X-23 - Northern Honey

"I'm the last person who gets to lecture anyone about obsessive revenge." ~X-23

Player Count/Type : 1-4p / Johnny/Timmy
Power Level: Med
Complexity: Low
Key Cards: Grim Resolve, Northstar

"This deck shifts direction from the typical X-23 Protection archetype and uses a perfect defense strategy to trigger strong kickers while pressuring the villain with damage" ~D.M. Tip

The Usual

It's no secret by now that Protective Training works well with Honey Badger. Add a dash of Rogue to trigger Gabby again and you've got an additional ready each turn. We're bringing along Med Teams to keep everyone healthy, but we've opted to leave Game Time at home because we're not after an extreme amount of readies. Instead, we'll opt for some new items on the menu to smooth out the tempo.

New Menu Items

We're bringing some standard perfect defense cards, but focusing on those that don't ready us because we can already do that each phase when we take damage due to Living Weapon.

Well, how in tarnation does perfect defense and taking damage fit together? This is where Grim Resolve comes into play. When the villain attacks, we can exhaust to basic defend and use Grim Resolve to pay for one of 12 defense events. Its damage readies us and the event boosts our defense to block all of the villain's damage.

Sometimes you'll be facing hard hitting villains, or not have your defense boosting upgrades out. This is where Northstar shines. With Protective Training he's got a pool of 6 health to wipe out boost card damage. Because of the timing, you can decide if you need to use him to perfectly defend. If not, you can use him to soften the blows against other heroes in multiplayer.

The aforementioned defense upgrades, Armored Vest and Defensive Conditioning, are great to get in play and open you up to defending other players. Unflappable is also solid and leans into our strategy, so it's great to get out early.

Check, Please

Once you're built up, you can shred the villain with plinks of damage over time, as well as control the board state or provide additional kickers from defense events. The beauty here is that you no longer have to worry about your basic defense blocking all of the villain's damage when the boost card whiffs. If you dedicate Grim Resolve to defense events, you are guaranteed to pop back up.

Your Taunts can draw out a stunned villain, or make use of leftover defense events in hand and Northstar will keep damage to a minimum. For when you do need to flip, you can easily recover HP without exhausting with Angel's Aerie.

Besides that, go on the offense whenever you can with your Claws and extra basic activations.

May this deck find you well and help you explore the possibilities of X-23 in Protection a bit further. I had a ton of fun with it!

~Peace!