Cheap Shots

Jumping in Feet First

As a rule, I can't try to build a deck for a new hero in the aspect their pre-con came in. And most pre-cons are bad.

As I played around with Nightcrawler, I found myself staying alive but struggling to progress the scenario, desperate for some card draw. I decided that the best way to build was going to be leaning into one of his biggest struggles: minion swarms.

What's the best way to do that? Let's dive in

Skip to Deck Strategy to get past the kit analysis

Thanks to ClassyRobot for sharing some aggression builds that helped me make some decisions!

The Deep End

I have been having a blast figuring out Nightcrawler, but that doesn't mean he's incredibly strong or easy to pilot. (Do not tell me he is S-Tier)

• While Bamf! can help to mitigate damage for the villain's attack, it only takes a couple extra attacks and you'll find yourself feeling how low 9 HP really is
• If you're using Rapid Teleportation every turn to recur a Bamf!, you're essentially playing a 4 hand size hero
• Many events benefit from discarding a Bamf! in your hand to increase their power but realistically, you always want to end the turn with a Bamf! on the villain, leading to tough decisions and a reliance on allies to chump at times
• Built in economy is pretty lackluster. Prehensile Tail is great for signature and aspect events but affording high cost cards isn't realistic
• Thwarting power leaves a bit to be desired, and alter-ego access isn't enough to safely flip, recover, and save your Bamf! one more turn until the villain's next attack. It's hard to justify many player side schemes to accelerate setup
• Minion swarm can be a problem and Azazel and quickstike minions are particularly rough

Learning to Swim

For every negative here, there's also a positive with some really strong synergies opened up.

• Aforementioned Prehensile Tail specifying events instead of signature events allows for some nice economy for event-focused builds
• Kurt's Cutlasses feel mandatory to a win, offering stat buffs and retaliate to slowly chip away at the villain and any minions in play
• Daytripper is fantastic to recur Bamf!, has great stats to help out the board state and is only 2 cost. Pinging away a tough is always nice too!
• Tally Ho! is a nice way to recur a Bamf! while also dealing some damage and getting around any stun (not an attack)
• 'Port Away is a strong one off card allowing free alter ego access (especially if you can use Kurt Wagner's action to recur another Bamf! to put on the villain!)
• There are some nice opportunities for multi-instance damage with 'Port and Punch, as well as multi-scheme removal options with Scout Ahead
• While the economy isn't great, the cost curve of signature cards is really low, with only 5 cards at 2 cost and the rest below. You can justify not using the doubles

Crowd Pleaser (Deck Strategy)

We're all about minions here. Why? I figured I was so sick of seeing Azazel pop up that I might as well get some benefits out of it.

There's nothing that screams Nightcrawler more than jumping around from enemy to enemy, taking them out One by One. You can come in with a Surprise Attack or a well timed Precision Strike to finish off a minion. Chase Them Down when you're done and start Looking for Trouble to do it all over again. Go Toe to Toe and use all that Aggressive Energy to finish the game.

So... This is just a thematic deck?

No.

This deck takes advantage of all of the low cost aggression events to keep the cost curve low, focusing on minions to help increase our card draw (via Hall of Heroes) and bolster thwarting power. You'll be able to flip relatively often, taking advantage of some strong alter-ego abilities and cards to keep the tempo of the game moving. This should all work to combat the usual slow tempo of using Rapid Teleportation every turn to provide a reasonably all-rounder deck.

Cheap Shots

The best part about the minion focused aggression suite is just how low cost it all is. Every event here is either 0 or 1 cost, perfect for the Prehensile Tail to pay for.

• One by One and 'Port and Punch are fantastic cards for taking down minion swarms and gaining counters for Hall of Heroes
• If health is becoming an issue, Precision Strike can be extremely useful in certain scenarios to delay a flip down
• Toe to Toe has some really interesting synergy with Nightcrawler. If you already have a Bamf! on the villain at the start of the player phase, you can utilize Toe to Toe to take an attack for little to no damage in exchange for a 5 cost attack.
  • If you have a Tally Ho! in hand, you can recur the Bamf! to get it back on the villain
  • This is one of the only cards that helps Tally Ho! see play in the player phase!
  • You can recur the same Bamf! with Rapid Teleportation as well
• You'll always be able to hit the kicker on Surprise Attack with the chosen economy

The economy chosen here is relatively minimal, mostly because it's not needed.

• Martial Prowess can help pay for attack events if you're unable to get Prehensile Tail out early
• The only resources here are two copies of Aggressive Energy. These are helpful for all attacks but really shine in our multi-instances of damage attacks

Angela and Throg help to round out the ally selection by being low cost blockers that synergize with the general strategy around minions.

Why else do we want minions?

• Nightcrawler's thwart power generally isn't terrible but needs a bit of a boost.
  • Looking for Trouble and Chase Them Down serve to help buff this quite a bit while costing nothing.
  • Getting those minions in play ensures that dead hands become much less likely
• Hall of Heroes will help with card draw when we flip down

With all these minions, we'll need to step out at times to regain our composure.

Irish Goodbye

It's hard to get a good Surprise Attack on someone if you aren't flipping down. We have four ways to flip down:

• 'Port Away after grabbing a Bamf! from Rapid Teleportation. As long as you have another somewhere in your deck, it'll be worth it
• Professor X can confuse the villain. For steady scenarios, I will sometimes use the ready and get low enough threat on the main scheme to justify a flip down anyways
• Psylocke is our other confuse option and can actually work with steady scenarios
• Tempus is always a solid option. Hopefully you get a minion with that extra encounter card!

Once we're in alter-ego, Nightcrawler's options open up for some neat plays. As a general rule, it's very important to always know where your three copies of Bamf! are.

• Kurt Wagner's action is fantastic to grab a Bamf! for free. You can use this as a resource if necessary or pop it on the villain to set you up for a strong next turn
• Kurt's Chapel works especially well with the ready you get from 'Port Away, helping you justify recovering.
  • I'll 'Port Away, recover, get the card draw from Kurt's Chapel, grab a Bamf! with Kurt Wagner's alter ego action and flip back up to hero form for no real risk of losing to scheme!
• Hall of Heroes can really change the tempo of the game and works well with all of the aggression events focused around Nightcrawler directly defeating a minion
• Mutant Education is a great card to have when you're about to flip down, allowing recursion of powerful one off cards in the kit
  • 'Port Away is one of my prime targets to shuffle back in for those free flips to alter-ego. Don't underestimate the value of the ready!
  • Daytripper is always nice to see and should be prioritized. She's the best ally here
  • Bamf! itself isn't a bad card to shuffle a copy of back into the deck, especially keeping in mind that you can grab it for free right after. If you don't need the card that turn, you can just leave it in the deck. It's sort of like an Assess the Situation with more steps
  • Teleport Drop is alright if you've got a scenario that really benefits from the villain not attacking or if you have multiple Bamf!s in hand

The best part about being in alter-ego is that you'll get that extra hand size and won't need to spend a resource on Rapid Teleportation the next turn. Rinse and repeat until you win!

Other Card Considerations

The strategy of this deck did slowly morph over time, with less of a focus on Weapon cards and leaning more into minions. I'd say you can switch up the distribution of the x2 and x3 aggression events without much issue.

• Jarnbjorn was a cool idea but I never felt like I was utilizing it and all of my economy was focused around events
• Lock and Load is a great side scheme to get out the Kurt's Cutlasses but whiffs once they're out unless you're including other Weapon upgrades. Superpower Training can never really whiff and won out
• Moira MacTaggert is a solid card but I wasn't flipping all that much and it was sometimes difficult to hit the play restriction
• Relentless Assault is a great card for minion focused builds but every attack here made more of an impact and was cheaper
• Weapon X was strong in certain scenarios and borderline unplayable in others. There is too much of a focus on aspect events here to mill past all of them
• X-Mansion was not getting on the board, even with the Mutant Education synergy and I couldn't justify Build Support

Results

It's fun! It's good! Low cost event builds really seem like the best way to go for Nightcrawler. Hope you enjoy!