Cable. In. Space!

Why is Cable going into space?

Honestly, I have no idea.

But if he does need to go, should he call Gamora for backup?

YOU BETTER BELIEVE IT.

This deck started with a simple dream: with the release of Mission Planning, could you use Gamora's ability to draw into readies that would allow her to activate over and over and over in a single turn?

The answer is yes. Very yes.

Why Cable?

This deck needs two specific things, and after trying a number of heroes, Cable clearly reigned supreme. Here's what we're looking for:

The best ratio of readying events to non-readying events. Every Hero can run Get Ready, which was a 3x auto-include, but not every hero has easy access to another readying card. After clearing Technovirus Purge, Cable can use Psychic Kicker, giving him six 0-cost ally ready events. He also only carries 7 of his own events, which helps this ratio immensely.

A way to get Gamora into play reliably and quickly. Enter Call for Backup, which also conveniently gets around Gamora's restriction. You can start with it every game and get Gamora onto the board as soon as possible.

No other hero offers answers to these two issues as completely as Cable does. From there, it's just a matter of Voltron-ing up Gamora (with Inspired, Laser Blaster, and Sidearm) and watching her go to work.

Deck Staples

Let's talk a little about other card choices. Again, we want to keep the event pool as thin as possible so those six readies come up as often as they can. For this reason, I went back and forth with 2 or 3 copies of Mission Planning, but I settled on 3, because at 2 I was having too many turns where I didn't have it at all and couldn't activate Gamora. So they're a 3x for reliability.

Command Team was a natural include, and I settled on 2x. It really pulls its weight here, because that one additional activation of Gamora in a round could turn into a chain of, say, three. That could legitimately mean an additional 20 damage. It also synergizes well with Professor X in a pinch, which helped seal his spot.

Make the Call is here in case you lose Gamora. But do your best not to!

You might be surprised to see no double resource cards, but the deck doesn't have a lot of key expensive cards, and Digging Deep does a ton of heavy lifting here. Gamora is often going to discard a large chunk of your deck every turn, and the Digging Deeps can help you fire off the Telekinetic Blast or Mind Scan cards that get left in your hand when Gamora's chain is done.

Maria Hill is here because allies are good value, there was an open ally slot, she provides card draw, and helps with thwarting, all of which this deck likes.

Around the Edges

Full disclosure, I never play true solo, I always play 2-handed if I'm playing alone, it's just more interesting to me that way. So Mission Leader and Build Support are here to aid and to benefit from a teammate who is hopefully running at least one or two player side schemes themselves. In true solo, I could see both cards being cut, potentially for double resource cards or Clarity of Purpose.

Leadership Training has two uses: (1) when you don't have Mission Planning, you can shuffle one into the deck (especially if the deck is low) before drawing, and (2) in the middle of Gamora doing her chain, right before your deck runs out, you can shuffle in a Get Ready or Psionic Kicker to keep the chain going. I've tried to cut this card multiple times and keep going back to it, which might be a me problem, or it might actually be really good here.

Some acceleration staples like Helicarrier, Avengers Mansion, and Clarity of Purpose narrowly miss the cut here. Couldn't fault you for playing any of them. There's a few reasonable choices for other allies, too- my favorite being Atlas Bear, because it was super fun when they actually kept the chain going. But that missed way more than it hit.

If you're playing true solo, you might also look for some cards that iron out some of the issues in the next section.

Deck Weaknesses?

This deck was built to maximize Gamora with a partner deck in mind. Specifically, this plays best with a thwart-heavy deck that can also throw an ally block over for them every once in a while. I played it alongside a Captain America Justice deck and they just ran roughshod over everything.

The reason for that is Maria Hill, Professor X, and Cable himself are simultaneously your best thwarting options and your defense. Early on, you'll need to thwart some side schemes down quickly, so you may have to eat some damage if you can't chump block. This is where that partner deck can come in handy to help you crush through that side scheme a little quicker and maybe block for you once or twice in the early going.

This is more to say that this deck, like any deck, does not do everything at an A+ level than to say this deck really struggles (it does not, as you'll see below). But I did want to point out where it would most appreciate the help.

Ok, so how good is it?

For the past year or so, I've tested all of my decks against Expert Klaw, and I've kept the stats to see how much Damage, Thwart and "Soak" (incoming damage blocked or absorbed, plus the HP pool they start with) they can do (plus giving them bonus points for various other occurences, like Confuses, Stuns, etc.). This is my highest-graded deck, ever.

This deck poured out 19.9 damage per turn, 5 thwart per turn, and 1.7 soak (while only adding a reasonable 5 extra Encounter cards, which I do penalize decks for in their grade). In the final round, it had a 60+ damage turn. I had never seen one of those.

This deck and a Cap Justice deck won in seven rounds. Most deck pairings (which are random) take 9.

(For reference, a Thor Dive Bomb deck was my the previous highest damage number I had seen, at 18.7. A Quicksilver Justice deck is my thwart leader at 7.4. This deck churned out 19.9 and 5.)

That's the end of the stats, in case that's not your thing! All I'm trying to say with this section is that this deck stood out, even among and against other good, reliable decks, and that's what made me feel it was worth this write-up.

Thanks for reading! This my first write-up, so I hope I didn't mess anything up, but if I did, I apologize! I've long enjoyed playing or being inspired by all the great decks that I've come across here, and I'm excited to have one to share.

Happy gaming!