Venom- Warlock

So this deck came about in a pretty strange way. One of my friends in our play group has been playing the Wild Tutor Warlock deck and loving it. So we were joking with them saying “when you finally move on from Warlock you’ll just play the ally Warlock.” Well, that got the gears turning in my head. What if there was a way to make the ally version of Adam Warlock playable?

The first iteration of the deck was a Spider-Woman deck-mainly to leverage Med Team to keep Adam alive. Turns out it’s really hard to balance out green and blue cards to make a viable build. Then I had a crazy idea- what if we could build two decks, one green and one blue, that way the Warlock player could just play all those sweet upgrades and the green player could keep Warlock healthy? Seems like a stretch, but it’s actually kind of interesting.

To make this happen, my thought was we’d need a Guardian character and an Avenger character- that way we could put all the upgrades on Warlock. That narrowed down the choices a fair bit- we came up with Venom, Rocket, or Star-Lord for the Guardian and Cap, Spider-Man, or Captain Marvel for the Avenger.

I won’t bore you with all the details of the Avenger characters; turns out this line is rather unnecessary, as we’d only be playing an Avenger for Honorary Avenger and Sky Cycle.

So back to the Guardians: My first pick was Venom and, spoiler, that’s who we went with. I chose him because of his ability to be independent: if your core deck strategy doesn’t go as planned, there’s always his Multi-Gun, Pistols, and Run and Gun. Good old fashioned Venom play.

Rocket was an interesting selection, mainly based on his card Salvage getting us two Warlock effects when discarded- 3 damage and whatever your other flavor would be. Pretty powerful.

Star-Lord was a bit of an after thought, mainly just leveraging him for his ability to turn all allies into Guardians- erases the need for 3 Honorary Guardian in the list, so we could play something else.

So what about the second deck? Turns out that a second deck might not be totally necessary, although a good protection deck that may or may not have Med Team would be a perfect pairing. We tested this with a Ghost-Spider protection deck and it performed admirably. Our play group is consistently 4 players, so she’s the best protection character for that setting. For 2 players though, any protection deck should suffice. I will say that I haven’t tested this solo yet- I imagine that it would do well though, because (1) it’s Venom and (2) we can use Warlock to heal Venom so taking damage isn’t all that scary. Plus if we need to flip and heal, Project Rebirth 2.0 makes that easy.

Now let’s talk about this deck! We already discussed why we chose Venom as the hero and Adam Warlock is our build around, so we’ll just be discussing the leadership and basic cards.

First Aid- Maybe the only deck this card is good in. Keeps Warlock healthy.

Innovation- It’s a wild for Warlock to discard and heals him when spent.

The Power of Leadership- Gets Command Team down and it’s a wild for Warlock to discard.

Command Team- Lets us use Warlock multiple times in a turn.

Team Training- Makes Warlock a bit larger.

Comms Implant- Makes Warlock a bit smarter and a bit larger.

Honorary Guardian- this allows us to play Guardian locked upgrades onto Warlock.

Inspired- Makes Warlock a bit smarter and a bit stronger.

Laser Blaster- Makes Warlock a bit stronger.

Reinforced Suit- Warlock a bit larger.

Resourceful- Wild resource for Warlock to discard. Can also play them early to thin the deck a bit.

Sidearm- Makes Warlock a bit stronger.

Here’s a few things I noted when playing:

Build up Venom (Multi-Gun & Pistols) or Warlock- whichever comes first. It’s pretty common that Warlock will get dumped to Flash’s ability- that’s okay. Build up Venom and hit Adam on the second pass through.

Locked and Loaded is pretty versatile in this deck. Not only does it search for Venom’s weapons, it can also grab Laser Blaster and Sidearm for Adam.

Play your First Aids before you activate Warlock if possible- nothing like needing to heal him and then pitching it. This segues to my next point.

Save Warlock for last. Much like the Wild Tutor deck, there are a ton of decision points once you get set up and rolling: which cards do I play? Which cards do I use to pay for those cards I want to play? Is it better to use Behind Enemy Lines to get rid of 3 threat, or discard it to deal 3 damage? Saving Warlock for last ensures that you always discard the card(s) you want to, and ordering most likely doesn’t matter.

Warlock is no pushover. Once you get him fully upgraded, he’s a 3THW/4ATK with a whopping 8 hp. He’ll be okay if you can’t heal him for a few turns- just be smart about how many times you’re using him!

Sometimes it can be worth activating him without a card to discard when he’s fully juiced up. This is generally a bad idea, so make sure it’s going to have high impact if you do it.

If there’s any cards to replace, it’s probably Resourceful. I’m not sure what I’d change this to yet- there’s probably an argument for Inspiring Presence though. Please experiment with card selections and let me know what you did and if it worked!