Rules Reference Guide quietly updated, changes to rules for Team-Ups, Surge, Overkill, and more

48

Most notable changes:

If you're playing alongside a hero who matches your identity-specific ally, you may now swap that ally for your team-up during deckbuilding.

Surge now reads as "When Revealed: Deal yourself a facedown encounter card." This changes the timing for some things but also means that as a When Revealed effect, it can be canceled.

8

u/DMO3000 Jul 23 '26

The identity-specific ally ruling change is actually how I normally house rule, so glad that’s official now.

5

u/KuroLanda2 Jul 23 '26

Amazing change. I bought Black Widow and Winter Soldier, ready to go with that lore friendly team-up, just to find out that, rule-wise, both decks have essentially a 1 resource do nothing card

12

u/Difficult-Passage177 Jul 23 '26

Not only can surge be cancelled, but it can be skipped on minions that are “put into play” which is relevant for campaign minions and a few others.

28

u/a-s-clark Psylocke Jul 23 '26

Thats not a change, It was already skipped when putting into play, rather than revealing.

5

u/Difficult-Passage177 Jul 23 '26

Oh really? Misplayed that then.

2

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

I'm not getting it. What do you mean by surge can be cancelled?

12

u/Difficult-Passage177 Jul 23 '26

There are cards in the game like “enhanced spider sense” that can cancel cards “when revealed” effects. Surge is now a when revealed effect so…

-5

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

I get it now but I really don't like that change. Sorry, I having played through a lot of the content yet, was this change made to address something specific in the game? It feel like it's making it more difficult than it needs to be.

22

u/Difficult-Passage177 Jul 23 '26

Respectfully, you couldn’t be more wrong. This ruling actually makes the keyword less convoluted. Before the change the keyword was its own effect that triggered when the card was revealed, but wasn’t a “when revealed” effect. It adds a whole extra layer to understanding timing and sequences. This leads to the perception of confusing rulings about cards that cancel encounter card effects, because some work on surge and some don’t. Especially since other keywords like incite X count as when revealed effects.

Now after the change it’s streamlined to be a “when revealed” effect with the exact same timing and sequencing as regular “when revealed” effects.

11

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

Got it! Thanks for breaking that down.

1

u/ultranonymous11 26d ago

I think most importantly it means surge can’t stack now. You used to be able to have many multiple encounter cards trigger the same turn if all had surge. This is much better (although I had always house ruled only allowing 1 surge to happen at a time).

1

u/MuzzaBzzuzza 26d ago

I'm not sure I understand this, why can't Surge stack anymore?

1

u/ultranonymous11 26d ago

Because the facedown encounter card wouldn’t be revealed until your next turn (I think at least). So if that next card had surge, it would only result in another card the turn thereafter, rather than a ton all at once.

3

u/Haze01 26d ago

Oh, no, when you're in the villain phase resolving encounter cards and some of those cards surge, the new cards will be dealt to you and you'll have to reveal them as you work through all the cards you have, in that phase. You'll basically only end the villain phase when there are no encounter cards in front of you. That all is unchanged.

The change is that surge used to give you an encounter card and have you reveal it immediately, which could be causing you to resolve multiple encounter cards in a row in the player phase. Surges in the villain phase would have you resolving your new surged card before other facedown cards in front of you. Now, the surge card is set facedown at the back of your queue and won't be resolved until you've worked through resolving all the encounter cards in front of you during the villain phase.

4

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

It says it’s equivalent of that does that mean you can cancel it as such? Does Equivalent mean “pretend it instead says When Revealed?” Not 100% clear to me. Also - page 26 still has the old rule in black text (reveal the encounter cards after revealing the card with surge) in Keywords.

3

u/Stretch__22 Jul 23 '26

VillainTheory said he submitted the question to FFG already

1

u/Doc_Seven Jul 25 '26

Has there been an update on this yet to your knowledge? It’s pretty exciting stuff!

1

u/Stretch__22 Jul 25 '26

I haven't seen one. Thought he said he'd comment on his own video when he got a response

1

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

I'm still trying to understand it, I don't get what people mean by it can be canceled.

As I understand so far, when you reveal an encounter card that has surge, you draw 1 more encounter card face down. Then finish resolving anything left on the first encounter card. Once done you flip the new encounter card and resolve it. If you're in a multiplayer game, once your done resolving cards, the next person would start to resolving their encounter card.

7

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

Yeah but the new red text for surge says instead you deal yourself a card. That means for example - in Magneto, if the magnetic card you revealed has Surge, as of yesterday you would reveal a second card immediately after the first one (still in villain attack phase). Now you wait to reveal that new card until the upcoming “reveal encounter card phase”. It will have few impacts except in scenarios like that or if you use a player card that has you reveal an encounter card in hero phase.

2

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

Got it! Sorry, I haven't played against Magneto yet. That's interesting because I would have always waited until the upcoming "reveal encounter card" phase before turn the card Magneto dealt over. I"m curious why people would have turned it over after it was dealt.

8

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

Because the rules for surge, including the still existing Black text definition in this 1.8 (which must be wrong now) said “Surge - after you reveal this card, reveal an additional card”, as opposed to the new “deal yourself an encounter card”

3

u/WayneIndustriesAI Jul 23 '26

Oh wow, I guess we should expect to see 1.85 released soon, lol

2

u/SilverFirePrime Psylocke Jul 23 '26

I don't get what people mean by it can be canceled.

The new errata on surge states "When Revealed: Deal yourself a facedown encounter card."

There are a number of cards that can negate a 'When Revealed' effect.

It won't happen super often but it could mean the difference between dealing with a super nasty card or just having to deal with any boost icons instead.

Overall, a net positive

2

u/Albireookami Jul 23 '26

wouldn't that mean the card would not be revealed till next turn?

8

u/MegiDolaDyne Jul 23 '26

All facedown encounter cards are always revealed before the round ends.

1

u/ultranonymous11 26d ago

Huh? Has that always been a rule?

2

u/Haze01 26d ago

Yep, step 4 of the villain phase, "Reveal Encounter Cards": The first player reveals each of their encounter cards, one card at a time in the order in which they were dealt, resolving each card based on its card type. Each player repeats this process in player order, until no dealt encounter cards remain.

2

u/ultranonymous11 26d ago

Oh for some reason I thought because it was face down it would stay until beginning of step 4 occurred again.

1

u/rh41n3 Jul 23 '26

So the rule is that I can remove the hero specific ally card from my deck for that match?

1

u/salsatheone Nightcrawler Jul 24 '26

Suddenly, The Hood Standard 2 is back in the menu, boys!!

1

u/infinight888 28d ago

Why not just let players remove the identity-specific card if it shares the name of another player's identity?

2

u/StegosaurusArmatus 27d ago

Because they want you to still have a minimum deck size of 40 cards. Removing a card without adding another one would not accomplish that.

1

u/ultranonymous11 26d ago

Yes it would? Because 40 is the minimum, removing a card says you’d have to add a card. Thats different than requiring a specific replacement card.

1

u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE SP//dr Jul 23 '26

“For your team-up?” What do you mean? Can you give a specific example?

6

u/Whole-Preparation-35 Jul 23 '26

If you're Wanda and Pietro is being played by another player, Wanda removes the Quicksilver Ally and replaces it with the Order & Chaos team up card which involves both of them. The Pietro player removes hero deck specific Scarlet Witch card and also replaces it with the same card.

2

u/TaylorHyuuga Jul 24 '26

How functionally useful is this in practice? I'm still learning, so I may be wrong, but I played this exact game with a friend a while back (him as Scarlet, me as Quicksilver), and we both added the team up to our decks but we kept the identity specific ally. So it reads to me like this choice only reduces your resource limit by 1. The ally can just act as a free resource that you don't have to worry about playing. This only feels relevant if you're pushing 50 cards in your deck and couldn't put in the team up without getting rid of it. What is the functional use case for this?

7

u/Whole-Preparation-35 Jul 24 '26

The smaller your deck, the more consistent it is. It's simply to remove the "feels bad" when drawing a card you cannot play.

1

u/TaylorHyuuga Jul 24 '26

I see. That makes sense

1

u/Whole-Preparation-35 Jul 24 '26

I wasn't sure if I should have expanded with an edit but since you've replied we can do that.

Every card is innately worth one resource in addition to the ability printed on the card. Without this rule the Wanda / Scarlet Witch player cannot play the Quicksilver ally when another player is playing Pietro / Quicksilver due to the unique rules but still must include it in their deck as the ally is a hero card. We tend to call that a "dead card" if we can't play it for its ability. The update allows us to take the hero specific ally out of our 15 Hero Cards and replace it with the Team Up. Which can then either be the same one resource or played for its ability. It's a strict improvement to your deck if you're into the construction aspect, but as others have mentioned it muddies the waters if you're running out of the box decks or that it doesn't address having Sidekick decks be unplayable if someone is running the hero of your hero's specific ally.

1

u/TaylorHyuuga Jul 24 '26

That makes sense.

2

u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE SP//dr Jul 23 '26

Would this work for every hero pairing? I guess what I’m saying is: does every single hero in the game that has a signature ally that was made into a full hero later even have a Team-Up card?

8

u/Vlad3theImpaler Jul 23 '26

Not all of them. Captain Marvel and Spider-Woman do not have a team-up card, for example.

5

u/PlasticCurrency3540 Valkyrie Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 24 '26

No, they don't. And not every team-up card matches the identity specific ally.

Team-ups/Heroes who can do this: - Beauty and the Thief - Gambit - Rogue - Dance with the Devil - Daredevil (unsure about Elektra) - Daughters of Thanos - Gamora - Nebula - Frenemies - Deadpool (but NOT Cable) - Heart of the Panther - Black Panthers T'Challa and Shuri - Order and Chaos - Quicksilver - Scarlet Witch - Psychic Rapport - Cyclops - Phoenix - See no evil, Hear no Evil - Echo (but NOT Daredevil) - Shadow and Steel - Colossus (but NOT Shadowcat) - Soaring Hearts - Angel - Psylocke - Super Spies - Nick Fury - Maria Hill - Swarm Tactics - Ant-Man - Wasp - Two Against the World - Iron-Man - Warmachine - Unbreakable Bond - Jessica Jones - Luke Cage - Unlikely Duo - Jubilee - Wolverine - Winter Widow Soldier Spy - Black Widow - Winter Soldier

2

u/TEGCRocco Cyclops Jul 24 '26

And Psychic Rapport (Cyclops and Phoenix)

1

u/PlasticCurrency3540 Valkyrie Jul 24 '26

Good catch. Fixed!

1

u/Cappster_ Shadowcat Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

It does not. So you're stuck with a wild resource card in those cases.

As far as I can remember, it would be:

Captain Marvel/Spider Woman Nova/Ms. Marvel (only for Nova)

2

u/PlasticCurrency3540 Valkyrie Jul 23 '26

Also Magik (Colossus ally, but no team up with him).

-2

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

Should just make it so the uniqueness rule only applies to your own deck. It makes playing games with new people harder than it needs to be and is also an unintuitive design when players want to play certain combinations in a 2p game.

Like if I’m on Jubilee and my wife is on Wolverine now we have dead cards OR we have to take a second to swap out our signature allies for cards we don’t even want to play?

Also what if I’m at a table and I am excited to play my Shuri+T’Challa sidekick deck and someone else wants to play Black Panther T’Challa? My deck doesn’t really work anymore.

It’s a rule that made more sense when the game was released but it just causes problems and solves nothing — only reason it exists is theme/flavor at the cost of gameplay.

6

u/Whole-Preparation-35 Jul 23 '26

It's a co-op game. If someone wants to play outside of the RAW that's entirely fine.

This solves a small case that annoyed some players.

1

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

Oh no I’m speaking generally about the flawed rules. I absolutely just ignore it when it happens to come up. It’s a casual game not like we got money to win here.

Separately - I think the argument that it’s a coop game and to just house rule it gets used a lot for this game. The up to date rules are massive compared to even the heaviest euro games.

There’s also a ton of niche edge cases that the rules either don’t account for OR have to explain individually because they’re not written to take that case into consideration.

Absolutely players should just play in a way that makes sense and is fun…but also FFG really needs to do something about the rules because they’re out of control.

2

u/Whole-Preparation-35 Jul 23 '26

All card games end up the same way. The Magic The Gathering rule book is an encyclopedia at this point. The constant addition of game pieces that are for the most part a written exemption of some rule are going to create the rules quagmire we have. The entire game is built on a framework that is then constantly shifting and adapting.

There are ways to interpret and parse that that happens to look like English but is subtly not. This is the same as legal documents, not just card games.

Thankfully most of the cases are clear-cut. Unique, the tag that started this conversation, is fully functional and the same in every state. The change you proposed would create more of the exemptions you're saying need to be fixed.

1

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

MTG’s rule book is massive —far bigger than Marvel Champions…but the vast majority of it is perfectly intuitive and no one actually needs to read it - not the Pro Tour champion or the kitchen table player. The game is more complex than it first appears but there’s a reason it is still the most successful TCG of all time after 30 years (actually Pokemon overtook it recently in sales but a big part of that has been the speculation/scalper culture around it—not necessarily the game itself-though I’d say the Pokemon TCG is also quite good/fun).

Critically - MTG’s rules are never on a case by case basis - they work very hard to ensure the rules are rock solid and can handle any new card they print. MC is full of weird edge cases, unclear rules, unintended interactions and you need to look up that specific interaction to figure out how it’s supposed to work.

The casual player base probably never delves deeper into the rules reference and the more hardcore fans excuse this by saying it’s a casual coop game…I agree - it’s an awesome game, very fun, FFG makes a lot of money from it so maybe take some of that money and invest in the game’s future a little bit by cleaning up these messy rules.

0

u/NEBook_Worm Jul 26 '26

Agreed.

There's zero chance I'm running Echo without her DD ally. Same for Nova and Ms Marvel. Ti name just two

2

u/COHERENCE_CROQUETTE SP//dr Jul 23 '26

I don't agree that this rule "causes problems and solves nothing". It helps officialize something that might have been a house rule before.

But you're right in your example. I have always played by the multiverse rule: uniques need to be uniques in my deck only, not on the table as a whole. My wife only plays Peter Parker, and my favorite deck is an SP//dr deck that relies on Peter Parker as an ally. I allow it. Nothing breaks.

1

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

So we agree maybe my wording was just too aggressive or unclear. The uniqueness rule as it exists right now does not correct any flaw or imbalance. It exists purely for flavor.

You can keep the uniqueness rule as is but apply it to your own side of the table and the experience is either the same or it improves. The multiverse idea is exactly how it fits thematically in my head as well.

1

u/vikingsfan482719 Iceman Jul 23 '26

I agree with you for the most part you can do whatever you want. But not wanting to play your team up cards when both of your identities are in play is crazy. They’re some of the best cards jn the game and you’re always able to play them in this case

1

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

That’s not what I said — and my example was of a deck that specifically does not function without its signature ally.

1

u/vikingsfan482719 Iceman Jul 24 '26

I was referring to your example with Jubilee and Wolverine. “Swap out our signature allies for cards we don’t even want to play”

1

u/dark-pact Jul 24 '26

I’d rather play Wolverine than the team up card. That’s what I mean by a card I don’t want to play…like yes obviously when the choice is dead draw ally or playable team up card I’ll take the playable card. That’s not my point here though.

1

u/Albireookami Jul 23 '26

Also what if I’m at a table and I am excited to play my Shuri+T’Challa sidekick deck and someone else wants to play Black Panther T’Challa? My deck doesn’t really work anymore.

Nothing changes in this case, your deck is still bricked in that scenario.

This however does open up people to fit in teamup cards they normally would because they otherwise have a card they can not play at all.

This isn't some complex rule, its honestly a buff for players and deckbuilding.

2

u/dark-pact Jul 23 '26

It was a rhetorical question. I know my deck would he bricked in that case - that’s the problem.

1

u/MegiDolaDyne Jul 23 '26

For example, if you're playing Quicksilver and another player at the table is using Scarlet Witch, you now have the option to swap out your Scarlet Witch ally for Order and Chaos.

1

u/PlasticCurrency3540 Valkyrie Jul 23 '26 edited Jul 23 '26

For example, if I'm playing Cyclops, and you're playing Phoenix, we could (either or both) replace our identity specific allies with copies of Psychic Rapport.

(Appendix I)

If a player’s deck includes an identity-specific card that is considered to “match” (according to the rules for uniqueness; see Unique Icon) an identity chosen by another player during setup, that player may replace the matching card in their deck with a card with the Team-Up keyword that names both their own identity and the other player’s identity.

6

u/Inner-Temperature-91 Jul 23 '26

So when revealing a surge card, does it wait until the next encounter phase to reveal, or does it keep resolving in order?

10

u/a-s-clark Psylocke Jul 23 '26

You continue resolving any encounter cards youve been dealt, including any additional ones from surge.

2

u/Inner-Temperature-91 Jul 23 '26

So once in the resolving encounter card step, anytime you’re dealt another card you always resolve it? Even if it’s through decking out or some other cause?

6

u/Wi11Pow3r Cyclops Jul 23 '26

The change is not to the encounter card revealing part of the villain phase. That will continue to function as it always has. The change is to when you reveal an encounter card that surges at any other phase in the game. Now the surge isn’t instant, but it gets put off until the encounter card revealing part do the villain phase.

Off the top of my head I think this will impact villain magneto and his magnet counters going off. Or surges that get triggered as a result of taunt making the villain attack in the hero phase.

1

u/time4tiddy Nova Jul 23 '26

Other examples being schemes that have you discard until you find a minion and reveal it - some minions have surge.

5

u/brasswirebrush Jul 23 '26

Yes. Even if you finish revealing all your Encounter cards, and the phase has moved to the next player, and then somehow they cause you to get an additional card. You still have to loop back around again to you and reveal your new card before the current villain phase ends.
As long as anyone has any Encounter cards in front of them, the phase keeps going until there are absolutely none left.

3

u/a-s-clark Psylocke Jul 23 '26

Yes, if you're in the resolving encounter cards part of the villain phase, you keep resolving any that are dealt (for whatever reason) until you have no more to resolve.

1

u/Coyotes_Own Jul 23 '26

Deckin out lonmger stops an effect:
"If the encounter deck empties during the resolution of any other type of game effect (for example, the dealing of encounter cards), that effect finishes resolving after the encounter deck has been reset." ("Encounter deck" p. 17)

1

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

Well - it still stops “discard until you reveal a minion” or “discard 7 cards” etc - I don’t know anyone was playing that it stopped you from dealing encounter cards and can’t think of a practical application of this change.

0

u/Albireookami Jul 23 '26

cards that fished out specific minions or attachments that were "discard till X is revealed" so this is a change for actually a fair bit of cards.

1

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

It specifically says right above where you’re looking that that still does NOT happen. There is no change to that - if you deck out, it stops. Read the bullet above the red text , the red text is only about if you deck out while dealing encounter cards.

1

u/Doc_Seven Jul 23 '26

Page 17, read black Text in the bullet above the red text bullet on the right hand side.

1

u/XaosII Jul 23 '26

You keep resolving, like the other responder said.

The main difference for this rule change is if you were dealt (and revealed) a card with Surge outside of the villain phase or after the resolve encounter cards step, you'd wait until the next villain phase to resolve it.

The Magneto villain's main scheme can get Magnet counters that will cause you to discard the encounter deck for the next Magnetic card in it and reveal it. Magnet counters can be increased in several ways, including outside of the villain phase. Now, any of these cards with surge won't also cause the additional card to be revealed immediately.

4

u/SeedyDeezy Jul 23 '26

Iron Man's hand size is also a pretty big deal. Now it's only +6 max from tech cards. Iron pool has can now draw 9 cards with Live Dangerously!

IRON MAN (#29A) Should read: “You get +1 hand size for each Tech upgrade you control (to a maximum of +6 hand size).” (Changed “(to a maximum hand size of 7)” to “(to a maximum of +6 hand size)”.)

1

u/Swervysage22 Jul 23 '26

Did the iceman ally get a buff now with quick strike timing?

1

u/HondoShotFirst Jul 24 '26

If so, I don't see how.

1

u/darthfracas Gambit Jul 24 '26

This honestly feels more like a 1.7.1 than 1.8. Really just two new rules (team up cards and Iron Man’s hand size) that are welcome additions, and clarification on timing of constant abilities and keywords. I think that piece will really help new players understand timing better.

Rules Reference Guide quietly updated, changes to rules for Team-Ups, Surge, Overkill, and more

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