Spider-Man - "Sawbones is READY!"

"And I wish I could tell you that time heals. Unfortunately, I can't... ...but you do learn how to live with the pain" ~Spider-Man

Player Count/Type : 3-4p /  Mixed
Power Level: Med
Fun: High
Key Cards: Ready for a Fight, Aunt May, Dr. Sinclair

"With this deck, Spider-Man is ready to take hits for the team, provide healing support, and excel against villains with piercing attacks or indirect damage" ~D.M. Tip

"Sawbones is READY!"

With the release of Silk this past year, we got some fantastic Protection gems in Dr. Sinclair and Ready for a Fight. While these new-ish cards are solid for many heroes, there are some particular synergies with Spider-Man that are worth noting, namely Scientist + Dr. Sinclair and Aunt May.

The general idea of this deck is to defend the table, but not worry so much about taking damage because of your ability to heal in Alter-Ego and get right back into the Fight ASAP. This concept isn't anything new, but adding Defensive Conditioning and Cuts Both Ways enable the idea of HP tanking with Peter and push it over the top.

Support Staff

Crew Quarters, Med Team, and The Night Nurse offer some flexible healing/support. Combined with Aunt May and Dr. Sinclair, you've got a health recovery powerhouse that can help keep you going while you take hits for the table. Hidden Base offers an additional layer of protection and synergizes with flipping to AE regularly.

Upgrade Your Med Kit

Endurance and Defensive Conditioning are clutch to reach a boosted health pool. They give you breathing room to take hits and reduce overhealing when recovering. Because we don't need the added defense from Armored Vest, we left it at home.

Ingenuity and Quincarrier are solid in the early game to build your board state. Even though we aren't aiming for a perfect defense strategy, its fairly easy to block at least one full attack per turn to trigger Unflappable.

Electrostatic Armor and Web-Shooter round our our Med Kit, giving us some teeth to fight back and resource flexibility to pay for Ready for a Fight. Sideboard:

Swing Into Action

We've got several defense events to protect the table, each working a little different.

• "I Can Do This All Day" draws another player's attack to you, and cutting the damage down by 3 or 4.
• Desperate Defense requires your basic defense, but has the best chance of triggering Unflappable and readies you up for another basic defense.
• Backflip just says, "Nope" and pairs really well with Taunt.
• Cuts Both Ways is another solid option to draw attacks to you and spike damage back to your enemies on the cheap.

Peter's Bedside-board and Patient Notes

• Angel's Aerie is great to bring in for high damage scenarios where it's more challenging to protect the team. Use it to fully heal and leave Dr. Sinclair more open to other players that need to flip down.
• If your team is lacking in the damage department, don't ignore your Swinging Web Kicks.
• In some scenarios, you may not need Hidden Base, as cool/synergistic as it is. You have tons of healing without it, so feel free to sub it for another Desperate Defense or Practiced Plan.
• Remember that you can use Crew Quarters to heal another alter-ego when you flip down, so coordinate accordingly
• Throw in an extra Med Team if teaming up with players using ally swarms or voltron archetypes.

I hope you have a ton of fun if you try this out. It feels really thematic for Peter to get beat up saving everyone and then find the strength to push through.

Peace!