"Paint the Town Gwen" - Ghost-Spider Aggression

You don't need to read this! I did a new thing and made a video deck guide, which you can find here: https://youtu.be/t98rnLhwLMo

Also, find a series of play-throughs where this deck faces all of the villains in Sinister Motives, solo expert: https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL61E6lrZz6dTe9Nvl7rm4fnlXcurzkmOI

(The Bifrost is Symbiote Suit)

Deck Overview

Still reading? I like your style XD.

What I love about Ghost-Spider, in particular playing her in Aggression, is that it's a lot like playing Protection. What I mean is, you interact with villain in the villain phase, usually taking "half" your turn during that phase and "half" during the hero phase. Aggression Ghost Spider lets us take that playstyle of villain-phase mitigation and also do bunch of damage on top. Playing red cards never felt so tactical!

The Events

The heart and soul of the deck, like most Gwen builds, are the responses and interrupts. It's really helpful to categorize them as (potential) "villain phase readies" and (potential) "hero phase readies." Warning, Pirouette and Punch, and Web Binding are the former; Skilled Strike and Mean Swing are the latter; and Ghost Kick and Phantom Flip are flexible enough to be used as either.

Planning each of your rounds starts in the villain phase. If you haven't played Protection in a while, you may not be used to this. This is not a deck where we sit back and let the villain phase happen to us- we have a lot to say about it!

Right when you draw up to your hand size, look over your hand and make a plan for the villain phase that's about to happen. Generally speaking, especially mid/late game, start by asking yourself "can I get a villain phase ready?" and "can I get a hero phase ready?" If you can do both, and the events themselves do something good for you, then that's probably how you want to move forward.

Making this plan usually involves some amount of uncertainty, and playing it effectively often involves leveraging the unknown. Be sure to keep the card draw from Web-Bracelet in mind when planning your turn- usually plan to spend that card as a resource, but also think about how particular cards drawn there could give you an "out."

Plan whether to basic DEF or not based on how likely you are to successfully play your villain-phase ready. Ghost Kick and Phantom Flip will definitely ready you, yet they can also be used in the hero phase so it may be helpful to hold them until you know what encounter cards you will react to! Warning might not be a guaranteed ready if the villain does not hit hard enough. Pirouette and Punch can always be used, but whether it gains you much value is another story (and paying 3 cards to prevent 3 damage and deal 1 is not amazing value). Web Binding is not really used by this deck in solo, as we are going to be basic defending attacks with great regularity- you'll also notice that this build doesn't lean very heavily into mental resources.

In ideal rounds, you are able to basic defend, play an interrupt that mitigates the villain phase somehow, and move into the hero phase ready, in which case we are often happy to use a Skilled Strike and/or Mean Swing to attack twice.

The Permanents

Allies are great, although not quite as essential to this deck as you might be used to, as we are getting a "free" defense of 3 almost every turn. These are here to take hits for us when we really can't afford to set up that ready, or especially in situations where villains activate multiple times. Special shout-outs to Bug for being a great source of chip thwart/damage (we ready a lot), and Hulk. This version of the decklist leans heavily into physical resources, and there are only 5 mentals (Genius and 4 of our signature events). This means that, especially given the number of mentals in the discard pile, Hulk is often very safe to activate and generate huge value. He is insane versus Venom! But if you've grown accustomed to saving Hulk as just a meat shield, he serves that purpose quite well here.

Web-Bracelets are a high-priority upgrade- but like Combat Training, it's a bit redundant so pitching the first copy and playing the second is perfectly fine. Actually developing the second Bracelet generally has diminishing returns relative to how good the first one is, it's rather unlikely that drawing after our hero phase interrupt lets us play something. But especially once we have a resource sink like Jarnbjorn or Plan B set up, even our second Bracelet is worth.

Combat Training is a big efficiency boost for us, as we're attacking twice on most turns. We play 2 to see it earlier, and also not feel bad about pitching our first copy as resources (or giving to our friends). Afterwards, they're physicals anyway.

Jarnbjorn is a great card that combos well with the fact that we attack twice most turns, and also turns Mean Swing on. Hand Cannons are present for some redundant Mean Swing enablers, as well as perfectly good cards and physicals themselves. Plan B is a card I've been liking a lot- We run into hands where we can use 4 of our 5 cards very efficiently quite often, I consider it quite nice to burn our last card for damage.

The Symbiote Suit is a super fun card you should experiment with! It is sort of in this deck as fun spice- Aggression Gwen does not break that card quite as hard as Protection can. However it is an extremely fun card. It does give us everything we want- health to soak some more hits, increased stats which we use 3 times a round, and an extra card draw to dig for and play all our interrupts. When you are playing against a relatively low-pressure villain, slam this whenever you can and go to town. Even in more difficult scenarios this can be a valuable develop toward the late game when you're ready to charge the finish line. Gwenom is a force to be reckoned with!

I hope you enjoy this deck, and have fun playing Ghost-Spider! You can find me here, YouTube, or on Discord, where I'm always happy to talk Marvel Champions!

Peace!