Dance Off, Bro! - Having an absolute blast with Star-Lord

Every idea has its time.  

In my last blog I wrote about my Leadership Black Panther deck, which used Strength of Numbers to power through the cards and assemble his worldbeating suit of Wakandan tech.

I also said that I was looking at revisiting old heroes while everyone else was busy experimenting with all the new heroes we just received from the Guardians of the Galaxy.

Not long after I finished writing that blog I decided to finally take a look at what Gamora and Star-Lord did.  And I looked at Star-Lord.  And I looked at my Black Panther deck with Strength of Numbers in.  And I looked at Star-Lord again.  And I looked at Strength of Numbers again.

Every idea has its time.

DANCE OFF, BRO!  ME AND YOU!

View this deck in MCDB

I raved about my Spider-Woman deck as being probably the most dominant all-round deck I've played in Marvel Champions... well this Star-Lord deck is not that.

This is by far and away the most absurdly ridiculously bonkers, fun, death-defying and outrageous deck I've ever played.  Trying to explain to you what playing this deck is like just feels like death-by-hyperbole as each insane anecdote about a crazy turn blends into the next anecdote about an equally crazy turn.

Like the time that I played Star-Lord's Helmet, Knowhere, and three allies on turn 1...

...and then had three completely different allies in play at the end of turn 2!

Or like the time I was facing down a horde of minions thanks to revealing 13 encounter cards in 4 turns...

...then killed the Goblin off with a Sliding Shot two turns later anyway, because Star-Lord can blast his way out of trouble just as fast as he can talk his way into it.

From swamping Kang with a sea of allies...

...to the time (just a turn before that) when Kang had removed my whole board and left Star-Lord on 1HP thanks to a big Time Travel Tactics, only for Star-Lord to play three new allies out of hand on the next turn and Blaze of Glory for 17 damage anyway!

At times it feels like every turn of every game with Star-Lord is its own rollercoaster of incredible highs as Star-Lord runs riot in the hero phase, followed by screaming for your mother as the villain takes their turn and flings encounter cards at you like they're confetti.  Star-Lord is like Marvel Champions on crack.

12% OF A PLAN

Oh, oh, baby you've been so good to me

But please don't make it what it's not.

Well I thought we agreed on what we need,

So listen to me I'll tell you what we've got.

We've got a wham, bam, shang-a-lang 

And a sha-la-la-la-la-la thing.

wham, bam, shang-a-lang 

And a sha-la-la-la-la-la thing 

- Wham Bam Shang-a-Lang, Silver (Awesome Mix Vol.2)  

You've got twelve allies in this deck, which is a lot but just like in my Black Panther deck you want that steady stream of bodies coming through to activate your Strength In Numbers (and in Star-Lord's case to get in front of angry villains and their multiple attacks).  Peter Quill isn't someone to get too attached to the friends he meets along the way and like the song says they've got a wham, bam, shang-a-lang thing going on, so let's not make it what it's not.  Most of the allies are just there to help you surf through your deck as rapidly as possible and find one of two things: a big Sliding Shot, or an even bigger Blaze of Glory.

Sliding Shot is the card I most undervalued at first.  When I made this deck I had in mind that it was an ally-spamming deck that had some thwarts and attacks in that I didn't really care about which I was just going to discard in order to pay the costs of my allies.  About halfway through my first game I had Sliding Shot in hand and realised I could shoot the villain for 13 damage without paying a single resource (thanks to Star-Lord's What Could Go Wrong ability)... only I couldn't because I'd thrown my Element Gun away early on to pay for an ally.

Don't be like me.  Don't throw your Element Guns away.  Both the Element Gun and Sliding Shot are awesome.  You'll get the most value out of when you can chain some Daring Escapes into the Sliding Shot, but even with just the one card from What Could Go Wrong stacked against you it's a good value attack.

The other big BIG potential finisher is Blaze of Glory.  On the surface Blaze looks a bit like a supercharged Lead From The Front that gives you +2/+2 instead of +1/+1, but at the cost of dealing you a damage.  There's a couple of very important nuances to appreciate about Blaze of Glory, though:

• Firstly, unlike Lead From The Front your Blaze of Glory affects ALL Guardian characters in play.  That's not just your Guardian characters it's any of your teammate's Guardians too.  So not only does Blaze of Glory give you double the ATK buff, it also potentially gives it to 2x/3x/4x as many characters too!  I've been using my Star-Lord deck alongside Gamora and played into that potential by moving most of my Guardians allies like Groot, Cosmo and Rocket Raccoon over to Gamora.  Star-Lord turns anybody into a Guardian so he's free to play whoever he wants while his friends will need to stick to actual Guardians.

• Secondly, do you remember how I just told you that Star-Lord turns everyone into Guardians?  Well he does... but Peter Quill doesn't.  If you use Blaze of Glory for a big attack you can then switch back into Alter-Ego form before the end of the turn and everyone stops being a Guardian... even Star-Lord himself!  When that extra damage is dealt to all the Guardian characters at the end of the turn it's going to have a hard time finding any to deal damage to.  That Star-Lord is a sly one!

And, just like with Sliding Shot, Daring Escape is another good activator for Blaze of Glory - once Star-Lord is buffed to 4 ATK each Daring Escape a 0-cost cantrip 4 damage card!

Aside from Sliding Shots and Blaze of Glory most of the rest of your deck is allies and card draw to help you set up some of those big Sliding Shots and Blazes!  Because I'm using Strength In Numbers some of the allies lean towards the side of being weaker on stats but having a good ability (eg. Mockingbird, Maria Hill, Ironheart, Squirrel Girl, Hawkeye etc) so that you don't mind turning them sideways to draw cards instead of attacking.  At the other end of the scale I like the dependable damage from Drax, and Wonder Man helps add some real muscle to your Blaze of Glory turns.  

And I almost forgot just how good it feels to play Nick Fury for 1 resource thanks to What Could Go Wrong.  It feels really, really good.

In the list I've shared above I've got Black Knight but that could be whatever ally you most prefer.  I think I've currently switched him for Miles Morales but I'm also looking at US Agent because he's most able to block an attack without automatically heading for the nearest discard pile.

Oh and one final word for about the only cards I've not talked about in this deck... Star-Lord's Helmet is nucking futs and the Jet Boots are actually really helpful too.  In a deck that's already chock full of draw effects (Strength In Numbers, Maria Hill, Ironheart, Nick Fury, Daring Escape, Knowhere...) having a 1-cost upgrade that can give you a hero hand size of 8 is just crazy good.  Iron Man has to sweat half the game to get the sort of hand size Star-Lord just slaps down onto the table for 1 resource.

And finally, finally... I said I've been running Star-Lord next to Gamora.  Blaze of Glory does benefit from having more Guardians around to buff so you may also want to take a look at my Gamora deck.  Compared to the sheer audacious tomfoolery of Star-Lord she's a very effective but also very dull hero... but she undeniably does get through a lot of work.  

She just feels a lot like Ant-Man but without the lols, to me.

And that's it: last week I accidentally made one of my most dominant decks with Spider-Woman, and this week I've just as accidentally made probably my most wild and crazy fun deck with Star-Lord.

Let me know if you give it a try and what you make of it.  Now if you don't mind I'm off to save the galaxy again...