Ready, Set, Throw

Card draw simulator

Odds: 0% – 0% – 0% more
Derived from
None. Self-made deck here.
Inspiration for
Ready, Set, Throw 0 0 0 1.0
Ready, Set, Throw... with suit up 0 0 0 1.0

teamcanadahockey2002 · 8248

Gambit is a character that can be taken a number of different ways. He's pretty amazing in Aggression, powering up attack events with his Charge Counters. He's also got some pretty awesome Justice decks out there based around his Thief Extraordinaire ability and his unique skills at removing threat while in alter-ego. I've also posted a deck revolving around a Voltron-style Cosmo, using your ability to know the top card of the villain deck.

But perhaps one of the best things Gambit brings to the table is his ability to play Rogue for free. She's an ally with a pretty amazing stat line: 2 ATK, 2 THW with 3 HP, plus toughness, essentially giving her 4 activations. Plus, she's an X-Men so you can give her Danger Room Training, and bump her up to being a 3/3/5 ally... and the greatest part is that if you maintain 4 counters on her, she can be played for nothing at all. Heck, you can even play her in Alter-Ego (which you're going to want to do in this deck to get the Danger Room Training on her for free).

The question though is how to get her back into play again each time. Make the Call requires you to pay the printed cost, so this doesn't work. However, the answer lies in using Pixie and the Med Lab. Your turn will look something like this:

Player Turn starting in Alter-Ego form: Play Pixie and use her to pull Rogue, who gets for free (if you have 4+ counters) and Danger Room Training attached for free. Rogue activates as many times as possible using Get Ready and Command Team. Pixie attacks for 2 and gets placed under the Med Lab. Flip to Hero form.

Villain Turn: Use Rogue to Block.

Player Turn starting in Hero form: Flip back to Alter-Ego and play Pixie from under the Med Lab. She starts exhausted. Pixie pulls Rogue, who gets Danger Room Training attached for free. Again, activate her as many times as you can. (Note: You can also use Utopia here to ready Pixie if you want her to thwart)

Villain Turn: Schemes. Ideally confused by Professor X

Player Turn starting in Alter-Ego form: Pixie is now ready. Use her to attack and get her put right back under Med Lab. Activate Rogue as many times as you still have left. Use Game Time to get extra activations in!

Villain Turn: Use Rogue to Block.

...

...

... and then repeat this flipping process for the rest of the game. It works best if you revive Pixie from the Med Lab, and by extension, Rogue, on turns you flip down. This allows you to activate Rogue as many times as possible on the flip down, and use all of the remaining activations you can on the turn back... minus the one HP you need to save for a block. Without using Game Time, Rogue can activate 4 times for a total of 12 THW or 12 ATK and only has to ready using card effects for 2 of these activations. This is amazing value!

One of the coolest cards you can use here is Leadership Skill. It's 2 ER for a total of +1 THW or +1 ATK 3x over, so it's a middle of the road card for efficiency. However, it can be used in Alter-Ego, and comes in handy when you need to have an even number ATK or THW (as Rogue activates in multiples of 3)

Anyways, that's the strategy. Hat Tip to sploosh who has a very similar deck posted on this (https://marvelcdb.com/decklist/view/26365/gambit-med-lab-leadership-1.0) which deserves a shout out. Its not quite the same, but similar enough that I wanted to give it a mention.

As always, hope you enjoy this one as much as I do. Feel free to give this a like and/or a comment. Until next time Champions...

14 comments

Apr 26, 2023 japanimaniac · 27

Sweet! Gamibit is so much fun to build and play.

Apr 26, 2023 Láthspell · 8

I love that Gambit can just sit around and look pretty (literally with Creole Charmer) while Rogue does all the heavy lifting; it's actually a very thematic Leadership Gambit setup! Great idea and I can't wait to try this out for myself later.

Apr 26, 2023 teamcanadahockey2002 · 8248

@Láthspell I didnt mention this in the write up, but Gambit can thwart so well in Alter-Ego that he basically can just be used only to exhaust for threat removal (possibly twice when you use Utopia) and just let Rogue and Pixie pump all the damage.

Apr 26, 2023 journeyman2 · 23947

Get Ready, Leadership Skill, the whole thing sings. I really like the combo you’ve put together here

Apr 26, 2023 DMTip · 1

Yeah, just wanted to echo the sentiment here. This is the type of Rogue looping I've been looking for! I have a slightly different take I've settled on, but it's heavily based off of this, so thank you for doing the heavy lifting and sharing the write up.

Apr 26, 2023 InigoMontoya · 4456

We think so much alike here. I have a Gambit Leadership deck that uses Pixie, Med Lab and Rogue to have them both on the board constantly. Love the addition of Leadership Skill, Game Time and Danger Room Training!

Apr 27, 2023 IcyHaze · 67

@teamcanadahockey2002 do remember that Utopia can only ready Xmen charecters. So don't make the mistake of readying Gambit in AE. Otherwise I love the concept and great write up.

Apr 27, 2023 teamcanadahockey2002 · 8248

@IcyHaze Yes good point! This particular decklist doesnt have an extra Honorary Xmen in it, but that is how you can pull that off if you want to use Gambit twice.

May 03, 2023 Láthspell · 8

Had about the worst possible experience with this deck while trying it for the first time against Project Wideawake and losing Pixie permanently to Operation Zero Tolerance before I had the chance to get the main loop going. That said, the deck still squeezed out a win in that game without the main loop, which is neat considering almost every piece of the deck is oriented around getting it running and making it strong when it IS online, at the expense of almost everything else. I'll definitely give it a few more plays to see what it looks like when the scheme doesn't tank the entire game plan!

May 03, 2023 teamcanadahockey2002 · 8248

@Láthspell Oh my! Losing Pixie (or Rogue) permanently would nerf this deck entirely. Operation Zero Tolerance is a pretty hard counter because you can't block with Rogue either.

Well done being able to still pull out a win!

May 03, 2023 Láthspell · 8

@teamcanadahockey2002 I even considered the possibility before drawing the first hand, and dismissed it as being totally unlikely only to lose Pixie the first time I went Alter-Ego. My own fault for not being smarter about dropping a Confuse first, but still. Glad I didn't scoop though, the deck was still really fun and I got a monster hand with 2 copies of Get Ready and 2 copies of Game Time to close it out and that felt great. Sometimes the best wins are the slow, ugly, and messy ones.

I think parts of the engine do function without Rogue, but it would have to settle for "lesser" characters like Angel (apologies to Warren, but he was deliberately designed to be mid) and it'd be a lot harder to pay for. Losing the recursion (outside of Med Lab) meant I had to bank on Game Time and Get Ready being really good on one of my other allies with Danger Room Training, and on turns where I couldn't pull that off I just had to rely on Gambit's core hero set being solid all-around to brute force things work.

Jun 30, 2023 seneca29 · 173

I can't understand why Danger Room Training is played for free in AE...?

Apr 01, 2024 Láthspell · 8

I used to play this deck a bunch, and can't help but feel like maybe the new Suit Up from AoA would help iron out a recurring issue I would have where either Rogue or Pixie would end up buried out of reach. It would be a very tight fit and would require some other restructuring just for an "insurance" card (there's only one Danger Room Training and it throws off the core loop a little), but it may be worth tinkering with to see if it makes the Rogue/Pixie engine come online faster or if there's some other cool way to make it really sing with ally Rogue.

Sep 17, 2024 gilgalith · 25

@seneca29in alter ego you'd use Danger Room to attach it for free