It’s no secret that we love Marvel Champions, and we buy pretty much everything that comes out for it. But there’s some extra stuff we buy beyond official products that makes life so much easier when we’re playing. In this article, we’re going to talk all about playmats, but first – an important disclaimer.
All the links to products in this article (and our others, technically) are affiliate links with Zatu Games* (by the way, that was an affiliate link too). If you buy anything on their site using our links, we get a small pay-out from them. That being said, we do honestly stand by the recommendations in this article, we’re not just recommending things for cash, and we’ll probably end up spending that money… on ordering stuff from Zatu… Using our affiliate links is a way you can support our site and help us pay for hosting if we don’t spend it on games first, but we always recommend visiting your local game store over online retailers where possible. Zatu are UK-based, but have very good shipping rates to the US and other countries, and at least they’re a ton better than say… Amazon.
Playmats for Marvel Champions
Playmats are, in essence, just a squishy surface covering that you put your cards on. While many newer players disregard them as unnecessary fluff, having a playmat makes your cards hugely easier to pick up and move around without damaging your cards or the table. Without a playmat, trying to pick up a card can be an annoying process of sliding your cards around trying to get your nails under the card. With a playmat… you just pick it up. The softness of the surface means that you can get under it without even thinking about the process, and it actually has a big impact on playing the game (and any other card game for that matter!).
Just one quick note here: If you’ve seen us play on Twitch or on YouTube (we’re not the most regular on either, but if you drop us a follow or subscription, we appreciate it and might take that as a sign we should record more!), you might notice that we have a pair of Marvel Champions playmats. These were promotional items from our local game shop when the game released, and sadly they’re not widely for sale, so we’ve not included them here. You may be able to pick one up on ebay, or from your game store if they have left over promo items, but honestly we mostly just use them because of how they look – they really cheaped out on the quality for the free stuff! The playmats we list here are generally higher quality, so you’ll not be missing out at all. With that being said, let’s get into it.
Gamegenic Wave 1 Character-Themed Game Mats
If you’ve got a favourite character from the earlier sets of Marvel Champions, you’re in luck – they released themed playmats for the first 14 characters! Sadly after that, they changed directions on the playmats, so the rest are lacking, but the ones they produced are relatively cheap, with an RRP of £20 (much cheaper typically on Zatu, down as low as £12), so you can pick up your favourites.
The production quality on these isn’t the highest, but they’re more than good enough, and for passionate fans, they’re awesome for showing your allegiance.
Gamegenic Character-Themed Prime Game Mats
The especially keen-eyed among you will have noticed that we didn’t link all 14 of the wave 1 mats up there, and that we skipped Iron Man*, Black Panther*, Captain America*, Spider-Man*, Hulk*, Doctor Strange*, and Black Widow*. Those all have wave 1 playmats, so you can absolutely get those, but after those were released, Gamegenic released some amazing looking alternatives that we absolutely recommend over those. They even added a new one for our boy Thor, which is awesome.
These playmats are made from higher quality materials, and the art on them is absolutely gorgeous. If you want to really bling out a character, then these are the way to go. Unfortunately, these mats are available for a much smaller range of characters, so they’re somewhat limited in what’s available. The RRP on these is £22, but can typically be found on Zatu at around £15.
What’s even more exciting is that they’re going to continue printing these. While Zatu don’t have product photos of these yet at the time of writing, the next wave is going to include:
- Non-character specific large Marvel Champions mats in Black*, Blue*, and Orange*.
- A Venom* playmat (which looks incredible)
- A Guardians of the Galaxy*-themed playmat (which I haven’t seen yet, but let’s be honest, all the rest of these have been beautiful).
So keep an eye out for those, we’ll try to remember to update this once they’re out, but it’s worth checking if those sound good to you!
Non-Marvel Playmats
There are thousands of other playmats out there that will work just fine for playing Marvel Champions, so here are a few more you might want to consider:
Eclipse Solid-Colour Playmats
If you find busy artwork behind your cards distracting, you’re on a budget, or you just want something a bit more generic, you can’t go wrong with Ultra Pro’s Eclipse line of playmats, which come in Yellow*, Smoke Grey*, Apple Red*, Arctic White*, Jet Black*, Pacific Blue*, Sky Blue*, Forest Green*, Purple*, Hot Pink*, Lime Green*, and Pumpkin Orange*.
With an RRP of just £10.99, discounted to under £10 on Zatu, there’s just nothing else worth recommending at this price point. The only downside is that not all colours are currently available on Zatu, but they will be in the very near future, and in the short-term you should be able to find them in other places online, particularly if you’re in the US (where they came out earlier, bah!).
Wrapping Up
Playmats are one of the most impactful purchases you can make in terms of making it easier to play the game, particularly if you struggle with manual dexterity. In addition to all those above, you’ll find thousands of playmats with different non-Marvel arts online for games TCGs like Magic: The Gathering, and you can even use large-size mousepads if you want, as they’re made of a similar material! Just be sure to get a playmat that’s of a good size, as Marvel can take up a ton of space, and you don’t want a playmat that’s too small to put cards on.
Whatever you choose, having something other than a hard table underneath your cards will help to preserve your cards, your fingers, and your table. So pick yourself up whichever playmat calls to you if you can spare the expense! We rank this purchase just below sleeves in terms of how much value you’ll get out of owning one, and a good playmat will last you years, and be usable in any other card games you play. So it’s a worthwhile investment!
