Move over Cyclops, Psylocke is the new leader of the X-men!

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Derived from
Phoenix and the Danger Room + Cerebro Thwarting Machine 316 262 19 2.0
Inspiration for
None yet

maxbot10 · 63

So I arrived at this list in a fairly roundabout fashion. I was introducing someone to MC and their favourite hero is Phoenix. So I took a justice deck popular at the time https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/23088/phoenix-and-the-danger-room-cerebro-thwarting-machine-2.0 for him to play. The deck is arguably too good at it's job as on several turns he had run out of things to thwart - so I thought switch to leadership to increase damage and the result was a bit too clunky for solo, but in multilayer it had time to set up and performed beautifully, controlling the game by itself.

I then didn't really think about it until I saw https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/33122/psy-spy-with-my-little-eye-1.0 and I thought about the Phoenix deck. It struck me that Psylocke had advantages that made her the perfect user of the Cerebro/Danger Room engine. She has more reliable extra resources on Psi-Knife and Psi-Katana compared to tokens on Phoenix Force. She has so many options for confusion it is far safer to switch to alter-ego every other turn. She can recur allies so Cerebro never misses. And finally, no Dark Phoenix!

So I built it and it suddenly isn't clunky anymore. Between Forge, Build Support and your abundance of resources, you set up very quickly. My first test was against Expert Ronan and I won first try. I then beat Expert Magneto with little effort. The deck is essentially strong against any villains that don't expressedly punish ally-spam.

Key things: Using Betsy Braddock to recur Professor X, then search with Cerebro to maintain confusion on the villain is pretty well known. But you can also recur Mirage the same way, and buffed by Danger Room Training can stun the villain! Against some villains you can cycle them and ensure they only activate from encounters.

Psi-Knife/Psi-Katana can only be used for resources in hero mode, while you want to play allies in alter-ego, so you primarily use them to play events. Between them and X-Gene you can play Flurry of Blades without using a single resource from hand.

No Havok: the deck could potentially do with another ally but he is too expensive for how inconsistent he is.

Psychic Kicker helps get more value out of allies you'll chump with, and it an important source of burst damage against large minions or when finishing off the villain. Don't think you want three though, as they are awkward in multiples.

Only 2 Danger Room Training: You are chump blocking so much you rarely have more than 1 in play. Any situation where you could use a 3rd you are winning anyway.

Angel: Poor Angel - might as well be a resource card as that is basically all he is in this deck. Training Regimen and her skills suffer a similar fate. You play them if you can, but they are lower priority than the X-men supports, allies and often the events.

Potential cuts: Avengers Mansion: Cutting the mansion feels like sacrilege but you don't want to play it over other supports, so can be hard to get down. It could be Weapon X but I am a little worried about the extra damage in a very defensive deck.

3 comments

Jan 11, 2024 RainKing42 · 2

I’m could be wrong, but I don’t think you can include the basic version of Angel because it has both the same title and subtitle (Warren Worthington III) as the trademark one.

Jan 11, 2024 maxbot10 · 63

@RainKing42 you are completely correct! I knew I couldn't have both in play, didn't realise I couldn't have both in deck. Not a vital part, will be replaced with Havok. But annoying to have screwed that up. Tried to edit it, seemed to have duplicated then deleted, so honestly not sure what I need to do....

Jan 12, 2024 RainKing42 · 2

It still looks fun. Certain heroes I tend to pigeon hole into one or two aspects and never really consider the others. Like Psylocke to me is Justice or Aggression and I probably wouldn’t have tried her as a Leader. But your point about her having several ways to confuse the villain so you can safely stay in AE and get more use from Cerebro and Danger Room is great.