Towers of Asgard, Part 2

As I indicated in Part 1, this deck is intended to work like a better version of an X-Men Assemble deck, which means you want as many copies of Towers of Asgard as you can get. The mulligan condition is Sif or a way to get her (Heimdall or Bifrost), since Sif can search for Towers (or for Bifrost, if you are in danger of missing a drop). If you are maxed out on Towers and don't need a Bifrost, search for Midgard or Yggdrasil, in that order.

On good draws, it is not unusual to keep Sif around until turn 6 or later, in which case she will likely be enormous. I had 14 counters on her once, making her an 8 drop. There have been times when she has become too big to get stunned in combat, at which point the only way to stun her was with For Asgard!, which is a plot twist that works just like Speedball is Dead. You can use it to stun her, and then recover her at the start of the recovery phase and give her two counters. With three or four copies of Towers on the field, a character can get awfully big awfully fast that way.

As you'd expect, the deck is very weak against decks with lots of resource row hate. If you don't have multiple copies of Towers on the field by mid-game, the deck doesn't work as designed. It also fares poorly against decks that have a lot of KO effects. It struggles against my Suicide Squad deck, for example. as well as Nasty Surprise and my Weapon X deck. If characters aren't recovering and gaining counters on every turn, the deck loses all its power, because it doesn't play a lot of pumps.

It also loses routinely to really fast decks like Voltage, because it's a deck that wants to build slowly to a big finish. Against most other decks, though, it fares pretty well, especially curve decks that have no specific answers for it. And it's very fun to play a deck where characters accumulate lots of counters. You need plenty of extra dice on hand when you play this deck, to keep track of all the counters.

There are lots of different ways to build this deck, because I created plenty of alternate drops and alternate cards to play. Below is my current build, but it is by no means definitive.

Characters - 32

[1 - 4]
4x Heimdall, Guardian of the Bifrost
[2 - 7]
3x Balder, The Brave
4x Warriors Three, Army
[3 - 6]
2x Amora, The Enchantress
4x Lady Sif, Shield-Maiden of Asgard
0x Valkyrie, Ally of Asgard
[4 - 5]
1x Jane Foster / Thor, Goddess of Thunder
1x Thor, Champion of Midgard
1x Thor, Defender of the Nine Realms
0x Thor, Like the Phoenix
1x Thor, Mighty God of Thunder
0x Thor, Odinson / Ultimates
1x Thor, The Thunderer
0x Thor, Wrathful God
[5 - 4]
1x Loki, God of Mischief
1x Loki, Prince of Lies
1x Loki, Shape Shifter
1x Loki, Snake in the Grass
0x Loki, Stealing Thunder
0x Loki, The Sly One
[6 - 3]
1x Angela, Asgard's Assassin
2x Beta Ray Bill, Ally to Asgard
[7 - 2]
1x Jane Foster / Thor, The Mighty Thor
1x Thor, Fearless Warrior
0x Thor, God Blast
0x Thor, Son of Odin / Ultimates
[8 - 1]
1x Odin, All Father
0x Odin, Son of Bor 

Plot Twists - 12

[2 - 4]
4x For Asgard!
[3 - 6]
4x Break the Ragnarok Cycle
2x Warriors of Asgard
[4 - 2]
0x Bring the Thunder!
2x Fury of Thor
0x Hammers of Battleworld
0x Last God in Asgard 

Locations - 11

[2 - 8]
4x Bifrost / The Rainbow Bridge
4x Towers of Asgard, Non-Unique
[3 - 3]
2x Midgard
1x Yggdrasil / The World Tree 

Equipment - 6

[0 - 6]
1x Asgardian Ax, Weapon of War
0x Asgardian Shield, Weapon of War
1x Asgardian Spear, Weapon of War
1x Asgardian Sword, Weapon of War
1x Mjolnir, Unique / Hammer
1x Mjolnir, Unique / Hammer / Ultimates
0x Stormbreaker, Unique / Hammer
1x Uru Metal, Unique / Hammer

The only one drop is the Heimdall card that I showed you in Part 1, but it should never be recruited. Think of it as a plot twist that you have to play from your hand to search for Bifrost. There are two 2 drops, however. Balder is a 3/2, but he automatically gets a Weapon of War from your deck, which both thins your deck and gives him a +1/+1 counter each time he is attacked or exhausted by an opponent's effect (to punish stall decks). Warriors Three becomes a 3/3 when it comes into play, and can search for a Weapon of War by removing two counters. This is a good play on off-initiatives in situations where you are going to lose it no matter what, and the loss of counters doesn't affect anything.

The main 3 drop is Sif, of course, which I showed you in Part 1. The other two are Amora and Valkyrie. Valkyrie is essentially a bigger version of Balder, but she also gets bigger when she attacks, so long as she is equipped with a Weapon of War. Basically, she gains one counter on every turn, not counting those she gets from Towers of Asgard. I have Amora in my deck right now because she is effectively a 5/3 who can cancel an opponent's attack by removing two counters. In theory, she really helps against ultra-aggressive decks, as they have to go through her twice. In reality, though, you never want to play either of these characters, as you always want Sif. If you manage to draw a couple of copies of Towers early, though, you can still win without her.

There are lots and lots of 4 drop Thors to choose from. I showed you Champion of Midgard in Part 1. Here are the other ones I have in my deck right now. Defender of the Nine Realms can use his hammer for an Indestructible-like effect. The Thunderer can throw his after stunning a larger character to stun a smaller one. Mighty God of Thunder can use his hammer to give him an effect like Merlyn, Deadly Archer's. And Jane Foster can use hers to recover herself and gain a counter when she gets stunned. More than once, I have subbed her in on a later turn, when I had multiple copies of Towers in my row, so she could absorb lots of damage for me.

The other Thors are maybe not quite as good, although I like all their effects. Like the Phoenix can use his hammer to return himself to play at the start of the next recruit when he gets stunned; this is good only if you weren't going to be able to recover him anyway. Odinson can throw his hammer to gain a fast +5 ATK when attacking, when you need to deliver a savage beatdown. If he gets stunned in combat, Wrathful God can throw his hammer to stun all characters with whom he was in combat. So basically he can stun any character he attacks, and he can stun back all attackers who stunned him.

There are six versions of Loki, and I have four of them in my current build. I already showed you Shape Shifter in Part 1, He's the one who can mimic the powers of an opposing character. Prince of Lies can negate the effect of a plot twist played by your opponent (thy foe's twisted treachery). God of Mischief lets you get back a card from your KO'd pile. And Snake in the Grass let's you replace a target location or ongoing plot twist. It's really good against things like New Brotherhood and Lost City.

The other two are not as generally useful. The Sly One can negate an opposing payment power (yon foe's paid treachery). Stealing Thunder can wield a hammer, and use it to steal another character's counters. You could use him to steal all of Sif's counters, for example, making it easier to stun her, while also making Loki huge. Note that you can't use the effect on a stunned character; it has to be unstunned (hearty).

The two 6 drops are Angela and Beta Ray Bill. Angela works much like Loki. She can KO a stunned (stricken) opposing character by removing two counters. Beta Ray Bill is like a more powerful version of Valkyrie. He basically gains two counters on every turn. Since he gets one when he gets his hammer, he's a 13/12 on turn 6, then 15/14 on 7, and 17/16 on 8. Obviously if he gets stunned on any of those turns and gains counters from Towers of Asgard, he would grow even bigger.

As on 4, the 7 drops are Thor and Jane Foster. I normally play Fearless Warrior and Jane Foster. Fearless Warrior can use his hammer to remove himself from the game until the start of your attack step. He's mainly good when you are on evens. Jane Foster has an effect like the MUN Hercules, where she can give another character of yours three counters and allow it to attack twice. She would be better when on odds. God Blast is a more powerful version of the Mighty God of Thunder; he can KO an opposing character without attacking, if your row has enough face up locations in it. Son of Odin is a stronger version of Odinson. He can hurl his hammer to gain +6 ATK.

It's debatable whether this deck needs an 8 drop, but I play one for flavor if nothing else. Normally I play Odin, Son of Bor, who can ready himself by KO'ing another character you control. Odin, All Father has two effects. The first prevents you and your resources from being targeted by your opponent. The second is the old Silver Surfer effect, that allows you to steal the initiative, if you got to 8 when you were on odds.

The deck relies more on locations than plot twists, but there are a couple of important ones. The most important is For Asgard!, which I talked about earlier. Early it helps you keep Sif around longer; later it gives you a way to stun her. You can also use it in cases where your opponent has thrown a lot of pumps into a single attack, and you want to reset the attack, The other important one is Break the Ragnarok Cycle, which allows you to pay two counters to recover a stunned character you control. Together, these two cards allow you to keep your field and make it grow in strength by gaining counters from Towers of Asgard. The only other plot twists I normally play are the two ATK pumps, Fury of Thor and Warriors of Asgard, which I showed you in Part 1.

The other plot twists are more situational. Bring the Thunder! allows you to ready any unstunned character you control, by removing four counters from another one. Hammers of Battleworld gives all Asgardian characters with hammers +3 ATK while attacking. If you played it, you would want Loki, Stealing Thunder as your only 5 drop, and Beta Ray Bill as your only 6 drop. Last God in Asgard lets you recover one extra stunned character at the start of the recovery phase.

I've already shown you Towers of Asgard and Bifrost, which are the two most important locations. The others are Midgard and Yggdrasil. Midgard works somewhat like Stark Armory. It lets you add one counter per turn to a character of your choice. You can also remove a single counter from a stunned character you are about to lose, and then give it to someone else next turn. Yggdrasil lets you turn any spare card into a counter, or to remove a counter from an unstunned character to draw a card. The latter effect would be best used on a character you are about to substitute for.

The remaining cards are all equipment cards, and most of them are Weapons of War. All of these cards are exactly the same. I just gave them different names for flavor, and to allow me to showcase more art. I play three of them, and it doesn't matter which ones. The equipped character will gain a counter each time it is attacked or exhausted by an opposing effect. You can also get back the equipment from the KO'd pile at the cost of one counter. Here are the six Weapons of War:

The other equipment cards are all hammers. I showed you the regular version of Mjolnir in Part 1. There is also an Ultimates version of Mjolnir, Stormbreaker (Beta Ray Bill's hammer) and Uru Metal, which also has the names Mjolnir and Stormbreaker. Uru Metal is the name of the metal used by Odin to form Stormbreaker for Beta Ray Bill, after he proved himself worthy to wield Mjolnir. You definitely want three different hammers in the deck, but it doesn't matter which three you use, since Beta Ray Bill can use either Stormbreaker or Uru Metal, and the other worthy characters can use all except Stormbreaker. I normally omit Stormbreaker.

This was undoubtedly my most ambitious custom card project to date. The MSE template was a project in itself, and the fancy Elizabethan language used in the card text created a lot of extra work in designing the cards, But it was also my most rewarding project, This is a deck that I love looking at as much as I enjoy playing it. Maybe best of all, it rights some wrongs done by UDE: the poor treatment of Thor and Loki, as well as the inadequate support given to X-Men Assemble. I really wanted those characters and that card to be good in the game, and they never were. Finally, they get a little justice.

If you want to download the cards, you can find them here. MPC-ready versions are here.