Here are a list of Champions key issues you should be paying attention to. There are many members so the list of books to speculate can be quite rather long. I employed the PSM model to highlight the ones that deserve your money.

Why speculate on Champions?

There are 2 specific reasons to keep your eyes out on this team.

First, it is part of the young heroes trends I mentioned here. Champions is one the more prominent teams at the moment, even more so than Young Avengers.

Second, the various team members such as Kamala, Ironheart and even Nova are confirmed or rumored to be making their way into the MCU. It doesn’t take much for the team to be formed.

Editor notes: The Champions’s first appearance in Champions Vol 2, #1 is also worth a purchase. Focus on the 1:100 Ross variants or the hip hop variants.

PSM Model applied to Champions

In the article on spotting the next Ultimate Fallout #4, quite a number of Champion members were already profiled. In particular, members will Gem potential have been listed. I have reproduced in the Gem list of the table below.

I then add on rest of the members, classifying them according to the PSM category.

Issues	Appearance Ratio	Supply	Price in NM	Price in 9.8
Gem List
Captain Marvel Vol 7, #14 (Kamala Khan)	52	19,320	$200	$350
Ultimate Fallout #4 (Miles Morales)	48	73,764	$400	$1100
Marvel Point One (Sam Alexander)	30	113,352	$10	$100
Invincible Iron Man Vol 3, #7 (Ironheart)	28	51,748	$70	$220
Moon Girl and Devil Dinosaur #1 (Moon Girl)	24	38,133	$25	$250
Vision #1 (Viv)	23	42,119	$15	$120
Amazing Fantasy Vol 2, #15 (Amadeus Cho)	20	13,957	$60	$400
Slow Burners
Free Comic Book Day Vol 2016 Civil War II (Wasp)	29	No Information	$3	No Info
Lottery
Champions #19 (Snowguard)	12	17,922	$10	No Info
Captain America Sam Wilson #3 (Falcon)	10	33,984	$3	No Info
Captain America Sam Wilson #19 (Patriot)	10	18,105	$3	No Info
Champions Vol 3, #1 (Pinpoint)	8	30,893	$3	No Info
Shadowland Power Man #1 (Power Man)	8	21,206	$2	No Info
Champions Vol 2, #9 (Locust)	4	27,444	$2	No Info
Dogs
New X-Men #133 (Dust)	6	104,932	$5	No Info
Ultimate Comics Spider-man #2 (Bombshell)	5	57,429	$1	No Info

In total, there are 16 members in the table. However, the membership is pretty fluid so some characters might moved out or in from time to time.

Out of the 16, 7 characters are on the Gem list. They are there due to their high appearance ratio of more than 18. .All of them also have individual titles except Viv.

Among this list, Viv is the most undervalued as there is zero media news for the character. if the WandaVision show has some rumors saying Viv might appear, her book will eventually catch up with the rest.

There is only 1 member on the Slow Burner list, who is Wasp. She has made an average of 29 appearances per years since her introduction. The titles she is in includes: Avengers, Champions, Antman and her own series.

I put Wasp in the Slow Burner as I am not sure what is the print run for the FCBD issue she first appeared in. These numbers are not disclosed as they are not sold. My estimation is that it should be quite a large print run, to the point that her popularity might not be able to overcome.

6 Champion members are in the Lottery group. These members made less than 12 appearances per year but have a small print run for their first appearance comics.

Out of this group, Snowguard has been quietly increasing her presence. Her average appearance score is 11+ and will hit the 12 score if she continues to show up in the Champions.

The last group, Dog, has 2 members who are Dust and Bombshell. Both have made fewer appearances than other members but also have a high print run. Unless they got pushed more by Marvel, leave these characters to the last.

Picks from the Lottery group

In the discussion below, I picked what I think are the best bets from the Lottery group.

 

I really like this book because it got the lowest print number among the first appearance comics. Snowguard also has the highest appearance ratio among those characters in the Lottery group.

These 2 factors combined to make this a very attractive A grade Lottery book.

When this character was first introduced, the 2nd printing of Champions #19 actually got a bit of heat. However, the heat is completely gone now which means it might be a good buying opportunity, especially for this second print.

The only downside is Snowguard’s total comic appearances, who is around 23. This is no surprise as she was only introduced in 2018. If Snowguard maintains the same appearance ratio but increase the total appearances to 50 (2 more years of being published), I think this book can be pretty explosive.

 

Among the 4 members who have similar appearance ratio in the 8-10 range, I like Power Man the most. This is due to his total comic appearances of 77, which the highest in this group.

While the rest of the 3 members are appearing regularly, their total comic appearances are in the 10-20 range. This means while Marvel is giving them plenty of opportunities to shine, they are still untested and might be dropped.

Power Man, on the other hand, has a longer history of 77 appearances while still able to maintain an average of 8 appearance per year. That signals a more maturing character that is worth a bet on.

His first appearance comic has also a pretty low print run of 21,000, which makes this lottery book even more attractive.

 

For Rayshaun, there are 3 contender books to choose from. One is his first cameo appearance in Captain America: Sam Wilson #18. He only appeared in one panel, has no dialogue and is unnamed.

Screenshot of his only panel is below:

Rayshaun full appearance in Captain America: Sam Wilson #19. He appeared in 3 pages, although was still unnamed.

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His transformation into Patriot was in Secret Empire: Brave New World #2. I like this issue better because of the cover as well as the transformation from regular person to superhero.

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Regardless of which books you prefer, there is a risk to this character, which comes from the original Patriot from Young Avengers #1.

Currently, there are rumors saying the Falcon and Winter Soldier Disney+ show will introduce a Patriot into the MCU. The key question is which version. If it is not Rayshaun, I expect the interest in this character to fade away fairly quickly.

The other 3 members of the Lottery group (Falcon, Pitfall and Locust) have almost 40-50% more supply than the 3 characters above. Their character designs are also fairly uninspiring so I am suggesting that you focus on the above 3 first.

Betting on Dogs

The 2 characters in the Dogs list are actually worth a bet if their print run is not so high. Both characters have fairly unique visual design and are not based on any legacy characters.

If you want to bet on them, pick the newsstand versions. Or for the case of Bombshell, there is a rarer 2nd print you can pick up as well. This will ensure that you are not competing with regular editions in case the characters do get hot due to some media hype.

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Conclusion

If you have not been keeping up, the Champions is one of those titles that being pushed hard by Marvel Publishing. I believed that over time, some other members besides the well known ones might break out from this push.

Since many of them are lottery book specs, you can buy a few and just keep them in your collection, just in case.