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.

Avengers vs. X-Men, Part 2

My goal with the X-Men/Phoenix Five deck was basically to build a better version of my old X-Statix deck. That deck was fun to play, and fairly competitive in Silver Age, but too weak to really compete against Golden Age decks. This deck fares much better, partly because the lone character is typically much bigger than in the X-Statix deck, and partly because of the way that each Phoenix character absorbs the Phoenix powers of the character it replaces.

The deck does have some horrible match-ups. Really fast aggro decks can win before it can stabilize. And decks with lots of KO effects, such as my Suicide Squad deck, shrink the size of each character by not allowing you to recruit with Boost, weakening its defenses. Nevertheless, its the strongest loner themed control deck I've seen or played, so I think I accomplished my main mission.

A few FAQ-type notes about the deck:

Phoenix 

A character with the version Phoenix also has Phoenix powers that may be used only during the combat phase and only if you control no other characters. A Phoenix character can be recruited with Boost by KO'ing another X-Men character you control. If that character has the Phoenix version, the recruited character gains that character's Phoenix powers, including any Phoenix powers it gained by being recruited with Boost. 

A Phoenix character also has "Pay up to 4 resource points >>> Put X +1/+1 counters on this Phoenix, where X is the number of resource points you paid." 

Phoenix Five 

Plot twists with the version Phoenix Five may be played only if you control a Phoenix character and no other characters.

Here's the deck list I have been using:

Characters - 26

[2 - 8]
4x Magneto, Extinction Team
4x Storm, Extinction Team
0x Danger, Extinction Team
[3 - 4]
4x Namor, Phoenix
[4 - 4]
4x Magik, Phoenix
[5 - 4]
4x Colossus, Phoenix
[6 - 3]
3x Emma Frost, Phoenix
[7 - 2]
2x Cyclops, Phoenix
[8 - 1]
1x Dark Phoenix, Cyclops

Plot Twists - 27

[3 - 15]
4x A Phoenix Rises, Phoenix Five
4x Phoenix Five
4x There Can Only Be One, Phoenix Five
3x Pax Utopia, Phoenix Five
0x Choosing Sides
[4 - 8]
4x And Then There Was One, Phoenix Five
4x Attack on Wakanda, Phoenix Five
[5 - 4]
4x No More Avengers

Locations - 7

[3 - 3]
3x Utopia
[4 - 4]
4x New Xavier School for Mutants

There is no 1 drop in this deck, but there are three 2 drops to choose from. Magneto is normally the best play on 2. He can search for any card with the name or version Phoenix Five and cost 3 or less, Normally you would use this to get Phoenix Five, which is the deck's main tutor. Storm is good against rush decks, since she can take out two little guys all on her own. To be honest, I haven't really tested Danger. She's just a big body to absorb damage on turn 2.

Turn 3 is where the first Phoenix character comes in. Assuming that you have a two drop in play, you can recruit Namor with Boost by KO'ing the 2 drop. He then gets two +1/+1 counters, so he becomes a 7/6. When defending, he can activate for another +3 DEF. On turn 4, you have two options. If you don't have Magik, you can pay 4 resource points to put 4 counters on Namor, making him an 11/10. Or you can recruit Magik with Boost, making her a 10/10. She gains Namor's Phoenix power, so she can activate for +3 DEF or to force your opponent to replace a face-up resource. This is really good against Brotherhood Reservist, for example.

On turn 5, you really need to hit Colossus, so if you had a single Phoenix Five card and no 4 or 5 drop in hand on turn 4, the best play is to add counters to Namor and save Phoenix Five to get Colossus.You pretty much have to have him in order to win, because he takes away reinforcement, allowing you to do lots of damage with a single attack. Emma Frost's power allows you to turn any spare card into a valuable plot twist by turning a used one down.

Cyclops has a similar ability. He lets you discard a card to get back a plot twist from the KO'd pile. If you hit all your drops, he will be a 21/21 monster. If you make it to turn 8, you should win against any deck that can't negate Dark Phoenix's ability, because it will turn the match into a mano a mano affair, and Dark Phoenix will be a massive 25/25.

There are two tutors you can use in the deck. Phoenix Five is the main one. As noted before, it's searchable by Magneto, so you should mulligan for Magneto, Phoenix Five, or Namor to insure that you don't miss your 3 drop. I created Choosing Sides initially for the Avengers deck, but it works with either deck, although in my current builds it isn't used in either one.

The deck plays two pumps. Attack on Wakanda is the attack pump. It gives a +7 ATK, akin to Trouble with Dinosaurs. And Then There Was One gives you +5 DEF. Remember that Emma can flip these back down on turn 5 if you play them from your row.

There are two ongoing plot twists that prevent you or your Phoenix from being targeted. Pax Utopia is especially useful against burn, while There Can Only Be One negates certain KO effects as well as things like Only Human.

A Phoenix Rises is one of the more important plot twists. This deck can rarely win before turn 7, and to survive that long requires you to absorb as much damage as possible. If you have a 13/13 Colossus defending on turn 5, for example, you can activate to make him 13/16, then play And Then There Was One to make him 13/21. That's a big wall for them to climb. But if they do, it's good to be able to play A Phoenix Rises to put up another 12/12 wall. Few decks have enough gas to get through that much defense. Especially so if you played No More Avengers in the build phase, naming their main attack pump. It's basically a watered down version of Omnipotence.

There are two locations in the deck, also very important. New Xavier School for Mutants is based on Great Arena. An ideal play on turn 5, for example, would be to activate it, exhausting both your 4 drop and your opponent's, then recruit Colossus with Boost, so that he doesn't have to contend with their 4 drop. In an ideal world, you'll also have Utopia in your row, so before recruiting Colossus you can pop a counter from Magik to draw a card. The deck works noticeably better when you have both of these cards in your row.

This is not the strongest custom deck I've ever built, but it holds its own against most decks, and it's relatively easy to play. Normally the only hard choices to be made involve deciding what card to call with No More Avengers. It's not quite as consistent as I would like, but being able to use up to 4 resource points to put counters on your existing Phoenix cushion the blow of missing a drop.

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

Next, I'll talk about the Avengers deck.