August 9, 2025 • 41 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.
For the fourth episode in the series, we are joined by long-time league vet Dristin and a much newer face in the league, Vjakson - Brian.
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.github.io/
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:08):
Hey hey friendos, welcome to theRoad to Nowhere, a 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 league.
You know, knowing how much joy and meaning the league has
(00:30):
brought to the friends that I'vemade 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.
And joining us now, we have Tristan.
(00:52):
Tristan, hello. Welcome back.
For having me, I appreciate being on again, It's always fun.
Yeah, always good to hear from you and also V Jackson.
Brian, how are you? I am great.
Thank you for having me. Always fun to talk about Marvel
Champions. Oh, it is such a pleasure.
What a what a venue I have to tobe able to do so.
(01:12):
So yeah, I wanted to check in with you too.
It's gonna we'll you know, as the audience will learn you 2
have kind of very different histories with with the league.
So it'll be fun to hear a littlebit about how each of you got
involved and your time in the league.
So maybe let's start with kind of the first question is, you
know, do you remember your firstseason in the league?
(01:35):
What stood out to you? Tristan, I think we figured out
something special. So we can we can let everybody
know about that. You've been involved with the
league for a really long time. Yeah, since since season 2, I
missed season 1 by just a littlebit because back then the the
rounds were pretty fast. I think like a week long was the
rounds. So we were going pretty fast
(01:55):
back then, but I am just shy of 1000 XP.
The only person that has more than me is Inmouth Bear, so I'm
hoping I'll cross that thresholdwith this final season.
Be kind of a cool benchmark to have is like I.
So that's 1092 is Inmouth Bear. You are 987, so you'll
(02:20):
definitely make it there this season, unless you suffer some
weird injury or something. Some Marvel Champions related
injury, yeah. I won't be able to shuffle my
debt, so I can't. That's right.
That's right. And then T Everly is 958.
Yeah, two way too many paper cuts.
T Everly is coming in at 9:50. 8Yeah.
(02:41):
And I, I took a look back. I took a look back 'cause I,
it's been almost five years since I joined the league.
I don't even remember what the first round was, but I, I
believe I did horrible the firstround that I played and it
should have been easy. It was Iron Man.
I think against Claw or somebody.
I just, I had no idea how to play Iron Man.
(03:03):
I had no idea what I was doing. I maybe won one game.
I might have lost all three in like a round one.
I I just don't remember being that bad at the game, but I was
looking back at some early results and I was, I was pretty
bad. I did, I did most even since I
first started the game, I tried to get my wife to play.
(03:24):
She just wasn't interested. And so I just played solo
because it was one of those things at the time where solo
was becoming a big thing and I just had no idea what I was
doing with the game. It's just a fun way to, but I
mean, it didn't bother me to lose that much because I kept
playing. So we just about have fun and
trying out a bunch of different heroes.
(03:47):
Here you are. How about you, Brian?
So at stark contrast, I've been in the league for only a little
over a year. My first season was season 18,
which started July of 2024. So I'll be a little bit a little
bit over a year, year and a halfold in the league by the time
(04:12):
this season wraps up. So I'm just so solo Champions
League baby right now. Yeah, but and then you, you had
some friends that were already in the league, right?
And you kind of were talking to them about the league a little
bit before you got involved. Yeah, yeah, I had heard some
(04:33):
rumblings of the league. I've been playing since probably
November, December 2019, so since the beginning.
And I had played some other games, head to head games and
card games. And was this was sort of a, a
(04:54):
side deal for a while. And then I, I stopped playing
those games and this sort of took over by card gaming life.
And I had primarily at that point been playing with some
people online who I knew throughthose other card games and
playing when playing solo, playing two handed solo.
(05:17):
So hadn't played a ton of just true solo, but had some friends
who I met through the Marvel Champions OP program back with
Mutant Genesis when they the oldarts at the different stores and
met up with some people locally and kind of grew a little group
(05:41):
of of local people you're playing with.
And they were all playing SCL. And after about a season or two
of helping them strategize and kind of watching from the wings
when one of the people took a season off, I I was next man up
and got recruited to it. And I think I talked to you,
(06:03):
Josh and Astrodar, Econ of Heroes, and that was sort of
planted to see it. I, I sat down and had breakfast
with you guys and you were talking about SCL and I was
like, Oh yeah, my friends that are in the alliance have been
trying to get me to go. And I think you guys were the
the last straw to get me to to take the plunge.
(06:24):
Yeah, zealots. Hey, what are you going to do?
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
It is, it's fun to think that you kind of had a community and
then kind of came into this community with, with that
existing community already, as opposed to, you know, some of us
(06:44):
who could have found community through through this.
We'll, we'll talk a little bit about that later.
But maybe, I mean, maybe now, because I, you know, I'm curious
why I have you on the mic, Brian, You know what, what is it
that makes SCL special to you? Yeah, I mean, I think it's
really cool that it can serve multiple purposes, like you are
playing on your own, but you're playing on your own alongside
(07:07):
all these other people who are going through the same thing.
And, you know, it serves as a a good way to to meet other people
going through it and build community because not only
people on my own alliance, but Ihave lots of friends who play
the game who or an SCL and otheralliances, or they're doing it
on their own and kind of chatting to them about how their
(07:30):
games went or reminding them this month is almost over time
to get to your game, you know, commiserating.
So it kind of it's that that nice community building in that
way. But yeah, it's it's cool and
special for me to be able to be playing with these people that I
have as friends that I because we we're spread over a pretty
(07:55):
decent area and we get together about once a month.
And I don't really am able to tomake it to every single one.
It's just a little bit of a trekto me to go to where we usually
meet up. And so, you know, these people
that I, I see every every coupleof months maybe and, and play
(08:15):
with, but every month I can talkto them and sort of play
alongside them through the SCL. So it, it keeps that
relationship going and you know,we can give each other a hard
time, screw each other over withour draft picks of which hero or
aspect we're picking. So it's, it's a little fun with
that. And you know, and I think the
(08:38):
nice thing about the alliance and I, I know people do this as
well if they're just just talking to other people in the
league. And you know, one of the nice
things about the alliances, you have a rough day, things go
sideways. You know, you get red skulls
laughing advance face at the wrong time and you lost one and
maybe you feel down and then yougo talk to the the Alliance and
(09:00):
they are, you know, picking you back up and, you know, getting
your feet back under you. And you go back out and take
down Nebula, whoever else, or bang your head into the wall
again. And we all laugh about it.
So that's sort of the the community building.
You know, you would not necessarily think at first
(09:22):
thought that something called Solo in its title would be so
communal. Yes, that has been absolutely a
remarkable piece of it is definitely a very community
oriented. Group.
Tristan, how about you? What?
What makes SCL special to you? But it's a lot of very similar
(09:43):
things. I don't really know anybody
outside of the league in my reallife, so it's really just
getting to know the people here and it's been probably the
friendliest online community I've ever been a part of.
You know, even though we're supposed to be trying to compete
with each other and trying to top each other scores nobody
nobody's hiding their decks fromeverybody else and saying, oh, I
(10:05):
found this great deck that is going to get me top score on
this, but I'm going to keep it to myself.
This is the this is a group of their Hey, look at this cool
deck. This is what I did.
And people, they free willingly freely say if you're running out
of time and don't have time to build something, use my deck.
I've done that a plenty of times.
I think even just this last round with Psylocke, I just took
(10:27):
a deck that somebody had alreadyposted because I did, I was
running out of time and I didn'thave time to build something on
my own. Tweaked a couple of cards and
just played. And so I really think just of
all the communities I've ever been a part of online, it's,
it's sad to see it go because ofhow friendly, how helpful and
just how enthusiastic everybody is in the league and how much
(10:49):
everybody participates and just shares everything with
everybody. The alliance put a fun wrinkle
into that too, when you're trying to talk with everybody
about what they want to do and you got, you got more close with
a few people. I had jumped around to a couple
of different alliances just because some people fell off and
the lines kind of fell apart. But it was it was fun to just
(11:09):
jump in like you had a very select group of people who are
all bouncing off ideas off of and learning from each other,
just learning about the game, getting better at it and just
having more fun. Is is definitely I wouldn't have
continued to play Marvel champions without solo Champions
(11:30):
League. I don't think so.
When I first joined the league, you know, there were several
heroes are like, I don't really like that hero in the comics or
in the MCU or wherever I had seen them before.
So I'm just not going to buy them.
And then I think the one I remember most was Miss Marvel.
I was not a real, not a real bigfan of her in the comics or the
(11:51):
MCU. I don't even think by the time
she came out in Marvel Champion,she wasn't even in the MCU yet.
No, no. So she was around one time and I
was like, oh, I'll just play it on Tabletop Simulator.
And then I played her on Tabletop Simulator once and I I
think I went on the discord and said well thanks, I guess I have
(12:11):
to go buy her now because she's really fun.
She was definitely the most unknown of especially those
early heroes. And, you know, a lot of people
were just like, I love this hero.
And it's actually, it's probablythe hardest hero to play on
(12:32):
Tabletop Simulator because you have so much deck manipulation
that you have to do. Just so much easier to do it
with reggae with just cards in your hand.
Yeah, and I think, you know, when she came out, she was sort
of that that slowest for people to figure out because I
definitely remember when she first came out B&B, like she's
kind of weird. I don't know what to do with
her. And right, it takes a took a
(12:54):
little while for her to settle in.
Well, all all those characters that really benefited from the
larger card pools, right? Like, it's just she's like such
an Evergreen character in terms of every time there's new cards,
you can go back and look at, oh,you know, how does this work
with Miss Marvel? It also means that really early
(13:15):
on, you may have limited optionsin terms of how you could work
with her. So, Tristan, what?
What do you think you will miss most about the leak?
I think I'll miss the most aboutthe just in general.
(13:37):
I think Ends mouth Bear does a great job with the rounds and
forces me to play things that I might not necessarily play.
I've struggled to remember the exact ones, but I can remember
several times thinking about wow, he really took a lot of
time and planning to figure out what exact modular what with
this villain that would work great in this scenario and put
(13:58):
together some great things. I definitely, I am one of those
that if it wouldn't been for theleague, I would have just played
the recommended modulars with every single villain.
And probably I don't even know if I would have even straight
into like expert for a while because when I first got the
game, I didn't want to play expert at all just from the play
standard. But it's forced me to play
(14:20):
everything and I think it's gotten me a lot more enjoyment
out of it. So I'm going to miss that.
Somebody else planning the stufffor me were I don't have to sit
down and think about what am I going to play, what goes well
together, what's going to be an interesting challenge, which
hero is going to combo well withthe villain.
His mouth there did a great job of just putting all of these
great scenarios together. I'm going to miss that I think a
(14:43):
lot. Yeah, I I really hear you.
I was thinking when you were talking about that, you know, I
remember one of the rounds wherewe were playing Thor and I think
there was one minion in the deck.
And you know, I would never on my own purposefully take Thor up
(15:08):
against something like that because that's not where Thor is
fun. But then it's creating a new
puzzle for you to solve. And that was interesting to me.
But I wouldn't, I would never take it on myself to create that
puzzle for myself. Yeah, most definitely.
I think you've kind of taken it to the next level with Modoc
League too, so there's some really interesting combinations
(15:30):
there that we're seeing when you're starting to throw some
things in, mix and match the standard and the experts that's
make it even more challenging, which has been interesting.
Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you.
The yeah, that one I'm like leaning into the challenge way
more. But it's, you know, it's kind of
(15:51):
interesting because in with withsolo Champions League, because I
do like the more challenging scenarios in general.
The the notion that you're playing this kind of when you in
the early rounds, you're playingon standard and it's these
puzzles that you're trying to solve.
And it's really kind of these efficiency puzzles.
You're trying to figure out how do I achieve my goals as quickly
(16:14):
and efficiently as possible. And I really enjoy those
puzzles. But again, they're just kind of
ones I wouldn't, I would never have created for myself.
I would have tried to figure outhow to make them really hard and
just kind of overcome as opposedto turning it into a thing of
like, can I get this done in 4 rounds or in four turns?
So I've really enjoyed that. How about?
How about you, Brian? So obviously the whole alliance
(16:39):
thing is something that I reallyenjoyed about it.
And, you know, that's going to be something that that I will
miss, you know, having the the team to talk about and the
matchups and break them down. But yeah, what Driftin said and
what you were talking about is, you know, one of the great
benefits of the the league, you know, I tend to when I'm playing
(17:04):
games, I will mix up mods constantly and try to try to
keep things fresh. And I try to play a lot of
different heroes and mix things up.
But, you know, we kind of fall into our patterns.
You know, there's sure do. There's the mods, there's the
mods I like to go against and I reach for those.
There's the scenarios that I'm more likely to reach for first.
(17:25):
You know, you hit random on TTS and you know, Venom Goblin comes
up and you're you're like, I'm not playing a deck that's that's
Venom Goblin right now. It's not, it's not the mood I'm
in, you know, and you just, yeah, do something else or, you
know, heroes too. I, I play all the heroes.
(17:46):
I have decks, multiple decks that or ideas for all the
heroes, but not necessarily every single aspect, not
necessarily leaning into every single, you know, type of deck
that you could have in that aspect.
So, you know, kind of pushing out of those habits and having
(18:07):
those curating experiences is just so wonderful.
And you know, I'll I'll point out one one example that kind of
stood out to me. Wolverine Wolverine's fine.
I've never been like huge on him.
I've never been thought he was bad, but like or unfun, but I
was just never drawn to Wolverine.
(18:28):
I'd play him occasionally and I had, you know, like an
aggression and protection deck. I think I tried him in
leadership and, you know, with the alliance, you have a a match
up comes up and you're picking heroes that go against it or
aspects. And you know, I was like, I I
(18:49):
haven't played Wolverine in forever and I don't think I've
ever played him in justice. So I'll take that, you know, for
for the alliance and I played itand I was like, I think this is
the most fun I've ever had with Wolverine.
Like I really like this deck. You know, I and I went and
modified it a little bit so thatit wasn't so tacked against
(19:09):
whatever scenario it was, because I think scenario had,
you know, extra minions or something like that that I had
put some extra cards in there. But you know, just playing a
deck that I probably would not have had the time to put
together or think about putting together maybe ever, you know,
and then being like, oh, I love this, this is great.
(19:29):
And now it's sort of like one ofthe go to or if not the go to
Wolverine deck for me, you know.So, you know, those kind of kind
of experiences are are just great.
You know, it lets you appreciatethe game on so many different
levels. I yeah, I really like that idea
of the league causing you to create a deck that you
(19:54):
ultimately like and return to. But actually, Brian, I'm curious
the way you're talking about it,do you do you tend to have kind
of for most of the heroes, one or two decks that you have on
deck that are just ready, not ready to go unbuilt, but like
are are the ones that you're? Ready to go or like are is it
(20:16):
more like, oh, hey, I'm going togo to the meet up and I should
probably make a deck and oh, youknow, I haven't played Miss
Marvel for a while. Maybe I should look at, oh, I
haven't played her in Pool yet. Maybe I should do that.
Like what's one of those two things?
Or is it the third thing? Yeah.
So for me, so I play a lot, you know, on TTS in my like windows
(20:42):
or free time early in the morning at night after the kids
go to bed, you know, in, in breaks during the day.
If, if there's this sort of window of time, I don't have
really time to do anything else,you know, but in 20-30 minutes I
could knock at a game or build the deck or something.
(21:03):
Maybe I'll do that if I'm if, ifit strikes me.
So, you know, typically then formost of the heroes, I'm kind of
thinking of synergies, thinking of things and, you know, an idea
will come to me or to say, oh, Ihaven't played storm in a while.
And it's like, you know, I, I really liked this deck and I
(21:24):
haven't played it in a year and I'll play that deck or, you
know, to say, oh, I had this idea with this new card that
came out. So it's kind of haphazard, you
know, so I don't have a, you know, a deck or every single
hero, every aspect. You know, as I said, you know,
with Wolverine, I had a couple that I, you know, come across at
(21:46):
some point. But and then, you know, after I
play a deck a few times, ETS is start.
I continuously, I'm always honing it.
And then, you know, a meet up iscoming up and then I kind of
pick a pick a deck. I kind of felt good about
amongst the ones that I have played recently and put that one
together. But so I don't really have like
(22:10):
set decks, but I do have a kind of a grand list.
So with SCL, sometimes it lines up where you know one of the
decks is just happens to hit. Like, for example, I think one
of my favourite SCL rounds was Magneto and the I think spider
ham was the regular choice, but the challenge choice was
(22:31):
Valkyrie. And I absolutely love this one
Valkyrie deck. And I was like, I'm taking
Valkyrie. I'm doing Valkyrie and I'm doing
this deck because I love this deck.
And this is the opportunity to try against the scenario I
probably would never have matched it up against because it
seems kind of terrible. Like, Oh, Magneto with, you
(22:52):
know, I forget what he had some nasty minions with him too.
I think brotherhood and something else Anyway, So, you
know, I was like, Hey, you normally you wouldn't put
yourself through that, but I waslike, I'm going to, I'm going to
do it. And yeah, took my my deck that I
had built and went right throughit and she tore it up.
It was awesome. And I was so excited that like
how great she went against what I expected to be a terrible
(23:16):
match up. And she she just went ham, but
not spider ham so. Yeah, you, you, you and me.
The Valkyrie overkill guys. Yeah, so, but yeah, it's, it's
sometimes it, it's like, oh, I get to revisit this deck I love
and sometimes it's like, oh, I've never paired this character
(23:37):
this way. You know, let me, let me try
that. And you know it.
It ends up being fun that way. Well, Tristan, how about you
like what what is your outside of SCL Marvel champions?
Do you like Brian? Find Squeeze in every moment of
every day that you can. I would love to, but I got
(24:01):
there's too much going on at my house for me to.
I got to squeeze in games like you said, when there's where
there's nobody awake, when it's early in the morning, when
they're eating lunch or something like that.
Do try to squeeze in games. So most of my most of my time
playing champions is from solo Champions League.
It's the rounds that we're playing.
When we get a new box, I'll playthrough that with the pre cons.
(24:24):
Made me mess with the pre cons of a little bit.
Play through it once and then wait for it to come back and
solo Champions League before I play it again.
Occasionally I'll try and run through a box a second time, but
I usually typically just my timewith Marvel Champions is
dedicated to solo Champions League.
So I usually wait for some cool scenario and modular to be put
(24:45):
together and then play those. I kind of, you know, build a
deck every single time. Despite the fact that I'm, I've
saved a lot of decks on on Marvel CDB and I probably have a
deck that I could just go fine and say all this would probably
work. I can modify it a little bit but
I I usually build something fromscratch each time.
(25:05):
So I break apart my decks the minute I'm done with my rounds
so I'm document what they are and then put them away and put
everything back in it's nice little container and wait till
next round. Right.
Yeah. I mean, I definitely know lots
of folks in SCL kind of that's, you know, that is their excuse
(25:27):
to play the game and that's kindof their motivation to play the
game. And then you know, other folks
like Brian who are thinking about it.
Marvel champions in lots of different places.
And SCL is kind of just one of the the buckets.
Yes, I like to think of the people with the healthy
relationship to the game and degenerates like myself.
(25:50):
Yes. We as we as the wishful who who
wish we could do it all the timelike you do.
They're always the grasses. It's greener on the other side,
so. That's right, that's right.
I've got a problem though. You've got you've got a great
situation. So Brian, I know you were you
had some thoughts about this, this one.
So let me was it to you first. So, you know, what do you think
(26:12):
the SCL community has brought tothe wider Marvel Champion scene?
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
And, you know, some of it is just getting people who, you
know, like Tristan are playing on SCL and that that becomes
(26:34):
part of their community. And then they get introduced to
the community through that. And so we talked about how it's
it's this community building tool and building between people
and alliances and you find alliances and things like that.
But I think in the larger grander scheme of things, you
know, it pushes a lot of people to do that outside the box kind
(26:57):
of thinking, like we said, building decks that are not
necessarily the thing you would have thought of on your own
because you have to match a herowith an aspect or using the
mods. And I think getting people
comfortable using outside recommended mods is something
(27:18):
that playing SCL has contributedto to larger community because I
think a lot of people, you know,that's their first exposure to
doing that and it lets lets themdo it and and sort of find the
love for that. And, you know, I know there's
other people in the community, just you being one of them that
(27:39):
is, you know, out there suggesting those mods.
But but SCL is really like, I think one of the first places in
the game where that did that andexpose people to that.
And then, you know, I think it shapes a lot of how people
approach the game. It really does, you know,
(28:01):
whether whether it's, you know, on an efficiency curve or play
style or just thinking about, you know, all the different arts
in a scenario when you're sitting down and you got your
minions and trying to get that clean board.
And you know, it's has its upsides and downsides.
(28:22):
You know, sometimes it's just better to to go ahead and and
leave some threat on the main and win the game and not take
the risk. But you know, sometimes it's
more fun to to try to get that clean, clean win too.
So just getting people to, to talk about and think about it
and play solo and see that solo isn't necessarily something that
(28:47):
is, you know, it has its challenge, but it's not, it's
not repetitive. I think there's sort of like you
kind of have to build the same decks, right, to be able to
handle everything. And you, you, you got to play
like these generalist decks and,you know, in order to play solo,
you got to do XY and Z. And I think SEO kind of exposes
(29:10):
people to be like, no, no, no, you could, you could do solo and
do all these different things and, and still have a good time
with it. The, the one of the biggest
things I've learned through the process of doing this podcast is
how widely varied people's approaches are with the exact
same set of parameters and the decks of people who've been
(29:32):
similarly successful to each other.
How radically different their decks can be.
Including things that I, you know, turn my nose up at in
terms of thinking that that is areasonable approach at all and
seeing that people are highly successful.
And then that, that brings me a ton of joy.
Yeah, for sure. Just seeing the different
(29:52):
approaches the game that it does.
Another thing that, yeah, that'sa great point.
It exposes you to other people'splay styles and other people's
ways of approaching the game that you might not have seen the
inside of if you're not sharing across this challenge together.
Yeah. Tristan, how about you?
(30:15):
What do you think SCL might havehave brought to the wider Marvel
Champions community? I think a lot of the interesting
ways to play and use the cards differently than a lot of people
would have ever thought of have come out of the league.
At least for me, that's where I discovered a lot of them.
Like learning how to use Nick Fury and Rapid Response
(30:37):
correctly was something that I never would have figured out
without solo Champions League. Learning how to play the
different heroes. But if you look at all the stuff
that's just listed on the community content for solo
Champions League and it goes back forever and people will be
contributing to the Marvel Champions community for for a
long time directly out of solo Champions League.
(31:01):
I'm going to go ahead and and make an assumption that I know
is 100% wrong, but I'm going to attribute the campaign box of
centresome motives to the NS mouth fair because a lot of the
stuff on that campaign that you go through kind of feels like
it's directly pulled from solo Champions League.
Like ending ending with 0 threat, ending with 0 minions.
They should have. They should have probably
(31:22):
listened to him as one of the designers on that box for as far
as I'm concerned. Yeah, well, it's like to Brian's
earlier point, how kind of SCL has shaped the play patterns for
kind of some of the people that are involved, you know, sinister
motives really I fully egregiousand that really does look very
(31:42):
familiar. Very familiar.
That's that's a great observation.
You know it's. Going to it's going to take me a
while when I watch some people play on YouTube when they're
just like, oh, I will let the I'll just let the first main
scheme go here. That kind of cringe when that
happens still, mainly because ofcivil champions.
Like I don't know if that that'sever something that'll get beat
(32:04):
out of me. And I want to keep it on the
first main scheme. And I want to have zero threat.
I want to have zero minions. I want to have full health.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel.
Go ahead, Brian. I.
Was just going to have a, a short anecdote of like I learned
the SCL way of looking at thingsthe hard way.
I remember my second scenario played, I forget, I think it was
(32:28):
like project wide awake and I I had like war Machine and he was
not very well set up for for that particular scenario, at
least the deck I had for it. And I remember being like
playing it like I would approacha quote UN quote normal marvel
game where it was just like I just got to win.
So, you know, I think I rememberafter walking away and I won on
(32:51):
like turn 3, turn 2 and turn 3 and thinking like I did awesome.
And then my score was terrible because I just kind of like got
I got to the point where I was like, well, there's no way I can
handle this threat. So I'm just ignoring threat and
winning, which, you know, in theSCL scoring world that would did
not bode well for me. I think that scenario has been a
(33:13):
rite of passage for everybody that's played solo Champions
League. They learn, they win, they feel
good about the win. Then they realize, oh, there's a
lot more people that did way better than I did because they
did all these other things. Yeah, my, my son just started in
the league recently and he got some coaching at home in terms
(33:35):
of that very specific thing. So he got a bit of an inside
track on on that. But yeah, it is definitely a
lesson that most of us learned the hard way.
I, I, I think most of us just default to winning fast is
probably the best thing to do. And just try to do that early on
and then start to actually thinkabout the scoring system more
(33:57):
carefully after you realize thatwasn't necessarily the best
approach. Brian, was there a particular
moment where you felt especiallygrateful to be involved in the
league? Yeah.
I think for me it has to come down to like when having the
(34:17):
larger community interactions, you know, in particular like
Kana Heroes, where some names you recognize, some people you
recognize that you might have interacted with in small doses
outside of SCL, but then you interacted with more directly in
SCL. And then it it's like that
icebreaker of Oh yeah, I know you from, you know, solo
(34:43):
Champions League and then you can talk about a round and then
that sort of starts the conversation.
So I think the most grateful I've been for SCL, it was at
Kind of Heroes 2025, where it allowed me to interact with a
few people who I hadn't ever really talked to outside of the
SCL and meeting them for the first time and having something
(35:06):
to talk about as a a way to start to get to know each other
in person. Right, Yeah, I, I love that
answer. And I think one of the things
we've definitely heard from someof the folks we've already been
talking to, but also, you know, just folks that I've met at the
con who said, you know, this is the first time I've actually
ever, and not just to keep on bringing up the con because
(35:28):
obviously we're talking about SCL, but you know, this is the
first time I've ever played thisgame with other people.
You know, I've heard that a few times from from people and kind
of just this notion that you have established some
friendships or interactions or whatever it is online.
And then maybe that social awkwardness of going and meeting
(35:50):
new people and connecting with people in physical space when
you don't know anybody, really the SCL kind of greases the
wheels for for a lot of people that I think.
So that was the first time I went to the con.
I just kind of felt like, OK, I I'm going to have some people I
already know. And that was really helpful.
Yeah, definitely, yeah. How about you, Justin?
(36:11):
Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to go to Connor Heroes yet.
I'm hoping that it's something that's in my near future because
it'd be really cool to meet all these people in person, but it's
just, it feels like a very tightknit community.
Like I know that if I go to Connor Heroes and because I'm
one of the only people in my like board game play group that
plays Marvel Champions, I'm not going to be just the an
(36:33):
individual wandering around thatdoesn't know anybody.
I'll kind of know some people already just because of the
community and it's just that's the community that has been ever
since the beginning. It's always been preached, as
you know, we're going to be civil to each other, we're going
to be helpful to each other. We're just here to have fun.
And that for that, to stay that way for over 5 years, it's
(36:54):
pretty impressive. The community has always stayed
this helpful, kind community andit's just a great thing to be a
part of. Yes.
I love, I love that. Well, let me check in with both
of you and see if either of you have any parting thoughts before
(37:14):
we thank you both and and end off with the episode.
So you know, Brian, any parting thoughts?
Anything else you'd like to share before we we get out of
here? I just want to thank for the
people who have put this on and and kept it going for so long.
Innsmouth Bear first and foremost, but then the other
(37:35):
people who have helped organize and draw attention to it over
the years. Just even when I wasn't part of
the league, just hearing about it, hearing from friends or
people I would talk to about challenging rounds or things
they were doing and just gettingpeople playing.
It's been wonderful for the community and I just wanted to
(37:58):
thank everyone involved. And it's mouth Bear for his time
that he put into the game. Is in pets time Yeah no kidding.
How about how about you dressed in?
I mean a lot of the same things.So just really appreciate in
small fairs setting this up, doing this all on his own time
without really ever asking for anything else.
(38:18):
He just did it for because it was something he was interested
in and something that he wanted to share with the rest of the
the rest of the community. Also, thanks to you, Josh, for
doing the podcast. It's really I listen to every
episode as much as I don't like listen to my cell phone episodes
you. Even listen to those.
Hey, good for you. I, I try to, it takes me about 3
or 4 times before I get through them.
(38:38):
But just hearing everybody sharetheir stories is, is something
that I'm glad I could be a part of.
I'm glad that it, it will hopefully some in some capacity
continue. Hopefully the community doesn't
completely go away and we just continue to just share things
and hang out together and continue to play Marvel
Champions. Yeah, yeah.
(39:00):
Thank you. And I, I love that.
And, you know, I, I've a couple people I've spoken to, one of
the ways I could picture that this community could, could
definitely live on is, you know,people taking turns coming
together and, you know, once a month putting out an SCL style
challenge that doesn't have scoring, explicit scoring or
anything, but just kind of a thing, you know, put out five
(39:22):
heroes in a challenge and peoplekind of organized to make that
thing that could continue happening.
And I don't think there's a lot of overhead, but it could
continue to really, you know, keep the community going and
interacting in a similar way. So I think that I I could
picture something like that being a way for the community to
live on. Yeah.
(39:45):
So that I would love that, you know, FFG even dipped their toes
into that so we could pick up that head torch and keep it
going. But just something that's still
kind of focused within the same community of people that are
used to interacting and talking about those things together, I
think because, yeah, I mean, those, you know, we really saw
(40:07):
in some of the other Discords lots of chat over those
different challenges they had and things like that.
So, you know, there's definitelyan appetite for it.
Yeah, it'd be really interestingthat somebody put out a scenario
to even Even so much as put out like a hero deck.
Here's the scenario, here's the villain, and here's the deck I
played against. Why don't you guys see how you
how good you can do against it? See if you can tweak the deck a
(40:29):
little bit. See what?
See what you can do with this. Right.
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
OK. Thank you both.
Brian, thank you for joining. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Justin, thank you for coming on.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
OK. And hopefully we'll continue
(40:50):
chatting in the future. And listeners, thank you for
joining and staying tuned.
Hey hey friendos, welcome to theRoad to Nowhere, a 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 league.
You know, knowing how much joy and meaning the league has
(00:30):
brought to the friends that I'vemade 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.
And joining us now, we have Tristan.
(00:52):
Tristan, hello. Welcome back.
For having me, I appreciate being on again, It's always fun.
Yeah, always good to hear from you and also V Jackson.
Brian, how are you? I am great.
Thank you for having me. Always fun to talk about Marvel
Champions. Oh, it is such a pleasure.
What a what a venue I have to tobe able to do so.
(01:12):
So yeah, I wanted to check in with you too.
It's gonna we'll you know, as the audience will learn you 2
have kind of very different histories with with the league.
So it'll be fun to hear a littlebit about how each of you got
involved and your time in the league.
So maybe let's start with kind of the first question is, you
know, do you remember your firstseason in the league?
(01:35):
What stood out to you? Tristan, I think we figured out
something special. So we can we can let everybody
know about that. You've been involved with the
league for a really long time. Yeah, since since season 2, I
missed season 1 by just a littlebit because back then the the
rounds were pretty fast. I think like a week long was the
rounds. So we were going pretty fast
(01:55):
back then, but I am just shy of 1000 XP.
The only person that has more than me is Inmouth Bear, so I'm
hoping I'll cross that thresholdwith this final season.
Be kind of a cool benchmark to have is like I.
So that's 1092 is Inmouth Bear. You are 987, so you'll
(02:20):
definitely make it there this season, unless you suffer some
weird injury or something. Some Marvel Champions related
injury, yeah. I won't be able to shuffle my
debt, so I can't. That's right.
That's right. And then T Everly is 958.
Yeah, two way too many paper cuts.
T Everly is coming in at 9:50. 8Yeah.
(02:41):
And I, I took a look back. I took a look back 'cause I,
it's been almost five years since I joined the league.
I don't even remember what the first round was, but I, I
believe I did horrible the firstround that I played and it
should have been easy. It was Iron Man.
I think against Claw or somebody.
I just, I had no idea how to play Iron Man.
(03:03):
I had no idea what I was doing. I maybe won one game.
I might have lost all three in like a round one.
I I just don't remember being that bad at the game, but I was
looking back at some early results and I was, I was pretty
bad. I did, I did most even since I
first started the game, I tried to get my wife to play.
(03:24):
She just wasn't interested. And so I just played solo
because it was one of those things at the time where solo
was becoming a big thing and I just had no idea what I was
doing with the game. It's just a fun way to, but I
mean, it didn't bother me to lose that much because I kept
playing. So we just about have fun and
trying out a bunch of different heroes.
(03:47):
Here you are. How about you, Brian?
So at stark contrast, I've been in the league for only a little
over a year. My first season was season 18,
which started July of 2024. So I'll be a little bit a little
bit over a year, year and a halfold in the league by the time
(04:12):
this season wraps up. So I'm just so solo Champions
League baby right now. Yeah, but and then you, you had
some friends that were already in the league, right?
And you kind of were talking to them about the league a little
bit before you got involved. Yeah, yeah, I had heard some
(04:33):
rumblings of the league. I've been playing since probably
November, December 2019, so since the beginning.
And I had played some other games, head to head games and
card games. And was this was sort of a, a
(04:54):
side deal for a while. And then I, I stopped playing
those games and this sort of took over by card gaming life.
And I had primarily at that point been playing with some
people online who I knew throughthose other card games and
playing when playing solo, playing two handed solo.
(05:17):
So hadn't played a ton of just true solo, but had some friends
who I met through the Marvel Champions OP program back with
Mutant Genesis when they the oldarts at the different stores and
met up with some people locally and kind of grew a little group
(05:41):
of of local people you're playing with.
And they were all playing SCL. And after about a season or two
of helping them strategize and kind of watching from the wings
when one of the people took a season off, I I was next man up
and got recruited to it. And I think I talked to you,
(06:03):
Josh and Astrodar, Econ of Heroes, and that was sort of
planted to see it. I, I sat down and had breakfast
with you guys and you were talking about SCL and I was
like, Oh yeah, my friends that are in the alliance have been
trying to get me to go. And I think you guys were the
the last straw to get me to to take the plunge.
(06:24):
Yeah, zealots. Hey, what are you going to do?
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
It is, it's fun to think that you kind of had a community and
then kind of came into this community with, with that
existing community already, as opposed to, you know, some of us
(06:44):
who could have found community through through this.
We'll, we'll talk a little bit about that later.
But maybe, I mean, maybe now, because I, you know, I'm curious
why I have you on the mic, Brian, You know what, what is it
that makes SCL special to you? Yeah, I mean, I think it's
really cool that it can serve multiple purposes, like you are
playing on your own, but you're playing on your own alongside
(07:07):
all these other people who are going through the same thing.
And, you know, it serves as a a good way to to meet other people
going through it and build community because not only
people on my own alliance, but Ihave lots of friends who play
the game who or an SCL and otheralliances, or they're doing it
on their own and kind of chatting to them about how their
(07:30):
games went or reminding them this month is almost over time
to get to your game, you know, commiserating.
So it kind of it's that that nice community building in that
way. But yeah, it's it's cool and
special for me to be able to be playing with these people that I
have as friends that I because we we're spread over a pretty
(07:55):
decent area and we get together about once a month.
And I don't really am able to tomake it to every single one.
It's just a little bit of a trekto me to go to where we usually
meet up. And so, you know, these people
that I, I see every every coupleof months maybe and, and play
(08:15):
with, but every month I can talkto them and sort of play
alongside them through the SCL. So it, it keeps that
relationship going and you know,we can give each other a hard
time, screw each other over withour draft picks of which hero or
aspect we're picking. So it's, it's a little fun with
that. And you know, and I think the
(08:38):
nice thing about the alliance and I, I know people do this as
well if they're just just talking to other people in the
league. And you know, one of the nice
things about the alliances, you have a rough day, things go
sideways. You know, you get red skulls
laughing advance face at the wrong time and you lost one and
maybe you feel down and then yougo talk to the the Alliance and
(09:00):
they are, you know, picking you back up and, you know, getting
your feet back under you. And you go back out and take
down Nebula, whoever else, or bang your head into the wall
again. And we all laugh about it.
So that's sort of the the community building.
You know, you would not necessarily think at first
(09:22):
thought that something called Solo in its title would be so
communal. Yes, that has been absolutely a
remarkable piece of it is definitely a very community
oriented. Group.
Tristan, how about you? What?
What makes SCL special to you? But it's a lot of very similar
(09:43):
things. I don't really know anybody
outside of the league in my reallife, so it's really just
getting to know the people here and it's been probably the
friendliest online community I've ever been a part of.
You know, even though we're supposed to be trying to compete
with each other and trying to top each other scores nobody
nobody's hiding their decks fromeverybody else and saying, oh, I
(10:05):
found this great deck that is going to get me top score on
this, but I'm going to keep it to myself.
This is the this is a group of their Hey, look at this cool
deck. This is what I did.
And people, they free willingly freely say if you're running out
of time and don't have time to build something, use my deck.
I've done that a plenty of times.
I think even just this last round with Psylocke, I just took
(10:27):
a deck that somebody had alreadyposted because I did, I was
running out of time and I didn'thave time to build something on
my own. Tweaked a couple of cards and
just played. And so I really think just of
all the communities I've ever been a part of online, it's,
it's sad to see it go because ofhow friendly, how helpful and
just how enthusiastic everybody is in the league and how much
(10:49):
everybody participates and just shares everything with
everybody. The alliance put a fun wrinkle
into that too, when you're trying to talk with everybody
about what they want to do and you got, you got more close with
a few people. I had jumped around to a couple
of different alliances just because some people fell off and
the lines kind of fell apart. But it was it was fun to just
(11:09):
jump in like you had a very select group of people who are
all bouncing off ideas off of and learning from each other,
just learning about the game, getting better at it and just
having more fun. Is is definitely I wouldn't have
continued to play Marvel champions without solo Champions
(11:30):
League. I don't think so.
When I first joined the league, you know, there were several
heroes are like, I don't really like that hero in the comics or
in the MCU or wherever I had seen them before.
So I'm just not going to buy them.
And then I think the one I remember most was Miss Marvel.
I was not a real, not a real bigfan of her in the comics or the
(11:51):
MCU. I don't even think by the time
she came out in Marvel Champion,she wasn't even in the MCU yet.
No, no. So she was around one time and I
was like, oh, I'll just play it on Tabletop Simulator.
And then I played her on Tabletop Simulator once and I I
think I went on the discord and said well thanks, I guess I have
(12:11):
to go buy her now because she's really fun.
She was definitely the most unknown of especially those
early heroes. And, you know, a lot of people
were just like, I love this hero.
And it's actually, it's probablythe hardest hero to play on
(12:32):
Tabletop Simulator because you have so much deck manipulation
that you have to do. Just so much easier to do it
with reggae with just cards in your hand.
Yeah, and I think, you know, when she came out, she was sort
of that that slowest for people to figure out because I
definitely remember when she first came out B&B, like she's
kind of weird. I don't know what to do with
her. And right, it takes a took a
(12:54):
little while for her to settle in.
Well, all all those characters that really benefited from the
larger card pools, right? Like, it's just she's like such
an Evergreen character in terms of every time there's new cards,
you can go back and look at, oh,you know, how does this work
with Miss Marvel? It also means that really early
(13:15):
on, you may have limited optionsin terms of how you could work
with her. So, Tristan, what?
What do you think you will miss most about the leak?
I think I'll miss the most aboutthe just in general.
(13:37):
I think Ends mouth Bear does a great job with the rounds and
forces me to play things that I might not necessarily play.
I've struggled to remember the exact ones, but I can remember
several times thinking about wow, he really took a lot of
time and planning to figure out what exact modular what with
this villain that would work great in this scenario and put
(13:58):
together some great things. I definitely, I am one of those
that if it wouldn't been for theleague, I would have just played
the recommended modulars with every single villain.
And probably I don't even know if I would have even straight
into like expert for a while because when I first got the
game, I didn't want to play expert at all just from the play
standard. But it's forced me to play
(14:20):
everything and I think it's gotten me a lot more enjoyment
out of it. So I'm going to miss that.
Somebody else planning the stufffor me were I don't have to sit
down and think about what am I going to play, what goes well
together, what's going to be an interesting challenge, which
hero is going to combo well withthe villain.
His mouth there did a great job of just putting all of these
great scenarios together. I'm going to miss that I think a
(14:43):
lot. Yeah, I I really hear you.
I was thinking when you were talking about that, you know, I
remember one of the rounds wherewe were playing Thor and I think
there was one minion in the deck.
And you know, I would never on my own purposefully take Thor up
(15:08):
against something like that because that's not where Thor is
fun. But then it's creating a new
puzzle for you to solve. And that was interesting to me.
But I wouldn't, I would never take it on myself to create that
puzzle for myself. Yeah, most definitely.
I think you've kind of taken it to the next level with Modoc
League too, so there's some really interesting combinations
(15:30):
there that we're seeing when you're starting to throw some
things in, mix and match the standard and the experts that's
make it even more challenging, which has been interesting.
Yeah. Well, yeah, thank you.
The yeah, that one I'm like leaning into the challenge way
more. But it's, you know, it's kind of
(15:51):
interesting because in with withsolo Champions League, because I
do like the more challenging scenarios in general.
The the notion that you're playing this kind of when you in
the early rounds, you're playingon standard and it's these
puzzles that you're trying to solve.
And it's really kind of these efficiency puzzles.
You're trying to figure out how do I achieve my goals as quickly
(16:14):
and efficiently as possible. And I really enjoy those
puzzles. But again, they're just kind of
ones I wouldn't, I would never have created for myself.
I would have tried to figure outhow to make them really hard and
just kind of overcome as opposedto turning it into a thing of
like, can I get this done in 4 rounds or in four turns?
So I've really enjoyed that. How about?
How about you, Brian? So obviously the whole alliance
(16:39):
thing is something that I reallyenjoyed about it.
And, you know, that's going to be something that that I will
miss, you know, having the the team to talk about and the
matchups and break them down. But yeah, what Driftin said and
what you were talking about is, you know, one of the great
benefits of the the league, you know, I tend to when I'm playing
(17:04):
games, I will mix up mods constantly and try to try to
keep things fresh. And I try to play a lot of
different heroes and mix things up.
But, you know, we kind of fall into our patterns.
You know, there's sure do. There's the mods, there's the
mods I like to go against and I reach for those.
There's the scenarios that I'm more likely to reach for first.
(17:25):
You know, you hit random on TTS and you know, Venom Goblin comes
up and you're you're like, I'm not playing a deck that's that's
Venom Goblin right now. It's not, it's not the mood I'm
in, you know, and you just, yeah, do something else or, you
know, heroes too. I, I play all the heroes.
(17:46):
I have decks, multiple decks that or ideas for all the
heroes, but not necessarily every single aspect, not
necessarily leaning into every single, you know, type of deck
that you could have in that aspect.
So, you know, kind of pushing out of those habits and having
(18:07):
those curating experiences is just so wonderful.
And you know, I'll I'll point out one one example that kind of
stood out to me. Wolverine Wolverine's fine.
I've never been like huge on him.
I've never been thought he was bad, but like or unfun, but I
was just never drawn to Wolverine.
(18:28):
I'd play him occasionally and I had, you know, like an
aggression and protection deck. I think I tried him in
leadership and, you know, with the alliance, you have a a match
up comes up and you're picking heroes that go against it or
aspects. And you know, I was like, I I
(18:49):
haven't played Wolverine in forever and I don't think I've
ever played him in justice. So I'll take that, you know, for
for the alliance and I played itand I was like, I think this is
the most fun I've ever had with Wolverine.
Like I really like this deck. You know, I and I went and
modified it a little bit so thatit wasn't so tacked against
(19:09):
whatever scenario it was, because I think scenario had,
you know, extra minions or something like that that I had
put some extra cards in there. But you know, just playing a
deck that I probably would not have had the time to put
together or think about putting together maybe ever, you know,
and then being like, oh, I love this, this is great.
(19:29):
And now it's sort of like one ofthe go to or if not the go to
Wolverine deck for me, you know.So, you know, those kind of kind
of experiences are are just great.
You know, it lets you appreciatethe game on so many different
levels. I yeah, I really like that idea
of the league causing you to create a deck that you
(19:54):
ultimately like and return to. But actually, Brian, I'm curious
the way you're talking about it,do you do you tend to have kind
of for most of the heroes, one or two decks that you have on
deck that are just ready, not ready to go unbuilt, but like
are are the ones that you're? Ready to go or like are is it
(20:16):
more like, oh, hey, I'm going togo to the meet up and I should
probably make a deck and oh, youknow, I haven't played Miss
Marvel for a while. Maybe I should look at, oh, I
haven't played her in Pool yet. Maybe I should do that.
Like what's one of those two things?
Or is it the third thing? Yeah.
So for me, so I play a lot, you know, on TTS in my like windows
(20:42):
or free time early in the morning at night after the kids
go to bed, you know, in, in breaks during the day.
If, if there's this sort of window of time, I don't have
really time to do anything else,you know, but in 20-30 minutes I
could knock at a game or build the deck or something.
(21:03):
Maybe I'll do that if I'm if, ifit strikes me.
So, you know, typically then formost of the heroes, I'm kind of
thinking of synergies, thinking of things and, you know, an idea
will come to me or to say, oh, Ihaven't played storm in a while.
And it's like, you know, I, I really liked this deck and I
(21:24):
haven't played it in a year and I'll play that deck or, you
know, to say, oh, I had this idea with this new card that
came out. So it's kind of haphazard, you
know, so I don't have a, you know, a deck or every single
hero, every aspect. You know, as I said, you know,
with Wolverine, I had a couple that I, you know, come across at
(21:46):
some point. But and then, you know, after I
play a deck a few times, ETS is start.
I continuously, I'm always honing it.
And then, you know, a meet up iscoming up and then I kind of
pick a pick a deck. I kind of felt good about
amongst the ones that I have played recently and put that one
together. But so I don't really have like
(22:10):
set decks, but I do have a kind of a grand list.
So with SCL, sometimes it lines up where you know one of the
decks is just happens to hit. Like, for example, I think one
of my favourite SCL rounds was Magneto and the I think spider
ham was the regular choice, but the challenge choice was
(22:31):
Valkyrie. And I absolutely love this one
Valkyrie deck. And I was like, I'm taking
Valkyrie. I'm doing Valkyrie and I'm doing
this deck because I love this deck.
And this is the opportunity to try against the scenario I
probably would never have matched it up against because it
seems kind of terrible. Like, Oh, Magneto with, you
(22:52):
know, I forget what he had some nasty minions with him too.
I think brotherhood and something else Anyway, So, you
know, I was like, Hey, you normally you wouldn't put
yourself through that, but I waslike, I'm going to, I'm going to
do it. And yeah, took my my deck that I
had built and went right throughit and she tore it up.
It was awesome. And I was so excited that like
how great she went against what I expected to be a terrible
(23:16):
match up. And she she just went ham, but
not spider ham so. Yeah, you, you, you and me.
The Valkyrie overkill guys. Yeah, so, but yeah, it's, it's
sometimes it, it's like, oh, I get to revisit this deck I love
and sometimes it's like, oh, I've never paired this character
(23:37):
this way. You know, let me, let me try
that. And you know it.
It ends up being fun that way. Well, Tristan, how about you
like what what is your outside of SCL Marvel champions?
Do you like Brian? Find Squeeze in every moment of
every day that you can. I would love to, but I got
(24:01):
there's too much going on at my house for me to.
I got to squeeze in games like you said, when there's where
there's nobody awake, when it's early in the morning, when
they're eating lunch or something like that.
Do try to squeeze in games. So most of my most of my time
playing champions is from solo Champions League.
It's the rounds that we're playing.
When we get a new box, I'll playthrough that with the pre cons.
(24:24):
Made me mess with the pre cons of a little bit.
Play through it once and then wait for it to come back and
solo Champions League before I play it again.
Occasionally I'll try and run through a box a second time, but
I usually typically just my timewith Marvel Champions is
dedicated to solo Champions League.
So I usually wait for some cool scenario and modular to be put
(24:45):
together and then play those. I kind of, you know, build a
deck every single time. Despite the fact that I'm, I've
saved a lot of decks on on Marvel CDB and I probably have a
deck that I could just go fine and say all this would probably
work. I can modify it a little bit but
I I usually build something fromscratch each time.
(25:05):
So I break apart my decks the minute I'm done with my rounds
so I'm document what they are and then put them away and put
everything back in it's nice little container and wait till
next round. Right.
Yeah. I mean, I definitely know lots
of folks in SCL kind of that's, you know, that is their excuse
(25:27):
to play the game and that's kindof their motivation to play the
game. And then you know, other folks
like Brian who are thinking about it.
Marvel champions in lots of different places.
And SCL is kind of just one of the the buckets.
Yes, I like to think of the people with the healthy
relationship to the game and degenerates like myself.
(25:50):
Yes. We as we as the wishful who who
wish we could do it all the timelike you do.
They're always the grasses. It's greener on the other side,
so. That's right, that's right.
I've got a problem though. You've got you've got a great
situation. So Brian, I know you were you
had some thoughts about this, this one.
So let me was it to you first. So, you know, what do you think
(26:12):
the SCL community has brought tothe wider Marvel Champion scene?
Yeah, that's a, that's a great question.
And, you know, some of it is just getting people who, you
know, like Tristan are playing on SCL and that that becomes
(26:34):
part of their community. And then they get introduced to
the community through that. And so we talked about how it's
it's this community building tool and building between people
and alliances and you find alliances and things like that.
But I think in the larger grander scheme of things, you
know, it pushes a lot of people to do that outside the box kind
(26:57):
of thinking, like we said, building decks that are not
necessarily the thing you would have thought of on your own
because you have to match a herowith an aspect or using the
mods. And I think getting people
comfortable using outside recommended mods is something
(27:18):
that playing SCL has contributedto to larger community because I
think a lot of people, you know,that's their first exposure to
doing that and it lets lets themdo it and and sort of find the
love for that. And, you know, I know there's
other people in the community, just you being one of them that
(27:39):
is, you know, out there suggesting those mods.
But but SCL is really like, I think one of the first places in
the game where that did that andexpose people to that.
And then, you know, I think it shapes a lot of how people
approach the game. It really does, you know,
(28:01):
whether whether it's, you know, on an efficiency curve or play
style or just thinking about, you know, all the different arts
in a scenario when you're sitting down and you got your
minions and trying to get that clean board.
And you know, it's has its upsides and downsides.
(28:22):
You know, sometimes it's just better to to go ahead and and
leave some threat on the main and win the game and not take
the risk. But you know, sometimes it's
more fun to to try to get that clean, clean win too.
So just getting people to, to talk about and think about it
and play solo and see that solo isn't necessarily something that
(28:47):
is, you know, it has its challenge, but it's not, it's
not repetitive. I think there's sort of like you
kind of have to build the same decks, right, to be able to
handle everything. And you, you, you got to play
like these generalist decks and,you know, in order to play solo,
you got to do XY and Z. And I think SEO kind of exposes
(29:10):
people to be like, no, no, no, you could, you could do solo and
do all these different things and, and still have a good time
with it. The, the one of the biggest
things I've learned through the process of doing this podcast is
how widely varied people's approaches are with the exact
same set of parameters and the decks of people who've been
(29:32):
similarly successful to each other.
How radically different their decks can be.
Including things that I, you know, turn my nose up at in
terms of thinking that that is areasonable approach at all and
seeing that people are highly successful.
And then that, that brings me a ton of joy.
Yeah, for sure. Just seeing the different
(29:52):
approaches the game that it does.
Another thing that, yeah, that'sa great point.
It exposes you to other people'splay styles and other people's
ways of approaching the game that you might not have seen the
inside of if you're not sharing across this challenge together.
Yeah. Tristan, how about you?
(30:15):
What do you think SCL might havehave brought to the wider Marvel
Champions community? I think a lot of the interesting
ways to play and use the cards differently than a lot of people
would have ever thought of have come out of the league.
At least for me, that's where I discovered a lot of them.
Like learning how to use Nick Fury and Rapid Response
(30:37):
correctly was something that I never would have figured out
without solo Champions League. Learning how to play the
different heroes. But if you look at all the stuff
that's just listed on the community content for solo
Champions League and it goes back forever and people will be
contributing to the Marvel Champions community for for a
long time directly out of solo Champions League.
(31:01):
I'm going to go ahead and and make an assumption that I know
is 100% wrong, but I'm going to attribute the campaign box of
centresome motives to the NS mouth fair because a lot of the
stuff on that campaign that you go through kind of feels like
it's directly pulled from solo Champions League.
Like ending ending with 0 threat, ending with 0 minions.
They should have. They should have probably
(31:22):
listened to him as one of the designers on that box for as far
as I'm concerned. Yeah, well, it's like to Brian's
earlier point, how kind of SCL has shaped the play patterns for
kind of some of the people that are involved, you know, sinister
motives really I fully egregiousand that really does look very
(31:42):
familiar. Very familiar.
That's that's a great observation.
You know it's. Going to it's going to take me a
while when I watch some people play on YouTube when they're
just like, oh, I will let the I'll just let the first main
scheme go here. That kind of cringe when that
happens still, mainly because ofcivil champions.
Like I don't know if that that'sever something that'll get beat
(32:04):
out of me. And I want to keep it on the
first main scheme. And I want to have zero threat.
I want to have zero minions. I want to have full health.
Yeah. Yeah, I feel.
Go ahead, Brian. I.
Was just going to have a, a short anecdote of like I learned
the SCL way of looking at thingsthe hard way.
I remember my second scenario played, I forget, I think it was
(32:28):
like project wide awake and I I had like war Machine and he was
not very well set up for for that particular scenario, at
least the deck I had for it. And I remember being like
playing it like I would approacha quote UN quote normal marvel
game where it was just like I just got to win.
So, you know, I think I rememberafter walking away and I won on
(32:51):
like turn 3, turn 2 and turn 3 and thinking like I did awesome.
And then my score was terrible because I just kind of like got
I got to the point where I was like, well, there's no way I can
handle this threat. So I'm just ignoring threat and
winning, which, you know, in theSCL scoring world that would did
not bode well for me. I think that scenario has been a
(33:13):
rite of passage for everybody that's played solo Champions
League. They learn, they win, they feel
good about the win. Then they realize, oh, there's a
lot more people that did way better than I did because they
did all these other things. Yeah, my, my son just started in
the league recently and he got some coaching at home in terms
(33:35):
of that very specific thing. So he got a bit of an inside
track on on that. But yeah, it is definitely a
lesson that most of us learned the hard way.
I, I, I think most of us just default to winning fast is
probably the best thing to do. And just try to do that early on
and then start to actually thinkabout the scoring system more
(33:57):
carefully after you realize thatwasn't necessarily the best
approach. Brian, was there a particular
moment where you felt especiallygrateful to be involved in the
league? Yeah.
I think for me it has to come down to like when having the
(34:17):
larger community interactions, you know, in particular like
Kana Heroes, where some names you recognize, some people you
recognize that you might have interacted with in small doses
outside of SCL, but then you interacted with more directly in
SCL. And then it it's like that
icebreaker of Oh yeah, I know you from, you know, solo
(34:43):
Champions League and then you can talk about a round and then
that sort of starts the conversation.
So I think the most grateful I've been for SCL, it was at
Kind of Heroes 2025, where it allowed me to interact with a
few people who I hadn't ever really talked to outside of the
SCL and meeting them for the first time and having something
(35:06):
to talk about as a a way to start to get to know each other
in person. Right, Yeah, I, I love that
answer. And I think one of the things
we've definitely heard from someof the folks we've already been
talking to, but also, you know, just folks that I've met at the
con who said, you know, this is the first time I've actually
ever, and not just to keep on bringing up the con because
(35:28):
obviously we're talking about SCL, but you know, this is the
first time I've ever played thisgame with other people.
You know, I've heard that a few times from from people and kind
of just this notion that you have established some
friendships or interactions or whatever it is online.
And then maybe that social awkwardness of going and meeting
(35:50):
new people and connecting with people in physical space when
you don't know anybody, really the SCL kind of greases the
wheels for for a lot of people that I think.
So that was the first time I went to the con.
I just kind of felt like, OK, I I'm going to have some people I
already know. And that was really helpful.
Yeah, definitely, yeah. How about you, Justin?
(36:11):
Unfortunately, I haven't gotten to go to Connor Heroes yet.
I'm hoping that it's something that's in my near future because
it'd be really cool to meet all these people in person, but it's
just, it feels like a very tightknit community.
Like I know that if I go to Connor Heroes and because I'm
one of the only people in my like board game play group that
plays Marvel Champions, I'm not going to be just the an
(36:33):
individual wandering around thatdoesn't know anybody.
I'll kind of know some people already just because of the
community and it's just that's the community that has been ever
since the beginning. It's always been preached, as
you know, we're going to be civil to each other, we're going
to be helpful to each other. We're just here to have fun.
And that for that, to stay that way for over 5 years, it's
(36:54):
pretty impressive. The community has always stayed
this helpful, kind community andit's just a great thing to be a
part of. Yes.
I love, I love that. Well, let me check in with both
of you and see if either of you have any parting thoughts before
(37:14):
we thank you both and and end off with the episode.
So you know, Brian, any parting thoughts?
Anything else you'd like to share before we we get out of
here? I just want to thank for the
people who have put this on and and kept it going for so long.
Innsmouth Bear first and foremost, but then the other
(37:35):
people who have helped organize and draw attention to it over
the years. Just even when I wasn't part of
the league, just hearing about it, hearing from friends or
people I would talk to about challenging rounds or things
they were doing and just gettingpeople playing.
It's been wonderful for the community and I just wanted to
(37:58):
thank everyone involved. And it's mouth Bear for his time
that he put into the game. Is in pets time Yeah no kidding.
How about how about you dressed in?
I mean a lot of the same things.So just really appreciate in
small fairs setting this up, doing this all on his own time
without really ever asking for anything else.
(38:18):
He just did it for because it was something he was interested
in and something that he wanted to share with the rest of the
the rest of the community. Also, thanks to you, Josh, for
doing the podcast. It's really I listen to every
episode as much as I don't like listen to my cell phone episodes
you. Even listen to those.
Hey, good for you. I, I try to, it takes me about 3
or 4 times before I get through them.
(38:38):
But just hearing everybody sharetheir stories is, is something
that I'm glad I could be a part of.
I'm glad that it, it will hopefully some in some capacity
continue. Hopefully the community doesn't
completely go away and we just continue to just share things
and hang out together and continue to play Marvel
Champions. Yeah, yeah.
(39:00):
Thank you. And I, I love that.
And, you know, I, I've a couple people I've spoken to, one of
the ways I could picture that this community could, could
definitely live on is, you know,people taking turns coming
together and, you know, once a month putting out an SCL style
challenge that doesn't have scoring, explicit scoring or
anything, but just kind of a thing, you know, put out five
(39:22):
heroes in a challenge and peoplekind of organized to make that
thing that could continue happening.
And I don't think there's a lot of overhead, but it could
continue to really, you know, keep the community going and
interacting in a similar way. So I think that I I could
picture something like that being a way for the community to
live on. Yeah.
(39:45):
So that I would love that, you know, FFG even dipped their toes
into that so we could pick up that head torch and keep it
going. But just something that's still
kind of focused within the same community of people that are
used to interacting and talking about those things together, I
think because, yeah, I mean, those, you know, we really saw
(40:07):
in some of the other Discords lots of chat over those
different challenges they had and things like that.
So, you know, there's definitelyan appetite for it.
Yeah, it'd be really interestingthat somebody put out a scenario
to even Even so much as put out like a hero deck.
Here's the scenario, here's the villain, and here's the deck I
played against. Why don't you guys see how you
how good you can do against it? See if you can tweak the deck a
(40:29):
little bit. See what?
See what you can do with this. Right.
Yeah, I love it. I love it.
OK. Thank you both.
Brian, thank you for joining. Thank you.
Thanks for having me. Justin, thank you for coming on.
Appreciate it. Thanks for having me on.
OK. And hopefully we'll continue
(40:50):
chatting in the future. And listeners, thank you for
joining and staying tuned.
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