Predators

By the time Marvel Evolution was released, the writing was on the wall. UDE had already stopped supporting the game overseas, so North America was bound to follow. MEV was clearly one last money grab before they pulled the plug. Consequently, I didn't buy many boxes of the set. I bought enough to get playsets of all the uncommons, then bought singles of any other cards I knew I wanted. As things worked out, I got plenty of rares for some deck paradigms, like the Cyclops legend deck, and few or none for others. Somehow, I missed almost all of the good Weapon X cards, so I never did anything with what I did have at the time.

Fast forward to a few months ago, when my son and I started playing the game again. One day I came home from work and he had built a Weapon X deck. It lacked polish, but when it worked, it worked really well. It was oozing with potential. We played with his build for a few weeks, and then I started tinkering with the deck myself. I made a few small improvements, but still wasn't happy with it. So I started looking around for other people's builds and discovered that we had a) completely whiffed on the single best Weapon X card, Mesmero, and b) failed to recognize just how good the 4 drop Maverick was. I rebuilt the deck with those two cards as mainstays, and suddenly we had a powerhouse. It can't compete with the very best Golden Age decks, but it's pretty darned good, especially against other aggro curve decks.

Characters - 31
[2 - 8]
4x Mesmero, Vincent
4x X-23, Laura Howlett
[3 - 9]
4x Iron Man, Earth 2020
4x Vision, Earth 10101
1x Nuke, Weapon 7
[4 - 5]
4x Maverick, Agent Zero
1x Chamber, Jonothon Starsmore
[5 - 4]
3x Stepford Cuckoos, Weapon X
1x Predator X, Genetically Engineered Monster
[6 - 3]
2x Sabretooth, Earth 295 - War
1x Wolverine, Unleashed
[7- 2]
1x Ultimaton, Weapon 15
1x Deadpool, Party Pooper  

Plot Twists - 30
[1 - 8]
4x Flying Kick
4x Nasty Surprise
[2 - 8]
4x We Can Rebuild Him
4x Erased
[3 - 7]
4x Mobilize
3x Call in a Favor
[4 - 3]
3x Savage Beatdown  

Locations - 4
[2 - 4]
4x Weapon Plus Satellite

In my son's original build, the main 2 drop was Captain America, Weapon 1. He's good, not great, and he is a hunter. You could definitely make a case for playing him over the current build's alternate 2 drop, X-23, who is not a hunter. But she is a 6/2, which means she can take down most 4 drops without a pump. This deck is a slow starter anyway, so the fact that she comes into play exhausted is not that big a deal. And half the time she comes into play after turn 2 as a bonus. In any case, the star of the show is Mesmero. Terrible stats; devastating effect. As long as your opponent's hunted character is not stunned, your opponent cannot play plot twists during the combat phase. No attack pumps, no defensive pumps, no tutors to fetch power-ups, no Pathetic Attempts, nada. If you have Mesmero and Weapon Plus Satellite out at the same time, your opponent is in big time trouble.

The pace picks up a bit once Iron Man hits the field. Every time he stuns a hunted character, you can bring in a 2 drop character for free, so long as you don't already have that a character with the same name already on the field. Ideally, you want odds, and you would recruit X-23 on turn 2. On turn 3 you would recruit Iron Man and hunt the opposing 2 drop. Iron Man has flight, so as long as the 2 drop is visible, he can get him. Attack with Iron Man, stunning their 2 drop, then bring Mesmero in for free with his effect. Mesmero is a hunter, so now you hunt the opposing 3 drop, whom you can take out with X-23. When you can pull that off, you can usually finish turn 3 with three characters to your opponent's one, and on the next turn he won't be able to play plot twists as long as his 4 drop is unstunned. In any case, Iron Man is your mulligan condition, because you can always bring out a 2 drop with his effect later if you miss on 2.

The only true alternate 3 is Nuke. He is card #61, so if you care about such things, cut him. I put him in because he is a decent alternate 3 (a 7/6 in combat with hunted characters), whereas Vision is not. Vision is a plot twist. He's great to have in your opening hand, and he's great in conjunction with We Can Rebuild Him. You never want to recruit him. Do keep in mind that missing on 3 is not the absolute end of the world if the opposing deck isn't moving too fast. There have been a couple of times where I missed on 3 but put the shift counters on Sabretooth, then recruited a 6 and a 3 (or a 4) on turn 6.  

The main 4 drop is Maverick, and Chamber is the alternate. In my son's original build, those roles were reversed, because we were suckered in by UDE, who made Chamber a rare and Maverick a common. One of the many dubious decisions made for that set. Anyway, Maverick is way better. He just sits in the hidden area, waiting for Iron Man or X-23 or whoever to stun the hunted character. When that happens, you pay 2 to insure that that character won't recover for the rest of the turn. Between Maverick and Erased, you can absolutely devastate your opponent's field. And if you have Satellite working, too, you can sometimes take out two characters in one turn, one with Maverick, one with Erased.

The main 5 drop is Stepford Cuckoos, which is almost always your preferred play. She gives the hunted character, and all adjacent characters, -3 DEF. So when you are defending, your opponent can no longer make safe attacks down the curve. Cuckoos can easily take down the opposing 6 drop if it has -3 DEF. When you are attacking, by contrast, you can easily swing up the curve, because Cuckoos gives your attacker the equivalent of a Flying Kick. The X-23 you brought out for free on turn 4 can take down the opposing 5 drop without a pump. Predator X is good as well, and if you need to attack into a field of little guys, it is a much better choice than Cuckoos. But against most decks, Cuckoos will be better.

The two 6 drops are both good, but if Wolverine weren't hidden, I would probably just play three copies of him. Sabretooth gets the nod as primary because he's visible and a better defender, and you want to be defending on 6 if possible. If you are attacking on 6, then Wolverine is way better. Because of all the card drawing and the tutors, you almost always have your choice of 6 drops on that turn. One other nice thing about Sabretooth is that he has shift, so if you get him in your opening hand, you can put a shift counter on him. On turn 6, recruit him, and use the other point to shift out Vision with one counter, then pop him to draw two cards.

When this deck works, you can usually win by the end of turn 6, because you will be facing depleted fields from turn 4 on. But there are two great 7 drops to choose from if you make it that far. If you are defending, you want Ultimaton, since he can't be stunned by a hunted character. Because of Satellite, your opponent will have some poor choices when trying to attack him. Hunt the opposing 7. If your opponent attacks with the 6, use Satellite to make him the hunted. When he attacks again with his 7, flip another Satellite from your row, and hunt him. The deck doesn't play an 8, so the lost resource doesn't hurt. If you are attacking on 7, Deadpool is usually better. Hunt the opposing 6, and attack him with Deadpool. Chances are he won't stun, but the other guy will. Ready Deadpool and go after their 7. It's an extra attack with a guy with 17 ATK. Should be game over.

The attack pumps are Savage Beatdown and Flying Kick. Kick is the more important of the two, because this deck has very few characters with flight, and you need it to get at the hunted character sometimes. The other "pump" is Nasty Surprise. I always undervalued that card, I think, and never used it much until recently. In this deck, it is really good, because you want to take away the possibility of safe attacks by the hunted character. Use it to force the "surprise" stunback, then take the attacker out of the game with Maverick or Erased. It's not unusual to begin combat on turn 5 with two 2 drops, a 3, a 4, and a 5, versus an opposing 3 and 5. Almost impossible for your opponent to dig out at that point.

The best plot twist in the deck is Erased, and it's the card that inspired my son to build the deck, I think. Unlike most cards that KO opposing characters, there is no cost for using this effect. If you stun the hunted character, you can KO them. The synergy between Erased, Maverick and Satellite is terrific. Use Maverick to take out characters when you can, and save Erased for characters that you had to attack with Maverick himself. When you do, that usually means you took out two guys in one turn, wiping out your opponent's field, most likely.

The tutors are Mobilize and Call in a Favor. I usually play 8 tutors in a deck when I can, but this deck has enough drawing power that I felt comfortable cutting it back to 7. As always, don't use Call if you don't have to, since your opponent gets the effect too, and use it only on off-inits if you can, so that you don't bail out your opponent on a turn when he was going to have to underdrop. We Can Rebuild Him is terrific in this deck. Remember that you are not limited to using it to draw cards. If you discarded a 6 drop early and have no tutor to get another one now, you can use WCRH to bring it back, shifted out of play with one counter. Bring him into play, and you still have one resource point remaining.

Arguably the single most important card in the deck is Weapon Plus Satellite. There's no way to search for it, so sometimes you miss it entirely or don't get it until it is too late. Those are games you usually lose. If you get it by turn 3, though, it becomes an absolute nightmare for your opponent if they have no way to get rid of it, especially if Mesmero is on the field. Without it, you can only hunt their second biggest character on your init. With it, you can hunt their biggest character on every turn, and frequently two different characters in a single turn. 

This deck is like a street racer with a turbo charged 4 cylinder engine, custom tuned by Paul Walker & Co. Mesmero, Maverick, Erased, and Satellite are the four cylinders, and Iron Man is the starter that kicks the engine to life. If you are hitting on all four cylinders, you are probably winning. If you are running on three cylinders, you might win anyway, simply because your opponent is driving while impaired. But if you are running on less than three, you are probably sputtering along and falling behind. You can have some really bad games with this deck, but when it is working, it is definitely a well-oiled, vicious killing machine.