Turn the Tide, Vol 2: Klaw

Turn the Tide Vol 2: Klaw

I. Welcome to Turn the Tide!

Greetings all and welcome to Volume 2 of Turn the Tide! This is a series where I build decks designed to face off against a specific villain. The format for each volume will begin with an overview of the villain’s deck before transitioning to the hero deck I designed to defeat it. This series is a hobby and I don’t know how regularly I’ll be able to upload. However, I plan to upload this series on weeknight evenings (hopefully bi-weekly), US Eastern Standard Time. I’ll be aiming for Wednesday/Thursday, real life permitting. Unless stated otherwise, I am facing all villains on the Expert I difficulty, with their recommended mod sets.

In this volume, we’ll be facing off against Klaw. Klaw can be a rude awakening for players who are fresh from winning their tutorial match against Rhino. Whereas Rhino politely keeps the villain side of the board tidy, Klaw starts the game by sending a shipload of villainous nonsense directly to the players and he never lets up. The broad variety and sheer volume of dangers he poses to the heroes makes him a popular villain for deck testing even into the game’s seventh year. So, let’s dissect those dangers and build some decks to overcome him. And yep! That’s multiple decks. Klaw’s unique mechanic, I think, makes him a more complicated threat in multiplayer compared to the typical villain. His variety of threats also shows the clear benefits to multiple heroes specializing in different roles in multiplayer. I’ll discuss both decks in my write-up, but you can find the Colossus companion deck here.

Alright, that’s enough introductions. Let’s get to the decks!

II. Villain: Expert 1 Klaw

Mod Sets: Masters of Evil, Standard 1, Expert 1

Stats: 18/22 HP, 2/3 SCH, 1/2 ATK

Villain Card Effects:

• Klaw II: When Revealed: Search the encounter deck and discard pile for The "Immortal" Klaw and reveal it. Shuffle the encounter deck.

• Forced Interrupt: When Klaw attacks, give him 1 additional boost card for this activation.

• Klaw III: Toughness (This character enters play with a tough status card). Stun each hero

• Forced Interrupt: When Klaw attacks, give him 1 additional boost card for this activation.

Traits: Masters of Evil

Villain Schemes: 2 schemes, 6/8 threat, 1/1 escalation per player

Main Scheme Effects:

• 1A: When Revealed: Discard cards from the encounter deck until a minion is discarded. Put that minion into play engaged with the first player.

• 1B: Setup: Search the encounter deck for the Defense Network side scheme and reveal it. Shuffle the encounter deck. Advance to stage 1B.

• 2A: When Revealed: Discard cards from the encounter deck until a minion is discarded. Put that minion into play engaged with the first player. Advance to stage 2B

• 2B: If this stage is completed, the players lose the game.

Deck Stats (including mod sets and Standard1/Expert 1): 33 Cards

Boost icon distribution (0/1/2/3): 13/7/10/3

Avg Boost Icons/card: ~1.09

Boost Star Effect icons: 8

Deck Breakdown (Minions/Side Schemes/Treacheries/Attachments): 9/4/18/2

Minions: 2x Weapons Runner, 3x Armored Guard, 1x Radioactive Man, 1x Whirlwind, 1x Tiger Shark, 1x Melter

Side Schemes: 1x Defense Network, 1x Illegal Arms Factory, 1x The "Immortal" Klaw, 1x The Masters of Evil

Treacheries: 2x Klaw's Vengeance, 2x Sonic Boom, 2x Sound Manipulation, 2x Masters of Mayhem, 7x Standard 1, 3x Expert 1

Attachments: 1x Sonic Converter, 1x Solid-Sound Body

Cards of Note: 1x Sonic Converter, 2x Sonic Boom, 2x Klaw's Vengeance, 1x Illegal Arms Factory, 1x Radioactive Man, 1x Gang-Up

III. Villain Threat Overview

What Can Go Wrong: Klaw kicks off expert fast with two side schemes in play and a minion facing off against the first player and his deck keeps up the pressure, demanding quick responses from the players. You don’t need a rush deck to face Klaw, he doesn’t really scale over time, but you do need to put out many small fires before they have a chance to add up. Weapons Runners, Armored Guards, and The “Immortal” Klaw are easy to ignore when the board is otherwise clear and your heroes are healthy. Those small fires can put you in tight spots when a bigger threat like Radioactive Man or Illegal Arms Factory shows up and you suddenly don’t have enough tools to deal with all the villain shenanigans.

Klaw is also a bit harder to predict than your typical villain. His mechanic of getting two boost cards on each attack means Klaw II can hit anywhere between 1-7 damage, with the possibility of several boost effects further complicating play. Keeping track of everything is likely impractical, but you can (and should) keep an eye on the villain’s discard pile for your his most dangerous cards and cards with 3 boost icons. These are your loss conditions, and they may very a bit from turn to turn, but that should with the mental math.

Klaw’s double boosted attacks make many villain card-scrying options (ex: Blindfold) less effective as his attacks take up more cards. The mechanic also slightly complicates multiplayer as Klaw cycles through his deck faster, which means he gets acceleration icons more quickly and is more likely to cycle back to his most dangerous cards.

General Strategy Advice: Solo Marvel Champions is often about ensuring your single hero has answers to everything the villain can throw out and Klaw’s encounter deck embodies that. He can hit hard, he’s a fine schemer, he starts off with multiple threats on the board, he has side few schemes and minions you’d really rather not deal with, a lot small ones that can grow out of control, and his turns have a lot of variability.

That said, he has few answers to allies and chump blocking and he entirely lacks defenses against all three status cards. Cheap allies, with strong “when entering play” effects can give you a lot of tempo in both the player and villain phases. The Stun and Confuse statuses prevent Klaw from activating, slowing down the rate at which he deck cycles. Klaw has a good number of minions, meaning that minion slayers can get some extra value against him. Multiplayer lets the heroes divide up the threats and specialize in different parts of your counter-Klaw strategy, giving each player the deck space to bring more powerful options to the table. Let’s talk about a few of those options in the Hero Decks!

IV. Hero Decks: Gamora (Aggression) and Colossus (Protection)

Klaw demands the hero(es) deal with the many small fires he starts, have strong defensive answers to his high-ceiling attacks, AND still finding time and resources throw damage his way. It’s possible for one deck to do all of this, but it’s easier with two. Together, these decks seek to limit the number of times Klaw activates.

Gamora is the duo’s firefighter. Her many cheap events give her a lot of answers to Klaw’s nonsense. Gamora can clear out any side scheme in a single turn with her basic THW and a mental-boosted copy of For Justice! Guardians give her access to many cheap allies and Knowhere means she has the card draw to keep up the tempo while she sets up efficient blockers. Her deck isn’t designed for villain damage, but Mockingbird, 3x Drop Kick, and Psylocke give her ways to help control Klaw. The first two are also why I have 2x copies of The Power of Aggression but not Genius or Energy. My most expensive cards are Aggression cards and I want my Drop Kicks to fully proc even before both copies of Keen Instincts are in play.

This deck has one more trick. 2x Test the Defense is the deck’s secret sauce and turns Gamora’s attack events against minions into damage you can aim at the villain. Test the Defense is a slow card, but Gamora is already on minion duty, so Test the Defense gives those minion slaying cards additional value. With that in mind, all of the attack events I added to her deck, aside from the Drop Kicks, are 2 ER or less. Play those Turn the Tides!!

Colossus has the simpler job of face-tanking Klaw for the table, building up, and eventually hitting Klaw really hard. Ideally, Colossus never wants to exhaust himself to defend, either face-tanking with a Tough when Klaw attacks him or blocking with ally when he needs to defend Gamora. Otherwise, this is a Colossus Ready for a Fight deck with 3x Tackle and lots of re-readies and ways to recur his powerful hero cards. In my playthroughs, Colossus’ early turns were initially spent on defending and building up, with resources for little else. However, a fully set-up Colossus ends the game very quickly

V. Other Strategies and Conclusion

My villain discussion was more in-depth compared to Rhino’s and I have already covered a lot. Heros with natural access to statuses or that can naturally multitask will have strong fights against Klaw. Core Box heroes either have some combination of status access, abilities that give them resources on defending/taking damage, or ready access to damage and thwart. Winter Soldier seems like he would be good at controlling Klaw’s board. Jubilee can just ignore Klaw her with her statuses. Storm and Cyclops can flood the board with boosted allies. Lean into your hero’s strengths when determining ways to answer his challenges and you will likely win.

Thank you for reading and I hope this was helpful to some folks. Volume 3 will have us face off against the Core Box’s final villain, Ultron, a “minion-heavy” villain with only 3 minions in his encounter deck. I’ll have to think about how to handle him. : ) Until next time!