Never Stop Jarnbjorning

This deck was inspired by NocturnalAnimal's 2 Fast 2 Furious deck, which was the first time I saw Jarnbjorn being exploited properly.

The Deck

Quicksilver by himself is a pretty formidable hero, becoming a 2-2-2 once his aspect upgrades hit the table. Using basic actions twice per turn can quickly add up, and that’s without even incorporating his many incredible Superpower cards.

Which is what makes this deck so interesting to play, because it feeds the primary deck’s goal of boosting Pietro’s stats, and pairs it with a solitary, mind-boggling combo- Jarbjorning.

To get the absolute most out of Jarnbjorning, you obviously need to get it on to the table. The other card that brings this smorgasbord of slaughter to life is Quicksilver’s own Friction Resistance, which provides a ‘might’ resource to feed Jarbjorn. This prevents you from sacrificing cards to the fearsome Jarbjorn, but the real peanut butter in the chocolate is that Friction Resistance readies every time Quicksilver does. Honestly, I feel like someone on the design team at FFG did this on purpose, because it is an unbelievable synergy. With Fric Res, you will have a ‘might’ to feed Jarn literally every time you attack. I just stack it under Jarbjorn and treat it as the ‘upkeep’.

But the stupendous Jarnbjorn doesn’t end it’s gifts there. The extra 2 damage you generate from Jarn can be dealt to any enemy on the board, allowing you to pick off minions with abandon. What’s that? You’re still not satisfied? Well guess what…neither is Jarnbjorn! Because in addition to all that, you can feed Jarnbjorn as many 'might' resources as you like in a single attack to generate 2 points of damage. This is the only reason Strength is even in the deck…attack an enemy, then feed Jarn the double resources from Strength to hit up to two targets for 2 damage. Jarn is an engine of death that only stops when you run out of its favorite food.

This is the central conceit of the deck, and the faster you get to it, the greater the compounded damage you will be doing. To that end, I recommend you mulligan every card in your opening hand that isn’t Jarnbjorn or Friction Resistance. And absolutely do not get precious about other cards…burn through your hands as fast as possible until the primo duo are on the table.

That said, you will still need to prioritize the cards that aren’t Jarn or Fric Res. The second most important card to get on the table is Deft Focus. This allows you to pay 1 less for any Superpower card, and Quicksilver may be broken in this regard because thirteen of his fifteen aspect cards are Superpowers. Including his ugrades! That’s one third of the deck that you can affect with Deft Focus.

The next lower priority is going to be the Attack and Thwart upgrades. Let’s be honest, basic actions are Quicksilver’s bread and butter, so you need to get him juiced up. The defense upgrade is nice, but pumping the ATK and THW for repeated uses each turn yields more benefit. That's why there are cheap allies here. So you throw them in front of the Villain whenever possible in order to keep serving up that sweet, sweet Jarnbjorn vengeance.

Which means that Quicksilver remains…fragile, making the Down Time and Endurance upgrades go a very long way toward his survivability. Down Time might be the better of the two, since it allows you to get back in the fray after a single switch to Alter-Ego. Also, if your health is low enough, losing the Endurance upgrade can literally kill you, so it’s not quite as important.

As for the support cards, I recommend prioritizing the Avenger’s Mansion over the others. The Quincarrier is great, but technically the Mansion accomplishes the same task (an extra card is an extra resource) while also digging deeper into your deck for the cards you need. Plus, it can give other heroes a card in a pinch. The Quin is a great mid-to-late game upgrade as it can throw an extra resource at Jarnbjorn. If you have both in your hand, use the Quin to help pay for the mansion.

Serval Industries isn’t nearly as helpful as I would like it to be because Quicksilver wants to be out of Hero mode as little as possible. With his Alter-Ego ability and Down Time, a single turn gets Quicksilver a ton of mileage, so you’re not going to be using Serval Industries often enough to make it a higher priority.

Deck Weaknesses

First of all, it has nothing to deal with threat beyond Quicksilver’s basic Thwart. Which is really nothing to sneeze at, particularly with Maximum Velocity available. And Double Time can get some things handled in a pinch (seriously, how awesome is Quicksilver’s aspect deck?). But having a second hero with a Justice deck would really seal the deal.

There also aren’t any minion-specific cards in this deck. I think Pietro handles that just fine with his inherent ability (repeated smaller attacks) coupled with Jarnbjorn (2 to any enemy) but he doesn’t have cards that capitalize on defeating minions (Battle Fury, Bring it!, Chase Them Down) or giving you free hits (Lie In Wait). However…Brute Force, Skilled Strike and Press The Advantage can easily be swapped out for cards that would handle specific circumstances.

This deck relies heavily on upgrades, so Villains that punish you for having them or regularly remove upgrades are the bane of Quicksilver’s existence. For example, The Wrecking Crew have a load of cards that force you to either give up an upgrade or add threat for each upgrade you control. As a result, I regularly added six, seven or even eight threat to side schemes and triggered their response. That is rough.

Final Thoughts

I love playing this deck. It isn’t as much of a puzzle every turn like playing Ant-Man (my current favorite Hero) but there are plenty of difficult decisions to handle as you get Pietro into fighting shape. Just know that you want to burn your entire hand every single turn in order to get to the Jarnbjorn combo, and then keep burning until you have ATK and THW bonuses. Frankly, the second pass through the deck is when you can be confident you are firing on all cylinders. If you hold onto cards ‘for the right moment’ you are going to get stomped. I played two games where Jarnbjorn was in the last hand in my deck, and I had been ‘precious’ with my cards all game. By the time I made it to Jarn, it was too late.

On the other end of the spectrum, I played a game last night where I had Jarn in my opening hand, and got Friction Resistance two hands later. At the end of my first run through the deck, I was attacking twice a round with a Jarnbjorn chaser. That was 10 damage every single turn. From there, a single round with Maximum Velocity and an Always Be Running allowed me to deal 21 damage. With the way this deck is built, your second pass through it will regularly churn out 15-20 damage a turn.

Thanks again to NocturnalAnimal for showing me the Jarnbjorn light!