The Sisterhood of the Traveling Jean's

Episode 89 of The Winning Hand focused on Strength in Diversity - a great intersection between a powerful card, and a card that is fascinating to build around.

If you want to hear more of me being effusive about a flexible damage/thwart event, please check out the podcast episode! I'm hoping to get some gameplay of this deck up on my channel, The Crash Space, in the near future.

When building this deck, I set out to see what was the biggest Strength in Diversity one could fire in solo play. I’d like to think I found it - this deck can pull off a 15 ‘power’ Strength in Diversity, regardless of the scenario/encounter sets we’re playing against.

(If you can figure out how to reach 16+, I’d love to hear it.)

I also wanted to make sure that the deck was functional, outside of exclusively firing massive Strength in Diversities, while still setting up smoothly towards the Strength in Diversity endgame.

So here’s a quick run down of the decisions that got us here:

• Phoenix

• Phoenix is a perfect home for Strength in Diversity. Not only do we have 3 base thwart to keep afloat, not only do we start with a wild generator for consistent setups, but most importantly we start the game with three traits - Psionic, X-Men, and Restrained. Being an X-Men allows us to play Children of the Atom gaining 2 more traits - X-Factor and X-Force - without spending a valuable ally slot. Her kit also allows her to gain Aerial, which isn’t particularly difficult to do with Allies, and her Mind Control upgrade allows her to snatch some encounter set traits (we’re not going to rely on that).

- Our Allies

• Black Panther

• Avenger and Wakanda both have overlap within the list, but Black Panther's ability to recur our key event is incredibly valuable.

• Kaluu and Atlas Bear

• Double traited allies that allow us to dig for either of our two strengths is perfect. (Avenger, Mystic, Posse, and Wakanda)

• Hugin & Munin and Vivian (and Blade)

• These characters are simply “trait bombs”. While they are both easy to play while having good text boxes, they allow us to hit a 6 power Strength in Diversity as soon as turn one, which is awesome. Blade is also really easy to play, and has a rare trait. (Aerial, Asgard, Bird, Android, Champion, Avenger, and Vampire)

• Slingshot and Grant Ward

• Both of our S.H.I.E.L.D. Spies have overlapping traits, but they’re both incredibly easy to play. Phoenix Force keeps Slingshot bouncing around every turn, and equally Phoenix Force can keep an eye on the somewhat unreliable Grant.

• New Recruits

• A slotless ally brings us the unique New trait, and Bling! adds some valuable survivability.

• Strength In Numbers

• The second ’strength’ of our deck allows us to dig for our first ‘strength’. We want to keep our allies around, so exhausting our team for card draw value is a great deal.

• The Triskelion

• We’re going to need all the slots we can get.

With all that said, our 15 power Strength in Diversity should look something like this (there are a couple variations):

• Phoenix (with Children of the Atom) - Psionic, X-Men, Restrained, X-Factor and X-Force (5)
• Hugin & Munin - Aerial, Asgard, and Bird (+3 = 8)
• Slingshot - S.H.I.E.L.D. and Spy (+2 = 10)
• Kaluu - Avenger and Mystic (+2 = 12)
• Atlas Bear - Posse and Wakanda (+2 = 14)
• Bling! - New (and redundant X-Men) (+1 = 15)

Despite being mostly an academic exercise, this deck is really good. As someone who mostly plays true solo, this has ripped through everything I have put it up against. While I’ll admit I haven’t yet tested some of the most difficult scenarios Champions has to offer, Strength in Diversity is a pretty absurd card even at 5-6 traits.

(I could not tell you what half of Phoenix’s cards do. You don’t often play them…)

Huge thanks to @boomguy and @LazyTitan for having me on as a guest!

P.S. Thanks to my good friend Pat for the deck name.