Disclaimer: As much as I love Carnage and Spider-Man, all my reviews here are purely based on the meta of the current format, so I am not biased towards or against any character.
Also, there might be some words that you might not understand from this article, these are terms we used in the game,
Beefy - Strong stats
Ramp - Effects that allows you to roll more dice
Ping - Dealing damage to a character
Pump - Additional stats to a character
Spill damage - Damage from overcrush
Swarm - Having way more characters in the field than your opponent and attacking with all of them. Not to be confused with the Swarm Keyword. Also, I am trying something new here, also known as the rating system, each card will be rated according to their ability, cost, stats and affiliation.
1/10- This card is useless, it helps your opponent more than you do.
2/10- This card is almost useless, try not to use it.
3/10- This card is too expensive and the ability is not as great.
4/10- This card is cheap, but the ability could be better, use other cards that have the same cost but better ability instead.
5/10- Mediocre card
6/10- With some set up, you can make this card work, but it really takes a lot of effort to make this card work.
7/10- This card is above average
8/10- This card is great, with the right combo you can destroy your opponent with this card
9/10- This card is amazing, you can use this card in almost any environment
10/10- The perfect card, if you play with this card you have an extremely high chance of winning the game.
(Note: The rating are based on my opinion, your point of view will definitely be different)
Character Cards
Black Cat has a really high defense stats, so she can be a great blocker for your team. Her ability is decent, it decreases your opponent's chance of fielding a character, so it can get annoying for them at times.
7/10
This version instead makes your opponent roll away his/her wild energy face during their roll and reroll step. Wild energy are the best in general as it can be used as any energy, so making your opponent roll them away will remove the slight advantage they have in the game.
7/10
It is a little hard for Black Cat to get Knocked out, but even if someone manage to do so, you have a 50% chance of getting her back into the field. You can definitely go aggressive with her by giving her the Ant Man/Kal L global to flip her stats and hope to regenerate her if she's knocked out, so she can defend for you the next turn.
7/10
To fully utilize this version of Capt, you will need to make your sidekicks unblockable and when you field him, they would benefit from the pump. It's a little harder to use Capt as he might have difficulty exiting the field to trigger his ability over and again. The global ability helps you to build sidekicks faster but there are better or cheaper global that does the same effect.
6/10
Now that's a unique ability, instead of pumping your sidekicks, why not just give them the deadly ability. Sidekicks with deadly ability can be a threat to your opponent if your sidekicks are pumped and whoever they use to block your sidekicks will get knocked out after combat damage resolved. It does put some pressure onto your opponent. However, it still doesn't solve the problem that Capt has issue exiting the field.
6/10
If you wish to knock out a character die, they are better ways to do so. It's not hard to have 2 or more sidekick characters, but to only be able to knock out villain does have put some restrictions to his ability unless you convert a character to a villain, and all that takes too much effort.
4/10
Carnage is very versatile here, his stats are awesome and for him to copy a character's attacking ability sure is great especially if that character has an amazing attacking ability.
7/10
Instead of using attacking ability, this version of Carnage uses the when knocked out ability from a target character. Now it's a different story, Carnage stats are great for attacking because he isn't easy to get knocked out and has decent attack value, so for him to get knocked out and trigger a knocked out ability can be a problem, and you do not want to deal with this problem is a competitive environment.
6/10
In the early game, you need to get Carnage out as soon as you can, because once he is active, your opponent is going to have a massive headache dealing with their dice management because every global abilities now cost 2 additional energy to use. Global is essential, so you can be sure that Carnage will bring Carnage to your opponent.
8/10
Controlling your opponent's sidekick is great, it can cause a few issues for them, if they need sidekicks for their combo or simply to finish you off, Doppelganger stops them from doing so. However, you can only control them for a turn, so there's a lot of limitation in what you can do when controlling that character for 1 turn. If you wish to counter a sidekick team, there are more better options to do so.
3/10
Another way to punish your opponent is he/she is keeping a lot of sidekicks in their field. No questions asked, just knock them all out and dealing your opponent damage. The one issue is that you will need to make him exit the field to reuse his ability.
7/10
If you want to increase the damage that Doppelganger deals for his ability, you can set up a sidekick wall in your field. However, for 5 cost and given it's a fielding ability and restrictions of only non-villain, it is rather expensive.
3/10
Iron Fist is a cheap a character, his ability is decent, that additional pump could be use well by giving him overcrush and the energy in your reserve pool can be use for good global abilities on your opponent's turn. Luke cage global is one good example.
7/10
If you want to deal damage to another character, mainly those with active ability that your opponent wants to keep in the field so they won't attack or block, you can use Iron Fist to get to them.
7/10
Fist energy are usually used to pump up an attacker's attack value, and with Iron Fist's help, you can use it to ping opposing character, which makes your fist energy very valuable.
7/10
Shriek is a 3 cost character and she can get to the field very early to lock down your opponent's winning condition or simply the support card that helps your opponent process his/her game. Blanking not only the text but the global as well really stops your opponent in a lot of ways.
10/10
Well, instead of blanking one particular card, why not just blank every opposing character card for 1 turn. This is a great card because unlike action cards, you can field Shriek and if she is knocked out, you have the chance to trigger her ability again. Making your opponent loses all their character's ability makes it easier for you to attack and won't have to worry about any ability that might have triggered by your opponent.
10/10
It's a little annoying when you attack with an unblockable character and your opponent uses global to remove it from the attack zone, or if you attack with a character could have dealt damage to your opponent only to be stop by a global ability, or if you attack with a character with massive damage only to be nerf down to 2 damage by mera global. Shriek solves this problem for you. The only downfall is you cannot use global to pump your characters, but fear not, just pump them before attack step and you are good to go.
10/10
It's a great ability to prevent a character from blocking, that is if you have more character's than your opponent, but if your opponent starts building a wall of characters, Spidey's ability might not come in handy. And since it's a fielding ability, you need to trigger it at a right time.
6/10
I do not see the need to protect this die if it doesn't help to do anything else. I just don't.
2/10
Usually when you attack with a swarm of characters, your strong characters will be blocked first before your sidekicks, so even if you have more characters than your opponent and you attack with every character, you might not finish off your opponent because your sidekicks did not deal enough combat damage. Spidey here will solve this problem, forcing your opponent to block your sidekicks first makes your other characters have a higher chance of being unblocked and hence will deal more combat damage to your opponent. And if you are worry that your sidekicks will be knocked out, fear not, Spidey protects them as well.
9/10
Controlling character is always fun, but Venom has a lot of limitation, he can only control level character and only for a turn and his stats makes him hard to leave the field.
6/10
If your opponent has more health than you, you can start to decrease them by fielding Venom. 2 damage dealt to your opponent just because he/she has more health. But in the late game, you need more ways to damage your opponent because you do not want to stay lower health than your opponent at all times.
6/10
Similar to the other version, the controlling ability is a little restrictive.
6/10
Conclusion
Carnage Team pack definitely has a lot of great cards that can be added into your team regardless of what you are playing, so it's a great team pack that can be added into your collection.
For those that does not know, the team pack is an expansion pack and because it doesn't come with sidekick dice, action dice and cards, you will need a starter set to play.
All in all, this team pack has a lot of good cards and you can even build a team just from these 8 characters. I mean, there's 3 great version of Shriek in this version, so I think the Team Pack value has enough justification. Anyway, I hope my review helps and thanks for reading!
