Hey, so I've been hanging out alot on this forum aswell as on https://www.reddit.com/r/marvelchampionslcg/ and I love this game! We are lucky enough to live in a country where all shipments gets delivered, so we actually have everything released except Hulk and Rise of Red Skull.
This post will be about me and my friend (2 player game), and our struggle to complete all of the games encounters on heroic 1 and 2, so we finally can get to try out heroic 3.
We have completed all the following with heroic 1, wich means expert + 1 extra encounter card per player every encounter-step of the villain phase:
Rhino + 1mod, klaw+1mod, risky buissness+1mod, mutagen+1mod, ultron+1mod and wrecking crew (with house ruling +1 per player scheme instead of a flat +1, and with all standard+expert cards evenly and randomly shuffeled into all 4 encounter decks)
We also check rules ALOT, so the first few weeks was more theory discussions and checking up phrases/words and what to make out of them, than actually playing the game. Strange things happen when you draw up to 15 encounter cards in a round!
And a final rule: Human errors always happens, and we never backtrack unless it's to our disadvantage. So if I miss out on an alter ego action, flip to hero, and thwart, and then remember "oh, I forgot my alt-ego action.." then it's a No-no. But if we forget to add threat to a scheme, or damage to a character, that gets added in retrospect, as fast as we remember it. A win must be a true win.
Why would we do this? Because normal and expert game modes are too friendly, and eventually gets us into a slump, thinking that we need new villains to have fun with the game again.
This slump or boredom won't happen by a long shot when you go hardcore for many reasons.
1. You want to optimize your deck to 40 cards, and this is hard!
2. You want to have the best hero for the villain, and the best aspect for the situation you have.
3. You want to synergize yourself with your friends heroes/aspects, even if you have 2 players playing the same aspect.
4. You will lose. ALOT. And every time you either switch up 1-5 cards in your deck, or you switch strategy/aspect, or you swap out the hero with another one all together! Everything you have to do to get the job done!
5. You will need to swap out modular sets eventually, or as I will explain later, add alot of modular sets!
So, with that said, let me explain how far we have gotten, starting with our first pick for the Heroic 2 challenge:
Rhino. + Bomb Scare. + Legions of Hydra.
The idea of this scenario is to get a pre-taste of the Red Skull box. To face waves and waves of hydra minions.
When we started the challenge, we actually picked Cap America as one of the main Heroes, because his nemesis revolves around Hydra aswell, and we thought it would be thematic!
Now, we have tried almost everything you can think of to be able to beat Rhino in this difficulty, I think we actually got to play every hero in the box, rotate the heroes betweed eachother and tried out all aspects on all heroes except defence and agression. (Defence is too lackluster in all possible ways, and Agressions only shines if there are more minions spawned then threat placed, wich only happens on green goblin mutagen formula)
We found that the main threats was • Rhino's overkill, • Rhinos very short-lived main scheme • Madame Hydras nasty sideschemes and the hardships around getting rid of them and her! • Depleting the encounter deck too fast.
After around 20 losses and resets, we had a plan:
1. You have to play leadership with 1 hero, to always have allies out to block with. Cannon fodder.
2. The other hero has to be justice, to get under survelliance on the main scheme asap, and maximum "for justice" thwarting.
1. worked well against overkill. If I was in alter-ego, and my friend was in hero mode and he got attacked for 10+overkill, I would jump in with my ally, get Rhinos attention drawn on me, get my ally killed, and the overkill fizzled as i was alter-ego form.
1. also gets you able to thwart more than if you would play agression or defence, wich was needed against all side-schemes.
2. solved the main scheme problems and most of the side-scheme problems.
As heroic 2 draws you a minimum of 6 cards as 2 players every round, you have to be pretty built-up after 3-4 rounds and go for the villain pretty fast! Otherwise the main scheme (wich is really small on rhino) gets too many acceleration tokens, and you will lose!
The perfect setup was me as Natasha leadership, playing with rapid responce on my own turns killing of my allies and getting them back, and my friend playing as Black Panther justice, clawing down the minions and thwarting away!
We finally beat Rhino heroic 2!
Next up:
Klaw. + Running Interference + A mess of Things.
The idea with this scenario was only 1. Don't use Modok here! We did it on heroic 1, and that was tough enough. I can't even remember how many tries it took us to make that happen, so Tombstone and Scorpion was welcomed to the heroic 2 party instead!
With Rhino dead we knew what worked and what didn't alot better.
We started with leadership/justice and tried out alot of heroes, but the dream team in this scenario was Black Widow leadership (again) and Dr. Strange justice. (ms.Marvel agression was likeable, but lackluster)
The only problem was, that Klaw heroic 2 was too hard. We were really close a couple of times, but there were 2 things that always screwed us over.
1. The encounter phase. You draw your minimum 3 cards, and start with "Media coverege". Then every card you face gets triggered 2 times! This happens more often than not in a bad sequence!
2. Klaws ability to scheme, and to add side schemes as to be a foreshadow of what to come in Rise of Red Skull. No villain can match Klaw, when it comes to scheaming away!
Some tries we could actually have the main scheme on 0, and both be heroes, and still lose! Although that was probably because of +8 acceleration tokens and +3 encounter cards wich in reality means 6 cards per player = 12 cards per round O_o
We stopped here, gave up on heroic 2 Klaw, and actually went back to some expert games where we could have fun with she-hulk leadership and thor defence 
Next up:
Mutagen Formula + Modok + Goblin gimmics + Masters of Evil.
We landed on this setup after failing a couple of times. The encounter deck is too small! On heroic 2, you really need to expand the deck to last longer, because you draw too many cards! Otherwise, eventually you can't keep up with the acceleration tokens in the end.
The modules fit really well with mutagen formula, modok with his healing on minions aswell as his 2 side-schemes, the gimmics that fit green goblin, and the masters who all are on par with the nasty goblin minons "Goblin Knight" and "Monster".
Guess how it went?
You knew it! We lost. Alot. The first round deals you 5 encounter cards each. When you flip him to G.G.3 you get 6 cards each! That round with minimum 12 encounter cards is a natural disaster!
But, this time we figured that our old dream team could do it with a new aspect. Leadership Natasha, and Black Panther Agression!
Some of the games were incredible, we had 6 goblins on my side, and 5 minions (modok, 3 masters and monster) on his side!
Something that helped us alot though was the fact that Green Goblin doesn't scheme alot in stage 2, if you prioritize the goblin minons!
Another helper was how much black panther can deal with minions with wakanda forever, + hercules and hulk.
Many games I actually "Make the Call" to get hercules for free, or reduced his hulk to come into play on my side (with avengers tower).
Another fun fact: It's not worth it to deal with modoks 2 side schemes.
They have 8 threat when they come into play, thats too much to spend resources on.
They add 1 acc token, thats not too much!
They bring Modok into play, you never want that!
When drawn as a boost card, they hit for +3 extra attack or scheme! No thanks.
So, just leave them!
With with the power of card draws (many rebounds of Maria Hill, Hall of Heroes with infinite tokens (eventually), Golden City, Espionage pre-trigger and after-trigger) we often had the max 10 handsize starting our turns.
With the power of splash damage (Energy daggers, hulk, squirrel girl, hawkeye, preperation-black widow trigger-pings) the minions were reduced to dust. In the final rounds we actually had the power to clear a board with over 10 minions on it in 1 go!
And today, we actually beat Green Goblin Mutagen formula on Heroic 2.
Phew!
Next up, that will take us a couple of weeks atleast:
Heroic 2 Ultron + Legions of Hydra + Modok + Under Attack.
The thought process behind these modulars are:
1. Under attack fits Ultron.
2. We just got a good strategy against Modok.
3. We miss Madam Hydra, and she can die with the drones soon!
Our plan to beat this will most likely be another aggression panther, because of the daggers + Hall of Heroes synergy. (Daggers is so good against minions, you can aim on any side of the field you like, not at all as limited as cap.Am shield that spends your cards, or thors lightning that only works on your side of the board) Also Herkules, Tigra, Hulk and Valkyrie works well with drones in numbers!
Oh, I just realized that if She-hulk would punch a drone (wasted damage) and one-two punch for 1 resource, just to punch another drone, this would be so weak compared to wakanda forever (1 resource)
Anyway, for our second hero, we are debating on natasha leadership/justice or dr.strange leadership/justice. We will see how it turns out. Under Survelliance on step 1 main scheme was a winner in heroic 1 ultron, so we will see.
I'm looking forward to your own attempts on heroic 1, 2 or maybe even 3. And your input/comments or other strategy tips!
This game is the first co-op game I've ever played, and will keep playing as long as the devs keep making the game challenging, rewarding, diverse and keeps setting new goals!