Beginners Guide: So You Want To Be A Superhero

Allow me to be the first to say welcome to Marvel: War of Heroes! If you've played another Mobage game such as Rage of Bahamut this should all be very familiar, feel free to skip ahead. I'm going to try to write this from the perspective of someone totally new to the game.

First thing's first, if you know any friends/family/coworkers/particularly friendly strangers on the bus who also play Marvel WoH be sure to contact them before you get started. The reason for this is you will absolutely want to use a friend code when you finish the tutorial. Yes, Marvel is one of *those* games.

If you have no other option you can use mine: ckt493784

Fortunately unlike other games (*cough* *cough* Guardian Cross *cough*) that require you to pester every distant relative that's ever owned an iDevice to get rewards even halfway decent, Marvel takes a different approach. The person using a friend code gets a Rare (three star) card, currently Jean Grey, and the referrer gets the same. They also receive a small amount of silver, a Shield Barrier and a Personal Energy Pack which I'd advise you save for use once you're more familiar with the game.

So what's the deal with Jean Grey?

Remember how I said the referrals in this game weren't as bad as say Guardian Cross? In Marvel cards can be merged (called fusion) with other cards of the same name to create a higher rarity version. The referral bonus cards Jean Grey and Black Widow are the only two cards in the game that can be fused more than once. A lowly rare Jean Grey can be fused with other Jean Grey cards to eventually create an Ultra Rare Jean Grey card!

My god, it's full of stars.

Ok so you've survived the mindnumbingly tedious tutorial and defeated the referral code entry boss, now what? For a first time player the main screen can be a bit of an assault on the senses, don't worry, most of the stuff on the page can be ignored.

At the very top you'll find the Back, Home and My Page buttons. If you ever get lost just hit My Page. Slightly below is probably something about "New Rare Cards!" which is just Mobage advertising the latest carrot designed to make you empty your wallet. Much more important is the "You have X new updates!" button. You'll be hitting this a lot to jump to your Present List, see rejected/accepted/offered trades, and more. Most important right now is to hit it and verify your device. Mobage requires each account to be tied to an iOS or Android device before they can receive loot like referral bonuses, trade cards, or do other important game functions, so register that sucka!

Once your device is registered and you hit My Page you'll probably be wanting to hit something and make those pretty coloured bars move, so press the Mission button and whack some bad guys. You'll likely level up fairly quickly and be faced with a lot of stat points to distribute so I'll cover that and other beginner tips in my next post.