Manifold Destiny

Deck Pitch: Playing tons of Side Schemes and recurring Manifold to fish for more Side Schemes to play.

I've been looking for a good deck to run Manifold in and thought go big or go home. I'm running most of the aspected Side Schemes except for a couple. We're also gonna be using Problem Solvers to clear threat en masse.

Mulligan Priorities

1 - Key Upgrades: Graymalkin, Professor, Skilled Investigator, or Lock and Load. Lock and Load fetches our Plasma Rifle and plays it for free so we don't have to worry about paying for it later.

2 - An Ally

3 - Side Schemes, Side Schemes, Side Schemes

Running the Deck

We have a handful of allies that want to sit on the table so we should usually have targets for Problem Solvers. But in order to get to the point where that is useful, we need to play a Side Scheme or two every turn. Between Professor and Manifold we should be able to pull whichever Side Scheme is needed in the moment. Telekinetic Blast will push our game state forward whenever we play it, to the point where it's possible it's going to one shot a villain if we let the game go that long.

Our primary targets for Problem Solvers are Jack Flag and Quake but we do still have other options. We want to make sure we are playing Manifold regularly so there are turns we don't have to flip down in order to play a Side Scheme. Hopefully based on the pace of the deck you will be able to have a Side Scheme every turn and put Chance Encounter on one or two of them to be able to get Manifold back out at every opportunity. Playing solo, most of these can be knocked out with just one thwart either once you've dealt with Technovirus Purge or have Heroic Intuition on the table. Clear the Area and Skilled Investigator are both here to help you make the most of finishing a Side Scheme.

Captain Britain is here because he's great at taking out Side Schemes and Minions so he's a decent third slot filler for your allies once you have a Guardian and an Avenger on the table. Speed is good as a two turn drop to hit the threat hard very briefly. You can drop Quasar in case you need some across the board threat removal.

Adjusting for Multiplayer

I think this deck is wonderful in multiplayer if you team up with someone playing an Avenger or Guardian hero. Just pass them one of your Honorary Avenger or Honorary Guardian cards to put in their deck and asked them to play it on you once they draw it. A buffed up Cable is definitely overkill for Problem Solvers, but it's still fun. And in four player multiplayer it might be required because the threat values on most of the Play Side Schemes are so high in multiplayer. On that note, if you don't want to include them here pass your Build Support and Superpower Training to them as well to shuffle into their deck. Since Clear the Area doesn't work quite as well in Multiplayer it might be good to trade that out. The most obvious trades might be Even the Odds or Predictable Ploy since both of those cards excel in multiplayer. You're much more likely not to pass a turn with Predictable Ploy in your hand without having the chance to use it with more encounters cards being dealt out during the Villain Phase. I think another solid option is to trade Clear the Area out for Gunboat Diplomacy and to switch one of your allies for Bishop to give you a target for it.

Adjusting the Deck

I'm currently still on my no basics kick, so there's room for some improvement by including the basic doubles or a bit of the Psionics package with Psimitar.

There's definitely room for Deft Focus to help pay for some of Cable's events.

Superpower Training and Build Support would be great here since they are just more side schemes to be pulled.

If you feel like you prefer to play a more aggressive deck switch out Clear the Area for Gunboat Diplomacy and Speed for Bishop. As I discussed earlier, Cable makes an excellent choice to extra for events like Problem Solvers and that applies to Gunboat Diplomacy as well. Trade Quasar for Blindfold if you want to lean more into that strategy and want to make your uses of it a little more reliable.

--- Munkey