Q: When does the villain “initiate” an attack against Spider-Man?

A: An attack is “initiated” the moment the game determines an attack will be made against a character. This includes attacks made from game steps (such as step 2 of the villain phase) and card abilities (such as an attack initiated by the “Assault” treachery).

Spider-Man’s ability resolves before any of the steps of the process detailed in the “Enemy Attacks” section are performed. -(Official FAQ)

Q: I’m playing Spider-Man, facing Ultron Stage 2. Ultron attacks me. Which happens first – Ultron’s Forced Interrupt “when Ultron attacks”, or Spider-Man’s Interrupt “when a villain initiates an attack”?

A: There is no timing difference between “attacks” and “initiates an attack” so the Forced Interrupt would take priority over the Interrupt. We used the “initiates an attack” language with Spider-man because early testers showed some confusion about when to trigger his ability, and phrasing it this way helped them to understand. -(Developer Ruling, Hall of Heroes)

A NOOB'S RANDOM THOUGHTS

Peter Parker

• Has a low recovery which is largely irrelevant due to Aunt May.
• He has an average hand size of 6.
• His Scientist ability is always welcome as it allows him to more efficiently play his 6 card hand size.
• It may also come in handy if Alter-Ego only cards are printed that require a resource.
• There might be a archetype in the future which makes use of his and Black Cat's affinity.

Spider-Man

• A THW of 1 is really bad and combined with only a situational threat removal card (Spider-Tracer) in his character card pool, Spider-Man will not be leading the charge as far as thwarting is concerned.
• This is somewhat offset by the fact that Spider-Man will spend the majority of the game in Hero Form.
• Still, without a dedicated thwarter (or in solo), Spider-Man is very vulnerable to threat (to Side Schemes in particular).
• ATK 2 is average and here and there will help out with Minion control.
• DEF 3 combined with Spider-Man’s defensive card pool is phenomenal.
• 10 HP is on the lower side of things; however it should not be a problem due to Spider-Man’s excellent defensive options.
• Spider-Sense effectively means you have a 6 card hand size in Hero Form, which is great.
• It is also not limited to once per round, which means every time the Villain initiates an attack against you, you draw a card. Might have some interesting combo potential with future cards.

Spider-Man’s card pool is focused on mitigating the Villain’s turn. He plays very much in the moment with very few cards that stick around for the long-term.

Aspect parings with Spider-Man

Aggression

• The Aggression Aspect provides effective Minion control to Spider-Man’s card pool. It also brings more (if slightly less efficient) damage dealing capabilities.

Justice

• The Justice Aspect brings cards that cover Spider-Man’s greatest weakness, thwarting. With this Aspect Spider-Man becomes a true Jack-of-all-trades, able to participate in every facet of the game.

Leadership

• The Leadership Aspect brings in multiple Ally choices that can help mitigate Spider-Man’s weaknesses while simultaneously supporting his strengths. Such across the board versatility does come with a slight cost ratio premium.

Protection

• The Protection Aspect very much doubles down on Spider-Man’s main strength, mitigating the Villain’s turn and defending his fellow teammates.

If you found this review helpful, like so that I can write more reviews :)

Spiderman gets billed as the beginner's hero of beginner's heroes in the core set, but I think he's actually a lot more interesting than that would suggest. While he is very straightforward, Spiderman offers some of the more interesting decisions I've had to make in the game so far.

As a rundown, his alter-ego, Peter Parker, offers middling healing (set at a base of 3), but shores that up with the ability to generate a science resource for free every turn. This gives him the ability to do some nice setup, especially when you combo him with the Helicarrier, effectively making one two-cost card free every turn.

Unlike several of the other heroes, you're going to want to hop out of Peter Parker pretty quickly, since 13 of his 15 special cards can only be played or used in hero form. So if you're sitting around as Peter Parker, you quickly ramp up the threat on scheme, in addition to hoarding cards in your hand that can't be used.

Once you're in as Spiderman, though, the hero becomes very powerful. Getting an extra card draw every turn helps mitigate his relatively low health (compare that to She-Hulk's 15, or Iron Man's 17, when fully upgraded). This means that you'll want to defend a lot more often to offset potential damage and allow Spiderman to stay in hero form for as long as possible. Cards like Backflip and Spidersense help you prevent damage and bad effects, as well. Overall, his high base defense gets him out of a lot of trouble, which helps with the early Rhino scenarios where the villain can pound in for upwards of 6 or 7 damage at a time.

He also has good damage potential, with a decent base attack of 2, and kicks that let him dish out 8 damage at a time. This can make a huge difference when soloing. Moreover, he has one of my favorite allies in the whole game: Black Cat. She can grab you a few free cards when she comes out, and then she gets to attack for free, unlike the other allies in the game's base set.

Overall, Spiderman is an excellent hero to start deckbuilding with, but it will take more experience to really unlock his potential. Timing when you choose to defend is a critical decision point, especially when soloing. In a team game, he gets even better, since the other hero can draw away some of the heat when things get tight. Spiderman has tons of potential for new and experienced players, alike.

This review is more into the deckbuilding part of the game.

I think that Francois and greycatgames have done a great job of explaining the traits and weaknesses of Spider-Man, you should read their reviews as well. I hope that this review gives you more archetypes and ideas about what can Spiderman lean into.

Peter Parker (Alter Ego)

• Traits: Genius trait gives use of some pretty good cards such as Ingenuity, Moon Girl, the two cards can enter any Spiderman deck and give very good options.
• Alter Ego capacity: Scientist generates a resource, that together with the Black Cat response creates a whole archetype around resources:
  • Neutral. Genius, and Moon Girl are staples. With Moon Girl, you can draw 2-3 cards very easily, Ingenuity, Enhanced Awareness and Quincarrier help you play for those .
  • Aggression. Honed Technique with No Quarter, Melee or Toe to Toe its pretty good. I'll talk more about Toe to Toe on the Aggression aspect.
  • Justice. Eros and Sense of Justice benefit from and Scientist, For Justice!, Crisis Averted, Multitasking and Lay Down the Law are great events if you have resources in hero form. You may pair Lay Down the Law with Sonic Rifle if you plan on flipping into Alter Ego often to get use of Scientist.
  • Leadership. R&D Facility , for alter ego, Push Ahead for hero form, this combo is pretty unknown and easy to play as Peter Parker and is a fun way to play Spider-Man stat wise with Morale Boost, Teamwork. Ready Spider-Man with Earth's Mightiest Heroes, Inspiring Presence and low cost allies. Worth mention to Clarity of Purpose that you can pay with Peter Parker's resource and heal later with Inspiring Presence, Aunt May or United We Stand.
  • Protection. Black Widow, Warlock and Protector benefit from and Scientist, Second Wind is great as you can lessen the cost with Scientist (Not only hero action so you can play it on alter ego), the downside is that Spider-Man doesn't need that much healing, can still be very useful for multiplayer.
• Health: Peter Parker has Aunt May, still one of the best recovery options in the game, if you need a bit more margin you can add Endurance or Crew Quarters . I would NOT recommend Down Time because you dont wanna use your hero action to recover, and Spider-Man deals a really good job at keeping himself alive.

Spider-Man (Hero Form)

• Traits: Avenger, The best neutral Avenger options for Spider-Man are Quincarrier, Team-Building Exercise to play other Avenger cards like Avengers Mansion, Avengers Tower or Avenger Allies. Ill talk more about this on the Aspect part.
• Stats:
  • THW: Weakest stat of Spider-Man, below average so you shouldn't look into thwart with the hero action, look into events to deal with that, you can still thwart if there isn't anything better but you should look for other options.
  • ATK: We are getting better, for big chunk of damage have Swinging Web Kick, still you need to deal with those pesky minions that have 3-5 health, and doesnt feel good using 4 ER (Efective Resources) to deal with that, with 2 ATK you can try to deal with those but probably won't be enough. Would be good if you help Spider-Man a bit with cards like Relentless Assault or some Allies to get more of your Spider-Tracer.
  • DEF: With 3 DEF Spider-Man is one of the best characters in all Marvel Champions at keeping himself alive, at early game, you should almost always be defending if you don't have Backflip, will prevent most damage, and keep you healthy enough to get some table and tempo.
• Hero capacity: Spider-Sense let's you draw cards each time that the villain attacks you so stun cards aren't that effective on Spider-Man, meaning you will draw less and dealing less actions overall, this makes Webbed Up one of the worst cards of Spider-Man pool except when is used to Stalwart and Steady because it's the only way to stun this enemies.
  • Some cards that trigger this capacity are Bait and Switch, Toe to Toe and Get Behind Me! In my opinion, Toe to Toe and Bait and Switch are some of the best cards to include on a Spider-Man deck.
  • As stated before, you can easily survive this attacks with your amazing DEF, chump blocks or Backflip.
• Last but not least the Spider name can use of Warrior of the Great Web paired with Web of Life and Destiny, meaning you can use an ally swarm of Web-Warrior on every aspect with Spider-Man.

On this section I will highlight some of the archetypes.

Tribals:

• Web-Warrior. As mentioned before, you can easily make an ally swarm of Web-Warrior traited allies, my only tip is do not understimate threat removal. Many decks i've seen make the Ghost-Spider - Backflip / Swinging Web Kick combo, the SP//DR combo, don't misunderstand, they are powerful, but from my experience, cards like Spider-Man (Hobbie Brown), Spider-Ham or Spider-Man (Pavitr) if you go Justice had been the real MVPs of my games.
• Avenger. With the same idea of Web-warrior and cards like Team-Building Exercise, Quincarrier, Avengers Tower and Avengers Mansion as well as a bunch of allies with the Avenger trait. Would like to mention:
  • Captain America and Kaluu that gives you control like Ghost-Spider, Stinger is always good for Leadership.
  • Hulk to defend, Sentry and She-Hulk to help with thwart on Aggression and Boot Camp, one of my favourites.
  • Justice is more limited into Avengers but they are really good Quake, Speed, Wiccan.
  • Protection only features Brother Voodoo and Jocasta but they give you so much control over your deck, Backflip / Swinging Web Kick. You can still fit War Machine into any avengers deck as well.
• Other Ally Swarms: Spider-Man pairs really well with allies because they do what Spider-Man cant do well, THW and low amounts of DMG. Spiderman can pretty much stay alive without the help of chump blocking, so you should try allies that can THW for 2 or have some kind of response: Moon Girl, Nick Fury, Professor X, Ironheart and Spider-Man are some neutral examples that help Spider-Man cover those weaknesses. (Watch out that stun cards like Mockingbird will not benefit you that much because you don't draw a card)
  • Other archetypes that spiderman can play well are S.H.I.E.L.D or a non tribal Ally swarm (Maybe X-men but we'll see)

Aspects archetypes and some ideas:

• Aggression:

  • Swing More: Your main focus is to deal damage with Swinging Web Kick as much as posible, this combos well with Deft Focus, Ingenuity and Martial Prowess, you can get benefit of cards like Toe to Toe to draw a card as well. Looking for Trouble pairs well with Chase Them Down / Into the Fray / Spider-Tracer to get some threat out. You should try to stay as long as possible in hero form to deal with threat.
  • Swing More Deck
  • Berserk Spider: Counterattack with "You'll Pay for That!" and Endurance is another great combo to deal with both threat and damage, the downside is that you'll need to recover more often, one of the best recovery options in aggression for Spider-Man is Toe to Toe / Into the Fray + Moment of Triumph on a low health minion to heal a big chunk of health.
  • Berserk Deck
  • Combat Training, Press the Advantage, One by One and Relentless Assault can help dealing those small amounts of damage to clear minions.

• Leadership:

  • Voltron: My favorite archetype for Spider-Man as it benefits from Black Cat non consecuential damage, pair it with Yondu, Ronin, Iron Man and upgrades like Honorary Avenger, Power Gloves and Reinforced Suit.
  • Voltron Black Cat Deck.
  • I've Got Stats Baby: Earlier I talk about a archetype based on stat boost and R&D Facility and Push Ahead, Go All Out.
  • Stat Boost Deck.
  • Tribals: You can go tribal as i stated before with Avengers Tower / Web of Life and Destiny.
  • Avenger Tribal Example.
  • Web-Warrior Tribal (Worse than other aspects imo)
  • Quick Response: Decks based on Rapid Response are pretty much overpowered for any hero and really strong, just pack a bunch of Response: allies like Maria Hill Nick Fury, Beast and Professor X and you will be fine.
  • Example Rapid Response.

• Protection:

  • Perfect Defense: The best archetype for protection spidy, as you usually want to defend, you can get benefits if you try to reach a perfect defense (The enemy not damaging you) with cards like Unflappable. Electrostatic Armor, Flow Like Water, Hard to Ignore and Nerves of Steel to pay for events like Desperate Defense, Never Back Down or Side Step and Jump Flip to prevent some damage with benefits.
  • Example Perfect Defense.
  • Tribal Web Warriors: Some protection web warriors like Silk are really good and you can benefit a lot from them.
  • Web-Warrior Deck: Perfected 2.0.
  • Bait and Switch: It's a card that seems made for Spider-Man, you get to draw a card + 4 THW and the drawback can be avoided most of the time. Key card and staple in my Protection Spider-Man decks.
  • Mockingbird, Webbed Up, Iron Fist, Professor X and Warrior of the Great Web + Thwip! Thwip! can get use of status conditions, meanwhile Spider-Tingle / Enhanced Spider-Sense and Black Widow can get rid of treacheries and make a good support build for Multiplayer, you can even add Return the Favor to benefit in Solo.

• Justice:

  • As stated before Justice is all about events, For Justice! and Clear the Area are staples, or Crisis Interdiction for multiplayer, Sense of Justice is a no brainer here and Under Surveillance helps to get some breath if you need to.
  • Justice Events-Focus Deck.
  • Web warriors are really strong in justice as well, as they help with DMG and THW, while you care about surviving.
  • Web-Justice Deck

If you found this helpful, give me a Like so i can write more reviews, i really appreciate it.