Living Dangerously Safely

At a Glance

Player Counts: Two-Player and Higher. Solo you have Angel cards in the deck so you're probably fine.

Play style: Combos. Combos! COMBOS! Or just play Angel cards.

Strengths: Good Tempo and Flexibility. Good Multiplayer assistance. The ability to threaten teammates if they annoy you.

Weaknesses: The Pool Aspect has no weaknesses! (Hand ripping can really upset playing turns effectively, and you really need to be prepared for extra activation's once LD is on board)

A deck foretold by the architects.

How Dangerous is it?

Hello Everyone! Since Deadpool's release we have had a lot of solid ‘Pool decks shared across the community. From good-stuff strategies supplementing a hero’s kit to full blown risk takers that invite every danger to themselves to reap any advantage possible. Today we’re going somewhere in the middle, we plan to reap the benefits of the powerful card “Live Dangerously” but also mitigate lots of the risks that come with it. For that, we are bringing Angel, who currently has no ‘Pool decks on MCDB at the time of this writing!

And it’s not too hard to see why that is the case. Angel really likes playing with aerial cards, of which ‘Pool has zero. Additionally Angel doesn’t have anything that really encourages him to invite more problems onto himself like other popular selections for ‘Pool heroes have been.

So, what is Angel bringing to the table to stand out? And What does that have to do with Live Dangerously? Well, the answer to that is Worthington Industries, his hero specific support that lets us recur aerial cards, with our points of interest being Vivian and Storm.

Vivian is probably obvious, if we want to reap the benefits of Live Dangerously but really need to manage the main scheme or pump the brakes on the other problems it brings, we can blank the scheme with her effect and let us recoup. This will shut off the benefit of the plus 2 hand size for that turn, but you should be fine to sit with the scheme after stabilizing and you can start reaping the benefits again next turn. Storm is also really nice for this so that we can use her ability to take threat off of other side schemes and put it onto Live Dangerously (might just call it LD from here... it's a lot of syllables otherwise).

And that’s no typo there, pile on the threat because we don’t care about eventually clearing Live Dangerously! That’s because our strategy to remove it comes from the Player Side Scheme limit. We are running the max number of Side Schemes possible in this list, so that instead of having to worry about the extra threat obligation, we just replace Live Dangerously with a card that is good for us anyway. This is a pretty easy 1-for-1 in solo or two-handed where the PSS limit is 1, but in higher counts both our PSS and our teammates will be enough to clear Live Dangerously when it’s time has come. I do recommend playing this deck in multi! Angel and ‘Pool good stuff can definitely carry enough in Solo, but along with more people reaping Live Dangerously’s benefits, but actually comboing with Storm and punting LD with a PSS really lives the decks fantasy at 3-4 players!

Poolized

Now into the card-by-card! We are running every PSS available to us, the titular Live Dangerously and 3 basic ones standing just offstage with crooks ready. Gimmicks aside, Angel does get good mileage from all of these. Superpower Training only has one target, but it is the game-defining Techno-Organic Wings, so we appreciate the consistency bump. On that note, these side-schemes can still be played to punt Live Dangerously even if you don’t have any targets for when they’re completed, so don’t neglect them just because you have what you want! We also have Build Support, possibly the best multiplayer card in the game, and we come with 3 really solid targets for it. Angel particularly likes Specialist Training, it can either be a point of flexibility in solo or letting you pad out the less popular options in multi, as Angel can very reasonably use all of these upgrades, with Defense Specialist probably being the only one you won’t be super excited for, but is still usable.

On to Allies, we already mentioned Vivian, who shuffling with Worthington Industries is usually a good strat even when we aren't giving ourselves a high value target. Also remember that you can play her off turn with Team-Building Exercise, which your teammates might really appreciate if they want to Thwart off the main before your turn and you have Live Dangerously up!

Storm’s threat dumping was already mentioned, but it doesn't stop at moving threat from other schemes to Live Dangerously. There's a chance either of the training upgrades will have no targets when they enter your hand, especially if your teammates also run them, so they can be good threat sinks you can kick later to effectively deal with side schemes or even the Main. Along with readies from I Got This, that is a lot of burst threat removal!

Speaking of I Got This, we're running Headpool as an additional Amplify icon for the ready effect when LD isn't out, but he does just have good Thwart and a effect with lot of use to. But that ally ready is good for Storm, and Cannonball. Cannonball is great to sit around for both burst and consistent value once he's developed. That leaves Psylocke, who even if she doesn't have many direct combos, is still very versatile, and can represent free value is she's healing herself.

Now to the foundation of our game play, the events! And the biggest feature of ‘Pool that Angel gets from the Aspect, Mulligan. I know that may sound weird, no one is saying Mulligan is a bad or even sub-good card (it will take you a bit to find a ‘Pool list on this site without it), but pretty often it seems like articulating what Mulligan is doing for the deck seems pretty lean in some write-ups, outside of the typical turbo to setup and fix dead hands points. But it's actually pretty big here, because Mulligan is actually the card you're arguing to put in your deck over the Aerial Events you can find in other Aspects. And in my opinion it makes up for it, because it means you're playing better aerial events than those aspect cards, and by that I mean your hero specific cards.

Mulligan is PHENOMENAL for Narcissistic heroes (heroes which really only care about the cards in their signature kits) and that is especially true for Angel. You're events are above the line already, and when you proc Angel of Life/Death it puts them even further over that point.

My best quick and dirty advice for playing Mulligan effectively in the deck is “If you have Mulligan but no Angel cards, play Mulligan”. Team-Building Exercise is maybe the only exception I'd make for this. I'd definitely keep LD if I'm really wanting to play for fun and enjoy myself, but if you're being a Spike in that moment then rushing to your next amazing hero event is probably the best move. Bonus points for working better with Live Dangerously. Even if you only play Mulligan 1-2 times a game, over the course of a 7-8 turn game that's both improving a quarter of your hands that you drew, and is also helping you reset your deck so you start seeing your extremely potent cards again.

Enough of that, on to the other events! Going over these Angel cards I mentioned, Dive Bomb is probably the least exciting of the bunch, but even then it represents a lot of damage, especially with Angel of Death. Everything else plays really nicely with our strategy though! Adaptive Plumage is great to mitigate LD’s effects, status cards reduce the output of the amplify icon, and a confuse can make us feel a lot more comfortable about Crisis being out. Aerial Agility also works under a similarly to shrug off amplified attacks for us or our teammates. Metamorphosis also reduces the threat risk by allowing us to recover without sticking around for a scheme in Alter-Ego. For anything that does get through, we have Natural Flight to manage the main while still embracing the Pool lifestyle.

On that note, “I Got This” was already mentioned for our ally synergies, but it really pops off with LD out, and we can even sneak in the acceleration trigger while in Archangel form, or maybe get a refund on it if we play if before getting rid of our obligation. Not My Responsibility does even more to get around LD’s scary crisis icon, since it doesn't remove threat from the scheme, but instead prevents it from being added in the first place. Good for the default acceleration or preventing schemes!

Resources are nothing too crazy, besides the usual Craziness that Avian Anatomy enables when it shows up. We only have one Power of Flight here, mostly to makes space for our Fun-Ofs and because we are running less aerial cards than what you see in another Aspect, and almost nothing that can act as a resource sink. Mulligan means we also see our wings faster, which when combined with our already lower aerial count means we do have more hands than a normal Angel deck which we won't be able to find the value from it. However I don't think bumping this to 2-3 is bad, Worthington Industries cycling Vivian, Storm, and our good events doesn't mean we're running out of hits for it. If you want to make some cuts, or maybe include more resource sinks, I think you can justify the increase. Especially if you follow the Mulligan rule of thumb I mentioned.

With Supports we start with Team-Building Exercise. I mentioned this being the only exception to my Mulligan advice and for good reason, because it works towards the same game plan that Mulligan is usually going for, and that's playing more Angel cards. Additionally it also helps pay for Vivian and Storm which is nice, and I'm serious about TBE off-turn cheating Vivian, it is not always relevant or gonna come up, but when it does I think it's one of the most satisfying plays in the game.

Weapon-X is definitely great for, once again, playing Angel cards. Though I do have it a little lower priority for needing to be in alter-ego. If you're using Worthington for our allies, make sure to use Weapon-X first, though Worthington to shuffle an event that you then grab with Weapon-X is a very realistic scenario as well.

Onto Worthington, not much to say here that we haven't already, but using it in hero form is still super nice. The fact that we can also use it before playing a Mulligan is another huge boon, but you may even find that you want to use it after if you want to see something you discarded. Really keeps the deck in line, choosing this or TBE for your Build Support pull is a tough call.

For upgrades, once again wings are a game defining upgrade, and I'll leave it at that. X-Gene has some similar strengths and weaknesses as Weapon-X while being a lot more straightforward and less hassle after played. I really like Healing Factor for Angel, despite all his healing options, Angel actually can feel a little pressured on health depending on your draw order since you don't chump block as often. It also helps top us off for our true Fun-Of, and that's War. You don't need the extra damage, Archangel will generally take care of that just fine. BUT! War can have really good output with Angel, keeping a decently high cost curve for in-kit cards, and running fewer Power of Flight’s means we get more hits on our discards. The best part of this is since Storm is one of our shuffle targets with Worthington Industries, we'll have multiple chances of hitting her off the top of the deck, for a very satisfying 5 damage! I'm about to go into good sideboard picks, and while this is probably the first card to come out, I'd recommend finding at least one game to take it in and try to let it hit something great!

Poolside Picks

Going over good replacements for your flex spots (which to me is almost anything that isn't part of our LD Suite or Mulligan), there's actually a lot of cool cards to change things up. I already mentioned running more Power of Flight is viable, and I think that's especially so if we run more resource sinks, like Machine Man, Tic-Tac-Toe or Blackout. Which are all great to use before playing our Mulligans. Tic-Tac-Toe is especially good and probably the very first replacement I'd make. It's a very multiplayer friendly card, but we also can get some good use out of it by healing Psylocke so that we can ready Archangel more, or healing Storm to resolve her Thwart effect more.

Atlas Bear + Rock Paper Scissors is also a very solid combo, which even works well with War if we decide to keep it in! And this actually can really let us get choosy about what we hit in near deck out situations.

Get Ragey was also in the list at some point and I do think it's still good, especially so with Cannonball, but even still being alright with Psylocke and Storm Bursting. Ultimately I just liked how I Got This could do nearly the same thing while also bringing more positives pretty consistently.

Soaring Acrobatics is also another really good fit, getting to 3 for a basic attack or thwart helps meet a lot of thresholds on its own, and when it can stack with a specialized upgrade that makes it more tempting. It also works well to help push any Cannonball activations to meet thresholds.

While probably something that would justify pivoting the strategy more, I do like the idea of a more true Narcissist build of Angel that runs Mutant Education and X-Mansion, maybe something I'll check out in the future.

Live Life Without Fear

That's all I have to say folks, thanks for anyone that's read this far! I've really enjoyed this deck as a very practical way to capitalize on some exciting cards. It also brings a pretty unique experience to a lot of the ‘Pool games I've tried so far which has been great. Anyways, if you try this deck out, I wish you the best of luck, and the best of fun in your games!