Brute Force, bub

Simple game plan: Rip enemies with attack events. Recover (REC). Repeat until you win.

Note: I have only played a few 2 player games with him and he can demolish Villains and enemies once set up. In one game, I managed to do 30 damage in one round.

As a former Burn player in Magic: the Gathering, I enjoy playing this deck because it plays in a similarly manner. Most of your damage goes to Villain, unless you need to help the team with killing minions. Count the Villain's ever-descending health total as you sling burn spells (attack events).

When I decided to give Wolverine a try, I looked at MarvelCDB to see the most popular decks. Many of them are either in the Protection aspect to leverage healing and readying effects, or in the Aggression aspect to increase damage output.

In particular, I noticed that the most liked decks were those that sought to take advantage of Berserker Frenzy by summoning minions and keeping them alive to draw cards. This is not my play style. I don't like keeping minions alive that bleed my hero out.

I tried a Protection deck with lots of healing and some attack events, but I wasn't impressed by the damage output, and I felt like I wasn't using enough of Wolverine's design and damage potential.

So I asked myself, after having played a few games: "what are Wolverine's strengths?", and "what do I want to prioritize?". My answer to these questions are the following:

• Wolverine has a high REC. He can flip down into alter-ego (AE) and heal most/all of his health in one activation.
• You can setup and manage the board state at the same time. Wolverine's Claws allows you to progress in your team's win condition (i.e. kill the Villain) and clear minions via attack events while you use your resources to play setup cards.
• 2 THW is useful to occasionally help clear side schemes or keep the Main Scheme within range.
• I wanted to avoid playing an ally-heavy Utopia deck because I already did it with other heroes. I wanted to lean into Wolverine's kit and abilities.

That's when I remembered this Drax deck by @SqueeHollowVine.

I applied the concept of using Brute Force and high impact, lower cost Attack event cards like Quick Strike and Team Strike. Paired with the rest of Wolverine's damage dealing Attack events in his kit, you end up with a hero that can dish out lots of damage.

The core cards for your board are:

• x3 Brute Force - grants +3 ATK
• x1 Combat Training - grants +1 ATK
• x1 Adamantium Skeleton - grants +1 ATK
• x1 Fluid Motion - grants +1 ATK

With this board, you can...

• play Team Strike for 8 damage, costing 2 effective resources (ER) or 1 health (via Wolverine's Claws).
• play Quick Strike for 8 damage, costing 3 effective resources (ER) or 2 health (via Wolverine's Claws).

With 2 copies of Lunging Strike in your kit, that's 7 cards that deal 8 damage. And you can recur them with Assault Training, Mutant Education, and Logan's Cabin. That's a lot of damage!

Note: Don't underestimate the value of returning these high damage cards into your deck. If the Villain has 32 health, you can defeat them with just 4 cards that do 8 damage each, which is doable with Lunging Strike, Quick Strike.

Assemble the core board ASAP.

• Mulligan for ATK boosters.
  • Keep Adamantium Skeleton, Brute Force, Combat Training, and Fluid Motion if they are in your opening hand.
  • You can also keep Martial Prowess, Down Time, Assault Training, and The X-Jet. They're not essential to the strategy, but economy is great!
• Use the rest of your cards to pay for these Supports and Upgrades.
  • You can recur your favourite Wolverine kit cards with Mutant Education.
  • You can recur your favourite Aggression cards (Quick Strike is your best event) with Assault Training.

Help to keep the board state clear.

• While you're working on assembling your core board...
  • Use Attack events to kill minions and chip damage at the Villain.
  • Use Track by Scent and your basic THW to help manage threat.

Stay alive by managing your health.

• With a 6 REC (8 with Down Time), your survivability is high. Plus, you heal 2 damage if you start the round in Hero form.
• Regenerative Healing can also be used to heal, if necessary.
• You can choose to use Wolverine's Claws to pay for the lower cost Aggression Attack events, which will deplete his health more slowly without impairing your damage output.

Flip down to AE often.

• You have a 6 REC (8 with Down Time). That's great! You can heal back up to your max health (or close to it) with just one activation.
• Recur high-damage Attack events into your deck.
  • Use Logan's Cabin to return copies of Lunging Strike into your deck.
  • Use Mutant Education to return copies of Lunging Strike (and Slice and Dice if there are no Lunging Strikes in the discard) into your deck.
  • Use Assault Training to return copies of Quick Strike and Team Strike into your deck once you have your ATK boosters in play.

Allies:

• I know that Allies are strong, however I don't find them necessary in this deck. Wolverine's 6 (or 8) REC makes him quite resilient. If you want to include allies, I would suggest choosing cheap allies so that they don't interfere with your set up.

Solo If you're playing solo, you can replace some of the Aggression Attack events for Smash the Problem.

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