Previewing Maria Hill, One of the Two New Heroes from Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D.

“I want the suspect in custody yesterday!”
– Maria Hill

Recently, we provided a first look at the scenarios of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the next campaign expansion for Marvel Champions: The Card Game. Today, we’re taking a look at the first of the two new heroes included in that expansion: the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. herself, Maria Hill! Read on to find out how she commands the forces of S.H.I.E.L.D. to bring villains to justice.

As you might expect due to her position as Director, Maria Hill’s (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 1B) playstyle revolves around utilizing S.H.I.E.L.D.’s various assets to maximum effect. She can include the maximum number of copies of up to 3 S.H.I.E.L.D. supports in her deck from outside your chosen aspect, and her alter-ego’s ability allows you to search her deck for any one of those supports and add it to your hand. On her hero side (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 1A), Hill grants each ally you control the S.H.I.E.L.D. trait and can reassign all-purpose counters between S.H.I.E.L.D. supports once per round. This gives her an impressive amount of flexibility, as it allows her to get more uses out of whichever support best fits the situation. For example, if she doesn’t have any allies in play, Hill could move a counter from Command Team (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 16) to Support Staff (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 8) to bolster her resources and help her get set up—or help her pay for some particularly expensive supports, which we’ll get to in a moment.

Most of Maria Hill’s kit revolves around S.H.I.E.L.D. supports as well—in fact, since she has no attack, thwart, or defense events in her signature kit, she relies on these supports to fill all her combat roles. Cards like Reinforcements (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 5) and S.H.I.E.L.D. Director (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 11) can grant extra uses to your supports, while On the Double (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 4) lets you use them more times in a single turn. She also comes with some Special Funding (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 7) to help pay for more expensive supports while also granting them an extra use to start off with, which is especially relevant with what comes next.

As the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D., Maria Hill has access to the agency’s entire arsenal, and with that comes access to its fleet of unique helicarriers. Each of these mighty ships takes the form of a whopping 6-cost S.H.I.E.L.D. support, and they all pack a significant punch. The carrier within Hill’s own kit is the flagship of S.H.I.E.L.D, The Iliad (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 9), which can deal damage, remove threat, or heal you based off whatever’s most useful in the situation. The aspect cards in her deck include four additional helicarriers, one for each aspect (remember, her unique deckbuilding ability lets her include S.H.I.E.L.D. supports from out of aspect). The Leadership helicarrier is The Circe (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 17), which can let any player play an ally for free, while the Protection helicarrier is The Pericles (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 20), which can flexibly distribute status cards to allies and enemies alike. These helicarriers are central to Maria Hill’s gameplan, and are the primary targets for her abilities that can redistribute or add all-purpose counters to her supports. And, if the going gets tough, Hill can make The Hard Call (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 6) to sacrifice one of those carriers for some heavy damage to each enemy in play.

The rest of Maria Hill’s pre-built Leadership deck continues with the S.H.I.E.L.D. theme. Call on Victoria Hand (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 12) to ready a S.H.I.E.L.D. support, then use Organizational Support (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 14) to exhaust Victoria and that support to generate loads of extra resources for your next big card play, such as one of the helicarriers described above. Grant Ward (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 22) is an ally you can play for free, but you have to keep an eye on him, or else he may betray you at an inopportune moment. Finally, once you’ve got all your powerful S.H.I.E.L.D. supports set up, you can establish a Front Organization (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 28) to protect your assets from a nasty treachery and keep your operation running.

With her heavy focus on S.H.I.E.L.D. supports and her ability to flexibly wield them to maximum effect, Maria Hill is a unique hero that offers a new approach to Marvel Champions gameplay compared to her predecessors. Keep an eye out for a preview of her counterpart in this campaign, Nick Fury, in the coming weeks, and look forward to the release of Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. in February 2025!