The Sword and The Guns (Duo w/Gamora)

Wins/Losses: 14-3 (82%)
Pros: Damage from both heroes/Thwart from both heroes/ways to cancel attacks, prevent damage Cons: Makes you forget to heal

What a perfect pair! These two had 3 losses (Taskmaster, Red Skull, and Ronan). While I still feel I could have beaten them, because of my one-time, one-play rule...we’ll never find out. Let me discuss overall how well this dynamic duo did and then discuss my 3 failures.

Overall, There were times when their HP went to 1 or 2, but that goes along with my weakness of “makes you forget to heal.” They do so well in keeping themselves in hero form, that I feel like I can push it one more round. When Gamora was confused, Venom could thwart with his Pistols; when Venom was stunned, a combo that worked well was Set the Pace, and then BAM! Decisive Blow comes in with 7 damage. Having Nebula come out to choose a zero cost Acrobatic Move or Set the Pace was pivotal in removing tons of threat or damage. Venom having Multi-Gun and the two pistols, along with Fusilade or Mean Swing really set the stage for damaging a lot. They worked extremely well together. 

Taskmaster: A big part of the reason I lost was leaving them in hero form for as long as I did. Already at low health, the switching to Hero form and getting a two or three boost to deal damage when so low is what caused me to die...I also overused Venom’s ability in the sense that three rounds in a row I used it to pay for things that didn’t work out in the endgame. Venom was the first to tie and there was so much threat that Gamora would not have been able to tear down Taskmaster alone from 18hp. After playing Taskmaster, I changed up Venom’s deck. I removed Energy Spear and placed Lie in Wait instead. I am not sure what I was thinking, but I put Energy Spear to beef up Drax’s attack, yet two things transpired: 1) I almost never played Drax and 2) Using the setup action for Flash always drew that weapon instead of his goodies!

Red Skull: I lost in the same manner as Quicksilver and Scarlet Witch...too much ability in their twarting power that I felt damage was the way to go. By having too many side schemes out during Red Skull II and having the Sleeper in there really messed me up. This was also an instance where I put my faith in Gamora’s ability to thwart, over Venom’s ability...with 3 THW and Multi-Gun’s ability, AND Run and Gun...you would think I would have been able to take down schemes like nothing. This was not the case because I felt time was running out for me and I wanted to rush to get done...totally my fault worrying more about damage than thwart.

Ronan: He was an easy victory over me with surges, double activations and treacheries within the first of five rounds. I didn’t even get him to Ronan II. A Major part of that was forgetting to do Venom’s setup action. I cannot believe the guy I thought I could take, I forgot the most crucial aspect of Venom. Because of this I was stuck with one pistol for the remainder of my game as I drew Multi-Gun on the last round and Ronan knocked me senseless since I had the Power Stone and then he took it from me...Villain phase came and had a boost ability of +3 twice….Venom died and so did the last round of my journey with the duo!

These will be my go-tos when playing in a four person or even adding to another group's duo!