Bringing Rhino Down to Earth

Bringing Rhino Down to Earth

This deck was designed to go against Expert Rhino in two different configurations with Bomb Scare replaced in both cases:

Videos:

• Expert Rhino with Down to Earth
• Expert Rhino with Black Tom Cassidy and Super Strength

Justice is the obvious choice, but I went with Protection for several reasons:

• I already have a Justice video versus Expert Rhino on my channel: Black Panther Core vs Expert Rhino
• Miles Morales Protection lets me run Silk AND Pinpoint (and Moon Girl of course).
• If I have at least 1 more Web-Warrior card in play (for a total of 3), Spider-UK can defeat every minion he defends against except for Sandman (and Black Tom in the second game).
• I wanted to play Taunt in a deck that dishes Stuns and Toughs so readily!

The Deck

Ten allies looks like a lot, especially when I plan to keep Spider-UK (and would like to keep Pinpoint) in play most of the game, but because Spider-Man only has a THW of 2 I need either Swing In or an ally to allow me to defeat Breakin' & Takin' on turn 1, and this gives me a VERY good chance of getting what I need!

Ideally that ally will be Silk, who can come in, remove an Advance from the encounter deck, help me defeat Breakin' & Takin', then block Rhino's first attack. If I can get a stun or confuse on Rhino at the same time, even better!

I normally only like running two copies of "special" doubles (The Power in All of Us in this case) when I have 8 cards in the deck which will want them, and while Web of Life and Destiny DOES have a printed resource cost of 3 it's really 0. That means I only have 7 cards that want The Power in All of Us which "breaks" my "rule of thumb", but 2 of them REALLY want to be paid for with it:

• It counts as when paying for Moon Girl
• It counts as whichever two resources you need when paying for Peter Parker

The Night Nurse is fantastic in these matchups because not only are there treacheries which might stun me (3 copies of Stampede), Rhino III will stun me when I push to him. In the second matchup Creeping Willow can stun me if drawn as a boost or if it attacks and damages me.

Power Within and Defense Mechanism

Power Within and Defense Mechanism are "on demand" triggers for your Venom Blast and Spider Camouflage Special abilities because they have a Response that isn't Forced.

While I'm always happy to trigger the Hero Response on Power Within every chance I can get (and hope to have Pinpoint out when I do so I can shuffle it back into my deck), I'm even happier to leave Defense Mechanism on the board until I "need" it, under the following two circumstances:

• I want the Confuse when I want or need to flip down to alter-ego.
• I want the Tough when Rhino gets his Charge Attachment (or Thrown Object in the second matchup). Coincidentally, having a Tough when Rhino has one of these attachments makes Taunt a great way to "discard" them; Rhino will attack at +3 plus a boost (no Boost Effects in the first matchup and only Creeping Willow Boost Effects in the second) and just run into you Tough, then discard the attachment after the attack!