Card draw simulator
| Derived from |
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| None. Self-made deck here. |
| Inspiration for |
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| None yet |
journeyman2 · 24014
Psylocke loves forcing people to be her friends making friends! Here's how
Stepping aside from the deck theme for a second, let's get into some cold hard exposition!
Our combo revolves around triggering Change of Fortuneand Unflappable using Psychic Misdirection. Because this is a (defense) card, it still counts as Psylocke defending, even though the damage goes to a minion. This triggers Unflappable, because Psylocke defended and took no damage. If damage from the attack defeats a minion, we also get to draw 2 from Change of Fortune. This works because even though Change of Fortune says "you", Psychic Misdirection counts as "you" defeating, not as the enemy defeating. If for some reason the attack did not defeat the enemy, we can trigger Psimitar for an additional 2 damage in the villain phase and still trigger Change of Fortune. Failing that, retaliate from Weapons Training not only will ping the villain after a Psychic Misdirection, but you can tank a minion attack to defeat it for Change of Fortune!
For net 0 resources, we have dodged an attack and defeated a minion! No other card in the card pool can trigger Change of Fortune while defending the villain attack completely! (Crosscounter and Forcefield Projection come close)
That's the skinny of it. Here's some wibbly wobbly, timey wimey stuff:
- Any "after attacks and damages you" effects would not happen, but "after attacks you" effects would happen!
- Because damage was not dealt to us, this dodges certain boost abilities like Sonic Boom as well!
- Also because damage was not dealt to us, indirect damage would go to the intended target and not the player! This is because Psychic Misdirection redirects the damage at the dealt stage, while indirect specifies "damage dealt to a player"
- Occasionally, Psychic Misdirection is useful for a minion attack, such as Blob's "after Blob attacks and damages a character, stun that character". We don't particularly need or want stuns, but this is something to be aware of, especially in multiplayer. Controller and Mystique are interesting for pure damage, especially since Psimitar and Weapons Training can combine to trigger Change of Fortune after. Credit to Theorel for pointing out that if you can give Controller overkill through something like Wild Wild Mojo or Tech Gauntlets, he will "double dip" and dealing damage+target's ATK to the initial target AND overkill damage+overkill target's attack to the villain!
- Certain boost effects might also effect the attacked enemy instead as well. Extra boost cards or overkill on boost are great to pull!
- Damage from Psychic Misdirection is not considered an attack itself, so if the damaged character survives it will not retaliate against the damaging character. No killing minions with MODOK's or Zola's retaliate!
- Change of Fortune will trigger if you defeat a villain stage! Great for Sinister Six especially!
A word about keywords. Attacks with overkill that defeat an enemy, will deal overkill damage into the villain. So the villain can damage themself! Dummy! If you have retaliate, you will still retaliate against the attacker! Unfortunately, attacks with piercing will still pop your toughs, sad for "Come Get Me, Bub!".
Some friendships have a lot of rules I guess. Now let's talk about the FUN!
Ok that's the big idea. There are a couple of reasons this works so well with Psylocke. Psylocke can shuffle Psychic Misdirection back into the deck using Betsy Braddock. This is important because it can be hard to draw villain phase events into a 4-card hero hand size. Shuffling them back in to a skinny deck is a good way to get them! If we draw them in alter-ego, we can spend them, then shuffle them back in right away!
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Taunt is a great way to draw into some extra cards and to trigger Unflappable on turns we started in alter-ego. We flip up, play Taunt and play Psychic Misdirection to clear a minion and refund Psychic Misdirection. With her Psi-Energy upgrades and The Power of the Mind, we have plenty of ways to afford these plays and build our board. Even taking a Taunt attack to our health is not a terrible idea if we don't have Psychic Misdirection in hand.
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"Come Get Me, Bub!" is great to ensure that Psychic Misdirection is always on. Play it before a Taunt or before a villain phase where you have your deck stuffed with Psychic Misdirection. Hero turns without Psychic Misdirection, she can take attacks into tough. This also has the benefit of healing damage from Taunt attacks without using her basic power to REC. If we hit a really strong minion we want to make our friend, Karma can "persuade" it to join us right away!
The One Where The Could Only Afford Their Apartments Because of Mind Control
The rest of the deck is relatively straightforward with more friends we've made along the way!
- Professor X and Cerebro create a perfect loop with Betsy Braddock's alter-ego action. Make sure you leave 1 Psi-Energy upgrade unused in hero form! This always means you have access to your BFF Charles and a safe flip down to shuffle back in Psychic Misdirection on your way up! Cerebro can also grab Karma for instant friendship!
- Forge is here to grab Cerebro faster
- Avengers Mansion is great for a hero like Psylocke that can have a really bursty early game and convert those excess resources into card draw
- Side Holster is here so we can have Psimitar and both Psi-Katanas in play. Helpful if we draw Body Swapped!
- Jocasta can store a Psychic Misdirection or Psionic Redirect
- Worth noting that Telepathic Suggestion can trigger Change of Fortune! Combined with Psimitar, you can cancel a When Revealed (not just a treachery!), and deal 2-6 damage. Refunding the cancel with Change of Fortune is great!
- There is some added trickery with Chimera! If fully built out, she can potentially get up to 11 ATK! This is great for Psychic Misdirection to send into the villain! Chimera can potentially two-shot a villain stage! She's also a Karma target, though her low stats aren't particularly impressive in that regard
Friends that we met along the way and decided to cut out of our lives:
- Electrostatic Armor is probably honorary card 41. Great when we use Psychic Misdirection on a minion attack to still hit that minion in conjunction with our retaliate, but most of the time is an extra 1 damage on the villain per Psychic Misdirection. It's fiiiiine, but I like the consistency we have here. If you want, throw it in over x1 The Power of the Mind
- Dauntless would be good if I didn't play with my hp with Taunt. If you have tough and defend a minion, so you don't take damage before you'd lose the retaliate, it's ok? If you want to run Symbiote Suit and always have it on and increase your hand size for better odds of drawing the villain phase cards, go ahead! A lot of effort for a little payoff though
- Hard to Ignore isn't that necessary with Psylocke's tremendous thwarting capability
- Psi-Flail Strike was in, but we don't really want the stuns and if we defeat a minion with it the stun is wasted and we had to defend somehow. Rarely neat if we have both Psychic Misdirection and Psi-Flail Strike with a minion that we would want to "attack" the villain with. Counter-Punch is in a similar boat, but more niche since we really need to have both Psi-Katanas out to be worth it. The times we defend minions are rare enough to forgo Under Control. Powerful Punch and First Hit are worse than looping Psychic Misdirection since they don't stop the villain attack
- Iceman and Pinned Down can help us stall until we draw Psychic Misdirection, but it isn't that difficult to line it up without stalling
- Defensive Energy has targets, but The Power of the Mind is better
- What Doesn't Kill Me is a nice ready with 3 stat, but we heal a lot from "Come Get Me, Bub!"
- Anticipation is a nice ready with Come Get Me Bub, but doesn't do much otherwise since we don't exhaust in the villain phase often
- Assess the Situation can be good to increase the odds of drawing Psychic Misdirection the following turn, but this is a very slim use
- Team-Building Exercise is not as good here as The Power of the Mind since we want to play in the villain phase, but X-Gene doesn't work for Psychic Misdirection
- I usually like Machine Man in Psylocke to smooth out turns, particularly from alter-ego. But here we'd rather hold our villain phase events and use our Psi-Energy to play them or shuffle them back in
- We don't want to discard past Psychic Misdirection with Weapon X!
- IPAC can draw cards in hope of getting a minion, but we have "Come Get Me, Bub!" now
- Build Support is often a mainstay in my Psylocke decks for even more Cerebro redundancy, but here we draw so fast we don't need it!
Whew, I hope that gets ahead of some of your comments, but let me know about others! There are big ships and there are small ships. There are wood ships and there are good ships. But the best ships of all are friendships! I'm so grateful to all of the Marvel Champions friends I've made along the way. 4 years on and going strong! Hope to meet even more of you in year 5!
| 31 comments |
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Sep 20, 2024 |
Sep 20, 2024"retaliate from Weapons Training not only will ping the villain after a Psychic Misdirection" Whoa whoa whoa. So the villain (or minion?) attacks, you misdirect that attack to another enemy, but the attacker still takes retaliate damage from you??? |
Sep 20, 2024
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Sep 20, 2024Glorious! |
Sep 20, 2024Man, I love Psylocke and this deck looks so fun! |
Sep 20, 2024
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Sep 20, 2024What a superb idea. But for my part I will try this combo with phoenix |
Sep 20, 2024Thanks
Psylocke’s Psi-Energy upgrades never run out of counters, unlike Phoenix’s Power Counters (and Bub’s healing can put you out of range to REC for more…but as mentioned flipping in the Phoenix deck comes at the cost of potentially losing Misdirection anyways). Psylocke has 2 extra ways of triggering Change of Fortune, using Telepathic Suggestion! Turns you don’t draw Misdirection, but do draw Suggestion are quite strong, neutering the villain phase and leaving you with still a full hand in the hero phase! I also like the added flexibility of Psylocke’s statline, being a 3 THW or 3 ATK on any given turn is great for board control. Where Phoenix is superior is a much faster endgame. Going Unleashed burns the villain quite quick, but also doesn’t really interact with the combo at hand. Mind Control deals less consequential than Karma, but Karma can be recycled to the deck and also act as an emergency chump (especially multiplayer). Phoenix’s X-Men trait gives her many options Psylocke doesn’t, but none really interact with Psychic Misdirection or Change of Fortune |
Sep 20, 2024I don’t want to bury the lede, that Phoenix only gets 3 ways to trigger Change of Fortune, and struggles if she flips to alter-ego. Psylocke can almost guarantee she gets it every turn in hero by shuffling used copies back in and starting with an extra 2 cards in deck to trigger it. Triggering Psimitar in the villain phase is much easier done by Psylocke |
Sep 20, 2024Yea but phoenix can do something else with minions |
Sep 20, 2024
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Sep 20, 2024I've been looking for a deck for my first game as psylocke, this seems like it will spoil me and be the only one I play! |
Sep 21, 2024I find Psylocke to be very versatile in aspect compatibility. She has options in each and Psionics really helps that. With that said, protection was the one I never felt popped. This looks like it will solve that with style. I immediately am seeing if there is a version for Cable, but PSS eats up so much deck, and Psionic is not permanent. Really cool concept. |
Sep 21, 2024Very cool, I ran something very similar recently with proxies and liked splashing 1/2 Anticipation to combo with "Come Get Me, Bub!". Very satisfying deck getting the villain to torch a minion and then you draw a bunch of cards. |
Sep 21, 2024Man, this gave a fun new twist on Psylocke. I always enjoy her for the confuse, but to enjoy her for the damage side of her villain phase cards and making Psychic Misdirection more consistent was a ton fun! |
Sep 21, 2024So no one told you life was gonna be this wayyyyy clapclapclapclap |
Sep 21, 2024Re-reading the "Defend, Defense" section in the RRG has really opened up my eyes to new interactions, so thanks for that. Also, I used to really hate the ruling for Psychic Misdirection; this is a really cool way to twist it in your favor, so great job on that. |
Sep 21, 2024This is dope! What a great idea! |
Sep 22, 2024Great Deck! Psylocke is on my very short list of characters I haven't really played yet, I think I have one or two games on her. I was just mulling over deck ideas to run her through, but I think this is it. Awesome work here! |
Sep 22, 2024i forgot to comment, but this is such a strong deck. i think people greatly undervalued Psylocke when she came out, and you're proving yet again how powerful she can be. i really love the interaction of "Come Get Me, Bub!" and Psychic Misdirection and how you can likely even preserve your tough over multiple rounds/attacks. Colossus can only dream lol |
Sep 22, 2024Cool decks as always |
Sep 22, 2024Psylocke continues to have some of the most fun decks out of all of X-Force. Kudos for this list, it looks incredible. |
Sep 22, 2024I remember seeing the prototype for this deck months ago. Glad some new cards made it so it could work - I'll be checking it out for sure! |
Sep 23, 2024Can't wait to try it out when the lgs opens on Tues. Such a long wait |
Sep 23, 2024This might be a new favorite deck. I have an ingrained habit of flipping with Psylocke every turn, do you find that necessary or wise, once you're set up with CoF and Unflappable? I'm also curious if you have any thoughts about a particular deck type this would pair well with in 2 player. |
Sep 23, 2024I love the idea here! Sadly, after having talked about Psychic Misdirection with Change of Fortune in the past, I received a comment from a viewer claiming that they do not work together because it's not "you" defeating the enemy. I looked into it at length and thought they were correct - but I'm hoping that's wrong because I really want this to work. The gist is the redirected damage is still "damage from that attack" by the card's wording. In other words, it's the villain which defeats the minion. At no point does it become damage "you" are dealing with the event itself. The "instead of you" wording on Psychic Misdirection falls under a replacement effect in the rules reference, just changing where the damage goes while all still part of the villain's attack process, rather than have you take ownership of the damage in any capacity, by my understanding. In a somewhat similar fashion, I don't think you can play Turn the Tide after Psychic Manipulation because although "you" thwarted in hero form because you played a thwart card, it was the villain through their own activation which actually removed the threat (and not your hero). In both cases, the events are modifying what the villain does rather than doing the thing themselves. Thoughts? |
Sep 23, 2024It works, because it is your event and thus you are causing the attack to defeat the minion thus you defeated the minion. It is a bit weird but the easiest way to parse it is without YOU playing psychic misdirection would the minion be defeated? |
Sep 23, 2024Fortunately, your viewer comment is incorrect I have always made sure any published deck is thoroughly tested and rules compliant, as I have done for a majority of this game's lifespan and will continue to do well past its death. |
Sep 23, 2024
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Sep 23, 2024
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Sep 23, 2024
As for multiplayer, first a quick reminder that Psionic Redirect and Psychic Misdirection can only be played on attacks against you! That doesn't mean we can't chump Prof/Karma/our new minion bff though! Pairing this with a deck that can deal villain damage is most synergistic. Psylocke is quite good at defending multiple time and clearing a lot of threat and minions, but retaliate 1 doesn't scale super well against multiplayer villain health. Big villain damage decks partner best! |
Works Cited:
hallofheroeslcg.com hallofheroeslcg.com