Cable - Stealth Diplomat

I feel like we haven't made enough noise about the fact that Innate Perception means that Cable can guarantee the X-Men label for himself on turn 1, at least in solo, by fishing Build Support out with Soldier X, clearing it in one swipe at 3THW for Children of the Atom, and readying.

I've done the obvious thing with it - the Gunboat's online, cap'n, powered by your good self with any of your allies, or any two of them working together - but let's not forget that other overpowered X-Men traited card, Utopia. Why yes, I would like to run eight readies in the deck, thanks for asking. This is extra nice in a deck that wants to have its big guns unexhausted for 'boating (and which needs to be able to clear stuns and confuses first).

The other fun new toy is Stealth Training (or in my case, the copy of The Bellerophon that's acting as its proxy until a new shipment of Fear No Evil can arrive on these benighted shores). Draw it on turn one? Guaranteed villain stun. The player side scheme count is at the bare minimum in this deck (4x, just enough to max out the rifle), but you're fetching villain schemes as well with One Way or Another, so in my experience that little 2-cost upgrade will usually net you at least three or four stuns across the course of the game. That's eminently worth it in a deck that doesn't have a great answer to the villain attacking you other than chump-blocking and the occasional regretful Askani'son thwart.

(Completing Technovirus Purge makes it harder to thwart your own schemes exactly; and Keep Up the Pressure is too low-threat for you to earn a stun off regardless unless there's four threat on the main scheme and you can direct 4/6ths of a Gunboat that way, but I've found you often get stuns even late in the game when at 4THW thanks to enemy side-schemes.)

Speaking of which, Keep Up the Pressure is the flex side-scheme spot you can adjust to taste - I just like having it as a fourth copy of Gunboat Diplomacy I can pop at will, with +1 damage to each of its targets as a tasty bonus. You could reasonably trade it for Superpower Training (often for Telekinetic Force Field), New Recruits (for Anole as a backup gunner) or any other generic goodstuff.

The fun part of this deck is how many good opening hands you can draw, even if half of your first turn is effectively pre-committed to Innate Perception.

• Did you get Children of the Atom, Build Support or Call for Backup in your opening hand? Great! Call up the other player side-scheme with Soldier X and you're guaranteed a fully functioning gunboat of 3THW Cable and 3TWH Pete Wisdom, both with X-Men and X-Force traiting, on the board on turn one.
• Turn one Stealth Training means you don't have to worry about the villain's first activation. Turn one Skilled Investigator pays for itself instantly. Turn one Utopia turns all your allies into readies for the duration of the game.
• And turn one One Way or Another or a double resource means you get the economy to play three things on your opening turn instead of two.

There is one inevitable bad opening draw you can get, however, which is three turn one Gunboats that you're sadly forced to spend. Frowny face. That's why I like Keep Up the Pressure!

Dazzler and the Professor let you flip down to heal and act as backup Gunboat guns, though Bishop and Gambit are better long-term prospects there. The three chumps... Well, you can probably figure out what their job is (it's triggering Utopia).

Power-wise... I've beaten Ronan on Standard, though not consistently. Because the deck wants expensive allies alive and untapped, there's always a chance he just runs you over and you never stabilise. Once you do, though, you're in pretty good shape.

As with all Cable decks, this one loses the ability to clear side-schemes in a single action in multiplayer. On the other hand, six-point Gunboats are nice to have in multi, and you've got a better excuse than most Justice decks to run the full set of OWoAs without being accused of excessive selfishness.