Justice
Event

Attack.

Cost: 2.
Resource:

Hero Response (attack): After your hero makes a basic thwart, deal damage to an enemy equal to your hero's THW.

Despite his incredible strength, Spider-Man often triumphs by outwitting his foes.
Nebula #18.
Brains Over Brawn
Reviews

I'm puzzled by this card. If anyone has a solid reason to play this, please enlighten me! Thing is, unless you can do better than 3 DMG with it, even Haymaker is better (it doesn't require to basic thwart first).

What I can see here is a card that very few heroes can make viable (Rocket Raccoon with his Thruster Boots, Heroic Intuition and I've Got a Plan, Captain America with Heroic Intuition and Fearless Determination, Spectrum with Heroic Intuition...). Forget it for heroes with lower THW capabilities.

Unless you plan on playing all 3 Civic Duty on the same turn, which would be a lot of work to set up, I don't see how this card holds up. I'd rather play Turn the Tide or even Stealth Strike instead.

neothechosen · 10908
I want to make this card work in a Spider-Woman deck! I could see it being a handy utility option as the last play on some turns. I do think it's a hard card to balance since it feels pricy at 2 but it'd be overpowered at 1. — alby · 1
@alby : cool idea, let me know if it works! — neothechosen · 10908
I'm down on this card too for all the same reasons as you. Too much work for an effect barely stronger and more situational than Haymaker. Even for Spider-Woman, you've got Venom Blast instead — Stretch22 · 746
They maybe could have costed this correctly at 1 with the requirement that it must be paid for with a mental resource. — RabidHobbit · 11

All the reviews for this card so far are pretty negative but I don't think it is a bad card at all. I think it is a great card in a specific niche.

To get the best value out of this card you are looking for a high native THW (so you can get up to THW 5 with Surveillance Specialist and Heroic Intuition), easy access to readying (so you can make a basic thwart when you need to), and a low player count (so an all-rounder deck makes sense).

The decks I've published here on MarvelCDB so far to demonstrate this haven't set the world on fire but I'm still trying.

  • Captain America has incredible readying and can get up to THW 4 with Fearless Determination before you add anything else. This deck marvelcdb.com sets up fast and can deal out tons of damage, but I think any deck with Captain America is going to be pretty good.
  • Spectrum has high THW in Photon form, and by letting her play the whole game in Photon Brains Over Brawn takes away some of the risk and variance in her play which can sometimes happen when you get stuck in the wrong energy form with none of the right cards in your hand. The deck is marvelcdb.com but to be honest I think there are stronger ways to build Spectrum.
  • Spider-Woman has readying in her native kit and can get very high THW due to Superhuman Agility. In this deck marvelcdb.com I used blue cards to try to accelerate her set-up.
  • But Phoenix is the pick of the bunch. She has high THW right out of the gate and like any X-Man can easily ready using Utopia. Brains Over Brawn really helps her because until she unleashes and gets the full effect of Psychic Blast she struggles to deal with minions.

So overall I think this card deserves comparison with Fusillade or Clobber. It can deliver similar value with a little more set-up, reflecting the fact that it's a yellow card rather than a red one. Compared to Turn the Tide it is obviously not such good value but it does more damage and you can pretty much guarantee meeting the conditions to use it, so it is much more reliable when you actually need to clear a minion.

Not the best card, but a card with a place in the game.

adsarf · 488

This doesn't seem like a great card, but I can see some use for it in Psylocke justice decks. Psylocke with Heroic intuition can get 4 THW and if the villain is confused his card would do 5 damage with Floating like a butterfly. Seems pretty good attack for justice aspect and requirement of basic thwart is quite easy too.

ltUrban · 27
Brains over Brawn is great for Psyloce. Don't forget to add Specialized Training to get to THW 5. There are some other heroes that can get there too. I like Phoenix the best, because she could do with some help attacking. — adsarf · 488

Wasp with Wasp's Helmet and Heroic Intuition is 4 damage. If I'm thwarting and use Rapid Growth, do I deal 4 damage or 6 ? If the damage is 6, I think it could be worth to play Brains over Brawn with Wasp.

wehehe · 222
Actually, Rapid Growth states "+2 to that power for his use", not "for this turn". So my guess is Brains over Brawn does 4 DMG, not 6. — neothechosen · 10908

Question: If I thwart with Venom and use modifiers (like his pistols and/or "making an entrance"), would those bonuses to that base THW be included in this attack?

I would think since it's a response, it would count.

JRyder05 · 1
Since its a response, and "response opportunity occurs immediately after its triggering condition has been resolved." The basic thwart will have completely finished resolving and any bonuses for that action will have lapsed. — Death by Chocolate · 4

Other commenters have pointed out that this card is basically almost always worse than Haymaker. The only silver lining that I can see is that it's a Hero Response, so Ghost-Spider can possibly get some use out of it, but then again she only has 1 THW so this isn't exactly the best option.

But the reason I'm posting this review is because, is the art on this card from the scene in Spider-Man Homecoming where Spider-Man saves the boat from being split in half? I never thought I would see an MCU reference in Marvel Champions!

It is unlikely to be an MCU reference, or at least not one that they went out of the way to make. The card art is pulled from existing Marvel Comics art. You can tell because the artist credit at the bottom is just ©MARVEL. Art that FFG commissions for the game also includes the artist's name. — Death by Chocolate · 4