The Man in the Chair Scott Summers

Sorry if this gets a little rambly toward the end. This is my first real post and deck profile. Hope people like it. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions let me know.

So Scott Summers is probably my most played character in Champions. With only a few more releases left in the X series, I figured now is a good time to put this out.

Before I go over a card by for the deck a few things to know about the play style of Scott. The alter-ego ability to search a tactic upgrade is really good. Scott has 3 built in tactics he can search all of which are great at different phases of the game. Early game I usually find myself searching Exploit Weakness. Exploit Weakness usually does very little early game so it is usually just use it as a resource to help pay for allies and set up pieces. This is the main use for Scott’s tactics. I'll go over the actual uses of them down below.

If you have played any hero with the X-Man trait you have probably used some of their support cards like Cerebro, Utopia, or Danger Room. Pretty much all of the X/ Mutant supports are worth playing. Individually they all provide great support but when combining them all together you can outpace most other heroes and villains. Not a support card but an upgrade that I'm going to group here as it is part of set up is Honorary X-Men. This isn't an exact science but my current thoughts and ranks on each setup card.

1. Cerebro - This card almost always find you an ally each turn. We have several psionic allies in our deck, and Phoenix our signature ally is psionic so we can use Cerebro to search our deck for any ally. Finding Cerebro early helps us find Forge and Pixie quicker which in turn help us find our other set up cards. I will be saying this a lot, but worse case scenario if you pick up an ally that you don't want to play that is another card that can be used as a resource to play your other cards.
2. Honorary X-Men - This might seem weird but this is very important as it makes you an X-Men. Or I guess a more accurate thing to say is that it lets you remain an X-Men. While you are an X-Men while Cyclops but you are not when you flip to Scott. We want to spend most of the game as Scott as your support cards mostly only work while in alter-ego. Staying an X-Man while in alter-ego is important for the next card.
3. Uncanny X-Men - This card could probably be hirer on the list the but you need Honorary X-Men to make it shine. This lowering the cost of every ally you play by 1 essentially makes is a resource generator. While three is the going rate for The X-Jet, Helicarrier and others like them, this lowers the cost of all allies in the deck. This will usually start paying for itself the turn it comes down and will have likely reduced the cost three allies by the next turn. This card's cost reduction cannot be overstated. It is what takes Scott from a fun and cool deck, to a deck that can hold its own and fight harder villains. You want this card as fast as possible. It is also one of the only set up cards that you have to naturally draw, you cannot search it with other cards. For this reason if you have Weapon X in play before seeing thing card, think twice before using it. If it is discarded you will have to wait a full cycle before you will see it again.
4. Danger Room - This one and the next one are kind of interchangeable. I think Danger Room is better but not by much. Danger Room allows us to buff an ally a turn with increased Atk, Thwrt, and Hit Points. This is especially helpful for our larger allies like Beast or Nightcrawler turning their Atk and Thwrt to 3 is very helpful especially when combined with Utopia. I am only playing 2 Danger Room Training. I want to keep the list as close to 40 as I can, and the third one doesn't always come up. I usually have 1 placed on a bigger X-Men and the 2nd one on smaller ally that is likely going to die. Important to remember that Danger Room searches deck and discard so you can discard Danger Room Training to play an ally and then Danger Room will be able to attach it to the ally from the discard.
5. Utopia - The most important thing to remember about Utopia is that it works in both hero and alter-ego forms. You do not have to Scott Summers to use Utopia like you do with most of the other cards mentioned. That said Utopia is a pretty simple card all in all. It lets you control an additional ally. In addition to that whenever an X-Men ally enter play, you can ready an X-Men. If you are playing multiplayer and another person at the table is an X-Men you can do some pretty fun things with Utopia. If they had to defend during the villain phase, you can play an X-Men and ready them. If they are playing an X-Men allies, when they play an X-Men they can ready. In a pinch if you are low and need to heal you can do a basic recovery, play an X-Men, if you have Honorary X-Men you can use utopia to untap yourself in alter-ego and recover again. Not something you can do in Scott but interesting nonetheless. If you are playing Protection (Green) you can play Mutant Protectors to play someone like Colossus who will be blocking and has a tough, an X-Men entered play so you can then ready Colossus. He can now defend another attack if needed.
6. X-Mansion - These last three are all interchangeable. I still ranked them based off my personal preference but you could swap them around and the end result is pretty much the same. X-Mansion Heals an X-Men character 1 damage. You can use this on yourself, an ally, or even an player if they are an X-Men or mutant. I will say I rarely use this on allies Unless its a bigger one that has a training on it and I don't have another bigger ally in hand. In my experience I cycle through allies a lot, they usually already plenty of hit points any way. Using X-Mansion just rarely seems worth it. I usually throw at another player if possible or myself to mitigate the damage that you take from Weapon X.
7. Weapon X - This card isn't that important to be honest. I view it as a 1 cost resource maker. I almost never play any of Scott's actual identity specific cards. Most of the time this just gets me a card that I can then discard to play the things I actually want. Sometimes you get lucky and it hits Phoenix. If you have been through half of your deck you may want to start keeping track of how many tactics you have left to search with Scott's ability. If you only have 1-2 left you will want to search with Scott first then use Weapon X.
8. Stepford Cuckoos - This is the most recent addition to the list and one I am still trying it out. I have been really enjoying this so far but all it really provides is utility. It doesn't actively help me progress the game like the other cards mentioned do. It only works when you are an X-Men so it is yet another reason why Honorary X-Men is needed. While it doesn't full stop an encounter card it will save you from Shadow of the Past. It's not limit to just your encounter cards so if another play draws something scary you can try to get a new one. It's kind of double edged sword in higher difficulty games. While the Treacheries there are usually a lot scarier, they also are more likely to have Peril. So unless you are the one drawing the card you cannot use Stepford Cuckoos on it. But there are plenty of cards you can still use it on that are scary. It also costs 3 so if you are set up and get Caught Off Guard, you can choose to discard this instead of Uncanny X-Men.

After your set up cards most of the cards left in your deck are allies. Most allies either provide some kind of utility while also being your main way to interact with the board. I won't rank them all like I did the supports but a few notes on the allies real quick.

Forge is the most important ally early game, he can get you almost any of your support cards seeing an early Forge really helps to accelerate your set up. Pixie may not be as good as Forge but she usually will help you get a Forge which is the next best thing when setting up.

I am going to group Armor, Nightcrawler and Polaris together. These three allow you to feel incredibly safe even against some of the strongest villains. Armor usually only costs a single resource and can eat 1-2 hits for the most part. Polaris can give tough to any X-Men meaning Scott, Cyclops, any of our allies or even another player if they are an X-Men. Lastly is Nightcrawler. His is one of the few allies in our deck with 2/2 stats. When combined with a Danger Room Training he is a threat that can easily take down minions or Schemes. I group him here though because in an emergency he will save your life. If any X-Men character would take any amount of damage you can pay 1 resource to instead return Nightcrawler to your hand and prevent that damage. It works on you, it can work on other players. You can usually rest easy while Nightcrawler is in play.

Let me go ahead and get the big ones out of the way. Beast should need little to no introduction. He usually only costs 3 to play and then once played he gives you 2 of those resources back. He is very efficient at what he does. His stats are great with and without a training attached. In the same vein as Beast is Phoenix. Phoenix costs 2 but similar to beast will give one of those resources back when she picks up a Cyclops card. While I will rarely actually use the card I pick up, it can be discard to pay for other things. or sometimes you will use it to pick a tactic if you have nothing else to do. Lastly is Psylocke. I am still testing this out truth be told. I used to run Dazzler and like her a lot. I stay in alter-ego a lot so a lot of time is spent split between dealing with minions but also thwarting as much as possible. I don't want the table to loose because I never flip. Because of that I try to Prioritize confusing the enemy. Dazzler did that on play, and had stats to back it up. I play mostly 2 player and we will often play standard or expert 2. So the villain having steady is pretty common for us, usually our default setting when playing. When discussing Dazzler with them, they suggested Psylocke and I just wrote it off cause I liked Dazzler. That said on paper Psylocke should be better in every way. When playing into steady, Dazzler is only half a confusion. While Psylocke can do it twice to full confuse an enemy. they do pretty much the amount of thwarting and damage. They cost the same. Psylocke is even Psionic so it works with Cerebro. So I have swapped to Psylocke now, she is pretty much just a strictly better Dazzler, but I will miss playing Dazzler.

These Last few allies are what I like to think of as support or utility. Professor X shows up in a ton of decks not just X-Men decks. Every mode he has is relevant, to helping confuse something, the occasional stun and more often readying someone. After that is Sunfire. He is the MVP into higher difficult games. He is able to get rid of Universal Weapon, if you play with the Advanced Glider he can clear it. There are numerous game ending threats that he is able to deal with quickly and efficiently. The next 2 are new so still in testing. Triage use to be angel. Was usually a 1 costed threat with a training he attacked for 3 a turn and only cost 1 resource. If he didn't have to block he would usually get to attack 4 times. That is 1 resource for 12 damage. Now that damage is over multiple turns and you don't always get to do that, he just usually made the cut being so cheap. So with all that said why did I swap him for Triage? Well Triage is the same cost. He may not hit as hard but damage is rarely a problem. He had the same thwart stat so they were the same there. But Triage is able to heal any X-Men. This has been super critical in multiplayer games. I try not to have multiple people flip to alter-ego. So either I'll tag in with them as Cyclops or I can just use Triage and X-Mansion to help keep their hit points high. Angel and Triage were both the same cost, I didn't need the damage from Angel and beyond that Angel didn't provide any else that Triage didn't also do. Last is Tempus. This one is also new. It is just utility. The main way I lose the game is from the villain scheming multiple times in one phase before I can bring it back down. Tempus is a way to hopefully prevent that from happening. It's still risky. In higher difficulty games the extra encounter may still cause you to lose the game. But I figured it was worth a try.

We are almost done I promise.

Running through the Scott's Tactics real quick. if Minions are in play Priority Target is an easy card to grab. It is usually a draw 2 when you go grab it. Practiced Defense is usually played a few times throughout a game, if you have nothing else going on, just throw it on the villain and help the table. Last is Exploit Weakness. This one is either a great finisher or the first thing I grab early game to discard. Late game attach Exploit Weakness to the villain. You will usually have 3-4 allies in play. If they all attack that is usually 5+ damage just from Exploit Weakness boosting your attacks not counting any other players at the table.

1 last card to bring up. Suit Up. I am still testing this card. My theory on this card. It searches so many allies in your deck, it really opens up your toolbox that are your allies. I talked about how good Forge is. This card searches Forge. That is just half of the effect. Suit Up also searches for an upgrade. This is the only way to search Honorary X-Men early. Then late game after you have Honorary X-Men, it picks up Danger Room Training. While we don't need the training since we have Danger Room. We can use that training to help pay for that ally that searched for with Suite Up.

Some general tips for the deck. I play almost exclusively 2 player. The playstyle for this deck, is a slower set up deck, usually each turn I want to play an ally to protect myself and or one of the set up cards mentioned above. I try to be the only player in alter-ego if possible. While setting up I try to flip between hero and alter-ego, to minimize the threat building up. Most allies just block for me or more often another player. I don't mind taking some damage early game, since I will be in alter-ego where I can recover. Your recover stat is better than our defense stat, so unless you are afraid of dying just take a hit or use an ally. Scott has one of my favorite obligations in the game. I don't think I have ever used his visor for anything. Most of the time when I get hit by my obligation I am excited in this deck. All you have to do is exhaust Scott and the Visor is added to your hand. Why is it added to you HAND. Since it is in your hand you can just discard it to pay for your other cards. A card you can consider is Rapid Response. Rapid Response is a great way to reborn you allies after they die. It is a tactic upgrade so you can search it as Scott. The biggest thing going against it is that is a hero response to return a hero a return a hero to play. I used to play it just as an extra card to pull out of the deck with Scott.

To quickly go over the remaining cards in the deck.

• Full Blastl - I don't know if I have ever actually played this card. If you have please tell me your thoughts.
• Ricochet Beam - This card is fine, if you have nothing else to play after you are out of set ups, and allies. It comes up but there are also several games I never play this card. A fun thing you can do with this card in multiplayer games. If someone is playing Rogue, her Touched card is an upgrade so you almost always have an upgrade on someone without having to play it yourself.
• Tactical Brilliance - I use this card more than the other 2 so far. If I just have an extra resource, I will often play this card pick up something. Then flip down to alter-ego and begin playing allies. This card isn't crazy but It like a lot things in the deck, it gives you a card back that can just be used to pay for other cards.
• Field Commander - This card is fine if I have nothing else to play, I will gladly play it. Let's you set up your tactics everytime, it's just not very relevant most of the time. If you play Scott without Uncanny X-Men you can use to play Maria Hill usually multiple times a turn to draw other players at the table a lot of cards.