Askani'son

Deck concept

This is a deck built around Askani'son. The idea is to defend with Cable so as to trigger Askani'son, ideally clearing a side scheme so as to ready with Cable's response (which is once-per-phase). In the way of a green deck with lots of upgrades, as the game continues the deck gets very thin, so it isn't uncommon to draw both Telekinetic Blast and deal 20 damage in late game.

This seems like a really obvious strategy, but there aren't that many green Cable decks on MarvelCDB, and none I could see quite like this, which probably means that I've misunderstood something or failed to realise how much stronger Cable is built another way. So I'm posting this hoping for some feedback that will help me understand what I'm doing wrong.

Card choices

The first choices with Cable are the player side schemes. Playing solo I'm not really comfortable with more than four of them - Mind Scan and Telekinetic Blast already feel pretty close to auto-lose cards with four cards in the victory display, never mind more.

Establish Perimeter is low-impact, but I like to use it in setup to buy an extra turn essentially for free. Build Support is much more impactful, since it can get either Graymalkin or Quincarrier. To be honest I think the deck would be better if I had resisted the urge to cheat in Quincarrier and used this card solely to get more routes to Graymalkin. My excuse is that Quincarrier can pay for Black Widow.

Call for Backup gets another use out of Nick Fury and therefore helps with general acceleration. Technovirus Purge is obviously a huge deal since it improves DEF, and also makes Askani'son more impactful. I'm still a bit cautious about playing it before I've seen Technovirus Resurgence though.

Playing solo I pretty much never let Deadpool's forced interrupt go off, so actually Spider-Man would probably fit into that slot better as he has more immediate impact. It isn't as if I themed the rest of the ally mix.

Playing the deck

There are no defence events in the deck because deck-thinning is a central part of the concept, so the Energy Barriers are important to get the benefit of Hard to Ignore/Unflappable. Askani'son has an easier trigger, though, as you only need to defend and it is not critical to the deck strategy if damage sometimes leaks through on turns where Cable defends. More importantly, there are no ways to ready Cable beyond his native ability. That makes Plasma Rifle and the allies critical to dealing with any minions or what have you that pop up on turns where Cable isn't able to ready.

Professor X, Bodyslide and Precognition should give enough opportunities to get safely into alter ego a few times on every deck pass. That may well be necessary because the DEF isn't quite strong enough to prevent all damage leaking through to Cable, but is also useful to get access to Professor for a player side scheme.

The allies need to perform a couple of roles. On turns when there is no side scheme available to ready Cable, they need to help manage minions. When side schemes do come out, they need to manage the threat on them down to the value that Cable can defeat with a single thwart. Starhawk is great for that second job since he can knock off a single point of threat very conveniently. Ironheart and Nick Fury do their regular acceleration thing, as well as blocking on turns when Askani'son has no worthwhile target.

How to lose with this deck

Cable is a bit slow to get going, and upgrade-heavy decks are also slow to get going so this deck can fall behind the villain early in the game, especially as Plasma Rifle may not be able to control minions for you early on. A shortage of side schemes in the encounter deck won't help either. I've already mentioned how nasty Cable's nemesis set can be. Otherwise I can't see a lot of specific weaknesses in this deck.

Conclusion

To me this feels like a fairly straightforward and unimaginative deck, but perfectly capable on true expert solo against a good range of scenarios, but that makes it strange that I couldn't see another one quite like it on MarvelCDB. Hopefully someone will pop up in comments to tell me what I'm missing.