Lockdown -- Venom Stun Aggression

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Stun and Gun 1 0 0 1.0
Venom Stunlock Aggression 0 0 0 1.0
Venom Stun Aggression... MORE GUNS 0 0 0 1.0
Venom Stun Aggression... MORE GUNS 0 0 0 2.0
Venom Stungression 0 0 0 1.0
Venom Aggression 1 0 1 1.0
Everything is going to be alright now (stun build) 1 1 2 1.0
Venom - The Power of Aggression 1 1 0 1.0
Venom - Aggression 0 0 0 1.0

Saan · 3518

Venom's hero power is strait up nuts. It gives you a wild resource up to twice a turn, if you can activate it on the villain's phase as well. The only downside is that pesky damage. If only there were something to be done...

Stuns for days

So Grasping Tendrils is a pretty crazy card. It's a stun-on-a-stick for whenever the villain decides to attack. Sure, you only get the stun if you spend only physical resources, but guess what? You produce A WILD on demand! This means you need only one physical resource in hand in order to pull off both the attack cancel as well as an additional stun! The damn thing puts Webbed Up to shame.

But there's only 2 Tendrils in the deck. Venom's not below Drop Kicking a few dudes to make a point, though. With Venom's ability, a Martial Prowess, and a Helicarrier, Drop Kick costs 0 and replaces itself from the draw. Good times. Also, Mockingbird exists (and has a physical resource, should you need to chuck her away for a Tendril or a Dropkick). All things said and done, the deck has 8 attack-cancel effects.

Non-Stun Cards, Too

FFG has yet to print more stuns that I can use, so until then, we've gotta use this stuff.

With his Pistols, Venom is effectively a 3/4/4 hero. Combat Training makes that 3/5/4, which I enjoy. Skilled Strike is in the deck mainly because it features a physical resource and doesn't suck (looking at you, Uppercut). It's also free, which is a good price point.

Press the Advantage is a card I rarely use, but found quite good in this deck. The villain is often stunned (and thanks to Behind Enemy Lines, sometimes confused), so this draws a card fairly often. It's also a cheap attack to knock off tough if needed, and also is good for if you get stunned yourself rather than wasting your basic action to remove it.

Flash has the slight downside of yeeting away a good portion of his deck in order to find a gun, so I've included 2 copies of both Martial Prowess and Herlicarrier in order to increase the chances you'll see one on the first pass. These help you find those extra physical resources needed to make your stuns work, and have the upside of being physical resources themselves as well, so the extra copy doesn't feel bad in the future.

A Stunningly Good Hero

I just want to kind of go off on how crazy Venom is here for a minute. Firstly, in this deck, you just stun-lock the villain, using taking damage to create resources for you to do so. But when you flip to heal back up, not only do you have a REC of 4, you also have Project Rebirth 2.0. This card heals for 6 every time you flip to Alt-Ego: 3 for when you flip, and 3 the following turn before you flip back. Assuming you even want to exhaust to REC at this point, this means that you can heal for 10 every time you flip. The dude only has 12 HP, and you get to heal TEN. Most times I don't bother using REC; I'd rather just use a basic hero action instead. You still heal for 6. I mean... fuck, man.

As I said, his guns make him a 3/4/4 hero, but you also get Multi-Gun on top of that in order to do more damage or thwarting. I used to have Hand Cannons in this deck, because I really liked the Overkill and I was like "More weapons!" However, lowering the chance of finding one of his Hero weapons just wasn't worth having it in the deck. Also, when I removed them, what I realized I really liked was having more reasonable cards with physical resources on them in the deck. Upping the number of Helicarriers and Martial Prowess in the deck cured that, plus I got to take Side Holster out as well, since Hand Cannon means you need 4 slots dedicated for Restricted cards. Anyhow, his guns are insane. And then they give you a card to tutor one up on a silver platter as well.

Beyond that, it's relatively trivial to make powerful decks to make use of either Grasping Tendrils (which I've done here) or Behind Enemy Lines (which I'll leave someone else to do), given that Venom himself takes care of 1 of the resources in question. You get 3 cards to ready him and all his weapons.

He gets Spider-Man's hero ability as a card. An entire hero ability. Yeah, you don't get to draw with it if the villain is constantly stunned but you almost never get attacked, so that's a nice consolation prize.

Anyhow, this deck is pretty nuts, but Venom is pretty nuts, so it's hard to go wrong. Have fun, and happy hunting!

22 comments

Jul 18, 2021 m.Trae.b · 8

Nice deck, have to play Venom in Aggression. Looks a lot of fun!

I have a quick thought I would like to share. What do you think about replacing the Skilled Strike cards with 3x Mean Swing. So you could press the damage output a bit further. Some where I read about a nice combo of Mean Swing with Pulse Grenade (non restricted weapon). Maybe you could cut down to just one Martial Prowess and include a Pulse Grenade. Maybe it is a bit to much set up and you basically can just play one Mean Swing a turn.

Jul 18, 2021 Saan · 3518

@m.Trae.bSo I originally tried Mean Swing in this deck, because the weapons were an obvious draw. However, if I'm exhausting a Pistol in order to attack, I'm doing +1 damage, and then +2 damage if I also use a Skilled Strike, leaving me at +3 damage, which is the same as a Mean Swing. If I'm adding a Pulse Grenade in the deck in order to use Mean Swing, then I'm also adding a worse card for Flash Thompson to potentially hit on setup, when I would drastically rather find one of Venom's weapons. Also, I really like running 2 Martial Prowess, both for the ability to get it sooner as well as the physical resource on the card (rather than the energy resource on Pulse Grenade).

But hey, by all means, try it out! It's not like I'm going to come to your house and knock the cards out of your hands =). If anything, the idea of hitting someone upside the head with a grenade makes me giggle.

Jul 19, 2021 m.Trae.b · 8

@Saan thanks for your reply. I see your point and I am with you, Skilled Strike and Martial Prowess are great cards - especially with its . I will try your deck, thanks again for posting!

Jul 19, 2021 925 Gamers · 196

No holster?

Jul 19, 2021 925 Gamers · 196

Never mind just realized he only has 3 weapons

Jul 19, 2021 Saan · 3518

@925 GamersYeah, I tried the deck with a couple Hand Cannons and a Holster, but I really hated when his setup hit a Hand Cannon and I had to wait a few turns to find one of his hero weapons, which are quite a bit better (especially Multi Gun, which is downright insane). I went down to 1 Hand Cannon, and finally decided to just remove it entirely and test the deck that way. This also obviated Side Holster, which freed up additional card slots. It turns out that I really liked the faster weapon setup more than I liked having a little more damage and Overkill from the Hand Cannon.

Also, with the Hand Cannon and the Holster, it was quite often that I'd get a Cannon before I'd get a Holster, and I'd have to hold off on actually playing it because I didn't want to cap myself on restricted slots before drawing all my hero weapons. In these cases, it was usually better to use as a physical resource, so I was just tossing them away anyhow.

Jul 19, 2021 Arcadian1985 · 88

His symbiotic bond can trigger once per phase not twice a turn...the way you explain it can confuse people.

Also, hall of heroes is a good card, but doesn't seem to fit in your deck if your promoting this more as a stun type of theme.

Other than that cool deck.

Jul 20, 2021 dr00 · 38765

looks like a fun deck!

Jul 20, 2021 Saan · 3518

@Arcadian1985Good call. I worded it that way because it can occasionally trigger on the Villain Phase, and then is useable on the Player Phase as well, but I can see how the way I said it can be easily misinterpreted. Good looking out!

I usually kill minions and save the stuns for the boss, so Hall can get some value, but I honestly think in most games I toss it away as a resource for a better card. The issue is that I really want to run Power of Aggression in order to fuel Drop Kicks more efficiently, but I want enough Aggression cards that cost at least 2 in order to make them worthwhile beyond that. Without Hall, there's only 8 cards in the deck that Power can hit, which is already kinda low for justifying 2 copies of Power. Once Prowess and Combat Training are both out, that number drops to just 5 (since the second Prowess is dead, unless another hero needs it), and that's assuming I'm killing off Bug.

Honestly, just a single copy of Clobber might actually be fine, since it's a little more damage, another Physical resource, and can come back to your hand in order to be used, but it's not an amazing card either. Previously, I had Hulk in this slot, just as a meat-shield, since you never really want to attack with him (don't want to discard him with a science, and I'd rather use my physical resources with Drop Kick and Tendrils). Maybe it's better to just use him? I think at one point I was also testing out 2 Combat Training, but it's just not an important enough card for me to want to justify 2 copies.

Anyhow, that got kinda wordy. To sum it up: it's basically just there because everything else seemed equally uninteresting, and it has the benefit of potentially providing card draw, which I like.

Jul 20, 2021 Saan · 3518

@dr00Thanks! =)

Jul 20, 2021 journeyman2 · 18689

I’d probably run Gamora over Miles or 1 copy of Press the Advantage. With half your deck being events, she’ll be a free extra card for a few turns

Jul 20, 2021 Saan · 3518

@journeyman2You know what, that's not a bad call.

Jul 21, 2021 widowmaker93 · 1

Just FYI Hellicarrier doesn't work for the Grasping Tendrils play. It's an action and you can't take those during the villain turn. If it were Quinncarrier then it would be fine. As it is you need at least 1 physical resource in hand.

Jul 22, 2021 Saan · 3518

@widowmaker93Good call! I'm amazed how often I forget that one specifically with Helicarrier. I'll edit it so as not to confuse anyone =). Thanks!

Aug 26, 2021 takabrash · 1

Man, oh man- this deck murders! Thanks!

Sep 07, 2021 Daringhour7 · 65

Adding 3x Resourceful really makes all of Venom’s event cards active (easy to get their bonuses) from the start with no setup…I’ve never used the card before but it works wonders in any Venom build. Don’t pay the cost to have it on the table just play it out of your hand with the wild resource he creates. I even added 2x The Power in All of Us and 2x Power of Aggression for the wild resources…his kit is good enough on its own to warrant the investment.

Sep 07, 2021 Daringhour7 · 65

marvelcdb.com

Example deck from my comment above

Sep 08, 2021 Saan · 3518

Eh, I'd prefer to play cards that do things.

Oct 02, 2022 Chappykinz · 2

If you happen to have all 3 weapons in your hand or in your mulligan at the start, does the setup ability just.. cycle your entire deck endlessly and deal out encounter cards each time?

Oct 03, 2022 dr00 · 38765

@Chappykinz it will cycle your deck, but only once. if you discard cards until you find a particular card, and fail to find that particular card after discarding all of the deck, the search is considered to have failed, and you simply resolve decking out effects and don't have to keep searching anymore.

Jan 23, 2023 Arczi · 1

Just beat Thanos with this deck. Even without possibility to stun and confuse him I controled whole game. Great very strong deck for very strong hero.

Apr 06, 2023 Apothecus · 1

Wow. The 1st time running this deck. I think I only had to flip to Alt Ego once. And the Villain was stunned for half the game. I felt like a bada**.