Symbiotic Adamantium

Usually I am not a fan of Symbiote Suit - although the boosts are nice, it is difficult to keep up with the pressure from the extra encounter cards. But, I decided to try it with X-23 and was surprised how well it worked. I will go through some of the card choices first, then cover some gameplay points for this deck and X-23 in general.

Card Choices

I feel that Symbiote Suit is only worth it if you can take advantage of all the benefits it provides, and X-23 can. Firstly, you have at least one ready per turn to make the most of the attack and thwart (with this deck you can get up to 7 attack).

The defensive stats also put in a lot of work. The extra health gives a higher ceiling, allowing you to take hits and make use of her excellent healing. Another key part of her kit is that you can defend for free every turn. As her hero ability is once per phase, as long as you still take some damage after defending you will ready. This really reduces incoming damage, with that and the extra health you can deal with the pressure from the extra encounter cards.

The rest of the deck is built to give more ways to ready your hero, which is where Honey Badger comes in. X-23's signature ally is more important than most as there are a few cards that require Honey Badger, or gain benefits if she is in play. Therefore, I include extra draw from Ironheart and Nick Fury to help to dig for Honey Badger. Once you have Honey Badger, equip her with Protective Training as soon as possible - Honey Badger is X-Men even though X-23 is X-Force! With 5 health it already gives you extra uses of Honey Badger to ready X-23, and you can now use Game Time to repeat her ability. You can end up having a few dead cards while waiting for Honey Badger + Protective Training, but the payoff is worth it. You do usually get Honey Badger before seeing both of your copies of Protective Training thanks to Sisterhood. When needed you can heal with Regenerative Longevity or Render Medical Aid, the latter is good as it can be left around and cleared when you need it. I round out the readies with What Doesn't Kill Me, which is quickly becoming a staple for protection.

The other cards are mostly there to help the basic actions. To benefit from defending I include Electrostatic Armor and Dauntless. With Adamantium Lacing too you can deal 3 damage each time you defend and the retaliate can be nice for dealing with minions. Then, we can get an extra attack boost from Specialized Training, which is quite easy to clear here (especially if you have either Symbiote Suit or Animal Instinct). Counter-Punch is not always useful, but is often 5+ damage for 1 card. Other allies help to round out the thwarting and provide defends if needed. Iceman and Polaris make decent targets for the 2nd copy of Protective Training. The confuse from Professor X is nice to enable the occasional flip to alter-ego (and deal with X-23's obligation).

Gameplay

Getting Honey Badger out will be a priority for many X-23 decks. You should mulligan with that in mind, trying to hit Honey Badger or other key upgrades. It is worth mentioning Laura's alter-ego action here, if you get Sisterly Bond on the first turn it is often worth discarding it to gain the extra draw. Sisterhood is an important card, giving another way to get Honey Badger. Even if you already have Honey Badger it is worth playing in case you draw X-23's obligation. In general I try to keep Honey Badger in play once I have her, particularly if using training upgrades with Game Time.

Besides Sisterhood, Grim Resolve is essential, as extra resources are always useful and it gives another way to use Living Weapon. I don't find that Pain Tolerance is super essential, but it is nice. Adamantium Lacing depends a bit on the matchup/deck, against anything with Tough statuses it is amazing.

One part I haven't mentioned is that X-23 actually has good thwarting. With only the extra ready you have 4 thwart per turn if needed right from the start. Animal Instinct plus a boosted attack from claws is already 5 thwart (or 7 with Symbiote Suit).

In general you want to think out how to sequence your turns with X-23. Once you have Grim Resolve if is generally good to use claws first, then attack with the boost, and finally use Grim Resolve to ready with Living Weapon. Or, early on I tend to thwart first, then use the damage from claws to ready.

As mentioned before, you can defend the villain attack pretty much every turn, especially if the villain has high attack. Just be careful in case you can block all of the damage.

Those general tips should cover most of what you need for this deck. I find that I can usually play Symbiote Suit as soon as I get it and have not had much trouble keeping up with the pace of the extra encounters. Once you have Honey Badger set up you often have turns where you can attack 3-4 times, hitting for 5-7 damage in each, so be on the lookout for opportunities to finish the villain.

End

I hope that the writeup is useful for using this deck, or getting a few ideas for X-23 in general. Of course another great option for X-23 Protection will be Repurpose - I'm sure there will be some great decks with that on here soon. I just decided to go the Symbiote Suit route as it is not something I use very often. It feels great when you end up with a bunch of extra attacks/minions etc. but have all of the tools to clear them!