Legendary: Marvel Deck Building Game - Messiah Complex Expansion

While a lot of people, in my gaming circle, have stopped adding expansions for Legendary Marvel, I have not. I still love this game, and I'm not sure that will ever change. Upper Deck continues to release great expansions, with new surprise's, and fantastic artwork. The Messiah Complex expansion provides all of that, and did not disappoint. I'm not a completionist, and never feel compelled to buy everything for every game, but as long as this game continues to be great, I'll continue to add expansions. Especially when they're as good as this one.

Best expansion to come out in a long time. The villains are rather unique and tough with the epic masterminds. The vast addition of more X-men characters in general is always welcomed. Just a great expansion to any Legendary fan's collection.

Messiah Compex is a fun new expansion to Marvel Legendary, especially because imo it's tricky. The lure, of course, is the two-for-one deal on some of the heroes. Is it gold? Or fool's gold? Turns out it's a lot of both. Chose the right clones and you've built a powerful deck. Chose the wrong clones and you'll find yourself too weak to overcome the mastermind. I wasn't familiar with some of the heroes, but really liked how this expansion breaks out our mutant friends the way the comics do: X-Men, X-Factor, X-Force. Love the new Veiled/Unveiled scheme mechanics, where the objective suddenly just changes on you. One thing I don't like about the expansion is the special sidekicks. (You may love them.) I didn't use pet sidekicks because they seemed silly to me. There's nothing silly about these, though. For me, it's I prefer the fun of trading in my sidekick for two more cards. All in all, another strong package from Upper Deck.

This expansion includes sidekicks and two new henchmen groups. The 100 card expansions rarely (or never) have these. A very fun expansion!

Upper Deck rarely disappoints in the Legendary: Marvel universe. However, I do miss the big box expansions with the outrageous number of new cards and, more importantly, new or enhanced ancillary mechanisms. So, when they put out one of the deluxe expansions, I am always excited to see what they will add to the game. Here, they go back to the well with more Special Sidekicks. This is a welcome sight as not only are they a fun addition to the game (if you've ever been frustrated playing the base game when you draw a hand with only 2 recruit and had nothing to purchase, then these are your bag, baby), but also because the new sidekicks are legitimately interesting and powerful cards. The other big innovation are the Veiled Schemes, a collection of four double-sided schemes that each, when a trigger point is hit, are replaced with the back side of a random one of the four schemes. To some extent, this turns the four new schemes into sixteen schemes (though that is probably a bit of a stretch). It makes for difficult planning, tense situations, and fun reveals. The rest of the expansion is very typical. More heroes, more keywords (Clone is my favorite), more masterminds (including one whose Epic side has 36 attack!!), villains, and henchmen. In my half-dozen or so plays thus far with these components, all have been fun and well worth the price of admission.

Messiah Complex adds the two best storylines in Marvel comics: villains and masterminds from the Messiah trilogy X-Men crossover event (2008-2010), and many heroes from X-Factor Investigations (X-Factor Volume 3, 2005-2013). Heroes: Multiple Man (X-Factor) M (X-Factor) Strong Guy (X-Factor) Rictor (X-Factor) Siryn (X-Factor) Shatterstar (X-Force) Warpath (X-Force) Stepford Cuckoos (X-Men) Masterminds: Bastion Exodus Lady Deathstrike Villains: Purifiers Acolytes Reavers Clan Yashida Henchmen: Sentinel Squad ONE Mr. Sinister Clones The new keywords include Clone and Shatter, as well as the return of the fun Investigate keyword, which lets you cycle through your deck searching for certain cards. Clone lets you recruit the same card multiple times (2 for 1!), quickly building your deck, while Shatter halves the strength of enemies (or the recruit cost of heroes). But the biggest new change are Tactical Formations, which is featured on all of the heroes. Tactical Formation cares about the card costs rather than class, such as 44 or 246. It adds an intresting new element to building the deck, and makes some heroes work really well with others. My favorite heroes are M and Multiple Man, but ironically they don't work well together! The villains, masterminds, and henchmen are mostly drawn from the Messiah events, though major villains like Mr. Sinister and Stryfe were released back in Dark City. Bastion is the standout new addition; not only does he create new sentinel masterminds, but each of his fight tactics becomes its own mastermind, with unique art, such as Mastermold and Nimrod. The veiled schemes are also new. Now instead of transforming them to their next stage, they randomly transform into an unveiled scheme. You're not even sure what the second half scheme will be until it transforms, and some are much more difficult than others. The expansion also adds two new henchmen groups, which are sorely needed. Alas they're the weakest element of the expansion and not terribly interesting. On the other hand we get some new bystanders, which is great. Though I personally wish Layla was a full-blown hero and Rictor (who's mostly depowered during the entire big X-Factor run) was the bystander. Oh, and Shatterstar should've been X-Factor!

This is an purely X-Men storyline focused deluxe expansion with 9 heroes (X Factor, X Force, X Men). It has new mutant sidekicks which hasn't happened since Civil War, along with the normal expansion stuff, like 3 masterminds (Exodus, Bastion, Lady Deathstrike) and new bystanders. Art is a step up from the usual mini-expansions. New mechanics Clone and Prey are good. Overall the best pack for Legendary in awhile.