timing trigger). The only one of these rules that is new to the rules reference is the handling of abilities with multiple types of labels, such as “(attack/thwart).” If a character has any status card that would cancel any of the labeled types, then all of that ability’s effects are canceled by that status. In such cases, the character would be able to remove all statuses that cancel any of the labeled types. For example, Hit and Run (Gamora, 20) can remove both a stunned and a confused status from the hero who plays it.

Max/Maximum:
This section has been expanded to cover more uses of the terms “max” and “maximum” to address recent questions about Bishop’s Super-Charged (Age of Apocalypse, 6) upgrades, among others.

Play, Put into Play:
We have established that the text “Hero form only,” such as on Webbed Up (Core Set, 9), prevents such cards both from being played and from being put into play when the player’s identity is not in hero form.

Player Elimination:
When a player is eliminated from the game, cards they own that were in play are now removed from the game with all of that player’s other cards. This resolves any rules issues that arose around a card not having an owner, and also allows an eliminated player to leave the table without having to wait to get their cards back.

Status Cards:
We have tweaked the language used when discussing the effects of confused and stunned status cards in the rules. These effects are now treated as “canceling” the effects of thwarts/schemes and attacks, respectively. This does not change how these statuses function in practice but allows us to describe their functions more precisely.

Teamwork:
As we have mentioned previously, the Age of Apocalypse expansion changed the rules for the teamwork keyword. This change is now reflected in the rules reference. In short, only the minion with the teamwork keyword that just entered play activates. It no longer causes all minions with the same teamwork keyword to activate.

Errata:
All of the card errata in this update are technical in nature, made to keep cards functioning as intended under the current rules. No cards were changed based on balance concerns.

Those are the main changes we wanted to highlight in this update, but there may be others that may impact your understanding of the game. As always, if you have a rules question you just can’t figure out, you can send it to us through our rules contact form: https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/contact/rules/.

Until next time, keep saving the world!

Tony Fanchi