6 hours ago, James Ravenwood said:

Ooo good question. I'm going to go with if it does not k'o the Guard minion engaged with you then it doesn't affect the villain but does affect all other minions engaged with you. That's how I played it today anyway.

Even if it does enough damage to kill a Guard minion, surely it doesn’t hit the villain, since all damage is dealt simultaneously?

Although looking at the card text again, I’m not sure you can even play it all if there’s a minion with Guard in play. Since it’s an attack and it targets the villain.

6 hours ago, James Ravenwood said:

Ooo good question. I'm going to go with if it does not k'o the Guard minion engaged with you then it doesn't affect the villain but does affect all other minions engaged with you. That's how I played it today anyway.

You can’t play this at all if there’s a minion with Guard in play right?

“Guard — While any minions with this keyword are engaged with a player, that player cannot attack villains without this keyword.”

(Unless the typo is that it should say “This damage” rather than “This attack” since every other attack card also has the attack trait and it’s more unlikely that they both messed up the text AND forgot the trait?)

It’s not an attack. Therefore ignores Guard.

8 minutes ago, Daft Blazer said:

It’s not an attack. Therefore ignores Guard.

Yes but it also says “this attack” so there’s a typo somewhere.

Either it should have had the (attack) label and attack trait or the final sentence should say “this damage”

RAW it’s not an attack, but the final sentence also has no effect.

I’m going to play it as not an attack until it’s confirmed either way. Also in the traits section of the card, attack is not mentioned.

7 minutes ago, Daft Blazer said:

I’m going to play it as not an attack until it’s confirmed either way. Also in the traits section of the card, attack is not mentioned.

Yeah I think that’s probably fair. It seems unlikely that they would miss both the (attack) label and the trait

But, as I say, therefore, rules as written the final sentence has no effect and can never resolve.

It seems like AoE attacks specifically haven't been 'attacks,' in the case of BP's daggers and She-Hulk's Ground Stomp. Maybe they've been stepping around this rules issue for a bit, in which case Lightning Strike intentionally is not an attack, even though the writers of the text clearly thought of it as one.

But who really thinks the Energy Daggers are not attacks, thematically speaking? They are daggers, and they deal damage...

I am sure the designers have their concept behind the (attack) tag, but I think the use of the word attack in Lightning Strike text is just clumsy. Why would it bypass Toughness but not Guard?

6 minutes ago, Ascarel said:

But who really thinks the Energy Daggers are not attacks, thematically speaking? They are daggers, and they deal damage...

I am sure the designers have their concept behind the (attack) tag, but I think the use of the word attack in Lightning Strike text is just clumsy. Why would it bypass Toughness but not Guard?

Well exactly. That’s why I suspect there will be an errata to change it to “this damage”

Speaking of Energy Daggers in a Thor thread, I was looking at which cards from the Thor pack would be useful with other heroes. A while ago I had already identified Battle Fury as being excellent for She-Hulk, but there's another fit I had not realized until yesterday. Energy Daggers and Panther Claws are Weapon upgrades. That means you can Mean Swing with them, without them losing their usefulness since you normally do not exhaust them at all. And of course you can exhaust both upgrades on the same basic attack if you happen to hold two Swings in your hands, all for 0 cost. I just finished off Green Goblin with one Mean Swing from the Daggers and Combat Training in play for a basic attack of 6, right after playing one Wakanda Forever! involving the Suit, Tactical Genius and the Daggers already (which I used last). Ouch, Black Pather Aggression is pretty nasty now. You can throw in Jarnbjorn for good measure, but it wasn't even necessary in that particular game.

Give it doesn't have attack in the description line but only in the text I think it is not actually attack and therefore ignores the Guard attribute. I was making it more complex by assuming that Lightning Strike wouldn't hurt the villain unless the minion with guard was taken out. Now I think it hits the villain regardless. Its a bit like the whole "You" issue. Watching the Thor, Ms Marvel, Captain America vs Green Goblin play again "You" now means you the hero and you any ally. Confusingly when Green Goblin attacks if you use an Ally you don't give him an extra scheme when damage is done. Need to right your descriptions more tightly FFG.

On 3/7/2020 at 10:58 PM, AradonTemplar said:

Rules question for Thor. His Lightning Strike event does not say (attack) on it, just Hero Action, but later it calls it an attack. Is this a known typo, should it be an attack? If so, how does it interact with Guard? Are you just not able to play it if you have a guard minion in front of you, since you're attacking the villain?

It’s probably a typo for damage, rather than attack, because it’s an aoe; like ground stomp.

Hall of Heroes is interesting as you have to return to Asgard (alter-ego form) to collect the reward.

I am contemplating a second core set as we play exclusively multi-player (50-card decks) and Thor is missing several staple Aggression cards (already in our Black Panther deck).

I am thinking my goal is to have about 6 to 8 pre-built decks color-sleeved fully ready to go and 4 to 6 swapable characters on hand. With 4 scenarios ready to play.

2 hours ago, IceHot42 said:

Hall of Heroes is interesting as you have to return to Asgard (alter-ego form) to collect the reward.

Yup. I definitely missed that at first. Upon realizing it, however, I tried a game with Aggression She-Hulk and Justice Thor vs Mutagen Formula.

Hall of Heroes + Split Personality is uh... kindof insane 😁

1 hour ago, SpiderMana said:

Yup. I definitely missed that at first. Upon realizing it, however, I tried a game with Aggression She-Hulk and Justice Thor vs Mutagen Formula.

Hall of Heroes + Split Personality is uh... kindof insane 😁

Yeh it is. 😍

Re: Lightning Strike

Caleb confirmed that it’s a typo and should say “this damage”

https://www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/2384921/lightning-strike-clarification

Definitely makes more sense. Cap throwing his shield needs to bounce of targets individually. Thor on the other hand spews lightning in a radius around him when in melee with multiple foes.

So, having played with him a handful of games now, I'm really not a fan of Thor. His hand size feels like you just need to get Asgard out very early, or you'll be behind the whole game. Hitting minions can help give you the boost you need to keep in the game, but it's too inconsistent. Missing key cards or weak minions showing up means you can't keep up with threat well. If a side-scheme flips up and you don't have a Defender of the Realm, you're in trouble. I've only tinkered with building other decks for him a little bit, but anything I build is going to suffer from the 5/4 hand size.

Mostly, I wish there were an easier way to return his hammer to hand. I'd feel a lot better about his hand size if I could bounce my hammer, use it to pay for a card, then flip back to Odinson and retrieve it. That's basically his signature play, and it only happens when you use Hammer Throw, and even then I think at least half the time it's just better to play it right back out.

1 hour ago, AradonTemplar said:

So, having played with him a handful of games now, I'm really not a fan of Thor. His hand size feels like you just need to get Asgard out very early, or you'll be behind the whole game. Hitting minions can help give you the boost you need to keep in the game, but it's too inconsistent. Missing key cards or weak minions showing up means you can't keep up with threat well. If a side-scheme flips up and you don't have a Defender of the Realm, you're in trouble. I've only tinkered with building other decks for him a little bit, but anything I build is going to suffer from the 5/4 hand size.

Mostly, I wish there were an easier way to return his hammer to hand. I'd feel a lot better about his hand size if I could bounce my hammer, use it to pay for a card, then flip back to Odinson and retrieve it. That's basically his signature play, and it only happens when you use Hammer Throw, and even then I think at least half the time it's just better to play it right back out.

While I've had pretty good luck with Asgard in any solo games I've played with him, I don't know that I agree he's that hindered by the hand size? You've got Asgard, two God of Thunders, For Asgard, and presumably at least one Helicarrier and Avengers Mansion. That's 6 cards out of 40 or so that effectively give you a one card or one resource/turn boost. I don't know statistics very well, but the odds are certainly in your favor that you'll see at least one of these within your first couple of turns. If none of those are showing up quickly enough, odds are pretty good you've got one of the three Defender of the Nine Realms cards, which can aid you in getting closer to those 6 cards.

I'd agree he might be the weakest Hero solo--depending on the scenario--and he certainly has a more pronounced difference in difficulty solo vs in a team. But that just fits the flavor further. Ms Marvel can defeat Rhino by herself, but she's going to have a harder time doing it than Spidey or Cap (her deck just isn't geared as well towards fighting him, and requires a bit more practice and skill). Thor could easily knock out Rhino, sure, but is he really gonna pop on down to earth just to stop a bank robbery? Why would he care? *shrug*

Having played with him constantly the past few days and really read the cards the trick with Thor and his hand size is the minions the villain sends out. Tough villains like Ultron and Green Goblin become Thor's meat and potatoes because of the extra minions that they send out. Every time a villain sends out a minion in his phase Thor gets two cards. The in Thor's phase, if he has Defend of the Nine Realms he pulls out a minion and gets another two cards so potentially he is using 8 cards (minus the one for Defender) in his turn. I was screwing this up by assuming Thor had to engage the minion in his turn but after watching the play through I realised the appearance of a minion generates the two cards (which isn't quite the way the card actually reads). Finally beat Rhino (on standard) once I started playing him this way. I'm not saying he's as easy as say She-Hulk or Captain Marvel (who can whip any villain on expert solo) but he isn't as tough as I originally thought. His Thwarting is still poor and I definitely recommend getting first aid for Lady Sif to keep her thwarting for a few more turns as well as a few other standard aggression cards and tossing some of the useless (for solo play) like Get over here, Heimdal and Hercules. A few of the resource generating cards also helps Thor pay for those expensive cards and get those God of Thunder cards out first chance you get. They really help even more than the similar Super soldier serums do Captain America. Mockingbird isn't bad to stun an enemy allowing Thor to stay in hero mode longer. Hope these suggestions help.

I've really enjoyed what little I've been able to play with Thor. He's definitely not as straight-forward as the reveal made him seem (at least to me). He requires some setup, and while his deck is technically playable out-of-the-box, to really make him shine, he needs some tweaking. It's understandable that this is the case; FFG needs to include full sets of new cards so there are definitely balance issues with the decks as-is. But overall, Thor is a lot of fun. FFG managed to once again make a hero feel unique enough that you can't just play him like Cap and expect to do well, even though they have some very similar mechanics (throwing the shield and Mjolnir, for instance).

5 hours ago, James Ravenwood said:

Every time a villain sends out a minion in his phase Thor gets two cards. The in Thor's phase, if he has Defend of the Nine Realms he pulls out a minion and gets another two cards so potentially he is using 8 cards (minus the one for Defender) in his turn.

While this particular example works out, it is a once per turn ability (I believe? I could be wrong, which I would be pleased by—but I’m not with my cards to check), not once per phase. So you can’t draw two for engaging a minion during the player phase and then again if a minion pops out during the villain phase. The turn resets after the villain phase, so you can only get both if the first is during the villain phase and then you get a minion on your next phase.

11 minutes ago, SpiderMana said:

While this particular example works out, it is a once per turn ability (I believe? I could be wrong, which I would be pleased by—but I’m not with my cards to check), not once per phase.

Thor's response is "limit once per phase", so you can potentially get 4 cards each round from his ability. Odinson's action is once per round, that might be what you are thinking of.

22 minutes ago, Assussanni said:

Thor's response is "limit once per phase", so you can potentially get 4 cards each round from his ability. Odinson's action is once per round, that might be what you are thinking of.

Yep this - you can engage one during the player phase, with Defender of the Nine Realms, or Get Over Here (or any other similar effect) and then draw one during the villain phase,

32 minutes ago, jonboyjon1990 said:

Yep this - you can engage one during the player phase, with Defender of the Nine Realms, or Get Over Here (or any other similar effect) and then draw one during the villain phase,

🤯

Leaving aside the unfortunate chaos around the turn/round/phase nomenclature in practically ALL of gaming, I am realizing now that I totally misplayed this. I would not draw twice. Even during my ridiculous game against Ultron. I need to play Thor again now!