Spidey Stall

There were a few really good newer cards that I never got a copy of before I stopped playing the game, one of the most noteworthy being the Ultimates version of Spider-Man. Consequently, I never knew how good that card was until fairly recently. I had seen lists for some Spidey Stall decks that played it, but until I started experimenting with this variant I didn't recognize his full potential. My eyes are now open.

I take no credit for this deck. It's almost entirely the work of the Artist Sometimes Known as KardKrazy. Although he has later builds, I kind of like his original one, and mine is a minor riff on that one.

Characters - 34
[1 - 4]
4x Aunt May, Golden Oldie (Spider-Friends)
[2 - 7]
4x Blade, Nightstalker (Spider-Friends)
3x Black Cat, Nine Lives (Spider-Friends)
[3 - 6]
4x Spider-Man, Ultimates (Spider-Friends)
1x Cardiac, Elias Wirtham (Spider-Friends)
1x Spider-Girl, Daughter of Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
[4 - 8]
4x Spider-Man, The Sensational Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
4x Spider-Man, Zombie (Spider-Friends)
[5 - 1]
1x Spider-Man, Secret Avenger (Spider-Friends)
[6 - 4]
4x Scarlet Spider, Ben Reilly (Spider-Friends)
[7 - 2]
1x Spider-Man, Stark's Protégé (Spider-Friends, Avengers)
1x Spider-Man, The Amazing Spider-Man (Spider-Friends)
[8 - 1]
1x The Sentry, Golden Guardian of Good (Spider-Friends)
[9 - 1]
1x Galactus, Devourer of Worlds (Heralds)

Plot Twists - 20
[2 - 5]
4x Indebted
1x Clone Saga
[3 - 10]
4x Gift Wrapped
4x Have a Blast!
2x Mobilize
[5 - 4]
4x Omnipotence
[6 - 1]
1x Siphon Energy

Locations - 6
[2 - 6]
4x Empire State University
1x Avalon Space Station
1x Soul World

This deck really, really wants to hit Aunt May on one. I think I would keep virtually any hand that had her in it, because she can get you whatever Spider-Man you need most. Get the 3 drop one if you don't have it, or one of the 4 drops if you do. When you get another copy later, play her again. This deck needs lots of copies of Spider-Man. You can almost never have too many. She is also the perfect character to exhaust for Empire State University.

Turn 2 is not a critical turn for this deck. You can play a two drop, or another Aunt May, or both. Blade is the most thematically relevant character you could play here. You can use him to keep big troublemakers like Radioactive Man exhausted into the next turn. Black Cat is good for cycling through your deck, and her evasion allows you to keep her around as long as you need her. I've seen some people play Black Cat as their primary 2. Maybe as I play this deck more I'll flip them, but for now I've gone with Blade.

On turn 3 you always want the Ultimates Spider-Man if at all possible, so I would mulligan for him or a way to get him. He is one of the three key characters in the deck, and if you don't have him, it doesn't work as designed. More on him in a moment. Cardiac is better than nothing, especially against a deck that plays a lot of 1 drops, like Faces, but you will probably lose if you have to play him. Spider-Girl is some tech that I added. She's for shutting down the 5 drop Lex, but I wouldn't recruit her until 5 or 6. When she's stunned, she takes away his ability to negate all the payment powers that this deck needs in order to work, and since she has evasion, that's easily done. (Evasion is a form of payment power, but Lex doesn't negate it.)

Your best play on turn 4 is the Sensational Spider-Man. If you hit your 3, he will come into play with two web counters. Save them as long as you can. Use his ability to exhaust their 3, and use a Gift Wrapped to exhaust their 4. In a pinch, you can pop all four of your web counters, though. Keep in mind that you can replenish his web counters by subbing in a new copy of him. Also keep in mind that you absolutely must get a copy of Scarlet Spider by this turn, or you won't be playing a Spidey here. He is not intended to be played, although you can play him on 6 if you have nothing else. Think of him as a plot twist, like Clash of Worlds.

The best play on turn 5 is generally a Zombie Spider-Man and an Aunt May, preceded by an Omnipotence activation naming Pathetic Attempt, unless you know for certain that your opponent doesn't play it. (If they PA your Zombie, he won't come back.) Exhaust their 3 with the Sensational Spider-Man, pop 4 web counters to exhaust their 4 drop, then activate and KO the Zombie to exhaust another character. When he comes back at the end of the turn, two more web counters for him. The interaction between the Ultimates Spidey and the Zombie one, made possible by Scarlet Spider, are the key to this deck. It is so good, sometimes you don't even need Gift Wrapped in order to win. You can play Zombie on 4 if you need to, but beware of Pathetic Attempt. Better to wait until 5 if you can.

The alternate play on 5 is the 5 drop Spidey, but he is here only to negate characters that would otherwise wreck you. For example, last night I played this deck against my IG Handfill deck, which is a tough match-up because of all the burn effects. It doesn't need to attack to win. My son got off one activation of Circe on 5 before I could use Omnipotence on her, but after that she was shut down. On turn 6 I recruited the 5 drop to shut down Scarecrow. (Discarding for Spidey's effect was not going to be a problem.) We played it out, but the game was over at that point. I was exhausting his field on every turn, and he couldn't burn me.

On turn 6 you can either play a Zombie and a 2 drop, or a pair of 3 drops. The first will enter play with 4 web counters, and the second with 6. If you play the 3 drops, you can afford to spend 6 counters this turn to exhaust their 6, because at the end of the turn, when your Zombie returns, he will get 6 more, 2 from each of the 3 drops. Even on turns when you can't exhaust all of your opponent's characters, you can usually exhaust all but one. So you take one attack, which you reinforce, and the damage is minimal. If you are taking a maximum of one reinforced attack per turn, it won't be a problem stalling to 9, which is the goal.

Turn 7 can be a 4 and a 3, or either of the two 7 drop Spideys. The Amazing one is just that, assuming that you have enough character cards in hand to exhaust the characters that you can't exhaust otherwise. Still the best stall card ever printed. Stark's boy is pretty good too, though, especially when paired with a copy of Gift Wrapped. But honestly, if you got this far, it probably doesn't much matter what you play here, because you've likely been exhausting their field on every turn, in which case any of the three possibilities will do the trick. With Protégé, keep in mind that on your init you can attack down the curve with him, then use his effect to exhaust someone else.

Turn 8 could be a pair of Zombies, the other 7 drop, or the 8 drop Sentry. Sentry won't exhaust anyone, but -17 ATK will neuter them to the point that they are harmless. As with Protégé, you can attack someone with him if you are on evens, and then use his effect.

Turn 9 is where you win, generally, if your opponent hasn't scooped beforehand. Galactus comes into play, you take all of their endurance, and then you attack for game. Or you exhaust their field and do nothing, either way. You want odds if you can get them, unless you are up against another stall deck that plays Galactus on 9. In that case, you want his big guy to come into play and take all your endurance, and then yours comes in and takes it all back. The catch here is that some stall decks play him on 8, thanks to the Last Zenn Lavian. If you are worried about that kind of match-up, you should make him one of your 7 drops, so you can win on 8 instead of 9. If I were building this as a competitive deck, I think I would do that.

Apart from Aunt May, the main tutor is Indebted. You can use it to get Scarlet Spider by discarding a Spider-Man, but generally you use it to get a Spider-Man. There were three changes that I made to KardKrazy's deck with regard to tutors. First, I added two copies of Mobilize. This was done primarily to increase the chances of hitting Scarlet Spider by turn 4, which is critical. Second, I added Clone Saga. With it on the field, you can search for Galactus with either Indebted or Mobilize. This deck really needs to finish with him, and I think it's a mistake to count on having a particular character when you can't search for him. Finally, I added Siphon Energy. This can be your fifth copy of Indebted, Gift Wrapped or Have a Blast!,  or your third Mobilize. Or, if your opponent was thoughtful enough to leave a copy of Enemy of My Enemy in his row, you can use it and get Galactus that way.

Gift Wrapped supplements the effects of the Spideys. Especially against things like Faces and army decks, you need to hit a Gift Wrapped or two along the way in order to stop all their hordes of attackers. Against curve decks, you might finish the game with two-three copies you never used.

Have a Blast! is here primarily to shut down opposing copies of Omnipotence that name Spider-Man. That card can shut down all payment powers belonging to characters named Spider-Man, which is game over if it happens. If you prefer Death of the Dream, or Reality Gem, or Transmutation, or some combination, that's fine. The important thing is to have ample chances of drawing or searching for at least one of them by turn 5. Speaking of Omnipotence, it is here in force primarily to stop Pathetic Attempt, although it can also come in handy against certain decks, as illustrated by my account of the IG Handfill match-up.

The main location card is Empire State University. It's not critical that you draw it, but things generally go more smoothly if you can get one early on, and it gives Aunt May something to do besides reinforce during attacks. This is basically a combo deck, and it helps you to cycle through your deck to get to combo pieces faster. Avalon and Soul World are just for recurring spent copies of Aunt May and any Spider-Man characters you need now that you had to discard earlier. Soul World is better because of the card advantage it generates, as long as the self-burn doesn't create problems.

I haven't been playing this deck for very long, so please consider my build as more of a rough sketch than a finished blueprint. I've seen lots of other builds of this deck that were very successful, and most of them don't look much like it. ukyo has a good one, for example. The main thing that attracted me to KardKrazy's build, and the thing I would urge you to consider if you haven't already, was the complete commitment to the Ultimates/Zombie interaction. I read his description of how the deck worked, and it intrigued me enough to build my own copy and futz with it a bit. Now it's my Spidey deck of choice. Maybe it or something like it will become yours as well.