Risk Management

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Reckless Abandon 12 10 2 1.0

corbintm · 1151

Intro

Psylocke is probably my favorite hero out of the X-Force wave, and with good reason. She's added some justice cards that revitalize older heroes (Reverse-Lawyered). She's got a really interesting kit focused on confuse rather than stun. She's got two built in resource generators and the ability to deckbuild around both and resources. While she has a polarizing 4 hand size in hero form, she may be the most powerful 4 hand size hero yet. I'm having a lot of fun playing her.

The concept of this deck is around risk and reward. With two of her signature events contingent on taking damage or encounter cards being revealed, I decided to lean into it to fully utilize all of the cards in her kit and gain benefits for doing so, making sure to stock up on my favorite Preparation and Skill cards. While I had seen some protection builds for Psylocke pop up here, I didn't really see anything utilizing IPAC or Black Widow, with most of the popular builds focused around Repurpose (which is fine, but I don't think is her best build).

Thanks to members of the Marvel Champions discord for some advice to add some key cards that helped push this deck in the right direction! (Can I really publish a deck without getting advice from journeyman2 and MegiDolaDyne?)

Skip to Deck Strategy to get past the kit analysis

(you don't get to complain about deck length when I have this btw ^)

Perplexing

When you first play her, Psylocke might leave you puzzled. There's a lot going on in any given turn, especially in terms of sequencing. That's because she has two cards that affect her basic power stats and every one of her events in addition to being resource generators: her weapons.

Psi-Knife and Psi-Katana are fantastic cards. They essentially let you play a Phoenix type Hero but with the ability to swap the Phoenix Force at any time. It adds a versatility that is incredibly satisfying but requires a lot of hard decisions.

Depending on the active form, the weapons give +1 stat bonuses to ATK (and piercing!) or THW as well as change the action of all of her signature events. Depending on the form of her weapons, you can prevent damage, confuse enemies, deal damage and draw cards. Of course, making sure your weapon is in the right form to do exactly what you need is very important.

This is where things get complicated.

Dual-Wielding

So we know that Psylocke's weapons need to be in certain forms to make the most out of our events and her versatility as a character. How do we make sure we have those weapons where we want them?

There's a couple of ways to flip these cards and change active weapon forms:

  • You can use Psi-Energy Control's interrupt to flip a Psi-Energy Upgrade
    • This triggers before the basic power resolves! You will use your updated stats when determining your ATK/THW values
  • You can exhaust a weapon to generate a / resource and flip the weapon to its other form
    • This triggers when you spend the resource and before the card's effect's resolve! You will use your updated weapons on the board when determining the event's actions

There's a lot of sequencing shenanigans that need to happen so that we can utilize these events exactly the way we want to. While some may be skeptical, this isn't a Rogue Touched situation where the decision heavily encourages one option over the other. There's a strong incentive to be flipping these cards often and constantly adjusting your playstyle to control the board most efficiently.

Decision Fatigue

So what can Psylocke actually do with her events? Quite a bit, though with a primary focus on confuse. While there are a lot of options available based on weapon form combinations, there's typically options that are better than others when playing these cards. That said, the best weapon combination for one event isn't always the best for the other events.

  • Flurry of Blades is her main attack event, offering 2 damage upfront with an additional 2 damage attack to an enemy for each Psi-Katana in play or confusing an enemy for each Psi-Knife on the board. Best play here is typically to get the confuse and 4 damage. You can use this to take out swarms of minions as well, as the extra damage does not specify the same enemy
  • Mental Detection is her main thwart event, offering a meager 1 threat with an option for 2 more threat removal for each Psi-Knife on the board or a card to draw for each Psi-Katana in play. This is probably the card I find myself switching up approaches with most often, as both options are pretty solid! Only drawback is that the additional threat has to be from the same scheme
  • Psionic Redirect is her defense event, helping to prevent 2 damage, preventing 2 more for each Psi-Katana in play and letting you confuse an enemy for each Psi-Knife in play. Best play here is also one confuse and preventing 4 damage total
  • Telepathic Suggestion is solid on its own, canceling When Revealed effects on encounter card reveals but not offering many benefits aside from that. You can remove 1 threat from any scheme for each Psi-Knife controlled and deal 2 damage to an enemy for each Psi-Katana controlled. The best part about this card is that it doesn't specify the main scheme or the villain and allows for some flexibility

In kit, Psylocke can really focus on just about anything.

While this works in theory, you can't stay in Hero form and play just one or the other. The versatility is fundamental to the kit and changing approach turn by turn (and mid-turn) is encouraged. In the same way Psylocke likes to change her weapons often, she also likes to change form often. There's a focus on confuse for a reason, and it's that you realistically need to be flipping every turn to take advantage of the rest of her kit.

Change Your Mind

If you're not flipping as often as possible, you're not making the most out of Psylocke. With 2 resource generators on the board at all times and a 4 hand size in Hero form, you might be able to afford everything in hand and still have some left over. While there's card draw from Mental Detection, it's not always going to be enough. In order to have the most efficient turns possible ideally you want to flip forms and have both of your weapons exhausted by the end of your turn. All of the confuse in her kit helps to facilitate these flips.

Having a strong built in economy but lacking the ability to actually spend everything means that rather than focusing on a resource based economy, the right economy move is to increase card draw. This allows for even more impactful turns when starting in Alter-Ego form while still maintaining decent turns when you only have the 4 starting hand size in Hero form.

Can't use all of your resources while in Hero form? There's an option in Alter-Ego too. Betsy Braddock can exhaust a Psi-Energy upgrade and shuffle a Psionic card back into the deck, effectively being a built in Mutant Education. There's one more advantage to being in Alter-Ego: grabbing Skills for free.

Jack of All Trades

The other part of Psylocke's kit that is unique lies in Training Regimen, a card that lets you search your deck for any Skill cards. In Alter-Ego, it's a free card draw and in Hero, it's a chance for a card swap. To date, there's no other heroes that utilize Skill cards in this way, offering a neat deckbuilding opportunity.

Psylocke comes with some nice skills to grab and put to use:

  • Martial Arts Training gives you a permanent +1 stat increase to DEF that you can discard for a ready after defending
  • Psionic Training allows for a permanent ignore of Guard and Patrol that you can discard for a confuse after you thwart
  • Weapons Training provides you with retaliate 1 that you can discard for the ability to ready all Weapon upgrades after you attack

That's only 3 cards though, and there's an important distinction that you are searching your deck and not your discard. Any deck created for her is one you definitely want to stock up on Skill cards.

Protection for Psylocke

Because Psylocke can do just about anything, I wanted to explore a build that capitalized on board control. While she definitely has some weaknesses in damage output and thwart power for harder scenarios, nothing is so ridiculously underpowered that it feels like I have to specialize to cover those weaknesses. A good hint to a hero's biggest weakness is in their obligation, and this is definitely the case here. I believe one of the most devastating blows to momentum in a game for her is not being able to flip the Psi-Energy upgrades, which slows down momentum, kills your resource generators (for that turn) and most importantly removes all the versatility you desperately need.

I wanted to try and utilize protection for a couple of reasons. For one, it was the aspect with the most readies I could take advantage of. If attacking and thwarting can both be somewhat subpar at times, then being able to ready a hero who can have 3 ATK and 3 THW depending on the approach lets me solve both weaknesses at the same time. The second is that I really wanted to try and utilize IPAC and needed tools to mitigate and further take advantage of extra encounter cards.

Deck Strategy

This deck was created with a focus on risk and reward. For a hero like Psylocke who needs to flip, there's a strong focus on confuse effects to be able to flip down to Alter-Ego regularly and take advantage of all of the tools there (as well as play trait locked cards). In addition to the risk of flipping constantly, there's also IPAC along with the Preparation and Skill cards with Black Widow, which allow for a fun combination of pushing your luck while chasing incredibly satisfying combos.

With an economy already set up, early game is focused on increasing card draw and populating the board with skills, particularly some of the signature skills for the passive effects. In the beginning, turns starting in Hero form will feel significantly nerfed compared to turns starting in Alter-Ego form. Once you've got solid card draw and turns begin to feel more impactful starting in Hero form, you can focus on using IPAC strategically to have incredibly rich turns and also triggering some of the skills for extra benefits. It's very easy to get one turn kills while controlling the board once you begin to focus on readying and dealing damage.

Deck Setup

Psylocke can afford most high cost setup cards right away, but trait locked cards take high priority to get on the board. Mulligan targets in priority order:

  • Avengers Mansion gives you a card draw every turn for the rest of the game and is not limited to Hero or Alter-Ego form
  • Cerebro is only playable when mutant and will allow you to recur powerful allies for the rest of the game
  • Forge lets you grab Cerebro and yes, it's that important to get out
  • Moira MacTaggert is only playable when mutant and gives you card draw when flipping to Hero form, which you'll be doing a lot
  • Side Holster will let you play Psimitar while having both Psi-Katanas out. Fairly important as I consider Psimitar not really playable without Side Holster
  • Training Regimen is a good card to get out, essentially acting as extra card draw when in Alter-Ego
  • Black Widow serves to cancel encounter cards and is more useful late game than early game but is still solid
  • IPAC is again more useful late game than anything but you could get it out early

The mulligan targets double as the staples of the build. From here, the options become very versatile.

Permanent Concussion

All Psylocke really needs to do to succeed is confuse the villain as often as possible to be able to flip down, getting out staples before changing your strategy. You have a lot of options available to pull off some incredibly satisfying turns. With resource generators on the board, it's easy to get set up, using all those extra resources to fill up the board with upgrades and supports. The added benefit here is that you thin out the deck to see your events more often.

The upgrades and supports focus on 3 main items:

  • Increasing Card Draw
  • Benefits from Skills
  • Psionic Ally Recursion

A Turn and a Half

You can get up to some insane card draw by focusing on it. There were already some solid in-kit options from Mental Detection and Training Regimen but with this build's focus there's also:

While this doesn't seem like a lot of cards, using all of your options on a turn where you start in Alter-Ego gives you a total of 10 cards to work with and that's before triggering any card draw from Mental Detection or IPAC. Add in more strict triggering conditions like Soaring Hearts and Espionage and the ceiling only raises!

Highly Skilled Individual

Psylocke's got plenty of skills to put on the board. While we can trigger these if we need to, none of these are forced responses. Often times I keep signature upgrades on the board to be able to keep the passive advantages.

In addition to signature upgrades, Target Acquired can also be left on the board if you want to save it for a particularly difficult boost ability.

Breaking the Game

Psylocke has access to what seems like a cheat code for the game, first discovered by journeyman2. It's really solid and even better in protection.

Utilize Betsy Braddock's action to cycle Psionic allies Professor X or Karma back into your deck and then use Cerebro to grab them into your hand. This only works because they are both Psionic and X-Men allies.

This is incredibly powerful, giving you access to Professor X and Karma from Alter-Ego at any point. I try not to abuse this but you could loop them one of them each turn if you wanted to. I actually find that I use Cerebro and grab them and Forge to use as a resource at times, especially late game.

This loop in particular gives you access to confuse and non-elite minion control at any point, which is extremely powerful.

Risky Business

You can't stall forever. Psylocke can control the board but eventually can focus exclusively on damage, often times getting a one turn kill on the final stage.

When you're getting to late game, it's time to use IPAC. The extra card draw can facilitate some great plays and just might help you win the game. Maybe you have a hand full of skills and defense events and the extra damage from a Flurry of Blades or the ready from What Doesn't Kill Me could win you the game! Maybe you'll just draw that The Night Nurse and Soaring Hearts you've been avoiding. It's risky for a reason!

If you can't win the game that turn, it's alright. There are some tools to mitigate those encounter cards. Of course, in-kit we've got Telepathic Suggestion for encounter cards and Psionic Redirect for villain attacks. If you're in Alter-Ego form, Black Widow is an MVP in this build, allowing for an interrupt on an encounter card while also not being limited to Hero form. Surge effects can give you more card draw thanks to Espionage (regardless of form) and Target Acquired (only in Hero form) can help to cancel boost effects.

Lashing Out

There are some solid damage options here to compliment Psylocke's 3 base ATK (with piercing) and the 6 she can get from Flurry of Blades.

  • Directed Force is a 0 cost 2 damage buff to your basic attack (this works because your basic ATK will always have piercing due to Psi-Katana). It's also searchable as a skill from Training Regimen and is an easy card swap when triggering Training Regimen in Hero form if you need the extra damage!
  • What Doesn't Kill Me allows you to ready and heal. The requirement can be met easily with Psi-Katana and if needed, will give you a chance to flip your weapon upgrade again
  • Psimitar allows for an extra 2 damage every turn for playing a Psionic card, of which there are 15 in the deck. It also readies from Weapons Training along with her signature weapons.
    • Bonus points if you can use it from triggering a Psionic defense event when the villain attacks you and defeat a minion that's about to activate against you!
  • Psi-Flail Strike isn't really an attack event or an event with a lot of damage output but has saved me plenty of times. I have won the game off of this card multiple times due to the 3 damage this gets combined with the 2 damage response from Psimitar
  • Machine Man is a good way to spend a bunch of cards that you can't do anything with for more ATK power
  • Karma can grab some incredibly powerful minions to attack the villain while also providing a chump block. Then she can also chump block for you. Always remember that Chimera is not Elite!
  • Angel can help you pull off some high attack combos late game. You get a free ready out of him the turn he's played which can get you up to 8 damage (Two 3 ATK basic powers combined with his 2 ATK) but that's not all. Play Soaring Hearts to get 5 more ATK out of your characters and 2 damage from Psimitar and grab a Flurry of Blades to get 6 more ATK out of an event. That's a total of 21 damage dealt!

Other Card Considerations

There were some cards I really wanted to work that ended up getting cut because they just weren't that efficient.

  • Indomitable and Unflappable synergized with Psi-Flail Strike but ended up rarely triggering or seeing play. They also went completely against Psionic Redirect which is important for confusing so they got scrapped
  • The Power of the Mind ended up having fewer targets as the build progressed. Once I added What Doesn't Kill Me, it ended up getting scrapped for more versatile options
  • Psychic Misdirection is the only Psionic protection card I omitted because it's highly situational. More useful in multiplayer but for the most part just a dead card in many situations
  • Return the Favor was in an early iteration of the build. While it was a neat idea to trigger a treachery while Telepathic Suggestion was in hand, 4 ER for what amounted to a max of 9 damage with the potential to have a surge effect and get another treachery just wasn't worth it
  • Symbiote Suit was a fun idea to up basic power stats but ended up me just controlling the board forever with no hope of progressing the scenario
  • Taunt was a neat idea in the same way as Return the Favor but barely lined up the way I wanted to. Sometimes you have to pivot a bit to make a build work and that was definitely the case here!
  • Team-Building Exercise and X-Gene are both interesting economy cards with drawbacks. X-Gene only works on identity specific events and Team-Building Exercise is only available for use in Hero form. Compare that with Helicarrier which is usable for Alter-Ego and it's easy to see that it's the right way to go. It's also generally affordable because of the rich economy and a target for anyone who plays Build Support in multiplayer
  • Telepathy and Telekinesis didn't make the cut because there were just better options that accomplished the same thing. I'd almost always find a more efficient way to spend those last resources or be using my signature weapons to shuffle Psionic cards back into the deck
  • X-Bunker and the player side schemes was an option I considered but found to require a lot of setup. While Moira MacTaggert can only be played while Mutant and only offers card draw every other turn, it also ends up being playable from turn 1 and doesn't require me to clear multiple player side schemes to become useful. Also the economy is so rich here that the player side schemes end up feeling like they actually slow down momentum
  • X-Mansion was a nice target for Forge and helped to heal a bit during flips down but sometimes ended up healing me too much to trigger What Doesn't Kill Me

Specializing the Deck

If you want to make some modifications, there's a few things you can do.

  • I know you're thinking that you want to take out IPAC but that goes against the entire purpose of the deck. If you really dislike the card that much, just use it as a target for Forge to grab as a resource
  • What Doesn't Kill Me and Directed Force can both be upped to 3 copies to see them more often while getting rid of cards that are not as useful to the specific scenario
    • Espionage can be taken out if you are playing scenarios on standard or without many surge effects
    • The Night Nurse is pretty useless against scenarios without stun/confuse effects and can be left out
  • Psychic Misdirection has its place in a multiplayer game, though I wouldn't add more than 2 copies

Results

This is my favorite way to play Psylocke so far. I'm happy to have found at least some use for IPAC, even though it's not always the most efficient. Pretty much every card here is seeing play at some point. I love when heroes flip (see every other published decklist I have) and this is no exception. Getting her to work is probably one of the most satisfying puzzles I've tried to solve with the game so far.

I've been able to take down some difficult scenarios. While Stalwart can be a problem, Steady isn't actually that bad with all the confuse options at your disposal. While I've only played a bit of multiplayer with her, she can be fantastic at supporting the board. Had one game against Juggernaut in 4p where I used a confuse each turn to carefully allow all of us to take one-at-a-time turns flipping down to Alter-Ego while keeping Juggernaut Exposed in play. It's a lot of fun and I hope you can enjoy!

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