Gambit - Rogue Stay Down

"Been a while, no? Bonjour, Rogue."

It's been a while since I've played Gambit, so let's fix that, no?

This deck concept stemmed from discussions on Discord about how Won't Stay Down is not very good. I took a good long look at it, and after a bit of testing and tweaking, have found a niche use for it.

4-of-a-Kind

Won't Stay Down is not that great is because of how restrictive it is and because it overlaps to some degree with other cards.

• Rapid Response is similar in that it stays on the board and you can trigger it right when you need to, so long as the ally is defeated. However, you are not limited to specific traits, and the ally goes right into play, albeit with 1 damage.

• Make the Call brings the ally directly into play from the discard, but you have to have it at the right time because it doesn't stay on the board, and it doesn't count as playing the ally from your hand.

• Regroup is played on the board, but you have to use it that turn. The benefit here is that allies go back to your hand and it can help teammates in multiplayer.

• Med Lab stays in play, but can only bring back allies when they die from consequential damage and takes a second turn to set up.

The Ace Up Our Sleeve

It's safe to say that in most cases, Won't Stay Down is overshadowed by other cards, but we have an Ace up our sleeve: Rogue.

As long as you have 4 charge counters, which is easy for le diable blanc, you can play Rogue for free. So we get a huge benefit from Won't Stay Down compared to something like Make the Call, which forces you to pay the printed cost of the ally.

On top of that, Rogue's discount works well with both Regroup and Med Lab. With this deck, she just Won't Stay Down.

In the Cards

Other cards and various interactions help round the deck out.

• Command Teams and Utopia for more Rogue activations

• Go Down Swinging and Noble Sacrifice to drop allies early for additional benefits

• Suit Up with Clarity of Purpose or Honorary X-Men and whichever X-Men you need at the time.

• Honorary X-Men is key to playing Won't Stay Down in Alter-Ego and it allows you to use it immediately, otherwise you have to be in Hero form and wait to flip down to make use of it.

• A whole host of allies fill out the rest of the deck, including several that get specific benefits from being played from hand like Beak, Pixie, and Shadowcat. While Beast loves recursion in gambit, I've left him in the box for this one because I wanted to stick to cheaper allies. He works a lot better with Rapid Response.

Let me know what you think, and how you might improve this deck! I thought about adding Danger Room with a copy of Danger Room Training to boost up Rogue a bit more, but I feel there is enough going on to leave it out. Have a blessed day!

Peace.