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

“I put my best agent on the case.”
– Maria Hill

You’ve seen the scenarios for Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., the next big campaign expansion for Marvel Champions: The Card Game. You’ve seen one of its heroes in Maria Hill, the Director of S.H.I.E.L.D. Now, it’s time to preview the expansion’s other hero: Nick Fury, one of S.H.I.E.L.D.’s top agents.

As a top-tier spy and skilled infiltrator, it should come as no surprise that Nick Fury is an expert at mitigating threats. His playstyle revolves around his “suit form” upgrade, which has two modes: Stealth (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 35B) and Assault (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 35A). Fury’s alter-ego side (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 34B) lets him decide which mode his suit starts in, while his hero side (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 34A) interacts with the suit in different ways depending on whether he thwarts or attacks.

While in Stealth mode, Nick Fury’s suit lets him hide from his enemies, forcing them to scheme even though he’s in hero form. While this could seem detrimental in certain scenarios, the ability on the Stealth suit allows Fury to gather intel by stealing some of the threat that would have been placed on the main scheme and placing it on his suit instead. Patience is a virtue, as charging up his suit with threat builds to a significant payoff when you swap to Assault mode, where Fury can use that threat to power up his attacks! Thanks to Fury’s Break Cover ability, the switch to Assault mode happens before the attack resolves, so you can immediately start spending threat to whale on the enemies the moment you go on the offensive.

Any of Nick Fury’s attacks can be boosted by his Assault suit. For example, you could have an Attack event like Concentrated Fire (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 37) deal up to 7 damage instead of its usual 4, all but guaranteeing that you can trigger its bonus effects if you target a minion. Alternatively, you could boost an area attack like Spray Fire (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 39) to deal up to an impressive 6 damage to multiple enemies at once. If you’ve got an excess of threat on the suit, you could even use Fury’s Watch (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 44) to help you pay for a big swing!

Of course, perform too many of those big attacks and you’ll burn all the threat off the Assault suit pretty quickly. Thankfully, Nick Fury’s got plenty of tricks and high-tech gadgets in his kit to help him build that threat back up. Normally, you would need to swap to alter-ego before you can change your suit back to Stealth mode, but Covert Surveillance (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 38) gives you the option to do so while also doing a bit of thwarting on the side. If you already swapped to the Stealth suit, then Covert Surveillance can help you build up threat on the suit quickly, which is something it shares with the Eyepatch Camera (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 43), which could get you as much as 3 threat on the suit at once. You’ll notice that the Camera is a Preparation card, which means that after you resolve it, Fury’s status as a Secret Agent (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 46) can get you a bonus threat onto the suit, giving you even more bang for your buck!

Naturally, that isn’t the only Preparation card in Nick Fury’s deck, and with the rest of the cards in his pre-built Justice deck, you could say he comes “prepared” to keep the villain’s schemes on lockdown. Call in an Informant (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 50) to get a minion to thwart for you instead of scheming; remember that Fury’s Stealth suit makes enemies scheme against him when they would normally attack, which makes this card particularly useful while you’re infiltrating the scene! If a minion enters play that you can’t afford to deal with right away, toss some Prism Dust (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 52) in their face to confuse and damage them instead. Since both of these are Preparation cards, Secret Agent will allow you to move an extra bit of threat to your suit whenever they resolve, ensuring that you’ll always have a leg up on the main scheme. Also, if you’re going to need those cards back sooner rather than later, you can always rely on a Practiced Plan (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 58) to bounce them back into your hand!

Of course, while Nick Fury is an incredibly skilled spy, he’s not the only agent in S.H.I.E.L.D., and even he can use a hand sometimes. When the going gets tough, he can call on the aid of his father Nick Fury, Sr. (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 54) for a solid boost on the front lines. If he’s struggling to get his gadgets into play, Leo Fitz (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 56) can hunt for his Tech cards while Jemma Simmons (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 55) can help him pay for them. And, of course, Fury can team up with Maria Hill as Super Spies (Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D., 24) to always be ready for action.

With his skills at infiltration and ability to turn the villain’s threat against them, Nick Fury is an awesome super-spy and a fantastic addition to the game’s roster of playable heroes. Look forward to taking on the agents of A.I.M. as both Nick Fury and Maria Hill when Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. releases in February 2025!