Marvel Contest Of Champions' New Battlegrounds Mode Injects Deck-Building Into The Superhero Scrum

gamespot.com:

Kabam is launching a new 1v1 competitive mode for mobile brawler Marvel Contest of Champions, with its deck-building focus dropping players onto a whole new battleground.

Battlegrounds tasks players with building a deck of 30 champions out of all of the characters they've unlocked so far. After building a deck, players will then challenge other decks online using a drafting system that randomly selects a number of fighters from the deck and pits them against one another.

This new deck-focused mode is quite a departure from the standard 2D fighting fare, so for more we spoke with Tyler Thomson, senior producer at Kabam, about the new Battlegrounds mode. We covered deck-building, the mode's inspirations including Magic: The Gathering, and the drafting mechanic.

We also discussed how matchmaking will work in this new mode--if it's based on deck strength or the individual player's ranking in the game as a whole--as well as how players can score points and achieve victory while battling with their chosen warriors.

This interview was conducted via email and edited for clarity.

Explain the thought process behind Battlegrounds. What was your inspiration?

Tyler Thomson: Our inspiration for Battlegrounds came from a number of popular genres that we thought could mesh well with our existing Contest of Champions core fighting loop. Games like Magic: The Gathering come to mind when describing our TCG style deck builder paired with our RPG rich champions, along with popular MOBAs like League of Legends and Dota 2 for their drafting mechanics.

As for the experience, the team wanted to pair our core gameplay with a fast-paced multiplayer experience focusing on a number of key areas: strategy, skill, knowledge, and roster. At the same