The King of Ping Damage (Competitive + Coop Modes)

"I heard you like Ping damage?"

— King Ping

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Overview:

• Play Style: Classic leadership shenanigans + a lot of ping damage.
• Fun: High (ping, ping, ping).
• Difficulty: Medium (manage your deck, discard pile, and form changes).
• Power level: Strong (in Competitive AND in Coop).
• Recommended Player Count: 1-4 (better in solo because of HP scaling).
• Number of cards: 40 (nice!).

Concept:
Sometimes you just need non-attack ping damage to avoid triggering Retaliate X and "after you attack" responses, or to remove a Tough. And sometimes you just face the Captain Marvel leader, with her dreaded Energy Channel!

This deck has 10 sources of ping damage: your GIANT form response, 3 Army of Ants, Wasp, E.V.A, Kid Omega, Nick Fury, Squirrel Girl and Sunspot. Oh and you could argue for 2 Giant Stomps as well.

With all these, you can easily deal from 5 to 10 (sometimes more!) ping damage per turn (many instances of 1-3 non-attack damage).

Why it's especially good for Competitive Mode:

• It specifically counters Captain Marvel+Energy Channel! The strongest leader you can face by far if you ask me.
• It also does a lot against all other leaders, including the Intangible Vision (focus more on Giant Stomp and Giant Strength here, ping damage will take down minions every odd turns :) ).
• The Choosing Sides side scheme prevents you from dealing more than 2 damage from each attack. Good news, this deck bypass this! So you don't even need to take down this side scheme if you don't want to.
• You don't really need to ever go in alter-ego form.
• It can survive this stage 2B of the main scheme if you ever lost the stage 1. It will slow you down a bit, but you need some allies to stay in play for Strength In Numbers, while you can just be satisfied with "when enter" effects with others).
• It limits the discarding effects (allies, supports, upgrades) with cheap cards and Front Organization.
• It just destroys minions, toughs and retaliate x.

Again, it is made for Competitive mode, but still super good/fun in Coop! :)

How to play this deck / combos:

1. Early game

• Mulligan for Ant-Man's Helmet or Superpower Training, any ally (to fuel Strength In Numbers when you'll draw it), and Team-Building Exercise.
• Go to TINY form and stay there until you get your Helmet. Then try to change form at least once every turn to trigger the 1 ping damage. And don't forget to remove 1 threat when you come back in TINY form (like I did for a few turns hahahaha)!
• Try to tank the villain's attacks and heal with the Helmet. Don't hesitate to sacrifice minor allies.
• Use your Pym Particles to accelerate even more your setup or heal 2 if you really got hurt.
• Focus on playing all 3 Army of Ants asap (TBE will help!).
• Try to play either Front Organization or any cheap, non-necessary upgrade (Wrist Gauntlets and Giant Strength are perfect) to have something to discard to the bad encounter cards in competitive mode.
• Whenever you have time, play Fantomex (+ E.V.A) from your hand or discard pile with Make the Call.
• Stinger and Fantomex are amazing to draw cards with Strength In Numbers and accelerate your setup!
• You should have a minimum of 1+3+1 ping damage per turn.

2. Gameplay + combos

• Each turn, always try to: draw a lot until you get an additional form change, change form twice, trigger both hero responses, 3 Army of Ants, your Ant-Man's Helmet twice, and sometimes Giant Strength 2-to-4 times.
• It's worth keeping Strength In Numbers in hand between turns to ease your next turn!
• Black Panther finds you Make the Call if you want to summon a ping-damage dealer later (including Fantomex). Or a Strength In Numbers for extra acceleration.
• Kaluu is similar but can also get you a way to change form an extra time (Resize or Swarm Tactics).
• Stinger is just a battery for SiN.
• Kid Omega and Sunspot both really like Quincarrier and Clarity of Purpose.
• Nick Fury mainly draws you 3 early game but the extra 4 ping damage can be clutch!
• Wasp is best played while in GIANT form of course. Keeping her in play as long as possible is great for Swarm Tactics. She can be a great target for Make the Call.
• Superpower Training can get you 3 other upgrades if you already played your Helmet. Always useful.
• Front Organization is incredible to keep your Helmet or allies on line! It's still very good in coop, but see at the end if you want to replace it.
• "Avenge Me!" is great on expandable allies (all but Fantomex and Stinger). I wouldn't recommend more than 1 copy here.
• Each Strength In Numbers is 1 to 5 cards thanks to The Triskelion.
• Don't hesitate to overplay some allies when you reach the limit of 5. You're more interested in their enter effects.

Other cards to consider:

• Call for Backup can be nice to play Fantomex.
• Professor X is always good for solo.
• Extra copies of Make the Call would allow you to replay the perfect ping-damage ally for the situation. Plus it makes your deck a bit bigger, which isn't necessarily a bad thing in Competitive mode where encounter cards are very bad. It makes it harder to find your key pieces though.
• Plan B was decent but I often kept 1 Strength In Numbers in hand...
• Vivian is always super good in Competitive mode to get rid of terrible side schemes and minions! We're not playing a lot of Make the Call here though, and she doesn't do ping damage. Shoutout to @fluffyseaotter for opening my eyes on her competitive potential in leadership :)

Anyway, enjoy, have fun,
and don't forget to drop a like/fav, it's always appreciated :)