Have you ever dragged your feet on something so hard you knew there was an underlying reason you didn’t want to do it? Neither have I. I definitely didn’t put off writing this article due to my aversion to writing when I feel negative about something. I certainly didn’t use the prerelease week of the new Star Wars Unlimited set to justify not writing. And I absolutely did not reorganize my entire Marvel Champions and Star Wars Unlimited collections in order to avoid Eeyore-ing my way through writing an article.
I told myself I would finish this before Agents of SHIELD got here. Yet here it is, sitting on my desk. Judging me. I really want to play it, so here we go finishing the series.
The main reason I have been dragging my feet is because I don’t love being negative. As a whole, when it comes to my hobbies, I am borderline overly optimistic. Unfortunately… I kind of feel negative about these last couple of heroes. Not completely, but enough to know that they aren’t for me.
My final two heroes are Valkyrie and Rogue. Valkyrie was the one I was most worried about, and true to my instinct, I did not enjoy my first few plays. I had a couple different Aggression decks given to me. These were tried and true deck-builders, so I trusted the decks would be solid. I tried solo first, and then I played alongside a Justice deck. Game after game the play just felt frustrating. Until… it didn’t. I had a fun game! Something clicked during that game, and Wagner began playing in the background as Valkyrie carved her way through the scenario. The villain crumpled under Valkyrie’s might. So I tried again. Then again once more. All three games were perfectly enjoyable.
Great, right?
Well, yeah… I guess so. While I am nowhere near putting her at the top of my preferences list, I truly enjoyed the three plays I had with Valkyrie after whatever epiphany I had that escaped my notice. However, with the cornucopia of heroes we have, I’m not sure I want to spend that much time not enjoying plays before I can have my fun.
To be clear, I think this is a “me thing.” I have a couple friends that really enjoy playing Valkyrie, and I’ve played alongside them as they had fun with her. Some of my favorite games from Con of Heroes were playing alongside Josseroo piloting Valkyrie. But whatever it is with how I engage with the game, there was a large barrier between me and having a good time. I overcame that barrier. But it was there, and it was a lot of effort.
I wish I could tell the same tale for Rogue. I also didn’t enjoy my plays with her. There were a lot of moving parts that I couldn’t get to click. I couldn’t break away from my preferred play style to engage with the combos the deck facilitated. The deck was perfectly fine. I just couldn’t engage with it the way it was intended. Again, I chalked this up to just not being a fit for me. I intended to revisit Rogue some more after having my epiphany with Valkyrie, but I realized I simply didn’t want to.
So what did I learn from this whole experience? That I am a bad judge of how long it will take me to play through a list of heroes. Also, I definitely narrowed down what my preferred styles are. I found that it can be a lot of fun picking up someone’s deck and running with it. I found that I shouldn’t be bashing my head against something trying to force myself to have fun with it. But I also reinforced that there is fun in there somewhere for someone to find. I had a lot of fun with this series, and I would potentially do it again. But I am excited to play my own decks again!
Without further ado, here are the quick rundowns of Valkyrie, Rogue, and the final Spider-Woman deck I covered.
Valkyrie Aggression
Deck 1: Overkilliest Valkyrie redux
Created By: Josseroo
Created By: VJakson
Two-player games were paired with Ms. Marvel Justice (99 Problems deck covered here).
I played a lot of games with these two decks. It was on the order of 30 some odd games. Enough that I'm not going to bother writing them all out here. I tried out these decks solo, and it went about as well as I expected. I never felt like I could get going, especially in Expert. However, these were meant to be multiplayer decks, so that’s not too crazy of an outcome. So off to multiplayer I went!
I felt like this is where I really started getting a vibe for how Valkyrie can play. I needed some thwarting support, so I went with a deck I had enjoyed earlier in the season. I found that flipping a lot with Valkyrie helped to get that set up going, and otherwise I focused on just throwing out Death Glow and cleaning up minions.
I really wish I could point to what I did differently in the game where I started having fun. However, it is the first time I legitimately enjoyed playing Valkyrie. That left me with a bit of a conundrum. Do I give heroes I don’t enjoy the 30 some-odd plays it took for me to enjoy Valkyrie? As more and more heroes are added, I’m going to find it harder to want to sink that time in.
Rogue Protection
Suggested By: Boomguy
Created By: ClassyRobot
Scenarios:
Crossbones (Standard III + Expert I)
Project Wideawake (Standard III + Expert I)
Absorbing Man (S3 + E1, S1 + E1)
Unus (S1 + E1, S1)
Ebony Maw (S1 + E1, S1)
Deck: Mega (Wo)Man
I want to open by saying I really don't think this is a bad deck. I can't reinforce that enough. ClassyRobot has put out a lot of decks I have enjoyed. In particular, I loved the paired Rocket and Groot decks: G'NR (Groot 'n Rocket). Any criticisms I have in this write-up are oriented toward Rogue, how her kit interacts with the deck, and my own play style. Definitely give this deck a try for yourself to see if you like it!
I tried this against Crossbones and Project Wideawake to kick things off. Either I didn’t understand the deck (totally plausible), or my play style didn’t mesh with it. The games mostly felt frustrating to set up. As I tried to get traited cards out to enable other cards, the scenario pressure ultimately put too many wrenches into the combo machine I was trying to run. I had turns where I literally could play nothing, because I didn’t have an ally or tech already in play. It was too easy to get behind on the board while trying to set up.
To try and find some space to set up, I took this against Absorbing Man. I was able to get the win, but I still felt a lot of the same issues. I also realized that Standard III really isn’t helping Rogue’s case. Mystique is a decently nasty nemesis minion, and this deck feels pretty slow to set up. You want to set up her economy cards (Deft Focus, X-Gene), your Tech for Repurpose, and your Androids for Reboot and Ever Vigilant. But your economy cards don’t pay for your Tech or Androids. So you feel like you can do some stuff, but you're sacrificing building one angle to build/play another.
I moved on to Unus and Ebony Maw with Standard I + Expert I. It really wasn’t any better. I decided to give myself the space to set up, so I tried Unus on Standard I. It felt a lot better here, though I still felt a lot of the same inefficiencies. I just had the space to work around them. I’m chalking this one up to either needing a better pilot or needing multiplayer to jump into Expert. This is one of the few heroes that I’ve soured on across this experience, and I don’t love that. Again, that's not a comment on the deck itself. My qualms are really with weaknesses that come from Rogue’s own kit and how they contrast with my own play style. If you have another deck for me to try or tips on how to play her, definitely let me know!
Spider-Woman Aggression/Justice
Suggested By: Astrodar
Created By: stilonxy
Encounter: Mysterio
Difficulty: Standard III + Expert I
I'm closing out with another Spider-Woman deck! This is one that has been on my play list for a while. I really enjoyed the Float Like a Butterfly and Honed Technique combo. Spider-Woman has great access to Confuse, and Venom Blast is a great card to get boosted up to 8 easy damage. Press the Advantage was amazing, because it was so easy to hit the triggering condition. All in all there were a lot of cheap cards to boost Spider-Woman’s stats, while also getting boosted themselves. Again, this felt very different to the other Spider-Woman decks I featured. It is definitely worth checking out!
Conclusion
That's it! That's the end of the series. I should probably write something more profound here, but I'm off to play the Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. expansion.
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