Adam Warlock and the Brute Squad

"CALL THE BRUTE SQUAD!!" "I'M ON THE BRUTE SQUAD." "YOU'RE ON THE BRUTE SQUAD? YOU ARE THE BRUTE SQUAD!"

Adam Warlock has a bevy of options and interesting build styles that have yet to be unearthed. I already have at least 3 different builds I want to try for him, but my first cut is this version.

The idea is to lean into his ability to run beefy allies across multiple aspects, pump them up and heal them, then use his ability and personality cards to deal damage where needed.

The Brute Squad is comprised of Charlie-27, Groot and Sentry.

Your defense is comprised of Charlie-27, with his toughness and retaliate and paired with Team Training is sitting on 5 HP and Groot, who is the king of defensive allies, sitting on 7 HP and self-heals! Add in buffs like Boot Camp, Inspired and Reinforced Suit and you can really get these allies setup for the long term.

Black Widow is an exceptional card that is always the first card to get cut from a Protection deck because of all the other resources you need to devote to the aspect. Here though, she can flex her canceller abilities, gets an extra HP from Team Training and with the solid number of mind resources plus the Karmic Staff, you shouldn't have a problem paying for her ability.

Sentry (Cosmic Spider-Man Alt-Art at my table) and Drax are your big punchers, add in Boot Camp and Inspired and either will hit for 5 a turn, and with the Energy Spear, Drax will hit for 7!

First Aid and Med Team are there to keep your allies fresh.

You run a pretty solid Thwart package with Multitasking, Zone of Silence, "You'll Pay for That!", Crisis Averted, Clear the Area, Cosmic Awareness, and Adam with Heroic Intuition and Warlock's Cape is thwarting for 4 a turn, 5 if you pitch a Leadership card.

The real beauty of Adam Warlock is his peaceful home of Soul World. Healing to full when you're in Alternate identity is really really big, and with Endurance you're healing to 14 in one shot. Now, once you get Sentry on the table, you can play Call for Aid to auto counter Soul World by looking for an Avenger that is no longer there. An encounter card for full heal is worth it in my book. It also makes eating 5 from "You'll Pay for That!" not as bad with his excellent healing abilities.

I've played this deck two times now in 3 player multi and it's performed quite well. You need to make sure you get Charlie-27 or Groot down as soon as possible to start giving all the other cards in your deck a target. It's worth using a mulligan to try and find one of them, and Adam cycles his deck well enough that it isn't too much of a concern. Coupled with the fact that he has Quantum Magic to go fetch a key card from the discard if needed.

His next most important card to get on the table is Warlock's Cape, which makes him Captain America in essence, and really gives him the flexibility to do some combination of defend, thwart and attack in a round.

The Helicarrier is there to help with your cost curve. With The Sorcerer Supreme, Karmic Staff and Mystic Senses, you shouldn't need too much help cost wise later on, but also I play mostly in multiplayer, and having the ability to aid another player is important to me.

I plan on running him solo a couple times this week to get a feel for how he handles in that mode of play, but I have a feeling he will do pretty well. Please give him a try and try and build your own Adam Warlock deck... he really is a fun and interesting hero to play!

(His only problem, imo being a kid who grew up in the 80s and 90s, is his art is all contemporary... so while I have no problem making some alternate art for my personal collection, I would love to see FFG make a alt-art set for him at some point in all his George Perez/Ron Lim Infinity Gauntlet glory!)