Magneto 'Counter King'

Howdy troopers. Today I am hyped to showcase my Magneto Hero deck for Marvel Champions. I have been eagerly anticipated the Master of Magnetism’s release for many, many months now, and with his card set revealed, I have come up with a spicy decklist.

I was so hoping and was ultimately very happy to learn that Magneto ended up with getting a retaliation card in the form of Magnetic Bubble. I love this card so much. I think it is really fricking good, though I realise I have emotional bias, and if I was to give a more level headed opinion, I would say the card is average. It costs 3 (which is a lot) so it is pricy. What it will do on average however is negate two attacks and deal 1 damage through retaliate. From what I understand, the damage that bursts the bubble will not trigger the retaliate. Paying 3 to negate 2 villian attacks and retaliate 1 is honestly pretty decent value in my opinion, it’s just that, it’s harder to appreciate when you think about what other 3 costing cards can do – dealing big damage for example, is going to be more recognisably good, than Magnetic Bubble.

Another interesting thing to note about Magnetic Bubble is that it prevents any amount of damage, and the nature of the damage does not matter, nor does it matter which form Magneto is in. Depending on the situation, these factors could be significant. Magnetic Bubble is the cornerstone of this deck, the centrepiece that ties everything together. When I built this deck, I had in mind the strategy of making the best use out of Magnetic Bubble, and I believe there are two main ways to achieve this goal.

The first option is to run a Protection Aspect with cards like Dauntless, Desperate Defence, Come Get Me Bub, to basically defend multiple attacks while keeping Magnetic Bubble intact for the entire game. Interesting to note that Magnetic Bubble synergises excellently with Dauntless to help keep your HP at max, and it also synergises with Desperate Defence and other cards that gain benefits from taking 0 damage while defending.

I was very tempted to take this route, but admittedly, I had already done a similar strategy with Black Panther when I first picked up the game and got the flow of what was going on and wanted to build my own custom deck. So I decided on the alternate approach. Instead of trying to protect Magnetic Bubble all game, the other way to maximise the power of the card is to try and soak multiple attacks with the card, and when it has 1 or 2 hits left, negate a big attack, and then use all of the recursion and search power Magneto has at his disposal, to play the card over and over again throughout the game. This goal shall be attained through the Aggression Aspect.

Looking for Trouble and Face the Past will force enemy engagements, while Toe to Toe forces enemy attacks. With Magnetic Bubble active, Toe to Toe becomes a 1 cost Attack which effectively deals 6 damage, if you include the retaliate from Magnetic Bubble; which will also negate the damage from the enemy attack, and therefore also bypass any pesky on damage effects those enemies have. That is tremendous value. The great thing about Toe to Toe is that it allows you to systematically calculate the damage Magnetic Bubble will be taking (unless used against the villain), so depending on what enemies are in play, you should hopefully be able to take multiple hits with Magnetic Bubble before it bursts.

Bring It and Hall of Heroes gives the deck excellent draw power. If Magnetic Bubble is my favourite card from Magneto, Wrapped in Metal takes a close second. With two enemies Wrapped in Metal, Bring It draws us 2 cards for free without any risk of retribution, which is insanely good. Magnetic Missile is a trap. This deck wants to wrap up two enemies and keep them around for the entire game, and then when we want to make a big damage push to defeat the villain, Magnetic Missiles become clutch for the endpoint. An interesting thing to note is if you wrap an enemy in metal and then go Toe to Toe against them, that enemy will still attack you as Wrapped in Metal will not prevent forced attacks.

The Neutral Aspect cards in this deck are mainly focussed around resource value and recursion. I believe Mutant Education at 3 is a must for Magneto, to help bolster his longevity between card cycles, and further helps recycle Magnetic Bubble. Metal Shards can be an excellent way of leaning into the ‘Protection’ Aspect strategy of keeping Magnetic Bubble alive, by giving Magneto a Tough status card. With Looking for Trouble pulling enemies into play, most will be within one-shot kill range of Metal Shards to trigger the toughness buff. With 3 Mutant Education alongside Magneto’s tool kit, you are going to have lots of opportunities to reuse your identity cards (arguably the best cards in your deck), multiple times each deck cycle, which is just going to dominate your opposition.

Weapon X acts as a pseudo secondary Magnetic Pull to further increase the consistency of searching out Magnetic Bubble and other kit. You must put the 1 damage from Weapon X onto Magnetic Bubble if it is active, but this can help you do the mathematics of getting maximum value out of the bubble. If the bubble has already sustained 5 damage, then breaking the bubble has no drawback, as the Retaliate effect would not have triggered anyway.

A lot of Magneto’s kit is quite expensive, which is why we run 3 copies of Gone Digging for potential extra resources, as well as cards like Deft Focus, X-Gene and The X Jet to further help reduce the cost of the cards we want to use. The Aggression aspect cards are all very cheap to play; 0 or 1 cost except for Hall of Heroes, and this meshes nicely with Magneto’s high costing Identity cards, allowing you to generate multiple big hits in a single turn through a combination of Toe to Toe, and Metal Shards for example.

I have deliberately opted not to run any allies in this deck for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I think allies on the whole are overpowered to the point where you are effectively lowering the difficulty of the scenario if you spam allies. Secondly, from a thematic perspective, I am playing Magneto as the stoic character, so therefore he fights alone. With the Aggression Aspect over Protection, I believe this fits Magneto’s character better also. Magneto is not the type of mutant who would defend others while they are being attacked. No. He would be on the front lines, drawing enemy fire by Looking for Trouble, and then going Toe to Toe to eliminate enemies, before they become a threat to others.

That concludes my Magneto deck profile. I hope you enjoyed the read.