Troublesome Trio

A Multiplayer deck meant to frustrate the Villain and prevent as many attacks as possible for the team. The titular Trio of Nightcrawler, Angel, and Deadpool can do this pretty effectively because of how the interact with events.

"Every so often, liebchen, since I look like a demon... I have this irresistible urge to play the part" - Kurt Wagner

Nightcrawler is the first of the Trio. He has a high base defense, which is further augmented by Kurt's Cutlasses and Armored Vest. In addition, if someone else is running Specialized Training, you can get Defense Specialist to increase defense even further and draw a card.

• Electrostatic Armor will deal ping damage back to any attackers
• Unflappable will draw an extra card when you perfect defend
• 3x Hard to Ignore will help mitigate threat on the main when you perfect defend

"Savior... killer... harbinger of hope or destruction... I am unsure who -- or what -- I am. But I'd like to find out." - Warren Worthington III

Angel is only 2-cost for Nughtcrawler to play. We're not playing him here for his statline, he's intended to stay on the table to turn on the two noteable protection events

• Aerial Intervention allows you to exhaust Angel to prevent 3 damage from an attack. You can use this to mitigate damage from the Villain towards another player, or often completely negate damage from a troublesome minion. This also can be used in a pinch to still achieve perfect defense for Nightcrawler if the Villain drew one too many boost icons
• Serve and Protect can exhaust Angel and Deadpool to prevent threat from being placed on the main scheme.

"...none of this is actually happening. There is a man. At a typewriter. This is all his twisted imagination." - Wade Wilson

It's a keyboard, acutally.

"Well LA-de-Freakin-DA then." - Wade Wilson

Deadpool is an innately X-Force Character that is an obligatory target for Serve and Protect. Serve and Protect is a protection card that I've been sleeping on, and I shouldn't have.

• First, it prevents threat from being added to the main scheme. This ignores the crisis icon (you're not thwarting or removing threat from the main scheme). It also doesn't state a value, so you prevent one instance of threat on the main scheme. This can be the initial stage 1 villain phase threat, which means this card gains value as the game progresses (and more acceleration icons are added). This can be the Villain's scheme activation against another player at the table (though you won't know you have this card unless you hold it from a previous round).
• Second, it exhausts these two characters. This is annoying, because you don't get to use them the following round, and they cannot defend any further attacks from the Villain or his goons until the next Villain phase. But look at it like this... take all the threat you prevented in part #1, divide that by two, and then ask yourself if you would be upset if those two characters Thwarted for that value each. Most of the time, I find that considering this exhaustion a preemptive thwarting makes it less annoying.
• Last, this gives each of the exhausted characters a Tough status. This isn't a tempo move, but it's very powerful. These toughs can help defend for the whole table next round.
• Nightcrawler and Angel are both potential X-men targets for this, but Polaris and Armor can be too, if they happen to be out and haven't made their second block yet.

Closing Thoughts

• Two copies of Target Acquired to cancel whatever Boost effects are most detrimental (almost all scenarios have some Boost effects, but some are worse than others)
• Once copy of Endurance because Nightcrawler could always use a few more hit points
• The Night Nurse to cleanse status cards from other players at the table (Nightcrawler is almost always defending, so it's not often an issue for him personally)
• This deck is very defensive, but will get overwhelmed with Minions and Schemes if played solo, since it's not designed to be versatile
• I've been having a blast playing this alongside the overfunctioning Quicksilver 'Pool deck (https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/48798/quick-pool-friends-with-benefits-1.0) and having a blast (beat expert Mister Sinister, Expert Stryfe, and expert Kang so far this week). The Troublesome Trio free up the other Heroes at the table to excel without impediment.

"What are you saying about excrement?" - Wade Wilson

Good grief

""Pwangg?" Trees don't go "Pwangg--" Llamas don't go "Pwangg--" Nothing found in nature goes "Pwangg", which means -- we're officially hip deep in the smelly stuff." - Wade Wilson