LeBroski · 7
Overview and Strategy:
This is my take on the Spider-Woman Avengers Rush theme deck. I have seen a couple variants but I hadn't seen one with both Deft Focus AND Team-Building Exercise. In tandem with Avengers Tower, this combination does a ton of heavy lifting to reduce a metric-ton of resource cost across a game.
The best part is, this build is only possible with Spider-Woman. There simply aren't enough allies with a shared trait in any given aspect to accomplish this with a single aspect on any other Hero. This is fundamentally everything I love about Leadership taken to the extreme. Send out waves of beefed up allies to be used quickly and replaced quickly. This is about quantity, not quality. This is about never feeling bad about thwarting for 1 and taking consequential damage. Or chump blocking. Because you always have more allies in the pipeline and the ones in front best get out of the way.
The strategy is to get out your resource upgrades as quickly as possible, while weaving in enough allies in the beginning to give you some breathing room. I threw in almost every 2 cost Avenger ally I could, and both Ant-Man and Wasp can be played for 1 cost if need be. The sooner those essential upgrades come out, the more dividends they will pay and make it much easier to get out your 3 and 4 cost allies.
Resources and Upgrades:
Early game priority is to get out Avengers Tower, Team-Building Exercise, and both copies of Finesse. Once those are out, you will have up to four free resources per turn to play any ally in the deck (with the exception of Captain Marvel as she is not an aspect card). Once you can get Deft Focus out, you can takes things a step further by reducing the cost of any of her events with the Superhero trait by 1. That makes Self-Propelled Glide a free ready, or you can reduce Pheromones to a 1 cost Stun and Confuse on the Villian for example.
Kaluu and White Tiger with Jessica Drew's Apartment and the Captain Marvel ally all help with extra card draws. Press the Advantage will give you an extra draw if you can combo off of Pheromones. I threw two copies of Clobber with intent of having even more ways to get that one extra resource when you really need it. Triskellion is completely extra and is basically just money unless you have all your other upgrades out. Chase Them Down is an easy way to get rid of some extra threat. And of course having these cards will help with the effects of Kaluu and Jessica Drew's Apartment by giving you some easy options to pick when you just want an extra resource to play an upgrade or ally.
The Ally Upgrades are obviously a huge part of the engine here, but I would generally prioritize the Resource upgrades first if you have to make a choice. However once all of your ally upgrades are out, each ally you play will have +1 ATK from Boot Camp, +1 THW / +1 ATK from Mighty Avengers, and +1 HP from Team Training, so even the normally non-threatening Stinger comes out on the field as a beefy 2 THW / 3 ATK / 3 HP ally. And she will be the least of your enemies worries.
Summary:
In a perfect mid-late game situation, you could have 6 allies on the board including Stinger. If you had 5 allies out including Stinger, you could play the 6 cost Captain America for free, who would then come out as a 3 THW / 4 ATK / 5 HP ally starting with Tough. Once this engine is built, it really snowballs. And it's glorious.
Modification:
Depending on how many minions are in the Scenario encounter deck, you could potentially swap out Spider-Girl, Tigra, and Chase Them Down for other events. I like Surprise Attack, another Press the Advantage, situationally Piercing Strike, or maybe even an upgrade like Enraged. You could maybe look at Into the Fray but I'd really try to keep all the events low cost.
Personally, I really wouldn't change any of the Leadership picks.
Ultimately, this is still about having as many options for allies as possible, and even if Spider-Girl doesn't get to stun and confuse a minion when she comes out, she could still be a 2 THW / 4 ATK / 3 HP ally for 2 cost. And the more Avenger options you have, the more often you can use your free resources each turn.
Final Thoughts:
Initially I was running this build with Hulk and Avenger's Mansion. But for 4 cost, the mansion just didn't synergize well with the rest of the deck and was replaced by Deft Focus when I realized how many of her core cards have the Superpower trait. Hulk was pretty hit and miss, and it just felt so bad when I'd pull a energy resource and end up doing 1 damage to myself and three or four allies. After swapping a few allies and events around and not having to worry about the number of mental resources in the deck for Hulk's sake, I'm very happy with the balance here. I know this deck is running 42 cards and that may bother some people. If I really had to shave two cards out, I'd probably get rid of Squirrel Girl and Chase Them Down.
If you read this far thank you so much and I hope you enjoy! (Edit because I missed some card links)