Living Light - Spectrum Justice (OWOA)

UPDATE

This is a revised version of my 'Living Light' Spectrum deck which includes the excellent Justice cards out of the Nebula expansion. One Way or Another just kicks this deck on to another level. I thought it was going to be good but when your thwarting is as powerful as Spectrum's is the cost of bringing in a Side Scheme is minimal, and even helps to trigger lots of your cards like Multitasking, Clear The Area, Skilled Investigator, Turn The Tide. It's not Cost -> Reward, it's Cost -> Reward & Reward & Reward... crazy crazy good and I moved up to using 3 copies very quickly.

I've blasted through the Mad Titan's Shadow campaign twice now with Spectrum, first alongside Black Panther then next to Iron Man. She's more than up to the task of dealing with even the toughest villain, although I do think if you tried to take her solo you would come up short on damage. This Spectrum is all about clearing the table of threat so that her partner can deal the damage - she'll toss a couple of Gamma Blasts in whenever she gets the chance, but it's not her strong point.

WHY SPECTRUM?

I've had Ant-Man has a favourite hero for a while now and I didn't really see what Spectrum offered that Ant-Man didn't, if flipping forms for attacking and thwarting was your sort of thing. I hadn't immediately realised that Spectrum can't change energy forms at will and that's what makes her unique. Uniquely frustrating sometimes, but uniquely powerful the rest of the time.

And I now know what Spectrum offers that Ant-Man doesn't: excitement.

Where Ant-Man can be quite plodding, grinding out wins with his Army of Ants as ultra-efficient control and damage dealers, Spectrum flies by the seat of her pants and speeds through her deck as quickly as possible to keep the form changes coming. Most of the time she can get through probably double the work that Ant-Man could do in a single turn and the only thing really holding her back from being a completely ridiculously overpowered hero is those occasional turns where she's trapped in the wrong form for what you need to do right now and you don't have the card you need to switch her energy form.

That makes moving quickly through a small deck very important for Spectrum, which is One Way or Another is such an incredible addition - single-handedly turning her 40 card deck into a 31 card deck by adding 9 drawn cards! There's also plenty of Upgrades to stick into play which both give you more firepower on a single turn but help shrink your deck by 25% so you can see more of the form-changing Events, and lots of draw effects. Use your first pass through the deck to develop your board position then on your second pass you're going to an incredibly effective thwarting and attacking machine who can take the villain down.

Spectrum is right up there are one of my favourite heroes, ticking the box of what I liked in Ant-Man's form-shifting abilities but adding much more speed and excitement to the ride.

OPTIONS

Most of the deck has been locked down and I'm very happy with it, but there's a couple of slots you could play with.

Wrath -> could be another 2 or 3 cost ally. If you know you're not facing Stalwart then Mockingbird is probably ideal, but I'd be happy with Quake, Quasar, Jessica Jones or Agent Coulson in that spot (you'd swap Ready To Rumble for Target Acquired with Coulson)

Multitasking -> became my favoured splash Thwart event when I went all-in on One Way Or Another, but I've had Lay Down The Law or Making An Entrance here too.

Ready To Rumble -> very disposable. It's a harmless little card but if you've got any particular favourite that I'm not playing then this is card #40 in the deck and the first one out the door.