How to Play

Legendary: A Marvel Deck Building Game

1-5 players 30-60 min 7.5 Board Game Geek Rating

In this Marvel-themed deck builder, players recruit superhero cards to strengthen their decks while battling an ever-growing threat of villains and a mastermind opponent. Each turn reveals new villains that must be defeated before escaping. Victory comes from accumulating the most points by defeating enemies and claiming mastermind attack cards before the villain's scheme succeeds.

Published 2012

Get Ready

Setup the game with these step-by-step instructions before diving into your turn.

Organize Masterminds into tiers

Divide all masterminds into three groups: Tier 1 (Easy), Tier 2 (Hard), and Tier 3 (Epic) based on difficulty

Create the Fate Deck

Build a 30-card deck containing 10 Detrimental Event cards, 10 No Event cards, and 10 Beneficial Event cards

Create the Detrimental Deck

Assemble 30+ cards with events that hinder the Heroes

Create the Beneficial Deck

Assemble 30+ cards with events that aid the Heroes

Select campaign length

Decide how many matches to play (standard is 15 matches)

Choose Masterminds

Select 5 masterminds of each tier level and shuffle each group into separate decks of 5 Tier 1 MMs, 5 Tier 2 MMs, and 5 Tier 3 MMs

Build starting roster

Randomly choose 10 Heroes for your starting roster

Reveal the Mastermind

Draw the top card of the appropriate MM deck to determine your opponent

Select a scheme

Choose a scheme randomly or hand-pick one appropriate for that Mastermind

Draw from Fate Deck

Reveal the top card to determine if the match has No Event, a Detrimental Event, or a Beneficial Event

On Your Turn

What you can do during your turn.

Select Heroes using escalating randomness

The number of randomly chosen Heroes increases after each win until it resets

Apply Hero selection restriction

When filling non-random slots, you may not choose Heroes that were in the previous match (randomly chosen Heroes may repeat)

Handle losses without advancing

If you lose a match, the random Hero count does not increase for the next match

Use Contingency Plans

Spend a Contingency Plan at match start to cancel any Event and make it a No Event game

Apply One-Off Deck Boost

Round your match score to nearest 10, then use those points to buy common Hero cards (10 points = cost 1) before shuffling the Hero deck

Winning

How to claim victory.

Defeat the Mastermind

Remove the defeated MM from the campaign permanently

Expand your roster

Randomly select 2 Heroes to add to your roster after each victory

Calculate individual match score

Each player scores separately using this formula:

Add Detrimental Event card

After winning, add one Detrimental Event card to the Fate Deck

Handle losses

When losing, delete 1 Hero from your roster for each Mastermind Tactic remaining, shuffle the Mastermind back into their tier deck, and add a Beneficial Event card to the Fate Deck

Track cumulative score

Maintain running totals for permanent starter deck modifications

Earn Contingency Plans

Complete a match with no non-grey Heroes KO'd, no escaped Villains, and no KO'd Bystanders to earn one Contingency Plan

Complete the campaign

Defeat all 15 Masterminds across the three tiers to win the campaign