Summary

The Marvel ReCharge Collectible Card Game was a card game released by (unusually) Marvel, featuring their own superheroes. In the game, superheroes fight each other and you bet on the outcome of the fights. The game was distributed in starter decks and 8-card booster packs.

This game is not to be confused with the similar superhero games Meta X, Marvel Ultimate Battles, the X-Men TCG, or the VS System.

Card Types

• Hero - Cards representing one or more superheroes. Each has one or more of the four "category" colors (red are heroes, green are villians, yellow are women, and blue are X-Men; the pattern on the colored border matches this), and a strength.
• Teamwork - Cards representing groups (or duos) of superheroes, allowing you to attack with multiple heroes. Each has one or more of the four "category" colors, and a strength.
• Power - Cards representing one or more superheroes. Each has one or more of the four "category" colors, and a strength, and may have an effect.

Sets and Decks

The game had two sets: Inaugural Edition and ReCharge 2 (also called Series 2). Series 2 was somewhat based around the 2002 Spider-Man movie, and some cards feature movie stills rather than illustrations.

Both sets have starter decks, and booster packs were available for both sets. Booster packs allow players to play a simple version of the game with a "hand" of 8 cards.

Both sets include common, uncommon, rare, and foil "Power Plus" (effectively ultra rare) cards (found every two booster packs, on average).

Deck Composition and Contents

Starter Decks

Each of the two sets (Inaugural Edition and Series 2) has two starter decks each: An A deck and a B deck. Each deck includes 50 cards, which can be split into two 25-card decks for two players. (There is no defined deck size, beyond a minimum of 50 cards, so this is a legal deck for one player, or two reduced decks for two players.)

Starter decks were fixed, and the boxes indicated which deck you would get. The decks themselves are a mix of common and uncommon cards, and includes two random foil cards. 25 cards in each 50-card box are exclusive to the starter decks.

Decks also include a rulebook and 40 betting counters, in two different colors.

Deck Rarity Analysis

Great. Decks don't include rare cards, and the foils are random, so that's great.

Alan's Thoughts On The Game

First thing's first: This game is an incredibly simple card game. It's simpler than even Ultimate Battles, and would probably be the simplest game I've encountered, rules-wise, if games like Star Wars Clone Wars Adventures or Genio didn't exist (both of which are literally just rock/paper/scissors with some numbers attached). The cards themselves are also super simple, featuring an extremely basic card design with surprisingly large textboxes, most of which don't say anything useful.

Given that, I find the copy on the back of the starter deck box hilarious in how much it attempts to oversell the game. It states "Every Power Plus Card (AKA foil card) has a 10-point power boost and is suitable for (very small) framing." Which... I think the cards are actually rather ugly, and I'd rather frame Ultimate Battles cards, which look like comic book covers. And "Don't let the simplicity fool you. Seasoned gamers play ReCharge at deeper strategic levels and employ advanced techniques: Deck building, Resource management, Tactical venturing." Which... yes; seasoned gamers actually play the game instead of just throwing cards down to see superheroes fight each other.

That copy was ridiculous enough that it really colored my initial impressions of the game. And to be fair, much like Ultimate Battles, the game does feel like it underspecifies a lot of things: There's no standard for how many betting counters you have to bring (and in what denominations), there's no actual deck size specified, cards are limited to "one per card per deck" (can I have a Spider-Man from both Inaugural Edition and ReCharge 2? I guess so?), and even the "tournament rules" (as the rulebook calls them) seem rather vague, with many optional rules you can apply. All of that together gave me an extremely negative impression of the game.

But then I realized: This game isn't intended to be a deep, strategic game, despite what the box is trying to say (and sell). I'm not the target audience for it. And if we ignore the ridiculous copy on the back of the box (and the fact that there are "tournament rules"), then this game is actually pretty good at what it's trying to be: A light, extremely accessible game for kids, which also features comic book characters.

And at that, it actually succeeds. The betting mechanic is pretty interesting, and can legitimately be strategic based on how many cards your opponent is holding and how they react to your own bet (or lack thereof). The card layouts are extremely simple, without a lot of gameplay effects, but that just makes it very quick to pick up. There could be strategy in which betting counters you bring to the game, since you can't break larger denominations during gameplay. There could even be strategy in how big your deck is, as a larger deck forces you to include weaker cards in the deck, but lets you hold out for longer (since running out of cards to play makes you lose).

So, while this is absolutely not a game for me, and I still find the game's claims on the box to be amusingly ridiculous, I think it's actually fine as a game for its target audience.

Side note: While I think the cards in general are terribly designed, I don't mind the horizontal card backs in this game, because two of the card types are horizontal. Never mind that most of your deck will be (vertical) hero cards.

Resources

• Starter Deck Card Lists (AlanvDotOrg Randomjunk)