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Writer's pictureAstrodar

How Doctor Strange Breaks the Game (And You Can Too!)

Updated: Oct 9, 2023

The title is meant to get your goat, but what I want to cover in this article is how to elevate your play by leveraging... the rules. While we're not actually breaking the game itself, we are looking to break the norms of the game.


Before we get going, I want to address two things. First is the fact that a decent chunk of what we discuss in this post will rub some players wrong. For some, these things can feel like "rules lawyering" or ruining the thematic side of card design. That is a totally valid complaint, and there are no hard feelings if this isn't a part of the game you want to engage with. I will note, however, that everything discussed here is in fact legal within the current rules.


Second, I don't want anyone to feel weird about playing Doctor Strange or feel like they shouldn't enjoy him. He is simply the best vessel to discuss these rules, as a lot of his power derives directly from their application. Understanding why his cards function the way they do can help you apply the same concepts across the card pool to similar cards. So with those disclaimers, let's get to "breaking" the game.

There are a couple "norms" that I want to address right off the bat. These are things you may hear said or alluded to colloquially, but are not rules accurate.

  • Removing threat is thwarting.

  • Dealing damage is attacking.

  • Triggering the ability on an event is playing it.

  • If an ally entered play, you played it.

These are all actually quite close to the truth, but completely wrong. I want to rephrase them to accurate statements.

  • When you thwart, you generally remove threat.

  • When you attack, you generally deal damage.

  • When you play an event, you trigger the ability on it.

  • When you play an ally, it enters play.

These may seem like obtuse restatements, but they are actually quite important. We can see why when we look at Doctor Strange's Invocation deck. This is a deck of cards unique to Doctor Strange that always has the top card face up. Doctor Strange can use his hero ability to exhaust himself, pay the cost of the face up card, then trigger it's special ability.


The Invocation Deck


Winds of Watoomb (Draw 3 cards.)

For this card, I want to reinforce the value of having access to cards outside your hand. When playing a card from hand, you lose the card itself as part of the process. If you start with 5 cards and play a 2 cost card, you end with 2 cards in hand. You have effectively spent 3 resources. (I discuss effective resources in this article on efficiency!) When using a card from outside your hand, like an event grabbed by the Black Panther ally, an ally on Med Lab, or even Lockjaw being played from your discard pile, you only have to pay the resource cost. As a direct comparison for Winds of Watoomb, we can look at One Way or Another. While One Way or Another gives you 3 cards (in addition to a side scheme to deal with) you had a net gain of only 2. With Winds of Watoomb we have an ability that allows you to gain 3 cards with no disadvantage beyond the exhaust. Leveraging abilities that store playable cards outside your hand can give you a strong resource advantage, letting you do more on your turn.


Images of Ikonn (Confuse the villain and remove 4 threat from a scheme.)

Right off the bat, we can see this card is fantastic value. In general, threat removal is considered efficient at roughly 2 effective resources (ER) for 3 threat removed. Here you spend 1 resource and exhaust Strange for 4 threat removed and a Confused status on the villain. Since Strange could have just exhausted to thwart for 2 anyway, we essentially end up with 1 resource for 2 threat and a Confuse. Even without the Confuse, that is on or above par for threat removal. The real neat bit here? Note the absence of the (thwart) label on the ability. This is not a thwart, so it bypasses Confuse and Patrol. The only thing that stops it is a Crisis icon, and that only affects the main scheme. Cards and abilities that can remove threat without thwarting can be helpful for high Confuse/Patrol scenarios. Just keep in mind that these cards won't combo with cards like Overwatch, which require a thwart.


Crimson Bands of Cyttorak (Stun an enemy and deal 7 damage to it.)

While these bands won't give you the power of Juggernaut, they will stun an enemy and deal 7 damage to it, all for a measly 2 resources and an exhaust. Doctor Strange could have attacked for 1 damage, so we're really looking at 2 resources for a Stun and 6 damage. Damage is generally considered efficient at 2 damage for 1 effective resource. As with Images of Ikonn, this is efficient even before the status effect. Again I will point out the missing label. Without the (attack) label on the ability, this damage bypasses Guard, Retaliate, and Stun. You can leverage other non-attack damage dealing abilities in your own decks to similarly bypass these keywords.


Seven Rings of Raggardorr (Give up to 3 characters each a tough status card.)

Tough status reigns supreme. For 2 resources and an exhaust, you get 6 effective resources worth of Toughs. That's a whole lot more defense than Strange would have gotten with his 2 DEF, and it doesn't care if the villain is Steady or Stalwart. This one doesn't really have any wider picture notes. It's just a bonkers card. If you want a take-away, find ways of incorporating Tough access into your builds.


Vapors of Valtorr (Choose a status card in play. Replace that status with a different status card.)

Very few abilities in the game let you manipulate status cards on an enemy, and most of the ones that do aren't working in your favor. The ability to swap a Tough for a Confuse or Stun is huge. You could have exhausted Strange to deal one damage and clear the Tough, so this is effectively a free status of your choice if they already have one on them. It's also a great way to help a teammate (or yourself) by turning an annoying Stun or Confuse into a free block the next villain phase. Now you do have a hiccup here is when you have a Stalwart villain, as you can't change the Tough. However, the ability to manipulate existing status effects is quite strong. This is another card that doesn't have much of a wider picture, but it is far more valuable than many see.


Spell Mastery (Playing vs Triggering)

There are a couple things to touch on with Spell Mastery. First, it is an Action, meaning you can use it on other players' turns. While this is not unique to this ability, it is extremely powerful when at any given moment you have access to one of your seven best cards. A few cards worth mentioning that let you break norms for what you do off turn are Team-Building Exercise and Meditation. Both of these allow you to play something to the board that you would usually have to wait to play until your turn. This can even let you sneak in an ally off turn!


Jumping back to Spell Mastery, we want to take a look at the verbiage. Doctor Strange doesn't ever play the invocations. They are all events, but you are simply resolving their special ability. It's for this reason that Strange's obligation and nemesis set are so lackluster. Physical Toll (his obligation) does not impact the Invocations, meaning you will not have to deal with the additional cost for them specifically. Counterspell also doesn't impact you triggering the invocations at all, as you aren't playing them.


Play vs Put into Play

As a follow up to 'playing vs triggering,' I want to touch on a powerful card available only to Mystics. Summoning Spell allows a Mystic hero to discard cards from the top of the deck until an ally is discarded. Then put that ally into play. Let's back up a bit and look at Summoning Spell's restriction. It is only playable by identities with the Mystic trait. This kind of play restriction is fairly common in the game, and in general the restrictions lock some heroes/alter-egos out of using certain cards. If you do not meet the play restrictions, you simply cannot play the card. However, putting a card into play is not playing the card. Instead, it is simply making it enter the in-play area. This means you can get allies and cards that you normally couldn't use into play and under your control. There are a number of cards that allow you to do this, such as Make the Call or Call for Backup. Player side schemes like Build Support can even help you get trait-locked supports like Weapon X into play for non-mutants.

Summon is just a synonym for Call.

Not only does this bypass traited play restrictions, this will also bypass things like Requirement. These restrictions only care whether or not you are playing the card, so utilizing 'put into play' abilities can help you make non-traditional plays. As an added bonus, this applies to encounter cards as well. If an ability causes you to put a minion into play, you don't need to trigger Surge, Incite, or any When Revealed abilities.



Double the Resources, Double the Fun

A final point worth bringing up is how The Power in All of Us works regarding cards like C.I.T.T. and Across the Spider-Verse. This isn't specifically related to Doctor Strange, but it will be important for my next section. Directly from the FFG Rules Specialist, Alex, we have:

"Yes, the resources generated by The Power in All of Us can be applied to an ability cost on a basic card like C.I.T.T."

This also applies to the second part of Across the Spider-Verse. Not only can you use The Power in All of Us as a double resource for playing the card, you (or another player) can use The Power in All of Us as a double resource for the ability cost to repeat the ability.


Prove It

Now that we have access to all this power, we might as well use it. To prove how powerful Doctor Strange and these "cheats" are, I built a Doctor Strange Leadership deck that utilizes all of these principles. Here it is on MarvelCDB.com


This is a bit of a silly deck as many of the allies you can't actually play outright. However, a lot of power is packed away by leveraging the rules we covered above. First and foremost, you have all the Invocations. Then, we've got Make the Call, Call for Backup, and Summoning Spell to cheat in allies. Rapid Response puts these allies back into play from the discard pile, again avoiding the restrictions. Black Panther can grab Summoning Spell or Make the Call so you have a freebie card outside your hand. The Power in All of Us can be used alongside Make the Call for the Basic allies in addition to being used for Across the Spider-Verse, Web of Life and Destiny, and The Sorcerer Supreme. Build Support will help you skip the cost of Web of Life and Destiny if you don't have a Web-Warrior ally yet. Last but not least, we have Vivian, the queen of breaking things. I won't go into a full list here, but watch for ways that she can mute an ability or effect in order for you to bypass any play restrictions (like ignoring a Crisis Icon, Guard, or Patrol).


Feel free to give the deck above a run to see if you can master these norm-breaking abilities. Or, feel free to check out this list of all the player cards that are non-thwarting threat removal, non-attack damage, or put into play abilities.


Thanks

Thanks to Chocobo, Journeyman2, josseroo, and theromeo3517 for suggestions and discussions on the deck!

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Royal Smith
Royal Smith
Sep 12, 2023

Great write up. It sounds like a fun way to beat some of those super hard scenario that I couldn’t dream to beat regularly

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