corbintm · 1119
Intro
Psylocke is a character that has a lot of resources available but really strives with card draw. For this deck I've tried my best to capitalize on that with those handy card draw icons on cards like Negasonic Teenage Warhead, Venom and Symbiote Suit. If you don't know what the card draw icon looks like, I've provided a visual indicator here:
These let you draw another card each turn so I'm sure these are great at progressing and winning the game.
Deck Strategy
With the pool aspect, Psylocke's been promoted from a Risk Manager to a Risk Professional. This deck is my protection build for her on steroids, with the potential to capitalize on some insane risk and reward. Bring this in multiplayer for an even better time, throwing encounter cards at your teammates and making them wish that you were just playing a normal build.
Why Psylocke? Aside from Ghost-Spider's Pirouette and Punch, she's got the only treachery cancels that offer benefits for using them (in comparison to just a cancel). Combine that with poor damage output generally, the desire to go to Alter-Ego often and the tools to continuously stall the board ... a little pushing helps to progress from the endless mid-game to the win.
Deck Setup
While I find that most decks have a pretty straightforward mulligan strategy, I'm constantly switching up my approach here.
- Any of the self resources are great first turn. Try not to have more than one in your hand. One self resource with any of the below cards is a fantastic first turn.
- Nick Fury is a great play to get a blocker, choose the card draw and start filling the board with some low cost upgrades
- Avengers Mansion is an easy pick early on for more card draw
- Professor X is always solid to set up a confuse/block!
- Stick-To-Itiveness is really helpful the earlier you get it out
- Cerebro is only playable in Alter-Ego so it's good to play turn 1
- Training Regimen is effectively free card draw in Alter-Ego
- Healing Factor is alright, though I find myself pitching it more often than using it at first.
Now go on ahead, put on your safety gear and let's go over some of the risks you can take and the rewards you can reap.
Glutton for Punishment
Your Alter-Ego supports offer you the chance to cycle through your deck faster with the drawback of decreasing your likelihood of finding allies and upgrades in the future.
The Professor X and Cerebro loop will no doubt make an appearance (© Journeyman2, All rights reserved) but after that, you've got choices.
- Cerebro can pull you Storm, Colossus, Forge and Professor X. Do you play them, using the discount you have from being in Mutant form? Or do you use them as a resource, removing your chance for a chump block and ally draw later on?
- Training Regimen offers you a nice selection of skills... or resources. Do you bank a confuse on the board with Psionic Training or a ready with Martial Arts Training? Damage with Directed Force? Some more board control with Target Acquired and Espionage? Or do you grab the one you're least likely to play, knowing the extra resource is worth the sacrifice?
Fact: 90% of Gambling Addicts Quit Right Before They're About to Hit it Big
Is card draw every other turn just too reliable enough for you? Move over Moira MacTaggert, Rock, Paper, Scissors is here!
Do we have deck knowledge? No. That makes it too easy.
We have:
- 4 wilds (Angel, Venom, Symbiote Suit and Soaring Hearts)
- A good chance that your pick will draw a .
Don't you remember playing Hex Bolt and thinking how neat it was that you weren't sure what was going to happen? Dynamic decision making and all that? Let's keep that same energy here.
We've also got Tic-Tac-Toe.
Sure, you can heal Psylocke with it. Push your luck by healing Negasonic Teenage Warhead to cancel more treacheries or Venom to deal more damage when treacheries are revealed.
Of course, we've also got IPAC for another fun gamble.
The Wrong Crowd
Psylocke's found herself with a pretty strange group of teammates this time around. You've got a mix of reliable staples and cards that are sitting in the back of one of your campaign boxes that you've deemed "unplayable" and "inefficient".
- Storm, Colossus and Forge are old friends we don't care about much. They are there to work with Cerebro but don't see a ton of play. Reliable if you do need them!
- This strange man Professor X won't leave us alone and is constantly begging to come back so he does end up appearing often but he's kind of a loser so he just confuses people and then leaves
- Nick Fury and Mockingbird are here for the Spy trait to work with Espionage but also supplement the stun and card draw
- Negasonic Teenage Warhead is our new best friend. We want to be in Alter-Ego every other turn. Despite costing us some, she's the only way we can cancel treacheries in Alter-Ego. We want to keep her alive if we can by only canceling one treachery at a time and healing her up with Tic-Tac-Toe
- Venom isn't the kind of guy you want in your life for too long. For turns with a lot of encounter card draw, you'd be surprised how much damage output he can do. Try to get him defeated after a turn
- Angel is a guy. In fact, that's about all he really does for us aside from getting us ready and occasionally triggering a team-up
Saving Face
We've got some generically good attacking tools so you can't complain that the deck is bad yet.
- Cutupper is 5 damage and a stun. Best pool card
- Directed Force doesn't have the best value but you can pull it pretty much anytime thanks to Training Regimen. Good for 5 HP minions you need to get rid of. We have enough readies here to justify it
You'll need a bit more to progress though.
Switching Sides
Help! I don't know what to do! I've got some good upgrades and supports out but I'm falling into the endless mid-game! What do I do now?
I'm glad you asked.
After you've played some of your Good upgrades and supports,
- Stick-To-Itiveness
- Avengers Mansion/Rock, Paper, Scissors
- Cerebro
- Training Regimen
- Tic-Tac-Toe/Healing Factor
- Any of your Skill cards
It's time to get to the Bad ones.
(Don't play hazard icons too early)
Generally, Symbiote Suit combos nicely with the readies from Stick-To-Itiveness, Angel, and Soaring Hearts. Swinging for 4 two or three times always feels solid and the extra hand size certainly helps too
Use this one simple trick to win the game!
- Get Venom out.
- Get Negasonic Teenage Warhead out. (Bonus points if you also have Symbiote Suit out.) (Extra bonus points if you also gave yourself an encounter card with IPAC)
- Reveal each encounter card and trigger Venom's ability to deal up to 3 damage to the villain for each encounter card (15! potentially)
- Cancel the worst treacheries with Negasonic Teenage Warhead in Alter-Ego and Telepathic Suggestion in Hero while still benefiting!
- Cancel Shadow of the Past and Crisis of Infinite Deadpools. Obviously
- Telepathic Suggestion can deal 4 damage off of a cancel
- Yes, you can still trigger Venom's ability with the effects canceled! I checked the rules!
Final Push
What if I don't win and still need some damage? I have too many Guard minions now!
- Play Psionic Training and ignore them.
- Finish your game of Tic-Tac-Toe and deal all the damage to the villain
- Ready up multiple times with Stick-To-Itiveness and use Directed Force to deal more damage
*These may not be the most efficient plays. If you are concerned, I have left a note here for you to read:
Other Card Considerations
The thing with a risk/reward deck is that there have to be decent rewards. These cards offered very little rewards for the risk.
- Star-Lord and Pandapool give me more encounter cards! What did they give me in return? Poor allies
- Most of the other Pool cards are bad and either didn't work with this strategy or are otherwise just terrible to play generally
- Plot Convenience is alright but I don't have that many aspect cards
- Get Rage-y isn't reliable enough to get a spot
- Blackout isn't needed in a deck with solid thwart, a Professor X loop and so much confuse
- Deadpool is a resource but is just outclassed by every ally here really
- Resourceful, being a Skill, can actually have a nice combo with Rock, Paper, Scissors to pretty much guarantee card draw but isn't ever going to see play
- I'd love for this deck to have more events but basic events are bad and pool events are inconsistent at best
Results
I've had multiple wins off of some insane villain phases. Winning during the villain phase is super underrated and makes the game feel much more dynamic. Most of the time after surviving a bad villain phase, you already know that you'll win and can ignore most of the cards that came out. Alternatively by playing this way, you have a good chance of winning mid-villain phase and barely scraping by.
I really enjoy playing Scarlet Witch, mainly because she requires you to react to all of the different Hex Bolts and pivot your strategy. You have no idea what a turn might end up looking like and it'll likely be much different than you thought. With this risk/reward strategy it feels very similar and I think it's neat.
I love this idea, especially maximizing damage from Venom’s ability. I love the big rewards out of the pool aspect here. I can’t wait to try this next time!! I’ve struggled with Psylock’s four hand size, but this looks to end that problem and give her big results.