Hit Me Baby One More Time

Unusual X-Men Decks: #4 - Hit Me Baby One More Time:

Here's a Wolverine deck all about Berserker Frenzy with Pinned Down and almost no X-Men cards!

Leave minions alone, simply reduce their damage with Pinned Down or Energy Barrier, and farm tons of cards from Berserker Frenzy! Use them to destroy the villain.

The Black Widow ally helps us avoid encounter cards that would force us alter-ego, helping us keep Berserker Frenzy in play forever. She also helps us dodge Gang Up, Advance and Shadow of the Past!

Check out Late Night Gaming take on Kang in 2-player with this deck! Pinned Down on a T. Rex? Sounds good to me. Find it here!

Overview:

• Archetype: Minion Farming / Self-Healing
• Difficulty: Medium
• Recommended Player Count: 1-4
• Ideal Aspect Partners: Justice
• Ideal Hero Partners: Anyone who can draw you cards (Captain Marvel, Cyclops, Web-Warriors), doesn't need defending (Shadowcat, Ghost-Spider), or can lower enemies' ATK (Storm, Cyclops again).
• Scenarios to Avoid: Mastermold, and any scenarios with either the Teamwork modular sets (Acolytes, Reavers) or Space Pirates.

Strategy:

We want Berserker Frenzy as fast as possible. Mulligan hard for it - the only things worth keeping other than it, in my opinion, are Adamantium Skeleton and Nick Fury. Otherwise, in most scenarios, ditch all 6 cards!

Adamantium Skeleton is arguably Wolverine's best card. And Nick Fury guarantees another three cards drawn if we don't find Berserker Frenzy in our mulligan, letting us dig even deeper into our deck.

Use allies and your basic THW to control threat, your events to defeat minions, and heals, allies, and even your DEF to stay healthy. And when Berserker Frenzy arrives, everything changes.

With Berserker Frenzy, every minion becomes +1 card draw until the end of the game! Some minions have annoying effects such as Guard or an additional effect on their attack, but the vast majority are fine to leave indefinitely - and even the annoying ones can be fine for a turn or two of extra card draw!

To draw a card from Berserker Frenzy, you have to take at least 1 damage from an attack. To this end, use Energy Barrier on any 2 ATK minions and Pinned Down on any 3 ATK minions. Simply leave 1 ATK minions. Note that Energy Barrier is good to use against the villain's attack too.

Momentum Shift, What Doesn't Kill Me, Preservation and Regenerative Healing will effectively keep you alive forever - and, when under pressure, you can always clear a couple of minions or start to use allies to block the villain!

Endurance and Adamantium Skeleton put us at 17 max hp, giving us a ton of room to work with.

Black Widow and Enhanced Awareness are here to veto any encounter cards that would send you alter-ego and thus make you lose Berserker Frenzy or otherwise be hard to deal with. And, of course, Shadow of the Past. Gang Up can be good for our card draw, but it can also be dangerous - skip it unless you're comfortably healthy already.

Enhanced Awareness loses value once you have The X-Jet in play, but is great before that and is still a good way to bank resources afterwards.

Note that Wolverine is Wolverine. What that means is that, when solo against low hp villains, particularly on Standard difficulty, you will probably just win before you can set any of this up. But it will still do really well.

In multiplayer, this deck prefers a good threat remover since Wolverine really just wants to slice up the enemies. In solo play, 2 THW, hero readies, 2 THW allies, and the amazing Track by Scent are more than enough!

Mulligan Priorities:

• Berserker Frenzy
• Adamantium Skeleton
• Nick Fury (IF you don't find Berserker Frenzy)

Other Tips:

• If in multiplayer, remember that this Protection deck is not a classic defense deck and won't be defending for other people (except in emergencies when anyone would). Tell your group in advance.

• Momentum Shift goes great with Wolverine's Claws. You take two damage to play it and it immediately heals you. And you can even do this while stunned - you lose the damage but keep the healing since the healing is a cost, making it a cheap way to clear the status card.

• If for some reason you don't draw into minions? You are still Wolverine with high damage, tools to control the threat (in solo) and, with this kind of healing, are effectively immortal. Nice.

• Don't underestimate Starhawk. He's a great resource sink, makes sure The Power of Protection never misses and can block in a pinch!

• Guard and Patrol minions need to go in solo play. In multiplayer, you can often ignore Patrol entirely and sometimes the Guard ones for a turn or two!

• Daredevil can block 1 ATK minions forever. Not only can this give you breathing room, but you can use him to tank a minion before finding Berserker Frenzy, keeping the minion ready to draw you cards once you have found it!

• Daredevil is also extremely good at threat removal. Don't hesitate to thwart twice with him if necessary!

• If you are against a scenario with weak minions, drop 3x Pinned Down for 1x Brother Voodoo and 2x Assess the Situation.

Good luck!