The Long and Short of It: I'm playing through every hero using decks suggested to me by other players. Here is who I'm covering today:
and...
Ghost-Spider Justice
Suggested By: VJakson
Created By: VJakson
Encounter: En Sabah Nur
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
I’m a big fan of Ghost-Spider Justice, and I’ve even written about a deck I ran through NeXt Evolution a while back (shameless plug). This was another fantastic Ghost-Spider deck, and I really liked her interaction with Upside the Head. With many heroes, Upside feels like a limitation, because you are most likely targeting the villain with a basic activation, when you might be wanting to do something else. Here, Ghost-Spider's ready allows you the flexibility to do both. I never got the "George Assesses the Ticket" combo to go off*, because my obligation came out at an odd time. And being the great daughter I am, I never actually went to save George Stacey after that. I had a couple turns where there just wasn’t much to do, because I was hit with an exhaust effect. So much is tied to your basic activation, so if you lose that, it can undercut your entire hand. I think with more plays, I could easily see play lines that help protect against having nothing to do with my hand though. This was a fun deck, and a great refresher on Ghost-Spider.
*"George Assesses the Ticket" combo: Tuck all three Assess the Situations under George Stacey, pop them on the same turn, and then trigger Ticket to the Multiverse to take advantage of the +3 hand size twice.
Iron Man Protection
Suggested By: Caldias
Created By: Caldias
Encounter: Brotherhood of Badoon
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Iron Man is a blast to play, and this was a unique take on a Protection build for him. I liked how it tapped into his HP using cheap, non-exhaust defense events. The deck ran smooth, and it’s probably the best I’ve felt about playing his Mark V Armor for the extra 6 HP. Angel’s Aerie is a neat card that hasn't been tapped into enough. I love it in a Drax deck that I run**, and here was another solid spot for it. This is a really fun deck, and definitely worth trying out.
**I know it's weird if you think about it too much. But it's really fun. I'll write about it soon.
Phoenix "Aggression"
Suggested By: stumpyfjord
Created By: stumpyfjord
Encounter: Mister Sinister
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: .M- Live, Laugh, Love
There are only three Aggression cards in this deck, and it's three copies of Psychic Assault. So this is effectively a Basic deck (or a single swap away from any other aspect), which lets you lean into using The Power in All of Us. Piloting this deck, I had a tense game against Mister Sinister. He got Flight and then Telepathy, and the overkill from the get-go offered some tough decisions. This was the first game that I have used Rise from the Ashes, Phoenix's upgrade that prevents her from being defeated before healing her to full health. I actually triggered it on the hero phase to ready my hero and squeak in a bit of extra damage. While playing this deck, I often felt resource flooded. I was able to build quite the board, but once everything was out, I found myself with more resources than options more often than I would have liked. I used Telekinesis nearly every turn, which was great for additional damage. Telepathy I didn't use much, because I had many other sources of threat removal. I was warned that the deck was more built for multiplayer, but it handled solo well. I imagine the extra threat accumulation in multiplayer would have justified using Telepathy more, and helped with the resource flooding. There are a few things I’d swap around for my own personal play style in solo, but I this deck definitely reminded me of how stable Phoenix can be in the early game. If it looks interesting to you, I think you'd enjoy splashing it into whichever aspect is your favorite!
Scarlet Witch Leadership
Suggested By: SDx
Created By: SDx
Encounter: Venom
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: Scarlet Witch Leadership
This was an interesting deck that offered many routes toward dealing damage and removing threat without actually attacking or thwarting. I was Webbed Up on the first turn of the game, and I never actually removed it. I ultimately lost this game to an untimely scheme, but Scarlet Witch feels as powerful as ever. For my own play style, I would have liked another ally or two that stuck to the board. That said, between status effect generation, Make the Call, and Groot sticking around, I didn't feel that I was in desperate need of blockers the majority of the game. This deck was a strong reminder on the power of Scarlet Witch's Hex Bolts.
Wolverine Aggression
Suggested By: VillainTheory
Created By: VillainTheory
Encounter: Sabretooth + Zero Tolerance + Brotherhood
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: The Best at What He Does
I took this deck into a thematic rivalry: Sabretooth. This is certainly not my favorite scenario, but it was fun having a plethora of burst damage available. I could slowly manage the board, then quickly burst down a stage of Sabretooth to avoid his healing. It was a nice balance between my normal tempo-based game play and a more complete control style. Many Marvel Champions games have a steady progression through the first stage, followed by a lull before flipping and bursting the villain down. Here it really felt like two separate cycles. While Aggression isn’t my preferred aspect, this felt like a nice showcase of it.
Conclusion
I can't believe you fell for that two articles in a row! This isn't the conclusion. We've got more heroes to cover in this double feature!
Doctor Strange Aggression
Suggested By: AndyN
Created By: AndyN
Encounter: Four Horsemen
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: Wizard of Asgard
This match up offered some fun wrinkles for Doctor Strange. With his ability to use the invocation deck hampered through Pestilence turning off his hero ability, I had to lean a lot more into the themed Asgard allies. I thought this deck still felt very strong, and I loved the theme. It easily shifted into a damage heavy role after cleanly controlling the board through the early game. This was an enjoyable way to revisit Doctor Strange, and it highlighted that I can still have a lot of fun with him, despite not being a fan of his normal play lines.
Groot Justice
Suggested By: ArbiterFrosty
Created By: ArbiterFrosty
Encounter: MaGog + Sitcom
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: Groot Justice
This was a fun, quick match up. I am fairly certain that I view Groot in a much more favorable light than most, and this deck reinforced how much I enjoy his play lines. The deck is designed to do some massive threat removal, but you can also easily flex into some damage roles. I happened to play this while tired, and I definitely read “Think Fast!” incorrectly. I played under the assumption that you couldn't "take" the damage, due to the growth counters getting in the way. However, that isn't a cost, so you can still play it! Despite playing the whole game, almost never using "Think Fast!", there was enough threat prevention that it wasn’t needed. The deck will only be better when I play it correctly! And I will take every chance I get to shout out how strong "We are Groot" is. If you haven't played Groot in a while, I highly recommend revisiting him.
Iceman Aggression
Suggested By: DanTheCrow!
Created By: DanTheCrow!
Encounter: Dark Beast
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
I’ve been playing a lot of Iceman Protection recently, and I really enjoy this hero. Outside of the precon, this was the first time I’ve played him in Aggression. Utopia is a much needed card for Iceman, and this deck had plenty of allies to help trigger it. He's actually one of the characters that I like Utopia best with, namely because I love how it feeds into his Frostbites. Overall, I prefer where he is at in Protection, due to increased access to readies. Playing this deck, I felt my path was attack → play ally → attack, so I primarily interacted with Utopia and the allies. I don't view that as a negative, I just wanted to note that was where my play style took me. That said, I enjoyed the ally set and how they were incentivized to stick around a bit. Even though I didn’t engage with some of Iceman's cards, I had fun with this deck, and I feel as positive as ever about Iceman!
SP//dr Leadership
Suggested By: ScarletRhodey
Created By: ScarletRhodey
Encounter: Mutagen Formula
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
Deck: Peni's Web-Warriors
SP//dr is another top 3 hero for me. I find her play lines offer a lot of decisions and flexibility in what you want to do with your turn. That said, this was perhaps my most odd game with her. I’ve written about this previously, but with a full mulligan, Peni has about a 90% chance to end up with an interface on turn one. In this game, despite getting Aunt May and Uncle Ben to really help me dig, I just couldn’t get anything! All of my interfaces and All Systems Go were in my bottom 15 cards. It was mathematically interesting, but did it make for a rough start! SP//dr is incredibly strong though, so I was able to persevere and pull out a win. I played a second round, and getting that turn one interface felt a lot better! Suit Up was really nice here, allowing me to grab VEN#m, flip up, and get Sidekick set up. I had a lot of fun with this deck.
Spider-Woman Leadership/’Pool
Suggested By: Deadwolf
Created By: Deadwolf
Encounter: Mysterio
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
"Wait, wait, wait! This isn't what I paid for! You featured a Spider-Woman deck last week!" Not to worry! There is a reason I am returning to Spider-Woman. You might even think it's a good one! I find that Spider-Woman plays so differently deck to deck, that I needed to really revisit her a few times with different aspect combinations. Don't be surprised to see another one show up!
This was an incredibly smooth deck that played quite differently from Gondo’s Spider-Woman deck that I featured last week. I adored Sidekick with Captain Marvel, as it gave a really solid draw engine. And as FFG knows, the quickest way to my heart is through card draw. There was also a built-in way to heal her, and it could be supplemented with Tic-Tac-Toe. You had readies galore, and you could capitalize on the Spider-Woman's stat boosts with them. With all the sustain from Side-by-Side, Healing Factor, Contaminant Immunities, and basic recoveries, it was breezy keeping Spider-Woman near or at full health. This meant the Self-X resource cards from ‘Pool always generated 2 or 3 resources. It was fun seeing the way ‘Pool and Leadership supplemented Spider-Woman’s natural kit in this deck.
Conclusion
Well there you have it. The End. La Fin. Het Einde... at least until next week where I throw out another double feature in my attempt to get through this before Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. releases in the US. Make sure to check back next week to see my clever use of a translator to say "The End" in even more languages.
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