July 19, 2025 • 35 mins
At the start of Season 20, league commissioner Innsmouth Bear shared the disappointing, but understandable news that this would be the final season of Solo Champions League. To help say a proper goodbye to the league, we're welcoming previous guests back, across multiple episodes, to share memories and what made the league special to them.
Up first we are visited by our most-frequent guest duo: Gondo and Grrreg.
Joss' YouTube Channel (Solo Champions League Gameplay): https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC8M_m6TeG3LAzrIZ4o1jkRQ
Solo Champions League Discord: https://discord.gg/dnq9gUPfGHOfficial website for SCL: https://www.bearoverinnsmouth.com/solo-champions-league
MODOK league website: https://modokleague.wordpress.com/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hey, hey friendos, welcome to the Road to Nowhere Marvel
Champions. LCG.
Podcast Today we are going to celebrate solo Champions League.
Recently the league commissioner, Innsmith Baer
announced that this season, season 20, would be the final
season of the league. You know, knowing how much joy
(00:29):
and meaning the league has brought to the friends that I've
made through doing this podcast,I invited many of them back to
share with me in a celebration of solo Champions League.
These conversations have tended to range from about 30 minutes
to an hour, so I'm releasing each conversation as its own
episode. First up I'm joined by Gondo and
(00:50):
Greg who win fake Internet points for having joined me as a
Co host pair the most times. Joining us are Gondo.
Gondo, it's been ages. Yes, it has been ages.
We'll, we'll catch up in here a little bit about what's been
going on with you and Greg. Greg, how are you?
(01:11):
We're great. We're back.
Gondo and Greg are back in the podcast.
We're going to be doing this forthe next 20 years.
It's never going to stop Rick and Morty forever.
Yeah, yeah, I have some disappointing news for you.
What are you saying? Right what?
Yeah. So I think you 2 are the most
heavily frequented guest pair. Yes, what we want.
(01:35):
That actually surprises me, given how inactive I've been.
Well, I've also been pretty inactive in recording, so you
haven't fallen behind. Oh, OK.
I just want to win that car. The cars are the most important
thing. I'm just desperate to win that.
Yeah, it's, it's a free Tim horton's coffee that you win.
Oh. Honestly, it's pretty good too.
(01:58):
Unfortunately not redeemable in the United States.
Unfortunately not redeemable. United.
States $500 plane ticket just toget that cup of coffee.
I'll, I'll do it. Even if the parent company is
Burger King. Oh wow.
Yeah, they're, they, they boughtthem out.
I can't remember how many years ago, but the style of dots that
were offered at Tim Horton's changed dramatically after that.
(02:18):
I forgot about that. You're shattering all, all these
preconceptions I have. It's my whole world falling
apart. Good to hear both your voices,
Greg. We got to actually meet in
person at Con of Heroes and thatwas absolutely delightful.
So delightful, so great. My first con, I loved it.
(02:38):
Not your first actual con, but your first con of heroes.
First con of heroes yes I've I got to play champions at Gen.
Con a few times, but but but yeah, this is the first
intensive, you know, 20 plus game weekend, so really fun.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was awesome.
And you know, kind of like a lotof the other solo Champions
League folks around there, therewas a tendency to play, try to
(03:01):
play lots of games with other solo Champions League folks.
And that was awesome to kind of get to see people and you know,
folks now that was my third time.
So I got to see a bunch of people for the they're up to
third time, which was was awesome.
Right, it feels like it's starting to become like adult
summer camp, right? It's like you have your camp
(03:22):
friends and you go and it's likeyou get to see them once a year.
It, it had that vibe and I was, it got me excited to go back.
So I'm I'm definitely going to try to go back.
Me too. Me too, and.
I would like to go for a first time someday.
Yes. And then so I was going to say,
Gondo, what's been keeping you busy?
Well, instead of going to the con the same day, I decided it
(03:46):
would be a good idea to run 28 times around the lake that was a
two mile loop. For fun.
I chose that. And you've had previous running
conflicts with the con as well, haven't you?
Yeah, I forgot to other one was I want to say it was even.
An allergic reaction. Yes, right, I did.
(04:08):
That was the year before. Oh goodness, all the time.
It's almost like, you know, likethe Final Destination movies
where you know, all the fates are trying to keep you away from
something or trying to kill you in the case of those movies.
But it feels like we're there's a lot of factors that are really
keeping goddamn eye away, but they can be overcome.
You can get there something. I I think it might be possible
(04:31):
next year. I say that now, right?
I love it. I will.
I will be very excited for that to be true.
And you can all learn what I look like, so I don't believe
I've shared it before. And I know this is going to
relate to some of the, the Q&A we're going to talk about, but
it, it the, the, when you come by yourself, I mean, I think it
is a little anxiety producing because you have that kind of
(04:53):
like, I don't know, people, I know everyone's supposed to be
pretty nice, but it, you just have that sort of social
anxiety. And it was just so great to
have, you know, 10 to 12 people from SCL there who you kind of
knew from servers and were really willing to grab games
and, and play a lot of, and I'd some, I pretty much every
interaction with anyone on the server was super friendly and
(05:14):
fun. And it just made, yeah, like I
was kind of anxious the first day or day ish.
But then by the end, it was, it felt like, oh, summer camp, I'll
come back next year, you know, had that, had that vibe.
And it's a kind of growth of network as well, right?
Because you're getting inevitably introduced to new
people that by people that already know you.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it it just keeps, it just
(05:36):
keeps become becoming more fun I'm sure every year.
Well, so Greg, let's let's startwith you.
Well, you want to tell us maybe kind of what makes SCL special
for you and you know what you miss about the league.
Yeah, I think the thing that I've always really appreciated
about SCL is that it, you know, I think the reason Champions is
(05:59):
a fun game for me is it's kind of this fun breezy game.
There's not a lot of necessarilystress in it because you can
play it solo or cooperatively and and there's no like sort of
try hard element to it. You know, you're not like
playing chess against someone who's really trying to destroy
you. And so my worry when I, when I
found it during like the pandemic, I think it came on
season 3 or so was, is this going to be like people really
(06:22):
kind of, you know, being super ultra competitive about it?
And it's, it's not that at all. It's this like really warm group
of people that are trying to help each other.
Even though there is as ostensively A leaderboard and,
you know, someone is winning andsomeone isn't, no one seems to
really care about the outcome inthe same way.
They, I think people care about the outcome in order to, you
know, quote, solve the puzzle orsucceed against this challenge,
(06:45):
but it's less about beating other people.
And so it just became this really friendly community.
And the, the thing that really was sticky for me was I was
playing a lot of those sort of polling games, the grandmaster
arena stuff of like what Kards people like and heroes people
like. And it just, it just was a fun
chatter to be a part of you. Just it was like a little treat
to get on the server every day and see how people were, were
(07:07):
having fun with stuff or, you know, having mild debates about
kards and things like that. So it just that sort of like
super friendly community Trump'severything else.
The game is great. The game is fun, but it's that
it's that group of folks that I think make it really special.
Right. And then, So what do you think
you're going to miss then? I think it is that, I mean, I
(07:28):
think there's a bit there's elements of the gameplay itself
that'll be sort of, you know, missing, you know, like opening
the the PDF of how people did and kind of like looking back,
you know, seeing what you could have done better playing with
that stuff. That stuff's good, but I think
that potentially versions of that can be played by playing
challenges online or something like that.
But but yeah, I think it is justhaving that's a little more
(07:49):
regular kind of place to go to online that will be that will
be, you know pretty, pretty wellmissed.
Yeah, I hear you. I hear you, Condo.
What about you? Yeah, so that makes it special
to me. But I'd say this is a very
modular game as we all know. And I just think it was great to
have this sort of fresh approachto the game.
(08:11):
It's like another layer of modularity.
Everyone's doing the same thing,everyone's looking at the same
challenge and how to overcome it.
And I'm definitely going to missthe sort of shared camaraderie
over tackling the same situation.
It's, it's been a super welcoming community.
You can ask questions, No one says you're wrong or puts you
(08:33):
down. It's it's very positive and
welcoming and the times I was playing, which hasn't been
lately, it's been a lot of fun to participate, theorize, and
then discuss what happened at the end of the.
Round, yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, there's
another funny thing is the way that it's really distorted for a
(08:56):
lot of us how we play the game. Right, yeah, it was we we were
talking like the sort of muscle in you you've developed to like
get a clean board and not like the the first made scheme flip
and and all those elements. It's just funny when you realize
you don't actually have to do that.
The rules don't have anything toto do with that.
(09:16):
But it seems like I've added that in my mental rules on top
of the game. Well, and some of the campaigns
really reinforce that, right? The Sinister Motives 1 as an
example feels like really. Usually a bad thing does happen.
Yeah, yeah. The game doesn't let me say, oh,
you're on the second main schemenow, that's fine.
(09:37):
Well, I, I mean an interesting thing, and we've seen this from,
you know, Tony as one of the newdesigners.
But I think the Frank, one of the other new designers also
talked about, you know, kind of the the notion that an untapped
part of the game is the narrative that going through the
main schemes offers and how that's kind of a bit of an
(09:58):
unexplored overall and unexplored Ave. for the for the
game. Because there's not many
villains that it the main schemes tell like a story.
It's just what's it Hella and Apocalypse is it off the top of
my head. Yeah, like escape the museums
kind of like that too, like where the schemes like actually
(10:20):
kind of build on each other and tell stories.
Yeah, and I mean even, you know,some of the other ones you know,
from I guess from next evolution, something like Morloc
Siege where or even Sabretooth in the previous one were were
(10:41):
ones where, you know, there was something that happened and then
there wasn't a change in game state that also took you to the
second main scheme. Like it wasn't, you know, often
it would be that the going to the second main scheme would
either kind of drag you along with the change of state or you
would have some sort of control and because you did something,
(11:01):
it flipped over to this kind of main scheme.
So that that kind of narrative part of the game as well.
Not not even necessarily a story, but it could be a story,
but just kind of that there's these more like Hella in a way
where there's these just different pieces as well.
You're in this state, and now you're in this new state.
Yeah, it's funny. I know we're talking more about
champions than SCL, but the one thing is coming over from an
(11:23):
Arkham player that I did miss, even though I think trapping to
so many other positives over Arkham is the like you advance
into Arkham by like hitting goals, like you hit a positive
goal and that pushes you to the next, you know, beat of the
story or or thing coming through.
Sometimes it is a negative thingthat happens, but but it's like
you want to get to the end by accomplishing things as opposed
(11:44):
to in champions. It's almost like it's just keep
holding on until until you can finally sort of overcome the
challenge. Maybe Gondo, I'll directs at
you. I'm wondering is, you know, is
there anything where you have felt especially grateful to be
involved in the league? Yeah, I'd say at least very
(12:06):
early on in my time in the league, I would say, I'll say a
much worse Marvel Champions player.
And I I think tackling these challenges with other people
helped me advance a lot in both my deck building and
understanding of the game. And I think without that,
perhaps I wouldn't enjoy the game outside of the league as
(12:27):
much as I do today. Right, right, Greg.
Yeah. I mean, I will go back to the
con this year being this idea where you sort of don't realize
that you actually have been engaging with so many of these
folks for for so long and you sort of had this, you know,
loose friend group that that youdidn't realize you had, you
(12:48):
know, after a while. So I, I, I really, that is very
grateful for. I also feel like it's fun now
that everyone, a lot of people have done kind of spin off
things, right. So obviously, you know, Josh,
you're doing MODOK. You know, Astridar has his blog,
which I really like. I, I, I see and hear a lot of
those folks on other YouTube videos or podcasts around.
(13:10):
And so it is kind of fun to see SCLR is kind of in the wider
Champions community that's out there.
And it just gives you a lot moreconnection to the bigger
community, even even though I don't really spend a ton of time
on that main Marvel Champions Discord.
But you just sort of feel the presence of a lot of those folks
everywhere, which is great. Yeah, 'cause you guys are both
season 2 starters, right? Just like Main.
(13:32):
I'm a three. I'm three also, yeah.
Oh, OK. I forget who else was Season 2,
but yeah, I mean Season 3, that was almost five years ago now,
same as Season 2, because I remember sort of thinking about
it for the first time, like right after a vacation in, I
want to say, like August, September of 2020.
(13:52):
So it's been some time now. So in some sort of abstract way,
I've known you guys for quite some time, right?
Right. Yeah, I love that I what this is
kind of somewhat related to Gondo, what you were saying.
(14:13):
But I, I feel that solo Champions League was the reason
I got to kind of know the card pool and actually engage with
the game a lot more because the,you know, the challenges had set
difficulties and I had to figureout how to kind of rise to the
occasion as opposed to just kindof put something together and
play it against some random scenario.
(14:35):
Yeah, I could do different ways to think about the challenge and
the scenarios your your your available tools and how they
work with your hero specifically.
Well, and I'm, I'm just competitive enough that that
being put in that situation kindof causes me to want to try to
do my best or at least do the wackiest version of what I can
(14:56):
do. You know, those are kind of the
two options. Either try to perform well or
just try to build the weirdest, wonkiest decks that somehow
still make things work. So solo Champions League kind of
hit my competitive part as opposed to the the wonky deck
building part. But but still, you know, really
made me pay attention to that deck, to the card pool.
Yeah, it's, it's so funny. I was thinking about when I
(15:18):
joined too, and I think it was, I was, it was probably kind of
right before the Guardians wave came out.
And you know, So what we had about 10 heroes and 10 scenarios
at that point. And it's like, oh, I gotta get,
there's so much content. I gotta get used like more use
that. And I just reorganized my entire
collection and I was like, Oh myGod, we're hitting like 4550
heroes now. And like huge boxes of cards.
(15:40):
So I feel like the, the, the league has really helped me
internalize sort of game playingrules, But I, I don't feel at
all like I've internalized the whole collection.
Like you, even you even put out on this recent round a card, you
know, that you're suggesting from for a deck I put together
and I was like, I, I forgot thatcard existed.
I I must have it somewhere, but I didn't even know that card was
around. Yeah, that I, I find actually
(16:04):
that's, you know, I know lots offolks and Greg, you were one of
the folks who said you kind of like to start building with
physical cards first. I like to build on Marvel CDB
for kind of that exact reason that you're talking about, where
like, OK, well, let me have a more careful look at protection
events. Yeah, in a way that if,
especially if I have some decks built or whatever, I might
(16:26):
overlook stuff. Yeah, It's also just kind of
funny to get to use more of yourcollection because different
cards have different values in solo Champions League.
Like I know there's probably uncountable times where I've
used the card Last Stand, it's aleadership card where your ally
gets plus three attack for the attack and then gets discarded.
(16:46):
I would. I almost never use that in my
actual plays, but just because of the funny way solo Champions
League works, it's an extremely efficient card if you're going
to finish off the game with that.
And yeah, it's just different value set, so it kind of pushes
you to different areas of your collection.
Yeah, 1 So I've been listening more for the The Winning Hand
(17:09):
podcast guys, and they always talk about how like there's no
like real bad cards. There's just all situations for
every card and things like that.And I've really come around to
that. It's funny because my first like
thing I did on the server was you know, like rating which are
the worst cards in the league, you know, like tenacity and
invulnerable and those kind of cards.
But to your point Josh, like having the ability to kind of
(17:30):
just push yourself and like whatif I do a weirdo deck or what if
I do a weird deck to this weird scenario?
Building on on Marvel CBDI thinkis something I am starting to do
more often just just for that reason, just to be able to
search on options. Yeah, well, and, and figuring
out, you know, all the cards that have a certain trait and
all those other little pieces, Ijust find it's it, it makes it
(17:52):
so much easier. But but there is a real appeal
to kind of grabbing the physicalpile of cards, putting them all
together and then going through and really thinking about, OK,
what are the things that feel like the essential building
blocks for this deck? Yeah, yeah, I much prefer
playing with cards. I I have a little side table in
my office and so if I have like 5 minutes between meetings, I
(18:14):
can play like a hand and it's kind of fun just to touch.
Touching cards is such a sensorywonderful thing.
Right. But you put them in little card
condoms, so you're not really touching them, right?
That's true. That's true.
And recently, it's the first time it happened.
I did spill water on my on my game and so I was vindicated.
(18:34):
At one time I protected my boys.Uh huh.
Good. Good for you.
So Greg, while I have you, is there, is there a kind of a
standout Internet game round result, anything that really
stands out to you from the time that you've been in the league?
I have a memory of a goldfish interms of the games themselves.
(18:57):
I almost remember the couple losses, you know, the, the sort
of losses I didn't expect. I remember like round two at a
Black Widow game that I just gotlike unlucky and lost and like,
that's the stuff I remember. Then some like wonderful
victory. But I think the one thing I will
remember is I've been doing these these Grandmaster Arena
contests of different things, and those games are always
really fun. You know, that like we did the
(19:20):
draft here in the podcast and other things like that.
And it was funny, the very firstone I had for some reason, I
just thought we're going to do this contest just so we can all
see how tenacity is the worst card in the league because it is
just awful card And and it it lost to invulnerable, which I
get, but I still, that still stings a little bit that my, my,
(19:40):
my, my axe to grind. For some reason.
I just really didn't like that card.
And of course, now I need to have a more open mind again from
winning hand. I you know, I have to see like,
is there a role for tenacity somewhere?
I bet there is in some certain situations.
I need to kind of maybe, maybe change my, my attitude towards
it. But but yeah, it's usually those
those little moments where were mostly like either just.
(20:03):
Things that were were happening on the side in the league in
addition to the games themselves, because it was that,
you know, that that rounded out the community.
Well, that, yeah. And that was kind of one of your
big contributions to the community building was really
keeping those things going that for people who enjoyed being
engaged, had this excuse to be engaged on a daily level, even
(20:23):
if there wasn't a lot of chatterhappening about the specific
round. Yeah, for sure.
And I, I, I feel bad because I've sort of dropped the ball in
the past year or so keeping thatstuff going, but, you know,
because of all of our respectivelives.
But yeah, that was something that was, it was definitely fun
for me. Just it gave me like a reason to
jump on every morning and post for 5 minutes and, you know,
(20:45):
have a little thing going for the, you know, just to have a
role in the community was super fun too.
And to learn the whole emoji set.
Emojis were my biggest contribution was just making
sure I had a fun emoji related to whatever card we were talking
about. That was always great.
Gondo, how about you? Anything that stood out as kind
(21:07):
of a single thing that really sticks with you, well.
First off, in defense of tenacity, I've used it for one
one round kill decks before as ajoke, but never used tenacity.
I never used invulnerability in any sort of meaningful capacity
to actually answer the question.Send out game, run the result.
(21:28):
I sort of like the little cultivation.
I don't know if anyone else paidattention to it, but I just
really like protection and I think it's a fun aspect and I I
feel like one round I enjoyed what I did with it.
Looking back it was season 13. Round two, it was a sinister 6
and down to earth using ghost spider.
(21:51):
You're actually allowed to crossaspect thanks to some of the
rules of the sinister motives campaign box.
And I ended up farming those common criminals.
I, I chose my off aspect as bring it and I pinned down all
those common criminals. So they were basically doing
nothing and I was just drawing aton of cards.
And then I used, what's his name?
(22:12):
Spider UK. To.
To continually or just to finishthem all off at the end of the
game. I thought that was a fun and
creative deck. And I I think it was probably
one of the most solo Champions League rounds I've had where you
just look for these interesting little combos and do something
interesting. And it was a lot of fun to have
(22:34):
at work as maybe a secondary that infamous Nebula round.
I, I, I, I spent hours optimizing my aggression
protection Spider Woman deck to deal an insane amount of damage
in just two or three rounds to try and defeat Nebula before she
could invariable invariably defeat me.
(22:54):
And I got 2 out of 3. And I was really pleased by
that. Very proud of yourself, yeah.
So those are the the two rounds I probably think most in
thinking about the solo Champions League, at least from
my experience. It's it's interesting.
I mean, I mean, this is everybody obviously in in the
league or not in the league, butsorry, in the community of the
(23:17):
game kind of experienced the thearc that has been protection,
but as a solo aspect, it was a pretty tricky aspect to get to
work very well early on there. You know, there's definitely
lots of folks in the community Ithink that really, really liked
protection, but really feels like protection kind of came
(23:37):
into its own as a thing that is really viable and has a bunch of
different interesting directionsto go.
So I don't know, Gondo, how's that kind of felt to you as a,
you know, solo Champions League player who might be looking
forward to playing protection and just feeling like it got
better and better and better? It's been great.
So I've always just found it kind of an interesting aspect.
It was kind of the one I like the most to start and I've
(24:01):
continued to like a lot just I guess it kind of feels heroic,
if you will, just like you beingthis big unstoppable hero that
takes no damage and fights rightback at the villain.
I, I, I found it extremely thematic to the spirit of the
game where it's a hero versus a villain.
And I, I felt like the hero itself is the most powerful in
(24:25):
protection and you could perhapsargue aggression just slugging
it out, but I feel like I probably like those two aspects
most. And for those of you who keep
track, I'm a data nerd and I've tracked every single game of
Marvel champions I've ever played.
And protection is my highest winning single aspect.
(24:47):
There's some other like niche combos from other heroes that
have higher win rates, such as acouple combinations of spider
Woman. But as far as solo aspects,
protection, I still find myself with the highest win rate by
about 4% over leadership. So it's an aspect I like.
(25:07):
It's been successful for me and I just had a lot of fun doing
it. Love it.
It is. To to your point, though, it's
the productions evolved a lot from, you know, early on it felt
like it was that thing where you're playing the long turn and
you didn't have a lot to do during your own hero turn.
And, and that loop wasn't exciting to me, but I I had, I
brought a bunch of protection decks to kind of heroes because
(25:30):
of all the readies it has and and Tufts and things like that.
So you're playing more on the hero turn, but you can do so
much. Like I had a spider pig like
ready heavy deck that was just super fun to play.
So yeah, I'm I'm much more of a fan of protection now.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things it definitely did was really
leaned into the readying more. And so as we saw more and more
(25:50):
heroes that benefit a lot from readies, they're just, we got
all those great synergies, right.
But but then there's just, thereended up being a lot of
different interesting things youcan do.
And you know, web warriors really leaned in to protection
well and, and other stuff like that, right?
That's I think that's maybe where I started coming around to
protection the most was during Web Warriors.
(26:11):
Yep. Yeah, There was also there of me
just taking web warrior protection, no matter who it was
into the rounds, which is an interesting thought experiment
that was actually usually prettysuccessful.
And heroes that can do a lot on the villain turn, like, you
know, Shadowcad and Ghost Spiderand stuff like that, like those
are also fun to play, you know, Nightcrawl or two.
(26:34):
Like there's just some fun synergies on those heroes that
kind of lean into that villain phase.
Since they have been intentionally designing heroes
that do a bit of that, they alsoare making sure that you're not
completely robbed of your hero turn as well.
Yeah. I think Ghost Spider really, you
know that that for me, that was the first one that felt that way
where I can do a bunch of stuff and then I can still do some
(26:56):
stuff on my hero turn. Right.
Yeah, exactly. And the card rules.
Yeah, it kind of feels like, yeah, it kind of feels like
you're you're playing the game more in, in that way, even
though it's it's solo game and you're the only one playing the
whole time. It feels like you're playing
more when you're playing in bothphases, or you're playing your
hero on both phases. Yeah.
Well, I mean, getting to react to the villain is is it's
(27:19):
wonderful. I think it's just kind of that,
like Greg was saying that the early version of protection
where when you would do that, you would then often have
nothing to really do on your actual turn.
That was the that was the trickier part for a lot of
people for protection, I think. Yeah, definitely.
It's Gondo. Do you have any kind of special
(27:42):
inside jokes or memes that make you laugh?
Yeah, yeah, there is that era ofa couple seasons where it was
sort of a joke that basic was the best aspect.
That's a really good one. Yeah, yeah, Basics kind of was
(28:04):
kind of always like choose your own adventure challenge option
when aspects were the choice rather than the heroes and only
the brave and the bold and the top Flyers in Flight 1, the
high, the high, the competent goand do really well with basic
(28:24):
and basic would show up as the best aspect.
I I just thought that was hilarious.
It's obviously selection bias, but it's hilarious selection
bias. Well, there was a there was the
wrinkle that there was also a basic Doctor Strange round that
wasn't a very challenging round that really skewed basics
performances as well. Yeah.
(28:45):
I think there was also a basic Captain America round.
So yeah, that a couple of very strong heroes with a quote, UN
quote aspect that is that is clearly superior to all the
others. Clearly, Greg, you were going to
add something. No, the I I think the the inside
joke that is maybe the most likesailing in my head is, is one
(29:09):
that I don't even know is an inside joke.
But this coming season we're playing scenarios where people
voted on the ones they want to bring back the most for this
last evening. And we brought back the
collector one from last last season.
The the the one encounter scenario that I never want to
play again. Yes, it is being forced on me as
(29:32):
a good SC Ellert in the last season to, to to encounter as
soon as next month. What's what's happening with
people? What, what kind of what kind of
what kind of craziness is being impoted on me?
Do you think that Edsmith Baer may have read his spreadsheet
wrong? Yes, I, I, no, I think, I think
there's a couple people who really want to just kind of, you
(29:52):
know, see the world burn. Who?
Yeah, on the way out. Yeah, exactly.
You just voted, voted for chaos.You know, we have a couple
jokers and and and not the not the Caesar Romero kind.
I also I I didn't even parse that.
That's so upset. Yeah, the the other thing was
(30:13):
just, I don't remember a specific joke, which is a a
great, a great lesson of podcasting is not being
specific, but just the the ability to the, the the a lot of
the back and forth, a lot of theemoji game, I think is very
strong with the league and having of, of, of different
emojis and and gifts in different situation.
(30:34):
I quite enjoy doing myself and Iquite seeing other people do so.
Yeah, the, the, the fact that Discord has that stuff baked in
has always been very exciting tome.
Yeah, to me it is interesting how baked in it is because I was
even looking at, you know, beingable to give people specific
(30:54):
roles that they opt into. And you know what the main
mechanism for that is? You know, certain bots that when
you use a specific reaction, youget given an A specific role.
You know, a specific reaction toa specific post, you get given a
specific role, right. Like it's stove baked in.
Yeah, yeah, I also do like how because you know, we're we're
also referencing a lot of Marvelpeople.
(31:16):
You know, if you want to respondwith a Marvel jiff of some kind,
you have MCU stuff and you have but you also have like weird
60s, you know, like I did the Spider Woman one recently and it
was from like the weird, you know, like 70s cartoon that no
one remembers. But it looks like Spider Woman.
It's kind of perfect costume. So yeah, you you just have a lot
(31:36):
of options, more than you think when you want to play in the
Marvel land. Roger Corman, Fantastic Four is
probably the best one if you canpull those out.
You know, those are, you know, where, where Mr. Fantastic has
to stretch beyond a sofa becausethey, they didn't have the money
to show the stretching thing. So you just have the actor put
(32:00):
his hand behind the sofa and then you see like a puppet hand
go out behind the sofa to say that he's stretching.
Like that's the stuff that's that's that's a plus.
Makes legends thank you both forfor jumping on here.
Let's let's take a moment for some parting thoughts here.
So Greg, you know, any, any final thoughts, anything last
(32:24):
that you'd like to share? Just thanks to Intermouth mayor
for doing it. I really appreciate it.
He he put me in his alliance. So I always thought that was
fun. And again, it's always been just
a pleasure to chat with him and and and see all the stuff he's
doing. It's also been great to to do
the podcast with you and Gondo. So that's just been awesome.
So thanks fellas. Hope it's hope it's Au revoir
(32:46):
instead of goodbye. Is that or Aloha instead of
goodbye? I don't know what the phrase is.
You know what I mean? The beautiful, beautiful
sentiment Gondo, how about you? Stole my sentiment.
I was just going to say thanks to In the Affair for putting
this together for so long. I imagine it can't have been
easy to run this Discord and League for so long.
(33:09):
And really appreciative, appreciative of all the work you
put into it. And yeah, thanks to Josh for
inviting me and Greg to do this podcast.
It's it's also been a lot of funto just talk more and more about
Marvel Champions. Here, here Tavoltia. 20 more
years. Yeah, thanks.
Thanks again. And we'll figure out, we'll
figure out other ways to continue chatting.
(33:31):
Yeah. Good.
Whether there's some sort of reincarnation of solo Champions
League or y'all y'all come and hang out more in Modoc League or
whatever it is, we'll we'll do it.
I'm playing like, like I'm playing Modoc for the first time
in Season 3.5 and I'm, I'm starting at the easiest and I'm
working my way up and I'm, I'm 3for three.
(33:51):
And so just based on the stats, like I said, I, I'm, I'm just
never going to lose because I clearly had a loss.
I like you. I like, I like your chances.
Aspiration of playing season 2 and it just didn't happen at
all. Yeah, well, the I mean
conversation for another day, but I have I've been
implementing a bunch of new onesthat make it much easier just to
(34:11):
drop in and have some fun. Yeah, that's my, that's my,
that's my speed. Yeah, yeah, some, some lower
commitment modes so that that hopefully will bring in some
more folks and maybe we'll, you know, advertise a little more
strongly in solo Champions League as it winds down further.
Cool. That's great.
Thanks for inviting me to Yeah, thanks for inviting me us on the
(34:33):
podcast in one last time. Or maybe.
Always it was delightful to get to know you and I've now that
I've got a chance to meet Greg, I've only got to now meet one of
two of you. Soon.
Yeah, soon, Soon indeed. 10 months.
(34:55):
All right. Thank you both.
Thank you and. Thank you, Jess.
Hey, hey friendos, welcome to the Road to Nowhere Marvel
Champions. LCG.
Podcast Today we are going to celebrate solo Champions League.
Recently the league commissioner, Innsmith Baer
announced that this season, season 20, would be the final
season of the league. You know, knowing how much joy
(00:29):
and meaning the league has brought to the friends that I've
made through doing this podcast,I invited many of them back to
share with me in a celebration of solo Champions League.
These conversations have tended to range from about 30 minutes
to an hour, so I'm releasing each conversation as its own
episode. First up I'm joined by Gondo and
(00:50):
Greg who win fake Internet points for having joined me as a
Co host pair the most times. Joining us are Gondo.
Gondo, it's been ages. Yes, it has been ages.
We'll, we'll catch up in here a little bit about what's been
going on with you and Greg. Greg, how are you?
(01:11):
We're great. We're back.
Gondo and Greg are back in the podcast.
We're going to be doing this forthe next 20 years.
It's never going to stop Rick and Morty forever.
Yeah, yeah, I have some disappointing news for you.
What are you saying? Right what?
Yeah. So I think you 2 are the most
heavily frequented guest pair. Yes, what we want.
(01:35):
That actually surprises me, given how inactive I've been.
Well, I've also been pretty inactive in recording, so you
haven't fallen behind. Oh, OK.
I just want to win that car. The cars are the most important
thing. I'm just desperate to win that.
Yeah, it's, it's a free Tim horton's coffee that you win.
Oh. Honestly, it's pretty good too.
(01:58):
Unfortunately not redeemable in the United States.
Unfortunately not redeemable. United.
States $500 plane ticket just toget that cup of coffee.
I'll, I'll do it. Even if the parent company is
Burger King. Oh wow.
Yeah, they're, they, they boughtthem out.
I can't remember how many years ago, but the style of dots that
were offered at Tim Horton's changed dramatically after that.
(02:18):
I forgot about that. You're shattering all, all these
preconceptions I have. It's my whole world falling
apart. Good to hear both your voices,
Greg. We got to actually meet in
person at Con of Heroes and thatwas absolutely delightful.
So delightful, so great. My first con, I loved it.
(02:38):
Not your first actual con, but your first con of heroes.
First con of heroes yes I've I got to play champions at Gen.
Con a few times, but but but yeah, this is the first
intensive, you know, 20 plus game weekend, so really fun.
Yeah, it was, it was, it was awesome.
And you know, kind of like a lotof the other solo Champions
League folks around there, therewas a tendency to play, try to
(03:01):
play lots of games with other solo Champions League folks.
And that was awesome to kind of get to see people and you know,
folks now that was my third time.
So I got to see a bunch of people for the they're up to
third time, which was was awesome.
Right, it feels like it's starting to become like adult
summer camp, right? It's like you have your camp
(03:22):
friends and you go and it's likeyou get to see them once a year.
It, it had that vibe and I was, it got me excited to go back.
So I'm I'm definitely going to try to go back.
Me too. Me too, and.
I would like to go for a first time someday.
Yes. And then so I was going to say,
Gondo, what's been keeping you busy?
Well, instead of going to the con the same day, I decided it
(03:46):
would be a good idea to run 28 times around the lake that was a
two mile loop. For fun.
I chose that. And you've had previous running
conflicts with the con as well, haven't you?
Yeah, I forgot to other one was I want to say it was even.
An allergic reaction. Yes, right, I did.
(04:08):
That was the year before. Oh goodness, all the time.
It's almost like, you know, likethe Final Destination movies
where you know, all the fates are trying to keep you away from
something or trying to kill you in the case of those movies.
But it feels like we're there's a lot of factors that are really
keeping goddamn eye away, but they can be overcome.
You can get there something. I I think it might be possible
(04:31):
next year. I say that now, right?
I love it. I will.
I will be very excited for that to be true.
And you can all learn what I look like, so I don't believe
I've shared it before. And I know this is going to
relate to some of the, the Q&A we're going to talk about, but
it, it the, the, when you come by yourself, I mean, I think it
is a little anxiety producing because you have that kind of
(04:53):
like, I don't know, people, I know everyone's supposed to be
pretty nice, but it, you just have that sort of social
anxiety. And it was just so great to
have, you know, 10 to 12 people from SCL there who you kind of
knew from servers and were really willing to grab games
and, and play a lot of, and I'd some, I pretty much every
interaction with anyone on the server was super friendly and
(05:14):
fun. And it just made, yeah, like I
was kind of anxious the first day or day ish.
But then by the end, it was, it felt like, oh, summer camp, I'll
come back next year, you know, had that, had that vibe.
And it's a kind of growth of network as well, right?
Because you're getting inevitably introduced to new
people that by people that already know you.
Yeah, exactly, exactly. So it it just keeps, it just
(05:36):
keeps become becoming more fun I'm sure every year.
Well, so Greg, let's let's startwith you.
Well, you want to tell us maybe kind of what makes SCL special
for you and you know what you miss about the league.
Yeah, I think the thing that I've always really appreciated
about SCL is that it, you know, I think the reason Champions is
(05:59):
a fun game for me is it's kind of this fun breezy game.
There's not a lot of necessarilystress in it because you can
play it solo or cooperatively and and there's no like sort of
try hard element to it. You know, you're not like
playing chess against someone who's really trying to destroy
you. And so my worry when I, when I
found it during like the pandemic, I think it came on
season 3 or so was, is this going to be like people really
(06:22):
kind of, you know, being super ultra competitive about it?
And it's, it's not that at all. It's this like really warm group
of people that are trying to help each other.
Even though there is as ostensively A leaderboard and,
you know, someone is winning andsomeone isn't, no one seems to
really care about the outcome inthe same way.
They, I think people care about the outcome in order to, you
know, quote, solve the puzzle orsucceed against this challenge,
(06:45):
but it's less about beating other people.
And so it just became this really friendly community.
And the, the thing that really was sticky for me was I was
playing a lot of those sort of polling games, the grandmaster
arena stuff of like what Kards people like and heroes people
like. And it just, it just was a fun
chatter to be a part of you. Just it was like a little treat
to get on the server every day and see how people were, were
(07:07):
having fun with stuff or, you know, having mild debates about
kards and things like that. So it just that sort of like
super friendly community Trump'severything else.
The game is great. The game is fun, but it's that
it's that group of folks that I think make it really special.
Right. And then, So what do you think
you're going to miss then? I think it is that, I mean, I
(07:28):
think there's a bit there's elements of the gameplay itself
that'll be sort of, you know, missing, you know, like opening
the the PDF of how people did and kind of like looking back,
you know, seeing what you could have done better playing with
that stuff. That stuff's good, but I think
that potentially versions of that can be played by playing
challenges online or something like that.
But but yeah, I think it is justhaving that's a little more
(07:49):
regular kind of place to go to online that will be that will
be, you know pretty, pretty wellmissed.
Yeah, I hear you. I hear you, Condo.
What about you? Yeah, so that makes it special
to me. But I'd say this is a very
modular game as we all know. And I just think it was great to
have this sort of fresh approachto the game.
(08:11):
It's like another layer of modularity.
Everyone's doing the same thing,everyone's looking at the same
challenge and how to overcome it.
And I'm definitely going to missthe sort of shared camaraderie
over tackling the same situation.
It's, it's been a super welcoming community.
You can ask questions, No one says you're wrong or puts you
(08:33):
down. It's it's very positive and
welcoming and the times I was playing, which hasn't been
lately, it's been a lot of fun to participate, theorize, and
then discuss what happened at the end of the.
Round, yeah, I love that. And I think, you know, there's
another funny thing is the way that it's really distorted for a
(08:56):
lot of us how we play the game. Right, yeah, it was we we were
talking like the sort of muscle in you you've developed to like
get a clean board and not like the the first made scheme flip
and and all those elements. It's just funny when you realize
you don't actually have to do that.
The rules don't have anything toto do with that.
(09:16):
But it seems like I've added that in my mental rules on top
of the game. Well, and some of the campaigns
really reinforce that, right? The Sinister Motives 1 as an
example feels like really. Usually a bad thing does happen.
Yeah, yeah. The game doesn't let me say, oh,
you're on the second main schemenow, that's fine.
(09:37):
Well, I, I mean an interesting thing, and we've seen this from,
you know, Tony as one of the newdesigners.
But I think the Frank, one of the other new designers also
talked about, you know, kind of the the notion that an untapped
part of the game is the narrative that going through the
main schemes offers and how that's kind of a bit of an
(09:58):
unexplored overall and unexplored Ave. for the for the
game. Because there's not many
villains that it the main schemes tell like a story.
It's just what's it Hella and Apocalypse is it off the top of
my head. Yeah, like escape the museums
kind of like that too, like where the schemes like actually
(10:20):
kind of build on each other and tell stories.
Yeah, and I mean even, you know,some of the other ones you know,
from I guess from next evolution, something like Morloc
Siege where or even Sabretooth in the previous one were were
(10:41):
ones where, you know, there was something that happened and then
there wasn't a change in game state that also took you to the
second main scheme. Like it wasn't, you know, often
it would be that the going to the second main scheme would
either kind of drag you along with the change of state or you
would have some sort of control and because you did something,
(11:01):
it flipped over to this kind of main scheme.
So that that kind of narrative part of the game as well.
Not not even necessarily a story, but it could be a story,
but just kind of that there's these more like Hella in a way
where there's these just different pieces as well.
You're in this state, and now you're in this new state.
Yeah, it's funny. I know we're talking more about
champions than SCL, but the one thing is coming over from an
(11:23):
Arkham player that I did miss, even though I think trapping to
so many other positives over Arkham is the like you advance
into Arkham by like hitting goals, like you hit a positive
goal and that pushes you to the next, you know, beat of the
story or or thing coming through.
Sometimes it is a negative thingthat happens, but but it's like
you want to get to the end by accomplishing things as opposed
(11:44):
to in champions. It's almost like it's just keep
holding on until until you can finally sort of overcome the
challenge. Maybe Gondo, I'll directs at
you. I'm wondering is, you know, is
there anything where you have felt especially grateful to be
involved in the league? Yeah, I'd say at least very
(12:06):
early on in my time in the league, I would say, I'll say a
much worse Marvel Champions player.
And I I think tackling these challenges with other people
helped me advance a lot in both my deck building and
understanding of the game. And I think without that,
perhaps I wouldn't enjoy the game outside of the league as
(12:27):
much as I do today. Right, right, Greg.
Yeah. I mean, I will go back to the
con this year being this idea where you sort of don't realize
that you actually have been engaging with so many of these
folks for for so long and you sort of had this, you know,
loose friend group that that youdidn't realize you had, you
(12:48):
know, after a while. So I, I, I really, that is very
grateful for. I also feel like it's fun now
that everyone, a lot of people have done kind of spin off
things, right. So obviously, you know, Josh,
you're doing MODOK. You know, Astridar has his blog,
which I really like. I, I, I see and hear a lot of
those folks on other YouTube videos or podcasts around.
(13:10):
And so it is kind of fun to see SCLR is kind of in the wider
Champions community that's out there.
And it just gives you a lot moreconnection to the bigger
community, even even though I don't really spend a ton of time
on that main Marvel Champions Discord.
But you just sort of feel the presence of a lot of those folks
everywhere, which is great. Yeah, 'cause you guys are both
season 2 starters, right? Just like Main.
(13:32):
I'm a three. I'm three also, yeah.
Oh, OK. I forget who else was Season 2,
but yeah, I mean Season 3, that was almost five years ago now,
same as Season 2, because I remember sort of thinking about
it for the first time, like right after a vacation in, I
want to say, like August, September of 2020.
(13:52):
So it's been some time now. So in some sort of abstract way,
I've known you guys for quite some time, right?
Right. Yeah, I love that I what this is
kind of somewhat related to Gondo, what you were saying.
(14:13):
But I, I feel that solo Champions League was the reason
I got to kind of know the card pool and actually engage with
the game a lot more because the,you know, the challenges had set
difficulties and I had to figureout how to kind of rise to the
occasion as opposed to just kindof put something together and
play it against some random scenario.
(14:35):
Yeah, I could do different ways to think about the challenge and
the scenarios your your your available tools and how they
work with your hero specifically.
Well, and I'm, I'm just competitive enough that that
being put in that situation kindof causes me to want to try to
do my best or at least do the wackiest version of what I can
(14:56):
do. You know, those are kind of the
two options. Either try to perform well or
just try to build the weirdest, wonkiest decks that somehow
still make things work. So solo Champions League kind of
hit my competitive part as opposed to the the wonky deck
building part. But but still, you know, really
made me pay attention to that deck, to the card pool.
Yeah, it's, it's so funny. I was thinking about when I
(15:18):
joined too, and I think it was, I was, it was probably kind of
right before the Guardians wave came out.
And you know, So what we had about 10 heroes and 10 scenarios
at that point. And it's like, oh, I gotta get,
there's so much content. I gotta get used like more use
that. And I just reorganized my entire
collection and I was like, Oh myGod, we're hitting like 4550
heroes now. And like huge boxes of cards.
(15:40):
So I feel like the, the, the league has really helped me
internalize sort of game playingrules, But I, I don't feel at
all like I've internalized the whole collection.
Like you, even you even put out on this recent round a card, you
know, that you're suggesting from for a deck I put together
and I was like, I, I forgot thatcard existed.
I I must have it somewhere, but I didn't even know that card was
around. Yeah, that I, I find actually
(16:04):
that's, you know, I know lots offolks and Greg, you were one of
the folks who said you kind of like to start building with
physical cards first. I like to build on Marvel CDB
for kind of that exact reason that you're talking about, where
like, OK, well, let me have a more careful look at protection
events. Yeah, in a way that if,
especially if I have some decks built or whatever, I might
(16:26):
overlook stuff. Yeah, It's also just kind of
funny to get to use more of yourcollection because different
cards have different values in solo Champions League.
Like I know there's probably uncountable times where I've
used the card Last Stand, it's aleadership card where your ally
gets plus three attack for the attack and then gets discarded.
(16:46):
I would. I almost never use that in my
actual plays, but just because of the funny way solo Champions
League works, it's an extremely efficient card if you're going
to finish off the game with that.
And yeah, it's just different value set, so it kind of pushes
you to different areas of your collection.
Yeah, 1 So I've been listening more for the The Winning Hand
(17:09):
podcast guys, and they always talk about how like there's no
like real bad cards. There's just all situations for
every card and things like that.And I've really come around to
that. It's funny because my first like
thing I did on the server was you know, like rating which are
the worst cards in the league, you know, like tenacity and
invulnerable and those kind of cards.
But to your point Josh, like having the ability to kind of
(17:30):
just push yourself and like whatif I do a weirdo deck or what if
I do a weird deck to this weird scenario?
Building on on Marvel CBDI thinkis something I am starting to do
more often just just for that reason, just to be able to
search on options. Yeah, well, and, and figuring
out, you know, all the cards that have a certain trait and
all those other little pieces, Ijust find it's it, it makes it
(17:52):
so much easier. But but there is a real appeal
to kind of grabbing the physicalpile of cards, putting them all
together and then going through and really thinking about, OK,
what are the things that feel like the essential building
blocks for this deck? Yeah, yeah, I much prefer
playing with cards. I I have a little side table in
my office and so if I have like 5 minutes between meetings, I
(18:14):
can play like a hand and it's kind of fun just to touch.
Touching cards is such a sensorywonderful thing.
Right. But you put them in little card
condoms, so you're not really touching them, right?
That's true. That's true.
And recently, it's the first time it happened.
I did spill water on my on my game and so I was vindicated.
(18:34):
At one time I protected my boys.Uh huh.
Good. Good for you.
So Greg, while I have you, is there, is there a kind of a
standout Internet game round result, anything that really
stands out to you from the time that you've been in the league?
I have a memory of a goldfish interms of the games themselves.
(18:57):
I almost remember the couple losses, you know, the, the sort
of losses I didn't expect. I remember like round two at a
Black Widow game that I just gotlike unlucky and lost and like,
that's the stuff I remember. Then some like wonderful
victory. But I think the one thing I will
remember is I've been doing these these Grandmaster Arena
contests of different things, and those games are always
really fun. You know, that like we did the
(19:20):
draft here in the podcast and other things like that.
And it was funny, the very firstone I had for some reason, I
just thought we're going to do this contest just so we can all
see how tenacity is the worst card in the league because it is
just awful card And and it it lost to invulnerable, which I
get, but I still, that still stings a little bit that my, my,
(19:40):
my, my axe to grind. For some reason.
I just really didn't like that card.
And of course, now I need to have a more open mind again from
winning hand. I you know, I have to see like,
is there a role for tenacity somewhere?
I bet there is in some certain situations.
I need to kind of maybe, maybe change my, my attitude towards
it. But but yeah, it's usually those
those little moments where were mostly like either just.
(20:03):
Things that were were happening on the side in the league in
addition to the games themselves, because it was that,
you know, that that rounded out the community.
Well, that, yeah. And that was kind of one of your
big contributions to the community building was really
keeping those things going that for people who enjoyed being
engaged, had this excuse to be engaged on a daily level, even
(20:23):
if there wasn't a lot of chatterhappening about the specific
round. Yeah, for sure.
And I, I, I feel bad because I've sort of dropped the ball in
the past year or so keeping thatstuff going, but, you know,
because of all of our respectivelives.
But yeah, that was something that was, it was definitely fun
for me. Just it gave me like a reason to
jump on every morning and post for 5 minutes and, you know,
(20:45):
have a little thing going for the, you know, just to have a
role in the community was super fun too.
And to learn the whole emoji set.
Emojis were my biggest contribution was just making
sure I had a fun emoji related to whatever card we were talking
about. That was always great.
Gondo, how about you? Anything that stood out as kind
(21:07):
of a single thing that really sticks with you, well.
First off, in defense of tenacity, I've used it for one
one round kill decks before as ajoke, but never used tenacity.
I never used invulnerability in any sort of meaningful capacity
to actually answer the question.Send out game, run the result.
(21:28):
I sort of like the little cultivation.
I don't know if anyone else paidattention to it, but I just
really like protection and I think it's a fun aspect and I I
feel like one round I enjoyed what I did with it.
Looking back it was season 13. Round two, it was a sinister 6
and down to earth using ghost spider.
(21:51):
You're actually allowed to crossaspect thanks to some of the
rules of the sinister motives campaign box.
And I ended up farming those common criminals.
I, I chose my off aspect as bring it and I pinned down all
those common criminals. So they were basically doing
nothing and I was just drawing aton of cards.
And then I used, what's his name?
(22:12):
Spider UK. To.
To continually or just to finishthem all off at the end of the
game. I thought that was a fun and
creative deck. And I I think it was probably
one of the most solo Champions League rounds I've had where you
just look for these interesting little combos and do something
interesting. And it was a lot of fun to have
(22:34):
at work as maybe a secondary that infamous Nebula round.
I, I, I, I spent hours optimizing my aggression
protection Spider Woman deck to deal an insane amount of damage
in just two or three rounds to try and defeat Nebula before she
could invariable invariably defeat me.
(22:54):
And I got 2 out of 3. And I was really pleased by
that. Very proud of yourself, yeah.
So those are the the two rounds I probably think most in
thinking about the solo Champions League, at least from
my experience. It's it's interesting.
I mean, I mean, this is everybody obviously in in the
league or not in the league, butsorry, in the community of the
(23:17):
game kind of experienced the thearc that has been protection,
but as a solo aspect, it was a pretty tricky aspect to get to
work very well early on there. You know, there's definitely
lots of folks in the community Ithink that really, really liked
protection, but really feels like protection kind of came
(23:37):
into its own as a thing that is really viable and has a bunch of
different interesting directionsto go.
So I don't know, Gondo, how's that kind of felt to you as a,
you know, solo Champions League player who might be looking
forward to playing protection and just feeling like it got
better and better and better? It's been great.
So I've always just found it kind of an interesting aspect.
It was kind of the one I like the most to start and I've
(24:01):
continued to like a lot just I guess it kind of feels heroic,
if you will, just like you beingthis big unstoppable hero that
takes no damage and fights rightback at the villain.
I, I, I found it extremely thematic to the spirit of the
game where it's a hero versus a villain.
And I, I felt like the hero itself is the most powerful in
(24:25):
protection and you could perhapsargue aggression just slugging
it out, but I feel like I probably like those two aspects
most. And for those of you who keep
track, I'm a data nerd and I've tracked every single game of
Marvel champions I've ever played.
And protection is my highest winning single aspect.
(24:47):
There's some other like niche combos from other heroes that
have higher win rates, such as acouple combinations of spider
Woman. But as far as solo aspects,
protection, I still find myself with the highest win rate by
about 4% over leadership. So it's an aspect I like.
(25:07):
It's been successful for me and I just had a lot of fun doing
it. Love it.
It is. To to your point, though, it's
the productions evolved a lot from, you know, early on it felt
like it was that thing where you're playing the long turn and
you didn't have a lot to do during your own hero turn.
And, and that loop wasn't exciting to me, but I I had, I
brought a bunch of protection decks to kind of heroes because
(25:30):
of all the readies it has and and Tufts and things like that.
So you're playing more on the hero turn, but you can do so
much. Like I had a spider pig like
ready heavy deck that was just super fun to play.
So yeah, I'm I'm much more of a fan of protection now.
Yeah, I mean, one of the things it definitely did was really
leaned into the readying more. And so as we saw more and more
(25:50):
heroes that benefit a lot from readies, they're just, we got
all those great synergies, right.
But but then there's just, thereended up being a lot of
different interesting things youcan do.
And you know, web warriors really leaned in to protection
well and, and other stuff like that, right?
That's I think that's maybe where I started coming around to
protection the most was during Web Warriors.
(26:11):
Yep. Yeah, There was also there of me
just taking web warrior protection, no matter who it was
into the rounds, which is an interesting thought experiment
that was actually usually prettysuccessful.
And heroes that can do a lot on the villain turn, like, you
know, Shadowcad and Ghost Spiderand stuff like that, like those
are also fun to play, you know, Nightcrawl or two.
(26:34):
Like there's just some fun synergies on those heroes that
kind of lean into that villain phase.
Since they have been intentionally designing heroes
that do a bit of that, they alsoare making sure that you're not
completely robbed of your hero turn as well.
Yeah. I think Ghost Spider really, you
know that that for me, that was the first one that felt that way
where I can do a bunch of stuff and then I can still do some
(26:56):
stuff on my hero turn. Right.
Yeah, exactly. And the card rules.
Yeah, it kind of feels like, yeah, it kind of feels like
you're you're playing the game more in, in that way, even
though it's it's solo game and you're the only one playing the
whole time. It feels like you're playing
more when you're playing in bothphases, or you're playing your
hero on both phases. Yeah.
Well, I mean, getting to react to the villain is is it's
(27:19):
wonderful. I think it's just kind of that,
like Greg was saying that the early version of protection
where when you would do that, you would then often have
nothing to really do on your actual turn.
That was the that was the trickier part for a lot of
people for protection, I think. Yeah, definitely.
It's Gondo. Do you have any kind of special
(27:42):
inside jokes or memes that make you laugh?
Yeah, yeah, there is that era ofa couple seasons where it was
sort of a joke that basic was the best aspect.
That's a really good one. Yeah, yeah, Basics kind of was
(28:04):
kind of always like choose your own adventure challenge option
when aspects were the choice rather than the heroes and only
the brave and the bold and the top Flyers in Flight 1, the
high, the high, the competent goand do really well with basic
(28:24):
and basic would show up as the best aspect.
I I just thought that was hilarious.
It's obviously selection bias, but it's hilarious selection
bias. Well, there was a there was the
wrinkle that there was also a basic Doctor Strange round that
wasn't a very challenging round that really skewed basics
performances as well. Yeah.
(28:45):
I think there was also a basic Captain America round.
So yeah, that a couple of very strong heroes with a quote, UN
quote aspect that is that is clearly superior to all the
others. Clearly, Greg, you were going to
add something. No, the I I think the the inside
joke that is maybe the most likesailing in my head is, is one
(29:09):
that I don't even know is an inside joke.
But this coming season we're playing scenarios where people
voted on the ones they want to bring back the most for this
last evening. And we brought back the
collector one from last last season.
The the the one encounter scenario that I never want to
play again. Yes, it is being forced on me as
(29:32):
a good SC Ellert in the last season to, to to encounter as
soon as next month. What's what's happening with
people? What, what kind of what kind of
what kind of craziness is being impoted on me?
Do you think that Edsmith Baer may have read his spreadsheet
wrong? Yes, I, I, no, I think, I think
there's a couple people who really want to just kind of, you
(29:52):
know, see the world burn. Who?
Yeah, on the way out. Yeah, exactly.
You just voted, voted for chaos.You know, we have a couple
jokers and and and not the not the Caesar Romero kind.
I also I I didn't even parse that.
That's so upset. Yeah, the the other thing was
(30:13):
just, I don't remember a specific joke, which is a a
great, a great lesson of podcasting is not being
specific, but just the the ability to the, the the a lot of
the back and forth, a lot of theemoji game, I think is very
strong with the league and having of, of, of different
emojis and and gifts in different situation.
(30:34):
I quite enjoy doing myself and Iquite seeing other people do so.
Yeah, the, the, the fact that Discord has that stuff baked in
has always been very exciting tome.
Yeah, to me it is interesting how baked in it is because I was
even looking at, you know, beingable to give people specific
(30:54):
roles that they opt into. And you know what the main
mechanism for that is? You know, certain bots that when
you use a specific reaction, youget given an A specific role.
You know, a specific reaction toa specific post, you get given a
specific role, right. Like it's stove baked in.
Yeah, yeah, I also do like how because you know, we're we're
also referencing a lot of Marvelpeople.
(31:16):
You know, if you want to respondwith a Marvel jiff of some kind,
you have MCU stuff and you have but you also have like weird
60s, you know, like I did the Spider Woman one recently and it
was from like the weird, you know, like 70s cartoon that no
one remembers. But it looks like Spider Woman.
It's kind of perfect costume. So yeah, you you just have a lot
(31:36):
of options, more than you think when you want to play in the
Marvel land. Roger Corman, Fantastic Four is
probably the best one if you canpull those out.
You know, those are, you know, where, where Mr. Fantastic has
to stretch beyond a sofa becausethey, they didn't have the money
to show the stretching thing. So you just have the actor put
(32:00):
his hand behind the sofa and then you see like a puppet hand
go out behind the sofa to say that he's stretching.
Like that's the stuff that's that's that's a plus.
Makes legends thank you both forfor jumping on here.
Let's let's take a moment for some parting thoughts here.
So Greg, you know, any, any final thoughts, anything last
(32:24):
that you'd like to share? Just thanks to Intermouth mayor
for doing it. I really appreciate it.
He he put me in his alliance. So I always thought that was
fun. And again, it's always been just
a pleasure to chat with him and and and see all the stuff he's
doing. It's also been great to to do
the podcast with you and Gondo. So that's just been awesome.
So thanks fellas. Hope it's hope it's Au revoir
(32:46):
instead of goodbye. Is that or Aloha instead of
goodbye? I don't know what the phrase is.
You know what I mean? The beautiful, beautiful
sentiment Gondo, how about you? Stole my sentiment.
I was just going to say thanks to In the Affair for putting
this together for so long. I imagine it can't have been
easy to run this Discord and League for so long.
(33:09):
And really appreciative, appreciative of all the work you
put into it. And yeah, thanks to Josh for
inviting me and Greg to do this podcast.
It's it's also been a lot of funto just talk more and more about
Marvel Champions. Here, here Tavoltia. 20 more
years. Yeah, thanks.
Thanks again. And we'll figure out, we'll
figure out other ways to continue chatting.
(33:31):
Yeah. Good.
Whether there's some sort of reincarnation of solo Champions
League or y'all y'all come and hang out more in Modoc League or
whatever it is, we'll we'll do it.
I'm playing like, like I'm playing Modoc for the first time
in Season 3.5 and I'm, I'm starting at the easiest and I'm
working my way up and I'm, I'm 3for three.
(33:51):
And so just based on the stats, like I said, I, I'm, I'm just
never going to lose because I clearly had a loss.
I like you. I like, I like your chances.
Aspiration of playing season 2 and it just didn't happen at
all. Yeah, well, the I mean
conversation for another day, but I have I've been
implementing a bunch of new onesthat make it much easier just to
(34:11):
drop in and have some fun. Yeah, that's my, that's my,
that's my speed. Yeah, yeah, some, some lower
commitment modes so that that hopefully will bring in some
more folks and maybe we'll, you know, advertise a little more
strongly in solo Champions League as it winds down further.
Cool. That's great.
Thanks for inviting me to Yeah, thanks for inviting me us on the
(34:33):
podcast in one last time. Or maybe.
Always it was delightful to get to know you and I've now that
I've got a chance to meet Greg, I've only got to now meet one of
two of you. Soon.
Yeah, soon, Soon indeed. 10 months.
(34:55):
All right. Thank you both.
Thank you and. Thank you, Jess.
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