Shadows in the Night is the first of three scenarios in Marvel Champions' new Shadowland Scenario Pack, and it does something the game has only done sparingly before: it does not lock you into one fixed villain.
Instead, you are laying siege to the Hand's fortress against one of six possible Dark Protégés, each with their own linked cards shuffled into the encounter deck only when they are the chosen villain.
On top of that variable villain pool, the scenario adds a position mechanic that tracks where you and the villain are relative to each other across the fight.
Here is how both systems work together, based on Fantasy Flight Games' own preview coverage of the pack ahead of its October 16, 2026 release.
The battle plays out across two zones, called positions, represented by a pair of double-sided environment cards: Atop the Tenshu and The Streets Below. One side belongs to the villain, the other to the heroes, and each grants different effects depending on whether your position matches the villain's.
When your position matches the villain's, all characters get an attack bonus; when it does not, the players take penalties instead. That means staying in the same zone as the villain is not automatically safe, and chasing or avoiding them becomes a real tactical decision every round.
Several cards actively shift the villain's position without warning, including the minion Black Tarantula and the treachery Chaos in Hell's Kitchen, which can change things on a dime. Other cards, like Strategic Positioning and Moonlit Silhouette, have effects that shift depending on wherever the villain currently sits.
That combination creates a genuine cat-and-mouse feel rather than a fixed board state, since the correct play in round three may be the wrong play by round five once the villain has relocated. Players used to Marvel Champions' usual scheme-and-attack rhythm will need to track an extra layer of state here.
Rather than one set villain, Shadows in the Night draws from a pool of six Dark Protégés: Archpriestess, a possessed Daredevil, a possessed Elektra, Gorgon, Lady Bullseye, and a possessed White Tiger. Each one comes with five linked cards that only enter the encounter deck when they are the chosen villain, giving each playthrough a genuinely different texture.
This mirrors the variable-villain structure FFG already used for the non-Kingpin scenarios in this summer's Fear No Evil expansion, so players who ran that content will recognize the format even though the specific villain pool here is entirely new.
If the chosen villain is Elektra, Lady Bullseye, or White Tiger, they gain access to Art of the Kill, a card that puts a direct target on one hero. If the villain is Archpriestess, Daredevil, or Gorgon instead, they defend with Krahllak's Blessing, giving the fight a noticeably different shape depending on which half of the roster you draw.
Hand-loyal Dark Protégés also carry Darkness Within, which can force a hero out of alter-ego form at an inconvenient moment, while a possessed hero variant can be Embraced by Darkness to accelerate the villain's own plans. Knowing which category your villain falls into before the game starts changes how you should build your deck.
Independent of which Dark Protégé you face, every playthrough also includes the Ninja Swarm encounter set, built around seven Ninja minions with the teamwork keyword, letting them ambush heroes the moment they enter play. Several, like Bo Staff Ninja and Katana Ninja, have When Defeated abilities that bring in replacements.
Side scheme Dancing Shadows and the card Countless Numbers both make these minions harder to permanently clear, since defeated ninjas can return to the encounter deck rather than staying gone. That constant low-level pressure sits underneath the position-swapping fight with the Dark Protégé, so this scenario asks you to manage two problems at once.
Characters with reliable single-target removal or consistent thwart generation have an easier time here than heroes built purely around big attack swings, since the ninja swarm punishes a deck that cannot handle recurring small threats. Daredevil decks in particular get extra narrative payoff given the Hell's Kitchen setting, but mechanically any well-rounded hero can tackle this fight.
Because the villain pool is unknown until setup, building a flexible deck rather than one tuned for a single specific matchup is the safer approach for a first playthrough.
No, it draws from six possible Dark Protégés chosen at setup.
It tracks whether heroes and the villain share a zone, granting bonuses when matched and penalties when not.
Yes, the Ninja Swarm encounter set is present regardless of which Dark Protégé is chosen.
Yes, it works as a standalone scenario or as the first part of the pack's short campaign.
With six possible villains to cycle through, you will be reshuffling this encounter deck often, so keep spare sleeves on hand; a pack of perfect fit sleeves protects the extra Dark Protégé cards between sessions.
!
