Nightcrawler the Fight Staller

Intro:

I've played Nightcrawler solo and multiplayer dozens of games now. He is my favorite hero and has been my favorite x-men character and one of my favorite super heroes ever since I was a kid. This is my latest version of my Protection Nightcrawler deck. I've refined this deck over dozens of games and have tried to make it as generically robust as possible especially for solo play. I swing back and forth between adding allies to the deck and taking them out depending on my mood.

One of the reasons I cut allies is because of the way Nightcrawler plays and based on his cost curve being incredibly low which allows me to get away with not playing any resource cards and not feel at all bad about it. The only cards that cost more than 1 are: Daytripper (2); Port & Punch (2 x 2); Teleport Drop (2); Kurt's Cutlasses (2); and X-Jet (3). This is a total of only 6 cards.

Even so, Port & Punch and Teleport Drop in this deck are mid-late game cards unless they are your only option for dealing with overwhelming minions early - most often these are used as early resources my first deck flip. Kurt's Cutlasses half the time are cheated in with Superpower Training. Similarly, X-Jet more than half the time is cheated in with Build Support. The only card that regularly hits the table early-mid game with a hard cost above 1 is Daytripper b/c it's almost always good value.

I'm working on refining a second version of the deck with a few more allies but it makes the math on the costs a bit weird to where it'll make me consider including resource cards again. See below for Chopping Block and Card Considerations.

Guide:

My play style and goal with this deck is to hit critical mass with all of your critical upgrades in play allowing you to get to 6 defense and 3 retaliate. The Bamfs and Desperate Defenses allow you to defend multiple times per round and often for your teammates as well if playing multiplayer. Once you hit critical mass it's only a matter of time before the villain dies a death of a thousand cuts from your retaliate (yes even Sabertooth - especially Sabertooth). Once your Hard to Ignores are in play it really allows you to stabilize b/c you're negating the villains main scheme progress every turn and giving you plenty of time to make the villain kill himself to your effective 3 retaliate.

Nightcrawler's highest value action is typically to defend because it (1) keeps you alive and healthy; and (2) triggers important things like containment strategy, unflappable, hard to ignore, electrostatic armor, and desperate defense. Once it's the hero phase and Nightcrawler is somehow still standing (common due to desperate defenses and Bamfs), He is a decent thwarter with base 2 thwart and decent attacker once he grabs his cutlasses, but I typically favor thwarting).

Early game almost all of my attacks cards are spent as resources for other cards setting up my defenses. In dozens of plays the most oppressive situations the deck faced were due to early-mid game minion floods and being overwhelmed by damage. Pinned Down served as an elegant solution because not only does it largely mitigate or completely nullify most minions attacks it also keeps them around for when I eventually play change of fortune in the mid-late game and have them die to my retaliates and tally hos and turn them minions into more card draw.

Your priorities are: (1) Staying Alive; (2) Building Up; (3) Stalling Threat; (4) Attacking Villiain (The Villain's health dial is your absolute lowest priority)

(4) Above is the lowest priority b/c the retaliates pretty much will do all the work mid-late game and your attacks can just help speed things along once you're already set up. Once you've hit Critical Mass and gained control the attacks then go to the villains face, but typically not until the 2nd or 3rd deck flip. The deck takes some time to get going but it is incredibly resilient if played right.

I haven't played a ton of other heroes but based on all of the ones I have played Nightcrawler provides insane consistency in mitigating early game disasters because of his built in base 3 defense that only goes up as the game progresses and his guaranteed access to Bamfs from turn 1 allowing redundancies in defending against unpredictable attacks (especially good vs Sabertooth)

Note:

(Currently in Mutant Genesis with Dave as Iceman) The Justice Cards are in the deck because of special campaign rules. I am currently playing the deck through Mutant Genesis with my friend Dave.

Cards on Chopping Block:

-Deft Focus (decent economy and unlike x-gene has no play restriction - but can only be used for Port & Punch; Scout Ahead; Teleport Drop; and Prehensile Tail (only 6 total cards and 3 of them, the attack events are usually not played until mid-late game so to get value out of this card you either get lucky and draw cards in the right order and sometimes it can feel like a win-more card - not sure how else to explain it) - X-Gene can pay for all of those minus Tail plus Tally Ho! - WIth my playstyle I am in Hero Form for pretty much the rest of the game after first turn and only flip back to alter ego once per deck flip with 'Port Away)

-Dauntless (of the three retaliate cards this is the weakest b/c you need your health topped off and almost requires endurance - 3 retaliate is almost overkill 2 is usually pretty sufficient - but man does 3 retaliate FEEL GOOD)

-Endurance (I don't like having to play this card just to activate/reactive dauntless - usually Dauntless and Endurance are cards I don't play until my 2nd flip of my deck - this card is really only in here b/c of dauntless, which makes me want to cut the two together even more.)

-Build Support (loses a ton of value if you draw and play x-jet before playing this card - only remaining targets are Kurt's Chapel and Angel's Aerie which isn't terrible but those only cost 1 to play anyway - there is something to be said though for allowing more consistency in getting X-Jet earlier - also at one point the deck ran Quincarrier b/c of this card but it felt cheesy and off-theme - but having Quincarrier and X-Jet both active is super duper nice - should be noted Stepford Cuckoos is a decent target for this too.)

-Superpower Training (loses a ton of value after you draw and play the cutlasses - the only remaining target is prehensile tail which only costs 1 anyway)

Cards for Consideration:

Allies:

-Daredevil (great value for thwart and kinda insane with pinned down to heal himself)

-Angel (great value overall especially if you have trouble getting overwhelmed by minions early)

-Armor (great value as a redundant blocker - even better in multiplayer - tough allies feel slow though because you want to use them to block you don't want to exhaust them the same turn they come into play which feels slow even for this deck)

-Marrow (great value as an attacker to deal with minions, especially early game as she can put out 4 damage the turn she enters play, 6 total over 2 turns)

-Triage (decent value for the heal - insane when paired with allies like storm, gambit, shadowcat)

-Beak (good threat removal if going x-men ally heavy)

-Forge (good early to pull x-jet - falls off after - don't really like him without also playing utopia)

-Professor X (especially good with Astonishing X-Men for steady villain scenarios but I run into stalwart villains enough where I stopped running both of these cards)

-Black Widow (reliable unlimited cancels and decent thwart - one of the cards I miss most)

-Colossus (great value for damage and also as a redundant blocker - for 3 cost he can output 9 damage which is great / or block twice and output 3 damage / or block once and output 6 damage - quite flexible for his cost - also feels slow for same reason stated above for armor)

-Gambit (great if lucky)

-Shadowcat (decent value for thwart - ok ability)

-Northstar (limited boost icon cancels)

-Storm (super expensive but insane with more and more healing in the deck she effectively thwarts for 4 every turn)

Notes re Allies:

This deck places higher value for allies that have decent thwarting capability - like Daredevil who can thwart for 4 over 2 turns for 2 cost; Shadowcat 6 over 3; Black Widow who has one of the best abilities and can also thwart for 2 and still stick around. This is because until hitting critical mass (getting all set up) this deck's highest priority is in building up and stalling by mitigating threat as much as possible (which is why it runs 3x Containment Strategy and 3x Hard to Ignore). Containment strategy is insane and usually great value even in early-mid-late game. Hard to ignore usually doesn't get played until mid-late game. Any time the minions start to get out of hand you can use your attack events to wipe them out or use Pinned Downs to stall them out.

Events:

-Face the Past (great anytime after you've played either the Cutlasses or the dauntless and electrostatic armor and your hero is ready it's basically an exhaust your hero to draw 3 at that point b/c azazel reveals with quickstrike and you defend, retaliate and attack back any combination of 3 works - there are a few more pros and cons of this card and I have to think more about it)

-Jump Flip (extra defend triggers for things like containment strategy)

-Side Step (extra defend triggers for things like containment strategy)

Side Schemes:

-Astonishing X-Men (great with Professor X and also good threat drain with Storm)

-Render Medical Aid (great for extra healing - insane with high mileage allies - insane++ in multiplayer with even more high mileage allies)

-Establish Perimeter (decent for redundancy in protecting your team)

Support:

-Quincarrier (hilarious, awesome and only enabled by Build Support but feels wrong and don't want to step on avengers teammates wanting to play their Quincarrier)

-Stepford Cuckoos (limited but valuable cancels - can be targeted with build support)

Upgrades:

-Target Acquired (situational boost effect cancels)

-Ready for a Fight (great scheme protection while flipping down - if port away isn't enough form changing / 1 per deck flip)

-Symbiote Suit (great if you like to live dangerously - hilarious in multiplayer)