Rip and Tear! (Family Outing)

This is all about jumping in and shredding through any opposition that stands in your way.

You will be using your own health as your main resource (because almost half your cards are free) and seeking to fight the villain in close quarters with no regard for your own safety. But don't worry! Your sister and adoptive father have got your back!

The game plan:

Suit Up Get your upgrades out whenever you can. The order of importance is:

Pain Tolerance keeps you alive. Though it may not seem like much, this incremental healing accounts for roughly half of all life you gain in hero form.

Adamantium Lacing the piercing is the most important aspect of this. Toughness stops you in your tracks and with this almost every attack will be going to the villain in the endgame. The retaliate is also good for setting up large overkill attacks for Moment of Triumph on weaker minions.

Grim Resolve a cheap resource generator and the lowest cost method of readying yourself if you didn't take enough damage from an attack. Remember this is usable in the villain phase as well if you choose to put a card in your deck that you can use then.

Symbiote Suit I believe X-23 is the best user of the suit. You will likely use all 3 stats in one round, the 10hp acts as both a health cushion and as resources for damage, the extra card can also just be +2 damage on its own. Really, if you're not playing the suit in X-23, where are you playing it?

Stay Alive This is the number one objective. Your health is your source of damage, thwarting, and money. Don't take more risks than necessary.

As noted already Pain Tolerance helps a lot, but you also have Regenerative Longevity. Always, ALWAYS play Regenerative Longevity when it is in your hand unless you are at full health (which you will likely never be after the opening hand). With Grim Resolve this is 5hp for 2er.

Moment of Triumph while difficult to always have a good target, this is your other source of burst healing. If there is a minion, and this is in your hand, try to maximize the damage as much as possible, even if you don't have overkill.

Do not be afraid to flip down. Any tempo lost from going to alter-ego will probably be regained by one Animal Instinct.

Health is more important for X-23 than most other heroes.

Let the Blood Flow You will likely get at least 2 activations every turn. Use them however you want, but most of the time you will be attacking.

Toe to Toe is here in case you need to kill a minion but don't want to spend your activation on it. The received attack can also ready you if you don't plan on using your claws.

Blood Rage gives you more cards to play, and readies you if you haven't already.

Hand Cannon pumps your numbers even higher and more importantly gives you overkill when you don't have Claw Mastery so that your big numbers aren't wasted. Get it when you need it with Lock and Load. It is also a great use for those unworthy of getting your claws dirty.

Rely on your Family

Honey Badger is probably your best card alongside Pain Tolerance which is probably why these are the most expensive cards in your hero kit at .... 2 resources each! The extra ready is invaluable, and once you get Attack Training you will be able to use Game Time for even more readies in a turn. This will be how you typically close out games.

Wolverine is here as insurance. I've had very unlucky games where Adamantium Lacing was milled repeatedly or I needed to stall a scheme while fishing for Animal Instinct. Our adoptive father helps with both by being able to attack for 3 every other turn or thwart 1 every turn for free. He is also a perfect target for the same upgrades that we put on Honey Badger, meaning that including him increases the utility of those cards by extension.

If you ever get both Symbiote Suit and Wolverine out you will win the game. This isn't likely as your others cards have such high efficiency that spending them for these two doesn't seem like its worth it, but these are both permanent improvements that greatly increase our ceiling. This is all to say that if you only drew events in your opening hand alongside one of these, do not be afraid of throwing them all away for either one. Both of them will set you up to easily win the rest of the game.

A fully built out, perfect draw and perfectly sequenced turn, will see us sitting at 25 max hp, 3 THW, 8 ATK, 3 DEF, and having done 70 damage.

Card replacements.

If you're looking to include other cards, maybe more defense or thwart event like Smash the Problem, or more allies like Sunfire, or perhaps the modular sets that you're using make some cards less efficient feel free to cut the cards below to make room.

Toe to Toe depending on how much damage the villain and minions do, there might not be a good opportunity to play this. You definitely don't want to be giving free attacks to those with an infinity gauntlet.

Blood Rage You need minions to be able to use this, and you need to basic attack them, meaning there is some anti-synergy between this and Toe to Toe.

Wolverine I get it. He's expensive. If all you need is someone to ping toughs or thwart 1 per turn (and you don't care for your family), you can grab Bug.