Click below for info on each of the eight Factions, shown in the sequence of their reveals!

If you’ve been following our social media updates since the announcement about The Op and AEG bringing official licenses to their popular “shufflebuilding” game Smash Up, you’ve been on a journey with an excitable group of players and pop-culture fans learning about the extraordinary factions you’ll be using when Smash Up: Marvel comes out this winter!

For hobbyists on the outside of this entertaining fusion of illustrated worlds, Smash Up is a card game designed by Paul Peterson (Pokemon, Magic: The Gathering) that lets competitive archetype enthusiasts face-off for virtual territory, using dream teams that they pair up. These fictional armies, called factions, have comprised everything from campy characters (Kaiju, Disco Dancers) to relatable clichés (Geeks, Rock Stars)—but players of the award-winning title can now celebrate having superheroes and villains of galactic proportions at their disposal.

Smash Up: Marvel will allow seasoned players and newcomers of all ages to join the limitless clashing with comic mainstays, such as the vigilant members of The Ultimates and criminal masterminds HYDRA as two of eight factions leading the charge!

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The Ultimates & HYDRA

Players will be able to employ the character-specific abilities of heroes such as Captain Marvel and Spectrum, or evildoers like Arnim Zola and Red Skull, to accomplish Smash Up’s objective—strategically build your characters’ powers to dominate bases and collect as many victory points as possible! Conceptualized by both AEG and The Op’s game design teams, each faction’s custom traits are respectively inline with the comics and Marvel universe’s storylines.

The Avengers & Masters of Evil

We’ve kept you in suspense since Spring to hear who else’s powers you’ll be using to shuffle-build with the best of them this fall in Smash Up: Marvel, and our followers on social media heard it first this week that The Avengers and Masters of Evil are now among the announced Factions coming to your decks of choice this October! Thor and his prized possession Mjolnir gave fans a sneak peek at just one of the six superheroes and their corresponding Action, while adversary Baron Zemo was shown to rep the threatening opposition. Use him among the other diabolical villains to come up on points and take over the game, or rely on the two-card combos as the secret weapons in your deck. Which Faction would you choose?

S.H.I.E.L.D. & The Kree

You’ve made it halfway through the eight Factions we’ve had under wraps since we first announced that Smash Up was getting a superhero treatment! The otherworldly news continues here with the fifth and sixth reveals you can expect in Smash Up: Marvel… S.H.I.E.L.D and The Kree!

Fans will find Nick Fury among the other Strategic Hazard Intervention Espionage Logistics Directorate characters when it’s time to select your two decks. He’s got an eye on the team by allowing you to play an extra character with his card. Naturally, one of the Actions you’ll have with the S.H.I.E.L.D crew is called “Work Together”, and it lets each of your in-play characters gain +1 power until the end of the turn. And you thought Coulson was a lackey!

You can play The Kree until you’re blue in the face, but with Supreme Intelligence on your side, his ongoing ability will add +1 to one of your other characters, following an Action, until the turn ends. We’ll take what we can get from the magnanimous leader, although this alien race is already known for being aggressive, which is why the Righteous Fury card’s adding +3 to a character is definitely something Hell would hath.

Spider-Verse & The Sinister Six

Be as quick and agile as the Spider-Verse to grab them up as one of your deck choices, since Spider-Man and Miles Morales are among the friendly neighborhood Characters you knew you were waiting for. Staying in the double trouble vein, the special Spider-Sense can be played after a base where you have a character score and it lets you draw two cards.

How much more “armed” do you need to be with Doctor Octopus and The Sinister Six as the last Faction? Use Doc Oc’s ongoing ability to reduce a base’s breakpoint by 4 until the end of the turn. Need a base modifier? Up your control of the table and use Reroute the Power to give one of your characters +3 until the start of your next turn. Now that’s what we call taking charge!

Smash Up: Marvel will be for 2-4 players, ages 12 and up, and will be available this winter! Follow our Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter to find out when to ask your favorite local game store for it, check out Where to Buy here, or come back to The Op’s online shop to order as soon as you get the word!

Until then, join the discussion to trade tips, share pics, and speculate on what’s next at AEG’s Smash Up Smashposting Facebook group. To learn more about AEG, visit https://www.alderac.com, AEG’s Facebook and Twitter.