Hello there !

I just played 3 games with Teemo (Azir 2 players, Azir 3 players, Nasus 2 players), and I come back with some constructive criticism.

First of all, GREAT JOB with the whole League of Legends set. The heroes, villains, original cards and re-skinned ones, they all feel official (and tbh, they look even better than the official ones). That's pro work you've done there, so congratulations on that, it's amazing.

On with the critique now. I'll proceed by listing Teemo's powers and cards one by one and my thoughts on them, and finish with my overall impression of the deck.



Alter-ego power : It's good. I couldn't really exploit it fully due to playing against Azir and Nasus (Fluctuating landscape environnment, clockling bastard... f***ing sands of Shurima), but it's really good. Good recovery to compensate the fact that you only have 9 hp, and a little bonus if you manage to keep your toughness status. I never could (again, thank you Shurima), but still a #feelsgood bonus when you manage to pull it off.


Hero power : Good THW and ATK stats, 9 hp and only 1 def but you play around toughness (and you are Teemo, seems leggit to be squishy), so nothing to say here, it's balanced. And then... Hand size is 5 cards, but you can (maybe) draw twice. Seems good on paper, right ? Well, it's not. You don't see traps resolve that often, and when they do you might be in alter-ego form. If the traps mechanics is enhanced and more reliable, then the draw power will be more reliable too and will feel balanced.


Trap mechanics : The "trap" cards we have in Marvel Champions (Living tribunal, Eternity, The Gardener and In-Betweener) are an interesting mechanics, but boy oh boy are they WEAK as hell ! You can have only one per deck because of the "unique" trait, they fizzle all the time due to being discarded or used as boosts, AND they go back to YOUR discard pile. Not to mention they cost too much, for effects that are underwhelming. And if they do proc, they're even removed from the game ! So basically, those cards are a HUGE waste of time.

With Teemo, you tried to make that interesting mechanics VIABLE. For this alone, thank you so much, and good job. Because yes, I think it is indeed interesting and could even be strong : you slow the pace of the encounter deck (less acceleration tokens), boosts = 0, you have a positive effect instead of a negative one... So yeah, what you did is a step in the right direction. But, we're not quite there yet. There are, in my opinion, some flaws that remain.


Trap mechanics, the cards :

Ava Achiever : Good ally, but maybe too expensive. The heal when you play traps is a strong mechanics, but you don't have a lot of traps (5 in your deck, 8 if you put 3 more from the original colored cards you created), so it doesn't make her (Him ? Not sure, I'll assume she's a girl) overpowered, like for example the Cosmo-Strange combo. Her interrupt (discarded traps go in your deck) isn't incredible but can help you play more traps, so it's welcome. The fact that she has the "Fragile." trait means you can't really defend with her, and she has only 2 HP, that's why I think 3 resources is too much. You need every little bonus you can have to make the traps mechanics work, there is a lot of setup cards you NEED to play to achieve it, so I would put her to a 2 resources cost, and maybe put her THW stat to 1 if it feels too strong. An ally that can more or less reliably ping 1 per turn (ATK or THW) and give that trap bonus is good enough in my book. I wanna mention though, Teemo's only other THW cards are the 2 "All In A Day's Work", and I don't think those are a good idea. More on this in the AIADW section.


Improved traps : Boosts = reveal. This one I feel is a must-have, because it gets rid of one of the flaws of the traps. But once again, it might be too expensive considering Teemo's whole set of setup cards. In itself, the cost feels okay-ish (I would maybe put the cooldown ability to cooldown 2 instead of 3), but there are 4 cards that help with the traps, and those cards cost 3, 3, 2 and 2, for a total of 10 resources. That's a lot, just to help you put traps in the encounter deck and make them resolve.


Puffcap Peddler : Mixed feelings about this one. You often have higher priorities than putting him in play, because 2 for the ability to pay 1 to fetch a trap, a trap that you have to pay for too... It's not that great. However, it would be really great if the action was free, just exhaust the peddler to get a trap. It would be immensely helpful in early game to get that extra resource to play your setup cards, and then serve as a shroom supplier until they're all in the encounter deck. A lot of heroes have this kind of cards, tap to get a resource or reduce cost, so it would be nice to have it on Teemo as well.


Improvisation : Great card, it feels perfectly balanced to me. Sadly I couldn't use it that often, because too much costs, higher priorities, etc, but I think it's perfect as it is. Maybe a more versatile effect would be good, deal 1 damage or remove 1 threat ?


Poisonous Puffcap : For me, the fact that you have 5 of those is great, and their effect (3 damages or confuse) is really nice too. But. I didn't see them resolve that often, because I didn't play them that often. The high costs of the setup cards, your hero hand size and the fact that you need to do your job too (a.k.a. play your colored cards) make it so that you're often 1 resource short of being able to play a trap. For me, a choice needs to be made : either put the poisonous puffcap to a zero cost, or lower some of the costs of the setup cards. Only then will you be able to reliably play those traps, and have higher chances to see them proc. And this is essentially what you wanna do and see when you play Teemo : put a load of traps in the encounter deck, and see them explode on the villain's face.


Noxious Trap : Never played those. You have only 2, and you need a trap to resolve to be able to play it. I rarely saw a trap resolve, and when I did, I didn't have a Noxious Trap in hand. So basically, this is a 1 resource card. It could see more play if the trap mechanics was more reliable : then it would be a nice little card, not too powerful but not useless either.


All In A Day's Work : You don't play enough traps and see them resolve enough to be able to delay up to 3 paid traps just to twhart up to 6. I'd rather play a basic thwart card, and those aren't great either. Maybe 3 per trap, up to 2 (so an unchanged total of 6 threats removed max) would feel less like a setback ? But that's if you can play more traps. Otherwise, this card is a "do not play" for me.


Guerilla Warfare : Same as Improvisation : Great card, I wouldn't change it in any way. 2 resources to get tough, pricy but fair. +1 THW if tough, that's great. 2 resources cost, that's perfect : 1 would be not enough, 3 would be too much. Great job on this one.


Quickness : Some marvel heroes can untap freely, but they often tend to have kind of weak stats, or their gameplay is based around the fact that they untap (Quicksilver, Doctor Strange with his cloak, etc). Teemo has good stats, you can pump him fairly easily with the "+1 to x stat" colored cards, the Guerilla Warfare or the Purpleberry Shake, or even the symbiote suit (less easy for that one). And with its toughness mechanic, I felt like I had no problem untapping every turn, except 3 or 4 times (in 3 games) when the villain had a series of attacks (or lots of minions, etc). So, good hero stats, you can untap but you have to "protect" yourself to do so, feels balanced to me. Good job, no change needed here either, again : great card.


Obligation : Delay ALL the traps you paid for. You don't have a choice, you don't have a say, so "shut your trap". For me, that's too big of a punishment, I think it would be more fair to give the classic option "alter-ego form, tap to remove". Heck, I would even be ok with a "tap to discard", making it an obligation you can't get rid of. Again, you don't see enough traps : no need to see even less of them because of the obligation, the undodgeable effect is a major #feelsbad, and as an obligation, it shouldn't be like that in my opinion. This is a role for... the Nemesis :)


Nemesis deck : Didn't know Graves was Teemo's enemy, but I don't play Runeterra and I didn't research on their lore so, yeah, why not. The nemesis deck is super cool, anyway. The fact that you can get traps in your own deck too is a reeeally nice touch, and the nemesis and side scheme can f**k you up. And that's what your nemesis deck should do : f**k you up ! Great job on this.




Overall thoughts on the deck :

Did I mention I didn't see a lot of traps ? In all seriousness, I feel like Teemo revolves around two mechanics : Toughness, and traps. The toughness mechanics is well made and you don't have any problem using it with your recovery or your guerilla warfare. It's either built in, or on one setup card that costs only 2. So, no problem with that. But the traps, man ! By the time you're done with your setup and played 9 or 10 of them (including player cards with improvisation), guess what else is done ? The game !

Traps are in essence a slow mechanics, not to mention a random one. It takes time for you to play enough of them so that they become useful. A costly setup with not enough resources make it even slower, and the result is that you won't see many traps resolve. In 3 games, I saw maybe 4 or 5 traps resolve. This is just not reliable ! And if you can't rely on your main gameplay mechanics, why play Teemo in the first place ?

I think Teemo is really close to being a character that actually achieves something that no other character can do, while being super fun to play too ! And I feel it is rather a question of balance than a lack of something. For me, the cards are there, their design is well thought, it fits the game well, they just need a little help to make you feel like you were useful in the game.

And this is what I want after a multiplayer game of Marvel Champions. "This was hard, but I did my part !" or "I did my share of the work. And I had a blast doing so, yay !". Not "Man, we won but I wish I was more useful."

All in all, this is a great deck and I would love to see it evolve in the right direction. It could easily become one of my main characters ! Me and some friends had a lot of fun playing with your cards, so again thank you for all your hard work and I hope my "essay" on Teemo's deck will be helpful to you.

Good day, sir !