Dora Mariposa

DORA MARIPOSA

If you know me, you probably aren't surprised to see Psylocke deck with the new cards. But I was kinda shocked at just how well this works. Betsy has 3 things going for her that makes this really strong: Economy, Ally Boosting, and the X-Force trait.

Economy

The Dora Milaje are expensive to get set up, but Psylocke has one of the strongest economies in the game. She has 2 resource generators in play turn 1, which lets you easily play one of the allies or the support right away and still play another card after. You could even play 2 Dora Milaje cards on the first turn! She does only have a 4 hand size in hero form, but with her psi weapons she still has more resources than average. And with her great thwarting and access to confuse, she can easily flip down often for a 6 hand size. Doing this often will speed up your set up immensely.

Ally Boost

This deck is basically an Okoye voltron, so using Psychic Kicker to get extra activations from her adds a ton of burst damage/ thwart.

X-Force

Uncanny X-Force isn't a card I hear talked about all that much, but its absolutely one of the best cards in the game for ally focused decks. This not only gives extra thwart, which is hard to come by, it also helps keep your allies around longer as long as they are hitting side schemes.

This is particularly good with the Dora Milaje because we really do want them to stay in play all game, but we also need them to activate a lot.

Set Up

The set up here is Uncanny X-Force, the 4 Dora Milaje cards, and some upgrades for the allies. This whole process takes less time than you might think.

Okoye is the most important card. She is your main source of damage and thwart, but she can't do anything alone. Since she's the most expensive, you ideally want to get her in play with Call for Backup. Once you have her + Dora Milaje, you can start swinging with her. If you only have those 2 cards out, I recommend always to use Dora Milaje first, then activate with Okoye. Even though you don't heal any damage that first time, you are always activating with buffed stats

Ayo and Aneka have one main use, and that is to trigger Okoye's ability, which she will be using to pump up her own stats.

Upgrades

Try to play X-Force Recruit every time you draw it. You want 1 copy on each Dora Milaje ally, so that you can keep Uncanny X-Force online. The extra HP doesn't hurt either. Inspired and Reinforced Suit both go on Okoye, and any extra can go on whoever. We have Suit Up to find any allies and upgrades you still need, so no biggie if you can't play everything right away.

HP from upgrades, Dora Milaje heals, and Uncanny to prevent consequential will be enough to keep your team alive pretty long, but there often comes a point where they are all running low. Thats when you trigger Rally the Troops to heal them all back up.

Priorities and Strategy

Turn 1 you really want to get one of the Dora Milaje cards. You may have to discard some upgrades early, which is okay. There are duplicates of them, and they can be brought back with Suit Up anyway. Alternatively, Call for Backup or Build Support could be very strong opening plays.

Main targets for Build Support are Dora Milaje and Uncanny X-Force. The deck is a beast at thwarting, and X-Bunker and Mission Leader will further take advantage of that.

For the first few turns while you are setting up, you might have to take a few hits. You can block if needed, or just face tank it and flip down to heal.

Substitutions and Final Thoughts

If you are facing a lot of retaliate, like with MODOK, I would definitely suggest adding a Sidearm for Okoye. Feel free to add something like Professor X to help stay alive in the early game, but I felt that to be unnecessary. I didn't have any issues in my full run of expert S.H.I.E.L.D. box with this.

Overall, this deck runs really smooth. Build up is only a few turns, and then Okoye just turns into a complete monster, hitting for 7 Atk/THW, or more when you add Psychic Kicker. I had a ton of fun playing this one. Let me know what you think!