It's been a couple of weeks since my last blog, so what have I been up to in the meantime? Well, I've been playing quite a lot of Spider-Woman, but that's kind of jumping to the end of the story...
Last time out I left it where I'd been left feeling bruised and battered by repeatedly slamming into expert Campaign Ronan at full speed in my Galaxy's Most Wanted playthrough. I wasn't having fun any more and thought maybe I'd find something else to play against instead.
Not long after I wrote that blog the lockdown restrictions eased a bit here in the UK and we finally got to go away on a little family holiday to a cottage on the Welsh coast. It was Wales in May so it was sunny, windy, wet and beautiful... sometimes at different times but often all at once.
When I got back home and picked my Marvel Champions cards back up I actually felt suitably refreshed after my little break so I was ready to try and take Ronan on again. I tinkered with my deck choices a little - Ant-Man dropped the Protection aspect that had failed him against Ronan to pick up Lay Down The Law and play Justice instead, then I dropped Scarlet Witch entirely to bring Captain America in Protection. We suited up and began another GMW Expert Campagn run...
Drang was up first. In my first playthrough I downed him easily with 5 units for the market, and this time I went one better and had him under complete control to exit with 6 units to spend in the market. We loaded up on goodies then went straight onto the Collector and attempted to Infiltrate the Museum. In the first game it was really close and I was about to win then he packed me up in an Inconspicuous Box a turn before I finished him off. Try again... close, but this time I spent so much time removing cards from the collection that he destroyed me on Collector III.
I realised I was too slow to deal damage now I didn't have Scarlet Witch. I couldn't burn past Collector III quickly enough without the Molecular Decays and Hex Bolts. For the first time ever I switched up to playing three heroes and I added Scarlet Witch to the fight. The games took noticeably longer when running three heroes alone but the results were the same - I got close every time but I lost every time.
And more importantly: win, lose or draw I wasn't having fun. The constraints the Collector places on you are so binding that you rarely get to cut loose and actually show off what your heroes can do. It's a frustrating scenario, one I know I can beat but just don't actually enjoy playing through to make it happen. And behind it was Escape The Museum, which I hated on my first playthrough. Behind that was Nebula, and then Ronan. And none of it looked fun.
Galaxy's Most Wanted got kicked unceremoniously to the curb.
I'm still relatively new to the game and I've got just as much to explore in old content as I have in the new stuff, so while everyone has been getting really excited about the new heroes I went in the opposite direction. I've been looking back at some of the heroes I've played before but was never really happy with, revisiting Black Panther, Hulk, Spider-Woman, Captain Marvel and Thor among others.
I've also been playing almost exclusively against the evolving version of my own custom Rhino & Green Goblin scenario (above), just because it's proven to be the most fun and dynamic scenario I think I've got available. I've gone back to the article where I shared that scenario and updated it for the latest versions of those two encounter decks but in short what I've been trying to do is give the villains more distinct personalities in how they play out. The Rhino deck hasn't changed very much, though he's a bit more focused on smashing up your Upgrades and Support cards, but I've been constantly tweaking the Green Goblin deck to make him feel devious and dangerous and I think I'm close to nailing it down now.
Sales Pitch: I wouldn't recommend something so strongly if I didn't believe in it. I think my Rhino/Goblin scenario is really good fun. You should try it out. End of sales pitch.
But what I really wanted to do was share a couple of my hero decks, where I've found new angles for old heroes. I've checked on MCDB and I can't see many/any decks quite like these so hopefully I'm showing you something that is as new to you as it was to me!
Momentum Drop /// Spider Woman /// Aggro & Protection
I don't usually play 'true solo' with just one hero but if I'm starting an unfamiliar hero from scratch I'll often have a quick solo game or two to check that the deck makes sense before I move it on into using it properly.
I've never had a deck that so completely destroyed Solo scenarios like this one has. It's a resilient and dynamic all-rounder that has handled some big scenarios like Kang and Infiltrate The Museum with complete ease.
This deck started with a very simple premise: I like Momentum Shift but I never get to use it because it just costs so much. In Spider-Woman I can get Finesse and Martial Prowess to lower the cost of Momentum Shift, so let's give it a try. I honestly didn't expect to be making my new favourite deck when I threw this together, but I did.
She's capable of dealing a lot of damage very quickly (Skilled Strike, Venom Blast, Hulk, Drop Kick), but she's also got some of the best control elements in the game (Pheromones, Drop Kick, Iron Fist) with Pheromones in particular buying her tons of time against the villain. She's also a tough cookie with lots of healing effects (Momentum Shift, Energy Barrier, Night Nurse, Contaminant Immunity) and she's often got 3 DEF as well thanks to cards she played in her turn.
More than any other hero I've ever played I think this Spider-Woman is the total package - aggressive, controlling and tough all at the same time.
What you're looking to do is set up the full suite of cheap resource generators - Deft Focus, Martial Prowess, and both copies of Finesse. There's a lot of crossover in the cards that they can reduce the cost of so most turns you're getting to use all your extra resources somehow and that feeds back in more attacks, more heals, and more +1/+1/+1 boosts for Spider-Woman.
I gave her a try against my nemesis: The Collector (though on Standard not Expert) and she killed him off on turn 7 with her resource generators fuelling a massive turn of Drop Kick -> Venom Blast -> Skilled Strike -> Jarnbjorn activation -> Hulk (with a physical icon for 2 more damage).
Jessica Drew is not a girl to be messed around.
Aggression
Skilled Strike is the classic Spider-Woman activator, a 0-cost aspect card that can easily turn Spider-Woman into a 4 or 5 damage attacker. Drop Kick is great aggression/control mixed into one card, and you can reduce the cost with Finesse and Martial Prowess so it's easier to trigger the stun and card draw. Jarnbjorn the control piece whose activation cost can be paid by Finesse, and then Hulk and Spider-Girl as cheap and effective allies. It's a solid package - low cost and aggressive, but able to board control.
BTW: I did look at using Angela instead of a Skilled Strike, but for Hulk purposes I wanted to keep the physical resource in the deck.
Protection
I wanted to showcase Momentum Shift and I've done that, with extra damage redirection from Energy Barrier. With those two cards (and Contaminant Immunity and the stuns) you can keep Spider-Woman in hero form longer than you'd expect and just keep shrugging off damage and throwing it back at the villain. Unflappable was a late addition and it's not a deck that so obviously defends a lot, but I find that she does get a high DEF very often so defending and drawing into more juice for your events next turn is a solid play, and Unflappable is a cheap activator of her ability when you play it too.
Wakanda Mining Co. /// Black Panther /// Leadership
This deck answers the main problem I've always had with Black Panther - the time you spend twiddling your thumbs and hoping not to die while you try to assemble your armour, and then cross your fingers to draw Wakanda Forever! I've done it on Protection and while throwing 30 permanents onto the table worked eventually it always struck me as sooooo dull.
It's the Wakanda Mining Co. deck: just dig and dig and dig and dig until you find what you're looking for! Strength In Numbers is the turbo boost I was looking for to assemble my kit and start swinging for Wakanda faster than I've ever been able to do before.
I'm using 12 strong allies, most of them cheap. Yes, 12 is A LOT of allies, but this reflects how important it is to get them out in multiples for Strength of Numbers. And it's worth remembering it's possible to get 5 allies out at once thanks to Stinger and Triskelion, although in my experience you're usually killing the villain long before you max that potential. Stick a couple of them into play and start drawing cards with Strength In Numbers and you should be able to snowball momentum and build up to some big turns very quickly.
Between Strength In Numbers, Assess The Situation and Nick Fury (and things like Maria Hill or Golden City) you should be cycling your 40 card deck as quickly as if it was just 20 cards, which is going to give you a steady stream of double resource cards to play your Black Panther kit more quickly and then multiple Wakanda Forevers in a turn.
It's kind of a shame to conscript so many of Earth's mightiest heroes to your cause only to hand them a pickaxe and telling them to get digging... just remember it's for the greater good of Wakanda.
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