Phoenix Team Strike Force (2.0)

About Jean & playstyle:

Jean Grey plays around her different Phoenix Forms Phoenix Force A with the Restrained trait and Phoenix Force B with the Unleashed trait. We are starting in the Restrained form and with 4 Phoenix Counter. Unfortunately we can't switch at will. Instead we'll switch to the Unleashed form once we depleted all our Phoenix Counter. In our Unleashed form we get +2 basic ATK but lose 2 THW. In addition it enhances our hero events. So what's up with these Phoenix Counter?

• In hero form we can use Psionic Bond to generate a resource for the cost of 1 counter
• In her Alter Ego form we can place 1 Phoenix Counter on her after we use our REC.

Additionally we have White Hot Room which can either heal us by 2 or lets us place 1 Phoenix Counter. Then we have Phoenix Firebird which allows us to either remove 1 counter and ready our hero, or it can also place 2 counter on Phoenix Force. And at last we have our ally Cyclops which can also place 2 counter when enters play and remove 2 counter once he leaves. Note that both of them are choices and not a forced response.

So if we want to switch to our Unleashed form we need to spent the counters as resources, use counter to ready ourselves with Phoenix Firebird or use Cyclops reponse. Either way it can take up to 4 rounds in order to switch from Restrained to Unleashed. So keep that in mind in case you wanna hold on to your hero events. Once we switched forms we can unleash hell on our opponents with our events! Psychic Blast is really strong. While it does not hit the main target as hard as Dive Bomb, it does deal more damage to everything else!

When we are done and we don't feel like lingering in our Unleashed form (Dark Phoenix is really scary!) we swap to our Alter Ego form and use White Hot Room and REC to get our Phoenix Counter back up to 4. Use it 1 time during the round we flip and again at the start of the next round. If we have Phoenix Firebird or Cyclops on our hand we can even swap forms in 1 turn. If you prefer to stay in Unleashed form be mindful that you can not go above 3 Phoenix Counter. That means that you have to swap more regularly to AE unless you wanna miss out on some Psionic Bond uses.

About the deck:

So let's talk about the deck!

Allies:

• Wolverine is a really(!) strong ally. He comes with 3 ATK and piercing! While he gets 2 consequental damage, he does recover 1 HP at the beginning each round, though.

• Professor X helps us thwart and lets us either confuse the villain or stun a minion. Or he could even ready an X-Men character! And of course that does include our hero :)

• Magik to get rid of an unwanted minion that might be in our way! Unfortunatly it does get shuffled back into the encounter deck and not discarded.

• Colossus is just such a great value with only a cost of 3, 1 tough and 3 ATK.

• Angel also pretty good value for just a cost of 2!

Aspect Cards:

• Team Strike lets us combine the ATK of our hero and as many X-Men allies as there are in play not just our own (especially good for multiplayer!). But not only that, we also can divide the total damage between all enemies as we see fit. I really love this card and its Justice counter part Mutant Peacekeepers

• Boot Camp to enhance all of our allies and get even more value out of Team Strike.

• Attack Training gives an additional +1 ATK and +2 HP to an ally which will also enhances our Team Strike :) Priority should be on Wolverine and Colossus. Cyclops can also be a good target if you need a little bit more THW and don't mind wasting the +1 ATK.

• Psychic Assault to confuse the villain and lets us switch to AE unpunished (outside of Steady / Stalwart ofc)

• Chase Them Down to help us further managing threat.

Supports:

• Cerebro is really good on Jean since it lets us search our whole deck to get any ally we want. In combination with Danger Room we can also place a Attack Training on that ally right away.

• X-Mansion to keep our allies a little bit longer in play each time we switch to Alter Ego.

• The X-Jet is bascially the new Quincarrier but it lets us use the resource for another X-Men player as well if we choose to! We can't however get a resource while in Alter Ego, since it's only for a player with the X-Men trait. So keep that in mind when you are planning your turn.

• Danger Room to get our Training cards on our allies. Really great since we are also allowed to pick them up from our discard pile!

• Utopia. I added this one recently since with the additional 2HP and X-Mansion our allies do have quite some staying power and you might feel you wanna play a 4th minion especially it's so easy to get them on our hand with Cerebro.

Playstyle continuation:

In combination with the Aggression Aspect I would advice you to stay in your Restrained from outside of burst windows. The reason behind is, that Jean in her Unleashed form and her allies don't have a lot of thwart power. So unless threat is not an issue or you are looking to finish the fight, only swap if you can really make it count :) Personally, I also prefer the Steady trait from Phoenix Suit over the retaliation bonus in most cases.

As long as you have Danger Room on the table and at least 1 copy of Attack Training is either still in your deck or on the discard pile, always try to play allies in your Alter Ego. While you do lose the usage of The X-Jet and Psionic Bond it's still worth it!

Rise from the Ashes lets you play quite agressively without having to worry too much about your HP. So it's okay to take risks. Telekinetic Shield also helps to protect ourselves and play a bit more agressively. While you can play it on an ally, note that that ally still has to be exhausted in order to take the hit. So you mainly wanna use it on a player since it does not prevent the consequental damage!

Mind Control is a nice card, but it is quite expensive.. but it does last indefinitely and you can also use that minion unlike Mental Paralysis which gets discarded once you flip to your AE and then you still have to deal with that minion afterwards. So only play Mental Paralysis if you know you won't be flipping anytime soon.

Evolution of the deck & further adjustments:

Dropped:

• Dust
• Combat Training
• Gatekeeper
• Team-Building Exercise

Added:

• Psychic Assault
• Helicarrier
• Utopia

So let's talk about changes you can do or what other options might be out there.

• Since almost all of of our hero cards have the Psionic trait Team-Building Exercise becomes really viable. We can also use our X-Men trait to play cards like Danger Room or our allies. But the down side is, that we can't use it in our Alter Ego. That's why i personally prefer Helicarrier since we can also use it on the remaining other cards that we don't share a trait with. But Helicarrier does cost 1 more resource to play. But throughout the game we should be able to make up for it especially if we can use it to summon our allies in combination with Danger Room!

• Dust can be quite good with Attack Training and hit each minion for 2! She does take 1 additional damage though if you choose to trigger her ability. So if you prefer her instead go ahead and swap out either Magik or Angel. Unless you wanna go with 7 allies instead.

• I know a lot of people are looking forward to Psylocke. Unfortunatly we have to wait for Wolverine to be released!

• Combat Training can help us bolster our attack since we only have 1 base ATK in our Restrained form. But we mainly wanna use THW while in Restrained anyway. So it does lose quite some value unless you really wanna spent most of your time in your Unleashed form.

• Gatekeeper. Sounds good on paper, but to be honest, unless the minion has 2 base HP you are going to struggle one shotting that minion unless either Wolverine or Colossus are fully buffed. Because you do not want to have to attack a 2nd time in order to kill that minion. It's the most annoying thing.

• If you are planning on playing very aggressivly you might wanna consider "You'll Pay for That!" as a thwarting option since you can heal a lot of HP with White Hot Room.

• Smash the Problem can also be a valid option if you wanna stay in your Unleashed form. Especially if you are also planning on taking Combat Training and there aren't any minions on the table for Chase Them Down. I's just not the most cost effective way to deal with threat.

• The Power in All of Us should definitely be worth considering if you can make space for 2 copies since the support cards are quite costly. Or if you don't mind going above the soft cap of 40 cards further feel free to just add them.

• Once you have Phoenix Suit out Dive Bomb can be quite a good addition if you are looking for a more event focused build. Feel free to swap out some ally related cards instead. If you do, you maybe also wanna consider Pitchback. But keep in mind that none of our hero cards help us get Phoenix Suit on the table faster.

• Other event orientated options would be Press the Advantage. Probably wanna get that 3rd copy of Psychic Assault as well. And Aggressive Energy can also be a great addition.

So that's it for now! I hope you are just as excited about the new campaign as I am! :)

~L~