Avengers vs. X-Men, Part 3

For the Avengers deck, I decided to go with a concept somewhat like that of my Asgardians deck, in that each character would have a plot twist-like ability that typically could be used only once. To that end, all the characters have the newly minted Chaos keyword, which means that they get a Chaos counter when they enter play. It's similar to a Cosmic counter, but isn't lost by getting stunned. You remove the counter to enable that character's effect.

In the deck as in the comics, everything revolves around Hope Summers and especially the Scarlet Witch. Certain effects work only if you control Scarlet Witch, and the most versatile pump works only with the two of them.

The deck holds up pretty well against most decks. It can beat fast rush decks if it draws well, and it can handle most full curve decks. I had a design goal of having this deck beat the Phoenix Five deck about 60% of the time, and I think that's about how things ended up. With equal draws this one normally wins, and when one deck draws noticeably better, that one usually wins.

Here's my current deck list:

Characters - 32

[1 - 4]
4x Nova, Sam Alexander
[2 - 7]
4x Iron Man, Searching for Answers
3x Iron Fist, Living Weapon
0x Professor X, Mind Games
[3 - 6]
4x Hope Summers, Destiny's Child
2x Wolverine, Healing Factor
0x Thor, Battle-Tested
[4 - 5]
4x Scarlet Witch, Unforgiven
1x Spider-Man, Great Responsibility
[5 - 4]
4x Dr. Strange, Enchantments of Ikonn
[6 - 3]
3x Captain America, Out of His Depth
[7 - 2]
2x Scarlet Witch, Chaos Magician
[8 - 1]
1x Hope Summers, Mutant Messiah

Plot Twists - 26 

[2 - 4]
4x Defense of Wakanda
[3 - 14]
4x Avengers Assembled
4x Probability Altering Fields
4x Yin and Yang
2x No More Phoenix
0x Choosing Sides
[4 - 8]
4x Fight the Phoenix
4x Chaos Magic 

Locations - 3 

[3]
3x K'un L'un

The lone 1 drop is Nova. He's a character tutor similar to Connie Webb. In all my playtesting, I've been using a build with four copies of Nova and zero copies of Choosing Sides, and the deck works fine this way. But at some point I'm going to switch things around and see what difference that makes, since the deck misses higher drops a little more often than I would like. 

There are three two drops. Iron Fist is probably the best of them. When he's about to stun someone, you can pop his counter to draw two cards. Iron Man is good as well, He lets you see the top three cards and pick one of them. I haven't done much with Professor X, but I suppose he could be a strong play against something like Brotherhood Reservist.

There are also three 3 drops, although you want Hope Summers if possible. She's your best defense against cards like New Brotherhood among others. Wolverine is good for absorbing damage from rush decks. Thor is another card I haven't tested much. His effect is a one-time +4 ATK pump. Probably not a keeper for the final list.

On turn 4 you always want Scarlet Witch. Her ability is very powerful, and there are two key plot twists that you can't use if you don't have her. Spider-Man is intended to be used in cases where you still have your 4 drop on turn 7. Sub in Spider-Man before recruiting the 7 drop Witch.

Dr. Strange has two abilities. The main one allows you to pop a Chaos counter to get back a plot twist from the KO'd pile. But there are times when it is helpful to be able to give him or someone else the name Scarlet Witch so you can use a certain plot twist. (This oddball ability is based on the comics, where the Enchantments of Ikonn are used to trick the X-Men into thinking that Scarlet Witch is in several places at once.) Captain America, as usual, has a Leader-like ability to restore Chaos counters to adjacent characters.

Scarlet Witch allows you to turn two face-up plot twists face down. In most match-ups, she's a finisher. (Her effect is limited to once per turn to prevent an infinite loop with Chaos Magic.) If you do get to 8, though, Hope Summers should insure that you will have the initiative.

The deck's main tutor is Avengers Assembled. Along with Nova, it is usually enough to make sure you hit all your drops, but more and more I think I should replace Nova with Choosing Sides.

There are two attack pumps. The main one, Fight the Phoenix, is like Savage Beatdown. Yin and Yang is more versatile, as it gives +3/+3 when attacking or defending, but it can be used only with Hope and Scarlet Witch, unless you've used Dr. Strange to give someone else the name Scarlet Witch.

The deck features two powerful defensive cards. Defense of Wakanda is like Cover Fire, but doesn't require range. And Probability-Altering Fields is like a Force Field Projection for the Scarlet Witch. The deck's ability to reuse plot twists makes it slightly more potent here, though. When playing against this deck with the Phoenix deck, it's important to call this card with No More Avengers.

The other card that you need to control Scarlet Witch in order to play is Chaos Magic, which restores a character's Chaos counter. Along with Probability-Altering Fields, it's the most powerful plot twist in the deck. No More Phoenix is an Only Human-like card that is useful in lots of match-ups, especially against other full curve decks.

The only location in the deck is K'un L'un. In theory this card should be very valuable for allowing you to preserve your field and build board advantage, but for some reason I only seem to draw it in match-ups where I don't need it.

That's it for my Avengers vs. X-Men decks. While I was working on this project, I got sidetracked by another DC deck idea, and I ended up working on and testing all three of them in tandem. It was a good distraction, though, because that deck might be my favorite of all the custom decks I've done so far.

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