Phoenix Fully Unleashed

Hello!

another take on Phoenix Aggression. This time instead on focusing on X-Men allies and Team Strike, we are gonna push her basic attacks and see how far we can go :) That also means that this is a multiplayer oriented deck and not targeted at solo players. While you can have success with it against certain villains, it will also fall flat against others. So keep that in mind ^^

Playstyle

In order to push our basic attack we gonna try to switch to our Unleashed form as quickly as possible and stay there. This will give us +2 ATK. Combat Training will also come in handy to push our ATK, as well as our 3 copies of Hand Cannon aka the Phoenix Blaster :P

This deck is designed to mainly deal with minions and be rewarded with a lot of overkill damage to the villain. Since this deck specializes in that area that does mean it comes at a bit of a cost of her defense and thwarting capabilities. So let's talk about that first.

The Bad

Now since we wanna use our basic power we need some allies / players who can block for us. That's why we're gonna take Colossus and Hulk with us. They are both excellent blockers and Colossus can also hit for 3 in between as well. Professor X may only block 1 time, but he can thwart for 3 and has a great forced response when played. Wolverine is really just there to enhance our damage out put, so try to keep him on the table as long as possible, even if it means to skip one round of attacking to make sure he's fully healed.

Obviously with only 4 allies that can block for us, we won't always be in the situation where someone else can block for us. But she can take a hit to the face every now and then, since White Hot Room gives us a nice additional boost to our REC. Then we also have Telekinetic Shield which can soak usually 1-2 attacks. And if everything else fails we can still use our 2 DEF if we need to. With that many occasions of direct attacks against us we can also make good use of the retaliation that we get from Phoenix Suit as long as we are in Unleashed. So don't be alarmed! :)

Now for thwarting options we don't have a lot. Professor X one time 3 thwart is obviously not gonna make a huge impact. So if need to you can let Wolverine thwart for 1 each round instead of letting him attack. And if things really go south you can always go back to your Restrained Form and get back to 3 THW. But we are gonna try to avoid that! Since this is a multplayer deck we hopefully don't have to worry about that too much :)

And don't forgot our hero event Telepathic Trickery can also thwart and since we are in our unleashed form we can stun AND confuse the villain. So if the villain is stunned while he would've attacked a friend he will hopefully repay us by blocking the next hit for us ^^

Now that the cons of this deck have been addressed let's go to the fun part :)

The Good

Now with hopefully 2 Phoenix Blaster on the table and enough Combat Training we can use our Skilled Strikes to hit any enemy for 8-10! And if there is a minion on the table we can use Follow Through and the overkill to raise that up to 11-13 damage. Or even higher if you gonna use more than 1 Skilled Strike.

Telekinetic Attack also hits pretty hard on its own already but the overkill can be further enhanced with Follow Through as well. And with all that excess damage we can enjoy our Moment of Triumph and recover from our wounds after a glorious battle. Noice! :)

While in Unleashed Form it is always good to have at least 1-2 Phoenix Counter on Phoenix in case a Phoenix Firebird flies by and readies our hero!

Unfortunately Psychic Blast does not have overkill so enhancing a resulting excess damage can only be used with Moment of Triumph. Keep in mind that you only get healed from the excess damage dealt to 1 enemy and not all of them :) So while it is an excellent wave / board clear, its not necessarily best suited for Moment of Triumph unless you really need to ^^

Now for the rest of the cards I think it's pretty obvious. The Power of Aggression helps you put The Phoenix Blaster & Follow Through on the table and Team-Building Exercise und The X-Jet are needed since we wont be able to get that much use out of Psionic Bond unless you really wanna switch quite often to AE and get the counter back. Just make sure to not go over 3 unless you wanna switch back to Restrained

Thoughts & Adjustments

We talked about the good and the bad and now we need to talk about the ugly or in that case being exhausted.

Battle Fury and Ready to Rumble would be possible solutions to the problem. Both have their specific situtation where they can help us ready up again. Ready to Rumble after a REC in AE and switching back to hero form. And Battle Fury after we killed a minion for the cost of 1 HP. Now R2R won't help us after we have to use DEF and BF only helps in that regard if a minion is still in play and we have a event on our hand to kill it. I wouldn't say these are niche situations.. but due to White Hot Room and Moment of Triumph we hopefully don't have to use our recover that often. And with only 4 hero events in our deck, the chances are also not super high to trigger Battle Fury.

That's why I put in 2x Relentless Assault to have more events, but unfortunately that means only 1 more spot to fit in Battle Fury ^^#

Now as I mentioned with only 4 events you won't be that lucky if you wanna take 3x Battle Fury instead. And except for the situation were we start exhausted, Relentless Assault does a pretty good job to replace Battle Fury. Outside of a Skilled Strike and with 1 Hand Cannon charge we are dealing 6 damage vs the 5 from Relentless Assault. While Battle Fury is one less resource it does cost 1 HP and it also burns faster through the hand canon charges to keep up with Relentless Assault. So if you wanna go with 3 BF or 2 BF + 1 RA then go for it. You can also go for 1 R2R, 1 BF and 1 RA or any other combination you can think of.

Now for other adjustments you could do is to bring Angela or Looking for Trouble. But I think in most multiplayer enviroments you should have enough minions on the table to make the most of your overkill. Angela would give you another blocker though if you decide to go for 41 cards. And if you wanna replace Relentless Assault with Into the Fray then you can do that ofc as well if you need more thwart on the main scheme.

So that's it! I hope you'll like the deck and have fun playing it. I really like Phoenix. I think she has some amazing artwork on her cards. Especially the Alter Ego is really pretty! :) So if you like the deck or have some suggestions let me know!

~L~