Marvel Legendary Update – 2022

(Edit – 1/26/23 – this post won’t be updated anymore. Check out the 2023 post now live! )

(Edit – 9/6/22) – The second blog post for the Black Widow set is up!

This gives more on the returning “Undercover” keyword and also shows how cards that go Undercover can be “Unleashed” from your victory point pile to your hand.

It looks like a great concept!

The set is also returning “Dark Memories” to the Legendary system. That’s from the Revelations pack.

No word on if it’s going to work any differently (I haven’t played with that set yet), but it can be a nice Fight boost (except when it’s on a Villain!)

(Edit – 8/25/22) – The first blog post for the Black Widow set is up!

So far, two re-used keywords, which isn’t a bad thing. Keyword bloat is a thing!

Undercover comes back from the SHIELD expansion and Dodge from the Villains set.

It also reveals two cards, including Evasive Acrobats, which is a Black Widow card that not only you can Dodge, but allows you to Dodge another card. Perfect for those hands where you’ve had to discard so much that you have nothing useful to do.

It also reveals a Yelena Belova card that uses Undercover (I’m not going to show all the card reveals here. I don’t want to steal Upper Deck’s thunder) and a Scheme that’s pretty brutal! First, it has 11 twists minus 1 per player (so 2 player has 9 twists!). Secondly, every time a twist comes out, players must Dodge with a hero in their hand, reveal the hero they drew, and KO it if it’s a non-grey hero.

Dastardly!!!

Keep an eye on this post for more updates.

(Edit – 8/4/22) – Black Panther is out!

But more importantly, Bageltop Games (a truly (ahem) legendary member of the Legendary community) posted a picture for the upcoming Black Widow expansion on Boardgame Geek.

Since this isn’t from a blog with multiple pictures that I can post a sample pic from, I’m not going to steal his work and post the pic here. Instead, you can see it on his BGG page.

Some interesting stuff here, though. Taskmaster Mastermind, a SHIELD-affiliated Black Widow, Yelena Bolova, Red Guardian, White Tiger and a divided card with Falcon & the Winter Soldier. Wonder if that entire Hero will be divided cards like that.

Also two new key words, Undercover and Dark Memories (or maybe Dark Memories was from the expansion that had Scarlet Witch? I don’t remember). (2nd edit – Doh! I think Undercover is not new either, but there is a keyword “Unleash” that’s new)

(Edit – 7/27/22) – A new Black Panther blog is up!

They’ve now added cards that will let you give Wounds to villains, and some villains who have to be whittled down with Wounds rather than actually fought.

This definitely does look like an interesting new mechanic. Especially the Killmonger Mastermind who can only be defeated this way, so it will take 5 turns to defeat each of his Tactics.

With the city filling up as well, even with a low Fight threshold, it may be tough!

This is the last post before it releases on August 3.

(Edit – 7/13/22) – And now another Black Panther blog post is up!

Looks like it brings back the “Empowered” keyword from the Ant-Man expansion (which I haven’t played with yet).

“Empowered” cards get more powerful for each Hero in the HQ that has that ability, meaning they get +1 Fight.

It also brings back multi-classed cards, with each hero in the expansion having one.

This expansion is looking cooler and cooler all the time.

And apparently the release date for this is August 3. Not long now! Upper Deck is really trying to catch up after the 2021 debacle

(Edit – 7/12/22) – I missed this on Twitter and on BGG (on BGG because I thought it was a question about recreating the comic)

A new expansion has been announced on Twitter, but it’s just the name!

Marvel Legendary: Infinity Saga will apparently be another MCU set (rather than out of the comics).

Should be interesting!

(Edit – 6/30/22) – The first blog post for the Black Panther expansion is out!

My favourite bit of this is the Heroic Ambush, where if a Hero enters the HQ and you’ve already played the type of card the Ambush requires, you get a positive effect. However, you don’t have to have played that colour yet. You could just “have” it (so it could be in your hand).

Neat!

The expansion also brings back the “Throne’s Favor” from the Realm of Kings expansion.

(Edit – 6/8/22) – As per the latest Upper Deck livestream, the Guardians of the Galaxy set is coming June 15!

And a new blog post too.

A couple of new Schemes are shown, and the Ronan Mastermind is confirmed.

A Triggered Artifact for a Mastermind Tactic? Woo!

(Edit – 6/6/22) – Another blog post already!

This one shows the returning keyword “Villainous Weapon” that can make villains even more powerful (unless they pop up as the first villain of the game! In which they are KO’d.

There’s also a new keyword for villains: Command.

This does confirm a couple (or both, I think?) villain groups: Ravagers and Followers of Ronan

Maybe a release date will be coming soon?

(Edit – 6/2/22) – Another blog post! Release must be imminent.

This set brings back the “Excessive Violence” keyword, where you can spend one extra Fight to activate all Excessive Violence abilities on cards already played.

But it also adds “Excessive Kindness!”

You spend one extra recruit when recruiting a card to activate this one.

Looks interesting!

(Edit – 5/27/22) – Apparently the next release will be the MCU (meaning screenshots from the movie) edition of Guardians of the Galaxy. There’s a new blog post, with a couple of pics (one is below)

It’s not necessarily the next expansion release, but they usually only do blog posts for the ones that are coming soon.

One cool thing about this set is that it uses the same team affiliation as the original Guardians of the Galaxy, which means that they’ll combine really well!

One weird thing is that, at least so far, the card characters are the same (Rocket/Groot, Gamora, Star-Lord) as the original, so how will you tell them apart?

It is also bringing back Divided Cards, which was a cool mechanism as well.

(Edit – 3/22/22) – Apparently the solicit for the Black Widow expansion is up. No real details but it does mention 4 of the 5 heroes (assuming it’s not wrong): Black Widow, Red Guardian, Winter Soldier, and the White Tiger

(Edit – 3/2/22) – I missed Blog #1, but here’s Blog #2 for the Dr. Strange and the Shadows of Nightmare expansion, coming on the 9th!

How about a preview?

(Edit – 2/9/22) – Apparently Dr. Strange and the Shadows of Nightmare is due to be released on March 9!

(Edit – 1/17/22) – One more blog post before the release!

(Edit – 1/12/22) – Looks like this is supposed to release on January 19! Woo!!!

(Edit – 1/10/22) – The second Messiah Complex blog post is up from Upper Deck. Introduces the “Clone” keyword, and it looks like a really cool addition to the game. It will let you get multiple copies of the same card if available. Neat!

(Edit – 1/5/22) – The first Messiah Complex blog post from Upper Deck is posted! You can find it here with a couple of card reveals and it talks about two returning keywords: Investigate and Chivalrous Duel. Check it out!

Since people really seem to be interested in the Marvel Legendary expansions (judging from the number of people going to the 2021 post about upcoming expansions, even to today!), let’s do a 2022 update! This is everything I’ve seen from Boardgame Geek and other announcements regarding upcoming expansions.

First, I have to say that supposedly the remaining 2021 expansions are supposed to be coming out soon from Upper Deck (sadly, only the Annihilation expansion actually came out in 2021 from all the ones that were planned).

That would be the Dr. Strange expansion, the Messiah Complex expansion and the MCU (Marvel Movie) Guardians of the Galaxy expansion.

All of the expansions have released box art, which is cool!

But no sign of when they will be coming.

Anyway, Upper Deck has also announced at least one 2022 expansion that will be coming out, the Black Panther expansion, and they have just released the box art for it.

Yes, this does look pretty rad, doesn’t it?

Seems like we’re getting Storm as well as Black Panther.

I’m sure we’ll be getting Shuri, but who else on top of that?

Inquiring minds want to know!

Upper Deck has also revealed some stuff about the 2021 expansions that have been moved to 2022.

There have been a couple of Hero cards released (many thanks to Bageltop Games for posting these pics to Boardgame Geek!) for the Dr. Strange expansion.

It looks like at least some of the Dr. Strange cards (not necessarily the other Heroes in the expansion) will have an Avengers affiliation. Not sure how I feel about that one.

Here’s another one, also with Avengers affiiliation.

The Ritual Artifact keyword looks pretty cool. It will be interesting to see how it works.

We have had all five Heroes confirmed, which is nice.

• The Ancient One
• Brother Voodoo
• Clea
• Dr. Strange
• The Vishanti

Nightmare has also almost been confirmed (at least from the retailer solicit) as one of the Masterminds.

They’ve also released some card images for the Messiah Complex expansion.

Nice to see that special Sidekicks, as well as the “Investigate” keyword, are back! I like when the game reuses keywords and concepts rather than just coming up with new ones all the time. It makes the compatibility with previous expansions much better.

And the X-Factor team affiliation is back! At least as far as Sidekicks go, though if the Sidekicks have it, I would hope at least some of the Heroes do too.

Check out the BGG “What We Know” thread for more images as well as future updates!

There hasn’t been any released information about the MCU Guardians of the Galaxy expansion, but it will be from the MCU and not the comics, so it will have images from the two movies and it kind of constrains what Heroes/Villains/Masterminds there could be.

I haven’t bought any of the MCU sets yet, though I’m not 100% opposed to them. I may buy them one day.

Other than Black Panther, there haven’t been any 2022 expansions announced. Upper Deck may be making sure they can get the previously announced expansions out before doing any more new ones.

But we’ll see!

All of these look really interesting and I wonder if they will release the 2021 expansions in a compressed format, so maybe Dr. Strange in February, Messiah Complex in April, etc.

Who knows?

Since Upper Deck prints in the United States, they haven’t had the same shipping container issues that other game companies have had, but I think there have been paper supply issues (which maybe were exacerbated by the shipping container issues) and other problems that have prevented these expansions from getting published on time.

Since I used the COVID lockdown period to totally catch up on my expansions, I’m anxiously awaiting new ones as soon as they come out!

However, since they seem to be delayed all of the time, there’s no way I’m going to pre-order them from an online retailer along with other games. I could be waiting for those other games a great number of months (which is what happened with Annihilation).

That just means my local game store might get the benefit!

What do you think of any of these? Are you a Legendary fan who is waiting for all of them with bated breath? I hope you’re not holding your breath, as that will have serious health repercussions.

Let me know in the comments!

(And let’s see if the 2022 post gets as much traction as the 2021 post did?)