Greetings HeroClix Masterminds! 

Welcome to the first Design Insight article for Marvel Studios HeroClix: Next Phase! As with our last Disney+ themed set, the design team approached this set with an eye towards making sure each Marvel Studios show represented felt both mechanically distinct from the others, and thematically true to itself. This can be difficult to do without adding too many new mechanics, so before we went to the drawing board, we looked through recent sets for existing mechanics that could add additional depth and build options. We hope that you enjoy this Design Insights article, and you can see a whole host of previewed figures from the Dial H team on Youtube.

Without further ado, let's talk figures! 

Shifting Focus is making a comeback with Baby Groot! The "I Am Groot" shorts showed Baby Groot getting up to hilarious hijinks, like dance-offs with shapeshifters, playing with mud baths, or blowing holes in the ship for an art project. Sprinkled throughout the set are Baby Groots that each showcase a different short's mischief, which Groot can swap between at will. 

The popularity of The Target game mechanic made it an easy choice for a reappearing mechanic, and Verusa and her monster hunters fit the Assassin keyword nicely. Verusa also adds a new twist to Assassin teams by opening up the hunt to non-Assassins; while only Assassins can claim the 25 point bounty, anyone can gain the Mystics Team Ability by KOing the Target, and possibly the bonus 15 points as well if the Target was a Monster. This gives players an interesting team-building choice: is Verusa best on Assassin themed teams, or splashed onto other teams that can make use of the reward for taking out her Target? Beyond the Target ability and the crossover of Monsters/Assassins, Werewolf by Night characters may add some interesting other dimensions to the Modern metagame, enhancing and diminishing key force themes. 

With Moon Knight, we began to diverge a bit from inter-set mechanics. Khonshu, as well as Ammit and Taweret, all have an "Avatar" trait that works similarly, only differing in what powers their patronage bestows. We have had godly characters bestow boons from the Sideline before, so with Moon Knight's Egyptian gods we wanted to give them something extra to make them distinct, and to encourage them to see play on the main force instead of solely on the Sideline. For Khonshu that's his "I Am Still The God Of The Night Sky" trait, but Ammit and Taweret have their own exciting takes on that "help from beyond" theme. 

While we didn't dive deeply into Ms. Marvel's show content, there are several interesting figures from the show, including the previously unclixed Red Dagger. From Kamala's hard light powers to the intense fights across the cityscapes of Jersey City and Karachi, the design team quickly realized the characters of Ms. Marvel would want to create and interact with terrain. For Kamala's ally Red Dagger, we took that direction and focused it on his scenes defending and helping Kamala through the packed streets of Karachi. With his Red Scarf trait, he makes the rims of elevated terrain hinder your opponent's lines of fire, protecting your team from ranged attacks. 

She-Hulk's cast ranges wider than perhaps any other Disney+ show, so the design team broke it up into two separate thematic batches. The first batch is the members of Abomination's retreat group: 

Ohmmm. The Abomaste Therapy Session is a shared trait on all of the characters mentored by Abomination that allows them to swap action tokens between them. Most of them also have a secondary effect tied to action tokens, like Saracen removing his action tokens whenever he heals. Therapy pays off with an Abomaste team, as your characters share their burdens and work together to conquer everything before them! 

Outside of Abomaste, She-Hulk showcased a wild assortment of deep-cut characters through the clients and members of GLK&H's Superhuman Law Division. With such disparate characters, the design team decided against trying to connect them mechanically. Instead, the design team chose to treat each of them as a storytelling opportunity, and looked to find fun, and possibly funny, ways to capture the quirks of each of Jen's cases. For instance, Leap Frog's super suit catching fire… 

That's all we have for today! We still need to take aim at Hawkeye, but there's enough in our quiver there to warrant a whole second article.

Join us next time when we fire off some Trick Arrows with everyone's favorite eagle-eyed Avenger!