Marvel Legendary Keyword Rundown!

On my list of top 10 favorite board games I mentioned the excellent Marvel Legendary, as any good gamer would. I now have to add a problem to the game however. Like Magic the Gathering before it the game has become a bit over reliant on keywords, those little phrases printed on the cards so they won't have to print an entire rules explanation on each card. The issue with this is if you're playing with mixed sets you end up shuffling through a pile of instruction manuals to figure out what the bloody card does!

Now if you're like me you'd just whip out your trusty smart phone and Google search the keyword, but then you'd find that their is no list of the keywords and what they do in Marvel Legendary online, so hence why I'm creating this. Hopefully it'll help avoid any unnecessary rage quits over not knowing what to do with Silver Surfer the next time you play him.

Disclaimer: I will be altering the wording somewhat on these rules to avoid copyright issues.

Second disclaimer: This won't be for all the Marvel Legendary sets since I don't have them all. This will be for:

Base set
Villains
Dark City
Secret Wars 1
Secret Wars 2
Guardians of the Galaxy
Fantastic Four
Deadpool
X-Men

1/2
Found in the Deadpool set this is basically a cute gimmick to make the Deadpool cards silly. If needs be round down to the nearest whole number.

Abomination
This enemy gets the attack of whatever hero is below it in the HQ. Might want to move this guy around to get a better advantage. 

Artifacts
When you play this card, it stays out in front of you like an enchantment from Magic the Gathering. It only gets discarded if something tells you to discard it.

Berserk
Toss the top card of your deck into your discard pile and this guy gets +X attack equal to that card's printed attack value. Handy, yes but the best card with this is Wolfsbane as she gets to do it three times and give the opponent Rabies.

Bribe
You can spend recruit as attack against this guy. In one game this meant that we paid Kingpin to stop his alien invasion. I love the randomizer app.

Burrow
If there's nobody in the streets and you try to beat this guy, he moves to the streets instead of your Victory pile. This is an incredible pain if you don't want villains to escape.

Charge
When this guy comes out they move up a space, smashing into everyone in front of them like a toddler at the monkey bars. Some villains can move more than one space, which makes them an even bigger toddler.

X Circle of Kung-Fu (And Quack-Fu)
If a villain has this, they get +X unless you reveal a hero that costs X or more. Kinda complicated, but think of it as the villain needing someone who watched just as many or even more Bruce Lee movies than they have.

Cosmic Threat
These guys come with an icon. Each card you play with that icon gives the enemy -3 attack for that turn. Essentially you can weaken a guy by having the right color of cards like an extreme game of Uno. Glactus also has this but once per turn you get to pick the icon, though after you've hit him you have to hit him again at his full power, cause that's just how Galactus rolls.

Cross-Dimensional Rampage
Let's say you see this on Gambit. Everyone has to reveal a Gambit from their hand or victory piles or take a wound. Now Gambit can refer to any form of Gambit you might have, from the basic one to the awful one from X-Men Origins: Wolverine.

Dark Memories
Character going crazy? They get +1 attack for each character class in your discard pile. They're deaths were not in vain. 

Demolish
Check out the top card of the ally/hero deck, look at its cost, then drop it to the bottom of the deck. Everyone then shows their hands and discards a card with the same cost. Handy if you draw a 6, obnoxious if you draw a 3.

Dodge
Easy. If you don't need the card, discard it and draw another one. It's your choice, maybe you need the card. I don't know what you've got going on in your life.

Dominate
This villain captures a hero like a bystander, but they also get +1 attack while they have them. If you hit the villain you can put the heroes they were dominating into anyone's discard pile. If the villain checks out of the city, they take the heroes with them to the escape pile where they get to have an awesome road trip.

Elusive X
You can only fight this guy if you generate X many recruit points that turn. Presumably this is the enemy checking your credit score before letting you fight him.

Excessive Violence
If you do more damage than you need to onto a character by at least one, you may use the Excessive Violence ability on the card. So if you go to hit a Hand Ninja (Attack 3) with 4 attack, you get to use the ability. If the ability allows you to do more damage this does not trigger the effect again, so you can't keep stabbing someone and watch cards fly out of them.

Fateful Resurrection
Check the top card of the villain deck. If it's a scheme twist or master strike, this guy comes back at the sewers. It's like a bad ex that keeps Facebook messaging you.

Focus
You can pay the amount of recruit points indicated on the card to get the effect. You'd think buying the card once would be enough for some people.

Fortify
Attach this card to wherever it says to go, such as the mastermind. Once fortified, you can't fight the mastermind. To get rid of this, you have to fight the guy with fortify. It's like a voluntary human shield.

Hidden Witness
When this villain enters the city, it captures two bystanders facedown. It can't be defeated until these bystanders are gone. To rescue these bystanders, you have to pay two recruit per bystander. They still count as regular bystanders after this. Once they're gone, take the bad guy down. 

Human Shields
The villain takes a bystander and you have to take out the bystander before you can take out the villain. To take out a human shield, you just deal damage equal to the villain's attack then it's yours. Once all the human shields are out of the way, feel free to beat down the villain.

Hyperspeed
Look at the top X cards of your deck. You gain +1 attack for each card with an attack symbol on it. Discard all cards revealed this way, so I hope it was worth it. Attack values don't matter, so if it has a +0 attack it still counts. 

Investigate
Look at the top two cards of your deck. Take a card with an attack from them and put it into your hand. Put the other card either on top of or on the bottom of your deck. Take the attack, leave the cannoli. 

Last Stand
Character gets +1 attack for each empty city space. It pays to keep your city clean. 

Lightshow
You play two cards or more with Lightshow, you get to use one ability on one of those cards. No matter how many you play, you only get one ability, so choose wisely.

Location
Location cards occupy the first city space that does not have a location. They do not move with villains. Location, location, location. 

Man (Or Woman) Out of Time
This is a person doing the wibbily wobbily timey wimey thing, so when you play them set them aside till your next turn, when you get to play it again then discard it. 

Moonlight and Sunlight
If they're are more even cost cards than odd in the HQ, it's sunlight. Odd, it's moonlight. Easy. 

Patrol
Look at the indicated spot on the card, IE sewers, streets ect. Do what the card says depending on what you find there. Some cards give you abilities with cards there, some give you abilities if the area is empty. If the status changes after you play the card, sorry, out of luck, you don't get the ability.

Phasing
Think you can do better than the card in your hand? Swap it for the top card of your deck. Did you get an even more useless card? Tough.

Piercing Energy
Even with the rulebook in front of me this rule barely makes any sense. These cards have a little splattered orange icon that you can use as attack up to the villains victory point value. You also get to ignore any special conditions like human shield or stuff that ups their attack, so you just go after their printed attack. This apparently doesn't work against cards with no VP value. Basically if you're fighting a guy with a "3*" and whatever his ability is brings him up to a 5, you can use the little orange dots as attack up to his VP value. If his VP was 3 and you had 3 orange dots, congratulations he's yours. It's just a needlessly complicated attack that shows up mainly on Psyloke and Banshee cards.

Revenge
If a villain has revenge, he gets +1 attack for each of his buddies in your victory pile. Spider-Enemies get it for Spider-Enemies, ect ect. This doesn't count for friends they may've made while being mixed together in the same deck.

Rise of the Living Dead
Great for those Walking Dead lovers. If anyone has a villain with this ability on top of their victory pile when a card with this keyword comes out, they shamble into the city. As far as I can find, the new villains also trigger rise of the living dead so you could end up with a conga line of super zombies.

Savior
You get whatever power this card has as long as you have at least three bystanders in your victory pile. Being a hero pays off, unless you're abducting them...

Shards
These are the little tokens that came in the Guardians of the Galaxy set. If a villain has one, they get +1 attack. If a player defeats a villain with shards, they get the shards and can discard them for +1 attack each. Don't lick the shards.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance
You wanna fight this guy, then you gotta discard a S.H.I.E.L.D. hero to do so. If you're playing with the Hydra starting cards then Hydra can count as S.H.I.E.L.D. cards for this purpose. Because reasons.

Size Change
If you played a card that matches the class indicated on the card, you either get to recruit it for 2 less (If it's recruitable) or it has two less attack (If it's attackable)

Soaring Flight
When you pick this guy up from the HQ, it goes into your hand next turn instead of in the discard. It works like teleport and doesn't count towards the six cards you draw.

Spectrum
You get the effect of the card if you have at least three classes of heroes in play. Diversity isn't just for the workplace.

Switcheroo
When a card says "Switcharoo X" then you can put the card on the bottom of the hero deck and put a card from the HQ into your hand. It's a handy way to get the card you want if you don't need the one you have. 

Teleport
Do you not need this card right now? Set it aside and put it in your hand next turn. It doesn't count towards the 6 you draw for your next turn, so you can build up a killer hand later with teleportation. This is how Scotty always won at poker on the Enterprise.

Versatile X
You pick attack or recruit. You get X of whatever you picked. Pretty straight forward.

Waking Nightmare
Discard a non-grey card from your hand. If you do, draw a card. If you can't, well at least you didn't have to discard something good. 

Wall-Crawl
When you buy this card (Usually these guys are Spider-Man related), put it on top of your deck.

X-Gene
This works like the spotting ability where you need to have already played a class to activate the ability, only this time the card needs to be in the discard pile. And no, both cards don't need X-gene, and both don't need to be X-Men.

X-Treme Attack

This guy gets +1 attack for everyone else in the city with X-treme attack. This is the guy who calls all his homies in to a fight to stand around and look tough in the hopes that you don't take him down.


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