Turn the Tide, Vol 4: Core Box Mod Sets

Turn the Tide Vol 4: Core Box Mod Sets

I. Welcome to Volume 4 of Turn the Tide!

Greetings all and welcome to Volume 4 of Turn the Tide! This is a series where I build decks designed to face off against a specific villain…or mod sets! 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 looking at the two encounter mod sets that come with core box but are not specifically featured in any of the “vanilla” villain scenarios. These are “The Doomsday Chair” (TDC) and “Legions of Hydra” (LoH). While not villains in their own right, these are challenging mod sets that can significantly alter how you play against a villain. 5-8 cards can make an important difference in a villain’s encounter deck and require a different strategy to overcome.

The format will be a little different this time. Section II, where I normally focus on the Villain deck, will instead just have data on the two new mod sets. The Winter Soldier deck I made was tested against Expert 1 Klaw, with the Masters of Evil mod set swapped out for both TDC and LoH. I’ve already had a volume focused on Klaw and I don’t want to just repeat myself, so I’ll be focusing the specific card discussion on the two new mod sets. That said, I will make references to Klaw, as a point of a comparison and as a way to discuss how switching out mod sets can affect a villain deck. Let me know if a different format would be more useful.

As always, I welcome reader strategies on you've dealt with these encounter decks. I always enjoy reading the solutions others have developed.

That’s enough preamble. Let’s talk mod sets!

II. Core Box Mod Sets: The Doomsday Chair and Legions of Hydra

Deck Stats:

• TDC: 6 cards
• LoH 6 cards

Boost icon distribution (0/1/2/3):

• TDC: 0/3/1/2
• LoH: 0/0/4/2

Avg Boost Icons/card:

• TDC: 1.83
• LoH: 2.33

Boost Star Effect icons:

• TDC: 0
• LoH: 0

Deck Breakdown (Minions/Side Schemes/Treacheries/Attachments):

The Doomsday Chair: 1/2/0/3

Minions: 1x M.O.D.O.K.

Side Schemes: 2x The Doomsday Chair

Attachments: 3x Biomechanical Upgrades

Cards of Note: Honestly, all of them, with Biomechanical Upgrades varying the most based on the minions you’re facing.

Legions of Hydra: 4/2/0/0

Minions: 1x Madame Hydra, 3x Hydra Soldier

Side Schemes: 2x Legions of Hydra

Cards of Note: All of them. This whole deck is bad news, though the Legions of Hydra Side Schemes are the scariest cards of the bunch.

III. Mod Set Threat Overview

What Can Go Wrong? These two mod sets share some key similarities. They are based around a side scheme that pulls a challenging elite minion from the encounter deck, while also increasing the villain’s attack and scheme numbers. Other cards in the two mod sets either give the minion greater or the side scheme greater resiliency (TDC and LoH, respectively). In both mod sets, the elite minion and side scheme are frustrating enough that players will want to react to them quickly, challenging their ability to deal with them and the villain, simultaneously. I think Legions of Hydra is the more dangerous of the two mods, with the side scheme and Madame Hydra minion mutually supporting each other. The Hydra Soldier minions, while less capable on their own, each have a forced response of dealing the defeating player an encounter card, giving the player more problems. They also have the guard keyword, so you rarely have the option of simply ignoring them.

The Doomsday Chair, presents its own challenges, even if it isn’t as self-sufficient as LoH. M.O.D.O.K. is a beefy minion with 2 ATK, 2 SCH, and 2 retaliate, and the biomechanical upgrades mean there is a good chance he may stick around for a while, chipping away at your health and obliterating allies as you attack him.

Against Klaw, I noticed bigger swings, especially on his attacks (lots of 5, 6, or 7 damage attacks), but his turns were “shorter” and simpler with fewer boost effects. Klaw’s design give him punishing villain turns that don’t really interact much with the player beyond doling out damage and placing threat on the main scheme. These mod sets mostly fit that pattern, though the Hydra Soldiers add the wrinkle of facing encounter cards during the player phase, after you defeat them. I expect this dynamic would fit with most villains. More dangerous, but linear, villain activations; with the villain getting powerful minions providing them board control.

General Strategy: There two fundamental ways of dealing with these mod sets. 1. You build to efficiently clear them from the table or 2. You build to neutralize them without clearing them. Clearing a table is the simpler of the two, and most hero decks have the tools to do this, it’s just a matter of drawing into them. The virtue of the second strategy is a neutralized villain card remains on the board and the villain can’t draw it again as either a fresh threat or a boost cared.

The first strategy will want ready access to a combination of either “villain” damage cards and/or attacks with the ranged keyword. High damage cards can clear minions quickly and the range keyword will protect you, and your allies from retaliate. Sidearm is great for this. Cards or abilities that deal damage without being an attack or discard minions or blank their text boxes can help a lot. Think Plasma Pistol for the former and Wrapped in Metal for the latter. Either way, you’ll want thwart and a lot of it. The Doomsday Chair side scheme begins with a massive 8 threat. Legions of Hydra effectively starts with 5 threat and can go even higher. You’ll want to thwart both of those down as soon they turn up. Allies are naturally great at this, but having other consistent thwart options will help too.

Lastly, cards which let you scry or otherwise manipulate the villain deck (or encounter phase!) will give you some control over which nasty cards you face and when. Avoiding one nasty Legions of Hydra side scheme or trigger it as a boost card instead, can be the difference between having a tough turn and losing the game.

IV. Hero Deck: Winter Soldier (Protection)

The LoH and TDC mod sets complicate your turns with more threatening villain activations and by placing enduring minions and side schemes on the table. Most minions and side schemes, in solo play, can be cleared with 2-3 ER worth of effort, but these two demand more and that takes away from resources you need to fight villain.

This deck seeks to overcome that by hitting the elite minions with a Pinned Down that lets us effectively ignore them for the rest of game while we’re in hero form. -2 ATK perfectly negates Madame Hydra’s and M.O.D.O.K.’s minions, and neither the mod sets nor Klaw’s deck provides any bonus to minion damage. This strategy works especially well against TDC, since we’ll be more than happy to give M.O.D.O.K. biomechanical upgrades, since we have no plans to actually defeat him. Madame Hydra is similarly negated. Her effectively permanent presence on the board means she’ll add threat to the Legions of Hydra side scheme, but that side scheme puts her into play anyway. She may as well have 0 ATK.

Klaw’s deck has several minions we’ll need to defeat and LoH adds 3x Hydra Soldiers. This gives us a partial answer to a thwarting need, since Bucky thwarts for 2 every time he defeats an enemy. Hard Knocks and Tackles give him firepower against minions and villains (respectively) and the toughs and stuns protect him from Klaw’s attack. Bucky’s Cybernetic Arm helps him pay for these and helps him deal damage to clear all the non-elite minions. Winter Rifle effectively gives Bucky 4 ATK, giving his basic attack the ability to one-shot any non-elite minion. Bucky has some confuse in his kit, but this deck wants to be scrappy on the hero. Use your events to defeat basic minions as they come, have a defensive answer for the villain’s attack, and damage the villain.

Bucky allies pull a lot of weight. Jocasta gives effectively two defenses by holding an Arm Block and chump blocking after thwarting for 2. Victor Mancha can block a stray minion or take a few hits from an elite minion before you Pin them Down. Daredevil can ping toughs and damage minions before you get the Rifle. He can also effectively heal by blocking a Pinned minion, if there’s nothing else for him to do. Spider-Byte adds some much-needed thwart to the deck, and Bucky comes with two tech cards, giving her a mere 2 ER cost.

Gambit gives this deck a touch of deck manipulation, letting us scry the top three cards of the encounter deck and tuck one under him. The side schemes in both mod sets are 3 stars, making them great targets to give to Gambit, if you draw them. Denying the villain a nasty card and make Gambit a 3ATK/3THW ally is always a great play.

V. Side Decks and Alternate Strategies

Alternate Hero Ideas: Heroes that can manipulate the villain deck will have strong options against these mod sets. Falcon is a natural fit with his Eagle-Eyed hero ability and hero cards that turn cards with big boost values against the villain. Cable can permanently remove a villain side scheme with Forced Amnesia. Black Widow has many upgrades to react to a villain’s encounter card. Peter Parker’s Enhanced Spider-Sense gives lets him avoid treacheries, making Hydra Soldiers less threatening. Scarlet Witch’s many event cards can also turn the encounter deck against the villain or avoid tricky cards.

Other Deck Strategies: All the aspects and basic can contribute to a defeat or neutralize strategy. SHIELD cards, in and out of justice, provide a lot of options. Melinda May gives you a capable 2/2 ally with encounter deck manipulation, Homeland Intervention gives big thwart from the scary schemes, and Global Logistics gives you great villain and hero deck control. Blindfold while not SHIELD, can also scry. Not least of all, Justice has The Raft, where you can simply park a villain after defeating them once.

Bucky has some silly anti-synergy with protection. This deck would love the protection Black Widow ally in this match, but Black Widow is already in his hero kit, so he can’t use this card. She’s great in other decks and will help against Hydra Soldiers. The Magik ally, in aggression, shuffle a non-elite minion back into the encounter deck, removing it from the board without defeating it.

VI. Conclusion

The Core Box is home to a couple of tricky mod sets you can fit into any scenario. Both sets feature elite minions and bulky side schemes that are sure to shake up a standard encounter deck. Just remember you don’t need to directly defeat these encounter cards to overcome them. Stay flexible in your thinking, deck-building, and play and you can find answers to even these challenging questions mod encounters. My replay through the Core Box on Expert has hammered home the value of playing to the villain deck’s weaknesses and using it as a resource when I can. I am sure those lessons will be valuable as we move past the Core Box.

Speaking of, this deck marks the definitive end of the Core Box as we have covered all of the box’s villains and mod sets. Unfortunately, I have neither the Rise of Red Skull nor Wrecking Crew expansions, so I will not be covering those scenarios. Instead, I’ll be moving to The Green Goblin expansion. Join me next time as I question my hobby decisions as I build a deck to defeat Risky Business… on Expert II.

Until next time and thanks for reading!