Spider-Man: Protect the Neighbourhood

One of the main characteristics of Spider-Man to me is the ability to repeatedly getting punched and yet still jumping back on his feet to counterattack. This deck is centered on this idea, using the cards I have to build a Spider-Man who is supposed to take a lot of punches and react to that.

The more you hit me, the more I draw

With this deck, you will draw a lot of cards. The hero ability of Spider-Man allows you to draw a card every time the villain attacks you, which also means, for instance, that Taunt - a very thematic card for the constant mocking attitude of Spidey - will let you draw four cards! If that's not enough, friends will help you drawing even more with the help of Avengers Mansion, Nick Fury and Black Cat or Moon Girl, who are almost always a guaranteed 2/3 cards drawing as you have a ton of mental resources among your cards (in the case of Moon Girl this extends to your alter-ego ability, Ingenuity and the wilds coming Quincarrier).

But I still getting hit in the process...

That's true, but you have plenty of ways to absorb that. Using this deck, you shouldn't use your basic defense although it's really necessary. Use instead the many other options you have at disposal: Backflip is a great card for instance (also to pair with Taunt). Moreover, you have allies ready to defend you as they are mostly one-use and you have the tough coming from Perseverance. As the aim is getting punched, the latter may be a bit counterintuitive as you need to change form to activate it, but you are also supposed to switch to alter-ego with a certain regularity to play Ingenuity and Moon Girl or healing with Aunt May. Regarding healing, I don't have the The Night Nurse so I include Med Team if we need some extra healing. Finally, if you need a break, you can still paste the villain to the wall with Webbed Up and have some breath, something that may be useful especially if you are dealing with a lot of minions.

And what about the other dangers?

Of course, villains are not dangerous only when they attack. Treacheries can be tricky, but your spider-sense is here to help. Spider-Man already have a great card to deal with pesky encounters, that is Enhanced Spider-Sense, but we are increasing the potential to do that here with Get Behind Me!, which replaces When Revealed ability of encounters with more villain's attack (and thus drawing). Black Widow can also be used for this sometimes, although I find her to be more useful to thwart and defend most of the time.

The counterattack

You cannot always parry to win, of course, and the deck provides you some ways to do that. Swinging Web Kick is you main damage output and while you are quickly cycling through your deck, you will encounter this quite often. Powerful Punch is the other option, both for damaging the villain or taking down annoying minions. These are relatively expensive events, but economy is definitely not a problem for you once you have all your resource cards on the table: the already mentioned Quincarrier and Ingenuity, but also Web-Shooter and Deft Focus, which helps with Swinging Web Kick and occasionally with Enhanced Spider-Sense. Finally, as you are not exhausting to defend, your 2-value basic attack is there to help too and your allies may help sometimes (especially that 4 attack of Spider-Man once he gets on the table).

What about threat management

Well, this is the real Achille's heel of the deck. Spider-Tracer can help sometimes and thwarting is the main action for all your allies on the table, but these options are not always reliable and Spidey doesn't have much other options in his set. That's why this deck is mostly designed for multiplayer and especially to be paired with a Justice hero.

To conclude...

Overall, this is a very straightforward deck, which can probably be improved by including some cards I don't own. But it has also been very fun to me. Once you put some supports on the table, you are cycling very quick through your deck and continuous punch and counter-punch of the game creates a very nice tension. I tested this against Expert Klaw together with a Justice Psylocke deck and against Expert Hood (with Age of Apocalypse modulars) paired with a Justice Cyclops and it works very well, ending up in two wins: an easy one against Klaw and a very on the edge victory against Hood, as there where a lot of side schemes and minions popping out from everywhere.