Black Widow - Core plus Four

Black Widow - Core plus Four

This deck only uses the Core box plus the following four packs / boxes:

• Black Widow
• Vision for Meditation and Chance Encounter
• Gambit for Dazzler, Professor X, and Breaking and Entering
• Sinister Motives for Agent 13, Monica Chang, Global Logistics, Homeland Intervention, and Sky-Destroyer.

This isn't a revolutionary deck by any means, I just wanted to see if I could build it with only four packs (plus core) so that it's beginner friendly (on the wallet at least)!

This deck falls into 2 archetypes:

• "Stay Down" (I don't know if that's what others call it, but it's what I call it), because you'll spend most of the game in Alter-Ego (having plenty of ways to remove or prevent threat even while in Alter-Ego) and only flip up occasionally. When you do flip up to hero you'll neuter much of the villain phase and / or punish the villain for having the nerve to attack you with your PREPARATION cards. Almost everything you do can be done in Alter-Ego!
• S.H.I.E.L.D., which is supported primarily (at the time of writing this, which is before the Agents of SHIELD box has released) by this Hero Pack (Black Widow) and the Sinister Motives box.

A Vision of what's to come

Meditation and Chance Encounter both come in the Vision Hero Pack, and both support this deck tremendously by providing powerful effects while allowing you to stay in Alter-Ego:

• You won't take a lot of damage because you're going to spend a lot of time in Alter-Ego, which means you're not going to rely on her Basic REC for healing. Since you're not exhausting to recover, Meditation is pretty valuable to pay for any card costing 3 or more, or even certain 2 cost cards (Breaking and Entering for example). On top of that, you're playing the card from your hand (just at a reduced cost), which Sky-Destroyer cares about. It's also basically a triple-resource which helps with economy, which is already good since you'll almost always be drawing 6 cards per turn!
• This deck doesn't rely on defeating Side Schemes to be powerful, but Chance Encounter gives you a bonus when a Side Scheme is defeated without caring about how it was defeated. Allies, Supports, Breaking and Entering, Covert Ops... whatever! It doesn't even care if you're where you want to be (Alter-Ego), because it's just an Interrupt! It adds an ally to your hand, so I like to have a Meditation when it triggers so I can play that ally right away.

A confusing Gambit?

Dazzler, Professor X (both from the Gambit Hero Pack), and Covert Ops will all Confuse the villain, but the deck also features a LOT of threat removal. So why so much Confuse? Because threat not placed is threat you don't need to remove!

Allies

You won't be defending with allies much because, again, you'll be in Alter-Ego a lot. So the allies are here to attack (mainly) or thwart, and in some cases provide another type of benefit:

• Agent 13 readies a S.H.I.E.L.D. Support when she attacks or thwarts, and every Support in this deck is S.H.I.E.L.D., which is the 1st reason Helicarrier is here rather than Quincarrier
• Agent Coulson finds Counterintelligence, which is kind of like a mini-Confuse
• Dazzler confuses then has 3 Attacks / Thwarts of 2 each
• Monica Chang "plays" and pumps Surveillance Teams
• Nick Fury draws 3 cards OR can single-handedly take out a 6 HP minion. Because you're in Alter-Ego a lot though, he won't get to block for you very often.
• Professor X confuses and removes 3 threat, which will clear most side schemes in solo play. Like Nick, he won't get to block for you very often!
• Quake can help knock out minions just by waiting for them to scheme.
• Winter Soldier will often come in for free and do a lot of work for you (4 attacks / thwarts of 2 each)

You could also run Mockingbird if you need a Stun, but as mentioned above, the villain should be pretty well neutered when you decide to flip up!

Minions

You allies will do a lot of the heavy-lifting when it comes to minions until (unless) you flip up to Hero form, but Sky-Destroyer will provide a lot of damage over the course of the game if you can get it in early.

S.H.I.E.L.D. cards which will trigger Sky-Destroyer:

• Agent 13, who also readies it, so she's a valuable ally to prioritize!
• Agent Coulson
• Monica Chang
• Nick Fury
• Quake
• Global Logistics - Set up the Encounter deck so you know what's coming. You don't want a minion right now? Make sure it's discarded or deeper into the encounter deck. Exhaustion (my BANE) or Advance is going to be your encounter card? Nah! Want that 0 (or 3) boost when the villain attacks? Make it so! A mistake I've made a few times is forgetting to take into account that the villain is confused (and thus won't get a Boost Card), or if I'm about to deck out and get an extra encounter card, so think about those things when you're stacking the deck!
• Homeland Intervention - Exhaust your Surveillance Teams so they remove 2 threat instead of 1 without losing a counter!
• Helicarrier (the 2nd reason to run this over Quincarrier)
• Safe House #29
• Sky-Destroyer (Yes, it will trigger itself when you play it!)
• Surveillance Team (but not if Monica Chang puts it into play)

Alter-Ego

There are only a few cards which require you to be in Hero form to take advantage of:

• Dance of Death
• Black Widow's PREPARATION Upgrades:
  • Attacrobatics
  • Grappling Hook
  • Widow's Bite
• Synth-Suit

Everything else can be done while in Alter-Ego! This also applies to a card which is NOT in the deck but could be because it comes in the Black Widow Hero Pack - Quincarrier - which requires you to be an AVENGER (i.e. in Hero Form) to play. This is the 3rd reason to run Helicarrier over Quincarrier!