Become The Impostor!

Everything is going swimmingly for the villain. Well, that's not quite true. There have been some annoying setbacks here and there. Delays in their plans, things just going wrong. Coincidences though, surely.

Those pesky Avengers still know nothing. Oh yes, the villain has been one step ahead of the Avengers this whole time.

And that's in large part because of you, their trusted advisor, helping to set all their masterful schemes into motion.

And yes, some of their other minions have said you've been different lately. But what do they know? Most of them have suffered mysterious accidents, taken multiple arrows to the knees or got beat up by this “Sentry” guy you've been hearing about.

With you at their side, what could possibly go wrong???

—

What indeed?

It's been said that the best thing you can do in Marvel Champions is draw cards. It's also been said that the best basic stat to have is thwart.

So naturally, we are going to do both of those things. A lot.

For this deck, you are going to want to go into Imitation Shape and stay that way for the whole game.

Well, not the whole game. You will need to use your other shapes later. But for most of the game, you are going to want to stay in Imitation Shape in order to take advantage of its thwarting and card draw.

See, Hulkling actually has insane economy in his Imitation Shape, which can give you a card draw practically every turn. His alter-ego only has a hand size of 5, but with an ability that lets you search your deck and discard pile for a double resource.

And that is how we are going to think of all of the other shapes for now. All the Shapes that aren't Imitation Shape are not forms that you will change into. They are double resources to help you play your supports, upgrades and allies. That's the only thing they need to be for you right now.

Because this is the other thing about this deck. You may have heard of aggression decks built around allies being called red leadership. Well, this is a yellow leadership deck. You will not be using your allies for blocking attacks against you though. Instead, they have a much more vital role in your arsenal.

It's time to talk about Earth's Mightiest Heroes.

This is a 0-cost basic event that readies your hero in exchange for exhausting one ally.

This is pretty good value for most Avengers decks. But it is great value for a hero with 3 thwart. And this deck is designed so that number will climb. Early game, EMH readies you to thwart 3. But you will quickly play cards like Heroic Intuition and Heroic Conditioning that will boost your thwart to 5. And soon to 6 with your Specialized Training.

Now that mild value you were getting before from Earth's Mightiest Heroes is insane value. For the low cost of 1 ER, you can thwart 6 from a scheme. AND trigger Hulkling's shape ability. You can also use Overwatch , another 0-cost card, to thwart a second scheme when you thwart one. All in all, that's 5 0-cost cards in your deck that double your basic thwart.

So that's what this deck is about. You are hiding amongst the villain ranks, using One Way or Another to "help" the villain achieve their goals, never being attacked because the villain trusts you completely, while using a small select group of Avengers to help you shut down their schemes.

But how do you actually play it?

Stage 1: Building Your Forces

The first thing you need to do is use your alter ego ability to find your Imitation Shape. The first turn is going to be the most restrictive for your economy because you do have this requirement of needing to play this 3-ER card before you can even get going.

Once this is out, your next priority is going to be getting out some allies, as well as Heroic Intuition and Heroic Conditioning.

Use of One Way or Another if you get it in your opening hand is heavily advised. Especially if it's the only cheap event you have access to that can trigger your Imitation Shape ability (because drawing four cards is always nice). It's also, frankly, just part of the fantasy of this deck. You're undercover, a mole in the villain's organization. Of course you will be hand picking their schemes for them while secretly sabotaging them.

And your economic supports are also important, of course. Avengers Mansion played early will definitely pay for itself over the course of the game. And I think card draw is even more important in this deck where you really want to quickly be cycling through to replay Earth's Mightiest Heroes as much as possible. Skilled Investigator is also incredible, being guaranteed to pay for itself many times over in this deck.

In order to quickly achieve your setup, you are going to want to bounce between hero and alter-ego forms every single turn. In alter-ego form, you will add one of your form upgrades to your hand from your discard pile or from your deck if your discard pile is empty. This means that by default, you will have 8-ER to work with every turn you play an event, even before factoring in other upgrades.

It also goes without saying that you should try to manage whatever the villain is setting up at the same time.

Hope for the best. Prepare for the Worst

In true solo, things can go very badly very quickly. The villain can be at 0 threat on the main scheme and then get a couple cards causing them to scheme, or dropping threat on it. This is why you'll want to play Under Surveillance and Counterintelligence. Neither of these are cards that do anything on their own, but when the villain crosses that line due to surprise thwarts, you'll be glad you played them.

In multiplayer though, where these sorts of perfect turns for the villain are much less likely, these can usually be safely removed to help streamline the deck.

Stage 2: Becoming more overt

Now that you're mostly set up, you're going to get more turns where you have a full board of allies, where you've played everything in your hand worth playing, and you still have form cards and doubles resources without much to do with them. So NOW you can start playing those other form cards, even if it's only for the free readies. I'm not going to tell you not to take advantage of what you got when you got it.

I mean, if you have a double resource, Winged Shape and Assess the Situation, those can thwart you an extra 7 that turn when you have all your thwart upgrades.

I do think you should try your best when you do this to either go alter-ego or switch back to Imitation Shape... if only so you can have the bragging rights by the end of the game that the villain never attacked you. There is a certain fun in feeling like you brought down the villain without ever being discovered.

But well... if you needed to take a hit, you definitely could. With the Conditioning upgrade, Hulkling will have 16 hit points. If you played Altman Residence, that's a solid 2 healing every turn as long as you continue jumping between alter-ego and hero forms.

I'm just saying that you won't unlock the secret achievement if the villain attacks you.

Stage 3: Go All Out

When you think you're set up enough, hit the bad guy with everything you've got. No reason to hold anything back now. Go Hulk Shape to attack, use Earth's Mightiest Heroes to ready yourself for multiple attacks in the Hulk form, hit the villain with Sentry, use your Shapeshifter Strikes to deal 7 damage a pop. When you go alter-ego, Use Altman Residence to keep cycling Shapeshifter Strike and Wiccan (to snag Shapeshifter Strike) back into your deck.

For all the things this deck is good at, it's not great at quick kills. But this is a case where slow and steady will win the race.

Meet The Team

Each ally is specially chosen to assist you on your mission.

Yellow Jacket - Very useful for getting upgrades into play. Even once most of your upgrades are in play, remember Shapes are upgrades too, so he still has a chance of snagging those double resources for you.

Blade - One of the cheapest Avengers in the game. He can be useful for helping take out annoying minion when you need just a little extra damage on them, but admittedly there are not many physical resources in the deck to use him as intended. His real purpose is to just be a cheap body you can use to ready yourself with EMH.

Hawkeye - Absolutely incredible value of a minion killer in Justice, dealing a total of 8 damage as long as you have your other allies thwarting. And if no minions are in play, you can save those arrows as long as you need them, then instantly drop the next minion that dares show their face.

Quake - Another ally that wants to stay on the board. She can deal 2 damage to any minion that schemes against you without taking consequential damage. This might seem like it wouldn't happen often, but remember that Quickstrike is going to trigger automatic schemes while you're in Imitation Shape in hero form. And sometimes, you just can't deal with a minion as fast as you'd like. Especially in a Justice deck focused on thwarting.

Sentry - One more minion killer. This absolute power house is not to be messed with. With 3 ATK and 5 HP, he's dealing a whopping 15 damage across 5 turns. The cost of this is finding a side scheme that will let you draw a card with Skilled Investigator, or putting 6 on the main scheme that can be cleared with a single activation when you're fully set up.

And last but not least is the ever-reliable Wiccan. Wiccan needs no introduction. You play Wiccan, and you can search for any of your identity-specific events. He can help you find Shapeshifter Strike if you need to deal more damage, Impersonation if you need to thwart more, or Shapeshifter if you just want to find one of your double resources which also basically makes Wiccan free. A 3-ER ally who can fetch a double resource is insane. Especially if you're using Avengers Tower to pay for him. And he's always down to use his magic to help guide Hawkeye's arrows.

For a yellow leadership deck built around allies, the ally count might seem low. But each one was specifically chosen to fulfill a vital purpose. And understanding those purposes will be important for when you use your wildcard, Chance Encounter. Attach this to a side scheme and complete it to search your deck for any of your allies to get exactly what you need. Or there's your other wild card, Evaluate Threat, but you do only get that once so I'd advise using it for Avengers Tower or Avengers Mansion in the early game if you can.

Adjusting strategy at Different Player Counts:

1. As I said before, you can remove Under Surveillance and Counterintelligence to make your deck more efficient in multiplayer since schemes are less likely to go from 0 to complete due to bad luck.

2. One Way Or Another becomes more hazardous as there are more players added. You can still clear most schemes pretty easily with this deck, but schemes that previously took a single activation to clear may now take a couple.

3. In solo, you will never use your allies to chump block. In multiplayer, you may find this is a good use for them to protect your teammates. Wiccan and Yellow Jacket are both expendable after the first use. Hawkeye is expendable after his arrows are depleted. Just try to have a couple allies out at all times to ready them with EMH.

4. Evaluate Threat lets every player search for a SHIELD or Avenger card to add to their hand. If other players aren't running Avenger or SHIELD cards, suggest adding Avengers Mansion and/or Helicarrier to their decks, as both of these are generic cards that any deck can benefit from having in play.

5. Finally, if there's a Leadership player, make sure to give them Mission Leader. Letting every player at the table draw when a side scheme is completed helps make up a lot for any extra hassle caused by One Way or Another.

And that, my pupil, is the last of what I can teach you! Happy infiltrating!