Welcome to the Red Room

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Welcome to the Red Room ZOLA 1 0 0 1.0
Welcome to the Dead Room 0 0 0 1.0

Schmendrix · 4203

"... What is this place, Natasha?" Angela's face was grim.

"And -tik- why did you bring us -tik- here?"

"Welcome to the red room."


Nobody like Natasha

Eighteen months or so into Marvel Champions' life, Black Widow remains one of the premier engine-building heroes. The combination of resource generators, card draw, ready effects, and AE-playable Thwart with Confuse invites building decks with a high degree of synergy. In Protection, Attacrobatics and Defensive Stance enable her to defend multiple times each Villain phase. In Leadership, she gets exceptional value when abusing the most busted of combos - Rapid Response Nick Fury and Maria Hill - during both the Villain phase or the Player phase. Triggering preps during the Player phase delivers extra value as it enables use of the Synth Suit for extra Attack or Thwart activations (or a timely recover when flipping down to AE).

But until recently, Aggression has been a difficult fit for Black Widow. The only Aggression prep, Counterattack, requires the player to take damage, and Black Widow's 9 health offers precious little room for error. But that changed with the release of two cards: Lie in Wait and Looking for Trouble.

What we've been waiting for

Played together, Lie in Wait and Looking for Trouble provide Black Widow easy access to Player phase readies in Aggression without taking damage. Play Lie in Wait essentially for free from AE with the gauntlets and her built-in card draw, then Thwart or Attack, pull a minion with Looking for Trouble, pop it with Lie in Wait (or Widow's Bite), deal a damage to the villain or a minion, ready, Attack or Thwart again. It's a powerful combo that, thanks to the power of preps, requires just one card in hand. The fact that Lie in Wait is Max 1 per player hardly matters either, since Black Widow's onboard Thwart and access to Confuse means you can flip down and pull Lie in Wait with Safe House #29 if you find yourself wanting.

What makes this engine really hum, though, are Overkill effects, especially Hand Cannon (with honorable mention to Relentless Assault). With a pair of Hand Cannons on the table, Black Widow can convert her prep damage to minions into Overkill damage to the Villain. With Combat Training and Skilled Strike, Black Widow can deal 7-9 damage with Overkill, and her free activation before a Synth Suit ready can deal with Villain Tough status.

And along came Angela

Though only a one-of, it's hard to overstate how powerful dropping Angela into this mix is. Suddenly, not only can you pull minions out of the Encounter deck to generate extra activations for Black Widow, but you also get a high degree of control AND you don't accelerate the Encounter deck to an Acceleration token.

Piloting experiences and tips

I've played this deck true solo in Expert against the minion-heavy scenarios - Klaw + Masters of Evil, Green Goblin Mutagen Formula, Drang + Badoon, Crossbones + Hydra Assault - and it handled them all admirably. The general experience is as you would expect with any engine-building deck - you're generally ignoring Looking for Trouble early game as you prioritize Synth Suit, Gauntlets, and Safe House (in that order). If resource flooding enables you to play Hall of Heroes, Mansion or Helicarrier, that's gravy. Covert Ops should be used aggressively to provide more access to AE and concomitant card draw.

Once you have one Hand Cannon down, Combat Training in place, and the Suit out, you likely have enough board control to start playing Looking for Trouble and Angela when you find them. I often found there was a spot in the game when the board was mostly clear, I had 1-2 allies, and like 5-7 preps in place, with a hand of ~9 cards (thanks to Hall) and just ~18 cards in the deck/discard. At that point, go! The deck is capable of big burst damage, and is hardly slowed down by Guard if you get an unlucky pull late in the game. I had several 15+ damage turns late game to one-shot second stages of villains with resources to spare.

Concluding thoughts

I've been playing Hulk Protection with Earth's Mightiest A-holes in The Quantum Realm's Galaxy's Most Wanted campaign with the four heroes voted worst by Facebook (Hulk, She-Hulk, Thor, and Hawkeye, in that order). I can't tell you how pleasurable it is to play this deck after piloting Hulk. THIS is what this game should feel like (and no surprise, given MJ Newman's design credits on Black Widow). Black Widow feels powerful and unique - no one does anything quite like her, and she does it exceptionally well. Unlike Thor or Rocket, minions aren't economy generators as you're getting set up - they're the closers. And you're not focused on events, but building an inevitable board state that powers you to victory. I'm a big fan, and am excited to continue exploring how the Guardians wave opens up powerful new possibilities for old favorites.

12 comments

May 14, 2021 adsarf · 321

This is a really interesting deck which I will have to try. Would Earth's Mightiest Heroes be more flexible than Relentless Assault? It would allow you to thwart or attack the villain. Moment of Triumph also seems like an obvious pairing with Hand Cannon - although it is hard to see what to cut to make way for it.

May 14, 2021 Schmendrix · 4203

Interesting - definitely worth testing. Hulk ally certainly makes EMH viable. Let me know what you find!

May 14, 2021 dr00 · 38765

41 card meta! Looking for Trouble + Widow's Bite/Lie in Wait are a lot more stable than Toe to Toe + Attacrobatics to trigger Synth-Suit. such a great deck :D

May 15, 2021 Schmendrix · 4203

40 and 1 for you to cut. See, I'm thoughtful like that. :D Thanks dr00!

May 15, 2021 neothechosen · 9806

@Schmendrix

I'll admit I'm not a huge Black Widow player, but this might just be the turning point.

Absolutely amazing! Thx!

May 15, 2021 Schmendrix · 4203

Thanks, @neothechosen! Very kind.

May 18, 2021 Papasito · 1

Thanks!

May 18, 2021 Schmendrix · 4203

Hope you have fun with it, @Papasito!

Jul 07, 2021 Bowser · 37

Great deck. I gave this a try last night in a 3 player game. The combos are a lot of fun to execute. It is surprisingly versatile for an aggression deck.

Jul 07, 2021 Schmendrix · 4203

@Bowser Glad you had fun with it! I really want to get it to the table 4P, too!

Jul 16, 2021 Graceclaw · 27

If anyone wants to see a player of middling skill and no video recording experience try to pilot this deck for the first time vs Expert Taskmaster, I recorded a Bo3 series! www.youtube.com

Jul 16, 2021 Graceclaw · 27

Don't know why the link didn't work the first time! www.youtube.com

If I had to choose a card to cut to get to 40, I'd honestly choose Avenger's Mansion. She has plenty of rss generation and discounting already with gauntlets and helicarrier and I just never found myself wanting to drop 4 rss on it.