One thing I’m looking forward to checking out next week at Gen Con is Upper Deck‘s Marvel deck building game. There’s been rumors of it’s release for a while, and I got confirmation at San Diego Comic-Con, but the upcoming game convention will be the first look at the game in the wild. The game has been revealed to be called Legendary. Besides popular Marvel superheroes like Spider-Man, Iron Man and Wolverine, the game also features a never-before-seen game engine designed by Devin Low, the former Head Developer of Magic: The Gathering.

In Legendary, each player starts with a deck of basic cards and then improves that deck throughout the game by recruiting Marvel’s greatest heroes in an effort to take down evil Marvel super-villains like Sabertooth and Dr. Octopus. Legendary has all the cool combos of a trading card game, but all 500+ cards in the game come in one big box and you build your deck during the game.

Unlike other deck building games, in Legendary, the game actually fights back, with an evil mastermind like Magneto working on a dark scheme to crush all the players at once. Every time you play the game, a different evil mastermind will be pursuing a different dark scheme with different rules and it is the player’s job to thwart their evil efforts so good can prevail. Not only will players battle the evil masterminds, but also each other as there are several instances during game play where conflict arises within the team and it is up to the players to work through that.

What’s more, every piece of art used in Legendary, is original. Upper Deck Entertainment wanted to provide Marvel fans not only with a brand new gaming experience, but also treat them to compelling artwork that has never been seen before.