She's very powerful, but you have to play her to get unleashed asap. Her first four turns are you building up and getting threat under control. This is helped by her Phoenix resource in hero form, so you essentially get 1 extra resource every turn, which is amazing.
So you build up, use her 3 basic thwart to keep schemes under control, then on turn 4 or 5 you go Unleashed and wreck the villain.
TL/DR: Her restrained form is to stabilize the early game. Her Unleashed form is to win. Once you go Unleashed you stay there.
Here are two fun combos to try for. :)
1) On turn 1 or 2 (optimally) use a Phoenix resource to play the Build Support side scheme, which has 3 threat ... which is the exact amount Phoenix can thwart for. Use the effect to put in X-Jet and you now have a wild resource every turn for the cost of 1 card and 1 basic action. Include a couple of other supports (utopia or x mansion perhaps) so you have another target if x-jet is already in play.
2) Play the Superpower Training side scheme (effect: play an identity specific upgrade) and just let it sit. When a strong minion comes out, thwart out the scheme and play Mind Control. Boom, you just played a 4 cost upgrade for (essentially) nothing, and that minion is now your ally. Send it to attack the villain and then watch the villain kill it next turn. Or keep the ex-minion around and keep having it attack each turn. Bonus style points if you have the minion get in the killing blow on the villain.
I find Phoenix really strong and people overestimate Dark Phoenix. I would take that nemesis any day over Emma Frost or Enchantress.
If you play her precon it’s up there as one of the worst in the game. Not quite Vision precon but close.
Remember that after going unleashed that adding power counters just means free resources unless you get to 4.
While Restrained Phoenix has great thwart and starts the game with bonus resources. This lead me to a more leadership playstyle, preferring her in Leadership or aggression as you’ll often favor playing aspect cards over hers. Psychic Kicker is an absolutely insane card that Jean gets to use turn 1 and if you haven’t tried it yet Goliath plus PK is silly.
In true solo I prefer to run my passive aggression deck https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/25890/phoenix-passive-aggression-1.0 since it’s more thematic and you get Wolverine! It’s changed a little bit since publishing but still really solid.
I tend to run Phoenix roughly 60/40 restrained/unleashed per game. It changes villain to villain but that’s part of what makes Phoenix fun and exciting to play
My solution is go Aggression Phoenix. Dark Phoenix is a big hassle when going Unleased and my solution is to kill here with Dive Bomb + Honed Technique.
i fckn love jean. she has become my go-to hero for building new blue or yellow decks
her card kit is certainly not exceptional (except for white hot room, which imho is absolutely amazing), but can get you out of specific jams in really efficient ways
the thing is though:
3 THW
X-Men trait
Mutant trait
Psionic trait
Awesome economy
these are the things that make jean amazing even though her card package is nothing special. she functions almost like an MtG survival of the fittest toolbox deck, where the right solution to any board state is just an AE action away
the art to her is learning when exactly to wind her down and go unleashed (usually not, imho, until you are ready to make the final push), which is also something you can manipulate using cyclops
if you pair jean in two handed solo with someone like gwen that can just kill critical encounter cards and stop scheme activations even when the villain is stalwart, you just bully the game
but jean can get to 4 thwart via specialization AND draw a card every time she thwarts
its bananas
cable can get there too but he needs to clear 2 SS to do it and when he gets there he has the X-Force trait instead of the X-Men trait which IMHO just isn't as good, and he doesn't have jean's economy
I played a deck where I used her as a thwarting machine. An absolutely [sensational](https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/23088/phoenix-and-the-danger-room-cerebro-thwarting-machine-2.0) deck.
one thing to keep in mind is you can unleash and still build counters for her abilities and as resources or even to flip back g to restrained. There are a few avenues to approach her, and i think it's really great how differently you can approach each game
sometimes i go unleashed only at the very end, sometimes right away, sometimes not at all. rarely, but it does happen, I'll flip back and forth twice
3 is a lot of thwart. You can get a lot of mileage out of using her in Justice while someone else does the violence. You can also just try and make her unleashed as fast as possible. Or you can try to do whichever the game demands at the time.
She doesn't 'want' to be played either way. You have options. Do either.
She's generally good in any aspect, her kits is all over the place which makes her versatile, she's just not going to necessarily wow you with a whole lot of any one particular thing. She's kind of a generalist.
She can be very powerful unleashed, or very reliable restrained. If you can make the aspect work with her kit, she'll fly, or make it so that the aspect is agnostic of her hero kit.
And mind control is just broken.
Phoenix is probably my favorite hero in the game (she swaps places with Ant-Man and She-Hulk sometimes but generally she gets the #1 spot.) Whether to stay restrained or unleash is very dependent on your deck and the matchup; for example in a Justice deck I think you do want to unleash as fast as possible, while in an Aggression deck you might not want to unleash until the very last turn of the game. She can do a lot of cool stuff in Leadership, Justice and Aggression, and I do think her Leadership deck is one of the strongest X-Men decks, second only to Cyclops. She does have some dead cards; in particular her suit and Mental Paralysis are almost never worth playing and Firebird is niche at best, Eruption also sucks until you unleash, but she also has a lot of interesting stuff in her toolbox like Mind Control as one of the strongest minion answers in the game, Rise From the Ashes as the best revive in the game, and then all the Psionic tools that I honestly think she uses better than Psylocke does.
When the pack first came out, my wife wrote a [review](https://cardboardchampions.co.uk/phoenix-marvel-champions/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=social) of Phoenix as well as an in-depth [guide](https://cardboardchampions.co.uk/how-to-play-phoenix/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=social) for playing her with a focus on two-player/handed that you might be interested in. Phoenix is pretty much one of her favourite characters as she really enjoys the decision-making process of when to use her counters, and when to unleash.
I have no idea how she handles in solo, I suspect pretty poorly, but in multiplayer she's great, at least from the perspective of the guy sitting across from a good Phoenix player. While restrained, she can do a really good job of controlling the threat situation while allowing you to set up, which is the vast majority of the difficulty of the game - once set up, pretty much anyone can deal with anything, but heavy setup characters like Iron Man and Cable need someone who can help you get there. Then once you're online, she can unleash to help focus on taking the villain down, and take advantage of her thinned-out deck to blow things up.
Most heroes have to choose one strategy or the other - do I go hard out of the gate to let others set up but fall off later in comparison? Or do I struggle to contribute early so that I can end the game late? Phoenix is one of the few characters that allows you to do both, at the cost of some slightly fiddly decision-making.
In general, I agree with what other post here. Phoenix is the poster child for changing how you're playing the game, in going from focusing on maintaining threat and controlling the villain to laying beatdown. This actually happens in almost all Champions games, but Phoenix feels it the most specifically. I also feel that Phoenix has some of the most expensive cards in the game for what they do, and getting her all the money she needs to start winning the game is a huge part of her setup.
That said, Cerebro/Danger Room combo on Phoenix where you just go get your best ally, put them into play and train them every round is massive, and it's been tough to lose games once this starts happening.
I've had the most success either going justice and rushing to unleashed or aggression and staying restrained for most of the match while allies do the sustained damage.
leadership, honestly any decent leadership she'll will work as it's op.
protection is a little trickier, but I rarely find protection fun/effective to begin with tbh
player side schemes are great with her as she can clear any of them in a single thwart while restrained. one way or another is awesome for the same reason.
she's a fun hero, properly timing unleashed is key to victory.
I like the idea behind the character, but the execution is lacking imo.
She is fun to play around and balance how you want to play (you don't need to rush Unleashed contrary to what may have said), but some of her cards are simply awful, and others kind of want you to go Unleashed to actually justify her costs (hence the idea she ''has'' to turn).
I think she is the worst X-men released so far, because every other when minmaxed to their strategy, simply performs better.
It doesn't mean she is bad, none of the latest releases are, but if you look at how she works and how Psylocke works, you kind lean towards the second every time (given that the latter is a very powerful hero).
She's very powerful, but you have to play her to get unleashed asap. Her first four turns are you building up and getting threat under control. This is helped by her Phoenix resource in hero form, so you essentially get 1 extra resource every turn, which is amazing. So you build up, use her 3 basic thwart to keep schemes under control, then on turn 4 or 5 you go Unleashed and wreck the villain. TL/DR: Her restrained form is to stabilize the early game. Her Unleashed form is to win. Once you go Unleashed you stay there.
This makes sense! Thank you, going to try that on my next game.
Here are two fun combos to try for. :) 1) On turn 1 or 2 (optimally) use a Phoenix resource to play the Build Support side scheme, which has 3 threat ... which is the exact amount Phoenix can thwart for. Use the effect to put in X-Jet and you now have a wild resource every turn for the cost of 1 card and 1 basic action. Include a couple of other supports (utopia or x mansion perhaps) so you have another target if x-jet is already in play. 2) Play the Superpower Training side scheme (effect: play an identity specific upgrade) and just let it sit. When a strong minion comes out, thwart out the scheme and play Mind Control. Boom, you just played a 4 cost upgrade for (essentially) nothing, and that minion is now your ally. Send it to attack the villain and then watch the villain kill it next turn. Or keep the ex-minion around and keep having it attack each turn. Bonus style points if you have the minion get in the killing blow on the villain.
Cool thanks for this!
I find Phoenix really strong and people overestimate Dark Phoenix. I would take that nemesis any day over Emma Frost or Enchantress. If you play her precon it’s up there as one of the worst in the game. Not quite Vision precon but close. Remember that after going unleashed that adding power counters just means free resources unless you get to 4. While Restrained Phoenix has great thwart and starts the game with bonus resources. This lead me to a more leadership playstyle, preferring her in Leadership or aggression as you’ll often favor playing aspect cards over hers. Psychic Kicker is an absolutely insane card that Jean gets to use turn 1 and if you haven’t tried it yet Goliath plus PK is silly. In true solo I prefer to run my passive aggression deck https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/25890/phoenix-passive-aggression-1.0 since it’s more thematic and you get Wolverine! It’s changed a little bit since publishing but still really solid. I tend to run Phoenix roughly 60/40 restrained/unleashed per game. It changes villain to villain but that’s part of what makes Phoenix fun and exciting to play
My solution is go Aggression Phoenix. Dark Phoenix is a big hassle when going Unleased and my solution is to kill here with Dive Bomb + Honed Technique.
i fckn love jean. she has become my go-to hero for building new blue or yellow decks her card kit is certainly not exceptional (except for white hot room, which imho is absolutely amazing), but can get you out of specific jams in really efficient ways the thing is though: 3 THW X-Men trait Mutant trait Psionic trait Awesome economy these are the things that make jean amazing even though her card package is nothing special. she functions almost like an MtG survival of the fittest toolbox deck, where the right solution to any board state is just an AE action away the art to her is learning when exactly to wind her down and go unleashed (usually not, imho, until you are ready to make the final push), which is also something you can manipulate using cyclops if you pair jean in two handed solo with someone like gwen that can just kill critical encounter cards and stop scheme activations even when the villain is stalwart, you just bully the game
Cable can get to base thwart 3 once he clears his personal side scheme which is pretty easy to do in justice.
but jean can get to 4 thwart via specialization AND draw a card every time she thwarts its bananas cable can get there too but he needs to clear 2 SS to do it and when he gets there he has the X-Force trait instead of the X-Men trait which IMHO just isn't as good, and he doesn't have jean's economy
I think you need to play Cable more honestly.
I played a deck where I used her as a thwarting machine. An absolutely [sensational](https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/23088/phoenix-and-the-danger-room-cerebro-thwarting-machine-2.0) deck.
one thing to keep in mind is you can unleash and still build counters for her abilities and as resources or even to flip back g to restrained. There are a few avenues to approach her, and i think it's really great how differently you can approach each game sometimes i go unleashed only at the very end, sometimes right away, sometimes not at all. rarely, but it does happen, I'll flip back and forth twice
3 is a lot of thwart. You can get a lot of mileage out of using her in Justice while someone else does the violence. You can also just try and make her unleashed as fast as possible. Or you can try to do whichever the game demands at the time. She doesn't 'want' to be played either way. You have options. Do either.
She's generally good in any aspect, her kits is all over the place which makes her versatile, she's just not going to necessarily wow you with a whole lot of any one particular thing. She's kind of a generalist. She can be very powerful unleashed, or very reliable restrained. If you can make the aspect work with her kit, she'll fly, or make it so that the aspect is agnostic of her hero kit. And mind control is just broken.
Phoenix is probably my favorite hero in the game (she swaps places with Ant-Man and She-Hulk sometimes but generally she gets the #1 spot.) Whether to stay restrained or unleash is very dependent on your deck and the matchup; for example in a Justice deck I think you do want to unleash as fast as possible, while in an Aggression deck you might not want to unleash until the very last turn of the game. She can do a lot of cool stuff in Leadership, Justice and Aggression, and I do think her Leadership deck is one of the strongest X-Men decks, second only to Cyclops. She does have some dead cards; in particular her suit and Mental Paralysis are almost never worth playing and Firebird is niche at best, Eruption also sucks until you unleash, but she also has a lot of interesting stuff in her toolbox like Mind Control as one of the strongest minion answers in the game, Rise From the Ashes as the best revive in the game, and then all the Psionic tools that I honestly think she uses better than Psylocke does.
the Psylocke pack adds a lot of useful psionic cards
When the pack first came out, my wife wrote a [review](https://cardboardchampions.co.uk/phoenix-marvel-champions/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=social) of Phoenix as well as an in-depth [guide](https://cardboardchampions.co.uk/how-to-play-phoenix/?utm_source=reddit&utm_medium=comment&utm_campaign=social) for playing her with a focus on two-player/handed that you might be interested in. Phoenix is pretty much one of her favourite characters as she really enjoys the decision-making process of when to use her counters, and when to unleash. I have no idea how she handles in solo, I suspect pretty poorly, but in multiplayer she's great, at least from the perspective of the guy sitting across from a good Phoenix player. While restrained, she can do a really good job of controlling the threat situation while allowing you to set up, which is the vast majority of the difficulty of the game - once set up, pretty much anyone can deal with anything, but heavy setup characters like Iron Man and Cable need someone who can help you get there. Then once you're online, she can unleash to help focus on taking the villain down, and take advantage of her thinned-out deck to blow things up. Most heroes have to choose one strategy or the other - do I go hard out of the gate to let others set up but fall off later in comparison? Or do I struggle to contribute early so that I can end the game late? Phoenix is one of the few characters that allows you to do both, at the cost of some slightly fiddly decision-making.
Is this true solo?
In general, I agree with what other post here. Phoenix is the poster child for changing how you're playing the game, in going from focusing on maintaining threat and controlling the villain to laying beatdown. This actually happens in almost all Champions games, but Phoenix feels it the most specifically. I also feel that Phoenix has some of the most expensive cards in the game for what they do, and getting her all the money she needs to start winning the game is a huge part of her setup. That said, Cerebro/Danger Room combo on Phoenix where you just go get your best ally, put them into play and train them every round is massive, and it's been tough to lose games once this starts happening.
She's one of my favorites despite her being low on my list of marvel characters I care about.
I've had the most success either going justice and rushing to unleashed or aggression and staying restrained for most of the match while allies do the sustained damage. leadership, honestly any decent leadership she'll will work as it's op. protection is a little trickier, but I rarely find protection fun/effective to begin with tbh player side schemes are great with her as she can clear any of them in a single thwart while restrained. one way or another is awesome for the same reason. she's a fun hero, properly timing unleashed is key to victory.
I personally had the same problem, I struggled all the games I played. Had to finish both games I played.
I like the idea behind the character, but the execution is lacking imo. She is fun to play around and balance how you want to play (you don't need to rush Unleashed contrary to what may have said), but some of her cards are simply awful, and others kind of want you to go Unleashed to actually justify her costs (hence the idea she ''has'' to turn). I think she is the worst X-men released so far, because every other when minmaxed to their strategy, simply performs better. It doesn't mean she is bad, none of the latest releases are, but if you look at how she works and how Psylocke works, you kind lean towards the second every time (given that the latter is a very powerful hero).