X-23 Stabby Siblings

I’m not going to lie, this deck came about through a lot of weird developments.

Essentially, I wanted to lean into the symbiosis between Honey Badger and X-23, which meant I needed a way to deal damage to HB regularly and then continually recycle her.

Thankfully, X-23 already has a solid system for recycling HB, so I could ditch a lot of the ally recursion cards from Leadership and focus more on readying HB and increasing her HP.

So what we have here is a semi voltron leadership deck designed to make it possible for X-23 to attack or thwart three to four times every single round.

For allies, we only have Forge and Pixie. I’m going to be honest here, Pixie is mostly left over from a previous build where I used Caliban to burn the deck looking for HB. He would pause with Pixie, and then Pixie could finish looking for HB on the next round.

That version of the deck also had White Fox and Digging Deep because they benefited from Caliban discarding them, but ultimately Sisterhood proves to be so effective that I abandoned the Caliban approach. It might take a little longer, but you don’t risk discarding vital upgrades now that Caliban is gone.

Pixie remains because she can bring Honey Badger back if you haven’t yet found Sisterhood. Also, she’s a cheap ally you can chump with.

Forge is basically a cheap tutor for the only two targets he can find in this deck: Danger Room and X-Mansion. Once they’re out though, he remains an affordable ally that can chump as needed. I’m a little disappointed that Uncanny X-Men doesn’t have the X-men trait for Forge to target.

From there, the priority was to buff Honey Badger as much as possible so that she survives all the damage she needs to receive in order to ready X-23. Leadership has a nearly obscene amount of Ally manipulation, so it was a natural choice.

What's the focus?

There are almost too many options in this deck for buffing HB, so I will focus on a few meaningful synergies.

Primarily, Danger Room is your meat and potatoes. It allows you to add Danger Room Training to HB every time you play her, regardless of whether it is in your deck or discard pile, making her a 2/2/3 for 2 resources. Pretty crazy.

After that, you are going to attach every possible upgrade to HB, because a fully kitted HB (X-Force Recruit, Reinforced Suit, Danger Room Training, Uncanny X-Men and Team Training) becomes a 2/2/8. Which is frankly insane.

Why is it insane? Because this deck also has loads of opportunities to use HB to ready X every turn.

We have Get Ready which does what it says, as well as Clarity of Purpose which can ding HB to trigger her ability. Next we have the Command Team which, because it is not unique; both copies can be in play. Finally we have Game Time, which both readies HB and heals her.

There are so many possible scenarios at this point, that I can’t even put together a ‘dream round’. Depending on which of X-23’s events you have in hand, you could easily deal 20 damage in a single round, and that’s not even including a hand that has Go All Out.

And with Clarity of Purpose and Grim Resolve, you are unlikely to lack for resources.

More commonly, you will have HB in play as a 2/2/5 and a Command Team or a card to ready her at least once. In these scenarios, you’re still going to do about 13 damage a turn without breaking a sweat.

There are two things to bear in mind.

X-23 doesn’t take big swings. She kills enemies by a thousand cuts, which means retaliate is a huge problem for her. There is a tremendous benefit from Support and Upgrade cards, which means X-23 is slow to ramp up and relies heavily on those permanents.

To be fair, you can probably still get a lot done with just Sisterhood, Danger Room and X-mansion. But once those other Supports and Upgrades hit the table, every round is going to be a deadly ballet as you determine the best sequence of play.

Mulligan-
You want Sisterhood, Danger Room and Uncanny X-Men as soon as possible. Close seconds are Team Training and Grim Resolve. Third place goes to Endurance and Pain Tolerance.

Pretty much everything else is about taking it when you can get it. But don’t forget that you can put the second copy of Clarity of Purpose on X-23 if you're in a pinch.