Chaos Blitz

I've never been much of a Scarlet Witch OR Leadership player, but the new suite of Leadership-blitz introduced in War Machine's pack has proven to be quite enjoyable. I've played it with She-Hulk, Star-Lord, and a number of other heroes to great effect, but it never felt as good as when I broke it out for Scarlet Witch.

Why is it better for her, you ask? Well, let me tell you.

1. She already enjoys running high-cost allies because of Chaos Magic
2. Her signature ally Quicksilver has a cost of 4 2a. He can attack for 2, ready, attack for 2 again, and then bomb out with Go Down Swinging for a total of 8 damage
3. She's a Mystic, which allows Summoning Spell to bring in her entirely-high-cost-ally suite for a steep discount
4. She has access to reliable damage mitigation through Magic Shield and her base 2 Defense, so she doesn't mind if you leave her without an ally to chump-block every now and then
5. She has access to The Sorcerer Supreme to increase her hand size and Spiritual Meditation, both of which help smooth out the 'dead hand' syndrome that these decks tend to have
6. Her Hero Ability and Crest allows her to mitigate or control a lot of the incoming villain damage by nixing nasty Boost draws, again important in a deck where you won't have an ally standing in front of you every villain phase

Basic Strategy

The strategy with any deck utilizing War Machine's leadership cards is more or less the same, at its core:

1. Spam out high-impact allies with Sneak Attack
2. Utilize the high impact from the allies with Command Team and Get Ready
3. Dispose of the allies with a damage-or-thwart bomb (Go Down Swinging or Save the Day)

This strategy usually involves dumping most or all of your hand into the task - which can be difficult to manage while maintaining control of the board (see item 5 up top)

This deck plays into this by only (aside from her signature ally which can't be helped) having high-impact, high-cost allies who benefit from either being put into play (the wording on Sneak Attack) or being readied via Command Team or Get Ready.

• Power Man, Goliath, and Giant-Man can all swing for a ton of damage with the help of one or more ready-cards
• Falcon and Captain Marvel both have powerful put-into-play abilities

NOTE: You cannot use Sneak Attack on Heimdall; he must be played with resources or Chaos Magic. He's too good with ScW in general not to include here despite this, but feel free to sub him out if you prefer

Scarlet-Witch Specific Play

All of the above can be pulled off with any hero, and I've already laid out some of the reasons Scarlet Witch is better than those choices for this specific archetype. Here are some other tips and tricks about playing this specific deck in order to utilize those advantages.

• As mentioned in items 1 and 2 of the opening section, she can use both Chaos Magic and Summoning Spell as actual bodies (unlike those manufactured via Sneak Attack). This is very important for overall ally value and managing her HP; almost no heroes can hold up to higher levels of difficulty without ally presence during the villain phase.
• Because all of her allies are high-impact, it always feels good to get them on the board, and keeping them there is also more valuable than spamming 2-cost allies like most decks do for hp-protection
  • If you've got a Command Team up or Get Ready in-hand, you can use these allies as if they were normal, crappy 2 cost allies; bring them out, use and ready them, then get ready to toss them away when the villain activates.
• You're going to find yourself prioritizing Magic Shield more than usual (see item #4 up top) because you're going to find yourself without allies more often than most other deck builds.
  • This is in contrast to Molecular Decay, which will see almost no play in this deck, as you're almost always better off using allies to do the damage for you and focusing on board control. It's an excellent card on its own, but we've got an entire deck built around 8+ damage turns.
• Threat control can be a little tricky, because I only pack 2 copies of Save the Day. You should almost always be thwarting with ScW (which is what she does in most decks anyways) and focusing on using your Hex Bolt to either clear threat or control the villain
• On that note, with how expensive this archetype is to run, you'll find yourself with some awkward hands where you really want to play Hex Bolt but don't see how you can afford to. The best general advice here is to go with the Hex, because your allies are usually just damage sources for you and staying alive/on top of scheme should generally be higher priority than damage. Additionally, in a pinch, you can manipulate it to draw more cards to pay for the rest of your hand.
• Scarlet Witch's Crest is not nearly as useful as it usually is - unless controlling with Hex Bolt is particularly important for the scenario. More often than not, it's a significant tempo-hit with little upside.

Mulligan/Early-Game Strategy Getting one Command Team down early is quite important so you don't feel bad when you sneak Power Man, Giant Man etc in. Your crest is good to get out early as well, to maximize your Hex Bolts when you do cast them. Otherwise, just prioritize getting your magic shields down so you can use them effectively.

Deck Credentials

So far I've only used the deck a few times, but they were all pretty solid/comfortable wins.

[Expert] Tower Defense with A Mess of Things

[Expert] Infiltrate the Museum with Band of Badoon This one was close, but only because of the Collection, of course. He's very susceptible to burst damage, though.

[Expert] Mutagen Formula with Legions of Hel

[Expert] The Hood with default modular sets

Substitutions

• You could consider swapping out one Save the Day or Command Team for another Get Ready
• Assess the Situation can help even more with preventing dud-hands or minimizing impact from imperfect draws
• You could sub out Heimdall for an ally or card of your choice (another Avenger like Captain America or another copy of Command Team
• You could sub in Black Panther to grab your one Save The Day for a rainy day situation (assuming you play him with Summoning/Chaos Magic/resources). Or just a guaranteed GDS/STD for himself.

You won't have the cleanest wins (lots of damage on you, probably some threat left over on schemes), but it will be a rip-roaring fun time until the end, as it should be when playing the Chaos Queen.