Black Widow's Sneaky, Dynamic, Friends

I hope you enjoy this deck. I feel like it is reasonably powerful and fairly interesting to pilot with a few different lines normally possible each turn. A fair amount of options. Loads of reasonable allies being snuck into play, or just cast for free, dying repeatedly but then returning to play? Sounds good, no?

Winter Soldier, in this deck, with its range of preparation cards, often costs nothing, or 1ER if you prefer, after two or three turns. Dynamic Duo has the effect, therefore, of getting Bucky, often a zero cost ally with 2 THW, 2 ATK, and 4 HP, into your hand, along with Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy, for 3ER. You may or may not be particularly interested in Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy but a zero cost (or 1ER), 2 THW, 2 ATK, 4 HP ally is pretty good.

Rapid Response interacts well with all aspects of Black Widow's kit.

Sneak Attack allows Black Widow to put big allies into play for cheap. We have three or four targets in the deck - Black Panther, Goliath, Swordsman, and sort of Yellow Jacket. You can also sneak in Winter Soldier early in the game or in an emergency, but it is not really the best use of Sneak Attack nor of Winter Soldier.

Sneak Attack does not work well with Rapid Response. The solution to that, however, lies in Get Ready. If we can get an ally killed by consequential damage in one phase with a copy of Rapid Response in play, we get two activations of the ally, then we trigger Rapid Response returning a 'new' copy of the ally to play which will not be discarded at the end of the turn - avoiding the discard effect of Sneak Attack.

Black Panther works great for this because of his ability to tuck a card under himself. You can sneak him in (possibly paying for Sneak Attack using Get Ready), tuck a copy of Get Ready under him, activate him, get him ready, then activate him again, defeating himself with consequential damage. If Rapid Response is in play you then get to return him to play and do the whole thing again, or put Sneak Attack under him - a decision informed by your knowledge of what is remaining in your deck and your game state.

Goliath's ability means, if he is snuck into play, that at the end of the phase he would be discarded twice over. One copy of Get Ready, however, and instead he attacks for 10 in one turn (or potentially 12), for 4ER, before he is defeated by consequential damage which can interact with Rapid Response. He is a good thwarter if he doesn't need to die in the turn.

Squirrel Girl, Kaluu, and Yellow Jacket have good enter play effects which Rapid Response can allow to trigger twice. Kaluu finding Get Ready is neat, or Sneak Attack on occasion, and Yellow Jacket finding every preparation ever is good for Black Widow. Squirrel Girl pinging all enemies for one helps, obviously, to remove tough status cards, potentially helps clear the way for big hits otherwise, and also can help make more of Dance of Death which is admittedly a fairly low priority in this deck.

Mighty Avengers boosts all the stats of all the allies. You have so many ally activations that it is a high priority card in this deck. Winter Soldier turning into a 3 THW 3 ATK 4 HP ally for zero cost or 1ER is pretty powerful. Honorary Avenger is there mainly for Mighty Avengers, targeting Black Widow herself. It also technically turns on Sneak Attack when in AE (which isn't massively helpful) and allows the casting of Yellow Jacket in AE (which can be massively helpful). With her base HP of 9, the extra 1 HP from Honorary Avenger is not too shabby either.

I like to mulligan fairly aggressively for her gauntlets, her safe house, and/or Mighty Avengers. Try to be conservative early on with your use of preparations. They are worth a lot in play with the discount for Winter Soldier turning on Dynamic Duo.

I try to stay in hero form as much as possible, flipping down only now and again mainly if healing is required. Preparations protect Black Widow, and pretty much all of them require Black Widow to be in hero form. Black Widow tends to defend herself with her activation, potentially readying for another activation later if her Synth-Suit is in play.

I try to avoid using Rapid Response on Winter Soldier because Dynamic Duo gets him back to your hand where he is free anyway. There are generally better options for Rapid Response. I tend to only use Winter, Widow, Soldier, Spy to pay for other cards but it can be useful on occasion. I also don't find that Rapid Response is essential to have in play before sneaking an ally in - if you get two activations from the snuck in ally that is generally enough to be worthwhile.

I tried to include Command Team in the deck but the cheap cost of Get Ready just won me over time and time again, together with the positive interactions Get Ready has with Black Panther and Kaluu. A Command Team in play would be great, but getting it there always felt a struggle. Get Ready also works well in multiples as the game progresses, with some explosive turns possible to burst down the villain with Bucky attacking for 9 or 12 damage in a turn on his own for 2 or 3 ER.

For the same reason, pretty much, I just couldn't get a Helicarrier to work in the deck either - too expensive to get it off the ground. I didn't want to include a Quincarrier to try to make the deck more multiplayer friendly. With the low cost curve, these cards would only help so much anyway, and generally would take all or most of a turn to play anyway.

Other notable cuts through the process I can think of were Deathcry which fell a bit behind the other allies for this deck; Captain Marvel due to not having enough energy icons and discarding not being what the deck wants to do with so many permanent upgrades and allies; and, slightly weirdly, "Avenge Me!" which always felt like it was just getting in the way of the deck actually working - a bonus effect rather than something integral to the running of the deck. Suit Up sounded better in theory than practice, with the AE requirement and 3 ER cost proving to be too awkward a lot of the time.

This deck is only tested in true solo. I suspect it should be okay in multiplayer because allies hitting and thwarting for decent numbers sounds like it would be good there as well, and indeed take some of the pressure off of Black Widow to allow her to more flexibly flip up and down. If playing alongside a Bucky player, then remove Bucky himself and the two Dynamic Duos and then maybe a Command Team or two or a PSS of some sort? If playing alongside a T'Challa Black Panther, perhaps Deathcry or Captain Marvel as a sub there?

Thanks for reading, and all the best.